Article

2018-08-31

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Fred 2018-08-31 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11131 views ] Top

Posted by 3dc 2018-08-31 00:19|| 2018-08-31 00:19|| Front Page Top

#2 "If God exists (the existence of everything is a good argument in favor), I still don't believe his ego is so small that he requires me to grovel on my knees and praise him like some Oriental potentate. "

Absolutely - it would mean we are going through the same thing together, watching the same things. No need to bow to Something that Totally gets it.

"If you're utterly sick of the Pope, and want more structure in your life than you'd get as an Episcopalian, a United Methodist, or some other National Council of Churches Sunday feel good club, there are the Orthodox churches -- Greek, Russian, Coptic and such. They don't consider the Bishop of Rome infallible and they treat with him as equals. No one is required to hop on the humanist slide. They all still retain the concepts of sin and redemption."

Absolutely as this Pope is Clearly not Infallible. And I fired him last night (BTW- we see it that takes). But you are correct. I really want a Unification of the True Church. It could do wonders for this Earth. The Eastern Orthodox has much to remind all of US of. And I have a Wanting for them back.

You are a very much more than an excellent Man, Fred, You are a Tower where many perch upon.

Posted by newc 2018-08-31 02:54|| 2018-08-31 02:54|| Front Page Top

#3 I beg the indulgence of our readers as I share a Facebook post on the scandal by a friend who is a former philosophy professor and a member of the Catholic intelligencia. Incidentally, he contends the problem peaked decades ago, a comforting thought.

'Tis the season once again for denouncing the celibacy requirement for priests in the Latin Church. Accordingly, 'tis the season once again for noting what's wrong and what's right about pinning the problem on celibacy.

First, it's pointless to talk about the role of celibacy without getting clear about the exact nature of the problem that sparks so much justified outrage. Both the independent lay commissions appointed by the bishops--one in 2004, the other in 2011--noted that roughly four out of five underage victims of sexual abuse by clergy have been male, and a similar percentage of those males have been 14-17 years old. The 2018 Pennsylvania grand-jury report shows similar numbers. So the core problem is not pedophilia, which is sexual abuse of pre-pubescent children. Pedophilia is as common among married as among single men, and the victims are female at least as often as male. The core problem is *same-sex ephebophilia.*

That has been a well-known part of homosexual culture for thousands of years. The problem it causes in the Catholic priesthood spills over into the abuse and harassment of young-adult seminarians by their superiors. I know firsthand that that is by no means limited to ex-Cardinal McCarrick. Then there's the fact that, until effective retro-viral drugs became widely available, hundreds of Catholic priests died of AIDS in the 1980s and 90s. Finally, nobody denies that the percentage of homosexuals in the RC priesthood is far higher than in the general population. So the math alone indicates that the core problem is homosexuality in the priesthood.

Not that it's the only problem, of course. Many factors feed into this. The celibacy requirement is but one of them, and only indirectly.

Because of that requirement, seminaries attract applications from many young men who have psychosexual issues they hope to minimize or escape by a life of celibacy. Homosexuality is the most important such issue, though not the only one. Some effort is made by the better seminaries to weed out psychosexually troubled applicants, but the process is not perfect. In particular, many bishops decline to follow the Vatican's repeated directives not to admit to seminaries men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies." The reasoning is that, so long as they are truly committed to celibacy, their sexual orientation does not matter. But it does matter. Pope Benedict explained why, and my personal experience both as a seminary applicant and as a seminary professor revealed a further reason: once homosexuality gains a foothold in a seminary, even those who don't engage in sodomy have every incentive to look the other way when others do. That is a major reason why the coverup part of the scandal used to be so effective.

So the celibacy requirement contributes to the problem by allowing men who will become predators, mainly but not exclusively homosexual, to hide behind a veneer of respectability and live a double life. But to conclude that getting rid of said requirement would get rid of the problem is at best naïve.

