The Catholicism Thread

Kind of weird reading about all you irregular attenders still taking communion - that's up there with some serious shit in the sins list in my part of the world.

agreed.

i mean you guys better hope it's all bullshit cos if not

never really heard that sin...and here i was thinking wanking would send me to hell.

is it a sin to enjoy a fine wine?

theologically I was aware that you weren't supposed to take communion unshriven but tbh it doesn't seem to stop my wife and I'm pretty sure she hasn't been to confession since the 1980s

confession...what a complete load of shit that was. even as a child i fabricated sins, obviously subconsciously realising how fucking weird it would be to tell a stranger something you genuinely felt bad about.

http://www.catholic.com/library/Who_Can_Receive_Communion.asp

To receive Communion worthily, you must be in a state of grace, have made a good confession since your last mortal sin, believe in transubstantiation, observe the Eucharistic fast, and, finally, not be under an ecclesiastical censure such as excommunication.

Out of habit and out of fear of what those around them will think if they do not receive Communion, some Catholics, in a state of mortal sin, choose to go forward and offend God rather than stay in the pew while others receive the Eucharist. The Church’s ancient teaching on this particular matter is expressed in the Didache, an early Christian document written around A.D. 70, which states: "Whosoever is holy [i.e., in a state of sanctifying grace], let him approach. Whosoever is not, let him repent" (Didache 10).

Not sure if it's habit or fear or if people just like queuing or something.

hot eucharistic ministers, we covered this

i just got bollocked, she last went in 2009 apparently

During an "All right, now does anyone have a question?" segment at the end of one of my fourth-grade religion classes, I asked my teacher if she knew whether St. Francis was vegetarian or ate meat -- if he ate meat, that would make him a pretty lousy animal protector. The class chuckled, the teacher said, "Very funny," and that was it. Thanks for your insight.

My church/school was named after St. Francis and I thought it was weird that all the fundraiser dinners centered around ham, turkey, chicken, steak.

The best part about going to church was sitting behind U-M basketball coach Steve Fisher and getting donuts afterward.

The best part about going to church with just my dad: being able to wear jeans and Starter jacket and bailing immediately after communion.

oh yeah, gettig ready for mass was the biggest pain in the arse. Getting your hair brushed with extreme prejudice, wearing the awful shite your mum had picked out the previous christmas that had to do you for the year, baths! Everything!

At least when i was 13 i could go on sat evening and chill with friends after, i was nearly big enough to dress myself at that stage

This thread is bringing back memories. When my mom, a nice Irish Catholic girl, married my dad, a WASP, they couldn't stand behind the alter, where the true devotees stand, but had to stand in front of the alter, where those embarking on "mixed marriages" were banished. This was probably better for her family than the fact that her older sister secretly eloped when she was a senior in high school, to an Irish Catholic but from the wrong side of the tracks, and didn't tell her parents until after she had graduated.

Cardinal Edward Egan Just Withdrew His Apology For The Catholic Sex-Abuse Scandal

I think you meant to post this in the 'shit that looks like an Onion article' thread... oh wait. :(

Jesus, Joseph and Mary, that blogger nails him but good. Deservedly so.

i thought the church was against withdrawal

Responding to the BBC ‘This World’ programme entitled ‘The Shame of the Catholic Church’, broadcast on 1 May 2012, Cardinal Seán Brady has issued the following statement:

On Tuesday 1 May 2012, the BBC ‘This World’ series broadcast a programme entitled ‘The Shame of the Catholic Church’ on the BBC Northern Ireland network. In the course of the programme a number of claims were made which overstate and seriously misrepresent my role in a Church Inquiry in 1975 into allegations against the Norbertine priest Fr Brendan Smyth.

In response to the programme I wish to draw attention to the following:

Six weeks before broadcast (15 March 2012) I drew the attention of the programme makers to a number of important facts related to the 1975 Church inquiry into Brendan Smyth, which the programme failed to report and which I now wish to restate for all other media who report on this matter:

