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FWIW:

I don't hate the RCC per se, though I greatly disagree with it on certain things, and think it's gravely mistaken about some things.

IMHO, it doesn't help discussion nor understanding (even on this board) when Ship's fierce defenders of the RCC say that those who disagree are stupid, willfully ignorant, abusers themselves (if I correctly read an implication), hate the RCC, etc. IMVHO, it doesn't help the RCC cause--it *looks* like stonewalling and/or fear.

As I said at the beginning of the thread, my reaction was the same as Seeker's; but (and this is no reflection on Seeker), I did some extra looking, even on the Vatican site, before I posted anything.

I've held back a great many fierce things I could say. So please at least hear me out in good faith. Thanks.

--ISTM that any good and fair justice system would have equal penalties for crimes of equal severity. If that doesn't happen, then something is very off.

The US legal system is really, really messed up. ISTM that the Vatican one is, too.


--Of COURSE, it looks like the RCC is equating OOW and abuse. Look at the Norme quote I put just below the OP. They're in the same class (grave delicta), and OOW seems to have a harsher sentence. Whether they mean it or not, I don't know. If they truly have no clue about how this looks to the non-RC world (and a good many RCs, I think), then they need to be educated and to hire a very very good PR firm to advise them. If they simply don't care how they're perceived...I don't know what do do with them.

--Re the discussion about the same penalty for both rape and murder: Duo, I think, commented that no one in their right mind would think that the two crimes are morally equivalent, because the rape survivor is still alive and has a chance at a life.

But abuse and rape kill part of you. They fill you with pain, weigh you down. Often, you have to fight and fight and fight to survive your post-abuse/rape life. They can drive you to suicide, to insanity, to murder, even to abuse and rape. People who've been abused and/or raped are likely (at some point, and maybe always) to want the perpetrator to endure torture, death, and the worst of hell with no refrigerium (break).

So, at least in moments of pain and the deep weariness that comes from fighting the fallout every day, many people would think they're morally equivalent...and may wish they HAD been killed.

I'm not saying that's good or right; I'm just addressing that very broad brushstroke of Duo's.

***To all victims and survivors out there: please find people to help you heal; and please, please don't give up.***

--I'm very pro OOW, and I think that the RCC's dismissal of women and criminalization of OOW is a grave delict all its own. Making it the same level of crime as abuse means they don't understand either one.

{Feeds the ghost horsie and sends it on its way.}

--My understanding is they haven't said that abusers must be reported to secular authorities, despite what someone said. This is from the Huffington Post article I linked to earlier:

quote:

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But the new rules make no mention of the need for bishops to report clerical sex abuse to police, provide no canonical sanctions for bishops who cover up for abusers, and do not include any "zero tolerance" policy for pedophile priests as demanded by some victims.

"The first thing the church should be doing is reporting crimes to civil authorities," said Andrew Madden, a former Dublin altar boy who filed the first public abuse lawsuit against the church in Ireland in 1995.

"That's far, far more important than deciding whether a criminal priest should be defrocked or not," he told The Associated Press in Dublin. "The church's internal rules are no more important than the rules of your local golf club."

Scicluna defended the absence of any mention of the need to report abuse to police, saying all Christians were required to obey civil laws that would already demand sex crimes be reported.

The Vatican noted that bishops were reminded of this duty in a set of informal guidelines issued earlier this year and that its Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles sex crime allegations, was working with bishops' conferences around the world to develop more "rigorous, coherent and effective" guidelines.

"If civil law requires you report, you must obey civil law," Scicluna said. But "it's not for canonical legislation to get itself involved with civil law."

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To me, that seems to be from the "Don't Get It and/or Don't Care" department. At *best*, I think they're still caught in a Renaissance Church vs. all the secular powers battle.

If the Norme had said "all allegations and suspicions of abuse MUST be reported IMMEDIATELY to law enforcement and Child Protective Services, no ifs, ands, or buts, and you WILL face excommunication and other Church sanctions if you violate that",...then the world's response would've been far different. There would have been relief and celebration, the OOW bit would've had many people but there wouldn't be the mess there is now.

Sometimes, I wonder if they're trying to nuke the Church from the inside.



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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")

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Originally posted by Golden Key:

any good and fair justice system would have equal penalties for crimes of equal severity.

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Posted                       

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Originally posted by Golden Key:
If you look at the Vatican site excerpt I posted on the first page, you'll see that they're both considered the same *class* of crime.

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Originally posted by Yorick:
I was specifically addressing the criticism that the RCC punishes both OoW and paedophilia with excommunication

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
I was specifically addressing the criticism that the RCC punishes both OoW and paedophilia with excommunication

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Which isn't true anyway. Child abusers don't get automatically excommunicated, which would seem to indicate that it's a lesser crime than OOW.

