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Church gets an unfair rap | Philadelphia Inquirer | 04/04/2010

Church gets an unfair rap | Philadelphia Inquirer | 04/04/2010

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  1. Father Tim:

    You are far more courageous than I am, in your ability to present objective truth,time and again, in the midst of a firestorm of rhetoric and hyberbole.

    Talk about Blah, Blah, Blah. It is just a bunch of noise from hurting people, who are unable to be healed yet of their own pains.

    I have not personally experienced what you did as a child. However, I have been married for a number of years to the dearest woman in the world, who suffered many years of sexual abuse as a child from someone she trusted. It has taken her much of the last 50 years to recover from the pain, sorrow, and the heartbreak of her broken family, with its dysfunctional life.

    As I admire your courage, I admire hers, and have empathy for the difficulty of the journey to wholeness that you both have been through. As with her, I am sure that your faith in God, a loving God who has saved you for His own purposes of bringing healing to others, is what kept you or made you sane. Your love of God was not diminished even though He allowed people to exercise their free will in ways that brought you and she so much pain and sorrow.

    God Bless You, Father Tim in this most joyous of Christian seasons.

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  2. This could be a very interesting situation. The clergy is rallying around the Pontiff to protect the integrity of the institutional church.

    The question is, who are they protecting it from? If it is only from the MSM and secular society, they have no worries. If, however, it turns out that they are opposing the majority of the Catholic laity, this will be a disaster of unrivaled proportions for the Church.

    The clergy can always count on the support of a select segment of cringing servile laity but no longer command automatic alliegence from the majority, especially as this rift in the church is about the clergy's sexual abuse of the laity's children and that it's been going on perhaps for generations while the clergy is percieved to have reponded in an inadequate manner. This is also happening at a time when an increasingly reactionary clerical leadership is attempting to roll back the liberalization of the church after Vatican II, while denying that such liberalization ever happened.

    Because my biggest issue is with the Catholic Church's ability to force it's archaic codes of moral behavior, misogyny, homophobia and social classism upon society as a whole, I'm rooting for the big rift between outraged pew sitter's and skulking black robes.

    We shall see.

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  3. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/04/AR2010040402726.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

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  4. As a member of what you call the "cringing servile laity", I would take offense if I were thus inclined, but instead I will respond.

    I was a cradle Catholic and left the Church at age 19, because it was IRRELEVANT, or so I thought in my own delusions. For the next decade, I wandered aimlessly, from a spiritual sense. I returned the day I heard the Lord say specifically to me in my kitchen: "Go to Church." Since it was a clear male voice, and now my own, I took it as Gospel.

    I am in love with God, and am journeying to the foot of His Cross, because He has called me there. I practice my faith, with my wife, in the Roman Catholic Church, because we believe that it holds the complete deposit of faith.

    The clerical leadership is hardly reactionary, though they have reacted to many things, not the least of which is a 2010 trumped up scandal, for things that happened in the 60's-80's mainly (not totally), and which the Catholic Church has been dealing with, starting with little traction, to a place where the next guy that puts his johnson where it does not belong is likely to lose it. The same cannot be said for the rest of society.

    Vatican II was not a liberalization of the Church, though it was falsely misinterpreted by many, both inside and outside, to be that. If you can read the documents of that counsel and come to that conclusion, you should read them again.

    The problem in the Catholic Church is not the archaic codes of moral behaviour, but that the world has taken on standards of moral behaviour that are demeaning to the people. Free love is anything but free, and being able to use your johnson as a pull toy is not improving our self esteem or joy.

    Misogyny is an interesting term for an outsider to apply to the Church and implies not reading Church teachings, but listening to pundits and adversaries of the Church. To hate women properly, the Church would have to kick Mary out, and all that she means to us, in our practices, and beliefs about her as the Mother of God. That the Church will not ordain women, but sees them in the special place that they have as mothers, wives, and teachers within their families, is not misogynist, but uplifting, (except in our society that wants women to be better men than men are).

    Homophobia is yet another interesting term. The Church says that it does not understand same sex attraction. It states that sexual relations between same sex people is abhorrent. It says the same about opposite sex sexual relations outside of marriage. Having had sexual relations outside marriage at another time in my life, and looking back now, I agree that it is abhorrent, and feel sorrow that I participated in the delusion of the sexual revolution.

    Now, you are adding a link to an article for what purpose?

    The writer of the Washington Post article, Timothy Shriver, is the son of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, one of those KENNEDY's. He is a nephew of JFK, and Bobbie, and Ted.

