Living Dead Chipmunk

Because you devote your life to an organization that takes your money and uses it to make it easier for Father Brown to give little Timmy the "very special communion" in the back room?

Wyz_sub10

Okay. Here is galiel's post:

None of this presents a "fact" that Cardinal Law took a vow of poverty, or even that he should have taken such a vow.

Rather, galiel is acknowledging that Law certainly does not live a life of poverty, given his apparent wealth.

You reply:

galiel, as stated, said no such thing.

Then you add:

galiel stated no information regarding his obligation to poverty.

Furthermore, the information he presented was "straight."

You were attempting to correct a statement he did not make.

Main Entry: ar·ro·gance
Pronunciation: 'ar-&-g&n(t)s
Function: noun
Date: 14th century
: a feeling or an impression of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or presumptuous claims
<a href="http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=arrogance" target="_blank">Merriam-Webster</a>

Judging by your defence of a statement that was never made, it is apparent that you believed galiel to be making presumptious claims re: Cardinal Law's obligations.

If you did not think that was what he was doing, you would not have commented as you did.

Living Dead Chipmunk

Don't take it personally, Gal... the Catholic layity will grasp at any straws to defend their holy mother church. Even if the Pope himself came to Central Park and forced a 6 year old to "kiss the little Jesus" in front of 10,000 witnesses, they'd still blame it on the New Mass.

Proxima Centauri

The tourble is we can only see faults and cannot see anything lovable about that corrupt church.

Proxima Centauri

Moerator, Gemma keeps on making off-topic posts and trying to de-rail the topic/de-railing the topic.
If she doesn't stop some of her posts may need to be deleted.

The Admiral

Gemma

Because I think that you suffer from a mental disease.

I call it the SWI syndrome. It means, Selective, Wilfull Ignorance.

You are probably an intelligent and well educated person but you have made a concious choice to supress your inteligence and education where your religious beliefs are concerned.

There is hope for recovery of course, but, like alcoholism, the sufferer has to want to recover.

The Admiral

Gemma Therese

<a href="http://www.icspublications.org/images/trinity.jpg" target="_blank">Trinity</a>

<a href="http://www.icspublications.org/images/lisieux.jpg" target="_blank">Lisieux</a>

<a href="http://www.smcenter.org/images/S-DAMIEN-HANSEN.jpg" target="_blank">Damien-Hansen</a>

<a href="http://www.cakmalta.org/convmalta/india/images/kolbe.jpg" target="_blank">Kolbe</a>

[Sorry, Gemma - but the big pictures were messing stuff up. BJM]

[ December 19, 2002: Message edited by: Bree ]</p>

Amos

The dean of Harvard University recently made a public apology for the expulsion of gay and sexually disoriented students from its register (I think it was called the "great American gay hunt" in the article I read). This kind of discrimation was enforced from 1920 to at least the late 50's and maybe this is where the Authorney General should direct his attention. The article appeared in a Dutch gay magazine of which I do not remember the name, sorry.

I think poor Cardinal Law moved the priests around to protect both the children and the priests who themselves were victims of a very hypocratic puritan society.

mecca777

Amos, I'm at a loss to understand how

a) not reporting abuse cases to the police, paying off the families to avoid lawsuits, and threatening to declare the Archdiocese bankrupt if they don't back off, constitutes "protecting the children"

b) abusive priests are "victims" of anything other than their own shitty luck in getting found out.

I can understand that you love your church. I can understand that you want to protect its reputation. I can understand that you don't want to accept that a Cardinal can be a bad, immoral person. But the bottom line is that the victims here are the children. No amount of counter-accusation against the media or "society" changes that.

The Boston scandal seems very similar to the current outrage in the UK over the actions of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster. He too covered up abuse by paying off the victims and moving the priests around. In one case, he moved a paedophile to the chaplaincy of Gatwick Airport, in the hope that he wouldn't encounter children there. Unfortunately, it didn't stop the priest from re-offending, and he's now in jail. Other cases included a self-confessed abuser who was rehoused by the Church - in a street that faced onto a primary school playground.

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor has offered many excuses for his actions - the idea that "nobody understood the obsessive nature of paedophilia at the time" (fifteen years ago?), the idea that the RC Church is facing a media witch-hunt (ha ha, pun surely not intended) - but the blame for these messes remains in the hands of the Cardinals who avoided their responsibilities.

That's why they should go; that's why the Vatican should be taking a harder line on abuse within the Church; and that's why former Catholics like me find ourselves losing any vestiges of respect we had for the Church.

Gemma Therese

B. Shack, you took my quote out of context. Someone make the accusation that women have no positions of power within the Chruch, and I was refuting their claim.

Gemma Therese