Let's stop pretending, even amongst professed Christians, casual sex is an accepted thing.

I'm not claiming perfection, but I do not allow my lack of perfection to justify me living a life which is contrary to the Gospel, whether it be that which was handed down be letter or by mouth.

Yes, the Bible defense. How do you know your bible is complete? Where is the list of what Scriptures are Divine and which ones aren't? By who's authority do you call it The Word of God? Seems like the Bible is missing a lot of important things. Good thing Christ founded a Church.

 

I am happy for you that you have answered your call and found Christ in the Catholic Church. I wish you all the best.

 

Your diagnosis is right where I live I often can observe this but your conclusion is wrong. Why?
If you consider all religions in the world you will find within them lots of people and spiritual leaders who don't live or not enough according to teaching of their religion or Christian denomination. It was so, it is and it will be. You won't find a religion where there aren't murderers, thieves, slanderers, liers, sex obsessed...
Logically, you could abandon all religions because of their wicked members and become an atheist or agnostic but... within them you'll find the wicked too.
So logically, you could think that there are lots of wicked members in a religion or Christian denomination because their spiritual leaders are false , wicked...
But look at Jesus 2000 years ago. After 3 years of his strenous job, multiple stunning miracles, His best possible example and absolutely true infallible teaching.... only few ( apostle John, Mary and some women ) didn't abandon Him under the cross. Where were the multitudes who experiences His miracles, love?
You could think then that He was a false ineffective teacher too because the results of His work ( in His followers) occured so weak and meaningless.
So the right conclusion must be one - each man is totally free ( free will) to follow the teaching of Christ, independent from their founder (Jesus) and their past or present priests, theology... and the spiritual condition of church members or not belonging to any church Christians can say nothing about their clergy, spiritual leaders or church as an organisation.
It's because almost every man on this earth chooses. I choose this from my religion and reject that. So, in the end, how sinful and wicked one is depends on them personally. Free will.
A Christian should follow only Jesus and not his priests who can be false. Jesus said - follow Me, and not - follow my disciples.
He didn't say about pharisees - don't listen to them. He said - listen to them ( pharisees) but don't imitate them.
Matt 23
,,
1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples:
2 “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.
3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.
1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples:
2 “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.
3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. ,,

So saying how wicked are priests and persuading people that they should leave the Church because of their priests is not listening to what Jesus said about priests hipocrites.

 

Stfu OP.

 

I don't expect the clergy of the Catholic church to be impeccable. However, I do expect them to not sexually abuse children. I don't think that's a big ask.

Like it or not, this has been a systemic problem within Catholicism, in the same way that militant extremism is a systemic problem within Islam.

 

Mr. Eko -

I am a Christian who attends Baptist services and is very active within my church. I am in full agreement with you that we should not judge the Christian faith, or any religion, strictly on the actions of its followers.

The reason I posted that statement you quoted is that Mr. Lightyear was saying that the modern Protestant church is "a spiritual and cultural holocaust", has, in general, been the ruination of the modern western world, and has no sense of anything sacred. My response is that the Catholic church is far from perfect itself.

I believe that in every church there are those who are honest followers of Christ and those who would appear not to be. I don't claim to be able to differentiate. The bible tells us a tree is known by its fruits - and I believe the bible.

It is unfortunate that the rotten fruit brought forth by so many faithless members of all churches is what the world mostly knows us by.

 

Well no shit man, no ones excusing their behavior or making light of it. What they did was disgusting. The cover up was disgusting. They've not only hurt those they've abused and their families, but they've hurt so many who used to trust the clergy, myself included.

 

You need to realize that these people were wolves in sheep's clothing. They sought our institutions such as churches and schools in order to commit their crimes. Institutions such as churches and schools are not so naïve as they once were, and screen applicants heavily now.

 

What do you think of pastor Steven Anderson? What's the opinion of your church about him?

 

I personally doubt that sexual abuse of children among Catholic priests is more frequent than in other Christian denominations done by their priests and pastors. I remember how rushian communist party fought with Rushian Orthodox Church in the twienties and 30s last centuary. They pictured rushian priests as drunkards, sex obsessed greeds , threatening people with hell when they were disobiedent. The communist had even a special magazin ,,bezhboznik,, ( godless person) where the lies were published. The same was done by French revolution and when Hitler governed. The German magazin was called ,, Der Sturmer,, ( attacking soldier) where you could read the same about Catholic clergy.
If you want to destroy a movement , church, organisation or individual person the best means is to show them in the mass media as a sexual pervert and a thief, women hater ( D. Trump), or a homophobe. Next you must repeat this systematically year after year. And it will work. ,,A lie repeated 1000 times becomes truth,, - minister of propaganda Joseph Goebels ( the Third Reich)
And the Jews? How were they shown in occupied Europe by Nazi propaganda - sex obsessed, greedy, filthy... Always the same - sex perverts. It always works.
And now militant Islam.
And who caused the the first and second World War? Resulting in ten milions of victims.
Were this not Protestant and Catholic and Orthodox nations?
And the victims of communism in Cambodia and China - many milions ( the perpetrators weren't Muslims too)
So your opinion is biased not basing on real historical events.