• To suggest, as the programme does, that I led the investigation of the 1975 Church Inquiry into allegations against Brendan Smyth is seriously misleading and untrue. I was asked by my then Bishop (Bishop Francis McKiernan of the Diocese of Kilmore) to assist others who were more senior to me in this Inquiry process on a one-off basis only;
• The documentation of the interview with Brendan Boland, signed in his presence, clearly identifies me as the ‘notary’ or ‘note taker’. Any suggestion that I was other than a ‘notary’ in the process of recording evidence from Mr Boland, is false and misleading;
• I did not formulate the questions asked in the Inquiry process. I did not put these questions to Mr Boland. I simply recorded the answers that he gave;
• Acting promptly and with the specific purpose of corroborating the evidence provided by Mr Boland, thereby strengthening the case against Brendan Smyth, I subsequently interviewed one of the children identified by Mr Boland who lived in my home diocese of Kilmore. That I conducted this interview on my own is already on the public record. This provided prompt corroboration of the evidence given by Mr Boland;
• In 1975 no State or Church guidelines existed in the Republic of Ireland to assist those responding to an allegation of abuse against a minor. No training was given to priests, teachers, police officers or others who worked regularly with children about how to respond appropriately should such allegations be made;
• Even according to the State guidelines in place in the Republic of Ireland today, the person who first receives and records the details of an allegation of child abuse in an organisation that works with children is not the person who has responsibility within that organisation for reporting the matter to the civil authorities. This responsibility belongs to the ‘Designated person’ appointed by the organisation and trained to assume that role. In 1975, I would not have been the ‘Designated Person’ according to today’s guidelines. As the Children First State guidelines explain (3.3.1):‘Every organisation, both public and private, that is providing services for children or that is in regular direct contact with children should (i) Identify a designated liaison person to act as a liaison with outside agencies and a resource person to any staff member or volunteer who has child protection concerns.(ii) The designated liaison person is responsible for ensuring that the standard reporting procedure is followed, so that suspected cases of child neglect or abuse are referred promptly to the designated person in the HSE Children and Family Services or in the event of an emergency and the unavailability of the HSE, to An Garda Síochána.’;
• The commentary in the programme and much of the coverage of my role in this Inquiry gives the impression that I was the only person who knew of the allegations against Brendan Smyth at that time and that because of the office I hold in the Church today I somehow had the power to stop Brendan Smyth in 1975. I had absolutely no authority over Brendan Smyth. Even my Bishop had limited authority over him. The only people who had authority within the Church to stop Brendan Smyth from having contact with children were his Abbot in the Monastery in Kilnacrott and his Religious Superiors in the Norbertine Order. As Monsignor Charles Scicluna, Promoter of Justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith confirmed in an interview with RTÉ this morning, it was Brendan Smyth’s superiors in the Norbertine Order who bear primary responsibility for failing to take the appropriate action when presented with the weight of evidence I had faithfully recorded and that Bishop McKiernan subsequently presented to them;
• The following statement from Monsignor Scicluna had been made to the BBC programme makers six weeks in advance of its broadcast but was not acknowledged by them in any way: ‘It is clear to me that in 1975 Fr Brady, now Cardinal Brady, acted promptly and with determination to ensure the allegations being made by the children were believed and acted upon by his superiors. His actions were fully consistent with his duties under canon law. But the power to act effectively to remove Brendan Smyth from priestly ministry lay exclusively with the Abbot of Holy Trinity Abbey in Kilnacrott and his superiors in the Norbertine Order. This is where the sincere efforts of Bishop McKiernan and others like Fr Brady to prevent Brendan Smyth from perpetrating further harm were frustrated, with tragic consequences for the lives of so many children. I know that in his role as President of the Irish Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Brady has worked tirelessly with his fellow bishops to ensure such a situation could never occur again and that the civil authorities in Ireland are now promptly informed of allegations of abuse against children. We have all learned from the tragic experience of the Church in Ireland but also from the sincere efforts of so many lay faithful, religious, priests and bishops to make the Church in Ireland an example of best practice in safeguarding children.’;
• In fact, I was shocked, appalled and outraged when I first discovered in the mid 1990’s that Brendan Smyth had gone on to abuse others. I assumed and trusted that when Bishop McKiernan brought the evidence to the Abbot of Kilnacrott that the Abbot would then have dealt decisively with Brendan Smyth and prevented him from abusing others. With others, I feel betrayed that those who had the authority in the Church to stop Brendan Smyth failed to act on the evidence I gave them. However, I also accept that I was part of an unhelpful culture of deference and silence in society, and the Church, which thankfully is now a thing of the past;
• As to other children named in the evidence recorded during the Inquiry process, I had no further involvement in the Inquiry process once I handed over the evidence taken. I trusted that those with the authority to act in relation to Brendan Smyth would treat the evidence seriously and respond appropriately. I had no such authority to act and even by today’s guidance from the State I was not the person who had the role of bringing the allegations received to the attention of the civil authorities. I was also acutely aware that I had no authority in Church law in relation to Brendan Smyth or any other aspect of the Inquiry process;
• Today, Church policy in Ireland is to report allegations of abuse to the civil authorities. It recognises the Gardai and HSE as those with responsibility for investigating such allegations and that any Church investigation should not take place until the investigation by the civil authorities has been completed. I have fully supported this policy and have worked with my fellow Bishops and the leaders of Religious Congregations to put this policy in place;
• The programme made reference to a statement I made in the course of an RTE interview in which I suggested that if my failure to act on an allegation of abuse against a child led to further children being abused, that I would then consider resigning from my position. The programme failed to point out, however, that I gave this answer in response to a question specifically about someone in a position of ‘Management’, someone who was already a Bishop or Religious Superior with ultimate responsibility for managing a priest against whom an allegation has been made. In 1975, I was not a Bishop. I was not in that role. It was misleading of the BBC programme to apply my response to the RTE interview on a completely different situation to my role in the 1975 Inquiry.

