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Posted on 04/18/2010 9:49:35 PM PDT by Judith Anne
I seriously wonder about some FReepers, sometimes. Any other person accused of a crime would be defended by every FReeper as being innocent until proven guilty by a court of law. I've seen whole threads written by men who have been accused of child abuse by ex-wives out to deny them their visitation rights or to wrest more money out of them. These men are rightly indignant, and furious about the unjust accusations that cannot be proven but are never withdrawn.
Yet where are those FReepers when a PRIEST is accused? Where is the presumption of innocence? Suddenly, every accusation becomes a verdict, and not only the accused but his entire organization and all its adherents are held responsible.
I can only wonder what some of these so-called conservatives (who so faithfully defend the Constitution) would do, if THEY were the ones accused! It is a nightmare for any man -- all of you know how even the accusation stains the man forever, even if it is proven false!
Not only that, many here assert that the problems of 30, 40 and even 50 years ago must be tried in the media TODAY!
Remember the Duke rape case? There are more similarities than differences here. The priests are accused, nifonged, and instead of being defended, they are vilified!
What other man of you could stand under the weight of such an accusation trumpeted by the press, and come out whole? None! And such accusations made, LONG after the statute of limitations has passed, sometimes even after the accused is dead and buried for YEARS -- are YOU one of those who automatically, reflexively, spitefully, and gleefully act as judge, jury, and executioner?
Women! What if it were YOUR HUSBAND, YOUR BROTHER, YOUR FATHER, YOUR UNCLE, YOUR SON who was accused? Wouldn't you want the best defense possible? Wouldn't YOU believe in their innocence? Wouldn't YOU help protect your loved ones as much as possible? And yet, YOU JUDGE THE CHURCH FOR DOING WHAT YOU WOULD DO?
Shame! Vast shame! On all who have sinned against the innocent!
THANKS FOR YOUR KIND REPLY.
God bless you and those you love this week and weekend and forever more.
This last one, Mary, is a doozie.
But, now, wait now, you've posted a bunch of times that Mary is dead. Who do you mean, here? Because the Blessed Mary Ever Virgin is NOT DEAD.
I almost cannot believe the indignation here about my comments on Paul. I have noticed whenever a Catholic will quote the Gospel of Jesus Christ, say, John 6 or something, some nutburger or Professionally Perfect Persecuting Presbyterian will counter Christ’s plain, beautiful words with some confused tortured verse out of the Pauline epistles. Well, as Paul said in one of his saner moments, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him, against that day.”
Face it, Paul was a goofball. He’s the clearest proof anyone should need that God Almighty and His Risen Son can take any pieces of human garbage — murderers, Pharisees, etc. and make them eat their words and praise His Most Holy Name. He does not and did not make Paul perfect, however. Which is clear from Paul’s epistles, which the Presbyterians (and other anti-Catholic bigots) worship.
So, of course, the next post will be that if there was hope for Paul, there is hope for Judith Anne!
LOL!
But with post #483, you make it a bit clearer.
I hope I can assume you were referring to Pauline comments, such as,
I Cor 1:18 For the word of the cross, to them indeed that perish, is foolishness: but to them that are saved, that is, to us, it is the power of God. 19 For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise: and the prudence of the prudent I will reject. 20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For, seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world, by wisdom, knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of our preaching, to save them that believe. 22 For both the Jews require signs: and the Greeks seek after wisdom. 23 But we preach Christ crucified: unto the Jews indeed a stumbling block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness: 24 But unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men: and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26 For see your vocation, brethren, that there are not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. 27 But the foolish things of the world has God chosen, that he may confound the wise: and the weak things of the world has God chosen, that he may confound the strong. 28 And the base things of the world and the things that are contemptible, has God chosen: and things that are not, that he might bring to nought things that are: 29 That no flesh should glory in his sight. 30 But of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and justice and sanctification and redemption: 31 That, as it is written: He that glories may glory in the Lord. 2:1 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not in loftiness of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of Christ. 2 For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ: and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. 4 And my speech and my preaching was not in the persuasive words of human wisdom, but in showing of the Spirit and power: 5 That your faith might not stand on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
Or perhaps,
2 Cor 12:9b Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10 For which cause I please myself in my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ. For when I am weak, then am I powerful. 11 I have become foolish....
