The Pope and China

So maybe new priests sign a contract agreeing to castration if they’re ever caught abusing the altar boys?

That’s just not true. Jesus nor any apostles required celibacy for church leaders. It seemed it was encouraged because marriage can distract a person from God. But it was the church’s idea that priests needed to be celibate. Many apostles and even Peter was married.

The pope as the leader of the church can actually change the decision on allowing priests to marry

Not exactly. Their gripe is more-or-less the same as Judaism’s: Jesus was not the Christ. Both Muslims and Jews recognise Jesus as a prophet, but disavow his divinity. The fundamental issue is that both of those religions are based on what theologians call “redemption by works”, whereas the whole point of the Reformation was reminding Christians of the concept of “redemption by grace”: the latter is complicated to describe - I can only suggest reading Wikipedia to avoid a TL;DR post.

Catholicism has problems because it is internally inconsistent. If one is prepared to ignore, for example, the prime role of the Church, then it pretty much reverts to standard Christianity, and the Catholics actually have a good handle on the idea of “redemption by grace”. They then completely bugger it up with a whole bunch of contradictory nonsense (which, incidentally, explains why there have been a lot of good Catholics and a lot of absolutely vile Catholics). I suspect this state of affairs arose because of Catholicism’s inherently political mission: its founders had social-engineering motives, but they had to work with the raw material that was set in stone in the Bible.

Their (very practical) solution was a combination of (a) obfuscation and (b) threatening anyone who removed the obfuscation. The whole sorry mess is now so firmly unquestionable that they don’t need the threats anymore.

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I always found this weird. The guy ran around saying he’s the son of God. And not in a way like theists say they are children of God. He’s either a liar, lunatic, or son of god. You can certainly make a good arguement for the first 2. But I don’t see how he could be viewed as a reliable prophet if he wasn’t divine

C.S.Lewis made the same point. He basically said Jesus was either a complete nutter (in which case the Muslims and the Jews are right) or he was who he said he was. You only get those two choices; there’s no logical middle ground. The reason there’s no logical middle ground is that nice, decent sane people don’t go around saying they’re the Son of God; so, as you said, he wouldn’t be much of a prophet if he were lying about that bit.

It’s a stretch. At best, it’s a matter of interpretation. When the cognitive dissonance reaches the breaking point, you can rescue sanity by sacrificing your interpretation. Ditch the apostolic succession to save the rest of the doctrine and organization. Chew the leg off to escape the trap.

Oh, and priestly celibacy may also have to go.

The Church has indeed faced far worse than a pompous fool for a Pope. But this time it comes from an already weakened position. Previous crises over the centuries have eroded its authority. This could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Chesterton defended the Church very effectively when it was in a weak position, but it’s even weaker now. I don’t know if he’d even try to excuse the handling of the pedophile priest issue.

There’s also that, but Muslims have been known to say things to Christians like why do you worship three gods? Don’t you know that’s blasphemy?

To a fundamentalist, it’s basically the same difference.

But I don’t see how he could be viewed as a reliable prophet if he wasn’t divine

I think I missed the part that says all the non-divine ones were unreliable.

Why make it conditional, if they don’t need the stuff anyway? (Masturbation is also a sin for Catholics.)

You can only chop off your nads once, but you can not rape altar boys for your whole priestly career. Surely resisting temptation for that long is more pleasing to the Lord.

I always thought it was Jesus and his Apostles that started the whole Catholic thingy.

Not so much. The book Jesus Wars by Philip Jenkins is a good read. It gets into the nitty gritty

Book below is very interesting read even for those who are not Catholic. Takes historical circumstances into context and does not color over the bad.

A History of the Popes

Okay, since discussion of Vatican / Taiwan relations has been derailed…

Priests are expressly forbidden to be castrated (i.e., castrated men can’t be ordained, and if you castrate yourself, you’re defrocked). It’s in the canons, and inspired by some verses in Leviticus, I think. The church fathers were worried that men were getting a little too enthusiastic. Also, there was a mystery religion that involved voluntary castration during a festival, by entranced men who got swept up in the mood, I guess.

Graham Greene converted because he met a Catholic girl at university–whom he married, then cheated on his whole life. (The female lead in The End of the Affair is really him. Also, onions stand for sex.) But he was serious about Catholicism too. I guess it was a bit like white people converting to Buddhism today. Read Brideshead Revisited for a similar take on early 20th century British Catholicism.

