As a Catholic, I want to apologize to the world

[Obviousman]

For whats going to be coming your way.

[Mend]

1. How much worse is it going to be? n/t

[cidliz2004]

2. What exactly is coming our way?

[alcuno]

4. I think it's for what's not coming your way.

The leader of 1 billion Catholics could have really pressed for social justice throughout the world and condemned corporatism. I hope I'm wrong and I hope that the Holy Father pushes first world nations to examine their alienation of the third world.

[Obviousman]

6. women will not be allowed to be eucharistic ministers,

or be able to read the readings, he's going to clamp down hard on all dissent, and liturgies will have to stick to the book

[CatholicEdHead]

8. Find that hard to belive

mostly because of there are not enough people to do it as it is. To take away half your mass help for an already stretched thing group of priests will be hard to swollow.

There is also a matter of keeping enough money coming into the dioceses and it is foolish to have it that way in dioceses that do not do that (Lincon, NE still does have those rules).

[cidliz2004]

13. Sorry, but what difference does it make.....Prejudice is Prejudice

There are a few crumbs given to women by one Pope and then taken away by another. Whats to apologize for, the Catholics have been putting up with "man's" laws and "man's" sins, as defined by the Catholic white ivory office since the beginning of time. Many Catholics will endure the new Pope's version of Catholicism, how does that affect the "Non-Catholics"?

[Liberalynn]

11. EX-Catholic Here

I have to rant here just a little bit and apologize in advance if I ramble. There is no one here I can express my anger too as my mother though she disagrees with a lot of the doctrine as well, still gets upset when I start yelling about the church.

The rational part of me knew not to expect any different from the church I was raised by but the dreamer in me was hoping maybe they would offer an Olive Branch to the Western church in order to save themselves from extinction. That maybe just maybe they would do the right thing and start advocating for the dignity of all of humanity and not just a bunch of stuffy old men.

"Traditional" is the poltically correct way of saying we are going to continue patting women on the head, accepting their hard work and their donations, but bascially telling them they are second class citizens not worthy or capable of doing anything but servitude.

I also am not gay but I do not think any individual or organization should celebrate and institutionalize the ultimate ignorance of prejuidice. I thought Jesus said "not to judge" so how does the Church classify what they are doing but "judging?" Plus on the same hand they condemn gays they justify and forgive child molestation. I just don't get it.

Don't get me started about the irresponsibilty of their no birth control stance. Okay it is not okay for a guy to use a condom or a women to use the pill, but it is okay to let a child be born into the world that lets them starve to death or die of Aids. Or a mother who will throw it in a trash can? Okay maybe you can argue there shouldn't be such indiscriminate sex but even then it is not the adults who are having the sex they are making suffer, but the unwanted innocent child.

Then there is the fact that the individual they chose as Pope was once a member of the Hitler Youth? One of the many things that made me turn away from the Church to begin with was reading about how they turned away Jews begging for protection from Hitler in WWII era. I thought though they were making at least a small effort to try and make up for that aggregious sin of the past and then they go and pick someone who use to have ties to the Nazis as Pope?

Okay a large part of my anger at the church is due to things they have done to me personally in the past, and my views as a liberal American women. Frankly I don't want to be told I don't matter anymore just because I was born female. I have been down that dark hopeless road and don't want to be on it anymore.

But a large part of me doesn't believe the Jesus who supposedly gave us the Beattitudes, who saved Mary Magedeline, who fed the poor, etc would approve of what the church has become either.

Yet so many "Christians" seem to think the way the Catholic Church and the Pope does, so I guess I must be missing something.

I have pretty much decided I'm an agonstic bordering ever closer to Atheism because I can't accept the "You are all my children, I love you," vs "the I smite you, and send thee down to hell," contradictions. How do you know which is lie and which is truth.

One thing is for sure, I think the Church should have picked someone who cared more about people than "rules on a sheet of paper." They didn't do it, so I can't support this Pope.

[DanCa]

15. I think the phrase

Slouching toward Bethlehem sums it up quite nicely.

[_TJ_]

3. It ain't your fault

But it's big of you to take responsibility for the actions
of your church IMO.

[slackmaster]

5. Cut the crap, Obviousman

You are responsible only for that over which you have control.

[earthside]

7. No Need to Apologize ...

... unless you were one of the guys in red dresses that voted for Joe to become der Papenfuhrer.

The Roman Church is a patrimony, not a democracy. It is a top down organization ... very unAmerican in its structural philosophy. Therefore, if you are just a mere lowly layman, you are not even in a position to be responsible for the actions of the hierarchy. Indeed, the only way you can have any impact on this institution is to quit or stop giving money (the most serious action).

Hey, Joe Ratzinger is just a guy ... if you prick him he bleeds just like every other human being. Not being a Catholic, frankly, I couldn't care less about what this guy does and says. And from the behavior of most of my nominally Catholic friends, they couldn't either.

[Mari333]

9. Women will leave the church in droves

I left yeaaaars ago because of the sexist doctrine..and when the women leave, believe me, the whole thing will fall apart. I dont care, let it.

[El Supremo]

10. Well, none of us expected...

The German Inquisition!

[seabeyond]

12. there is need to apologize, and i accept your apology

thank you. and you have done a wonderful thing in your apology, accepted responsibility for your religion. it doesnt make you less, it makes you grand. and.......seeing how i am not catholic but have a love of the religion and seeing how it is taking the wrong path, i will be right with you, as you work to take back you religion

[agingdem]

14. And as a child of Jewish Holocaust survivors...

I accept your apology.