Pope Benedict XVI resigns

[Bavarianrider]

 

[Descender]

The Catholic Church used to hold different positions on other topics and they changed them. Some day, a pope will come along and be forced to change his position on those, too.

It's just because of a specific and deliberately backwards interpretation of the Bible that those are seen as not kosher while people can go around eating as much pork as they want.

Care to rebut what I said instead of playing the victim? Benedict XVI doesn't equal Catholicism, by the way. Plenty of Catholics who disagree with him over some fundamental matters.

The Catholic interpretation of the Bible with regards to homosexuality seems pretty straight-forward to me.

If anything, it is those self-professed Christians who think God has no problem with homosexual behaviour that are using a deliberately backwards interpretation of the Bible.

 

[ferryman]

Jeremiah your post was WAY over the line.

Esh,

Sent you a PM. This thread is only going to go one way.

 

[Descender]

Since when is Eshnar a mod??

Oh and since I'm smelling fire... I'd like to ask the mods not to wield their swords just yet. I opened a thread on religion a while ago, and despite initial doubts it developed into a long, civilised and very constructive discussion with no need for moderating.

Give us a shot!

 

[Eshnar]

Since when is Eshnar a mod??

Oh and since I'm smelling fire... I'd like to ask the mods not to wield their swords just yet. I opened a thread on religion a while ago, and despite initial doubts it developed into a long, civilised and very constructive discussion with no need for moderating.

Give us a shot!

I'm a mod since a dozen days ago.

The thread can stay for now. BUT I'll remind you (ALL) that, since the topic is particularly delicate, any serious infraction will lead us to close it for good.

So:
1. No insults/denigration. The image that has been posted just a couple of posts above is already on the edge. Plus, this forum is not 9gag.
2. This thread is about the Pope, so beware not to go OT.

 

[ferryman]

Since when is Eshnar a mod??

Oh and since I'm smelling fire... I'd like to ask the mods not to wield their swords just yet. I opened a thread on religion a while ago, and despite initial doubts it developed into a long, civilised and very constructive discussion with no need for moderating.

Give us a shot!

Check the schlew of new Mods thread. No fire and wielding of swords, just moderation in the light of some inappropriate comments regarding child abuse.

 

[rhubroma]

Yeah, I knew I should not have created this thread knowing the views of this forum. Just a Catholic Church slagging mouthpiece.

Before you go one, let me just inform you of a common perception held by many who actually know something about this: namely, that Benedict's papacy has been so typical of a Catholic Church that just can't reconcile itself with modernity. For which in fanatically grasping onto a not fortuitous doctrine, the Vatican merely alienates itself form the needs of most within its own community, while it arrogantly expects to speak on behalf of an absolute Truth to which the general population, believer and non-believer alike, should be held accountable.

The fact that the Catholic hierarchy, and particularly under this pope's leadership, can only rely upon a most spurious argumentation embedded within a vapid doctrinal platform to launch its anathemas on issues that have a legal context in areas of social and scientific domains (and hence of the secular State’s relationship to its citizenry), without any actual moral authority, merely evidences how contrary it acts to its pastoral calling.

People, the faithful that is, are certainly far less concerned about the subtle theological casuistries announced from Church fathers, as they are about a Church hierarchy that promotes by example those teachings of acceptance, tolerance, sincerus amor fratris, pacis hominibus, and so forth, which were the examples shown by the Nazarene and which were the charge of his disciples to disseminate among men.

No more, than with this pope, have the doctrinal proscriptions been so boorishly articulated at the expense of any real demonstrations of compassion toward those in need of acceptance; like gays, the divorced within the Church, women who desire to conceive artificially by all the scientific means and those who need to terminate a pregnancy, etc. Whereas in Italy the Catholic Church even expects to be able to dictate a range of social and political policies to a State which it has been officially divorced from since 1929, and for which the non-believer population has every right to be governed by without such alien interference.

Finally Benedict XVI holds the record for the number of gaffes he has made, in particular the one that instigated Muslim rage at an inopportune moment while speaking at Ratisbon to a congregation of bishops. He thus, as Hans Kung has correctly pointed out http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/05/catholic-revolution-nazi-dictatorship-pope, has represented the type of authoritarian rule coming from the Vatican that pertains to a bygone and unmissed era, which in an age of implacable secularization only marginalizes the Catholic Church even further.

