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William re *In other words, there is no attempt in this document to claim that ordaining women is morally comparable to the abuse of children. But that's exactly how it looks to those unschooled in canon law or Vatican-speak. Hence the headlines around the world this week which trade on this mis-reading of the text.*

William are you saying that because the document does not state any comparison that it is not right or it is a mis-reading to make that comparison based on the outcomes of what happens to a priest who supports ordination for women (ex-communication) and one who abuses children (not ex-communicated)ie. a lesser crime?? I'm a bit confused as to whether you are saying this is ok and it's all a mis-reading and mis understanding to those of us who have not studied vatican speak/canon law and there's no problem with the 2 outcomes for those 'crimes' or not? Can you clarify/enlighten me please! thanks
To my understanding they don't need to make an overt comparison in the text - the 'punishment' for each 'crime' speaks volumes on its own does it not? Indeed not only does it say that the 2 are not morally comparable but that ordaining women is worse than child abuse! (judging by the 'punishment' for each 'crime'.)
Or am I missing something here??

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It is time for all of the women in the Catholic Church to rise up and walk out for a while -- 6 months or a year.

It appears that it is not just Downing Street that operates a policy of protecting Benny from criticism.

William this so called church is rotten to the core, it's thinking is 400 years ago.
The sad thing is it has so much power around the world.

Stop this so called pope coming to Britain.

The problem with this is that it is not a few bad apples spoiling the barrel - the barrel itself is corrupt; most of the apples are probably well intentioned, but that cannot make any difference.

1st Corinthians chapter14 verses 34 and 35 make it quite clear that women are to remain silent in the church. In fact it is a shame for them to do so. If the word of God says this how can there be any confusion on this matter and why are women getting so upset. It is not that women are in any way inferior;it is simply that they have a different role to men who take the lead in the church

So why is Saul Paulus's personal prejudice relevant?

Interesting point on the language used by the Vatican to describe the acts of its paedophile priests on vulnerable children: acts "with" children and not acts done to children by its paedophile priests. Children should not be portrayed as willing participants in this sort of crime. Also shocking to hear that a paedophile priest convicted of raping children can remain a priest, and also shocking to hear that there is no obligation placed on clerics to report all allegations of paedophilia against clerics to the police immediately.

Paul was not in any way biased against women. Remember that all scripture is God breathed. Paul when writing was only writing what the Holy Spirit led him to write.compare 1st Timothy ch2v8-14 which gives the 2 reasons why women are to remain silent in the church

The bible is demonstrably NOT "god-breathed", nor is it in any sense "the word of god". Saul Paulus, moreover, was a fake apostle - an IMpostle.

All scripture is not God-breathed - that is a fallacy and self evident to anyone who is able to use discernment and who does not adhere blindly to the bible for dear life.


William: glad you asked about the difference in 'punishment' for the 2 scenarios of ordaining women and abusing children - was like he was squirming in his chair trying to come up with some sort of plausible answer and failing. It is ridiculous. How people still follow this is beyond me!

As for the woman saying that women cannot be bishops for theological reasons - surely that should make one question the theological basis and realise it is also nonsense. All based on patriarchal society of the day. Men and women are equal, not the same but equal and both can embody Christ.

What about women who have undergone gender reassignment surgery? What about women who have congenital androgen insensitivity, and are genetically "male"? How can a "theological" case be made here? Surely we are simply dealing with outdated piffle?

Attitudes towards female religious leaders is Ernie Rea's subject on tomorrow's Beyond Belief, 16:30 ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio4

Helio: Surely we are simply dealing with outdated piffle?

Couldn't agree more! :-)

Helio

The lengths to which these people have gone in the past to ensure that the person being ordained was a male 'in full working order' have been hilarious/pathetic.

The person to be ordained had to go into a booth, remove his lower clothing and sit on a wooden board with a hole in it. Someone underneath had to then put his hand up through the hole, grab a handful and verify that everything was all present and correct. So there you have it, it was the Catholic Church who invented the 'glory hole.'

There was also a thing called the 'canonical eye.' The sacramentary from which the priest reads during Mass was placed to his left on the altar. If the vision of the person's left eye was impaired or even blind, this would be deemed am impediment to ordination. Obviously, placing the book on the right hand side of the altar hadnt been invented yet.

RJB: thanks for the info! As you say hilarious and pathetic!

