Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Polonius wrote:1) It sounds obvious, but when you label all kinds of sex as bad, except sex between married couples, and then elminate that as an option... well, you're not going to have a lot of recruits that are all about male/female intercourse. It's an open secret that many of the seminarians are either gay, asexual, not overly sexual, or have less savory desires. When you eliminate those men for whom regular sex with women is important, you end up with a pretty skewed sample.

Well considering the orthodox interpretation of Scripture and its definition of sexual immorality, the Church is just following the rules. As far as whether or not priests should be married or not is a whole different issue. Remember, becoming a man of the cloth is not something to be taken lightly, and the Church should be more selective in its process. It isn't just a job, you are literally married to the Church, in accordance with the wishes of St. Paul, and therefore you are supposed to give up carnal desires and wants in order to better serve God and the Church. As far as the RCC is concerned, I am fairly happy with its state, so much so that I seriously toyed with the thought of converting. I find that John Paul II and Benedict XVI are both very Godly men, and worthy holders of the Ring of St. Peter. I am continually surprised at the growing passion and vigor among the many Catholics that I know, and many of my good Catholic friends are very competent amateur theologians. I am very optimistic about the future of the Church and its relations to the other major sects of Christendom.

As a PK, and a man, I find the the requirements of the of the Catholic Church ridiculous in the modern (or any other) world.

I simply do not believe that the issue of pedophilia is a recent monster. The idea of an entirely celibate clergy strikes me as foolish from the get-go.

dogma wrote:As a PK, and a man, I find the the requirements of the of the Catholic Church ridiculous in the modern (or any other) world.

I simply do not believe that the issue of pedophilia is a recent monster. The idea of an entirely celibate clergy strikes me as foolish from the get-go.

Yeah, I don't really know how I feel about it either at this point. I mean I am a stickler for tradition, I must have been born old, but I think that the Church may be following an overly strict interpretation of St. Paul when he practically begs the men and women of the Church to not marry in order to better serve God. Its a tough issue to be sure, especially in the modern world...I may just be missing something entirely, but at the risk of sounding naive, what do you mean PK? I assume you don't mean Powerklaw....

It is worth pointing out that the actual underlying reason for Catholic priests to not marry came about in the 11th Century due to land inheritance issues and the Pope of that time introducing priestly celibacy as a way of avoiding sons of priests wanting to inherist land that was deemed to belong to the Church. It is not something that goes all the way back to the creation of the Church.

The actions of some leaders within the Catholic Church are abhorrent, but any organisation as large as the Catholic Church will have abhorrent people within it. The main problem is the institutionalised and automatic defense of its own members due to some seeming notion of infallibility. Too many members of the Catholic hierarchy seem to feel this infallibility is passed down from the Pope to the entirety of the Catholic clergy, or to the Church as an organisation. To my eyes there is a lot in common with Japanese traditions that it is more important to maintain the impression of honour/decency/morals than the actuality of it. It seems to me that the Catholic Church is, in many cases, happier to cling to a lie than to admit the truth, Even when everyone, including the Church, the victims, the public, everyone, know that it is a lie.

Of course, as I said before, it is worth remembering that despite the awful people in the Catholic Church, there are also a large number of very decent people within the Church. It can only be hoped that over time they can alter the dominant culture of cover-up and self-interest that seems to often dominate.

I work in a Catholic school myself and am sorry to say that the school leadership seems more interested in the forms of worship and the outward demonstrations of faith than in actual faith itself or in a genuine message of goodwill to those in their employ or under their care and tutelage.

JEB_Stuart wrote:I may just be missing something entirely, but at the risk of sounding naive, what do you mean PK? I assume you don't mean Powerklaw....

Preacher's/Pastor's Kid.

Orlanth wrote:

Hawkins wrote:As far as im concerened, any organization that would hide, help, or ignore a child molester should be delt with as harshly as the offender when caught. Church, government, cult what ever. Make them pay for their inaction or actions weather it was turning a blind eye or defending the Pedi.