 

[Descender]

I'm a mod since a dozen days ago.

The thread can stay for now. BUT I'll remind you (ALL) that, since the topic is particularly delicate, any serious infraction will lead us to close it for good.

So:
1. No insults/denigration. The image that has been posted just a couple of posts above is already on the edge. Plus, this forum is not 9gag.
2. This thread is about the Pope, so beware not to go OT.

Congratulations!

Let's just all hope Echoes doesn't see this thread. That would equal instant closing.

 

[Amsterhammer]

.....Classic Rhub......

So, you didn't like him?



I suppose it's different in Italy, where his Holiness is news all the time. Up here in the Calvinist north we can go for months, even years, without ever hearing about Vatican shenanigans. Which works out just fine.

 

[Echoes]

The Church has lost all its credibility since Vatican II !

Benedict did one thing right, rehabilitating traditional Lefebvrists. For the rest, he's just a modernist like his predecessors.

In his Encycle, Caritas in veritate (2009), Benedict said he wanted a global political authority to be created, linked with the UN. As Pierre Hillard noticed...

This is perfectly anti-Christian.

 

[Bavarianrider]

"For the rest, he's just a modernist like his predecessors."



Wow I've heared that people like you are said to exist, though to this day i've never actually met one.

 

[phanatic]

Pope Benedict XVI resigns. Very significant news. I know this won't be popular to say on here but I think his service to the Church and peace is very commendable and should congratulated.

Before anyone else goes in, I might as well mention these slurs: pedophile, sexual assault, homophobia, gay marriage.

Thanks for posting. I don't know what this Pope will be remembered for (besides resigning), but his establishment of the Anglican Ordinariates was close to my heart, although I am not part of that.

 

[rhubroma]

So, you didn't like him?



I suppose it's different in Italy, where his Holiness is news all the time. Up here in the Calvinist north we can go for months, even years, without ever hearing about Vatican shenanigans. Which works out just fine.

Yes well living under the shadow of the Vatican does come with its not trivial annoyances. For one thing getting a divorce in Italy is criminally lengthy and expensive, serving only the lawyers and the highbrow and self-serving minds of a sinisterly clueless and hostile clergy. There is no more hypocritical institution on earth.

 

[rhubroma]

At any rate don't believe for a moment that this is cut and dry. There's got to be something really large looming behind the scenes. The last pope who resigned was Celestine V, and then under most dubious circumstances, after which he was arrested by his own successor, Boniface VIII, who had him thrown in a castle's dungeon in Campagna, where he died of duress soon thereafter.

With all the clamor circulating from Vatileaks over the ruthless internal fighting within the Vatican walls, there surely must be more here than meets the eye.

Certainly Ratzinger's own role, while still a cardinal decades ago, in covering up the infamous pedophile scandals has not been fortuitous.

Imagine Benedict’s successor giving speeches with the former pope listening. There is simply no precedent for this. Benedict has obviously lost control of a situation that is leading the Church of Rome along a crash course and so he has presumably been asked (told?) to step aside.

 

[Amsterhammer]

Certainly Ratzinger's own role, while still a cardinal decades ago, in covering up the infamous pedophile scandals has not been fortuitous.

It certainly does sound fishy. We'll look to 'our man next to the Vatican' for updates on what might be going on. Someone must be disgruntled, and likely to leak.

By coincidence, I was told about a recently broadcast HBO film only today - Mea Maxima Culpa - which exposes some serious facts about this whole issue.

Gibney takes great pains to point out that every sex abuse case, including Murphy's, went directly to the office of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 until 2005 and now Pope Benedict XVI. Yet year after year, known pedophiles such as Murphy were allowed to remain free and to remain priests, often in parishes where they had access to children. It was only after Kouhut and other victims filed a civil suit against the Vatican, that the church was forced to release documents making it clear that in many cases officials knew about the abuse and refused to act.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...-st-mea-maxima-culpa-20130204,0,6297138.story

 

[Fortyninefourteen]

The Catholic interpretation of the Bible with regards to homosexuality seems pretty straight-forward to me.

If anything, it is those self-professed Christians who think God has no problem with homosexual behaviour that are using a deliberately backwards interpretation of the Bible.

He is saying he's quitting at month end, but he will stay. He can't bear the idea of leaving the bishop's behind.

 

[hrotha]

The Catholic interpretation of the Bible with regards to homosexuality seems pretty straight-forward to me.

