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Dr Strangelove
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
I suggest you also look a little more closely at this particular bishop.
Recall this, also what Paul says:
Romans 1:24-7
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator–who is forever praised. Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
We are always more inclined to look askance of our own sins, rather than the sins of others. That Paul so openly condemns these acts as perversion, is more evidence against this speculation that Paul had any of these desires. |
Oh please, not another misunderstanding of Paul's letters to the Romans! Go back and read Romans 1 and 2 entirely. You'll find that Paul wrote them as a means of healing the rift between Jewish and gentile converts in the Roman congregation. They were not meant to be an encyclical against homosexuality. In fact, if you read just beyond the passages you cited you'll find Paul condeming violence, jealousy, bragging, pride, gossip and a number of other more mundane sins with equal alacrity, claiming that all of them deserve death. He then sets up the former Jews in the congregation by pointing out to them that the very pride they feel in their religion condemns them just as surely as if they were plowing the dirt road of the boy next door. Doing so he lowers them to equal status with their gentile co-parishoners and at the same time pronounces Christ's mission of salvation to both.
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Dr Strangelove
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quote:
Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
ah yes, here it is, unnatural passions......
Hey Molly, you have unnatural passions son
uh huh...... men committing shameless acts with men.....
It rather makes it sounds like Paul was watching, he speaks with some authority |
Hey, it was Rome. You know the old saying.................
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Rufus T. Firefly
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is one way of saying it, though I prefer "mensch"
Sep 2000
time: 07:35
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I thought this was a rather interesting evaluation of JPII and his impact on the church; From today's New York Times/International Herald-Tribune
quote:
The political pope: The price of infallibility
Thomas Cahill The New York Times
Wednesday, April 6, 2005
With the news media awash in encomiums to the indisputable greatness of Pope John Paul II, isn't it time to ask to which tradition he belonged?
Partisans unfamiliar with Christian history may judge this a strange question. Why, they may answer, he belonged to the Catholic tradition, of course.
But there is no single Catholic tradition; there are rather Catholic traditions, which range from the voluntary poverty of St. Francis of Assisi to the boundless greed of the Avignon popes, from the genial tolerance for diversity of Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century to the egomaniacal self-importance of Pope Pius IX in the 19th century, from the secrecy and plotting of Opus Dei to the openness and humane service of the Community of Sant'Egidio.
Over its 2,000-year history, Roman Catholicism has provided a fertile field for an immense variety of papal traditions.
Despite his choice of name, John Paul II shared little with his immediate predecessors. John Paul I lasted slightly more than a month, but in that time we were treated to a typical Italian of moderating tendencies, one who had even, before his election, congratulated the parents of the world's first test-tube baby - not a gesture that resonated with the church's fundamentalists, who still insist on holding the line against anything that smacks of tampering with nature, an intellectual construct far removed from what ordinary people mean by that word.
Paul VI, though painfully cautious, allowed the appointment of bishops (and especially archbishops and cardinals) who were the opposite of yes men, outspoken champions of the poor and oppressed and truly representative of the parts of the world they came from, like Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, who tried so hard at the end of his life to find common ground within a church rent by division.
In contrast, Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston rebuked the dying Bernardin for this effort because, as Law insisted, the church knows the truth and is therefore exempt from anything as undignified as dialogue.
Law, who had to resign after revelations that he had repeatedly allowed priests accused of sexual abuse to remain in the ministry while failing to inform either law enforcement officials or parishioners, must stand as the characteristic representative of John Paul II, protective of the church but often dismissive of the moral requirement to protect and cherish human beings.
John Paul II has been almost the polar opposite of John XXIII, who dragged Catholicism to confront 20th-century realities after the regressive policies of Pius IX, who had imposed the peculiar doctrine of papal infallibility on the First Vatican Council in 1870, and after the reign of terror inflicted by Pius X on Catholic theologians in the opening decades of the 20th century. Unfortunately, this pope was much closer to the traditions of Pius IX and Pius X than to his namesakes.
Instead of mitigating the absurdities of Vatican I's novel declaration of papal infallibility, a declaration that stemmed almost wholly from Pius IX's paranoia about the evils ranged against him in the modern world, John Paul II tried to further it.
In seeking to impose conformity of thought, he summoned prominent theologians like Hans Küng, Edward Schillebeeckx and Leonardo Boff to inquiries and had his grand inquisitor, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, issue condemnations of their work.
But John Paul II's most lasting legacy to Catholicism will come from the episcopal appointments he made. In order to have been named a bishop, a priest must have been seen to be absolutely opposed to masturbation, premarital sex, birth control (including condoms used to prevent the spread of AIDS), abortion, divorce, homosexual relations, married priests, female priests and any hint of Marxism.
It is nearly impossible to find men who subscribe wholeheartedly to this entire catalogue of certitudes; as a result the ranks of the episcopate are filled with mindless sycophants and intellectual incompetents. The good priests have been passed over; and not a few, in their growing frustration as the pontificate of John Paul II stretched on, left the priesthood to seek fulfillment elsewhere.
The situation is dire. In the Western world, anyone can walk into a Catholic church on a Sunday and see pews, once filled to bursting, now sparsely populated with gray heads. And there is no other solution for the church but to begin again, as if it were the church of the catacombs, an oddball minority sect in a world of casual cruelty and unbending empire that gathered adherents because it was so unlike the surrounding society.
