FreeRepublic , LLC
PO BOX 9771
FRESNO, CA 93794
STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD
Posted on 06/14/2002 11:09:07 PM PDT by Polycarp
...on FR, I'd be rich...
So the history channel was outright lying?
I seriously doubt they had the Catholic agenda at heart...lots of TV "historians" are lazy in their research for pop history programming, accepting the established WASP story line.
I do wish people would stop confusing celibacy with chastity, though. The vow of celibacy is a vow never to formally marry. The vow of chastity is the vow to behave themselves. In French the word "celibataire" simply means a bachelor, in accord with the Latin.
Pray to St. Peter Damian for reform.
As does the Latin root, I understand. In normal usage in present-day English, however, "celibate" means to be unmarried and refrain from sex. The only ones who use the word depending on its etymology are the gay priests and seminarians and their supporters; they're being disingenuous and they know it is, quite literally, "double-talk."
chastity (chàs´tî-tê) noun
1.The condition or quality of being pure or chaste.
2.a. Virginity. b. Virtuous character. c. Celibacy.
[Middle English chastite, from Old French chastete, from Latin castitâs, from castus, pure. See chaste.]
Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.
Indeed they were. I'll bet they didn't mention many of the following:
Clement of Alexandria (~150-220 AD) "Stromata" Book VII, Chapter XI
Canons XXVII and XXXIII of the Council of Elvira 295-302 AD
Council of Nicea 325 AD
Pope Siricius "Dicreta" 385 AD
Pope Siricius "Cum in unum" 386 AD
Synod of Rome 386 AD
Second Council of Carthage 390 AD
Codex canonum Ecclesiae Africanae 419 AD
catechesis of St. Cyril of Jerusalem (313-386 AD)
"Letter to Pammachius" St. Jerome (347-419 AD)
St. Jeromes' polemic with Vigilantius from Gaul 406 AD
"De conjugiis adulterinis" St. Augustine 419 AD
"Breviatio Ferrandi" ~550 AD
Third Council of Toledo 589 AD
councils held under St. Caesarius of Arles sixth century AD
Irish Penitentials sixth century AD
Poenitentiale Vinniani, no. 27, sixth century AD
Council of Metz 888 AD
Council of Mainz 888 AD
Council of Rheims 909 AD
Synod of Rome 1077 AD
First Lateran Council Canons III, XI 1123 AD
Second Lateran Council Canons VI, VII, XI 1139 AD
I don't want to start playing "duelling dictionaries" with you, but the 1913 Webster's Revised Unabridged gives the stricter definition, as does the OED, 2nd ed. (v. 2, p. 1020). In the 60s many dictionaries shifted from setting standards to following "common usage" (for both definitions and pronunciations). I tend to judge a dictionary by whether or not it contains the word "aborticide."
Is the Pope just making up these celibacy rules because of a power trip, or does he have Scriptural basis for them? What would give him the right to impose rules where the Bible doesn't authorize him?
The broad outline of the last fifty years of celibacy scholarship shows that something has occurred that not infrequently causes misunderstandings in historical research: a one-sided formulation of the question has produced one-sided answers. Scholars took the present discipline of celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church as their point of departure and searched for a pattern of clerics in the unmarried state in the first centuries. This, however, they did not find -- at any rate, not for all clerics. The question that they should have asked is whether the early Church perhaps knew a different discipline of continence. This was the approach of the older German scholarship in the nineteenth century. But that was though to have been refuted scientifically, and so these contributions were consigned to oblivion. Actually, if this deficit has not become evident already, it ought to when on looks at the Church's legislation. That is to say, according to canon law an exclusively unmarried clergy, as we know it today, existed at all only after the Council of Trent (1521-1545). Even the above-mentioned Second Lateran Council, which is repeatedly cited as the beginning of the history of celibacy, did not intend to exclude married men from holy orders; it merely declared marriages contracted after the reception of orders to be invalid (canon 7). [Emphasis added.]
"I give you the keys to the Kingdom. What you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven."
I'm obedient to Church authority. Celibacy is a discipline. It can be changed. The Holy Spirit has not moved the Church to do so. Therefore, I'm not worried about it.
If they change the discipline tomorrow, which could indeed be done by the simple stroke of a pen, I have no problem with that.
Until they do, I will defend the prudence of the current discipline.
If they do change it in my lifetime, I would have to discern whether I have a vocation simply to the Permanent Diaconate (I do) or whether God is calling me to more than that. Until then, I simply cannot campaign for a change that I honestly believe would be terribly imprudent at the present juncture.
....these men were abstaining from sex all the time. ..... GUESS NOT!!!! But it would have been a GOOD IDEA if they had!
Prove it.
The reason Catholic cases are in the media is because lawyers see deep pockets in the organizational structure of the RCC, and only after lawyers take cases, in most incidences, do these cases become public.
There are just as many protestant cases, if not more, but because of deep rooted, institutionalized anti-Catholicism in the mainstream media, it serves their agenda to only report Catholic cases.
If you ever examined actual research on this issue, not just pop culture headlines, you would realize just how very wrong you are.
Clergy Scandal Is Widespread Miami Herald | April 13,2002 | Donna Gelrke-White
Posted on 6/11/02 11:29 PM Eastern by Lady In Blue
She says he gave her counseling -- and that led to sex.