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...which, actually, is what I said.

--------------------
Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
... which would seem to indicate...

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Originally posted by Yorick:
Really? Seriously? So how do you account for this colossal ignorance, and what does it say about the essential nature of the RCC organisation?

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Originally posted by Golden Key:
My understanding is they haven't said that abusers must be reported to secular authorities, despite what someone said.

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Originally posted by Yorick:
How should the RCC punish paedophilia, if they punish OoW by excommunication? Hanging? Firing squad? What?

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Seeker963:
Let's all tell our friends who have been sexually molested as children that the people who hurt them deserve equal or less punishment than the people who ordain women.

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Why should we lie to them? Perhaps you missed the point where the child molester, in addition to ecclesial penalties, has to face legal action as well? Perhaps you didn't understand the part about maximum penalties not distinguishing between different crimes that get the maximum penalty, but that doesn't mean the offenses are felt to be equally bad?

You were right before when you implied you had nothing constructive to add to the conversation.

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Oh yes, I guess you must be talking about the bit where the Church:

* Didn't move people it found to be paedophiles into new posts;
* Excommunicated them once proven guilty;
* Didn't enthusiastically investigate those involved in the OOW;
* Didn't enthusiastically investigate any woman suspected of being a "feminist".

Oh, you are right. The twists and turns of legal niceties on paper are what matter. The beahaviour of people in applying that written law matters not one jot. Just because a group enthusiastically pursues folk involved in the OOW and gives second and third chances to proven padeophile priests doesn't inply anything at all about its attitude toward the two groups.

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"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Child abusers don't get automatically excommunicated, which would seem to indicate that it's a lesser crime than OOW.

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Originally posted by Yorick:

quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
... which would seem to indicate...

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And there's the rub.

People see all sorts of things they want to see. It's not so much the seeing, it's the wanting.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
Sigh. To repeat, the RCC does not(*) punish immoral behavior with automatic excommunication. Because that would take away the access to the sacrament of confession. It "punishes" people that have left the sacramental and/or ecclesial order of the Church with automatic excommunication, i.e., it simply makes official from the Church's side what these people have brought about by their words and deeds already (in the judgment of the Church).

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
which is the crime that is so severe that it merits being cast out of the institution and deprived of the assurance of salvation, and which is the one that isn't?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:

quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
which is the crime that is so severe that it merits being cast out of the institution and deprived of the assurance of salvation, and which is the one that isn't?

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According to the RCC they both are, but, again, one more fucking time, that, in and of itself, does not mean the RCC sees both crimes as equally severe. Can you see that?

The question of whether the punishments fit the crimes is entirely separate from the question of whether the RCC see those crimes as equal based on its equal punishment of both.

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Because what you're saying, in the light of my last (crossposted) post, is that it's far more severe and threatening to one's eternal salvation to go against sacramental/ecclesial order than it is to commit any number of acts of even totally depraved immorality.

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quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Because what you're saying, in the light of my last (crossposted) post, is that it's far more severe and threatening to one's eternal salvation to go against sacramental/ecclesial order than it is to commit any number of acts of even totally depraved immorality.

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Well, no. What the Church is saying is that she cannot help you avoiding eternal damnation if you refuse her ecclesial order and in particular her sacramental system. Whether you will go to hell over this is a different matter (the RCC has never declared that any particular person is in hell). It's like being seriously sick and going to the hospital, but then steadfastly disobeying the doctors and refusing all treatment. If the hospital eventually kicks you out, it has nothing to do with their judgment of the severity of your illness. It has to do with making you realize that if you want help from the hospital, it will have to be on the terms of the hospital! Using the same analogy for child abusers: just because somebody has a serious and seriously disgusting illness, perhaps parasitic worm infestation, does not mean that the hospital should kick them out. Rather it should do its job and try its best to cure them...

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Originally posted by IngoB:
It's like being seriously sick and going to the hospital, but then steadfastly disobeying the doctors and refusing all treatment.

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
It's like being seriously sick and going to the hospital, but then steadfastly disobeying the doctors and refusing all treatment.

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Seems to me that it's more like the doctors refusing to use certain treatments, and kicking out any patients that request them.

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Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
Really? Seriously? So how do you account for this colossal ignorance, and what does it say about the essential nature of the RCC organisation?

