(no subject)

[iftsiga]

Of interest to a few of you: Vatican to bar homosexual priests: NYT (whether you're some form of alternative Catholic or simply from a "look at the new fundie pope go, next he'll excommunicate women who have orgasms in marriage, ha ha" standpoint.)

Comments

[simmeringhatred.livejournal.com]

You mean there are already homosexuals in the Catholic priesthood? When did that happen?
How is his new popeness going to prove he just doesnt get it next?

[xauenmurph.livejournal.com]

So you don't reckon that Catholics should expect any medieval crap they can get and since the premise is that the Pope is Gawd's direct representative on earth, anyone who wants to be Catholic has to take it as a package deal/his edicts as flawless?

[simmeringhatred.livejournal.com]

This is aparently a sticking point with my view of Catholics and 'everyone' elses view of Catholics. Id say that since being a member of the church absolutely requires you to follow and believe all the dumb edicts that the papal See can throw out, you more or less have to accept what you get. If someone doesnt do what his Popeness says, or doesnt believe what they are called to believe, this makes them bad Catholics.
To quote Irish socialist Eamonn McCann (paraphrase) "The Church needs to stop clamping down on single mothers and people who want an abortion, and start clamping down on the kind of pub Catholic who says that "Its all very well to talk of papal infalibility, but ones faith and religion should be a private matter between the individual and God." This is not Catholicism; this is Protestantism. I seem to recall there was quite a hoo-hah about the distinction at one time."
Whenever i voice this opinion to most people, Catholic or not, they tell me I am very small minded and you can be a Catholic without believing in all of that nonsense, which, call me small minded, seems to miss the point of the Catholic church.
I am not all that surprised when this (or the last) asshole who claims to be Gods big fella comes out with a "new" idea that proves what an utter shit he is- what does continue to surprise me is the incredulity expressed by so-called reasonable people at said idea. I get the whole "you cant reform something you love from the outside" part, but that misses the point that the church is a "perpetual mendicant" that needs its supporters more than they need it (noe of that heaven/hell salvation/damnation horseshit actually being true). If people start to leave the church (all churches) will first whine and moan about fair-weather believers, then when they feel the pinch, change their eternal truths to fit the modern age and keep the money flowing.

[xauenmurph.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see all ass-backwards medieval and fundamentalist religions alienate large numbers of followers, but it doesn't seem to function to keep them starved down to harmless size, sadly.

[simmeringhatred.livejournal.com]

Mainly because people feel like they owe the church something, usually both their fealty and their cash. Partly fear of hell, party fear of social exclusion, party intellectual laziness I guess.

[xauenmurph.livejournal.com]

Benedict really is a man of the third century. (http://www.totalcatholic.com/universe/index.php?news_id=111&start=0&category_id=&parent_id=0&arcyear=&arcmonth=)

[simmeringhatred.livejournal.com]

Whoo hoo hoo.
It reminds me of that Onion article about the church repealing the third law of thermodynamics.
Youd have to have faith to stomach all that shit.

[xauenmurph.livejournal.com]

And a flaming hypocrite. And immune to prosecution!

U.S. Asks Court to Dismiss Abuse Suit That Names Pope

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 21, 2005

By The Associated Press The Justice Department has told a Texas court that a lawsuit accusing Pope Benedict XVI of conspiring to cover up the sexual molestation of three boys by a seminarian should be dismissed because the pontiff enjoys immunity as head of state of the Holy See.

In a filing on Monday, Peter Keisler, an assistant United States attorney, said that allowing the lawsuit to proceed would be "incompatible with the United States' foreign policy interests."

There was no immediate ruling from Judge Lee Rosenthal of the Federal District Court in Houston. But American courts have been bound by such "suggestion of immunity" motions submitted by the government, Mr. Keisler's filing says.

A 1994 lawsuit against Pope John Paul II, also filed in Texas, was dismissed after the federal government filed a motion similar to the one filed by Mr. Keisler.

Mr. Keisler's motion had been expected, because the Vatican Embassy in Washington had asked the United States government to issue the immunity suggestion and do everything it could to have the case dismissed.

The pope, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was named as a defendant in a civil lawsuit by three plaintiffs who say that Juan Carlos Patino-Arango, a Colombian-born seminarian on assignment at St. Francis de Sales church in Houston, molested them during counseling sessions in the church in the mid-1990's.

Mr. Patino-Arango has been indicted in a criminal case by a grand jury in Harris County, Tex., and is currently a fugitive.

[simmeringhatred.livejournal.com]

This is part of the reason why they wanted the Vatigans status upgraded to "independent state". It was a way of forstalling integration into the modern world and its banking systems in return for mumbling some magic over Mussolini and the fascists.
The court should argue that the suit was filed on Ratzinger before he was Pope, and that the US constitution does not recognise religious title as setting anyone apart from anyone else. The case will still get thrown out- no-one likes to upset a jesus freak (or twenty million) anymore, no matter what denomination.