Pope, in Sermon, Says He Won’t Be Intimidated....how's that for compassion?

[spanone]

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) — Pope Benedict, facing one of the gravest crises of his pontificate as a sexual abuse scandal sweeps the Church, indicated on Sunday that his faith would give him the courage not to be intimidated by critics.

The 82-year-old pontiff led tens of thousands of people in a sunny St. Peter’s Square in a Palm Sunday service at the start of Holy Week events commemorating the last days in the life of Jesus.

While he did not directly mention the scandal involving sexual abuse of children by priests, parts of his sermon could be applicable to the crisis.

The pontiff said faith in God helps lead one “towards the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion.”

He also spoke of how man can sometimes “fall to the lowest, vulgar levels” and “sink into the swamp of sin and dishonesty.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/world/europe/29pope.html?ref=global-home&pagewanted=print

[KittyWampus]

1. My prayer- May the Catholic Church be on the brink of another schism.

[morningglory]

19. Lord, hear our prayer. All they gotta do is start putting these "celibates" in jail. nt

[Warpy]

2. Good, let the rigid old bastard continue to defend organized pedophilia

as part of a divinely ordered church.

Let's see how far that gets him.

[hlthe2b]

3. My cup of contempt....

runneth over

[MineralMan]

4. This is their leader? How odd.

How can people follow this man? It is beyond my understanding. Maybe some DUers who are Roman Catholics can explain how they rationalize their membership in such a church...

[Fresh_Start]

6. many of us can't

and have left the church because of its secrecy, failures and contempt for the faithful

[MineralMan]

7. Good for you! There are many other churches that don't engage

in this sort of evilness.

[piratefish08]

9. thank you. seriously.

they are officially indefensible.

[Hekate]

11. The Church has had bad popes before in its 2,000 year history, and has survived...

I was not raised Roman Catholic, but because of my grandmother became very interested in it in my teens. I explored it pretty thoroughly, but decided to to take that path because I couldn't get past their obduracy on a woman's right to control her own fertility (and mind you, this was long before Roe vs Wade). By now, I am SO glad I never joined and promised to obey their conscience and not my own.

That said, from my observation I think the average Catholic in America (and no doubt Europe) is very troubled, and they are voting at the collection plate. Many parish churches in the US are closing for lack of attendance and lack of funds for maintenance. Catholic numbers are increasing only in mission fields like Africa, where they offer a fresh (to the locals) alternative to harsh systems and corrupt and broken governments: the message of Jesus is, after all, very uplifting and compassionate when you strip away the culture of the Church as it has become in the West.

There are so few girls choosing to become nuns that traditional jobs such as teaching, social work, and nursing are going unfilled by nuns, and their average age is 70 years old. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/opinion/25dowd.html ) I went to an interfaith women's retreat several years ago (probably the lone Goddess-worshipper there ;-) ) and one of the RC nuns I got to know told me that she knew that the end of her life was likely to be fairly bleak in an understaffed nursing home, because there are no young nuns to take on the care of the oldest ones, as was traditionally done.

This is a deep spiritual and cultural dilemma for people reared as Catholics similar to those who find the Mormon and Baptist churches a bad fit (i.e. because they're gay, for instance). They feel "at home" in the Sunday services they grew up in, and the culture is "family" even if it's a dysfunctional family. They counted on their children being educated in Catholic morality and ethics (Seriously, when my mother left the Church she says she had to rethink everything because she actually agreed with the ethical construct, and she needed to figure out how to raise her children without hanging it all on Jesus and God. Not everyone is up to that kind of insight.)

I don't think there will be a one-time exodus, but I do think the steady decline will continue. You can only hang on to your dysfunctional and abusive family so long. The question is: where will they go?

Hekate

[MineralMan]

12. There are many Christian Churches to which disgusted

Catholics can turn. The Lutheran church has many congregations that are quite conservative in their liturgy, which resembles the current Roman Catholic liturgy quite closely. Similarly the Episcopal Church has many churches with a very similar liturgy to even older practices.

Or, there are the various Orthodox churches, although there may be some language difficulties at some of these.

One need not give up beliefs to find a church that does not countenance and shelter pedophiles.

[Hekate]

14. You're right in that. I hope that those who need a home church will go find one...

... as the Church of Rome has failed them monstrously.

I don't think Rome will fall, but it would be very healthful if they got taken down a peg or two by the secular laws of several countries at once.

Hekate

[old mark]

5. Ratzo is such an asshole I have a hard time believing it. What a really

nasty, immoral person he must be....this is not about him at all, it is about all those kids and all the trust that was defiled.
Ratzo, you really suck at being a good human being.

mark

[tekisui]

8. The pedophiles are the victims, don't ya know.

[Stuart G]

10. The Pope has become a lightening rod, for this dirty scum, and he is part of that scum..so

guess what?...He should watch out for what he eats..cause in the past, when this kind of awful gutwretching issue focus on the Pope...and there is proof


for some reason, some Popes seem to have issues with food poisoning And when they are gone, the issue kinda goes away.

..Why?
Some of the leaders of the "Church" know that this is issue is not good for fund raising and in the past some have actually left the Church on matters less important.

[Nikki Stone1]

13. Intimidation is only for altar boys, eh?

Asshole.

[tomm2thumbs]

15. He's so excited

'You say there will be children?? I hope there will be children..'

[WVRICK13]

16. Never Expected Anything Different From Ratzinger

[ruggerson]

17. He's be right at home in the Republican party

they use the same logic to defend the indefensible.

[Warren DeMontague]

18. I like how they're blaming it on "groups and elements" that are "determined to destroy the church"

They won't specify those "groups and elements", of course, but let's just say we're talking about a lot of last names that end in -stein and -berg... :eyes:

[951-Riverside]

20. I wouldnt expect any less from an old nazi.

[RandomThoughts]

21. Without discussing the topic of the article. There is something to think about

A pattern should be seen. When a person or group speaks against Some interest, many other groups speak out of perspective about that group or person.

Most Priests and Nuns try to live good lives of charity. Just like in any other part of society there are some that are mostly bad, but there are many that are mostly good. People should think on it with perspective in my view.

The Pope in 2009 made comments about Global Capitalism and the Capitalist corporate money system.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/07/pope-capitalism-abortion

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html

[spanone]

22. i spent the first 16 years of my life around nuns & priests...loved them.

they were dedicated and caring.

my beef is with the church and the way it's handled this debacle. i don't think the rapes and molestations can be overblown. crime is crime and the church owes it to it's parishioners to clean house, not shuffle them around.

the church is guilty of harboring criminals...if the pope did the right thing, he would not feel 'intimidated'. petty gossip of dominant opinion? please.

[RandomThoughts]

23. I understand that point.

I was trying to, as you did, make the comment that there are many good people in the church that try to do works of charity.

I disagree with your comment on intimidation.

[RainDog]

24. lol. you're kidding, right?

why doesn't the Vatican sell off some of its holdings to feed the poor?

I never understood this aspect of the church. I understand the St. Francis of Assisi side of it, but the vulgar ostentation and power-broking and trying to control people who don't agree with their religion...

it's really repulsive behavior that has been going on for years... along with the pedophile scandals. There is a line in this history that goes back to the Irish church scandals. This is nothing new for the church.

it's just that HUNDREDS of people have come forward in response to the initial truth-telling. This is what happens when any authoritarian regime that abuses people is finally caught doing something so heinous that anyone who defends them seems blind by the same putrid rationalizing.