RJB, you been reading Dan Brown again?? :-)

post 16... The so-called term "Glory Hole" was not invented by the roman catholic church, it has various meanings and most off them very vulgar.

Post 18... Heliopolitan, try not to keep on contradicting yourself about Elohim as you have been doing on different occasions.

Ok, that's cryptic, 169000. I give up.

Jellybean - still making stuff up I see. That contraption you describe was an invention linked to the pope joan invention. It never happened. Any chance you might take part in an attempted feminordination and get excommunicated?

Do wish the Vatican would get an alister campbell type in though.

Drat! I *hate* having to agree with Chrispie, but that "glory hole" malarkey sounds like a load of old nonsense to me. I mean, it would be hilarious if it were true, but it surely can't be. *Can* it?

Nah, much as I would love yet another chance to laugh at the already laughable Roman Catholic church (or any one of the hundreds of other sects, of which the RCC is but one), I am going to pass this one up. Not for me the silliness of Zeitgeist or Religulous - there is more than enough properly researched and verified information that shows these cults to be nonsensical.

Hey MCC

Fortunately you'll need much more than a Campbell or a Lombardi to spin your way out of the quagmire Ratz has created. Here's Bishop Kevin Dowling. Enjoy. And what about all the comments after it too? You cant excommunicate all of us lol.



And, yeh, I already know that he supported the use of condoms in the fight against HIV/Aids (which you will no doubt use to dismiss him.) For me that's another feather in his cap.

Happily, Dowling's words are presently reverberating around the world and no amount of thumbscrewing and burning at the stake can stop it.

Oh from below!!

(Will you be bringing Patrick to Bellahouston Park in September? Why not give him a break and take him to Euro-Disney instead? Better costumes, although only just.)

169000,

My Granny had a glory hole under the stairs and there was nothing vulgar about her or it.

However, I do know a bar called the Glory Hole, ermmmm.....nuf said.

Incidentally, it only seems fair to acknowledge (as RJB points out) that many individual Catholics *are* speaking out and dissenting from the "official" position. Such outbreaks of free thinking are of course to be welcomed.

Jellybean - "presently" means "in the near future" not "currently".

Here's the thing - if a bishops appears in African native dress and dances up the aisle at Mass liberals go into intercultural ecstasy; if he wears a cappa magna at a Mass in the extraordinary form they have a canary. Whither tolerance and diversity?

Dowling and his ilk are yesterday's men. He asks where the great theologians have gone. Well, one of them has become Pope.

Dave... The term glory hole can also refer to a loft were you gain access!.

Helio mentioned in a thread about theology being outdated piffle - now that we know the Pope is one of the 'great theologians' makes a lot of sense!

Helio - you must cut RJB some slack, one should never allow a narrow-minded concern for factuosity to spoil a good story. I think, however, Christopher has the history of it when he links the supposed practice to Protestant fabrications surrounding the myth of Pope Joan.
Popes (rather than mere priests) were supposedly tested for wholeness while sitting on a porphry throne whose seat contained a slot appropriately positioned to facilitate the required examination. There still is such a throne, I believe, in the Vatican museum but its original purpose was almost certainly that of a birthing chair - possibly Byzantine. Its mere existence was sufficient, however, to ignite the lurid fantasising of the reformers who concocted a bizarrely detailed, if entirely spurious, liturgy surrounding the supposed rite. I particularly enjoy the announcement the officiating cardinal was allegedly required to make following a successful palpation: "Testiculos habet et bene pendentes" - a joyful cry no doubt echoed in many a modern glory hole, though not, of-course, Dave's gran's.

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I think I prefer the white smoke...

MCC
It was my dogma professor who told me about the hole in the seat. The liar. Thanks for putting me right on that one. I shall now discount everything he told me about Bishops ordering the torture of human beings, burning them at the stake, pulling their nails out, crushing their thumbs, drowning them and, he obviously went way over the top with this one, slitting their noses down the middle so that everyone would know they were heretics.

You are hilarious. You are actually telling me to be more accurate in spelling out how ridiculous and how evil our Church has behaved.

I notice you didnt challenge the canonical eye though. Mind you, that had nothing to do with sexuality.

The "canonical eye"? Remind me.

It was all so dull and liberal and played out I found it hard to concentrate, especially when his tried to gloss over the fact that the only Church youth organisations which are thriving are orthodox ones.