Strangely, I was an extra in Bridehead Revisited . Must have been 1980ish I guess. It was my first ( and last) acting role.
Family and friends, gathered round the TV, with a great sense of excitement , waiting like coiled springs to see their “Man” on the Silver Screen.
After 2 weeks of filming, my "bit’ lasted about 5 seconds, my Mother expecting a Co-starring position with Jeremy Irons . At least my hand looked nearest to him…ha.
Perhaps my next role could be a Chinese Pope :popcorn:

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I get the 1 in 12. That’s not the issue. The issue, and its a very big fucking issue, is that the Church has protected and enabled those 1 in 12, moving them from diocese to diocese so that they can continue their child rape. That’s fucking morally repugnant.

Every organization protects its bad apples in high places. Nothing uniquely Catholic - or even religious - about it. Just an ugly fact of human nature.

Not every organization throws a whole lot of brave people under the bus to suck up to Beijing. If Francis does that, his moral authority is shot. Then all he has left is that funny hat.

The prophetic stance is about speaking truth to power. It is absolutely the only way a religious organization can have political relevance without losing its soul. You don’t rule, you don’t submit and you don’t cut a deal. You hold them accountable.

As for spiritual relevance - that also gets lost in the shuffle. We’re left asking: what’s the point of an organized religion if it’s just going to be another part of the world system?

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The hierarchy of the Catholic Church is rotten and badly needs pruning. Don’t cut the tree down though just to get rid of the diseased upper branches.

Shortly before he died in 1226, St. Francis of Assisi called together the members of his order and warned them of great tribulations that would befall the Church in the future, saying:
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Act bravely, my Brethren; take courage, and trust in the Lord. The time is fast approaching in which there will be great trials and afflictions; perplexities and dissensions, both spiritual and temporal, will abound; the charity of many will grow cold, and the malice of the wicked will increase.

The devils will have unusual power, the immaculate purity of our Order, and of others, will be so much obscured that there will be very few Christians who will obey the true Sovereign Pontiff and the Roman Church with loyal hearts and perfect charity. At the time of this tribulation a man, not canonically elected, will be raised to the Pontificate, who, by his cunning, will endeavour to draw many into error and death.

Then scandals will be multiplied, our Order will be divided, and many others will be entirely destroyed, because they will consent to error instead of opposing it.

One in twelve of the organisation are child rapists. But the organisation is fine. Sorry I cant buy that.

For one thing it takes more than one in twelve to kidnap, traffic and sell babies by the thousand.

Speaking from personal experience: I went to a Catholic School run by christian brothers for three years. I saw routine violence against children every week, including - for example - the principal of the school picking a child up by both ears and headbutting him in the face. There was one brother in the school that did not use violence, and he was about 80 years old. When I transferred to a regular non religious school for five years I didnt see a single instance of violence against a pupil perpetrated by a teacher. Not once: cause guess what folks?: its illegal.

The catholic church sets up its own law outside the law. And this law is mysoginistic, homophobic and violent towards children. For example: it tells us that babies are born with sin and do not go to heaven if unbaptized. However any sort of crime can be forgiven and the perpetrator admitted to eternal happiness with a quick last confession. Talk about adding insult to injury. The most natural think in the world is wrong and sinful, and the most unnatural thing in the world can be forgiven in an eyeblink? Seriously?

I personally do believe that some members of the church are well meaning, but the facts are so stark as to suggest that those ones are the easily fooled.

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Consider why the organisation even exists in the first place. What religion needs all the trappings of government up to and including an actual physical State? That’s the sort of success wacko cult leaders have wet dreams about, or would do if it wasn’t sinful.

Before someone mentions, say, the Church of England, yes they have a hierarchy and have similar spats over similar non-issues (ordination of people with silly hats). Mostly, though, they follow the law of the land and don’t dictate to the faithful what they should believe and what will or will not get them into heaven; it’s left to the individual to read their Bible and make their own decisions. The Church is a thing separate from the faith, not an integral part of it.

There have been big, recent, high-reaching C of E child sexual abuse scandals in England and Australia.

I’ve not heard of that, but I’ll check it out. Has anyone gone to jail? Has anyone been protected by The Church? Has anyone made excuses for them?