It is not just the Roman Catholic Church heiracrchy, of course, but also most Protestant leaders as well. Their first concern is to grow the church, preserve the church, preserve the practices and traditions of the church, defend the church from any criticism. To me, this mind-set is counter to the claim to be "the body of Christ," because it is not the mind "which is yours in Christ Jesus" as described by St. Paul in Philippians 2:5-11. I was struck by a paragraph in a piece by Charles Bowden entitled "The Wisdom of Rats":

"Years ago, I concluded that all concentrated forms of energy in human hands become dangerous. The state mutates into the tsar, the lane becomes the sterile corridor of the freeway, the fire morphs into a nuclear pile, the songs go corrupt and become propaganda. Freedom becomes slavery and valor descends to shock and awe. God becomes the Church."

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2010/01/008…

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"If Roman Polanski were a priest, he’d still be working here."

I'm not in love with Mo but now and then she nails it to the cross. The above line made me push my chair back in a rush. Is there a more truthful truth?

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Perhaps the problem is self-correcting:

BBC reported on February 5, 2008:

The Vatican has reported a further dramatic fall in the number of Roman Catholic monks and nuns worldwide.

Newly published statistics showed that the number of men and women belonging to religious orders fell by 10%* to just under a million between 2005 and 2006.

During the pontificate of the late Pope John Paul II, the number of Catholic nuns worldwide declined by a quarter.

The downward trend accelerated despite a steady increase in the membership of the Catholic Church to more than 1.1bn.

However, correspondents say even this failed to keep pace with the overall increase in world population.

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Don't be too hard on the Church and its officials. In 1992, it admitted it erred in condemning Galileo in 1633. Heck, that's just 350 years later and 30 years after rockets were propelling satellites and men into space based on the calculations of Copernicus, Galileo and others since 1500. It just takes a while for the progress of the human mind in some cases to catch up even after asserting their authority comes from God as an excuse. I'm sure that same authority is being used to justify whatever the Church sees as its "errors" in regards to centuries of child abuse, sex abuse and the abuse of basic human rights and dignity.

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I too was completely taken aback by the conjoining of the declivitous priestly behavior with that which is inevitable and deserved by females wishing to enter such a form of service. To make such a comparison shows how utterly contemptuous those in power in that organization are of their parishioners. Not only is such a statement arrogant, but it borders on perverse as well. Thanks to Ms. Dowd for hanging the bell on the cat.

That notwithstanding, however, I personally do not assign all of the blame to the establishment. They get their paychecks from some source, and that source is equally responsible. Those Catholic lay persons that knew what was happening and refused to take action are just as culpable in my opinion.

Along that same line, as thousands die in drug induced violence south of our border I must ask, just whose money is it that funds that carnage? Indeed, it is the allowance of our teenagers that buy pot on Friday nights. As the oil gushes up from the sea floor I see not fault on the part of BP as much as I see my own insatiable demand for gasoling when I expect it.

The real twist in the official statment is that it implies that women want to be admitted to the priesthood...... in a church that is operated by men who are so out of touch with reality that in the same breath they can make such comparisons!

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Perhaps women priests could help the church manage its affairs as women do so well the world over-

"While the Roman Catholic church in Europe reels from a widening sex abuse crisis, the scandal that has plagued the U.S. church for nearly a decade is tapering off, a report released Tuesday says.

The number of abuse victims, allegations and offending clergy in the U.S. dropped in 2009 to their lowest numbers since data started being collected in 2004, the report said.

The price paid by the church has fallen, too. Dioceses and their insurers paid $104 million in settlements, attorneys’ fees and other abuse-related costs in 2009, down from $376 million in 2008.

All told, the scandal’s price tag for settlements and other costs has risen to more than $2.7 billion, according to estimates.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/03/23/report-c…

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Why can't things chill a little bit? If you are a good person you can incorporate some traditions into your life. Why can't we choose to live how we were raised anymore?
We are no longer a free country.

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It would seem a bit disingenuous for the Catholic Church to change the way it has always done business simply to suit the times, no? If one believes in the Christian God, who is man to decide he knows better? If God can't ensure that his commandments were and are successfully delineated in the Bible, he's not so omnipotent after all, is he?

This is what I don't understand about Christians--or any people of faith, for that matter. It's intellectually lazy and dishonest to constantly be adding to and subtracting from our faiths to make them fit fleeting contemporary conceptions of what we'd like gods to personify. I don't think anybody has the one ticket to the truth, and for anybody or any group of people to profess otherwise is insolent and silly. Further, for us to accept that, "Sure, there's no monopoly on the truth, but I still consider myself a person of Christian faith (substitute another tradition here) for reason 'x' or 'y'" is no more intellectually rigorous than walking wholly in blind faith.

We no longer have to concoct stories to explain the physics of Creation. It should be our collective aim to discard the associated vestiges of outmoded superstition.

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Lets face it the best way to clense the planet of it's evil is to trash all religions!

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I have posed to my Catholic friends for a decade now; what are they going to do with an establishment that is so rigid, so inhumane, so insular that it can justify crimes in the name of a bureaucracy. How does a man explain to his wife and daughter that they are either inferior, incompetent or ripe for exploitation? Or all three. Let alone what he says to a son that has been used and abused by that same bureaucracy. What do you say to yourself by remaining connected to an institution that denies justice, exploits women and children, and is blind to the human progress of centuries of history? Time for a new schism perhaps? This split would seem at least as noble as many in the past.

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Just tax all religions (and eliminate tax loopholes for all businesses). Religions advertise and sell hope, renewal, love, health, wealth, self-improvement books, tapes, potions, jewelry, garments, et al. There's no difference but jargon between HSN, QVC, Neiman-Marcus, Walmart and religions. None.

Tax 'em.

If not, WHY not?

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Remember: In 300 years the Roman Catholic Church will refer to these times as one in which the church was falsely and malignantly attacked by atheists, non-believers, government and Satanic enemies of Christianity.

They will say:

"Against a massive effort to discredit the piety and chasteness of the clergy with accusations of heinous crimes, the church and her followers fought a protracted battle against this evil... eventually triumphing in the name of Jesus and to the greater glory of the mother church."

I assure you that this will come to pass...this has always been the strategy of the criminal enterprise called Catholicism.

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Before the clerical pedophilia abuse scandal, there was another child sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, and it started with the Church’s misogyny. St. Paul wrote that women must be silent in church, “mulier taceat in ecclesia" and the Popes took this verbatim. Since women were not allowed to talk or sing in church, the problem was where to find sopranos to sing in Church choirs. They found the answer in castrati, prepubescent boys who were castrated so they would retain soprano or mezzo soprano voices, and who were then trained to sing. Although officially illegal and forbidden by the church, the church by employing castrati in its choirs created an unprecedented demand for them. From 1589 when Pope Sixtus V approved their use, these castrati kept the Church full of parishioners with their singing. Pope Clement was asked to stop using them, but refused. Up to 5,000 boys annually were castrated during the 17th and late 18th century for their voices. By 1789 there were more than 200 castrati in Roman choirs alone. Not until 1903 did Pope Pius X finally ban castrated men from singing in the Church. So much suffering by so many children just to keep women quiet in Church.

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