Vasant wrote: > The same authority that seeks to deny pro choice protagonists,their holy > communion was some how silent and aquiesced in condoning serial sex > abusers of children, the right to receive and give communion. And > protagonists of the Death Penalty in the US are also ignored in terms of > communion restrictions. The Boston Archdiocese is a prime example in the > US. They sought to deny the Kennedy's communion, while ignoring the > transgressions of Cardinal Law and several priests in terms of child > abuse, until the law forced their hand, and the same Cardinal Law now > sits in the Vatican in a senior position. Contemporary Religion is > interpretation of holy scriptures by flawed humans-and therein lies the > problem in every religion.
Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 19:21:29 -0800 (PST) From: Mervyn Lobo <[email protected]> Vasant, It took you only a few words to expose the hypocrisy, Congrats. Your views are exactly the same as mine. Mario responds: Any Catholic or Catholic leader who was found to be deliberately complicit in the pedophilia and abuse of children by Catholic priests and other religious personnel - and allowed it to continue once discovered - should clearly be excommunicated and turned over to the civil authorities to be brought to justice along with the actual perpetrators. They should be punished by the civil authorities according to the applicable laws, regardless of whether they repent and are forgiven by the Church. Having said that, I don't believe it is accurate to say WITHOUT CAREFUL QUALIFICATION that "the Church hierarchy" were "silent and aquiesced in condoning serial sex abusers of children.." and were "... ignoring the transgressions of Cardinal Law and several priests in terms of child abuse, until the law forced their hand,..." Such critiques ignore some key facts a) the state of psychological knowledge at the time which considered pedophilia curable, b) the Church's requirement that those who show remorse and repent must be forgiven, c) Cardinal Law WAS the Church hierarchy in Boston. When added together these factors allowed the pedophiles to unfortunately manipulate the system for several years by being reassigned after they received psychological treatment and counseling. Having said that, several Church leaders, especially Cardinal Law, showed very bad judgment when perpetrators were discovered to have recommitted their heinous crime, and should have taken action far sooner than they did. This was a tragic error in judgment. The Pope at the time, JP-II, can also be accused of reacting later rather than sooner, and showing more compassion for the pedophiles and the image of the Church and not enough for the young victims who were scarred for life. The Boston Diocese has paid a heavy price for their poor handling of their entire role in this tragedy. I have also personally protested to the Vatican in the strongest terms possible the decision of Pope JP-II to take Cardinal Law to Rome and make him a prominent Archpriest at a Vatican affiliated Church, even if he had repented. His repentance and forgiveness should not have included this unnecessary action by that Pope, which should cost him his proposed sainthood in my opinion. However, misconstruing that awful period in the Church's history, WHICH HAS SINCE BEEN ADDRESSED AND CHECKS AND BALANCES PUT IN PLACE, as somehow analogous to the case of Sen. Patrick Kennedy, who CONTINUES to OPENLY and PUBLICLY defy the Church while demanding to be a member in good standing is patently a misconception in my opinion. To add the few and rare cases of capital punishment to the analogy also ignores the considerable differences between this judicial action intended to protect society and the wanton killing of millions of unborn lives simply for convenience, some 50 million since Roe V. Wade just in the USA. The Church recognizes the difference, whether individuals agree with this or not. Here is the Church's position on Capital Punishment: Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) says that punishment "ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity," that is, only when it would be otherwise impossible to defend society. And the pope teaches that such cases of absolute necessity where society cannot be defended in any other way are "very rare, if not practically nonexistent." (#56) That view is echoed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which applies the principle of self-defense to the protection of society, and states: "Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor. "If however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person. "Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically nonexistent." (#2267) WHAT DOES CATHOLIC TEACHING SAY? In the past, Catholic teaching permitted the taking of life in certain exceptional circumstances such as self-defense and capital punishment. In the face of a society that grows more violent with every passing year, the teaching against taking lives has been strengthened and exceptions made more restrictive. While the Church has not denied its traditional position that the state has the right to employ capital punishment, many Catholic bishops, together with Popes Paul VI and John Paul II, have spoken against the exercise of that right by the state. [end of excerpt]
