| No other religious institution ever has spent so much money to indemnify such widespread debauchery perpetrated by so many of its own officials. Yet this is the one major church in Christendom that has explicitly declared herself "irreformable." Think about it. |
Start with the pretense of papal infallibility; forbid everyone in the core hierarchy of the church to marry; embrace a notion of "spirituality" with the most superstitious form of sacramental externalism at its core; and demand that all your members blindly and reverently accept the authority of the church's earthly leaders no matter what—and what kind of result would you expect?
So why is it that so many Protestants have chosen this moment in history to seek ecumenical relationships with Rome?
Kyrie eleison.
17 comments:
You almost make it sound like Romanism is a false religion or something... (sarcasm here)
http://aformofsoundwords.blogspot.com/2005/01/romanism.html
(I was beginning to feel lonely, other than my friend Pete, I was hard pressed to find anyone in the blogosphere who would actively preach against Romanism)
Take care,
Rand
Oh! I don't know if you allow links...
If you don't just delete, I won't take any offense.
Rand
I saw this yesterday and you are one of the first blogs to post about it (Chrisitan blogs).
It's amazing how so many just turn a blind eye and pretend this did not occur (but then I guess it is not so amazing since we are in the twilight zone of "the LUV everything do not offend" church).
As usual, a great point Phil.
My concern is that we in the evangelical church may face a similar problem if we do not address some of our own issues.
I agree. If evangelicalism does not return to a biblical form of gvoernment (read elder-ruled congregations) under the headship of Jesus Christ we are in for trouble.
Phil, the evangelical silence on this issue fits with spirit of this age. "Doctrine is secondary, let us unite together for the culture war against secularism". But what ever happened to the truth of the Gospel?
On top of the wonderful insights Phil provides with his comments, he uses cool words like "indemnify." I never cease learning. I plan to use it in my next sermon.
Fred
Fred's Bible Talk
Am I the only one stunned at the amount of money one diocese in Kentucky was able to gather? Was this money just sitting around in church coffers? When I hear stuff like this, it makes me wonder how much more money given to God is just sitting around, waiting to be dumped into defense funds and legal buyouts. Seeing this number and thinking about the abject poverty in the "hollars" of Kentucky ... I'm staggered.
Gaddabout: You make a point that needs to be stressed. This $1 billion is money collected from people who believed they were giving to support the work of God.
Do you realize how much $1 billion is?
Michael Jackson's prodigious pedophile habit cost him hush money totalling a preposterous amount: some 22.5 million over ten years' time.
The Vatican has emptied its coffers of 45 times that much in three years! The Roman Catholic priesthood is by any measure a system that is seriously corrupt to its very core.
What is utterly shocking is that most people seem so reluctant to say so plainly.
I'm a lawyer and just for one small clarification: not all of the money comes from the church coffers. Some of it comes from insurance.
Nevertheless, it is a stunning amount and you can rest assured that evangelical churches will pay more for liability insurance because of settlement such as these.
At least two dioceses are in bankruptcy. More will probably follow. I would expect the amount of settlements to double in the next few years from today's total.
It would be interesting to see how much some large denominations spend on missions for comparison. I would guess that some large denoms have not spent $1 billion in the last 20 years on missions.
In a pinch the RC can sell some of those paintings or statues in the Vatican.
Hard to sell the stuff in the Vatican? I don't think so. Just yesterday some idiot paid $996,000 for the original contract under which Babe Ruth was sold by the Red Sox to the Yankees. I think someone might be willing to drop several million for a Michaelangelo original.
Phil, sounds like you've made up your mind about the freak show going on up in Santa Maria... I'm sure there's an illustration in there someplace.
There is a connnection, John. Had the Gloved One been a priest, they wouldn't have bothered with a trial.
Phil, I expected better of you than to say:
"The Vatican has emptied its coffers of 45 times that much in three years! The Roman Catholic priesthood is by any measure a system that is seriously corrupt to its very core."
The Catholic priesthood is made up of millions of deeply devoted men and a few perverts. Your comment is on the level of calling Protestantism corrupt to the core because it includes people like Benny Hinn. The same system that produced the fondling fathers also produced men like Fr. Damian. We're all sinners here.
If you'll forgive me for sticking in plug, I would like to offer a different view at my blog.
There used to be another group of seriously corrupt men, supposedly holy and close to God, and the percentage of them that were quite evil was close to 10%! And the others, while not as evil as the 10%, did a lot of very un-Christian things, like denying Christ (hello, Matthew 10:32,33?).