'Nice' sounding sentiment, but very dangerous if unchecked. How do you prove culpability, and where does the trail end? This is how tyranny starts, looking for the undesirables in a section of the community, and labeling whole sections as part of a great evil. we are seeing some of this earlier on the thread. If peadophiles can be hated and Catholics are paedophiles, thus Catholics can be hated.
Its difficult to clean up organisations, and dangerous to label them, this is the primary reason and is potentially one of the few things worse than child molestors because we have seen exactly where the hates lead in our history books, and on the TV new today.

Your absolutely right where does it end, how do you check it. if it were up to me you wouldnt, persecution agaist child molestation should not be checked, if you hid a pedi or knew of one and as a higher member of the chuch did nothing or hid the fact, you should be just as culpable (same goes for government). There are ways of finding that out legally. As for labling organizations, its easy if you have the nerve, i wont let a preist (from any denomination) alone with either of my children and im blunt and up front that i dont trust the chuch, any chuch. becasue of just those fears. most priests, heck every priest ive ever talked to is if not happy, at least willing to let me burn in hell about it As for Tyranny, against a convicted childmolester and those found guilty of cupability, they should IMO without a dout be terrorised (sorry i have two kids, i am not and can not treat sex offenders, especially child sex offenders with anything but hate and violence. Call me zero tollerant)

Yay! Its back open, i love a good debate about this stuff.

Anyway, my personal opinion is that paedos do not gravitiate towards the church. I honestly believe that the Churches bizarre demands cause otherwise normal people to have some sort of mental breakdown.

Humans need sex for example. We are poorly evolved mammalian animals that have primal instincts, and i feel that when these people deny them, they go a bit nuts.

There was a big case lately (seen in on CNN when i was in California) when a Catholic priest guy got all kinds of gak in Mexico cos he got photographed kissing and cuddling on the beach with his old enough entirely pleasant consenting girlfriend. Maybe someone can link the story im on about. I think he converted to Anglican or something?

The Catholic church needs to get with the times and allow grown ups to have girlfriends and wives.

They have already made progress with evolution and contraceptives and such (although the new pope looks far less sensible than the last one)

Let priests shag people and i guarantee this problem will go away.

And anyway, can a catholic enlighten me? Exactly what is wrong with having sex with a consenting adult? Cos i just dont get it... :S

Thank you for reopening this thread. A few points:
1) Insofar as the Vatican itself refused to cooperate with the inquiry then the pedophilia in the Irish Catholic Church is a problem of the Catholic Church in general. Why would the Vatican refuse to assist the Murphy Commission? It is impossible to conceive of a response to this question that is favorable to the Catholic Church.
2) The Murphy report looked at priests in the Dublin Archdiocese. According to the news, 77 priests in the diocese alone were accused of abuse from 1940 to 2008. Evidently that is just in one diocese! There are calls for a nation-wide audit now.
3) The Murphy Commission clearly shows that sex offenders were relocated by the Church and that they did abuse new victims each time they moved. This was with the knowledge of Church officials.
4) Civil authorities most notably the Irish police colluded in covering up the abuse.

There is talk now that the people involved in the cover up (priests and police) could be prosecuted. We'll see.

thanks for reopening the thread!

Just wanted to give a bit of perspective on what it is (or was) about Irish society that allowed this to happen.
After independance, our political class were very closely allied with the Church. They allowed the church to completely control all the schools in the country for example. The Church used this to oppose free education in the Vocational Schools (state run) when they were built, and keep women from doing subjects like maths and physics, or being trained in trades. They kept a stranglehold on Irish culture and especially education aided and abetted by the political parties. Even to this day, the Church has control over most schools, and the government doesn't go near it.
But what this created was an atmosphere of ignorance and lack of freedom of thought, a narrow vision where the parish priest was trusted more than anyone else, and had massive amounts of power in terms of setting policy. The church and the state were hopelessly mingled. So when these abuses happened, it was easy for the church to cover up. The people involved were outraged and disgusted, but the people in power didn't want to upset the status quo. Our government allowed it to continue.
Recently, more people are better educated in this country than ever before. Attendance at Mass has dropped to historically low levels. Numbers of men becoming priests have dropped off completely. There is very likely going to be a huge crisis in that there won't be enough priests to go around in another 10 years or so. The church is seen very negatively by a large proportion of the population, and priests are generally disrespected by younger people. Even my mother, who is quite religious, says she believes in God but not in the church. This would be the most common form of religious belief over here.
There are still some very devout catholics, but their numbers are dwindling. Through their evil actions, the Church may have destroyed themselves in Ireland. It remains to be seen whether my countrymen are smart enough to realise that the Church only got away with all this through collusion with government at the highest levels, and finally destroy the politcial dynasties which have been running the country since the civil war. Corrupt bastards.

