All Non-Roman Catholics are Heathens

[Coriolis]

They are created whether I read them or not and that's what disappoints me.

Could you imagine the same sorts of threads being created about "The Jews", for instance, no? I'd hope not.

I wonder how long it'll take for roman catholics to be afforded the same respect as a community as opposed to being thought of as minions of an evil villainous institution? The cartoonish picture is intentional but the matter's serious enough.

We have seen plenty of threads like this about Muslims, so Catholics and other Christians hardly have a monopoly on it. In any case, I don't see anything wrong with a thread that is critical of a religious group, provided the discussion is civil and supported by facts.

As for Catholics and meat, they don't abstain as a rule, just on certain days. It used to be every Friday, plus some extra days during Lent and perhaps Advent (can't remember exactly), but now it is no longer required on every Friday, though some people may continue to observe that on their own. It was silly really - supposed to be a penance, to give up meat, but then you had the wealthy eating lobster and shrimp, and the poor often unable to afford meat on a regular basis anyway.

 

[Rambling]

Yeah, I'm gonna need book, chapter and verse on this one. I know the NT mentions "the Holy Spirit would give the apostles utterance on what to say" but I think that's a far cry from thinking everything out of a man's lips regarding any subject would be infallible.

[MENTION=690]Zaerne[/MENTION] Papal infallibility is a claim the pope made within the last couple of centuries only, and it referred only to when he was making public announcements of a particular, official kind. As I remember my church history course, it's only actually been used in two statements in total, of which the first was the statement at the First Varican Council when it was first stated to be true, and the second was a statement of something about
The Assumption of Mary.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility

 

[Rambling]

anyone ever appreciated the irony that when poeple are about to die in the operating room their relatives are soothed by the doctor's technical desriptions of the patient's condition which supposedly signifies the professionalism and competence of the doctor and the technical talk being - incidentally - in latin?

Onkaimeon, and all that...

 

[Rambling]

How the Roman Catholic Institution gets to make statement regarding morals is beyond me. (how they get to exist tax free is beyond me too!)

"The evidence speaks for itself: Last spring, Law admitted in a deposition that he was aware that John Geoghan had reportedly raped at least seven young boys in 1984 yet nevertheless approved the transfer of Geoghan to another parish, working with other boys. Other documents revealed that Law similarly knew of and ignored decades of reported child abuse by Paul Shanley, placing Shanley in ministries with access to other children. Shanley is currently facing trial on 10 charges of child rape and six counts of indecent assault and battery. Law is jetting back and forth to Rome.

Throughout his tenure, Law seemed to reserve his warmest sympathy for the abusers, not the victims. He lied to a West Coast bishop about Shanley's history. He signed a document attesting that another known child-molesting priest, Redmond Raux, had "nothing in his background" to make him "unsuitable to work with children." Last week, more court documents revealed that the archdiocese gave new jobs to two priests, one of whom was known to have molested boys while the other had supplied cocaine to a teenage lover. Law's responses to these and earlier disclosures? The molesters had been cleared by physicians; the church kept bad records; his subordinates vetted the transfers; he forgot; he never knew; he's sorry. "
But why isn't Bernard Law in jail? (Part 2) - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine

Of course you should promote people for such behaviour?!?!?!?!
"In December of 2002, Cardinal Law decided to resign for the good of the Church. He moved out of the $20 million three story church –owned house in which he had humbly lived in a manner befitting a man of the cloth. He moved to Clinton, Md. where he brought comfort to the Sisters of Mercy of Alma by serving as their chaplain. For a man of his stature that was a modest post and in 2004 it was reported that he was being rewarded for his years of faithful service by being made the archpriest of St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome, one of the four most important basilicas in that city. A Vatican spokesman said he would “be in charge of the administration of the priests and anything related to the basilica.”
Cardinal Bernard Law: From Glory to Glory

I recently read the 1995 book Sex Priests and Power by Sade. The statistics on this kind of behaviour, victim stories and other evidence are thoroughly researched over thirty years by Sade, and Sade's explanations and reconstructions of some kinds of behaviours within the celibate hierarchical male structures are solidly grounded psychologically and behaviourally as well as evidentially supported.

 

[Thalassa]

Hmm, I dont see things as you do.

Its such a narrow view too. Although whatever works for you.

Are you being intentionally vague?

 

[Thalassa]

They are created whether I read them or not and that's what disappoints me.

