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"Liberal" Priest under investigation by Vatican

2

Comments

  • #32
    Freddie59
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,679 ✭✭✭Freddie59


    Blay wrote: »
    There was a priest in my own area who had similar views and stated them openly at mass a good few times. He was eventually moved on because some of the older Bible bashers didn't agree with his views and stopped attending mass, there's now a standard Vatican brainwashed priest back in the area and the front rows are once again a haven for the self righteous.

    As a Catholic I find the Church's behaviour increasingly more erratic and ridiculous. They now want to silence any voices of dissent. An arrogant attitude which needs to be removed. And now.

    FWIW I don't consider myself a 'bible basher'. Like many priests, just someone trying to get on with daily life and help others whenever possible. I can assure you that many churchgoers do not agree with this type of carry-on, and let their feelings be known.

    It is a sad day when a voice of reason is to be silenced. Yes the Church needs married priests; yes the church needs women priests, and so on.

    Regarding your comment about the 'self-rigteous' there are a minority of people like this (we all know one). That does not mean that everyone is.

    Realistically, the Irish Catholic church needs to cede from Rome if it is to survive. It is the only way forward.


  • #33
    Freddie59
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,679 ✭✭✭Freddie59


    Toby Take a Bow wrote: »
    You can try to change things in different ways. Maybe he found Ratzinger the sort of person who was not open to change (and if so, who could blame him). The Catholic doctrine isn't set in stone, and it's priests like this one that (may) help it evolve into a more liberal organisation. It's happened before (despite what some people may say).

    I sincerely hope that you are right Toby. And the sooner the better.


  • #34
    Stiffler2
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,536 ✭✭✭Stiffler2


    P - Paeodophile
    R - Residence
    I - In
    E - Every
    S - Small
    T - Town


  • #35
    Freddie59
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,679 ✭✭✭Freddie59


    problemchimp wrote: »
    Are you saying that the majority of priests want priests to be allowed to marry? Or indeed are you saying the majority of Catholics want priests to be allowed marry? If that's the case then the Vatican should look at it but I really don't feel that is the case.

    Don't know about the priests, But I, and many others, would be in favour of married and women priests. It's OK for a lady to be a lay minster - but not a priest? Stupidity of the highest order.


  • #36
    Freddie59
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,679 ✭✭✭Freddie59


    Stiffler2 wrote: »
    P - Paeodophile
    R - Residence
    I - In
    E - Every
    S - Small
    T - Town

    Sweeping generalistaions. Wonderful post.:rolleyes:


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  • #37
    Run_to_da_hills
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,009 ✭✭✭✭Run_to_da_hills


    Freddie59 wrote: »
    Realistically, the Irish Catholic church needs to cede from Rome if it is to survive. It is the only way forward.
    This will never happen, people need to seek the truth and break ties with this counterfeit Christian church altogether.


  • #38
    Benny_Cake
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,105 ✭✭✭Benny_Cake


    My name is URL wrote: »

    http://www.thejournal.ie/liberal-priest-confirms-he-is-under-vatican-investigation-408748-Apr2012/

    Good to see they have their priorities in order.. Rape a child, and in their eyes it's no big deal.. Suggest that priests should be allowed to marry and they'll come down on you like a tonne of bricks. Bunch of fcuking scumbags.

    Why are more priests not vocally opposed to the whole hierarchal nature of the Church? Surely they see the damage being done by the Vatican.. it affects them more than anyone else.

    Probably because of what is happening to Father Flannery at the moment. Step out of line and say something which could be perceived as progressive or liberal and some self-appointed "guardian of orthodoxy" in your congregation will snitch on you - it happened to a bishop in Australia in recent years. If the Association of Catholic Priests is crushed then that will just leave the hardliners,it'll be a small church but they'll be able to feel truly self-righteous.


  • #39
    smash
    Closed Accounts Posts: 34,808 ✭✭✭✭smash


    It's going to be hard for them to plant evidence to frame him so they can kick him out considering most of their victims don't have pubic hair that they can scatter around his bedroom.


  • #40
    howsyourtusk
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭howsyourtusk


    Watching the church tear itself apart is a particularly enjoyable experience. Organised religion is just a bonkers concept in a modern society.


  • #41
    I Heart Internet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,678 ✭✭✭I Heart Internet


    Freddie59 wrote: »
    It's OK for a lady to be a lay minster - but not a priest? Stupidity of the highest order.

