The Pope has been cowardly (Matt Walsh interview)

[danbuter]

He even went into how the Pope is insinuating that people accusing the priests are the ones to blame.

 

[Stabat Mater dolorosa]

Old news, got published several days ago in OBOB.

 

[John Bowen]

As Jesus told us " Ye shall know them by their fruits "

 

[Dan the deacon]

As Jesus told us " Ye shall know them by their fruits "

That is not fruit. It is poop.

 

[danbuter]

Old news, got published several days ago in OBOB.

I have no idea what OBOB is, but thanks for being so condescending.

edit: I guess it's the Catholic sub-forum. I'm not Catholic, but this whole scandal is affecting all Christians and should be discussed by all.

 

[fat wee robin]

Poor Francis ,he cant solve ALL of the faults of his church alone ,the people in the Church need to grow up .

 

[danbuter]

My biggest worry about all of this is that it allows the reactionary atheists to paint all Christians with the brush of sin caused by the Catholic cover-up.

 

[chevyontheriver]

I have no idea what OBOB is, but thanks for being so condescending.

It's the Catholic part of Christian Forums, where all of this is being discussed about as soon as it breaks. As far as being condescending goes, the following might explain a bit about how we might feel:

https://babylonbee.com/news/local-protestant-thanks-god-that-hes-not-like-those-messed-up-catholics/

 

[paul1149]

My biggest worry about all of this is that it allows the reactionary atheists to paint all Christians with the brush of sin caused by the Catholic cover-up.

You can bet it's going to happen. And of course, examples abound in the low church as well, so there's no room for internecine finger-pointing. The way I see it, taking a step back to consider what effect this might have, I think this is going to be a purification of the Body, because clearly the status quo is dramatically unworkable. I think that many Christians are going to be less trusting, and become less dependent, upon religious structures, and more concerned with what has been advanced as the MRI model for what "organic" church should be: incarnational, relational, and missional. I see this as a move toward 1st Century Christianity. That's a good thing, though the birth pangs will not be fun.

 

[Stabat Mater dolorosa]

I have no idea what OBOB is, but thanks for being so condescending.

edit: I guess it's the Catholic sub-forum. I'm not Catholic, but this whole scandal is affecting all Christians and should be discussed by all.

Be that as it may, when people post old stuff about the church with what seems to be a solemn intention of lashing out and bashing the church then it needs to be addressed.

If you dont know what OBOB is after a year at CF may I encourage you to learn more about the plurality of this place?

 

[eleos1954]

He even went into how the Pope is insinuating that people accusing the priests are the ones to blame.

Well ... that may or may not be appropriate ... yes, were these priests/clergy influenced by satan as the pope stated? of course .... does that mean it's excused? Of course not. Did the pope state that? Not in the clips I saw ... maybe I missed one ... dunno.? I didn't get from Walsh any insinuation ... what I got from the Walsh interview was Walsh was left rather baffled that the pope didn't say more about the matters.

So how should any institution, religious or otherwise handle this type of situation? Turn the matter(s) over to the police and let them investigate it. May be found to be true, may be found to be not true, maybe not enough evidence to pursue ... but better for the police to perform the investigation, other than ignoring it, having reassignments or attempting any kind of "in house" investigation or "resolve" if true it is criminal, not to mention horrific no matter who the perpetrators might be.

 

[Dan the deacon]

I have no idea what OBOB is, but thanks for being so condescending.

edit: I guess it's the Catholic sub-forum. I'm not Catholic, but this whole scandal is affecting all Christians and should be discussed by all.

Why, does your Church have the same issues? What happens in the Roman Church does not concetn me. We left communion with them about a millenium ago.

 

[Hank77]

Be that as it may, when people post old stuff about the church with what seems to be a solemn intention of lashing out and bashing the church then it needs to be addressed.

If you dont know what OBOB is after a year at CF may I encourage you to learn more about the plurality of this place?

This is the first thread that I have seen that is not in OBOB or one of the other Catholic forums. The video is a faithful Catholic giving his perspective. No one is bashing or lashing out.

Other Christians are concerned and have a reason to be. They need to be able to discuss it, just as Catholics do. There are other Christians praying for Catholic people because we know this is a dreadful time for you.

 

[danbuter]

I hope the Church finally knuckles down and hands over the criminals to the police with all of the collected evidence. That will go a long way towards improving their standing.

 

[dzheremi]

To pray "Thank God that I am not like XYZ" is horrible.

But this scandal is also horrible, and the handling of it has not been a high point in the Roman Catholic Church's present and recent past. It does also affect other communions, as I have had to deal with more than a few uneducated Muslims and atheists who confuse my Church, the Coptic Orthodox (Egyptian Orthodox) Church with that of the Catholics, because we too have a Pope (currently HH Pope Tawadros II), our priests wear mitres when celebrating the liturgy, we use tons of incense (and Catholicism is often equated in the minds of others as all about "smells and bells"), and so on. Nevertheless we have not been in communion with the Greco-Roman (Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) churches since c. 451 AD, and more importantly we have never had the problem of mass sexual molestation of children. Our priests can and do marry (and always have; we even once had a married Pope, HH St. Pope Demetrius the Vinedresser, d. 232) and have children like any regular person would, and we do not have the theology that prevents the forced laicization of errant priests as outlined in the Roman Catholic Catechism (CCC 1583). So it is a real problem to everybody, even if it is most specifically a problem of the Roman Catholic Church, or can be argued to be so.

