quote:VATICAN CITY — The Vatican issued revisions to its internal laws on Thursday making it easier to discipline sex-abuser priests, but caused confusion by also stating that ordaining women as priests was as grave an offense as pedophilia.
You know, every time I think the hierarchy of the religion I was born into has shown itself as clueless and out-of-step as was possible, they find a way to scrape through the bottom of the barrel.
Granted, I find the ban on ordaining women to be counter-productive and antiquated anyway. But to put the ordination of women on the same plane as sexual abuse of minors? Even if one agrees that such ordinations are an offense, equating the two is like a business saying that stealing computer hardware will be punished the same way as stabbing a supervisor in the neck.
In some ways worse is that, in the wake of a continued firestorm of sexual abuse revelations, this sends the message, "Hey! We're victims here, too..." as ordaining female priests can largely be seen as an offense against the authority and unity of the Church.
Or as though the Church was saying, "You know, some of you have been doing things we don't like, too. Let's not suggest any of us are blameless."
Further, it suggests that the matter of sexual abuse is being treated like housekeeping- all problems of the day can be dealt with at the same time, with no particular reason that molesting children should receive any more attention than any of the other problems.
It's a sad state of affairs.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
That is jacked up. I don't have a problem with religions choosing qualifications for religious roles, but comparing ordaining females as priests to pedophilia is seriously messed up.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Sterling, exactly right. It is as if the Vatican can only see things in terms of how it impacts their authority. Even if they are not equating the two, the fact that they were so "tone deaf" about this announcement is an indication that they still aren't getting it.
Edit to add: It seems the Vatican would rather be in communion with Bishops who abet pedophiles that with this good man.
I highly recommend watching the video (second link) for a wonderful and passionate argument for the ordination of women.
[ July 16, 2010, 03:17 PM: Message edited by: kmbboots ]
Posted by Shawshank (Member # 8453) on :
Thanks for that video kmbboots. Do you know anything else about this guy?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
He is probably most noted for founding the SOA Watch.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Hmm yas and let's take a look at their reforms
quote:The new rules do not, for example, hold bishops accountable for abuse by priests on their watch, nor do they require them to report sexual abuse to civil authorities
sure, sure, awesome, can't wait to hear why this is sufficient.
between this and the whole thing going on with the haredi in israel it's been a pretty sweet week for eyebrow-raising religious weirdness.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
Organzed religion has always been about power. It is easier to forget that when they aren't working so hard to keep that power.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
"If the Vatican is trying to restore the impression that its moral sense is intact, issuing a document that equates pedophilia with the ordination of women doesn’t really do that."
quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: Organzed religion has always been about power.
Organized anything, for the most part.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
quote: In The New Republic, Garry Wills wrote about his struggle to come to terms with the sins of his church: Jesus “is the one who said, ‘Whatever you did to any of my brothers, even the lowliest, you did to me.’ That means that the priests abusing the vulnerable young were doing that to Jesus, raping Jesus. Any clerical functionary who shows more sympathy for the predator priests than for their victims instantly disqualified himself as a follower of Jesus. The cardinals said they must care for their own, going to jail if necessary to protect a priest. We say the same thing, but the ‘our own’ we care for are the victimized, the poor, the violated. They are Jesus.”
I agree completely.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
quote:Originally posted by Luna 9:
quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: Organzed religion has always been about power.
Organized anything, for the most part.
My high school math club was a serious group of tyrants Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by MightyCow:
quote:Originally posted by Luna 9:
quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: Organzed religion has always been about power.
Organized anything, for the most part.
My high school math club was a serious group of tyrants
Did your math club have any power to protect?
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Man.
If I had stayed Catholic these last four years, I don't know if I would be able to hold onto it anymore anyway...
Even if I did still believe in God, would I hold these people to be the servants of the God I believed in at the time, and would presumably still believe in?
I don't think so...
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Did your math club have any power to protect?
No, and neither do many orginizations. The Big Monotheistic religions are much more power hungry than almost any organizations.
Corporations are designed as overtly growth, for profit, special interest groups, and even they don't dare to go as far as religions.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
You mean they can't go as far as most religions. Which is a pretty silly thing to say anyway, since big for-growth special interest corprations contribute to organizations enacting and persuading the kinds of changes you would likely object to all the time.
