Nifonging the Catholic Church

me ^ | April 18, 2010 | vanity

[wagglebee]

Part of the act of forgiving is being aware that the sinner is truly repentant and that “Go and sin no more” is his intent.

Are you saying that ordinary people have to be satisfied that those who have harmed us are repentant before we forgive them? Because that is not supported by anything in the New Testament.

[trisham]

But I’m saying it AGAIN. I don’t get parents who demand that their child forgive the molester. I just don’t understand. The parent is in a very tough spot, must support the child, and protect the child.

Now, I understand that we must become like children; and I understand that children can teach us a lot about God’s redeeming Love. But I would never demand from a child that the child face and forgive a sex abuser.

When the child becomes an adult, I expect the child to have dealt with it, with the help of the parents and the law. Forgiveness, then, will have some meaning.

But children must not be told that they have to forgive. That is outrageous.

************************

I hear you. Great damage can be done by forcing or unduly influencing a child to forgive, a child who is incapable of understanding how they feel and how the experience of molestation is affecting them, and will affect them in the future.

It may allow the parent to put it in the past, but the child will continue to live with it.

[count-your-change]

The three billion dollars would be money well spent if it produced a cure but have the conditions changed that produced the scandal? No.

The biblical injunction to remove the wicked man from among yourselves is no more respected than before as threads posted here on FR testify.

But the monetary costs are the least of it, great as they are. It is the effect upon those who sought spiritual direction and donated their resources, their widow's mite, and now see churches closed and dioceses bankrupt because greedy venal leaders wanted to keep their scarlet robes and positions intact.

There just isn't enough mill stones to go round.

[metmom]

Children can forgive very easily, much more so than adults from what I’ve seen.

Small wonder Jesus told us that we need to become like little children. It’s more than their innocence and ability to trust.

[betty boop]

bb: Jeepers, Jesus Christ is not a lawyer.

AM: Sez who? He isn't called "wonderful counselor" for nothing!

But how does that square with 1 John 2:1?

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

Jesus Christ here advocates on our behalf, directly with the Father, not on behalf of the rules of the law court, understood at the human level. The law court is, of course, a human institution. If it truly serves the public good, then that means it is truly ordered in God's Law. But I have noticed that human institutions in general tend to fall away from their original principles and purposes in time.

In any case, all I can say is this: If you reduce Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of Our Father, to the status of a lawyer (a lawyer is an interpreter of law, not the law itself — not the Word, the Logos), then somehow I suspect you continue to miss the main message of the Christian religion.

Or so it seems to me. FWIW

[Natural Law]

"Um, so it’s OK for you to make the analogy to start with but not OK for someone to call you on it?"

My analogy was was purely clinical. I am not responsible for you and the good doctor thinking below the waist. Should I now be concerned that you will see the word "anal" in analogy and think the worse?

[Alamo-Girl]

As long as you continue to frame the forgiveness of a molested Christian child in this debate as "forced" instead of voluntary, we are not on the same page and my answering your follow-up questions will serve no useful purpose.

[Alamo-Girl]

I think that most of us have trouble with forgiveness and the the more horrific the transgression, the more difficult it is.

Well and truly said, dear brother in Christ.

And further I would suggest that this reluctance to forgive (or its corollary the desire to retain a quiver full of offenses for future ammunition) - is the very reason so many Christians do not experience miracles in their lives:

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive [them], and ye shall have [them]. And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses. – Mark 11:24-26

God's Name is I AM.

[Alamo-Girl]

BTW, THE GRAND DEAN of the psyc dept, now retired just walked in. He's an old time scholarly sort of soul with a great deal of Christian humanness (though he may be an atheist or agnostic, for all I know, on that score), compassion, empathy and understanding as well as a very high level of professionalism . . . and I posed the question to him.

He agreed that the abused must come to the place of forgiveness and letting go. That they will likely never forget but they must come to a place of forgiveness and letting go else the bitterness etc. will eat them alive while the abuser may not care less. I agree with him wholeheartedly.

Thank you and him for sharing your insights! And thank you for your testimony, dear brother in Christ!

[Alamo-Girl]

The problem has NOT been that the Christian Biblical route was impossible. The problem is that folks are NOT WILLING to carry it out sufficiently to make it happen.

Sad but true.

Thank you so much for your insights and encouragements, dear brother in Christ!

[MarkBsnr]

I am very grateful for your posts and their content, Dr. E. Nowhere else on FR have I even seen such

[MarkBsnr]

Is that your self-portrait, Mark?

Nope, just another misguided chinless wonder who thinks that she can be her own Pope.

[Alamo-Girl]

Part of the act of forgiving is being aware that the sinner is truly repentant and that “Go and sin no more” is his intent.

I don't even try to discern whether the other guy wants to be forgiven much less whether his apology was serious.

I forgive because it is God's will - and because I don't want to block my own prayers - and because I'm such a sinner, I cannot afford the luxury of harboring resentments.

Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. - Matthew 7:1-2

Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: - Luke 6:37

Blessed [are] the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. – Matt 5:7

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. - Matt 6:12

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. - Matt 6:13-14

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive [them], and ye shall have [them]. And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses. – Mark 11:24-26

Indeed, the hardest part for me is following forgiveness with forgetting - but I try diligently so that nothing resurfaces and I have to lay it all back down again. LOLOL!

To God be the glory, not man, never man!

[MarkBsnr]

"V. The purest Churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error;[10] and some have so degenerated, as to become no Churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan.[11] Nevertheless, there shall be always a Church on earth to worship God according to His will.[12]"

I guess that the degeneracy description liberates the OPC from being called a church of Christ. Their shrinking numbers would also indicate that they are not the church of Christ that He would be with forever. More failure. How can they even look themselves in the eyes?

[Alamo-Girl]

Indeed. Thank you for your insights, dear brother in Christ!

[There is] therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. - Romans 8:1

[Alamo-Girl]

Oops, if I had read ahead I would have pinged you to my 2053 in reply to your 2002.

[Alamo-Girl]

Oops again, if I had read ahead I would have pinged you to my 2053 in reply to your 2021.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you oh so very much for sharing that with us, dear sister in Christ!

[Alamo-Girl]

Jeepers, oops again! I should have read ahead and pinged you to my 2053 in reply to your 2041.

[Alamo-Girl]

Truly there are two different sets of laws - the Law of God and the law of men.

Of course He established the divine Law and will see it fulfilled to the letter:

For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. - Matthew 5:18

The laws of men, on the other hand, have no currency before Him. Indeed, I imagine our USC 26 (the Internal Revenue Code) is a source of humor among the angels.

LOLOL!