Posted on 12/07/2018 8:54:49 AM PST by Salvation
There is one rule I think that holds fast.
That is: Any organization is only as good as its leadership is good. And, the people in it are only as good as the leadership allows them to be good.
That said, there are some good leaders in the Catholic Church, but they are stifled by their leadership.
Back 35 years ago, myself and some friends bought a fairly modern church building to expand our church group.
We found the shocking reality is they are VERY expensive to run.
The ones build 100+ years ago are frighteningly expensive to run.
Eventually, more and more effort goes into funding the building and less and less goes into religious activity.
Eventually we sold the building.
This applies as well to the Catholic Church.
Catholics, when was the last time you heard a homily that honestly faced the danger posed to our immortal souls by our personal behavior, that called us to repent and turn our lives over to Jesus?
What is the focus of our shepherds but the promotion of leftist politics, in between their frenzied bouts of faggotry?
The Church has not been in the salvation business for a long time, and the falling out of the formerly faithful is not nearly finished.
But Jesus will not abandon us. The Church will be purged of the filth and the faithless, emerging smaller yet stronger, once again gathering the sheep to the Good Shepherd.
I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, the national capital of “closed Churches.” Much of our church closings is simply attributable to “natural causes.”
At one time, my home town had 15 Catholic Churches, all with free parish schools. There is now one Catholic Church, and no parish schools. Talk about painful.
The elderly caucasians have died or are in their 90s. They were the parents who sent my generation to parish schools. When the steel mills shut down their kids had to seek new
employment horizons. Like me and and my wife. Those who stayed went on public assistance. My hometown is nothing but Section 8 housing. And they don’t go to Mass.
“I believe that the degree of loss within Catholicism ties directly to defending pedophiles”
The problem is not pedophiles. The problem is ordinary, garden-variety homosexuals. The evildoers advance the notion of rampant pedophilia to take the heat off themselves.
“Canonizing JP2 was a bad idea...JP2 should have used papal authority to clean out the perverts.”
Yes. The floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of bad bishops.
“Overall, it’s a self made mess.”
Who is the “self” that made it? Faggot priests? Lay people who neglected to lay hands upon pervert priests and throw them out of the churches and into the gutter?
Aside from Satan and those who serve him, who is to blame?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qht73MF6C84
add to that, living in pain and years of unanswered prayers. What if prayer will only make things worse?
Amen!
Your perception is directly counter to people with whom I know directly effected by the pedophiles. You are claimingmin direct contradiction to my experience that the perception of rampant pedophilia was created by ordinary run of the mill homosexuals (who are also part of the problem) and that is simply untrue. My perception of rampant pedophilia comes from knowing bot men and women who were affected by pedophiles within the Catholic Church - some of whom had an audience with JP2 out of which nothing came. Try again.
That sucks. Crying ass shame that industries in America took such a beating that entire neighborhoods, towns and cities were transformed like that.
Most American Protestant denominations are no longer recognizably Christian. I won’t go to any church affiliated with a mainline denomination.
Where you will find the real churches is meeting in people’s homes, renting movie theaters, meeting at public school gyms and cafeterias to the extent that hasn’t been shut down by the atheists.
“Add to that, living in pain and years of unanswered prayers. What if prayer will only make things worse?”
William L. Brown wrote, “The attempt to make God just in the eyes of sinful men will always lead to error.”
Addressing this question in any meaningful way requires something that people like this almost universally lack: a familiarity with theology on an adult level.
People abandon religion in their teens, or these days often have no exposure, then make decisions and issue proclamations as though they were acquainted with Christian thought. It’s sad.
Hey! Bad news. It isn’t a loss of faith, it is a rejection and disgust with an increasingly degenerate and out of touch clergy.
Most modern churches just innoculate people into believing they are saved from their sins and they are all going to heaven. Either they are taught once you are baptized you go to heaven, no matter what you do (e.g., the Episcopagans), or they teach that everything is ok with God and Jesus. Finally they make sure no one in their congregations actually reads the Bible. If they did, they would be shocked by the difference between what Scripture says and what the churches are telling them.
“Your perception”
It is not “my perception.” Those are the facts, gleaned from actual reports of the incidents by people with access thereto.
Perhaps the problem lies with the definition of “pedophilia.” It is the attraction to children who have not reached puberty. Attraction to 10-year-olds is pedophilia. Attraction to 15-year-olds is not pedophilia. Never was, never will be.
“the perception of rampant pedophilia was created by ordinary run of the mill homosexuals (who are also part of the problem) and that is simply untrue.”
There is no “rampant pedophilia.” The vast majority of victims were teenage boys. That’s homosexuality, not pedophilia. Reports of widespread pedophilia are fake news, plain and simple.