dogma wrote:

JEB_Stuart wrote:I may just be missing something entirely, but at the risk of sounding naive, what do you mean PK? I assume you don't mean Powerklaw....

Preacher's/Pastor's Kid.

I was confused to. I thought maybe you were one of those guy in MW2 that would fire a Javelin randomly in the air killing your own teammates.

That's a no-no? No wonder I can't find players in MW2. Haha.

Good post Boss, as i have always said, education is our ally here. There is a proven link between the level of your education and the likelihood of you being religious. It sounds arrogant to say it, but it is a proven fact. Hopefully Ireland is better suited for moving forward now than it ever has been.

I believe that a decent argument can be made for Deism (not one i would accept of course) But Theism is just plain wrong. What these people are essentially saying is "i am in charge because i know what God wants"

And no you dont.

I hope that this issue gets pushed to the limit. The Catholic church has purposely and knowingly assisted the abusers by moving them to other parishes, when they KNOW that they have commited terrible cruelties.

They are beneath contempt for this crime.

mattyrm wrote:Humans need sex for example. We are poorly evolved mammalian animals that have primal instincts, and i feel that when these people deny them, they go a bit nuts.

That is your opinion, whereas most Christians would disagree with the idea that we are "poorly evolved". I don't have a problem with the priests not marrying. They know what they are getting themselves into. They aren't forced to serve the Church, and the Church relies on Scripture, albeit a bit overly zealously, to support its stance.

mattyrm wrote:There was a big case lately (seen in on CNN when i was in California) when a Catholic priest guy got all kinds of gak in Mexico cos he got photographed kissing and cuddling on the beach with his old enough entirely pleasant consenting girlfriend. Maybe someone can link the story im on about. I think he converted to Anglican or something?

He did convert.

mattyrm wrote:The Catholic church needs to get with the times and allow grown ups to have girlfriends and wives.

Why does the Church have to conform to opposing points of view just because time has progressed? I feel this whole thing is devolving into a witch hunt...

mattyrm wrote:They have already made progress with evolution and contraceptives and such (although the new pope looks far less sensible than the last one)

Uh, please enlighten me on its progress with contraceptives? The Church's stance hasn't changed, and evolution was acknowledged before JPII. Benedict is awesome, and a brilliant theologian to boot.

mattyrm wrote:Let priests shag people and i guarantee this problem will go away.

Like all the people in society who can have sex already, but they still rape children? Poor logic.

mattyrm wrote:And anyway, can a catholic enlighten me? Exactly what is wrong with having sex with a consenting adult? Cos i just dont get it... :S

Well as it is defined in Scripture it is just fine, and even encouraged, between a husband and wife. That isn't just Catholic theology, that is orthodox thinking.

Da Boss wrote:Recently, more people are better educated in this country than ever before. Attendance at Mass has dropped to historically low levels. Numbers of men becoming priests have dropped off completely.

Da Boss wrote:There is very likely going to be a huge crisis in that there won't be enough priests to go around in another 10 years or so. The church is seen very negatively by a large proportion of the population, and priests are generally disrespected by younger people.