As a mark of respect for your simpler tastes I had my tailor remove the lace and strings from the neck of my surplice today. 3 quid well spent.

MCC

Lol lol lol

By all accounts, the Hitler Youth Movement was extremely popular too.

Sorry Jelly, just realised what you meant by the canonical eye.

I don't know, seems like the missal is all over the place these days and one priest I know stands holding the missalette in his left hand while saying Mass.

First World War changed all those rules, didn't it - so many priests came home minus eyes and arms - no where to hang the maniple, which an old priest once tried to persuade me was the stole for a cat in the story about what to do if a mouse ate the Eucharist.

That sounds like a good story - can we hear it please?

What about that story in the news recently about a dog being given communion? I thought it was quite heartwarming, but apparently some prissy people who haven't paid the 3 quid got all upset about it, and the dog has become the canine equivalent of PZ Myers...

Now you've gone and done it. You have broken Basil's first law and mentioned 'the war.'

As you know, there were actually two, big ones. And it was no accident that Vatican II was called after them. The Vatican was seen to be impotent when left to ageing bureaucrats (who struck deals with Hitler, Mussolini and Franco.)

Was it any wonder that a young Ratzinger at Vatican II extolled the primacy of conscience over church teaching, before selling his soul and selling out on the people of God when he too got the whiff of power?

The present autocratic old man's club is crumbling.

Btw, remember the recent "spontaneous" gathering to show support for Benny in Rome? Well the "spontaneous" support in Scotland is a slightly different story. Three parishes I know - 300 tickets - less than 20 taken. (Mind you, £20 a brief and having to be in your seat 5 hours before kick off might have something to do with it.)

Of course it was an "ageing bureaucrat", Blessed Pope John XXIII, who called Vatican II and I think you'll find the Holy See lasted longer than the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini or Franco. And of course the Church was impotent (powerless) - it's not about power, it's about love.

Ratzinger continues to believe that one may not act against one's conscience - that one may not do something which one believes to be sinful (even if mistaken). But that's where conscience ends - it cannot tell you that something you do is right - it acts in the negative. Example, the Church says it's okay to serve in the military and fight in wars in certain circumstances. Your conscience tells you it's wrong to serve in the military, you believe in radical pacifism and think it's a sin to fight, even in defence of your country. So you must obey your conscience and not fight - Ratzinger would support you.

Church says it's wrong to pre-emptively assassinate a dodgy political leader. You think it's okay and claim the support of your conscience. But your conscience isn't telling you not to do something in this instance, you think it's telling you to do something. Ratzinger wouldn't support you in this instance.

I think crowds will turn out for the Holy Father. Early days and still being badly organised by the liberal hacks who run these things.

MCC

You cant claim John XXIII and Benny. Tis one or the other. John was no bureaucrat. He was a man of compassion, a man of vision who was constantly undermined BY bureaucrats, dogmatists and Cardinals who couldnt find a shoe in a shoe box.

The Church has never been about love, for Benny. Its about doctrinal orthodoxy for him and very much about temporal power.

A third of the catholic population of the planet cry out to him for the sacraments. His response - lets impose an archaic Mass on 'em.

Ratzinger/Benny has set about systematically dismanteling John XXIII and everything he believed in. So stop deluding yourself.

Sunday's gospel - If anyone asked for bread, who would hand them a stone? If anyone asked for meat, who would hand them a snake?

Answer - Benny would. He is.

Of course Blessed John was a man of compassion - but he was part of the Vatican's diplomatic service for years - he was part of the beaurocracy. That's why he knew how to circumvent the other beaurocrats and simply announce Vatican II.

As for Benny, well fidelity to truth is an act of love. I'd accept your point if he abolished the new Mass and forced everyone to use the extraordinary form - the sort of thing Paul VI did. But really, what has he done with the old Mass. He's made it easier for the tiny minority who want it to get, with no negative impact on the new Mass. Is that not an act of simple generosity?

As for temporal power - where is it? I don't see it.

MCC

"Temporal power - where is it? I dont see it."

You will no doubt be aware that Benny has just appointed Velasio de Paolis as 'power and authority' over the Legionaires of Christ. They are reputedly worth $130 billion.

De Paolis is answerable only to the Pope. His word is final on all matters.

Will that do as an example?

Bureaucracy, Chris.

My spelling's more butiful.

What are paying these moderators for if they won't even check spellings?