 

I had never heard of him until your post - and I can't claim to speak for my church.

Based on a five minute internet search I just performed it appears that he is a holocaust denier and believes that homosexuals should be put to death. It appears he preached a sermon entitled "why I hate Barack Obama" in which he says he prays for the death of Obama. He also praised the Orlando nightclub shooting and said it was a shame that there were any survivors.

I assume that you realize that this is not the position of the Baptist church in general, right? Personally, I find these positions odious, unbiblical, and contrary to both the letter and spirit of Christ's teachings. I have never heard any of these sentiments expressed at my church in public or private. I believe that the vast majority of Baptist pastors would find his views unbiblical. He appears to be one of those rotten fruits I mentioned in my previous post.

Much like the Catholic church or any Protestant denomination, there is wide variety in what its followers actually believe. I do not personally label myself as a Baptist, and the church I attend is only nominally Baptist. I consider myself merely a follower of Christ.

 

Nonsense. The systemic problem of child abuse by Catholic clergy has been widely reported on at the national level. They even made an award-winning film about the cover-up called Spotlight. You should probably watch that and then come back and tell me I'm wrong.

So that's your evidence? Your personal doubt? You're acting as if the media did a character assassination on the Catholic church. Dude--THOUSANDS of priests have been verified, convicted child molesters. Quit acting like this is just some kind of lie that people believe just because it gets told over and over.

 

So if thousands then you can give me the source. For example sentencies published by courts of law or police reports. Are you ready to write here some internet links excluding illustried gossip newspapers.
The evidence must be reliable, court or police sources once again, because everybody can publish in the net something or even in a newspaper. And I await thousands of examples as you wrote if you don't do ( what I' m sure) this you will be guilty of slandering and you will prove how biased you are.
Remember, thousands (not one hundred) of examples.

 

I think this is false. As I just said above, there have literally been thousands of Catholic priests accused and convicted of child molestation. Thousands. They weren't all sneaky demons looking to use the church to their own depraved ends.

We can draw a parallel to prisoners. The vast majority of long-term prisoners aren't gay--as it happens, gays only make up 2% of the American population. But homosexual sex is rampant in prisons, and why? Because it's the only outlet they have. Now whether it's an expression of sexual energy, or if it's used as a power play is another conversation. But the point is that when you remove women from the equation, otherwise heterosexual men start capitalizing on what's available to them.

This isn't much different than Catholic priests. Priests don't have women available to them because of the 'infallible' church teaching that priests take a vow of celibacy. But you know what is available to them? A steady stream of young boys who serve in mass, putting the priest in a position of authority over them. How can you not connect the dots here?

The vast majority of these men were not pedophiles when they went into seminary (or whatever priests do). They just had repressed appetites that found an avenue for satisfaction. It's horrific, to be sure--but any freshman psychology student could explain the reasoning behind it.

 

ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME???

Clearly you're someone who's got his head deeply buried in the sand on this issue. It'd be like if I said, "show me published, reputable sources that say airplanes hit the World Trade Center on September 11th."

I'm not even going to dignify that question with a response. You're 46 years old. If you can't be bothered to look up sources to literally the biggest religious scandal of the last 30 years on your own, then nothing I present is going to convince you.

Welcome to my ignore list.

 

With all due respect, when someone brings up child molestation in the Catholic church, and another person then refers to the behavior as "less than impeccable," then hell yes, they most certainly are making light of it. Those are the kinds of phrases people use to dismiss and minimize behavior.

 

Where did I say "less than impeccable" as to denote their actions were just a tiny bit under impeccable? I'm not seeing it in anything I've written. Need a napkin to wipe the egg of your face?

 

So, as always no proofs. Only personal opinion taken from todays' ,, bezbozhniks'' and ,, Der Sturmers,,.

 

If you voice such mass accusations agains Catholic priests ( thousands of proved examples) you first must be ready to proove it with reliable sources. Otherwise you are only a slanderer.

 

Thanks. I guess I came to the conclusion that I couldn't call the Bible the Word of God without acknowledging the authority of the Church which compiled the canon through councils declaring which books were inspired and which ones weren't; like the Gospels of Thomas and Peter.

It became clear that without the Church you can't claim to have the full and complete Word of God.