To use the biggest, easiest example, panzer tanks weren't built in a chapel, after all.
Anyway, the point is, 'religion' is no more dangerous and power hungry in and of itself than any other comparably large in size, scope, and power organization. The problem is, there is really only one peer, and that's government. But, in the United States at least and throughout most of the so-called 'first world', religion like government really only has the power to be dangerous that we give it.
Which comes back around to the obvious fundamental point that you consistently either overlook or just refuse to say: religion isn't dangerous, people are. 'Religion' by itself cannot accomplish one single thing. It's not even as dangerous as a firearm or a car because it cannot malfunction purely on accident. Where I would agree with you, though, is that what's dangerous is people throwing up blinders about religion and refusing to see any danger. For example, being topical, priests who sexually abuse children.
What we as a representative society ought to do is something along the lines of "this is the way you're going to run things in this country, RC Church, and if you don't, you're going to lose that tax-exempt status just as quickly as we can arrange it. We'll use the revenues from such a windfall to finance charities and public works to fill in the gap left by you." With the way we insist they run things being something along the lines of requirements for reporting sexual abuse exactly as they are for teachers and doctors, draconian punishments for any sex offender regardless of clergy position, serious punishment for anyone caught being negligent in the hierarchy of rooting such folks out, and a requirement that any investigation of misconduct be conducted by secular and not religious authorities.
We have the power to compel these sorts of things from the RC Church in the USA, but we don't exercise it. 'Religion' isn't dangerous-we are.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Religions don't kill people, people kill people
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
*shrug* It's true, though of course it is a cliche. At least with the guns cliche, you can respond, "People with guns!" but the claim that people without religion don't kill people can hardly be made with a straight face.
Anyway, MightyCow's claim is that religion ought to be considered the biggest offender in organized human wrongdoing, but that's simply not an open and shut case. Period. Governments routinely inflict horrible suffering on people, all over the world. Sometimes they do it with religious help, sometimes without.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: ... *shrug* It's true, though of course it is a cliche.
Of course we license guns, keep them away from children, out-right ban them in certain areas (and certain types totally), and generally try to discourage their use in our cities.
I look forward to when we do the same with religion Posted by JanitorBlade (Member # 12343) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: ... *shrug* It's true, though of course it is a cliche.
Of course we license guns, keep them away from children, out-right ban them in certain areas (and certain types totally), and generally try to discourage their use in our cities.
I look forward to when we do the same with religion
I think it will happen one day, and we won't be a happier society for having done it.
edit: Further guns, are a terrible metaphor for religion as they can do only one thing effectively, injure and kill. Religion produces wonderful people as well. Has a gun ever produced something positive?
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Mucas, I look forward to never living in a world where your views are a majority. Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
Rakeesh: It's easy to win your arguments when you make so many strawmen.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Kwea: I agree. Further, I'm glad that Mucus' view of guns seems to finally be losing traction, if recent developments are any indication.
Freedom of religion and the right to have arm like a grizzly are just two of the many wonderful freedoms in this country. I pray I never live to see a day when those freedoms are lost.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
Blade: If we can't blame religion for the bad people do, we can't give it credit for the good they do either. Religion didn't produce the wonderful people, the wonderful people decided to be religious
I'm not especially a gun proponent, but guns have fed and protected a lot of people.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
MightyCow: Whose saying religion can't influence a person for good or ill? People are merely taking issue with your assertion that religion is somehow especially devious in it's hunger for power and malicious in its execution.
It's not, where in the doctrine are passages that are the seeds for dominating one's neighbors, or taking their lives? People love justifying their evil acts through religion. You see it done in the name of country too, but to a lesser extent. Do you think our constitution really allows for soldiers on our side of the Rio Grand river to start shooting at Mexicans on their side? It happened, and the people involved said they did it for the US of A so that it could claim it's manifest destiny. Does our constitution allow for a falsely stated case leading to the invasion of another country? No, but the perpetrators used patriotism and constitutionalism to justify it.