    What's a lay minister???


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  • #42
    Stiffler2
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,536 ✭✭✭Stiffler2


    I Heart Internet wrote: »
    What's a lay minister???

    ministers who "lay" there victim down before abusing them ??


  • #43
    I Heart Internet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,678 ✭✭✭I Heart Internet


    Freddie59 wrote: »
    As a Catholic I find the Church's behaviour increasingly more erratic and ridiculous. They now want to silence any voices of dissent. An arrogant attitude which needs to be removed. And now.

    Perhaps it seems more "erratic and ridiculous" because you haven't noticed it all along. The RCC has a right and a duty to prevent its teachers from teaching an incorrect, personalised version of the church's teachings.
    Freddie59 wrote: »
    FWIW I don't consider myself a 'bible basher'. Like many priests, just someone trying to get on with daily life and help others whenever possible. I can assure you that many churchgoers do not agree with this type of carry-on, and let their feelings be known.

    What carry-on? Carry-on that you don't believe should be part of the teaching of the church anymore?
    Freddie59 wrote: »
    It is a sad day when a voice of reason is to be silenced.

    If he's teaching personalised innaccuracies under the guise of authentic RCC teaching then he should be disciplined.
    Freddie59 wrote: »
    Yes the Church needs married priests; yes the church needs women priests, and so on.

    No it doesn't. There - we both have equally valid opinions. But if I was a priest in the RCC telling my parishioners that women can be ordained priests I'd be a fraud.
    Freddie59 wrote: »
    Realistically, the Irish Catholic church needs to cede from Rome if it is to survive. It is the only way forward.

    Absolutely wrong in my opinion. Populist, protestant nonsense.

    The way forward is Christ and his Church.


  • #44
    marty1985
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 788 ✭✭✭marty1985


    Freddie59 wrote: »
    As a Catholic I find the Church's behaviour increasingly more erratic and ridiculous. They now want to silence any voices of dissent. An arrogant attitude which needs to be removed. And now.

    Although, Freddie, a lot of Catholics would disagree. I want to play devil's advocate here. (My own opinion would be that I think married clergy could be a good thing, but I actually respect the Church for sticking to its principles at times.) Priests, having been trained and educated within the church, know they are sent out to propagate approved interpretations of the faith and not to select their own. It shouldn't be speaking with more than one voice. This is at variance with modern practice in the Church of England, where we can see clearly the results of 'liberal' reforms.
    FWIW I don't consider myself a 'bible basher'.

    I know, I've followed some good discussions you participated in.
    It is a sad day when a voice of reason is to be silenced. Yes the Church needs married priests; yes the church needs women priests, and so on.

    An alternative view would be that authority is important as there needs to be a coherent ecclesiology. They need to be able to identify error if they are to be able to identify truth. I sympathise because we live in a society now that rejects all authority, and authority in ideas in particular. Whatever people think of the Roman Catholic Church (which is to a high degree shaped by our media), the melt-down actually seems to be occuring in the Protestant church in England precisely because there is no external authority, so they are open to all sorts of erroneous ideas. The church, for the sake of its members, should always be suspicious of ideas and demands being spouted by self-described liberals, and I think Pope Benedict XVI has said publicly he is suspicious of Boardsies, who deride all religion but retain a particular venom for Catholics, and therefore demand to change the church, not from a position of struggling with the faith, but because they want to destroy it.

    By the way, when the church "silence" someone, as sinister as it sounds, it usually means removing their license to teach Catholic theology. How could that not make sense? To use an example of one case, why should a Catholic theologian in a Catholic university be allowed to teach that Christ was not really divine?


  • #45
    kylith
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,744 ✭✭✭✭kylith


    With all the sex abuse scandals, and the priests questioning the non-ordination of women and celibacy I'm starting to think that the RCC is going to schism. I look forward to it.


  • #46
    I Heart Internet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,678 ✭✭✭I Heart Internet


    kylith wrote: »
    With all the sex abuse scandals, and the priests questioning the non-ordination of women and celibacy I'm starting to think that the RCC is going to schism. I look forward to it.

    Much as you may look forward to it, there really is, objectively, no evidence that any schism is likely. A few hundred Austrian or Irish priest's populist rumblings is not a schism - if their consciences cannot permit them to remain as catholic priests or even catholics then they should leave. Discussion is one thing, hostile dissent is another.