    So though he may have a strong faith, and wrote a thoughtful article, it has behind it his own family history, with its own scandal and shame, and joy. It says much, but proves nothing.

    Does the Pope need to experience conversion? Probably, just like the rest of us daily do, including the cardinals and bishops, and our priests, including Father Tim. Oh, count you and me in that as well.

    That is the mystery of faith in Jesus Christ. He calls us all to daily draw closer to Him and to His Cross in our lives. Some days are good days; some are not. It is all about personal conversion.

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  5. reddog: With all due respect bud, how could you expect me to accept any argument that concludes as follows:

    "But this is Altargate. The hierarchy, not the faith, is in jeopardy. The pope need not resign. He must do something far more difficult: convert."
    (Timothy Shriver)

    Fr. Tim

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  6. Michael: My life path was identical to yours... with just ages between us. I used to be smart and actually graduated with my first Bachelors degree when I was 19 yrs old. At that time, I was already living in a common law relationship. When God spoke His love to me one winters' eve, he set me on a path that led me back to church and eventually to the priesthood by the age of 30.

    God is indeed very good. He most certainly is present and active in His Holy Roman Catholic Church and I revel each day in the joy of being a priest, ordained in His image.

    He is Risen... He is Risen indeed!

    Fr. Tim

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  7. God's grace is sufficient.

    What a season to be reminded that God loves us so very much, that He pursues us to the ends of our ropes. Then, rather than leaving us hanging, redeems us.

    Hell hath no fury, like a sinner redeemed (to paraphrase another line).

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  8. Why should you have any opinion about what I or any non Catholic do with my Johnson, in my own time and place? The doctrine of "free love", simply refers to a woman's right of consent to marriage, which under Catholic doctrine, is a chattel relationship. Real radical idea.

    I'm still the only one saying here that the Church doesn't have the right to shove its natural law down the throats of the gentiles.

    The Catholic Church is and remains the enemy of American freedom and democracy.

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  9. "Free love is anything but free, and being able to use your johnson as a pull toy is not improving our self esteem or joy."

    I have to love a language in which the same word not only has two different meanings, but both are used and misused with impunity in the same sentence by those who really should know better -- and do it anyway.

    In the term free love, "free" means "without reservation." In the other sense, it means "without cost." There is no way you can equate the two terms, but I'll bet most people will allow such confusion to stand unopposed. No wonder people don't understand one another!

    And as for one's johnson...it is my understanding that "using it as a pull toy" has never been meant for anyone else's benefit, never mind "self-esteem" or joy. But I do love your imagery... ;D

    "That the Church will not ordain women, but sees them in the special place that they have as mothers, wives, and teachers within their families, is not misogynist, but uplifting..."

    ...for those who are content that such is so. But there is a world full of women who are not content with being so "special." They regard such "special" status as being little less than brood mares for a cause not necessarily their own. They want to be priests in their own right. And why should they not?

    "The Church says that it does not understand same sex attraction. It states that sexual relations between same sex people is abhorrent."

    Interesting that you placed those two sentences right next to each other, because in doing so, you are essentially stating that you agree with the justification that it's okay to demonize what you don't understand. It doesn't surprise me. It does disappoint me.

    "I'm still the only one saying here that the Church doesn't have the right to shove its natural law down the throats of the gentiles."

    No, you're not. You're just the only one who's saying it quite so bluntly. ;D

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  10. OK. Black is Black

    Your turn. ;D

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  11. How amazing that so many today are building their house on the sand of false religion. They reject the Holy Scriptures as God's final, complete, and inerrant revelation to mankind, and want to add the religious inventions (traditions) of men.

    Jesus said "Whosoever cometh to me and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like:

    He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock.

    But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great." Luke ch6 vs47-49.

    What are you building on?

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  12. MBrandon said

    "That is the mystery of faith in Jesus Christ. He calls us all to daily draw closer to Him and to His Cross in our lives. Some days are good days; some are not. It is all about personal conversion."

    Is there such a thing as daily conversion or is that another invention of men?

    Jesus said "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." John 6:37

    "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life." John 6:47

    Did the New Testament christians believe that once they believed in Christ that they had everlasting life and would never lose it? Or did they think they needed to be regularly converted over and over again?

    "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." John ch10 vs27-29

    Is salvation entirely of the Lord? Or does it depend on man to keep himself saved by his own efforts? What did Jesus teach in these verses?

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  13. Wayne:

    You are not bad at quoting scripture. Try looking at the original Greek for some inspiration, and then contemplate how the Christian Church got the bible in the first place.

    Your humility needs a little work.

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