I'm sorry, I just can't resist it:
Posted on 07/02/2010 6:56:08 PM PDT by Desdemona
Today’s New York Times, with another front-page attack on Pope Benedict XVI, erases any possible doubt that America’s most influential newspaper has declared an editorial jihad against this pontificate. Abandoning any sense of editorial balance, journalistic integrity, or even elementary logic, the Times looses a 4,000-word barrage against the Pope: an indictment that is not supported even by the content of this appalling story. Apparently the editors are relying on sheer volume of words, and repetition of ugly details, to substitute for logical argumentation.
The thrust of the argument presented by the Times is that prior to his election as Pontiff, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger did not take decisive action to punish priests who abused children. Despite its exhaustive length, the story does not present a single new case to support that argument. The authors claim, at several points in their presentation, that as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Cardinal Ratzinger had the authority to take action. But then, again and again, they quote knowledgeable Church officials saying precisely the opposite.
The confusion over lines of authority at the Vatican was so acute, the Times reports, that in the year 2000 a group of bishops met in Rome to present their concerns. That meeting led eventually to the change in policy announced by Pope John Paul II the following year, giving the CDF sole authority over disciplinary action against priests involved in sexual abuse. By general consensus the 2001 policy represented an important step forward in the Vatican’s handling of the problem, and it was Cardinal Ratzinger who pressed for that policy change. How does that sequence of events justify criticism of the future Pope? It doesn’t. But the facts do not deter the Times.
The Times writers show their bias with their flippant observation that when he might have been fighting sexual abuse, during the 1980s and 1990s Cardinal Ratzinger was more prominent in his pursuit of doctrinal orthodoxy. But then, while until 2001 it was not clear which Vatican office was primarily responsible for sexual abuse, it was clear that the CDF was responsible for doctrinal orthodoxy. Cardinal Ratzinger’s primary focus was on his primary job.
After laying out the general argument against the Vatican’s inaction—and implying that Cardinal Ratzinger was responsible for that inaction, disregarding the ample evidence that other prelates stalled his efforts—the Times makes the simply astonishing argument that local diocesan bishops were more effective in their handling of sex-abuse problems. That argument is merely wrong; it is comically absurd.
During the 1980s and 1990s, as some bishops were complaining about the confusion at the Vatican, bishops in the US and Ireland, Germany and Austria, Canada and Italy were systematically covering up evidence of sexual abuse, and transferring predator-priests to new parish assignments to hide them from scrutiny. The revelations of the past decade have shown a gross dereliction of duty on the part of diocesan bishops. Indeed the ugly track record has shown that a number of diocesan bishops were themselves abusing children during those years.
So how does the Times have the temerity to suggest that the diocesan bishops needed to educate the Vatican on the proper handling of this issue? The lead witness for the Times story is Bishop Geoffrey Robinson: a former auxiliary of the Sydney, Australia archdiocese, who was hustled into premature retirement in 2004 at the age of 66 because his professed desire to change the teachings of the Catholic Church put him so clearly at odds with his fellow Australian bishops and with Catholic orthodoxy. This obscure Australian bishop, the main source of support for the absurd argument advanced by the Times, is the author of a book on Christianity that has been described as advancing “the most radical changes since Martin Luther started the 16th-century Reformation.” His work has drawn an extraordinary caution from the Australian episcopal conference, which warned that Robinson was at odds with Catholic teaching on “among other things, the nature of Tradition, the inspiration of the Holy Scripture, the infallibility of the Councils and the Pope, the authority of the Creeds, the nature of the ministerial priesthood and central elements of the Church’s moral teaching." Bishop Robinson is so extreme in his theological views that Cardinal Roger Mahony (who is not ordinarily known as a stickler for orthodoxy) barred him from speaking in the Los Angeles archdiocese in 2008. This, again, is the authority on which the Times hangs its argument against the Vatican.
And even the Times story itself, a mess of contradictions, acknowledges:
Bishops had a variety of disciplinary tools at their disposal — including the power to remove accused priests from contact with children and to suspend them from ministry altogether — that they could use without the Vatican’s direct approval.
It is not clear, then, why the Vatican bears the bulk of the responsibility for the sex-abuse scandal. Still less clear is why the main focus of that responsibility should be Pope Benedict. On that score, too, the Times blatantly contradicts its own argument. Buried in the Times story—on the 3rd page in the print edition, in the 46th paragraph of the article—is a report on one Vatican official who stood out at that 2000 meeting in Rome, calling for more effective action on sexual abuse.
An exception to the prevailing attitude, several participants recalled, was Cardinal Ratzinger. He attended the sessions only intermittently and seldom spoke up. But in his only extended remarks, he made clear that he saw things differently from others in the Curia.
That testimony is seconded by a more reliable prelate, Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide:
“The speech he gave was an analysis of the situation, the horrible nature of the crime, and that it had to be responded to promptly,” recalled Archbishop Wilson of Australia, who was at the meeting in 2000. “I felt, this guy gets it, he’s understanding the situation we’re facing. At long last, we’ll be able to move forward.”
The Times story, despite its flagrant bias and distortion, actually contains the evidence to dismiss the complaint. Unfortunately, the damage has already done before the truth comes out: that even a decade ago the future Pope Benedict was the solution, not part of the problem.
I'm sorry, I just can't resist it:
Either one is as much religion as science.
Yas, I now.
Well if we are going to “share” I got an oldie but goodie.