Such a conclusion would be warranted only if we had independent evidence that married clergy--i.e., clergy in every other church--are better-behaved sexually. I know of no studies providing such evidence. My hunch is that such a study, if conducted, would show what we know about public schools: less *homosexual* misbehavior than in the Catholic priesthood, but no less *heterosexual* misbehavior, and no less sexual misbehavior with minors. If that hunch is ever borne out, it would not provide reason enough to drop the celibacy requirement.

— Michael Liccione
Facebook 20. August, 2018

Posted by trailing wife 2018-08-31 07:28|| 2018-08-31 07:28|| Front Page Top

#4 Such a conclusion would be warranted only if we had independent evidence that married clergy--i.e., clergy in every other church--are better-behaved sexually.
Before the growth of Online Gaming there was another meaning to the acronym "PK" -- Preacher's Kids. If you have met any you might know my firm policy: I don't trust them, period. There are some perfectly nice, sane, devout or agnostic examples that I found out later were PK's later. Truly, truly nice people.

But then there are the rest... Growing up as the living exemplar of their Parent's Morals and Religious Teachings has twisted these children into evil menaces. Lying, smiling hypocrites that have learned to mouth all the appropriate platitudes are the most insidious. The other is the Counter-Culture Rebel, militantly atheistic -- at least these are honest in their bitterness.

Posted by magpie 2018-08-31 10:07|| 2018-08-31 10:07|| Front Page Top

Posted by Skidmark 2018-08-31 10:21|| 2018-08-31 10:21|| Front Page Top

#6 magpie. As a PK I take some offense at that.

Posted by 3dc 2018-08-31 11:13|| 2018-08-31 11:13|| Front Page Top

#7 This singer is a one time all body fighting champion, Magpie, and a PK.

Posted by 3dc 2018-08-31 11:20|| 2018-08-31 11:20|| Front Page Top

#8 3dc, let me repeat myself:
"...There are some perfectly nice, sane, devout or agnostic examples that I found out later were PK's later. Truly, truly nice people. "

I didn't say all...

Posted by magpie 2018-08-31 11:22|| 2018-08-31 11:22|| Front Page Top

#9 It always surprising that organizations that have been around as long as the Catholic Church fail to learn one of life’s most valuable lessons: a problem not solved or dealth with fully, honestly, and completely will eventually come back worse than originally.

Posted by Airandee 2018-08-31 11:51|| 2018-08-31 11:51|| Front Page Top

#10 I don't need the Pope or anyone else to interpret the Bible for me. But I do believe it is a good thing to have places where people can get together and talk about it, can pool their resources to do good things in the community and can teach their children about Jesus. So it's sad and truly frightening when such an institution is corrupted.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2018-08-31 12:00|| 2018-08-31 12:00|| Front Page Top

#11 Socialist first, last. Everything else are cultural trappings.

Posted by Procopius2k 2018-08-31 12:12|| 2018-08-31 12:12|| Front Page Top

#12 It does look like this Pope worships the teachings of the Grifter Marx rather than Jesus.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2018-08-31 14:32|| 2018-08-31 14:32|| Front Page Top

#13 Francis ain't the Pope.
Benedict XVI is still alive.

Posted by charger 2018-08-31 16:07|| 2018-08-31 16:07|| Front Page Top

#14 Follow up to my post of this morning, with regard to the decrease of child abuse incidents. The diocese of Pittsburgh presents a graph of alleged incidents, whether or not substantiated, by decade of occurrence. See here.

Posted by trailing wife 2018-08-31 22:07|| 2018-08-31 22:07|| Front Page Top

23:35 3dc
22:49 trailing wife
22:46 trailing wife
22:44 trailing wife
22:16 Zenobia Floger6220
22:07 trailing wife
22:01 trailing wife
21:41 Skidmark
21:40 KBK
21:38 Skidmark
21:33 Skidmark
21:31 Skidmark
20:49 Rex Mundi
20:46 Besoeker
20:43 Silentbrick
20:35 Deacon Blues
20:05 Frank G
20:04 Frank G
19:43 Thor Angaise2145
19:05 M. Murcek
19:03 Sonny Dribble1184
18:55 SteveS
18:54 SteveS
18:49 SteveS