Catholic ping!
Interesting. But, my word, it’s long! (I confess to skimming.)
You’d better have the admin make this a Catholic caucus before the “Just read the Bible and make up your own mind; by the way the world is coming to an end soon and all priests are pedophiles” Freepers swoop in like flying monkeys.
Ping!!
However, I must say that I have little to no respect for the Catholic Church in America as an institution. The Church no longer lives by what it says it believes, as evidenced not only by the large number of cultural Catholics, who are Catholic in name only; but also as evidenced by the large number of priests, bishops and cardinals who refuse to confront sin and hold it accountable by denying communion or ex-communicating those who continue in grave sin, publicly opposing the teachings of the Church with no rebuke or consequence, whether that person is a pedophile priest or a pro-abortion adulterous politician.
Now people are sinners, and sinners sin. It is the job of priests and ministers to try to restore those sinners to a relationship with God. But you do not do that by turning a blind eye to their sin. You do that by rebuking them and disciplining them in love - privately at first, then publicly if they refuse to repent, and finally by ex-communicating them if they continue in their sin. If the Catholic Church does not get serious about that, they will lose all credibility.
The Catholic Church is not the only church to have such problems. However, most other churches, especially evangelical churches, are pretty prompt about dealing with sin, especially sin in the ministry. For example, I have seen cases of sexual sin by well-known Pentecostal preachers (such as Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart). In each case I have seen, the culprit was removed from ministry immediately, and appropriate church discipline was applied. Just a thought.
It's not my intent to bash Catholics - I just think the Catholic Church, especially the American church, needs to start acting like it actually believes what it teaches...
...the secular media’s selective zeal for the separation of Church and state (a separation routinely invoked against Catholics critical of, say, legalized abortion, but conveniently ignored when Catholics support, say, social spending programs)... Great point that I will be sure to use.
placemark