Lest I am misunderstood, I am not saying that all or only RC priests molest children; in the fact, the doorman at the Presbyterian church in which I was raised was revealed to be a pedophile in a trial that sent him to prison for the rest of his natural life when I was around age 14, long after I had stopped attending that particular church. So I know it happens everywhere. I think what people have problem with in the RC case is the perceived cowardice in confronting the problem, as it says in the video: blaming the victims, blaming the faithful Catholics who are anguished over this, etc. What does that do for anybody? It's horrible. Pope Francis should apologize for this and act like a real leader and use his power to get rid of these cardinal and bishop abusers. Cooperate with authorities and if that means they go to jail, then they go to jail.

And if it is true that Pope Francis has personally helped in covering it up...gosh, I don't even know what could be done about that, given the Roman ecclesiology that places the Pope above the ruling of any council (as per Vatican I). Councils have nevertheless been called in the past in the Roman Catholic Church to settle disputes involving the Pope (think of the Council of Constance, which ended the Western Schism in which there were at one time three claimants to the papacy). It seems like evidence of a cover-up could be reason enough to defy your established tradition and call another council to deal with what by any other measure would be called an errant bishop.

It is a challenge to your ecclesiological traditions, sure, but also you must face the reality in which your Church is being ripped apart and its soul exposed as filled with ugliness before the entire world. Sometimes it takes a St. John Chrysostom or St. John the Baptist-type figure (the former having coined the saying that "the road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops" and the latter famously crying in the desert to make way for the coming of the Lord, and thereby disrupting the established religious order of his day which was not prepared for the coming of the Messiah and hence did not recognize Him when He did come) to stand up, take names, and start cleaning house. Or think of Christ in the temple. He cleansed it by His holy and righteous anger and authority to clean out the rot that had infested it.

Maybe, my beloved former co-religionists (yes, I am a former RC myself), it is time for your own "Jesus cleansing the temple" event. In fact, maybe it is long past time. And if Pope Francis won't do it, despite all the power he is given in accordance with your ecclesiology, maybe he should be the first to go. I hate to say it because I know it will sound like a bitter ex-RC trying to bully people or inject his unwanted opinion, but even if you do see it that way, surely you also see that something must be done. I cannot imagine anyone being fine with this, much less any of the many good and pious Catholics I have know who are deeply (and rightly!) aggrieved by this recurring nightmare of abuse and cover up, abuse and cover up, abuse and cover up ad nauseam, seemingly over the whole world.

Let us not rejoice when a brother falls, but help him up, and pray for the healing of his injury. Lord have mercy. And most of all for the victims, again Lord have mercy.

Justice should prevail even if any Pope or other bishop should fall in the process. Glory be to God for the cleaning of His house then, right?

 

[Stabat Mater dolorosa]

To pray "Thank God that I am not like XYZ" is horrible.

But this scandal is also horrible, and the handling of it has not been a high point in the Roman Catholic Church's present and recent past. It does also affect other communions, as I have had to deal with more than a few uneducated Muslims and atheists who confuse my Church, the Coptic Orthodox (Egyptian Orthodox) Church with that of the Catholics, because we too have a Pope (currently HH Pope Tawadros II), our priests wear mitres when celebrating the liturgy, we use tons of incense (and Catholicism is often equated in the minds of others as all about "smells and bells"), and so on. Nevertheless we have not been in communion with the Greco-Roman (Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) churches since c. 451 AD, and more importantly we have never had the problem of mass sexual molestation of children. Our priests can and do marry (and always have; we even once had a married Pope, HH St. Pope Demetrius the Vinedresser, d. 232) and have children like any regular person would, and we do not have the theology that prevents the forced laicization of errant priests as outlined in the Roman Catholic Catechism (CCC 1583). So it is a real problem to everybody, even if it is most specifically a problem of the Roman Catholic Church, or can be argued to be so.

Lest I am misunderstood, I am not saying that all or only RC priests molest children; in the fact, the doorman at the Presbyterian church in which I was raised was revealed to be a pedophile in a trial that sent him to prison for the rest of his natural life when I was around age 14, long after I had stopped attending that particular church. So I know it happens everywhere. I think what people have problem with in the RC case is the perceived cowardice in confronting the problem, as it says in the video: blaming the victims, blaming the faithful Catholics who are anguished over this, etc. What does that do for anybody? It's horrible. Pope Francis should apologize for this and act like a real leader and use his power to get rid of these cardinal and bishop abusers. Cooperate with authorities and if that means they go to jail, then they go to jail.