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Yeah, really, seriously. I see no particular surprise in any of this. The RCC central organization has always been decidedly human, and Italian human for the most part. <<SNIP>>

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
Yes and no. Limiting the priesthood to celibate males may be...er...limiting, but it doesn't necessarily have to mean that said priests are hopelessly out of touch. For example, our local Catholic parish priest has a married sister and school-age nieces and nephews whom he says pretty frequently, so he is aware, albeit indirectly, of something of the stresses and strains, joys and griefs of family life.

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Posted                          

quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
I was specifically addressing the criticism that the RCC punishes both OoW and paedophilia with excommunication

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Which isn't true anyway. Child abusers don't get automatically excommunicated, which would seem to indicate that it's a lesser crime than OOW.

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Originally posted by Apocalypso:

An institution whose dome is supported solely by men is going to have trouble communicating effectively with a world where women hold up half the sky.

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Child abusers don't get automatically excommunicated, which would seem to indicate that it's a lesser crime than OOW.

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Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
It would be dangerous to do so [i.e., prefer the struction of the physical body to the damnation of the soul], for there is no sign that the understanding in the Bible separates the soul from the body in such a way that allows that distinction to be maintained. After all our risen Lord bears the marks of crucifixion. What happens to the body, happens to the soul as well.

Jengie

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Originally posted by Boogie:
Well said Apocalypso - but WHY do people continue to listen to these ivory tower men?

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Originally posted by sabine:
The disconnect between Rome and the millions of RCs around the world is troubling.

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:

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Originally posted by Boogie:
Well said Apocalypso - but WHY do people continue to listen to these ivory tower men?

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Just to annoy the shitting-crikey out of you, Boogie. No other reason.

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Originally posted by sabine:

quote:

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Originally posted by Apocalypso:

An institution whose dome is supported solely by men is going to have trouble communicating effectively with a world where women hold up half the sky.

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Indeed! Best sentence in this whole thread.

I admit that the RCs I know are liberal and more engaged in the faith as it relates to them on a parish level and on a relationship-with-God level than they are in how Rome manages to make things difficult.

One couple told me poignantly that they think the RCC will split sometime--maybe not in their lifetime, but at some point. They hope that can be avoided, but believe that many in Rome are out of touch and digging in their heels.

They also think it would take just one radical bishop to ordain a woman for the split to begin.

They feel very sad about the current state of affairs since they are life-long Catholics from families which have been Catholic for centuries. They feel there is much about their faith that is good and helpful to them personally, but the disconnect between Rome and the millions of RCs around the world is troubling.

sabine

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Because of course there aren't enough Protestant denominations already...


Why not just join one of the ones that already exist instead of trying to reinvent the wheel for the umpteenth time?

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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:

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Originally posted by sabine:
The disconnect between Rome and the millions of RCs around the world is troubling.

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First, I call bullshit on the "millions" of RCs throughout the world yearning for the OoWP to the point of defying (or even seriously contemplating defying) the Church's teaching about that. Don't suppose you can substantiate that any, eh?

Secondly, it is precisely the disconnect between the official magisterium and the perceptions of ultra-liberal (often ill-catechised, almost exclusively first-world) Catholics that "Rome" is trying to fix with clarificatory and disciplinary measures like the one we've been discussing for the last five pages. But it is precisely these off-kilter Catholics who criticise "Rome" for attempting to do so - because it isn't on their terms. Ah well.

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Boogie offers us this thigh-slapper:
I have always said I love the RC Church and would convert if it weren't for the priests and the Pope.

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
First, I call bullshit on the "millions" of RCs throughout the world yearning for the OoWP

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:

quote:

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Boogie offers us this thigh-slapper:
I have always said I love the RC Church and would convert if it weren't for the priests and the Pope.

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Boogie, thank you for sharing this colossally ignorant expression of love of 'Catholicism,' whatever that soft-focus word may may mean for you.

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You are welcome

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Garden. Room. Walk

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Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
Now you probably want to apply some discount for your statement "to the point of defying (or even seriously contemplating defying) the Church's teaching about that," but I doubt you can achieve your aim of 'fewer than millions.' Especially given the widespread defiant acts of artificial contraception among US Roman Catholics.

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I deplore the breathless indignation as much as you, but this claim hardly seems hyperbolic.

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Okay, I'll meet you halfway - I'll drop the first two syllables if I can keep the last two.... and add an "s".

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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."

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As for being equal in the eyes of God. You are. The Church already proclaims that everyday in the Gospel.

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That and $2something will get you a tall latte at Starbucks.

And during the era of Jim Crow "separate but equal" was peachy keen. The black folk liked it that way.

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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
And during the era of Jim Crow "separate but equal" was peachy keen. The black folk liked it that way.

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“separate but equal” Is that the same as ‘Equal but Different’?

So I guess…

women like it that way?



S-E

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"Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."
David Hume