When she complained to his bishop, he told her she was to blame.
Now as plaintiff Jane Doe, she has a sexual misconduct civil lawsuit that last month the state Supreme Court said her denomination -- the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida -- must answer.
While headlines are breaking almost daily about Catholic priests, other religions are facing the same problem : What to do when their clergy are accused of sexual misconduct? From coast to coast, Protestant and Jewish leaders have been charged with sexual abuse -- some in high-profile cases.
In the last three months, local police have arrested two ministers -- both non-Catholic -- for sex crimes.
It's a false impression to think only Roman Catholic priests are involved with sexual abuse, says Dr. Gary Schoener, a Minnesota clinical psychologist and national expert on sex abuse by clergy members. In fact, he estimates two-thirds of the 2,000 cases he worked on during the past three decades involved Protestant ministers. Most involved religious leaders abusing women or teenage girls. The same is true for Catholics, except for the high-profile cases in the Boston Archdiocese and other dioceses where a few priests molested scores of boys.
''But Protestant cases are tougher to bring,'' says Schoener, who runs the Walk-In Counseling Center in Minneapolis. ``With the exception of the United Methodists, you can't charge a diocese, synod or bishop with failure to supervise or negligent retention of an offending minister because they don't employ the pastor -- the congregation does.''
Nonetheless, many religious organizations are requiring background checks and setting up procedures on how to handle abuse cases.
''This is something that all churches are having to deal with -- and we haven't in the past,'' says Mary Cox, communications director for Southeast Florida's Episcopal Diocese.
While she says she can't comment on the ongoing case -- church leaders haven't decided yet whether to appeal the state Supreme Court ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court -- Cox notes the alleged incidents happened before the Episcopal church installed new policies.
''We were once very blind that this could all happen,'' she says.
That changed when a jury awarded a Colorado woman $1.2 million in a sexual misconduct judgment against the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado.
Now, Episcopal Life, the denomination's monthly newspaper, reports that background checks are encouraged for all clergy and church volunteers, and that dioceses adopt sexual misconduct policies and follow procedure manuals, which the Diocese of Southeast Florida now has in place.
All religious groups have certain responsibilities -- and can be held accountable in civil courts, says Yale law professor Peter Schuck. ''They do have an obligation to hire and supervise people with care,'' he says.
In the 1980s, the New Jersey Supreme Court found a house of worship could be held liable for negligent hiring or retention, noting the danger of ``exposing members of the public to a potentially dangerous individual.''
''I think the time has come when society needs to recognize that simply to be ordained is not a license to prey,'' says West Palm Beach attorney Gary Roberts, who represents Jane Doe in Lake Worth.
He added that he is handling another case involving an Episcopal priest in Central Florida accused of molesting a boy at a party.
Religious groups are beginning to conduct their own investigations when sexual allegations surface.
An internal investigation by the Orthodox Union of rabbis, for example, found ''profound errors of judgment'' in its handling of allegations against New Jersey Rabbi Baruch Lanner, who is scheduled to go on trial Monday on charges of criminal sexual contact with two teenage girls.
And many religious groups have installed safeguards -- even without allegations arising in their own congregations.
Since the mid-1990s, Kendall United Methodist Church has required two teachers to be in each Sunday school class for children, said Mary Susan Ward, the congregation's minister of Christian education.
Background screenings are conducted for all paid staff and many volunteers, she said.
Despite measures like this, clergy abuse cases continue to surface.
A Southern Baptist minister, Fernando Garcia, made 26 videotapes of himself abusing numerous children before an 8-year-old boy came forward in Greenwood, S.C., two years ago. He recently began a 60-year prison sentence for sexually abusing 23 children.
Closer to home, Boca Raton Rabbi Jerrold Levy was sentenced to 6 ½ years in prison for having sex with a 14-year-old boy he met over the Internet.
The United Methodists have a case before the Florida Supreme Court to resolve whether the denomination can be held accountable for a volunteer at a Pensacola church who allegedly sexually harassed a female staffer.
And just recently, police in South Florida accused two non-Catholic Christian leaders of sexual misconduct.
Last month, Miami police arrested the Rev. Misael Castillo, 41, the pastor of Iglesia Bautista Jerusalen in Allapattah, after officers said they found him naked inside a parked van having sex with a 17-year-old boy. He was charged with having unlawful sexual acts with a minor and released on a $15,000 bond. Castillo will be arraigned May 6.
Castillo has resigned from the church, said the Rev. David Cleeland, executive director of the Miami Baptist Association, a 280-church organization to which Iglesia Bautista Jerusalen belongs.
In January, youth pastor Monte Vaughn Benjamin of the nondenominational A Place Called Hope was charged with molesting two boys, 17 and 14. He has pleaded not guilty and a trial date is set for May 13.
Benjamin has told church leaders he is innocent. He has been relieved of duties until court proceedings and the police investigation are final, according to a church statement.
For their own protection, religious leaders must institute rules -- for example, not meet alone with children or adults -- to avoid any appearance of wrongdoing, said Fort Lauderdale attorney J. David Bogenschultz, who has represented some pastors.
''It's a shame,'' he said. ``It's the cost of doing business. You are in harm's way -- you have to protect yourself.''
The Herald wire services also contributed to this report.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.