Religion has more power than virtually any other system because it deals with something that transcends other loyalties including country and even family. The constitution did not create the Iraq War any more than religion created the Crusades. Should we fix the constitution so that something like Iraq absolutely cannot happen? Perhaps. The Crusades in large part happened because people did not have general access to the scriptures. It was withheld from them by their ecclesiastical leaders.
Why don't Christians feel like they should possess Jerusalem now? Many Jews and Muslims still feel that way. Because everybody has the same scriptures now, and the ideas that produced the Crusades just aren't in the books. It was corrupt men, wrangling religion, so that ignorant savage people could be made into instruments of terror.
Your point about guns protecting and feeding isn't totally off mark. But guns are still killing (something to me that isn't necessary in a perfect universe) so it doesn't work entirely. Now obviously, we can't find anything that is always right all the time. But religion creates, it does not just destroy. It should only destroy that which an adherent willing sacrifices.
-----
edit: Sorry about posting as JanitorBlade, I don't wish to discuss while waving my moderator status in people's faces. While I'm BlackBlade you can talk as normal. While I'm JanitorBlade I'm conducting business.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
You are required to use the 'bidness' instead of 'business' when referring to your duties as Janitor, BB.
Posted by Speed (Member # 5162) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: edit: Sorry about posting as JanitorBlade, I don't wish to discuss while waving my moderator status in people's faces. While I'm BlackBlade you can talk as normal. While I'm JanitorBlade I'm conducting business.
:whistled: Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:With the way we insist they run things being something along the lines of requirements for reporting sexual abuse exactly as they are for teachers and doctors, draconian punishments for any sex offender regardless of clergy position, serious punishment for anyone caught being negligent in the hierarchy of rooting such folks out, and a requirement that any investigation of misconduct be conducted by secular and not religious authorities.
Exactly. That this ISN'T the law of the land is seriously jacked, and that the Catholic church wants to prevent this from happening is evidence of deep, abiding, morally-blind, self corruption that is breathtaking in its depravity.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
MightyCow,
You're welcome to, y'know, point to something I've said in this thread that you either haven't said here or elsewhere and is thus a strawman. At your leisure, of course. I'm breathless with anticipation.
quote:Blade: If we can't blame religion for the bad people do, we can't give it credit for the good they do either. Religion didn't produce the wonderful people, the wonderful people decided to be religious
I'm not especially a gun proponent, but guns have fed and protected a lot of people.
Speaking of strawman arguments.
--------
quote:Of course we license guns, keep them away from children, out-right ban them in certain areas (and certain types totally), and generally try to discourage their use in our cities.
I look forward to when we do the same with religion
Actually, we don't keep `em away from children. We just keep `em away from children unsupervised. Rather like religion in that. But I'm all for the time when we can outright ban the practice of an idea in certain areas! I know you didn't say that with a straight face, Mucus, but still.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Actually, we don't keep `em away from children. We just keep `em away from children unsupervised.
Legally? Maybe not. Culturally? I think that would be pretty horrific either way. But I would note, especially for Dan_Frank, that when I use "we" it tends to address things from a Canadian POV rather than an American one, and attitudes have diverged for quite some time.
I, for one, am glad that they have.
quote:But I'm all for the time when we can outright ban the practice of an idea in certain areas! I know you didn't say that with a straight face, Mucus, but still.
About half-way straight, halfway tongue-in-cheek. See debate over reasonable accommodation. We do ban female genital cutting and I think it is fairly inevitable that the niqab will be banned for the purposes of identification and in higher-security areas (in both countries for that matter). Thankfully, creationism is effectively banned from our public schools.
quote:Originally posted by JanitorBlade: ... Further guns, are a terrible metaphor for religion as they can do only one thing effectively, injure and kill.
I agree that they're a terrible metaphor, but coming from the other end. When the conversation starts echoing discredited gun-advocate slogans to defend religion, thats an incredibly low bar. Even the other example that was brought up, cars, doesn't seem to me to be a particularly thrilling position since we're striving to greatly reduce/eliminate the use of that too.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
It occurs to me that religion and guns are also two things in the category of "things that people cling to."
