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2005-04-06 Home Front: Culture Wars

'nother liberal: New Pope Just *Has* To Be A Liberal

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Posted by Anonymoose 2005-04-06 10:29|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Nice article from someone who is TOTALLY disconnected from the Catholic church, and obviously wrong. JPII popularity with Catholics is his steadfast and unwavering beliefs. Catholics are taught to listen to the priests not to preach to the clergy. This guy is going to be upset (like the rest of the liberals) when the next Pope is just as conservative as the last one. I like the way he notes the INCREASE of Catholics while spouting off about everything that is wrong with Catholics. In this guys dream there must be some vast liberal underground in the church that is waiting to rise up and install women priests, allow gay marriages, and allow priest to marry. I doubt that is what will happen under the next Pope or the next dozen Popes.

Posted by Cyber Sarge 2005-04-06 11:12:04 AM|| 2005-04-06 11:12:04 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 CS - I can see allowing married priests sooner than the rest - especially since the eastern orthodox sects allow it. Might help with keeping enough priests as well....

Posted by Frank G 2005-04-06 11:48:04 AM|| 2005-04-06 11:48:04 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 I have suggested in past that the solution to a shortage of good Priests is to change the focus on where they recruit. That is, go to the heavily Catholic slums of the 3rd and 4th world, of which there are several. Recruit young men with the following offer: they are to be taken to a foreign country where they do not speak the language for basic seminary, to become Priests "2nd Class", who can conduct mass but perform no other service or ritual; their entire paycheck goes to their family, back home, to uplift them from poverty; when they are basic seminary trained and capable, they become an assistant Priest to a "Full" Priest, who performs the other functions of clergy for maybe four churches and acts as their supervisor. The best of these young Priests are retained and become Full Priests after attending a regular seminary, but *any* errors or failures and they are sent home. The advantages of doing this are many: they do not speak the local tongue of their ministering parish, the only local language they know is that of the mass--his relationship to his Parish is through the word alone. They are as soldiers serving abroad. Their great motivation is both their faith and the responsibility as breadwinner of their family--their family depends on them; they are no longer the "excess sons" of their family, but the "honorable, good sons". The few disadvantages are not great, as the rituals to be performed by the Full Priest must be scheduled at a given Church, and that the Priest 2nd must reside in nearby quarters not needing transport other than foot to his Parish; the Full Priest retains his passport, so otherwise he is not part, nor becomes part of the local community. He is probationary. If he succeeds he becomes a Priest, if he fails, for a time he has still provided honorable service, and has helped to raise his family from poverty, so he may join the ranks of the respected laity.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-04-06 12:23:42 PM|| 2005-04-06 12:23:42 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 Frank, Allowing priests to marry would not stop pedophiles from molesting young men (if that is what you meant). They have to have a pre-disposition for such activity (See homosexuality). Letting them marry might be an idea they would want to entertain, but I don't see that happening (maybe I am wrong). Notice that priests are NOT lobbying the church to marry, not sure who is lobbying the church for a change but it aint the priests. Anonymoose, you described the duties of the Deacon and most parishes have at least one of those. A Deacon (not a priest) babtised my youngest son.

Posted by Cyber Sarge 2005-04-06 2:03:03 PM|| 2005-04-06 2:03:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 shortage of priests is a problem, and a culture of homosexuality or winking at pedophilia is NO answer. I'd also expect a married priest could give better advice on marriage and relationships. But that's just me...

Posted by Frank G 2005-04-06 2:45:02 PM|| 2005-04-06 2:45:02 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 Cyber Sarge: while there are some parallels with these "Priests 2nd" and Deacons, the important difference is that these are "probationary" Priests. They are purposefully segregated from the community in which they practice, intentionally restricted to very limited service to where it is most needed in the church: the giving of mass. Like Deacons, they do free up the Full Priest for the more specialized, difficult and complex duties, but unlike Deacons their purpose is to serve a congregation, not to become a part of it. Their purpose is to learn service, not mastery. Only if they prove themselves capable of serving others do they advance to learn what a Full Priest knows, and how to lead as well as serve. But their greatest service is providing the much-needed mass to so very many congregants, so many that the few Priests are stretched thin. Which goes back to recruiting: how to maintain quality while still providing the quantity needed? There just aren't enough recruits in the 1st world anymore. So find those young men with good intentions and a strong motivation to do the job. Everything else flows from that need.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-04-06 3:00:31 PM|| 2005-04-06 3:00:31 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 CyberSarge

A century ago it was easier to keep celibate vows since the surrounding world was less sexuallly charged. But today you can't watch TV for ten minutes without having scantily clad women vaunting perfumes or bras, you can't walk for 100 yards without stumbling in a newspaper store who sells porn magazines. Those sexual agressions engender desires butdesires the priest cannot satisfy and those unfulfilled desires tend to in some way "rot" and become perverted when they were normal in the beginning.

Posted by JFM 2005-04-06 3:04:15 PM|| 2005-04-06 3:04:15 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 JFM, Most of those abuses occured more than 20 years ago, not in the "sexuallly charged" atmosphere today.

Posted by Cyber Sarge 2005-04-06 3:11:20 PM|| 2005-04-06 3:11:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 F Y I, all:

Papal Constitution re: Papal Election

Posted by BigEd 2005-04-06 3:52:28 PM|| 2005-04-06 3:52:28 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 Things were pretty charged up in the 70's and 80's, too: Disco, coke, casual sex...

Posted by eLarson 2005-04-06 3:53:53 PM|| [http://larsonian.blogspot.com] 2005-04-06 3:53:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Yeah, tell me about it...

Posted by Bernie Law 2005-04-06 4:52:04 PM|| 2005-04-06 4:52:04 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 CyberSarge

Twenty years ago? In 1985 there were porn theatres, a variety of sex magazines in newstands going from Playboy-like to hardcore, advertisements on TV.

If you want to find an atmosphere who was not sexually charged you have to go back at least to the fifties.

Posted by JFM 2005-04-06 5:01:08 PM|| 2005-04-06 5:01:08 PM|| Front Page Top

14:34 anonymous
23:50 True German Ally
23:27 Frank G
23:20 Jame Retief
23:19 Carl in N.H.
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23:01 Frank G
22:43 3dc
22:41 Sobiesky
22:39 Seafarious
22:37 Alaska Paul
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22:21 Chuck Simmins
22:12 WOT?
22:00 Frank G
21:50 Alaska Paul
21:47 True German Ally
21:37 Pappy
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21:31 Asedwich
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