  • #47
    marty1985
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 788 ✭✭✭marty1985


    kylith wrote: »
    With all the sex abuse scandals, and the priests questioning the non-ordination of women and celibacy I'm starting to think that the RCC is going to schism. I look forward to it.

    I think that's wishful thinking on your part, to be fair. You've just thrown a mixed bag of stuff up in the air there, the kind of stuff that will get AH and atheist heads nodding sagely at your wisdom, but you could be overestimating the discontents within the church you hate.


  • #48
    goose2005
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,798 ✭✭✭goose2005


    Dudess wrote: »
    It's like a teacher or social worker or nurse doing something they had a calling for, or a belief in, etc, and after a number of years there, trying to implement change.
    It isn't even slightly like your analogy.

    More like a teacher in a mainstream school demanding to be allowed use Montessori methods, when there's a Montessori school just down the road that would be glad to have her.


  • #49
    marty1985
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 788 ✭✭✭marty1985


    I Heart Internet wrote: »
    Much as you may look forward to it, there really is, objectively, no evidence that any schism is likely. A few hundred Austrian or Irish priest's populist rumblings is not a schism - if their consciences cannot permit them to remain as catholic priests or even catholics then they should leave. Discussion is one thing, hostile dissent is another.

    But a priest who speaks out will be a media darling, and again a distorted view will be presented in the media whereby a disproportionate number of priests "seem" to be rebelling against the "authoritarian", "conservative" German Pope.

    And also, using the terms liberal and conservative in relation to the Church is just borrowed from the popular interest in politics. Nobody asks if the Dalai Lama is a liberal Buddhist, or a conservative Buddhist.


  • #50
    Min
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,550 ✭✭✭Min


    Biggins wrote: »
    I posted on that site about a Drogheda priest whom they also shot down and told him to shut-up.
    Rome has a history of dictators.
    Some things don't change sadly, it seems!


    Explains politics and the party whip...

    How long have we been living under a dictatorship for now?


  • #51
    I Heart Internet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,678 ✭✭✭I Heart Internet


    marty1985 wrote: »
    But a priest who speaks out will be a media darling, and again a distorted view will be presented in the media whereby a disproportionate number of priests "seem" to be rebelling against the "authoritarian", "conservative" German Pope.

    Agree 100%. This is obvious from the portrayal by RTE and most other media outlets of the Association of Catholic Priests as the genuine, representative voice of RC priests in Ireland. It is nothing of the sort. It is a voice for its members (perhaps 10-15% of Irish priests) and, particularly, its leadership (including Fr Tony Flannery). In many ways the ACP and RTE is a match made in heaven. I'm just waiting for them to co-produce a dvd of liturgical dance.
    marty1985 wrote: »
    And also, using the terms liberal and conservative in relation to the Church is just borrowed from the popular interest in politics. Nobody asks if the Dalai Lama is a liberal Buddhist, or a conservative Buddhist.


    Yes. The Liberal v Conservative tags are as meaningless in the church as they are in the rest of society.


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  • #52
    Run_to_da_hills
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,009 ✭✭✭✭Run_to_da_hills


    More here.

    Pope rebukes rebel priests over calls for celibacy reform


  • #53
    Freddie59
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,679 ✭✭✭Freddie59


    I Heart Internet wrote: »
    What's a lay minister???
    Minster Of The Eucharist.


  • #54
    Freddie59
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,679 ✭✭✭Freddie59


    marty1985 wrote: »
    Although, Freddie, a lot of Catholics would disagree. I want to play devil's advocate here. (My own opinion would be that I think married clergy could be a good thing, but I actually respect the Church for sticking to its principles at times.) Priests, having been trained and educated within the church, know they are sent out to propagate approved interpretations of the faith and not to select their own. It shouldn't be speaking with more than one voice. This is at variance with modern practice in the Church of England, where we can see clearly the results of 'liberal' reforms.



    I know, I've followed some good discussions you participated in.



    An alternative view would be that authority is important as there needs to be a coherent ecclesiology. They need to be able to identify error if they are to be able to identify truth. I sympathise because we live in a society now that rejects all authority, and authority in ideas in particular. Whatever people think of the Roman Catholic Church (which is to a high degree shaped by our media), the melt-down actually seems to be occuring in the Protestant church in England precisely because there is no external authority, so they are open to all sorts of erroneous ideas. The church, for the sake of its members, should always be suspicious of ideas and demands being spouted by self-described liberals, and I think Pope Benedict XVI has said publicly he is suspicious of Boardsies, who deride all religion but retain a particular venom for Catholics, and therefore demand to change the church, not from a position of struggling with the faith, but because they want to destroy it.

