Who does the Catholic Church obey to ?
God.
What did God’s Verb, Jesus Christ, teach us during his Incarnation ?
About crimes committed by christians and especially priests : Luke 17 1-4
Ouch, it hurts but sincere repentance always brings forgiveness.
About homosexuality : Romans 1 26-32
The Church cannot bless what God forbids. Sorry.
What did Christ order for his Church ?
Mark 16 15-16 , John 20 22.
Yes, the Catholic Church teaches a marriage of fidelity, fecondity, undissolvability (my dirty translation). John Paul II developped what is called the Theology of the Body. It is awesome.
The Church was the Social Security for thousand of years, taking care of millions of poors and sick. Who remembers this ?
Today, psychologists have replaced priests, are we better off ?
Did the most atheist century ever (the 20th), set a higher moral standard in say Europe at large ?
Comparing the Church to the mafia is a disgrace. Who else than the Popes go there and speak out against it, without body armor ? Just type john paul Ii mafia on YT.
Church is Holy, which doesn’t mean its members are not perfect. Like St Peter denying Jesus. It means Good will win. Matthew 16 18.
You know what really strenghtened my Catholic faith recently ? Reading the New Testament from A to Z. I can only wish everyone reads it once in his life.
I just wanted to raise the point of the personal choice between comfort&free time vs raising kids. I heard of this speech which questions our selfishness. That’s it.
Any organisation which discriminates in the way the Church of Rome does should be banned. Any organisation which turns a blind eye – and indeed actively works against policing of sexual abuse , be it of minors or any other group should be prosecuted. Any organisation which supports terrorists – vis the IRA – should be prosecuted.
Airborne_Again wrote:
there are important differences in faith between the protestant (at least the Lutheran) and the Catholic churches that go way beyond that. Particularly their views on salvation.
Absolutely true. Dogmatically there is a plethora of differences not only the concept of sin (and hence salvation) but also on trinity, transubstantiation, glorification, concept of church, etc. And in a proseminar of dogma theory, they can be very controversially discussed.
The average member of either community, however, typically does not know much about them and would not be able to express why they believe in the one and not in the other. Celebacy, homophobia, gender discrimination, etc. are very visible and well codified so that none of the members can pretend they do not know about this difference.
Jujupilote wrote:
Romans 1 26-32
Might be outdated – but last time I checked this quote referred to a human writing a letter to humans. No god involved in authorship.
Malibuflyer wrote:
a human writing a letter to humans
Well if we are literally speaking of writing, everything in the Bible was written by humans. A different matter is how humans got such messages, news or inspirations.
In that sense St Paul’s inspirations are not necessarily less divine or more human than those of say prophet Nathanael. Authorship in that sense is a matter of faith. Authoring in the sense of actual writing is, however no different in St Paul’s letters vs most everything in the Bible. Exception could be the Gospels and the direct references to Jesus’ words, but even that is mostly a matter of faith.
Antonio wrote:
but even that is mostly a matter of faith.
Absolutely, I could not agree more – and everyone should be absolutely free what they believe.
Limits must only be established, when such faith results in actions that involve other people. Discriminating other people because of gender, sexual orientation, color, etc. is not a faith, it’s a crime (at least in Germany and many other countries).
Malibuflyer wrote:
Discriminating other people because of gender, sexual orientation, color, etc. is not a faith, it’s a crime (at least in Germany and many other countries).
Which is also not limited to that particular Church or the Christian belief either. And where it happens, it needs to be addressed, no question about that.
I am not a Catholic but have in my past been involved with the Protestant church here during my school years. During that interesting time we’ve been able to work together with the local catholic church and the Jewish synagogue in my hometown, then at that time something unheard of.
In my life I’ve come across a lot of ordained priests. Christians of many denominations, Muslims as well as others. If I’ve learnt something, it is that most of the ones I worked with were true believers of their faith and honorable people, who do their work for their fellow humans under the guidance of their Church and God. The same goes for those who give their time to work for the constituence or who dedicate their lifes to the service to their God.
Like everywhere, there are people who don’t do that and who use the power or whatever clout they have for improper use. Like everywhere those drag down a lot of others who mean and do well. I don’t think it fair however to condemn a whole organisation just because of comparatively few who are obviously evil, but they need to be addressed and brought to the attention of their superiors if need be. Clearly, many churches, not only the Catholics, have in the past failed in this purpose.
There is quite a widespread misconception in that some people, mostly non Catholics, confuse blessing, tolerance and permission.
Since a long time ago under normal circumstances the Catholic Church has no authority over those who do not personally give it such credit, at least no more than any other compatriot who owns a place at your city or lives next to you.
If the Catholic Church forbids or asks something, I don’t understand why a non-Catholic should care any more than for whatever credit he wants to provide to Catholic Church. Who is he to say what Catholic Church should do or not as long as it in compliance with human law?
In EuroGA language: if we who pray LOP decide to found the LOP club and make it mandatory for all members, who voluntarily elect to join, to fly LOP during cruise, who is an outsider to say we should not forbid ROP cruise? The LOP club will not permit or tolerate its members who choose to fly ROP cruise, and will possibly not bless those, members or not, who elect to fly ROP cruise, or perhaps more precisely, their leaning practices.
The Catholic Church is, however, and together with some other christian churches, one of few religions which make so-called salvation available to all humanity, regardless of gender, race, marital status, sexual inclination, sinfulness, or whatever, on the only condition that such person accepts that such salvation comes from God and only from Him. In fact I believe that is the meaning of the word Catholic (universal) . This is thus the official policy: ZERO DISCRIMINATION
This is in the Gospels where, for example, Jesus chose a big sinner who lied about knowing Him like St Peter to rule his Church, where he blessed the prostitute that all in town despised , only because she recognized Him as the Lord and spilt perfume on Him, He went for dinner at the tax collector’s place, and even saved the unfaithful wife from those lapidating her. It is not a Church of perfect people but of sinners, most of which look to Sainthood, few of which reach it in their earthly life, but most of which get steadily closer to sainthood by caring for those around them in the Love and Grace of God.
He never blessed the sinful actions of St Peter, the prostitute, the tax collector or the unfaithful wife, but he blessed all of them encouraging them not to sin again.
Again, some individuals in Catholic Church, at different levels, have not followed that, history has seen some big mistakes about that, but it changes none of the above.
The Catholic Church is open to all persons, will bless all persons as Children of God, will commend female above male in lots of circumstances (for example the Holy Family of humble St Joseph ‘vs’ St Mary Mother of all ), but will not bless homosexuality or preach that women and men have identical roles in society or Church. That is not discrimination, as those who do not believe in such role assignment are free to not join .
The Church is open to people of all sexual orientations (or any other categories for that matter) , but will not bless all of such orientations, only the people bearing them. The current Pope has made that very clear, possibly much more so than ever before, even if the Gospels spelled it out clearly twenty centuries ago.
But the Catholic Church has repeatedly covered up child abuse, sexual and physical, by its clergy which I would argue makes it a criminal organization.
Jesus H. Christ.
This has got rather out of hand.
