At 07:59 PM 3/28/2004 -0600 Robert Seeberger wrote:
>But that is OK. I can still respect you even when we disagree, but it
>would sure help if you didn't suspect me of being your worst enemy.
You aren't my worst enemy. You aren't even my enemy.
You are just habitually prone to making comments which I find to be highly
offensive. I don't ascribe this habit of yours to enmity, but perhaps to
ignorance or insensitivity, for lack of a better explanation.
>> That is interesting. So, do you believe that the Vatican had no
>>business
>> whatsoever in trying to influence the Holocaust? The National
>>Socialists
>> clearly thought that this was a matter of secular governance.
>
>Certainly you are aware that the Vatican did next to nothing in that
>regard.
I disagree with that characterization, but it seems that your logic would
consider the above characterization to be a compliment - the Vatican stayed
well out of the way of secular affairs on that one in your mind, right?
> For example, if John Kerry had said that "my
>> personal Catholicism sees nothing wrong with periodic adultery,"
>would the
>> Vatican have any right to disavow these opinions as inconsistent
>with
>> Catholicism? What if Kerry had said that "my personal Catholicism
>sees
>> nothing wrong with the poorest people occasionally stealing from the
>> largest corporations, and the law should recognize the rights of the
>poor
>> to occasionally steal from the excessively rich" - would the Vatican
>have
>> any right to disavow these opinions as inconsistent with
>Catholicism?
>
>You want to stick to reality John, and avoid ridiculous hypotheticals?
No. I want to determine what you feel the rights of the Catholic Church
to be in regards to freedom of association. If a politician makes any
statement and claims that this position is consistent with membership in
the Catholic Church, to what extent do you think that the Catholic Church
has the right to repudiate those statements. To what extent does the
Catholic Church have the right to require its members to uphold certain
standards of conduct and to prevent members from repudiating those standards?
>Its obvious that in those cases, Bishops were giving a personal
>opinion on the spot. But you are implying that American bishops
>disregard Papal edicts on a whim. Does the Vatican ignore such
>rebellion?
There are many people who believe that they do. Read _The Wanderer_ or
_Crisis_ magazine for instance.
For example, many Churches permitted females to become altar servers long
before the Vatican officially sanctioned them in the United States. And
this is just one small example of what many conservative Catholics consider
to be the epidemic of "Liturgical Abuse" in this country.
>>More
>> importantly, you said a moment ago that you wanted to distinguish
>between
>> the Vatican and the American Catholic Church. You now say that the
>> American Catholic Church gets its marching orders from the Vatican.
>Which
>> is it?
>
>I did make that distinction, and you are the one who keeps turning the
>subject back to the American Church.
No. You are the one who is only able to cite American, rather than
Vatican examples.
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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