    By the way, when the church "silence" someone, as sinister as it sounds, it usually means removing their license to teach Catholic theology. How could that not make sense? To use an example of one case, why should a Catholic theologian in a Catholic university be allowed to teach that Christ was not really divine?

    Fair points, all of them. But has not the man-made rules of the Catholic church brought it to where it is now Marty? Had they been allowed marry, would we have seen the level of abuse that was perpetrated by what were clearly organised Paedophiles? The most sickening thing for me, personally, is the attempt to cover it up. Which is still ongoing.


  • #55
    I Heart Internet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,678 ✭✭✭I Heart Internet


    Freddie59 wrote: »
    Minster Of The Eucharist.

    Yeah, they were permitted as an exception in the 70s and 80s because of just such dissent.

    They are not officially permitted - more tolerated. And I'm talking here of all Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist (to give them their proper title). As the name suggests, if used at all, they should be used only in extraordinary circumstances. Of course, convenience has seen this extraordinary element ditched in most parishes.


  • #56
    marty1985
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 788 ✭✭✭marty1985


    Freddie59 wrote: »
    Fair points, all of them. But has not the man-made rules of the Catholic church brought it to where it is now Marty? Had they been allowed marry, would we have seen the level of abuse that was perpetrated by what were clearly organised Paedophiles? The most sickening thing for me, personally, is the attempt to cover it up. Which is still ongoing.

    If priests were allowed to marry, would they have abused children? I'm not sure about this one. There could be numerous causes for child sex abuse. It should be noted that incidents of sexual abuse are a breach of the Church's discipline, not a result of it. If someone breaks rules, is it fair to say the rules should be abolished, or even that the rule caused it? Contrary to conventional wisdom there is no data supporting a higher rate of child-oriented sexual activity among the unmarried Catholic clergy than that of the married clergy of other denominations or of schoolteachers. My own feeling is that abuse often occurs in positions of access to children with trust already in place. The majority of child sex abuse occurs within families. The idea that the church was a haven for pedophiles because That's Where Perverts Went To Hide From Society is baseless and grounded less in any empirical data than it is in anti-clerical stereotypes of Catholic perversion that have existed for centuries.


  • #57
    RichieC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,333 ✭✭✭RichieC


    marty1985 wrote: »
    (My own opinion would be that I think married clergy could be a good thing, but I actually respect the Church for sticking to its principles at times.)

    Nothing Principled about it. They are protecting their assets. As with anything to do with Religion, it's about MONEY!


  • #58
    Min
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,550 ✭✭✭Min


    Most sexual abuse happens within families.

    Sexual abuse in the Catholic church only makes up a small percentage of all known abuse but it is by far the most high profile.

    Being celibate or unmarried doesn't turn one into a sexual abuser.


  • #59
    Seachmall
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    marty1985 wrote: »
    And also, using the terms liberal and conservative in relation to the Church is just borrowed from the popular interest in politics. Nobody asks if the Dalai Lama is a liberal Buddhist, or a conservative Buddhist.

    "Liberal" and "Conservative" are terms independent of politics, they're social terms that often have cross over in politics and, in this case, religion. Granted they are most associated with politics but they're just as suited for use with religion, or anything else for that matter.


  • #60
    Toby Take a Bow
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,732 ✭✭✭Toby Take a Bow


    marty1985 wrote: »
    Nobody asks if the Dalai Lama is a liberal Buddhist, or a conservative Buddhist.

    Regardless of applying 'liberal' or 'conservative' tags to the debate, the Dalai Lama did get some sticky questions a while back over some footballer who suggested that people born disabled were paying for things in previous lives. The Dalai Lama suggested that Buddhists shouldn't mention such things in cultures that would find them repulsive (or: keep it down regarding our true beliefs, it might hurt our conversion rate).


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  • #61
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    Freddie59 wrote: »
    As a Catholic I find the Church's behaviour increasingly more erratic and ridiculous. They now want to silence any voices of dissent. An arrogant attitude which needs to be removed. And now.

    ...........

    "now"? You seem to forget the clear out JP had, with the current pope being his point man.


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