Back then, the church called itself by the Greek word ekklesia, the word the Athenians used for their wide open assembly, the world's first participatory democracy. (The Apostle Peter, to whom the Vatican awards the title of first pope, was one of many leaders in the primitive church, as far from an absolute monarch as could be, a man whose most salient characteristic was his frequent and humble confession that he was wrong.)
In using ekklesia to describe their church, the early Christians meant to emphasize that their society within a society acted not out of political power but only out of the power of love, love for all as equal children of God.
But they went much further than the Athenians, for they permitted no restrictions on participation: no citizens and noncitizens, no Greeks and non-Greeks, no patriarchs and submissive females. For, as St. Paul put it repeatedly, "There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; for all are one in Christ Jesus."
Sadly, John Paul II represented a different tradition, one of aggressive papalism. Whereas John XXIII endeavored simply to show the validity of church teaching rather than to issue condemnations, John Paul II was an enthusiastic condemner.
Yes, he will surely be remembered as one of the few great political figures of our age, a man of physical and moral courage more responsible than any other for bringing down the oppressive, antihuman Communism of Eastern Europe.
But he was not a great religious figure. How could he be? He may, in time to come, be credited with destroying his church.
Thomas Cahill is the author of ‘‘How the Irish Saved Civilization,’’ ‘‘Pope John XXIII’’ and, most recently, ‘‘Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter.’’ |
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Colon
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Antwerp, Colon's Chocolate Canard Country
Jan 1970
time: 06:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Granted, the requirement of unmarried priests is one of tradition, but there are sound reasons behind this requirement.
It hearkens back to your earlier statement as to the theological basis. These issues have different roots, the celibacy rule rests on tradition, while the one forbidding female priests, upon theology.
In fact, one of the reasons I like the catholic church is that they deny men and women are interchangeable parts, rather each has their own function in the church. |
Celibacy was introduced to stop clerical functions being passed from father to son, as those were heridetary in the medieval ages, breeding incompetence and corruption. It was a sound measure back then, but I don't think inherited offices are much of a concern in present society anymore.
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Alexander's Horse
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Panmunjon, hands up!
Jan 1970
time: 15:35
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quote:
Originally posted by DanS
It was the US conference of bishops that set up the policy. Unfortunately, the policy had wide currency among the bishops. The vatican didn't have that much, if any, input into the whole thing. This seems clear to me since the policy had not been replicated outside the US before the facade came crashing down. |
Are you a practicing catholic Dan? This policy was global and the scandal you had over there was repeated over and over, in Australia, Ireland, you name it.
The Vatican was closely involved - the policy was limit liability, protect the property and the church's reputation, deny, deny, deny. Cardinal Bernard Law was reporting to the Vatican throughout, he saw the Pope several times. The Vatican and the Pope defended Cardinal Law and the stance that he took against litigants, who were seen as attacking the church. The Vatican stuck its head in the sand and offered no support to victim until that became publicly untenable.
One US priest who came forward as a victim, a victim, of paedophile activity was charged under Canon Law with causing scandal and bringing the church into disrepute. He was threatened with defrocking and excommunication. As with everything with this media driven and worldly Papacy, when the media got hold of the story the Vatican backed down.
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DanS
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Kickball Capital of the World
Jan 1970
time: 00:35
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As counter evidence, there's Schoenborn, who was the pope's man to clean up the pedophilia mess in Austria. He apologized to the Austrian laity well before the US bishops apologized to the American laity.
Also, if Cardinal Law was informing the Vatican of the progression of the scandals in the US, he sure did a piss poor job of it. As I understand it, the Pope asked the US cardinals why he hadn't been kept apprised of the situation. It wasn't a half year after that meeting that Law's resignation was accepted. Of course, you might discount this as plausible deniability. But Law appeared to be hanging in the wind for several years with no backup from the Vatican, so the question is begged: Where was the Vatican posse to defend Law?
Rather, I think that the church administration was not quite as centralized under this pope as you believe -- at least in the US, where there was a strong council of bishops.
Last edited by DanS on 07-04-2005 at 03:27
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DanS
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Kickball Capital of the World
Jan 1970
time: 00:35
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Well, I don't know which Schoenborn did the sacking, but I know which did the cleanup.
Last edited by DanS on 07-04-2005 at 03:34
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:35
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quote:
Oh please, not another misunderstanding of Paul's letters to the Romans! Go back and read Romans 1 and 2 entirely.
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Romans is like my favourite book dude.
quote:
In fact, if you read just beyond the passages you cited you'll find Paul condeming violence, jealousy, bragging, pride, gossip and a number of other more mundane sins with equal alacrity, claiming that all of them deserve death.
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The argument is not that Romans was intended to be an encyclical against sodomy, but that Paul was willing to confront sodomy as a sin.
I could just have easily quoted the others, but since Romans condemns both the actions of men and women, it is especially valuable.
quote:
He then sets up the former Jews in the congregation by pointing out to them that the very pride they feel in their religion condemns them just as surely as if they were plowing the dirt road of the boy next door. Doing so he lowers them to equal status with their gentile co-parishoners and at the same time pronounces Christ's mission of salvation to both.
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Very true. He lets the Jews puff themselves up by tearing into the sins of the gentiles, and then deflates them in chapter 2 by digging into the sins of the Jews.
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06-04-2005 16:12
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