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UPSG -> RE: Condoms in Africa, best you can do ? (3/25/2009 7:20:29 AM)
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ORIGINAL: E2Sweet
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ORIGINAL: UPSG
...male on male rape or sexual abuse is most prevalent in prison, the military, and all boys school.
...The acts committed by the priests who were convicted are no less evil because of the above... The priests in question held positions of trust and respect within their communities and abused that trust by committing sexual assault all while teaching their followers about "morality"... That is troubling to say the least and speaks directly to the credibility of the church itself.
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...the Catholic Church has been handling the problem with a rapidity unseen by the U.S. military or U.S. prisons...
As I recall this only happened when the stories of abuse began to surface in massive numbers and high ranking clergy were being accused of hiding the complaints of abuse and moving the offenders around to keep the complaints as quiet as was possible... That amounts to conspiracy, yes?
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Catholic teaching is against pedophilia and the Pope was a Nazi Youth like I would have almost certainly been one had I been born into the society and era he was. Most people like to imagine they would be heroic, but most of us are not and would not have been....
But you are not the pope. The pope is supposed to be a moral leader. Moral leaders have to possess the moral fortitude to stand up for their... morals...
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...Also, the Popes teenage experience as a Nazi Youth has nothing to do with his views on human sexuality or the Catholic Church teachings on sex. That would be regarded as a logical fallacy...
As I mentioned it speaks to his credibility as a moral leader. If he cannot stand up for the rights of millions who were starved and brutally tortured under the Nazi flag, he simply is not fit to be a moral leader or to teach morality. To me, it's just that simple.
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...But I'm not sure what the presumed celibacy of the Pope - or the Dali Lama for that matter - has to do with moral teaching on sex. Before I ever had sex (I'm no virgin) I knew rape was wrong. The loss of my virginity did not give me any deeper insights into sex or sexual morality - the only thing it did was give me greater knowledge and understanding into the pleasures of sex.
I do not believe that someone who has never had sex can adequately advise anyone else on how to properly maintain a healthy sexual/interpersonal relationship with another human being. They simply will not get it because they do not have any real life experience on all that is involved in the creating and maintaining of that sort of relationship, nor will they have a clear understanding of the moral implications of actively participating in a sexual/interpersonal relationship. I'm sorry but you cannot learn this kind of understanding from a book or via spoken word. To me it's just that simple.
I am not asking you to agree or to disagree with me. I'm simply making my case that, in my opinion, the Catholic church would do well to butt out of sex and morality all together, because it (as an institution) has no moral leg to stand on.
I know what my signature says, but I guess I'm just not feeling all that sweet tonight...[8|]
The Catholic Church is composed of the laity. The laity are in fact those who become nuns, monks, and priests. It has every right to teach morality within its Church.
Pope Benedict XVI was 6 years old when the Nazi's came to power. He did what most young people (not 44 year old men) would do for the protection of his family.
The Catholic Church in fact saved many Jews during WWII (and escaping U.S. POW's as well). So much so even Einstein gave credit to the Catholic Church. When the Germans occupied Rome the Pope gave orders for all the convents to "Help the Jews any way you can." The Vatican itself was full of Jews in hiding. Hundreds if not thousands of them. They were sleeping next to statues in the Vatican there were so many Jews hiding inside the Vatican (and they were dressed as Nuns and Priests throughout the parish churches and convents of Rome).
To fend off the Nazi's all the Vatican had were a hundred or so Swiss Guards (I've read two books on Swiss Guard - oldest military unit in the world but their weapons are largely obsolete, minus perhaps pistols, and they operate more as security even though they are military in rank structure and culture). The Pope had an obligation to non-Jews as well - which included children - and this idea some people have to day that all the Pope had to do was admonish and wag his finger at Hitler and all would have been well in Europe and for Jew is retarded at best. No military force - not the threat nor hundreds of pounds of bombs dropped by the U.S. deterred Adolf Hitler - and Stalin put it best when approached with the question of the Pope. "How many divisions does the Pope have?"
By the way the Catholic Church spoke against both Nazism and Communism. Before Hitler ever got started on the Jews something like 6 million Ukrainians were starved to death by the Communists. Last I checked we made them are allies? How many in the U.S. decried that? How many in the U.S. had to suffer like the Catholic Polish fighting Nazi Germany on one side a Communist Russians on the other?
The United States benefited from Europe being bombed to hell during WWII because we came out untouched and as a literal monopoly of world exports. So, you can spare me the melodramatics of what contemporary secular Americans opine about justice and brotherly love and "doing what's right." Last I checked the United States is the number one polluter in the world and consumes disproportionately the worlds resources. In light of global warming and all the children going hungry in the world, the U.S. has no one to preach to especially since reportedly, the German Catholic Church spends more money on Latin America than the entire U.S. budget for world development.
As far as the sex scandal in the Church. Yes, it can be described as a conspiracy to the extent things were intentionally kept silent and Priests shuffled around. But paid silence is fairly normal in U.S. legal matters - refer to Michael Jackson and the paid silence of one or more child. Rest assure Catholics will take care of it and have in fact began taking care of it with swiftness. This is not the first time the Church has faced problems. Nothing in the world has ever destroyed the Catholic Church - not even the Soviet Union which vowed to destroy it - it has out survived all empires since its birth. As a Bishop many centuries ago famously put it to one person who swore he and his forces would destroy the Catholic Church, "Not even we have been able to do that." No amount of sinners has ever collapsed the Church. No amount. The United States will fall before the Catholic Church will. The Church is too African, too Chinese, to Latino, too everything. This is one of its strengths.
As for the Pope being a "moral leader" I'm not sure about that. I mean yes, you are correct to an extent about that, but not entirely. Becoming Pope does not de facto mean you become beatified a saint in Catholicism. Some Popes are thought to likely be in hell. Catholics have a different understanding of Popes than Protestants have of clergy. In the Protestant mind a religious leader like the Pope should be saintly, should be a sharply dressed, robust figure in a stylish, modern suit. So, I have heard Protestants or Protestant converts to Catholicism complain and speak with confusion why Catholics allow someone old and broken in wheelchair, like Pope John Paul II to still lead them. The two instincts are different.
Protestants frequenlty speak of themselves as "I'm a dirty rag" et cetera. Catholics are not like this. Where Protestants view human nature as corrupt and filty Catholics view it as essentially good. Catholics view good men as having faults and bad men as having virtues. Better yet to understand Catholic thought look to Shakespear. Catholics are the Church of sinners and Protestants are the Church of saints. In the Protestant view every Christian - an invisible church - becomes a saints. In the Catholic view only a rare few Christians become saints.
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