But I'm still not sure why one would compare St. Paul the Apostle with a heretic like John Calvin. Yes, St. Paul was a Pharisee before his encounter with Christ,
Phil 3:4 Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more: 5 Being circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews. According to the law, a Pharisee: 6 According to zeal, persecuting the church of God: According to the justice that is in the law, conversing without blame. 7 But the things that were gain to me, the same I have counted loss for Christ. 8 Furthermore, I count all things to be but loss for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ, my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but as dung, that I may gain Christ
but, afterward, he applied the same zeal to spreading the Gospel that he applied beforehand to the persecution of Christians. As you say, He’s the clearest proof anyone should need that God Almighty and His Risen Son can take any pieces of human garbage — murderers, Pharisees, etc. and make them eat their words and praise His Most Holy Name.
Look, on the other hand, at Calvin. How many millions of souls have been shipwrecked after following his devilish doctrine of double predestination? (After all, if a person preaching Calvinism convinces you that God has destined you to be a reprobate, then you may as well abandon all hope because you have none at all)(btw, understanding that particular heresy should make the attitudes of our Calvinist friends far more comprehensible...after all, they are simply reacting in accordance with the heresy that they've likely been brainwashed with from their childhoods)
I can't understand how any Christian could even say the two names in the same breath...
Peter called Paul's epistles Scripture...
And here's a newsflash for you...Paul got 'everything' right, not just a few things...
But to you, Paul's epistles are foolishness, eh??? Here's some more of Paul's foolishness for you...
1Co 2:12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
1Co 2:13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
1Co 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
***St. Paul got a few things right, but he was likely just as loony....***
Is that official Roman Catholic teaching or just your opinion?
Here's two more. I almost feel bad for missing these yesterday. They fit in neatly between that April '08 conversation concerning public anathemas against sexual predators and the September '09 discussion about Jerome Lawler's '66% of the bishops were complicit' charge:
I would have expected a religious order to recognize that raping a child is fundamentally a sinful behavior, before they would believe it to be aberrational behavior. It should be a warning sign to everyone that if a religious order looks to "the Psychs" for expert advice on dealing with known sinful behavior, instead of looking in their Bibles for solutions, they prove themselves to be scripturally deficient if not illiterate. "Religious" order, indeed!We should not expect "psychological treatment" will end sinful behavior. That's what many bishops have believed, however, and look at what fruit it has yielded - $3,000,000,000 awarded in damages and settlements by Catholic dioceses within the United States alone.
The only thing that ends sinful behavior is repentance. Check your Bible if you don't believe me.
-- Alex Murphy, May 20, 2009"IMO the church has not made (or at least restated strongly enough) any statement that "such things are an abomination" that Catholics and non-Catholics can equally point to, that categorically applies the condemnation to guilty Catholic priests, bishops, etc. The Catholic Church needs to publicly excommunicate and make examples of the guilty, as a witness to any priest who's even considering preying on his parishioners. And it should go up as high as needed (Roger Mahony, anyone?) until every sympathiser and enabler is rooted out, and purity restored to the priesthood. IOW "put the fear of God in them!"...
... I wasn't aware of any "zero tolerance" policy in the Catholic Church today. I'm a strong advocate of the Old Testament case law (Deut. 19:15) that states "One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established." Yes, there ought to be some sort of "due process" but IMO due process has been (is being?) abused within the American Catholic Church, within certain archdioceses certainly, towards protecting the guilty....
....Sin, confession, and church displine of the same is (or should be) an area inside of [the American bishops'] competence. What's telling isn't that the bishops' received bad advice on how to act. What's telling is what authority the bishops recognized and sought out, when looking for advice...Moreso, I would accuse that the bishops have rejected scriptural authority in favor of (to modify your term) modern pshrinkology. They didn't define the issue (and it's treatment) as a sin problem to be repented of. They treated it as behavior modification....