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Plenty of organized religions are not at all about power. Like MightyCow's math club, they are fairly small and powerless (by the reckoning of the world) and stay that way. Friends, Amish, Mennonites do a pretty good job of eschewing power.
Edited to properly assign the math club.
[ July 19, 2010, 11:21 AM: Message edited by: kmbboots ]
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
I entirely disagree with you. Those groups do not necessarily exert a great deal of direct political power, but there are other types of power that they do exert, often vehemently.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I used to be for gun control. But lately I've been questioning whether it's really effective at all, in ways similar to how I've been questioning whether the war on drugs was/is remotely effective. I haven't heard any statistics that actually suggest banning guns decreases crime, and I've heard things like how Switzerland has a huge percentage of gun ownership and an absurdly low crime rate. I realize Switzerland has a lot of other factors going on besides high gun ownership, but whatever they're doing seems more effective than what we're doing.
So as much as I don't particularly care for drugs or guns or ideas-that-I-don't-like™ (which includes some religions and not others), they are things that I think people will almost universally cling MORE to the more you try to actively restrict them.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Guns can do more than injure and kill. They can, for instance, keep me massively entertained for a weekend, and the only real victims are (admittedly innocent) tin cans.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: I entirely disagree with you. Those groups do not necessarily exert a great deal of direct political power, but there are other types of power that they do exert, often vehemently.
Maybe it would help to define what kind of power we are talking about.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Technically, MightyCow's math club.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Sorry. I'll go fix that.
Posted by Mucous (Member # 12331) on :
NP
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: ... I've heard things like how Switzerland has a huge percentage of gun ownership and an absurdly low crime rate. I realize Switzerland has a lot of other factors going on besides high gun ownership, but whatever they're doing seems more effective than what we're doing.
It's all relative. At least according to Wikipedia, sourced to some 1998 text*, in terms of fire-arm related death rates, Switzerland is indeed doing better than the US, but anything OECD would.
Granted, I fully agree that there are more things going on, but Switzerland doesn't seem to be a good counter-example.
* Verified by this in 2005:
quote:But the price of eternal vigilance is frequent funerals: in 2005, 48 people were murdered by gunfire in Switzerland - about the same number as in England and Wales, which have a population seven times as large. According to the International Action Network on Small Arms, an anti-gun organisation based in the UK, 6.2 people died of bullet wounds in Switzerland in 2005 per 100,000 of population, second only to the US figure of 9.42, and more than double the rate of Germany and Italy.
But it seems that Switzerland's "huge percentage of gun ownership" is still only half that of the US (as is the absolute number of guns, which is linked to the above Wiki article on firearms deaths).
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:I agree that they're a terrible metaphor, but coming from the other end. When the conversation starts echoing discredited gun-advocate slogans to defend religion, thats an incredibly low bar. Even the other example that was brought up, cars, doesn't seem to me to be a particularly thrilling position since we're striving to greatly reduce/eliminate the use of that too.
I think we're probably using a vastly different idea for discredited here. 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people,' is actually quite credible in and of itself, and from many of its interpretations. It's when the interpretation gets pretty absurd that problems happen.
Posted by sinflower (Member # 12228) on :
Yay sexism!
Seriously, I've given up on the Vatican. It's a moral cesspool. There's no making excuses for it anymore.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:I agree that they're a terrible metaphor, but coming from the other end. When the conversation starts echoing discredited gun-advocate slogans to defend religion, thats an incredibly low bar. Even the other example that was brought up, cars, doesn't seem to me to be a particularly thrilling position since we're striving to greatly reduce/eliminate the use of that too.
I think we're probably using a vastly different idea for discredited here. 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people,' is actually quite credible in and of itself, and from many of its interpretations. It's when the interpretation gets pretty absurd that problems happen.
Guns don't kill people, blood loss and organ disruption resulting from the penetrative kinetic impact of a shaped lead slug propelled forward by an explosive propellant charge ignited in guns kill people!
Unless you just pistol whip a person to death, I guess that's different.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Guns don't kill people, blood loss and organ disruption resulting from the penetrative kinetic impact of a shaped lead slug propelled forward by an explosive propellant charge ignited in guns kill people!