If anything, it is those self-professed Christians who think God has no problem with homosexual behaviour that are using a deliberately backwards interpretation of the Bible.

I've read and heard some pretty good arguments against the idea of homosexuality per se going against the New Testament.
http://www.upworthy.com/every-biblical-argument-against-being-gay-debunked-biblically

 

[Descender]

I've read and heard some pretty good arguments against the idea of homosexuality per se going against the New Testament.
http://www.upworthy.com/every-biblical-argument-against-being-gay-debunked-biblically

Are you a believing Christian? Not that I want to make this personal, but knowing you as an otherwise rational person, I cannot for the life of me grasp how you could possibly consider this talk I sat through as offering "good arguments against the idea of homosexuality per se going against the New Testament".

 

[hrotha]

Are you a believing Christian? Not that I want to make this personal, but knowing you as an otherwise rational person, I cannot for the life of me grasp how you could possibly consider this talk I sat through as offering "good arguments against the idea of homosexuality per se going against the New Testament".

No, I'm an atheist. Where do you think his dissertation is faulty?

 

[ferryman]

Before you go one, let me just inform you of a common perception held by many who actually know something about this: namely, that Benedict's papacy has been so typical of a Catholic Church that just can't reconcile itself with modernity. For which in fanatically grasping onto a not fortuitous doctrine, the Vatican merely alienates itself form the needs of most within its own community, while it arrogantly expects to speak on behalf of an absolute Truth to which the general population, believer and non-believer alike, should be held accountable.

The fact that the Catholic hierarchy, and particularly under this pope's leadership, can only rely upon a most spurious argumentation embedded within a vapid doctrinal platform to launch its anathemas on issues that have a legal context in areas of social and scientific domains (and hence of the secular State’s relationship to its citizenry), without any actual moral authority, merely evidences how contrary it acts to its pastoral calling.

People, the faithful that is, are certainly far less concerned about the subtle theological casuistries announced from Church fathers, as they are about a Church hierarchy that promotes by example those teachings of acceptance, tolerance, sincerus amor fratris, pacis hominibus, and so forth, which were the examples shown by the Nazarene and which were the charge of his disciples to disseminate among men.

No more, than with this pope, have the doctrinal proscriptions been so boorishly articulated at the expense of any real demonstrations of compassion toward those in need of acceptance; like gays, the divorced within the Church, women who desire to conceive artificially by all the scientific means and those who need to terminate a pregnancy, etc. Whereas in Italy the Catholic Church even expects to be able to dictate a range of social and political policies to a State which it has been officially divorced from since 1929, and for which the non-believer population has every right to be governed by without such alien interference.

Finally Benedict XVI holds the record for the number of gaffes he has made, in particular the one that instigated Muslim rage at an inopportune moment while speaking at Ratisbon to a congregation of bishops. He thus, as Hans Kung has correctly pointed out http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/05/catholic-revolution-nazi-dictatorship-pope, has represented the type of authoritarian rule coming from the Vatican that pertains to a bygone and unmissed era, which in an age of implacable secularization only marginalizes the Catholic Church even further.

Excellent post. Maybe, just maybe, given the hugeness of this, this could be the Catholic church taking a baby step into the 21st century. I hope so as a non Catholic observer.

 

[rhubroma]

Excellent post. Maybe, just maybe, given the hugeness of this, this could be the Catholic church taking a baby step into the 21st century. I hope so as a non Catholic observer.

Of course that entirely depends upon who they put in his place.

 

[Descender]

No, I'm an atheist. Where do you think his dissertation is faulty?

That's what I thought.

No time now, but I've bookmarked it and I'll try to list my objections whenever I find a couple of spare hours.

 

[hrotha]

I went to Catholic school, mind . And I'm way more interested in theology than your average atheist. I know there are problems with his arguments - I've read several rebuttals by real theologians, but I'm not convinced.

 

[Descender]

You would rather be convinced by the necessarily biased interpretations of a deeply conflicted young man desperately trying to reconcile his faith with his sexual orientation?

Not that I think much about "real theologians", mind you. To me, that's like saying "real fairists".

 

[hrotha]

Well, not as such. I found his appeals to emotion to be mostly boring filler, although I understand why they're important to him. But I thought his discussion of the actual scripture made sense, and I think when the Church is inevitably forced to accept homosexuality they will use arguments largely in agreement with his.