....IMO letters, papers, and procedures aren't enough, but yes the Catholic Church has taken numerous actions to root this out (although the coloring books are IMO a really bad and tasteless idea). This more-or-less speaks to the first point that I responded to at the top of this post. I'll readily admit one thing, however - the dispute over "proper response" is more of a cultural difference between how Catholics and Protestants address sin than anything else. We like our religious leaders to make public confessions and positional statements re good and evil. I'd daresay that Protestants (at least the pro-creedal kind) place higher value on such public statements than on any actual behaviors towards those same ends. It's hard to judge true repentence when you don't have a matching statement of confession, showing a change of mind to go with the change of action, IMO."
-- Alex Murphy April 2, 2008
No doubt Paul's comments, based as they were upon being taught by Christ, do seem looney to those who put themselves up as a higher authority.
It's such a unique attitude in Christianity to see one group so convinced that defending their church is the same as defending their faith. Here is a great example of what happens when the hatred for all things not Roman Catholic clouds the mind, denigrate the Apostle sent by Jesus Christ to the Gentiles and his letters which were inspired by God.
2Peter 3:15-16 ...Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.
Peter recognized the source and complexity of Paul's writings.
Repentance involves both a change inward, the attitude of mind and heart, and the outward, a change of behavior.
So the Bible writers used very emphatic terms such as “do your utmost to found clean and unblemished...” and “abhor wickedness....”
It is a kind thing to try and help someone in need.
Look, on the other hand, at Calvin. How many millions of souls have been shipwrecked after following his devilish doctrine of double predestination?
There is strong Scriptural support for this belief. If it is wrong it still doesn't affect an individuals justification for being saved.
Can the same be said for the worship of Mary? In this case millions of souls are being lost to perdition because the individual was taught to seek Mary not Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
“And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.” (2 Peter 3:15-17)
Paul's epistles, inspired by God, were only a problem to the unlearned and unsteady.
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
It’s a footnote from the magicsterical.
The rabid cliques hereon probably think of themselves as at least senior clerks of the magicsterical . . . guiding the folks in funny hats to the TRULY TRUEST TRUE TRUEST TRUTH.
No doubt Paul’s comments, based as they were upon being taught by Christ, do seem looney to those who put themselves up as a higher authority.
@@@
INDEED.
Shocking that ANY FREEPER would join JIMMY CARTER in construing THEIR wisdom as greater than Paul’s.
Interesting expression....particularly in the plural. Could be applied almost anywhere. You mind if I lift that from you?
Feel free to help yourself.
Routinely.
As I’ve noted before . . .
I don’t even have a mental picture of the different cliques under any denominational label.
Their associations and therefore ‘memberships’ seem to shift now and then depending on issues, moods, attitudes, whatever.
No that's not what I'm saying. Let me use a hypothetical that should be quite illustrative.
The continued criticism of the Church for the scandal, to the exclusion of other abuse elsewhere, is akin to a judge constantly handing guilty verdicts to accused molesters who are Catholic, to the exclusion of other people of other failths/systems. IOW, it's like giving a guilty verdict to an accused preist when an equally guilty public school teacher gets a pass.
Both are guilty and should be convicted (in this hypothetical), but only one gets convicted. If any judge was found to have a record of such bias, he would be asked to recuse himself from such cases. As he should.
As far as comparing the rate of abuse in the Church with the general population, I think this is perfectly valid for two reasons. One, while priests are called to a different vocation than most, simply having a different vocation does not imply, nor is it intended to imply, that they are somehow more "holy" than the laity. They are human beings like the rest of us and thus are equally as fallable.
Second, given that the rate is the same if not lower (I tend to believe it's lower, but I have no desire to get mired in a debate about that, especially since that isn't relevant here), then the reason to single the Church out for abuse becomes even more indefensable. That is, if the rate if abuse is equal to the population as a whole, which it is, then it is inaccurate to call this a "Catholic problem". It should be called a societal problem, or a human problem.
That is, again, if one is intellectually honest.
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