Could you imagine the same sorts of threads being created about "The Jews", for instance, no? I'd hope not.

I wonder how long it'll take for roman catholics to be afforded the same respect as a community as opposed to being thought of as minions of an evil villainous institution? The cartoonish picture is intentional but the matter's serious enough.

I'm one of the few people who didn't accuse the RCC of being an institution of evil, and who has quite explicitly stated I think American Evangelical Christians would gain a great deal of spiritual growth from some of the learned wisdom of Catholics. I would probably be RCC if they didn't deny communion to believing Christians who didn't shake their left foot all about. Yes, convict them of their lack of love or thoughtlessness, but to deny people communion isn't very Christian.

 

[Thalassa]

Details, please? (All I can think of is the joke from Mad Magazine where a guy impersonating an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi gets outed when he orders a bacon cheeseburger...)

Catholics have long fasted, so does the Orthodox church - from carne, carne being flesh like pig or cattle, which was seen as a luxury and as a fact should still be. ..since farming pigs and cows wastes tremendous amounts of fresh water, land and grain. Meat is the second greatest cause of global warming, and cattle farmers in particular are principally responsible for destruction of much of the rain forest....there is also a direct correlation between the Western gluttony surrounding meat and global starvation...Catholics had Meat Free Monday back when it was Friday. Major props to them for that...the money saved from fasting was originally intended to help feed, house or clothe the poor.

Catholics are pretty smart. So are Jews. The Israeli army now has vegan options and it's been called the "new Kosher" by some, for ethical reasons.

I'm also pretty resistant to any protestant who tries to throw the "it's not what goes into the mouth which defilith"...because what's in their hearts is selfishness, greed, gluttony and/or violence, so that's no scriptural defense for callousness towards the poor, cruelty towards foreigners and animals, personal gluttony or cultural greed

From this vantage point I can begin to understand why Catholics think protestants are all heathens, especially in the United States where Evangelicals openly embrace prosperity gospel, along with willful ignorance gospel, and utter disrespect for God's Creation gospel.

However, there are different sorts of protestants, including 7th Day Adventists, the Christian Vegetarian Association and Evangelical Stewardship movement which resist the culture of gluttony and greed.

So I'm not supporting the "everybody heathen" view, but I can totally see where it comes from.

 

[Thalassa]

We have seen plenty of threads like this about Muslims, so Catholics and other Christians hardly have a monopoly on it. In any case, I don't see anything wrong with a thread that is critical of a religious group, provided the discussion is civil and supported by facts.

As for Catholics and meat, they don't abstain as a rule, just on certain days. It used to be every Friday, plus some extra days during Lent and perhaps Advent (can't remember exactly), but now it is no longer required on every Friday, though some people may continue to observe that on their own. It was silly really - supposed to be a penance, to give up meat, but then you had the wealthy eating lobster and shrimp, and the poor often unable to afford meat on a regular basis anyway.

It's not "silly"...in fact I am flabbergasted as an INTJ you don't understand the global problem with meat production, and as a former Catholic you aren't aware in Laudato Si Pope Francis calls for Catholics to eat less meat and criticizes the link between greed and gluttony and the poor - he also criticizes the blatant cruelty of factory farming.

If everyone, like hard core Catholics, abstained from meat once per week - similar to meat free Monday - and went 40 days every year without it at all, like in old school days, we wouldn't be in the predictament we are in. I never said Catholics are vegetarians as a rule, but they understand things, and understood them LONG before Western secular people, who are only now grudgingly listening to the UN.

There is actually no major religion on earth that condones unrestrained meat gluttony, or blatant animal cruelty.

It only seems silly if you can't see the big picture. Jews and Muslims were also very onto something with pork - seeing how rotten it is for human health and how scientists now know pigs are as smart as domestic housepets, and three year old children, eating pork seems absolutely diabolical.

It doesn't matter why, it matters that on some level, these popes and priests KNEW there was a reason to limit meat consumption. ..and now in the 21st century a bunch of scientifically minded people are begging the consumer society to do the same thing, except now it's almost too late...then it was a preventative measure. A mystery. ..a mystery that we have unfortunately "solved"...it's called Natural Law. Natural Law is, was, and always will be, no matter how arrogant man gets about his own might, just look at man killing the very earth he lives upon.

 

[Coriolis]

It's not "silly"...in fact I am flabbergasted as an INTJ you don't understand the global problem with meat production, and as a former Catholic you aren't aware in Laudato Si Pope Francis calls for Catholics to eat less meat and criticizes the link between greed and gluttony and the poor - he also criticizes the blatant cruelty of factory farming.