It is my view that the ‘This World’ programme has set out to deliberately exaggerate and misrepresent my role in these events. The programme suggested that no response to their questions had been provided before the programme was completed, whereas in fact a comprehensive response had been provided to the programme six weeks in advance and only days after the ‘door-stepping’ interview with me in Limerick.

I deeply regret that those with the authority and responsibility to deal appropriately with Brendan Smyth failed to do so, with tragic and painful consequences for those children he so cruelly abused. I also deeply regret that no guidelines from the State or the Church were available to guide the sincere and serious effort made to respond to the allegations made by the two boys interviewed in the Inquiry process. With many others who worked regularly with children in 1975, I regret that our understanding of the full impact of abuse on the lives of children as well as the pathology and on-going risk posed by a determined paedophile was so inadequate. It is important to acknowledge that today both the Church and the State have proper and robust procedures in place to respond to allegations of abuse against children. I fully support these new procedures which include the obligation to report such allegations promptly to the civil authorities. I have worked with others in the Church to put these new procedures in place and I look forward to continuing that vital work in the years ahead.

The Cardinal told RTÉ News in an interview, broadcast in December 2009 after the publication of the Murphy Report, that he was confident Bishop Donal Murray of Limerick will “do the right thing” in terms of considering his position in the wake of criticism in the Dublin diocesan report.[17] He also said in that interview “If I found myself in a situation where I was aware that my failure to act had allowed or meant that other children were abused, well then, I think I would resign.”

If I found myself in a situation where I was aware that my failure to act had allowed or meant that other children were abused, well then, I think I would resign.

ur bad at resigning imo

maybe this is the better thread for this

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/02/us/nuns-speak-about-vatican-criticism.html?ref=us

"The Vatican ordered a “doctrinal assessment” of the women’s leadership conference in 2008 after years of concerns about its direction. The conference was formed in 1956 to provide communication and coordination among communities of sisters, and is a canonical organization, which means it answers to the Vatican. The assessment concluded that the leadership conference had hosted speakers who “often contradict or ignore” church teaching; had never revoked a statement from 1977 that questioned the male-only priesthood, and focused their efforts on serving the poor and disenfranchised, while remaining virtually silent on issues the church considers great societal evils: abortion and same-sex marriage."

yeah you don't say. as usual the nuns are fuckin awesome

― twittering spinster (k3vin k.), Saturday, June 2, 2012 1:54 AM (15 hours ago)

http://ncronline.org/news/women-religious/lcwr-president-speaks-pain-and-process

im. surfing channels and came up on the weird religion channels and we're one of them now (fair enough obv) and theyre having a mass for the CLOSING OF THE HOLY DOOR why has this mystical shit been kept hidden from us i would totally have stuck out my teens in a religion with cool fantasy titles like that

door opens to the vortex of limbo iirc

bit fucked that its only coming up as a priority now wha

a few christmases ago the priest gave a strangely retro sermon in which he talked about hell and stuff, and along the way he stressed the need for us to reject "the glamour of evil"

it was a phrase i'd never heard before and it made me want to be evil more than i imagined possible.

bishops vs DT

http://www.austindailyherald.com/2016/11/bishops-ask-trump-for-humane-immigration-policies/

I'm seriously not making this up, but at St Bernadette's Church (v small, old post-war cinema in middle of large council estate converted into a church) in Bradley, Hudds. We had a psycho/pedo priest. His sermon was once along the lines of "what I do in my time is none of your business - unless I'm committing mortal sins by the book - gtf out of my face". This guy sexually abused loads of kids in Plymouth and Bradford before he landed on this gig and got a long prison sentence in the 90's. He scared the shit out of me back then and knew it. I put my hand out for the holy communion host once, and he boomed "ARE YOU A CATHOLIC?" right in front of the whole congregation and even my older sis was so paralysed with fucking primal catholic fear she didn't dare say shit to stick up for me.

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Catholic+priest+is+jailed+for+sex+attacks+on+boys.-a061434015

This is the one, I might have got his CV a bit wrong from memory - but this is him.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-44169484

all of chile's bishops offer the pope their resignations over their part in sexual abuse scandals

My favorite Catholicism thread on ILX.