God uses people … most effectively..
>
> GOD Is Busy
>
> If you don’t know GOD, don’t make stupid remarks!!!!!!
> A United States Marine was attending some college
> courses between assignments. He had completed missions
> in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the courses had a professor
> who was an avowed atheist, and a member of the ACLU.
>
> One day the professor shocked the class when he came in.
> He looked to the ceiling and flatly stated, GOD if you are real
> then I want you to knock me off this platform. I’ll give you exactly
> 15 min.’ The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop.
> Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, ‘Here I am
> GOD, I’m still waiting.’
>
> It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine got
> out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him;
> knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold.
> The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently.
>
> The other students were shocked and stunned, and sat there
> looking on in silence. The professor eventually came to,
> noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, ‘What
> in the world is the matter with you? ‘Why did you do that?’
> The Marine calmly replied, ‘GOD was too busy today protecting
> America’s soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid
> stuff and act like an idiot. So He sent me.’
>
> The classroom erupted in cheers!
>
>
>
>
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So Satan was not entering a clean vessel here. A “fall guy”??? He realized his actions were wrong, meaning he knew the difference between right and wrong. He knew what he was doing. Unable to repent? Matthew 27:3 saya he did repent. Possessed? or Influenced or guided?
“Read Luke 22:2-4. Judas betrays Jesus while possessed by Satan, in order for God's plan to stay on course, and on time.”
Whatever Judas or Satan did His plan would do as He wished.
Seeing that you anticipate Christian unity to come from adherence to the Bible, let us start with Eph 2:8-10:
Grace does not come of works, is a gift entirely from God, and man should nboast that he receives it. That is what “Not of works” says in a very clear text. That “good works” are necessary for salvation is also clear from the next verse.
Read the Bible attentively and you will reach unity with the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church as, God’s prayer is, everyone who longs for salvation shall.
Why didn't you ask if you fail to grasp the connection?
Free will is what man does, whose existence is temporal. He does not foreknow his actions absolutely; he has to decide based on what he knows from the past.
Predestination is what God does, Whose existence is eternal and outsside of time. He foreknows absolutely what man will eventually end up doing. He can predestine man to his eventual end by giving him trials and opportunities, which temporal man then is free to handle.
Therefore, what man does in the temporal plane and what God does in the eternal plane coexist without a logical difficulty.
The difficulty would be insurmountalbe if either of the two conditions I enumerated were not true. If God existed only temporally, He could predestine anoyone. If man consciously existed outside of time, he would not pursue choices that, he would foreknow, are not predestined, just like we today do not attempt to walk through walls.
Thanks for the ping.
DECREED
I don't pretend to understand the mysteries concerning FREEWILL vs PREDESTINED. I don't think anyone mortal does. I just know BOTH are in Scripture. And, that there's some seeming tension kept in Scripture between them. And that we are foolish to trash either one.
Just don’t decide to
REWIRE it.
There might not be enough colors for the different wires to go around this time.
I still think Dr Walter Martin’s explanation is best.
IMAGINE . . .
A computer as vast as the known multiverse . . .
every choice of every organism was already programmed in.
At THE LEVEL OF each organism, there was a realistic perception of SIGNIFICANTLY FREE CHOICE.
NOT 100% determinism. NOT 100% FREE choice. There’s genetics, conditioning, learning, opportunity, perversity, selfishness, habit, social pressures . . . Yet, a significant degree of free will. Some days we choose vanilla. Some chocolate. Some mixed.
HOWEVER, GOD THE PROGRAMMER also has infinite and ultimate AND CERTAINLY COMPLETE FREE WILL.
HE can adjust the program, even the wiring, to achieve HIS WILL at any point with any component, organism, context, conditions, opportunities, experience.
AT THE LEVEL of human choice, we have some. And responsibility accordingly. And the chance to CHOOSE LOVE, accordingly.
Else the instructions in the NT to choose Life, CHOOSE Love are deceptive lies, blather.
LOLOL!
The next time the National Academy of Science holds a Colloquium on Physical Cosmology, I'll be sure to count the theologians participating.
That is some of the most targeted, succinct sarcasm I've read in a long time.
It should come with a warning. What mariners used to call "a shot across the bow."
Again I'd like to underscore the observer problem associated with man trying to understand time.
We mortals persistently sense time as a line, an arrow of time, as events move from past>present>future. In reality, we never sense anything in the present due to the time lag between sensation and cognition.
God has no such limitation.
And geometric physics strongly suggests there may be more than one dimension of time. What we think is a line may be a plane or volume, what we call past, present and future existing concurrently as a moment.
But even that observation refers to the space/time continuum, part of the Creation. And God the Creator is not limited by His own creation.
Even the word "eternal" is inadequate when we meditate on God because eternal only means time without limitation. It binds us to an arrow of time in our meditations.
So I strongly suggest the word "timeless" when meditating on God the Creator in contrast to His Creation, a property of which is space/time, i.e. geometry.
If one meditates with the term "timeless" it becomes obvious that when God says a thing, it is. Indeed, it is because He said it.
By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. - Psalms 33:6
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. - John 14:6
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. - John 6:63
To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers. – John 10:3-5
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die [literally, muwth muwth or “death death”]. – Genesis 2:17
And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou [wilt]. - Matt 26:39
According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. – Ephesians 1:4-6
And please accept my apology, I should have pinged you to the related post at 1036.
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