Since Trump threw his hat in the ring more and more people have come to understand that we are subject to lying fake-news every day. Thank God for that. Some, however, have not yet drilled down far enough to see that fake news shaped mainstream opinion of Kennedy, the Vietnam War, Nixon, and now the nature of the problem with Catholic clergy.
The Good Monsignor is trying to shove this off on outside social forces.
For the most part it’s the BAD DECISIONS of Church leadership that has caused this.
Closing established parishes in inner-city neighborhoods to go and chase new money out in the suburbs.
Sweep a sex abuse scandal under the rug for decades and then find yourselves on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements, judgments and legal fees.
etc.
“If they did, they would be shocked by the difference between what Scripture says and what the churches are telling them.”
My experience with Protestantism over the past few decades has been very limited, so I’ll have to take your word for all that.
Since the feast of the Immaculate Conception (Dec 8) falls this year on a Saturday. Today my rural local parish My pastor comes from SriLanka (Ceylon)is holding a 5:30 pm vigil mass for the feast of the Immaculate Conception and an 8am mass on Saturday because of the regular Sunday vigil mass said at 5:30 pm on Saturday will not apply to Our Lady’s feast.
Frankly I expect both both masses to be lightly attended. I’m lucky to have a priest let alone have masses said on what were Holy Days of Obligation. Immaculate Conception was the name of the church and grammar school (12 Franciscan sisters) I attended while a kid in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood. The school has since been closed the parish disbanded and the church rededicated and given to the Holy Family religious order.
Just a couple of examples from just the past couple of days.
All of this is predicted in Scripture. Isiah 4:1 is my favorite. It basically says in the Last Days there will be 7 women ( women are denominations or churches)that will love one man (Jesus), and they will eat their own food (make their own doctrines) and wear their own garments (a garment is your righteousness-call evil good and good evil) but they want to be called Christian instread of the church of Satan. But there are multiple verses saying the love of the church will grow cold, there will be this lukewarm church in the Last Days, and so many other examples anyone can see what we will be up against as we approach the Last days. If you visit a newer growing church, most likely you would find one that preaches grace more than burning in hell. Most likely speaks in tongues as a sign of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Will preach more sermons on everything repeating itself such as the Antichrist is a type of Nimrod in Babylon, a type of Pharaoh that forgot Joseph, a type of Antiochus Epiphanies that killed a pig on the altar and declared himself god in the Temple according to Maccabees, and others. We see and preach that it will be as the days of Noah and Lot in the Last Days. Of course the days of lot is the emergence of sodomy being accepted and the Days of Noah refers to evil is good and good is evil and the corruption of the image of God with demonic seed.
Pretty much everything that uses robes, collars, and church furniture make men(and now women)the authority and not Jesus and His Word, is failing. There are multiple verses about large "trees" ( gatherings of people. Trees are people, Jesus said I am the vine you are the branches.) They have "beasts of the field" and "birds" in their branches. Beasts of the field are demons and birds are demons living in the people and demons are in the shade of the tree.) A demonic church will fail. Scripture says God will cut it down but leave the stump.
If we hang on to our denomination more than we hang on to Jesus and the Word of God, God will cut it down. It's not the people, it's the teaching. The message of God has beckoned people for thousands of years successfully. The farther we get from the teachings of the Bible, God will give us up to a reprobate mind.(Romans 1:28) A reprobate mind cannot think straight so the FIRST indication we are losing our minds is sodomy (Rom 1:24) They thought they were wise, but became fools. Doesn't "science" say it's OK to be Gay? Would teaching that God is creator and rejecting evolution stop this slide to Gomorrah? (Rom 1:20)
It's really easy to fix this, but we probably won't. We have reverted back to the original sin. We took Satan's advice and made ourselves as gods and worship ourselves. We are more proud of being a Catholic, Methodist, or Baptist, than following Scripture. We are so concerned that we are right and everyone else is wrong that we would rather go down swinging rather than stand with Jesus.
Another thing we do is worry about sin. Jesus either took our sin on the cross or He didn't. We point at each other and tell everyone I'm better that they are. No, you are just like the biggest sinner there is, but you have been forgiven. Our continuous sin is our nature. We should try to sanctify ourselves and be holy people put aside for God and stop worrying about our neighbors sin. It's his/her problem. If you keep pointing at your neighbors splinter, someone may notice the log you carry. You will never get believers by pointing out people's sins, but tell them God loves them and gave His Son to rescue them. Hellfire and Brimstone is fine to preach for informational purposes, but the love of God will overpower the desire for sin if the people are told about it. Our pride will always tell us we are better than the next guy or God doesn't really care about the sin I do. I can't count the number of lost people that tell me they don't go to church because of something another Christians has done to them. They immediately say "I'm better than they are".
bump for later
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