Parishioners asked to fund pay-offs for paedophiles victims

Shawady said:
I don't know if I would go as far as to 'move to the other side', but it has made we question why I should let him make his communion and conformation at all, as we are not practising RC.
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Can be a difficult one and it has come up before.

Not sure what will happen at the school as those kids will be preparing for confirmation after 11 years of age too.
 
MrMan said:
To my knowledge they do help with the poor and have done before it became fashionable, they are usually helping peolple who are not Catholic so their stance on contraception impacts little.
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I have struggled with this exact question before. If you are a believer you will most likely say that the Church is there to help the poor. Others, of a cynical and distrusting disposition, will say that they are there to conquer new territory, extract what they can financially and build up the power of the Church.

I am convinced that many oversees missionaries go forth in kindness and love. They are there to do God's work and help the disadvantaged. I have no doubt about that. In their personal capacity they are doing great work.

However, I wonder about the Church as a whole. Issues regarding contraception have destroyed parts of Africa. Firstly with over-population and secondly through the spread of AIDS.
Also, there is always that lingering doubt in my mind that the Church is there to conquer and seize power as best it can.
That might sound harsh and cruel but Peter didn't go to Rome because it was full of sinners or poor people. He had enough of them on his own door. The same could be said of Ireland for the past 200 years.
 

The Aids issue though isn't cut and dried. If people are having extra marital sex then religion would be a strange reason not to wear a condom. It would come down to resources and education. Leaving the RC culpable for the Aids epidemic in Africa is well wide of the mark.
 
Bronte said:
Why do you think they go to 3rd world countries and it is not to help the poor.

Of course I'm not a fan of the RC church, they hate one half of the human population.
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Because they do want to spread their teachings, and such teachings do include love thy neighbour, so I believe plenty of good is carried out.
Would the 3rd world be better off without any input from religious orders?

I can't agree on your last line as it doesn't make any sense.
 

Given that many of the countries in Africa with the highest AIDS infection are not Christian and many African Christians are not Catholic it is nonsense to blame them for the epidemic. I disagree with their stance on contraception but it is no different to the stance of any other major religion in the region.
Over-population is a symptom of poverty, subsistence economies and the lack or a social welfare. It has little to do with religious teaching.
 
The first modern European explorer of the interior of sub-Saharan Africa was David Livingston. He was primarily a Christian missionary and generally acknowledged as a great humanitarian who only had the best interests of the native population at heart. If those that followed were anywhere near as Christian then the great destabilisation that followed between 1860 and 1910 would not have been so utterly destructive.
Unfortunately evil men like King Leopold the Second of Belgium and Sir Henry Morton Stanley and imperialists like Bismarck and Cecil Rhodes took up the running. It was protestant missionaries that attempted to stop Rhodes overturn guarantees given by the British government to protect the native population during the Boer expansion into Northern South Africa and it was protestant missionaries that funded Edward Dean Morrell and Rodger Casement when they were attempting to expose the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of people by Leopold in the Congo.
Christianity has been good to Africa, colonialism has not. Catholic missionaries have been part of the former.
 
Very true. And that's why I said to MrMan that I have struggled with it. I can see how Christian missionaries of all denominations have helped Africa. But there's always that little piece in the back of my mind that wonders...
 
I'm not sure if you are agreeing with me, but that is what i was trying to say, you just said it better.
 

+1

It is also a well known fact that over-population is due to cultural reasons / necessity. The people are so desperate they have children as a form of security to take of them as they get older, and a lot of the time sicker.
 
So is any one surprised by the most recent revelation from Rome:
[broken link removed]
 
VOR said:
So is any one surprised by the most recent revelation from Rome:
[broken link removed]
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It gets better and better.


So, any takers?
 
Firefly said:
I think we're all agreed the whole thing stinks, but most (guess) will still get married in a church, send our kids to mass on Sunday and have them baptised, make their communion & confirmation..
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This is the bit that bugs me the most. I was born and raised RC but I dont believe in God and have no interest in the church and its teachings. For those reasons, wild horses wouldn't have dragged me into church to get married and there is absolutely no way that my son will be christened or attending mass on Sundays (even if that kills my mother in law).

There have been many discussions about this in our house (especially since there is a child involved) but religion is one thing I am not willing to compromise on. Can anyone explain to me why so many people are giving out about the church and religion yet just as many (and the same) keep engaging with it?
 
Yachtie said:
Can anyone explain to me why so many people are giving out about the church and religion yet just as many (and the same) keep engaging with it?
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I hinted at it in response to Shawady and I'm guessing the main reason is:

(even if that kills my mother in law).
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..and things like that.
 
I'm very good friends with a couple who don't go to mass. They get no pressure from either set of grandparent, one set doesn't go to mass either. They do however do the communion, confirmations etc. A few weeks later the father will rant about the church, how the priest use to lash them at school etc.

As a couple they are dead on and I did wonder why they would bother with this. In the end I concluded it was so the child didn't feel left out in school.
 
and of course the sense of exclusion.. if your child is the only one not doing a communion it may cause him or her to be bullied etc.. or to feel different somehow. This would be a silly reason to allow your child to be communed, or confirmed in my view.

Another reason is that people simply don't think about it... they go with the flow.

People's partners may not want to rock the boat.


People's future partner may have been dreaming since she was a little girl or her wedding... and that might cause difficulties.. I'm a non-believer but may get married in a church anyway,.. unless I have to state that I intend to bring my kids up Catholic.. I'll either have to lie about that, or not go through with the wedding in a church.. I'll probably just lie about it, as what's the penalty anyway?
 

I agree completely.

I was married in a civil ceremony and to keep the mammies happy, I agreed to having a 'blessing' in an RC church.
We went to see the boss of the local monastery and were told that we were 'no better than the savages in Africa' if we didn't get married in an RC church and have any future sprogs christened.

I was so close to decking him, it wasn't even funny !
 
Pique318 said:
We went to see the boss of the local monastery and were told that we were 'no better than the savages in Africa' if we didn't get married in an RC church and have any future sprogs christened.
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Seriously? did he actually say those words?
 

I wouldn't agree here. I think parents have enough to be worried about tbh. I was confirmed and communed (like that word) and came out the other side so to speak. I don't pratice now but do bring my mother to mass when she asks. I remember mine and my siblings communion and confirmation days with effection. My brother confirmation was the first time we had supermacs burgers and chips and we looked forward to it for weeks beforehand.

If my parents had very these strong views and didn't allow me, it would have been over my head at the age of 7 to 12.

That leads to the question why send them to a catholic school but that's another issue altogether.
 
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