QuotePope Benedict said on Thursday the sexual abuse scandal shaking Roman Catholicism showed the Church needed to do penance for its sins, in a rare public reference by the pope to pedophilia in the priesthood.

"Now, under attack from the world which talks to us of our sins, we can see that being able to do penance is a grace and we see how necessary it is to do penance and thus recognize what is wrong in our lives," the said pope at a mass in the Vatican.

But the Pope, who, as Cardinal Ratzinger, was in charge of disciplining these priests, wasn't about to admit any wrongdoing on his or the church's part.

QuoteThe Vatican has denied any cover-up over the abuse of 200 deaf American boys by Reverend Lawrence Murphy from 1950 to 1974. The New York Times reported that the Vatican and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, were warned about Murphy but he was not defrocked.

The Vatican has also said the pope, when he was Archbishop of Munich, was not aware that a German priest who underwent therapy after sexually abusing children was later allowed to return to the ministry. The priest later abused children again.

Then he went on to chastise those who have covered and published the abuse scandal.

QuotePope Benedict also hit back at critics of the Church, portraying them as in the thrall of a conformist "dictatorship."

"Conformism which makes it obligatory to think and act like everyone else, and the subtle -- or not so subtle -- aggression toward the Church demonstrate how this conformism can really be a true dictatorship," said the pope.

I wonder if that means the church is backing off on telling LGBT people they must conform to the church's laws?  I'm sure they don't want to be called a "true dictatorship"!

Link

No good will come of this situation I fear.

The Church of Scientology does shady stuff and gets called a "cult;" the Mormon church does shady stuff and gets seen as suspicious and culty and accused of not really being a true Christian sect - but the Catholic church? They can get away with everything and Everything's 12-year-old son, and at the most people stamp their feet a bit. I mean, ya know, they're traditional an' stuff.

They recently found an ancient piece of writing in the Roman ruins close to Rome, that looked like some kind of local newspaper.  It was translated as saying, Christians 4, Lions 0 in the sports section.  Just below it was the story of a group of Roman Animal Rights Activists complaining about the cruel treatment of Lions by putting them too close to Christians.  Sounds to me they knew what they were talking about!!!

Last night, on Bill Maher's show, he talked about the lady who sent the Russian kid back to Russia with some cookies and a note.  Apparently the kid was a monster and threatened to burn down his adoptive parents house, with them in it! 

Maher said we need to recognize when it's time to cut our losses and send what's not working back.  He then made his list of people who need to be given a note and some cookies and sent back to where they came.  On his list was RNC Chairman Michael Steele, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and the Pope.  He finished off with mentioning Alaska Airlines has some travel bargains going on and showed a picture of Sarah Palin.

You can see it here

In an earlier segment of the show, Maher interviewed Jesse Ventura.  Jesse asked why the U.S. isn't enacting the RICO Act laws, which were created to battle organized crime.  He pointed out the RCC has engaged in many of the same crimes the mob has and the U.S. has every right to prosecute the church for breaking these laws.

I've known for a long time the catholic church is anything but holy but this has gone too far.  The pope needs to step down or the church needs to fold up shop.  Maybe someone, someday, will have the courage to prosecute those who were involved in the cover-up.

How come the Protestant extremists in the US like Falwell and others aren't getting stuck into these "Papist Plots" and shouting about how the Catholics are going to Hell for perverting ( appropriate!) Christ's Church, and child molesters in general?
It's probably easier to attack 1/30,000th of the population.

When I read this:
Conformism which makes it obligatory to think and act like everyone else -
coming from a church, and not just any church the frickin' RCC, well, I thought I was having some acid flashback and just trippin' balls.  The humor implied in such a comment is truly cosmic.

So, like is the pope implying we should all think for ourselves?  Well there, I just happen to think that riding my bicycle in Sonoma County and watching the NFL brings me a lot closer to god then church ever did.  Hummm.

Quote from: tekla on April 18, 2010, 08:40:59 AM
When I read this:
Conformism which makes it obligatory to think and act like everyone else -
coming from a church, and not just any church the frickin' RCC, well, I thought I was having some acid flashback and just trippin' balls.  The humor implied in such a comment is truly cosmic.

So, like is the pope implying we should all think for ourselves?  Well there, I just happen to think that riding my bicycle in Sonoma County and watching the NFL brings me a lot closer to god then church ever did.  Hummm.

yes I must confess that the logic of that remark did seem to imply that the church should not only apologise to the recent victims but also to all the protestants and heretics who have ever been killed and put to the stake for precisely that sin - namely THINKING FOR THEMSELVES.

After all that was the whole point of Martin Luther's "Here I stand" speech at the diet of worms in 1521, and ever since then the chirch has insisted that it alone has the right to rule on matters of conscience.

So how about it Ratzinger old chap? - Why not just do the logical thing and abolish the authoriarain catholic stance completely? Give up the ludicrous claims to be Christs authoritative and infallible Vicar, and then we can all become good protestants!