Unless you just pistol whip a person to death, I guess that's different.
*shrug* While pithy...actually a bit long to be considered pithy, I guess...that still hardly discredits the cliche. I don't have a problem with people who want to restrict the access of many sorts of people to guns. Careless, criminal, addicted, mentally unstable sorts of people. Those are the sorts of people with guns who kill people.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: ... I think we're probably using a vastly different idea for discredited here.
Discredited in the sense that "I have X friends" is discredited as an argument that one is not racist. Sure, one can still find examples where one find white people using it with a straight face, and yes, there is a kernel of truth to it in the sense that they aren't *so* racist that they have to beat every non-white person they see with a stick. But in either case, we're talking an extremely low bar that simultaneously misses the larger issues and is more often than not, a source of mockery and satire on places like for example, The Colbert Report.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Actually, I think 'guns don't kill people, people kill people' cleaves to the issue rather nicely, depending on how it's used. The satire is reserved for uses like 'don't regulate guns ever'.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:Guns don't kill people, blood loss and organ disruption resulting from the penetrative kinetic impact of a shaped lead slug propelled forward by an explosive propellant charge ignited in guns kill people!
Unless you just pistol whip a person to death, I guess that's different.
*shrug* While pithy...actually a bit long to be considered pithy, I guess...that still hardly discredits the cliche.
I don't support gun control, but I do like poking fun at the semantic game this statement makes as a counter to those who support the removal of guns.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
It can be a semantic game, it's true, but when used honestly and reasonably, I don't think it's a semantic game at all, but a pretty pointed argument.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
A pretty pointed argument in favor of gun regulation laws, yes.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I agree. What it really is, though, is a pointed argument in opposition to the two extremes, both of which have support in this country: no civilian gun ownership period, and no checks on civilian gun ownership.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: ... I think we're probably using a vastly different idea for discredited here.
Discredited in the sense that "I have X friends" is discredited as an argument that one is not racist. Sure, one can still find examples where one find white people using it with a straight face, and yes, there is a kernel of truth to it in the sense that they aren't *so* racist that they have to beat every non-white person they see with a stick.
You know, it IS possible to not only not be racist but to also have non-white friends. Just because you say that phrase doesn't mean you ARE racist. Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
I'm in the Stephen Colbert school of race relations. I don't even know what color my friends are.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I know what color all my friends are, and mock them frequently for it and with gusto.
This includes the more esoteric forms of racial mockery. Ginges like Kat bruise easily because they're supposed to be kicked. And Ray has a racial +100 to his APM score for being a Korean.
Then, of course, I am savaged in return for being a skinny white kid whose dance moves are all plagiarized wholesale from boogie nights.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:After years of humiliating sexual-abuse scandals, Roman Catholic Church officials are trying harder than ever to convince parishioners that they're doing everything they can to prevent such tragedies from happening again. That means public education, training programs and—in the New York Archdiocese—a surprisingly direct, abuse-themed coloring book for kids that's being sent to parishioners across the area. At first glance, "Being Friends, Being Safe, Being Catholic" is what you'd expect from a Christian handout: lessons in loving thy neighbor and knowing we're all special in God's eyes, plus a fun word search with names of people whom kids can trust (parents, counselors, teachers). Many of the book's cartoon-sketch drawings, which were created by a church volunteer, are light in tone and narrated by an angel looming overhead. But on one page, the angel warns of an online predator—with chest hair exposed—who attempts to chat with a child; on another (shown above), the angel implies that children should make sure they're never alone in a room with a priest. That's an unusual approach, says David Clohessy, the national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, but not necessarily a bad one. "We welcome any innovation," he says, "especially from an institution that has such a horrific track record." The coloring book is intended as a supplement to the prevention curriculum mandated by a 2002 U.S. bishops charter—a way for adults to broach a topic that is "not the most pleasant to talk about," says Edward Mechmann, the director of the New York Archdiocese's Safe Environment Program. He says the book (along with comics about molestation, for older kids) has been shipped to about 700 schools. Administrators are then given the option of distributing them. "Teachers love it," Mechmann says. "It's a nice little vehicle for speaking to kids about [abuse]." Talk about alternative education.
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