And if it is true that Pope Francis has personally helped in covering it up...gosh, I don't even know what could be done about that, given the Roman ecclesiology that places the Pope above the ruling of any council (as per Vatican I). Councils have nevertheless been called in the past in the Roman Catholic Church to settle disputes involving the Pope (think of the Council of Constance, which ended the Western Schism in which there were at one time three claimants to the papacy). It seems like evidence of a cover-up could be reason enough to defy your established tradition and call another council to deal with what by any other measure would be called an errant bishop.

It is a challenge to your ecclesiological traditions, sure, but also you must face the reality in which your Church is being ripped apart and its soul exposed as filled with ugliness before the entire world. Sometimes it takes a St. John Chrysostom or St. John the Baptist-type figure (the former having coined the saying that "the road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops" and the latter famously crying in the desert to make way for the coming of the Lord, and thereby disrupting the established religious order of his day which was not prepared for the coming of the Messiah and hence did not recognize Him when He did come) to stand up, take names, and start cleaning house. Or think of Christ in the temple. He cleansed it by His holy and righteous anger and authority to clean out the rot that had infested it.

Maybe, my beloved former co-religionists (yes, I am a former RC myself), it is time for your own "Jesus cleansing the temple" event. In fact, maybe it is long past time. And if Pope Francis won't do it, despite all the power he is given in accordance with your ecclesiology, maybe he should be the first to go. I hate to say it because I know it will sound like a bitter ex-RC trying to bully people or inject his unwanted opinion, but even if you do see it that way, surely you also see that something must be done. I cannot imagine anyone being fine with this, much less any of the many good and pious Catholics I have know who are deeply (and rightly!) aggrieved by this recurring nightmare of abuse and cover up, abuse and cover up, abuse and cover up ad nauseam, seemingly over the whole world.

Let us not rejoice when a brother falls, but help him up, and pray for the healing of his injury. Lord have mercy. And most of all for the victims, again Lord have mercy.

Justice should prevail even if any Pope or other bishop should fall in the process. Glory be to God for the cleaning of His house then, right?

To challenge a very long post with a very short one. Have you kept in mind the very real possibility that many of these allegations are nothing but a witchhunt?
As the old saying goes "no smoke without a fire" of course, but the numbers are simply to massive to be true imho.

Given the possibility that evil people accuse good men of such satanic behavior a bishop cannot sell his priests to Egypt without evidence or confession by the priest himself.

I'm not diminishing the gravity and seriousness of this, but I'm just trying to shed some light on the complexity of this.

Shouting "lock them up" is not the way to go.

 

[Stabat Mater dolorosa]

I'm trying to excuse how some good bishops may have ended up "covering up" abuse.
If they trust their priests, the priest swears he haven't done anything wrong and apparent victims have nothing to back up their claims with. Then what is the proper action by a bishop?

May I suggest moving the priest to a different parish?

This is complicated and disgusting regardless and I'm glad I'm not pope.

 

[chevyontheriver]

I'm trying to excuse how some good bishops may have ended up "covering up" abuse.
If they trust their priests, the priest swears he haven't done anything wrong and apparent victims have nothing to back up their claims with. Then what is the proper action by a bishop?

May I suggest moving the priest to a different parish?

If that parish is in Antarctica, maybe a workable idea. I'm still working on how or whether an abuser can be rehabilitated. Because we really are all about reconciliation, which doesn't coincide with 'strike one, you're out'. I don't see a path right now, and yet St. Paul was a murderer of Christians. Somehow he was rehabilitated. And yet some are more like Judas, for whom it would have been better if he had not been born.

 

[paul1149]

I'm trying to excuse how some good bishops may have ended up "covering up" abuse.
If they trust their priests, the priest swears he haven't done anything wrong and apparent victims have nothing to back up their claims with. Then what is the proper action by a bishop?

May I suggest moving the priest to a different parish?

There's only one way to beat this that I know of, and that's relationship. Christians working alongside each other, worshiping together, confessing together, ought to be growing closer in the Lord. Not everyone is going to be a bosom buddy, but we ought to get to the point where we sense how far we can trust the other guy.

That very evidently has not been happening in the RCC. Low church has more than its share of accountability problems (simply witness the Aretha Franklin funeral), so I'm not trying to rub anyone's nose in it, but that fact that this could go on for so long, especially over the last 20 years since the last sex scandals, and be so ignored at the highest levels, by so organized a church, is stunning. Homosexuals in the RC priesthood has been a badly kept secret, yet nothing was done about it in all that time. And now one wonders if this isn't a global problem.

Shuffling people around to other parishes doesn't come close to being an answer if there is reasonable suspicion, especially without giving a heads-up. It is a transgression of the highest order against the flock.

 

[Nige55]

Love Matt Walsh.
As regards, 'bashing and lashing out at the church' - I has been going on on the RCC, - if you can't be prepared to demand your church condemn it and make themselves transparent for investigation - then you're part of the problem. If it were my church ? - I would demand that it's fully investigated.
If there's nothing happening, then there's nothing to hide.
Can you imagine how furious the Father and Son must be at those people involved ?