The church, and especially the pope, has found themselves in the same position into which they have placed countless people and groups, being demonized.  The big difference in this case is they earned it.

People who have fallen out of grace with society often embark on some introspection.  And they often analyze the process through which they came to become demonized.  Since the pope is infallible , he can only conclude that there's an evil force out there trying to take down the catholic church.  And it's become a lynch mob.  Understandably so, for those who aren't under the RCC spell.

Whatever the case, this is a golden opportunity to take what the pope said and use it to help him and his minions realize that the catholic church needs to rethink its position and stop telling people what's good, what's bad and how to live their lives.  We should not let this comment fall by the wayside.

"Hello, can I speak to Mister Galilei?"
"Yes, speaking."
"Hey, Galileo, dude your cool, the Pope said it's OK to think for yourself.  Pass the news on to Kepler while your at it."

I mean when things are so bad that the RCC is telling people to think for themselves, well, times is hard indeed.

But, while the current demise of the RCC is amusing to watch from a distance - like of like train wrecks or the first round of American Idol, I'm sure not thrilled with us becoming good Protestants.  Because coming from America as far as I can see it, the RCC is just a bunch of men who being deprived of women just want to do old-fashioned Romanesque old man on hot little boy sex, but our Protestants over here are all kinds of crazy in all sorts of ways.  I think pedo-priests are much easier to reform - or at least twist them into a more legal kink - then are people who think they can have a 'personal relationship' with the creator of the whole entire universe, and that said creator is really worried about their sex life and my sex life.  Yup, happily masturbating to the Victoria's Secret catalog and playing with someone else's wiener are the sins that put Christ on the cross and every time I so much as think about sex I'm personally not only deliberately ignoring god, but I've pretty much got the hammer out and am pounding the nails into Jesus's hands all by myself. That, and the whole entire universe was created 6,000 years ago.  With age.  That kind of crazy is hard to fight or reform.

Well, an ambitious (but not overly so) person or group can always start something like "The New Catholics" - dedicated to following the teachings of Jesus Christ, not man's interpretation of them.  It would take some pretty sincere and honest people to do this.

Still, there's so much money involved here, I doubt any reformation/new group would stay honest for long.

Quote from: Julie Marie on April 18, 2010, 12:21:17 PM
Well, an ambitious (but not overly so) person or group can always start something like "The New Catholics" - dedicated to following the teachings of Jesus Christ, not man's interpretation of them.  It would take some pretty sincere and honest people to do this.

Still, there's so much money involved here, I doubt any reformation/new group would stay honest for long.

I think you might find that early Christian gnostic sects like the Valentians and the Cathars have already tried! Unfortunately they got wiped out by the catholic church in things like that Albigensian crusade.

Actually both of those appear within the Angel fantasy book I'm writing at the moment - which is kind of how I know about them. Writers research!

Quote from: Julie Marie on April 18, 2010, 12:21:17 PM
Well, an ambitious (but not overly so) person or group can always start something like "The New Catholics" - dedicated to following the teachings of Jesus Christ, not man's interpretation of them.  It would take some pretty sincere and honest people to do this.

Still, there's so much money involved here, I doubt any reformation/new group would stay honest for long.

It's all interpretation, though, is it not? Sure, there are many people preaching things that are simply not in the Gospels, but beyond that, the teachings of Jesus as written in the Canonical Gospels are not always clear or specific, and can be easily interpreted as being inconsistent or contradictory. In order to turn these statements into concrete advice for living, a large amount of interpretation is always necessary.

For that matter, a really deep reevaluation of Christian teachings would have to go back to questioning the Canon. Are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John really the best or only valid sources of Jesus' teachings? What about Thomas, the Apocalypses of Peter, Judas, Sayings Q, Infancy, Marcion's Luke, Bartholomew, Nicodemus, et cetera? There are an enormous amount of writings from early Christianity about the life and teachings of Jesus, along with various related teachings, revelations, visions, dictates, letters, etc. Christian institutions have been very selective in what texts they've accepted as authoritative, and for a reason: the images of Jesus portrayed in the whole of the early Christian writings are not internally consistent by a long shot. It's difficult enough to get a coherent picture from just the Canonical Gospels; to get a coherent picture from the entirety of early Christian writings would seem to be nearly impossible, and would require some very heavy value judgments - interpretation, in other words.

So, in short, good luck with that.

The pope is not infallible but a figurehead who repreents the RCC. I was brought up as a Catholic (I'm Christian now). I still remember a numberof the tenets of the church. Some of them are very valuable.

The RCC is wrong in its demonization of LGBT people. I read some some very horrendous acts committed against transgender people. The images of transgender women having their breasts ripped off haunts me. For them not take responsibility for pedophile borders on gross misconduct. How many victims have comitted suicide?

If you take note that some of the poorest countries (Haiti, the Philipines, Mexico, Latin America to name a few) on the face of the earth are predominantly Catholic.

Gennee