So are you a Catholic who is afraid to question your priest?
‘cause I am a Catholic and I will question my priest anytime.
And let’s go ahead and bring up the scandal yet again. Even though it has nothing whatsoever to do do with this thread which if I recall correctly has to do with Purgatory.
Was it terrible? You betcha. Are those priests going to answer for it? Yeah. There is probably no sin the rest of us can commit (other than blaspheming the Holy Spirit) that will garner the punishment that those unholy, unrighteous, criminal priests committed.
I personally hope they rot in Hell.
It is written: “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea.”
I came into the Church in 2008 but I remember watching the news when the whole scandal broke. I saw the pain in the faces of those Catholic parishioners. Such a sad time.
I became Catholic not because of the scandal but in spite of the scandal.
Since you weren’t raised Catholic, you were never conditioned by the church to never, ever, ever question or challenge a priest or any clergy in it, the way someone who was raised in it was.
When you saw priests at functions drinking and smoking, you NEVER commented on it or criticized it. I heard more than my share of Catholics excuse their own smoking and drinking on the basis of the the priests doing it. And if the priest did it, it can’t be all wrong and since they can do it and get to heaven anyway, then everyone else can do it and get to heaven anyway.
To say that they put the fear of God in you is an understatement. To a Catholic, challenging a priest is about like challenging Jesus Himself. To accuse a priest of something that horrendous entails the risk of eternal damnation what with the binding and loosing of sins they teach.
Any priest who molested any children who wanted to retaliate against those exposing him, could, in the most serious, way possible. Catholics believe that he literally holds their destiny in his hands.
It’s no small matter for someone raised Catholic to bring to light impropriety on the part of a priest.