That group were called the 12 Apostles, and they included Judas Iscariot, whom Jesus personally spent years of his life with and loved with all his heart.
It is right to condemn as evil the abuse of children by those priests, but it is erroneous to then condemn the entire Church based off of this. Clearly, you think the Catholic Church believes in false teachings. I used to think this too, when I was an Evangelical probably not too different in belief from yourself. Now I'm a Catholic, and I will only caution you to be careful about what you say against the Catholic Church, as one day you may regret it when you find yourself entering it. :)
What is embarrassingly inept are the lame defenses that have been offered for the Catholic church in this thread.
Insurance companies may have written most of the payola checks, but where do you think the insurance money ultimately comes from? Who pays the increased insurance rates? Are you people seriously arguing that a billion dollars in hush money has nothing to do with the donations of people who think they have given to support the cause of Christ?
By the way, anyone who thinks the Roman Catholic church is being condemned because of the actions of a few rogue priests has not been reading the news. The problem is a massive hierarchichal system that has systematically, deliberately, and with full knowledge protected these miscreants, moved them from place to place, and paid hush money to cover their crimes until public pressure finally brought this scandal to the forefront. The spin-meisters who think they can now rescue Rome's reputation by pointing to instances of child abuse in non-Catholic religions are villains of the highest order.
No, there is no parallel in the Protestant world, or in any other religion. Any Protestant denomination wracked with this level of scandal would never be able to survive the public outrage. Rome has literally been doing it for centuries and has become quite skilled at it.
Habitans, do you actually believe everything the news tells you? Have you noticed that the mainstream news has never noted that the actual number of abusive priests in the Catholic Church in the U.S. comes up to about 4% (ref: http://www.americancatholic.org/news/clergysexabuse/johnjaycns.asp)? And 4% says that the whole system is corrupt? If the same standard was applied to any organization, e.g., governments, the public school system, which of them would make it?
No sane Catholic condones the abuses, nor the administrative ignorance/complicity that failed to shut those derelicts down from the very beginning. Yes, the administrative system of the Catholic Church will require intense study (which is still on-going) and major changes. No one denies that. Your post gives me the impression that what you want goes beyond improving the Catholic Church.
Furthermore, when you say that there is no parallel of the Catholic clergy abuse scandals in the Protestant churches, then you are correct. After all, no other Christian group receives the same levels of vitriol in the mainstream headlines and editorials as the Catholic Church. Regardless of the similar figures as far as the percentage of abusive clergy is concerned, the Catholic Church is always the biggest and favorite target. I would invite you to do some research on those figures yourself, and come up with conclusions after some fair, prayerful and deliberate considerations. In case you have time for it, look up Dr. Philip Jenkins' "The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice" (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195154800/ref=pd_sxp_f/002-2508358-2276032?v=glance&s=books).
Recall the Lord's words about being unclean, that it comes from the heart and is not something that is external to any of us. Look closer at your own words: "The problem is a massive hierarchichal system that has systematically, deliberately, and with full knowledge protected these miscreants, moved them from place to place, and paid hush money to cover their crimes until public pressure finally brought this scandal to the forefront." I would point out that the system does not possess knowledge, intent and cannot in itself move people from place to place and pay money. You will never find any such system documented in a manual to guide Church administrators in carrying out such evil deeds. It isn't in the catechism, nor in any encyclical, nor in canon law. Such horrible acts of complicity can only come from the human heart, and can only be carried out by human will and actions.
By the way, the Church does not declare each and every priest, bishop, archbishop or even the pope impeccable. Papal infallibility only affects universal doctrines on faith and morals. Papal infallibility is not a function of the pope: we know that the pope remains a human being with the same sinful nature that we all have. Trusting in papal infallibility (the actual doctrine, not misunderstandings of it) means trusting the Holy Spirit, by whose assistance alone is papal infallibility possible. This is the same level of trust that we have for the infallible Scriptures. As we accept that the books and epistles of the Bible were written by human beings with sinful natures, we trust in the Holy Spirit to lead us to all truth.
The sex abuses of Catholic clergy and administrative abuses to their benefit are horrible betrayals, but this has nothing to do with papal infallibility. None of the popes have ever penned dogma that remotely tolerates sex abuses nor conspiracies to protect abusive clergy.
It's also important to remember that the USCCB met in 1991 and hammered out policies to protecct kids and keep that sort of priest-shuffle from happening. The overwhelming majority of the lawsuits date from before the policies were implemented. In fact, I think I've only seen one or two from after 1991.
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