If everyone, like hard core Catholics, abstained from meat once per week - similar to meat free Monday - and went 40 days every year without it at all, like in old school days, we wouldn't be in the predictament we are in. I never said Catholics are vegetarians as a rule, but they understand things, and understood them LONG before Western secular people, who are only now grudgingly listening to the UN.

There is actually no major religion on earth that condones unrestrained meat gluttony, or blatant animal cruelty.

It only seems silly if you can't see the big picture. Jews and Muslims were also very onto something with pork - seeing how rotten it is for human health and how scientists now know pigs are as smart as domestic housepets, and three year old children, eating pork seems absolutely diabolical.

It doesn't matter why, it matters that on some level, these popes and priests KNEW there was a reason to limit meat consumption. ..and now in the 21st century a bunch of scientifically minded people are begging the consumer society to do the same thing, except now it's almost too late...then it was a preventative measure. A mystery. ..a mystery that we have unfortunately "solved"...it's called Natural Law. Natural Law is, was, and always will be, no matter how arrogant man gets about his own might, just look at man killing the very earth he lives upon.

You clearly missed the point of my post. It is not about the merits of eating less meat for health or environmental reasons, but rather about hypocrisy, something that always sticks out like a sore thumb to the average INTJ . No, those clerics of old knew nothing of these reasons, though they were surely familiar with the reality that eating meat on a regular basis was out of the reach of the poor. The purpose of abstaining from meat, as with fasting, was penance and self-discipline. This purpose is defeated entirely when one substitutes high end seafoods, as Catholics of means have always been able to do.

Moreover, while I have a fair amount of respect for Pope Francis, I certainly don't make it a point to read every official pronouncement he makes. For that matter, while I was still a Catholic, I heard very little of such things. I grew up in one of the largest parishes in the suburbs of a major US city, attended religious education faithfully, and was taught precious little about the history and doctrine of my own church. I actually learned more about this while attending a very secular university. The church threw the baby out with the bathwater in Vatican II, and this was part of the result.

 

[violet_crown]

Wasn't news in 2007 and not news today.

"Of course the heathens are heathens. How is this news?"

 

[Beorn]

"Of course the heathens are heathens. How is this news?"

Well... yeah.

That's the definition.

heath·en
ˈhēT͟Hən/
nounderogatory
noun: heathen; plural noun: heathens

1.
a person who does not belong to a widely held religion (especially one who is not a Christian, Jew, or Muslim) as regarded by those who do.

 

[Thalassa]

You clearly missed the point of my post. It is not about the merits of eating less meat for health or environmental reasons, but rather about hypocrisy, something that always sticks out like a sore thumb to the average INTJ . No, those clerics of old knew nothing of these reasons, though they were surely familiar with the reality that eating meat on a regular basis was out of the reach of the poor. The purpose of abstaining from meat, as with fasting, was penance and self-discipline. This purpose is defeated entirely when one substitutes high end seafoods, as Catholics of means have always been able to do.

Moreover, while I have a fair amount of respect for Pope Francis, I certainly don't make it a point to read every official pronouncement he makes. For that matter, while I was still a Catholic, I heard very little of such things. I grew up in one of the largest parishes in the suburbs of a major US city, attended religious education faithfully, and was taught precious little about the history and doctrine of my own church. I actually learned more about this while attending a very secular university. The church threw the baby out with the bathwater in Vatican II, and this was part of the result.

So you were a "cultural Catholic"?

Laudato Si is brilliant....as for lobster and prawns. ..in some areas, and time periods, lobster and shrimp were very affordable. ..maybe not so much in 20th century Boston or wherever you were raised...but in coastal places, like the Mediterranean and British Isles, and in places like Maine, those are not necessarily high end pricey seafoods. In fact let's reflect on the historic reasons people would have even started consuming bottom feeders, and the insects of the sea. It was once the same with escargot. ..snails were easier for the poor provincial people to get than animal flesh.

The fact still remains, the actual end result was the same - people ate less of the very animals which are destroying the earth today as livestock. And yes if people practiced the same thing today, as discipline or self control, for the idea of helping the poor, the end result would be common good. It doesn't matter what the details were - the end result is clearly more Divine.

There's a reason gluttony is a sin, and we are seeing that in the world today. It's mind blowing. I'm sorry you don't get it.