Posted on 03/23/2010 6:37:37 AM PDT by marshmallow
What's the real cancer at the heart of the church? Not pedophile priests...they're a symptom of a much deeper problem. Gerald Warner at the Daily Telegraph let's fly in this article about the real problem underlying the child abuse scandals. I think he's on target in much of what he says.
The secular press are fond of saying that the child abuse problem is caused by the demand for priestly celibacy. There is an underlying cause, but it's not that. The underlying cause is that too many Catholics have lost the plot completely. For the last forty years the church has been infected with modernism, and the key tenet of modernism is that there is no such thing as the supernatural. What you see is what you get.
This serious sickness at the very heart of the church swept through monasteries, convents and seminaries. The honest priests, nuns and religious lost their faith and got out. The lazy ones stayed put and enjoyed a meal ticket for life. No longer believing in the reality and power of the sacraments, they drifted into a no man's land in which they were priests, bishops and religious without believing in religion. What were they supposed to do? They decided to re-create the church as a kind of dining club with a social conscience.
When it came to sexuality, well since the invention of the pill, everyone else was playing around with whoever they wanted. The apostate priests had no reason to insist on such an outmoded thing as chastity, and if no one else had to be chaste, why should they? If they no longer had to believe in heaven or hell (you make your own heaven or hell here on earth don't you know?) then there was no real penalty if your sexual tastes were, errm, unconventional. Homosexuality was presented as natural, and sex wasn't for procreation, and everybody was sexually active, so why not play around with whoever you liked?
A therapeutic culture swept in and suddenly nobody was a sinner. "I'm OK. You're OK." You don't need punishment or banishment. You don't even need forgiveness and a demand for reparation. You need therapy. No wonder they covered up. In their anthropology no one was a sinner. No one was bad. They were just wounded. They were just sick. They needed help.
G.K.Chesterton said that "Every argument is a theological argument." and it is always and everywhere true that a moral crisis is linked with a theological crisis. Benedict XVI's letter to the Irish church rightly calls for a spiritual and liturgical and theological renewal. The pedophile priest crisis is not just a crisis of morals, but a crisis of belief.
Finally, this crisis of belief is not just a crisis among a few twisted and evil perverts. It is a crisis of belief in our whole church. Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Mother Superiors, Seminary Rectors, Theologians, Priests and people have all been swamped with something other than the red blooded Catholic faith of our Fathers. They've been tromping along like drug addled zombies following a feel good false religion that has been used to deceive millions.
We all need repentance in the face of this. We all need to turn again to the awareness that the devil is real, that sin is real, that nice people are capable of terrible evil. We must be on our guard. We must believe in the power and reality of the sacraments. We must be New Testament Christians with missionary zeal, the discipline of ascetical prayer and a warrior spirit.
Nothing else will do.
**God and God’s laws first. Ignoring this has been where Catholics have gone seriously off the reservation with their “church over all other things”type of Christianity.**
Perhaps you need to be more specific in your statement, otherwise -——
This is propaganda being fed to you by Protestants. God and Christ and the Holy Spirit are the center of the Catholic Church. You know that from attending Masses. All three members of the trinity are present during each and every Mass.
Love God — first
Love your neighbor — second
These are the great commandments. The Catholic Church doesn’t go astray with them at all.
Like your screen name. LOL!
Like your screen name. LOL!
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: )
In most cases, these offenders were molested as children themselves.
But without a belief in a higher power to hold you responsible in the next life, all things are morally equal.
Jesus spoke to and about people as if they were people.
You're talking like the devil has your tongue.
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Good article, as usual.
Are you aware that priests are way down on the list behind teachers and other denominational ministers?
Teachers and Pedophilia - In YOUR Backyard
Washington Post -- D.C. school officials reported 220 abuse allegations against teachers
Sex Abuse by Teachers Said Worse Than Catholic Church
WHEN BOYS ARE MOLESTED BY TEACHERS AND OTHERS IN POSITIONS OF AUTHORITY
_______________________________
Sexual Abuse of Children by Protestant Ministers
Report: Protestant Church Insurers Handle 260 Sex Abuse Cases a Year
Abuse by Protestant Ministers of Every Denomination
Hollywood is the primary marketer of deviance. That should be your #1 target if you expect to make a difference.
**Well, the theological splitting of hairs leaves lay Catholics worshipping Saints and thinking things like Saint Anthony cured their boy, thinking that Mary is an intermediary to God, and that scripture derives its authority from the Church.**
Catholics do not worship saints.
Where are you getting this erroneous information?
God/Jesus Christ do all the healing — not the saints, not the Blessed Virgin Mary — we only ask them to pray for us.
Bet you have asked someone to pray for you in your lifetime too. Same thing! God does the healing — not the person you asked to pray for you!!!!! Got it?
BINGO!
It isn’t.
Deviance is everywhere- no argument.
But the LAST, absolutely LAST place it should be tolerated and ‘understood’ in among those who propose to speak for God.
I don’t want homosexuals or pedophiles interacting with children ANYWHERE.
But the FIRST place I want them purged from is the very clergy that preaches obedience to Gods laws while living in violation of them.
Those who would preach higher standards should be held to them first.
**But the LAST, absolutely LAST place it should be tolerated and ‘understood’ in among those who propose to speak for God.**
Agree with you.
You speak of higher standards also. I believe that is also true. Unfortunately, all these men and women (Protestant reference there) are only human and DO fall into sin.
I believe that much of it goes back to the way they were influenced by their parents.
“they drifted into a no man’s land in which they were priests, bishops and religious without believing in religion.”
Believing in a religion? Whatever happened to a personal relationship with Christ?
Was the Rabbi recently accused of sexual abuse in Brooklyn Kosher or merely part of a man made organization post 70A.D.
It's everywhere, though -- movies, TV, fashions, music, magazines ... everywhere. And it's most especially prevalent on the Internet -- you can find anything there, for free.
You really can't target the medium without first targeting the way people perceive the medium. No easy task, and I have no answers for how to do it -- but it has to start on our side of the keyboard.
It's everywhere, though -- movies, TV, fashions, music, magazines ... everywhere. And it's most especially prevalent on the Internet -- you can find anything there, for free.
You really can't target the medium without first targeting the way people perceive the medium. No easy task, and I have no answers for how to do it -- but it has to start on our side of the keyboard.
From your bio page:
“I’m into people, simplicity...”
Yet the concept of SIMPLE right/wrong seems to offend you.
In just this matter, or in everything? Rather inconsistent to value simplicity yet consider it an insult, no?
Not much on expounding on which of my comments was ‘simplistic nonsense’ are you? Just dismiss them with a terse insult. If you believe in situational ethics- especially re. homosexuality/pedophilia among the clergy-explain them.
Otherwise I am left to think this debate has hit a personal nerve of some sort with you if my belief in basic standards of right/wrong re. the Church is what you disdain.
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