I find that hard to believe since studies on mass attendance by Georgetown puts it at 48% weekly. That is very nearly the majority of the country as at least loyal Catholics. And as far as younger people are concerned, we tend to be the most arrogant, selfish and whiny people in society so of course they disrespect the priests, as well as: the police, teachers, politicians, etc.

Da Boss wrote:Even my mother, who is quite religious, says she believes in God but not in the church.
This would be the most common form of religious belief over here.

Well considering that is orthodox beliefs, that is exactly what you are supposed to do. You are supposed to have faith in Christ as the Redeemer of humanity, not an earthly institution such as the Church.

mattyrm wrote:Good post Boss, as i have always said, education is our ally here. There is a proven link between the level of your education and the likelihood of you being religious. It sounds arrogant to say it, but it is a proven fact. Hopefully Ireland is better suited for moving forward now than it ever has been.

Why does moving forward need the lack of religion? And is this "progress" so many desire really a good thing?

mattyrm wrote:I believe that a decent argument can be made for Deism (not one i would accept of course) But Theism is just plain wrong. What these people are essentially saying is "i am in charge because i know what God wants"

You are getting awful close to flat out bashing religion, and will get this thread locked. There is nothing wrong with theistic religions in so far as you can't prove they couldn't have happened, or that their deities exist, EOS. That being said I am in no way a religious pluralist.

mattyrm wrote:And no you dont.

Do you know that for a fact? And if you don't believe in God, then it doesn't matter.

mattyrm wrote:I hope that this issue gets pushed to the limit. The Catholic church has purposely and knowingly assisted the abusers by moving them to other parishes, when they KNOW that they have commited terrible cruelties.

Do we really want to persecute Britain, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Russia, China, Japan, USA etc. for all the things they have done wrong? Don't forget, the Church is not merely an institution, it is in fact a sovereign nation that is recognized the world over, and has representation in the UN.

Jeb, the stats on priest numbers are from the Irish Times and were made public by the church over here itself. So believe it or not, it seems like it is true. I said a historic low in attendance, and it certainly is one.

As to your point about young people, completely debatable but I would say young people over here respect nurses, gardai and teachers far more than they do priests. And rightfully so, given the behaviour of the church.

Ahtman wrote:
I was confused to. I thought maybe you were one of those guy in MW2 that would fire a Javelin randomly in the air killing your own teammates.

That's how we spread the Word.

There is nothing wrong with theistic religions in so far as you can't prove they couldn't have happened...

And there should be nothing wrong with taking the opposite position. You can't prove that God exists, yet you believe in him. If you or anyone else has a problem with me saying that perhaps you should ask yourself why. That's not 'bashing' anything. If you have 'Faith', then as long as you are not being personally insulted, nothing said should affect you.
That said, I don't go in for 'hurrr bible-bashers!!!1!!'type statements - but stating the factual truth should not get any thread locked IMO.

Why does the Church have to conform to opposing points of view just because time has progressed? I feel this whole thing is devolving into a witch hunt...

Interesting choice of words Perhaps the Catholic chuch should root out paedophiles with the same vehemence that they did 'witches'?

mattyrm wrote:Good post Boss, as i have always said, education is our ally here. There is a proven link between the level of your education and the likelihood of you being religious. It sounds arrogant to say it, but it is a proven fact. Hopefully Ireland is better suited for moving forward now than it ever has been.

There are so many thing I want to say in reply to this that picking only one is going to be a chore, so I'll narrow the field with a question.

Do you know what the word religious means?

mattyrm wrote:
I believe that a decent argument can be made for Deism (not one i would accept of course) But Theism is just plain wrong. What these people are essentially saying is "i am in charge because i know what God wants"

You clearly don't know what Theism is. You also have no understanding of what you're saying by rejecting it outright. Underlining an opinion with a divine endorsement is not at all distinct from rejecting any given categorical theory from a stance of atheism.

This thread is starting to turn into a bashing religion thread.

It was ever thus.

Mods have their eyes on it.

JEB_Stuart wrote: points of view just because time has progressed? I feel this whole thing is devolving into a witch hunt...

Look at his avatar. What did you expect? Reason?

