by designs 45 Replies latest social current
According to Monsignor Joseph Rebman Catholics no longer vote as a block any more according to oppossingviews.com. Progressives within the Catholic Church are making independent choices on Birth Control and a Woman's Right to Choose.
But to the issue of protecting Priests who were child abusers would you grant the same leniency to the Wt. Leaders and Elders.
How could any of us look ourselves in the mirror and know that we viewed the Catholic Church differently than the Watchtower when we know that they've done the same thing. C'Mon people, they aided and abetted the sexual abuse of children!
Catholic charities may do much good but that doesn't absolve any of the heads from what they've enabled others to do.
Because, sooner, the Catholic Church has made significant changes in the way things are done specifically to protect children. For example, before you can volunteer for any parish role which interacts with children you have to go through a training program and background checks. Check out the VIRTUS program to get an idea of how it works and then ask yourself whether the JWs could ever do something similar. For that matter, it is a simple matter to find out what Benedict's statements about the scandal have been; ask whether the JWs could ever do anything similar.
I don't know anyone who says the bishops who protected the bad guys should get a pass. However, a distressingly large number of institutions seem to act in a similar way in similar circumstances. You don't seem to be quite so upset about the public school systems that have acted in very similar ways over the same period of time. That's not to excuse what wrong was done, but it is to suggest you have a sliding scale of outrage -- or have I missed your heartbroken outrage against public schools?
So, the Church seems to have put children at risk at in similar ways that other institutions have -- schools, Protestant churches, etc. Catholic churches are supposed to be better than that and, to a very large degree, they have become better. Moral preening isn't a substitute for clear thinking about the matter.
Sulla- There are JW apologists who feel similarly about the reforms made by the Wt. Leaders and claim now everything is set right, relax God is in charge again. They find it difficult if not impossible to fathom that the sky-god the product of one's imagination and they were simple bowing to civic pressure to make necessary changes.
Should the xJW community feel appeased or satisfied now that some form letters from Wt. Headquarters to Elders has addressed how to handle abuse cases. Should the public feel similarly about the Church of Rome, your apparent religion of choice, has made some necessary changes.
Notice the similarlity of thought between any GB member and what they advocate to fellow JWs and Pope Benedict's farewwell address- 'To love the church means also to make difficult, painful decisions, always keeping the good of the church in mind, not oneself'. There was 'thundering applause'.
So a xJW who sees the terrible position the Wt. Leadership took in the Conti case and other such cases trying to protect the 'good name of the church' and writes and speaks out about it, if they have converted to Catholicism should they put blinders on with the criminal cases now moving to prosecution phases in the world's courts against your favored Church.
With 30,000 pages of documents against Cardinal Mahoney in the Los Angeles Archdiocese alone he is without reservation or censur from the exiting Pope allowed to vote in the next Pope, he is in Rome at this very moment. What message to the kids who had their innocence robbed from them, what message is that.
moshe- Why go light on the Church of Rome, would you suggest going light on the Wt. and its Leadership. You have taken very active steps, even going out in Service, to do an expose' on the Wt..
As long as the Church of Rome wants to engage in my world of social activisim and politics should they not be challenged.
So by that way of rationalizing it...
Ted Bundy should have been set free if he just made the necessary steps to never murder and rape again.
Bernie Madoff should go free if he promise never to run another Ponzi scheme.
The guy that molested me as a youth and thereafter many of my cousins and his own step-children should have his name taken off the sex offender role and his record absolved.
Sure thing Sulla, you make perfect sense.
If the Catholic Church goes on for another 1000 years and in that time keeps children safe then they can be forgiven. But not now. They are guilty, guilty, guilty.
He seemed like quite a nice man to me, clever and thoughtful, but with his head buried in the sand.
Slimboyfat- the Los Angeles Archdiocese is readying to ask parishners for $200million to cover abuse settlements. In Australia there is a $3million lawsuit against the Wt. for its role in abuse cases. Both churches under the approval of the Leadership, Pope and GB, are leaning on their Faithful to carry the costs.
Like the GB, who took ecclesiastical interference into human sexuality into the lives of married JWs they followed a tradition- the Church of Rome created its own problems through what it termed 'continence' and 'celibacy'.
Council of Elvira, 305AD- 'It is decided that marriage be altogether prohibited to bishops, priests, and deacons, or to all clerics placed in ministry, and that they keep away from their wives and not beget children, whoever does this, shall be deprived of the honor of clerical office'.
Pope Siricius, 385AD, backed up this Directa Cum in unum- The Pope 'asserted that clerical abstinence was apostalic and must be followed by ministers of the church'.
If a GB member retired and gave as the reasons- to spend a life in prayer and meditation, and for possible health reasons, what would you conclude and what would you as a active (and even long gone JW) like to see in a replacement.
The L.A.Times Opinion section today had editorials from several Catholics on the Pope's retirement and what they hope to see in the new Pope.
'Sackcloth and ashes' over the sexual scandals, and fearlessness to face the issues of a post modern church. Sister Eileen McNerney,Sisters of St.Joseph
'Humility and courage' but not conducting a popularity contest. Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League
'Theologically' impliment the spirit and substance of Vatican II. Margaret Susan Thompson, professor Syracuse U..
Addressing 'the argument baring women being priests' Roy Bourgeois, Catholic priest Maryknoll Order
Unlikely to address or overturn bans on contraception, gay marriage, woman's ordination. John Gehring Catholic director, Faith in Public Life
