Posted on 02/25/2019 5:25:54 PM PST by Nextrush
I've just posted another article that I suggest everybody reads.
I think it is very likely Pell will be found not guilty on appeal.
I realize that people besides priests engage in unlawful sexual behavior. However, because of the limited number of people who are willing to choose priesthood, and the elimination from consideration of women, the Church is anxious to hold on to anyone willing to do the job. In other fields, there is much less reluctance to fire the culprit, except if they are very rich and powerful, and even they have to watch their step these days.
However, the West had mostly-celibate clergy for the first 1000 years, and all-celibate clergy for the next 1000 years, and no real recruiting problems EXCEPT when the standard of holiness and sacrifice were lowered. When there is a bracingly high standard of holiness and sacrifice, the men who want to fast like ascetics and train like Olympians, to give their all and be the best --- who want to be the Recon Marines --- come pouring into the seminaries.
When Queen Elizabeth I -- bloody Bessie! --- made being a Catholic priest a death-penalty offense, Douai was swarming with men begging to become priests and be sent to Britain. When the Mohawks were roasting and chewing the fingers off of Jesuits, the most whole-souled, Jesus-My-All, brave and beautiful-hearted men on God's good earth, wanted to be Jesuits.
Even during the brief monastic and missionary-flowering of the U.S. Catholic church, 1945-1965, they couldn't build friaries and seminaries fast enough. Even small dioceses had 2 or 3 seminaries (I'm thinking of Erie, PA in the late-50's) and everybody wanted to go to Tanganyika (as it was then called) or to the Trappists.
But you go fat and slack and faggotty, and the bishop is willing to maintain every and any priest until he's pensioned off, just to keep up the Sunday Mass at St. Casimir's.
Holiness first. And celibate male ordinandi will arrive in battle array.
“the church is not its priests nor its bishops nor the pope...”
So where are these people and why aren’t they chasing the sodomites from the Church with pitchforks and torches?
L
How does it deny that? That's not the problem, at all.
The problem is recruiting from the small minority of humanity that does not exhibit normal behavior.
I didn’t mean deny in the sense of not believe in, but rather deny as in not allowing the practice of allowing normal, legal behavior.
I don’t know about the historical celibacy. Certainly during and probably before and after the renaissance there was a lot happening. Popes were having children and rulers were appointing their children as Pope to maintain power and some of these illicit children became popes and cardinals. All this plus the purchase of indulgences is part of what Martin Luther was rebelling against.
Actually I think you are confusing “bloody Bessie” with Bloody Mary the Catholic Queen daughter of Katherine of Aragon who was dumped by both Queen’s father Henry VIII. I have frequently read about Bloody Mary who killed far more than her sister did. Of course after Mary there probably were plenty of her victims who were happy to put the shoe on the other foot. I have read the term “priest hole” where priests were hidden, kind of like the “underground railroad” of slave times. I have never encountered the “bloody Bessie” name in my readings or historical shows on TV. Also what is Douai?
Suggestion: Google Edmund Campion.
Google Douai --- well, I'll give you this one. Here you go:
Douai is the city in northern France which sheltered and educated thousands of Catholics escaping the bloodbath in England. Specifically, the "English College" at Douai University, but also the Irish and Scottish colleges and the Benedictine, Franciscan and Jesuit houses.
You've heard of the Douay-Rheims Bible (as they spelled it then) --- the English translation used by English-speaking Catholics almost exclusively for more than 300 years?
No, I have never heard of the Douay-Rheims Bible. Mainly the King James bible and some of the modern reworkings of the bible. At my desk I have the New International Version, NIV Study Bible from Zondervan Bibles. I don’t know anything about it’s reputation, but I like the fact that about 1/3rd of every page has explanations on the actual bible words above. Also the modern language makes it much easier to understand what is going on in some of the more difficult passages.
I don’t know the facts about the brutal treatment of priests and those who sheltered them, but I recently read a book about the 2,000 year history of London. In it was described the foul treatment of the French Hugonauts (sp) which caused many to flee to England when conditions got too bad. At any rate, a while ago I encountered a figure of 10,000 for the number of Mary’s victims. Do you have any figures on Henry VIII and Elizabeth’s victims?
I decided to try to find more information on royal behavior. This link points out that while the total number of religious people killed by QE1 was greater than by Queen Mary, she reigned over many more years so the annual deaths would have been lower.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Elizabeth_I_of_England
The discrepancies arrive because of the definitions of who was killed and for what reasons. For instance, not only were Catholics killed by Elizabeth, but also Presbyterians, Anabaptists, and other dissenting Protestants who were not Anglican. Whether to count people killed in Ireland and Scotland affects the numbers; also whether people killed incident to rebellions are to be counted, whether they were armed rebels or unarmed civilians (hard to make a distinction, when so many of the rebels themselves are only armed with scythes, axes, pitchforks and kitchen knives.)
I wouldn't want to counting up the awful totals for either one of them.
In fact the total number of religiously-motivated executions under Elizabeth was in the same league the same as under her sister Mary, and the number of penalties of all kinds - death, imprisonment, fines, pillorying - was very much greater under Elizabeth --- who also ruled far longer. I think it's fair to say Mary is remembered as "Bloody Mary" not because she was more bloodthirsty than her half-sister who executed her, but because she was unsuccessful in establishing her monarchy; and history is told by the winners.
We can be grateful to say goodbye to those terrible days.
Actually, I think Mary her half sister died of illness. Will have to check on that. Bloody Mary was the half sister. Elizabeth did execute her cousin Mary Queen of Scots after a long imprisonment.
I was a juror in a trial that amounted to that. We acquitted the defendant.
Man, those were bloody times. And in all the waves of wars, rebellions, plots and executions, it was kin against kin, cousin against cousin.
I discovered this item, both ironic and touching, while looking up the history. Queen Mary Tudor and Queen Elizabeth, half-sisters, ended up buried in the same tomb in Westminster Abbey. The following is their grave inscription:
"Consorts in realm and tomb, we, sisters Elizabeth and Mary, here lie down to sleep in hope of resurrection."
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