Catholic Church to open its doors to gay priests

[dakini]

The SHOULD be entertwined. Christ didn't establish His church just for the fun of it. And spirituality is a maturation process just like anything else. Those just going thru the motions have a ways to go, obviously, but maybe aren't getting the support they need, or maybe aren't seeking it, or even asking for it in prayers. Hard to say. But separating the two sounds like a "New Age" cop-out to me, and always has. No offense to you intended. :blowkiss:

Separating faith and religion need not be a "new age cop out".

Some practitioners of Buddhism regard themselves as part of a religion and many do not. Many Buddhists do not consider that the Buddhist philosophy and meditation practices constitute a religion.

Many people practice outside of a formal institution and yet they feel they are persons of faith whether, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist or any other "nomination."

 

[sandraladeda]

Funny how the same posters who are offended by a poster's characterization of the Catholic Church as a "cult" feel free to assume that those who object to the status of women in the church are raising a "red herring," not responding out of genuine conviction. And, to use another example from this very thread, atheists are said to "refuse to believe," not to reach a different conclusion based on their own rational evaluation of the available evidence.

Maybe Christians wouldn't inspire such resentment if they weren't so impossibly smug and condescending. (And, yes, my office is actively aiding hurricane victims. So are other nonreligious groups to which I belong - which is to take nothing away from the fine efforts of churches, which we should all applaud.)

If your faith is strong, good on you. There's no need to belittle the considered beliefs of others. IMHO, of course.

I feel fairly sure that you are responding, at least in part, to my post of a few days ago.

Smug and condescending was certainly not my intent, but I did feel I was responding to smug and condescending comments. I am also sure I did not belittle anyone's beliefs.

In response to the red herring comment, I was not only commenting on that individual's position regarding the role of women in the Catholic church. This poster had also previously posted her philosophical position as being aligned with that of Jesse Ventura, that "religion is for weakminded individuals", then went on to describe my church as an old boys club, cult, etc. Another comment along the lines of "way to go, Mr. Benedict". IMO, these comments went over the top for someone who is supposedly so at peace with their decision to leave the church, and has moved on. In fact, imo, it falls into the category of "doth protest too much", and thus my question, "what is the real issue?". If there isn't a "real issue", well, I apologize.

If it was too personal to ask, "what is the real issue", well, again, I apologize. I feel so safe and anonymous posting under a pseudonym on a forum, I figured it was a safe place for a person to get real about any "real issues", if they exist.

If you felt it was smug and codescending to comment on the charitable efforts of my church, again, you missed my point. First of all, I said "While one does not have to belong to a faith community to share their time and talent, it certainly helps". While I applaud your office for supporting hurricane relief efforts, I would bet more churches are doing so than offices. A church is a great place for good works to take place. I did NOT say it was by any stretch, the ONLY place.

But the real point missed was that I was not making a judgement on anyone's life when I brought up the subject of good works being performed in churches, rather, I was pointing out that there is MUCH more going on in churches aside from standing, sitting, kneeling, secret handshakes, and keeping women down.

IMHO, of course....

 

[Nova]

Sandra,

I'm probably reading and posting too quickly these days. My job is really busy and I haven't much time. As I said above, I know very well that you, of all posters, do not mean to condescend.

I did read the "treatment of women" = red herring remark to refer to all who raise that objection, not just the individual poster. I would never suggest that because you are comfortable with the status of women in the Church, you are somehow "in denial," and I don't think it's fair to dismiss those who feel gender roles prescribed by the Church are confining and unfair.

Personally, I find it appalling that any church in this day and age bars a particular gender from its political leadership. (Which is not to deny that many women thrive under Catholicism and are inspired to perform great and rewarding service.) But we'll agree the Catholic Church has done fine without me so far and will no doubt continue to do so.

As for the charitable efforts, no one can deny that the Catholic Church's efforts are heroic in this regard. Your saying so is merely fair, IMHO.

:truce:

 

[Eagle1]

Someone mentioned women serving, and I'm breaking our pattern of always saying "Were you referring to my post?" by just explaining one of mine a little better.

Some of our women have expressed the opinion it's illegal discrimination to not let women be priests. (At least we've been humble enough to stay in our assigned genders and not try to invent one of our own, not a dig at anyone, just a point for our side because we need all the points we can get! Give us credit for that, and for enduring all the condescension that has come OUR way due to no fault of our own.) So I'm just reminding us, one of the apostles told the people, we're your SERVANTS. They aren't supposed to try to put serving off on women, as we do more than our fair share and don't have the extra physical strength that they do.

Just evening out the playing field. Women are equals but we usually prefer our privacy, no matter what, so we put up with a lot. There's also a lot to be said for the freedom to come and go whenever and wherever you like, maybe visiting relatives/ other churches sometimes. We have a measure of privacy and freedom in our anonymous roles. Let's don't feel bad about it.