Posted on 10/27/2023 4:45:50 PM PDT by Hieronymus
My math is quite strong—the question is how strong are my estimates underlying the math. (My first degree is in economics, second in philosophy, and third in theology so I have some appreciation for the subtleties). Is it merely a bit shy of one order of magnitude or somewhat over two or somewhere in-between is debatable, and I tried to phrase things accordingly. While two wrongs do not make a right, society is headed down the crapper and Bishops are not heading the vanguard, although I will freely grant you that many of them seem fellow travelers is alarming enough.
I have given zero previous thought about your hypothesis about Catholic schools being hotbeds of sexual abuse and public schools rarely covering up. My experience of the parochial system in the state was virtually non-existent—it had collapsed where I grew up in 1974-—and most of my adult life has been spent in Canada where the system was and remains very different. From what I can tell in Canada, provided you aren’t a conservative or traditional religious, abuse is treated as no big deal, although if one is a Catholic lay teacher from the past, an attempt will be made to portray the incident as originating from the clergy or religious.
Willingly to tentatively place the majority of the hierarchy in hell hardly seems an attempt to diminish their responsibility. I will grant that I might be lessening the responsibility of the laity somewhat by claiming that it is not each lay person’s responsibility to keep each Bishop out of hell. By my understanding, the duty runs the other way around.
Yes, many Bishops appear to be falling short in that duty—I don’t know if things are presently better or worse than they were in Chrysostom’s time, or St. Peter Damien’s time—but the solution seems to be to heed St. Paul’s advice and don’t strive to become a Bishop, not to absolve one’s self from an exaggerated duty of the laity to save the hierarchy by attempting to recuse one’s self from the ranks of the laity.
Abandoning the Church to “come to the light” seems to me, in the imagery of John of the Cross, to be fleeing “Holy Darkness.”
Christ is all. The Church is both His Bride, and in a certain sense, nothing. At times, her own nothingness and insufficiently is more on display. She is black but beautiful.
Never mind 100 years from now; within a very short number of years the need for priests will be minimal (I’d say we’re already there). For many Western parishes, there are more people on the altar than in the pews; this BS is just to add even more people to the altar to keep them coming at all.
To which area was the woman who followed Jesus sent to spread the Good Word? The others died across the empire doing so (except one to care for Mary).
60 years ago heretics in the Church were saying what you say; the synod has ended and they got nothing. Maybe in another 60 years the hierarchy will “discuss it” again...
But did he say it would be okay for men to be Nuns? It wouldn’t surprise me at all.
I AM NOT A HERTIC AS FAR AS THE TEACHINGS OF CHORST. BUT I HAVE LEFT THE CHURCH FOR THE REASONS I SPELLED OUT BEFORE. IF JAPANESE CAN BE PRIESTS WOMEN CAN BE PRIESTS UNDER THE LOGIC SOME USE HERE. THE CHIRCH CHANGES OVER TIME AND THIS WILL BE THE CHANGE BY THE END OF THE CENTURY AND OUT OF NECESSITY.
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