JEB_Stuart wrote:
I find that hard to believe since studies on mass attendance by Georgetown puts it at 48% weekly. That is very nearly the majority of the country as at least loyal Catholics. And as far as younger people are concerned, we tend to be the most arrogant, selfish and whiny people in society so of course they disrespect the priests, as well as: the police, teachers, politicians, etc.

Its been my experience that my (our?) generation tends to be more religious than the one that preceded it.

Underlining an opinion with a divine endorsement is not at all distinct from rejecting any given categorical theory from a stance of atheism.

Evidence is the key factor in this particular situation - religious people assume the existence of 'The Divine' and reinforce their assertions with scriptural and philosophical 'evidence'. An Atheist would not consider such things factual evidence as they are completely non-scientific in nature.

If you read out: 'And God said:"Let there be light"

I'm not taking a faith position by saying:

'Prove that god exists, prove that god can interact with the physical world, prove that god spoke, then prove that god said those exact words, please.'

If you could not provide the scientific proof for any of these things, it would be perfectly reasonable to reject the statement as untrue.

@Garrett - No it isn't - stop being juvenile and contribute something.

dogma wrote:Look at his avatar. What did you expect? Reason?

I try to be optimistic....

dogma wrote:Its been my experience that my (our?) generation tends to be more religious than the one that preceded it.

That is definitely true in the US, but I don't know about abroad.

Albatross wrote:
Evidence is the key factor in this particular situation - religious people assume the existence of 'The Divine' and reinforce their assertions with scriptural and philosophical 'evidence'. An Atheist would not consider such things factual evidence as they are completely non-scientific in nature.

Atheists are not necessarily scientists. Indeed many atheists are very unscientific when it comes to their understanding of religion.

Albatross wrote:
'Prove that god exists, prove that god can interact with the physical world, prove that god spoke, then prove that god said those exact words, please.'

If you could not provide the scientific proof for any of these things, it would be perfectly reasonable to reject the statement as untrue.

No. It would be reasonable to reject the statement as unproven. This is not the same as rejecting it as being untrue. You are taking a faith based position by equivocating the two.

Hence the common rebuttal: prove that God does not exist.

Also, if God is not real, then all the scripture being quoted is simply moralistic text that the quoter believes to be significant. The fact that God is involved is simply a matter of semantics, and changes nothing about the moral impetus of any given statement.

Albatross wrote:Evidence is the key factor in this particular situation - religious people assume the existence of 'The Divine' and reinforce their assertions with scriptural and philosophical 'evidence'. An Atheist would not consider such things factual evidence as they are completely non-scientific in nature.

But that in it of itself helps to support many Christian thinkers' own philosophy. We don't believe that humanity is above God in any way, therefore the rules of science do not apply to Him since He is above human explanation. To rely purely on physical evidence shows a level of arrogance, to a Christian, that is on the border of being disturbing.

Albatross wrote:If you read out: 'And God said:"Let there be light"

I'm not taking a faith position by saying:

'Prove that god exists, prove that god can interact with the physical world, prove that god spoke, then prove that god said those exact words, please.'

Yes, because it requires faith to also believe that it couldn't have happened.

Albatross wrote:If you could not provide the scientific proof for any of these things, it would be perfectly reasonable to reject the statement as untrue.

Well assuming God was nothing more then a man, then yes you would be correct. But according to our definition of the divine and His power, that statement is unrealistic.

Priest aren't paedophiles,those that are have surely scumbed to their desires.

Most pit bulls arent dangerous. go ahead put a kid in the cage.........

Hawkins wrote:Most pit bulls arent dangerous. go ahead put a kid in the cage.........

nice troll

JEB_Stuart wrote:

Hawkins wrote:Most pit bulls arent dangerous. go ahead put a kid in the cage.........

nice troll

But thankfully he isn't Gwar.

Sorry guys your speeking over my head, what the hell is a Troll, and why should he be thankfull im not Gwar? oh and you changed your post ivan... why?

I actually like Gwar!, his posts were at least entertaining...