Sorry, but I just gotta throw this in:
Cheers!
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.
Is that your definition or God's?
Methinks you are committing two more elementary errors.
1) You are confusing savoir with connaître, and then assuming savoir is both necessary and sufficient;
2) You are explicitly discounting the possibility that God is "personal", i.e. has definite plans, goals, and intentions, which need not be known or measurable by us at any given time; and which may happen to affect how and when he interacts with both the physical universe, and with the human heart.
Both of which by the way are very important within Christianity, and the claims made by Christianity for how an approach to God is to be made successful.
Cheers!
Relationships tend to develop organically as each member responds to the other.
You in effect are insisting that God date-rape you before you agree to get serious with Him. Ain't gonna happen.
Cheers!
These threads are crazy. GOD is a personal relationship.
In other words, driven by insecurity (fear) and ignorance.
Atheists always make this mistake. I sometimes wonder if this is akin to the the line in the epistle of James about "even the demons believe--and shudder."
Haven't you ever been in a healthy relationship with someone in authority over you, who rightfully claimed your loyalty?
Or owned a dog?
Cheers!
People's evil fruit is just as much evidence of their condition before God than people's good fruits.
Scripture explicitly states that good works do not save anyone. And yet people still want to boast of them.
C'est la vie.
I don't mind and you don't matter to me, and my pay is the same, so if you want to spend time and bandwidth correcting my grammar and typos, knock yourself out.
And yet it was you who corrected my typo, and you're the one making smarmy remarks like "you don't matter."
Feeling defensive?
Snerk!!!
Are we supposed to give you sexual favors here, for finally coming to the same point Jesus started at?
People didn't believe, even back then.
No "science" required -- just observation that "c'mon, that kind of thing doesn't happen."
cf (for just a few examples)
Mark 6:5
Matthew 11:21
and especially in your case
Luke 16:31.
The only thing to conclude is that no one on earth has even that much faith, or else what Matthew wrote is not true.
Especially you, apparently.
So much so that you are dismissing putative accounts of miracles out of hand -- without even going to the trouble to try to verify them.
So why are you trying to discourage the faith of others?
Cheers!
I’ll help. No Human is a dog. All Humans have the reach of God. All humans that want God must ask. God responds to Humans that are sincere. He may respond to those that are not but no promises. God provides for his believers yet the timeline is different. To create crazy scenarios about GOD is just that.
"Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days."
Remember that line?
And all the empiricist Pharisees do was decide to re-kill Lazarus 'cause it was getting too much publicity for Jesus.
Nice try, though.
Cheers!
Do I understand that this thread is purely based on the interpretation of his word, and has nothing to do with the interpretation of his gift? There is a better way. :^)
Do you maintain that YOU have free will to choose your atheism?
There's no God, according to you, so He couldn't have done it.
That leaves chance, random societal and biochemical influences, totally free will, and conditioned choice.
By conditioned choice, think of a freshman college girl being talked into giving sexual favors to an frat boy against her better judgment. (He didn't *Force* her, but without his pressure, she wouldn't have done it on her own.)
You know, not when you're swashbuckling here, but later, when you're among other atheists and ranting and raving about "those nutty Christianists."
Cheers!
Tell that to the Christians massacred in the Soviet Union and in China.
Nice try, though.
Sorry, but I just gotta throw this in:
Cheers!
Do we know that?
Does God always exercise his ability to move our hearts?
Or does he allow us free rein within certain boundaries, for a certain time ? (Think of fishing: it can swim whereever it likes, but it still can't get rid of the hook. But the hook doesn't actively *cause* the fish to move towards you till you reel it in.)
This analogy wouldn't have occurred to James and John (the fishermen) since they used nets.
Or, if you want physics, think of "degrees of freedom" in a dynamical problem.
Cheers!
lol. Toss away. We’ve got all those books. 8~)
As a matter of fact on any but the Christian, and more specifically the Calvinist view, facts are meaningless and reason operates in a vacuum. On any but the Christian basis man, using this reason, is a product of Chance and the facts which he supposedly orders by the “law of contradiction” are also products of Chance. Why should a “law of contradiction” resting on Chance be better than a revolving door moving nothing out of nowhere into no place? Only on the presupposition that the self-contained God of Scripture controls all things, can man know himself or anything else. But on this presupposition the whole of his experience makes good sense. Thus a truly Christian philosophy is the only possible philosophy. Other philosophies are or should be called such by courtesy. Those who crucify reason while worshipping it; those who kill the facts as they gather them, ought not really to be called philosophers.Van Til, Cornelius, The Works of Cornelius Van Til, (New York: Labels Army Co.) 1997.
Cheers!
Jesus compared those who would set standards for him to meet as ‘children complaining that they played the flute and he wouldn't dance, they were sad yet he wouldn't weep’.
(Luke 7:32)
D-fendr: "Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to them being disqualified by the accident of death."
- G.K. Chesterton
Recall that GKC was the arch-enemy of George Bernard Shaw, who wrote :
"History teaches us that we learn nothing from history."
Combining all of these we obtain grey_whiskers' synthesis and/or corollary of Shaw:
Cheers!
NO more calls, please.
WE have a winner!
ontogeny recapitulates philogeny
with
geocentrism begets egocentrismTM
Cheers!
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.