Yes I am familiar with the terminology, I went to a Catholic High School. :) Thanks for some clarification.

Anybody read "The Confessions of Saint Augustine"? Seems to me that one can have an exceptionally "active and rather negative" life and then grow and mature into a good and holy person. I think I'll pray that Benedict XVI defends the faith but with a gentle hand in imitation of Christ through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. I'll take a wait and see approach as to how much I like his approach, remembering that he is the Pope and I am a Catholic.
Ave Pontifex Maximus, saluto et oro pro te!

Hmmm... no bias here :rolleyes:

Politically and personally I can understand why JP2 opposed any linking of the Church with the Liberation movement - because of its strong ties to Marxism...

Also whats with the allegations that Benedict XVI or Catholiocs hate Jews?

Next time at least try to post something not so slanted or vitrolic... and also please give us a link to the source...

I have a lot to say on this issue and a going to come back to this thread later. What I think is really impressive is that the level of discourse on this thread, with the exception of one poster, has been very rational and well-behaved.

I do have one thing to say on the abuse scandal though - do those of you who criticize the Catholic church for abuse honestly believe your faith is immune from it? A pedophile is a pedophile, whether they have chosen to be celibate or are married with a a family.

Re: Debates on the New Pope
 

Posted this in the other thread, but:

Supposedly (or speculatively), the European problem is one of the reasons that Ratzinger, a German, was chosen. I guess that they thought it will take a European to work on or "fix" that problem.

Geoffrey Wainwright, a Methodist theologian from Duke who has known Ratzinger for years, was on Nightline last night. He said that, from an ecumenical and inter-faith perspective, he was "elated" at the choice of Ratzinger and thought it would be very positive as far as ecumenical and inter-faith relations go. FWIW.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Debates on the New Pope
 

It was compulsary, but some kids were able to get "waivers" so to speak.

I think some perspective is required when one wades into this question.

Some positions that many progressives would like to see addressed and changed are shared to some degree worldwide: the possibility of married priests for example (which is a clearly matter of changeable discipline and not of doctrine), which has an effect on having enough priests to go around. Use of condoms might be another, because of the health concerns in Africa and elsewhere.

But I have to laugh and roll my eyes when issues such as these are lumped together by the media with issues like homosexuality, which is a doctrinal/morality issue. This is an issue that is primarily a preoccupation of some (many) Catholics (and Protestants) in Western Europe and North America, but is not an issue at all -- except in that it is opposed -- in the Global South, where the church (Catholic and Protestant) is growing much faster than in the North.

One need only look at the Anglican Communion to see what can happen when progressive views on homosexuality are pushed unilaterally from the West. Not only is it dividing the Episcopal Church in the US, but Anglicans in the Global South are breaking ties with those in Western Europe and North America, whom they often see as perpetuating cultural, theological and ecclesial imperialism. They often see it as a "we're more enlightened than you are, so you should just follow us along." They also tend to see it as Western Christians caving in to culture instead of engaging and influencing the culture.

A pope is a pope for Catholics (and in some sense, Christians) all over the world. We in North America often, I think, need reminding that much, sometimes most, of the world doesn't necessarily see things the way many of us do.

My point was not to debate the church's stance on homosexuality, it was to show that there are some people, even though they disagree with some of the church's doctrine, would rather have them stay true to their doctrine than suddenly change just to appease the masses. That's all. :)

Here's another question. I can understand the desire some Catholics have for the church to be more progressive and change with the times. But why? Is it concern for the well-being of the church or is it something else? I guess what I want to understand but don't is why people stay with the church when they don't agree with it on so many issues. Do most people stay in the religion in which they were raised no matter what? Is it more of a cultural thing than a religious thing? Are you Catholic even if you don't go to church or pray or follow the "rules" as they exist now? If so, why?

I'm just fascinated by religion in general, but I think my concept of religion is very different from that of most people. I was raised protestant (I was confirmed and all that and used to go to church somewhat regularly on occasion) but eventually I realized that I just don't believe in 90% of the stuff that goes with being Christian, so I no longer consider myself such. I want to understand what makes some people leave when they don't agree and some people stay when they don't agree.

Did you notice there are no Jews in this thread saying this? There are also no Jews attacking a Pope based on his forced Nazi past.

Some people don't even want to ask and just want to put things out there. It's like hey guys I heard he was in Hitler Youth and yada, yada, yada. Benedict and JP were pretty influential in bridging the gap with Jews, apologizing for anti-semitism, and setting up relations with Israel and the Vatican.

-Rudey

Are Opus Dei and Communion and Liberation the only conservative Catholic movements?

-Rudey

To answer your other question with this one, somewhere it was reported that the new Pope has said he wouldn't mind if the Church was smaller if it was "purer." In other words, those who don't agree with the doctrines should leave instead of just being Christmas Catholics. But for a lot of people, church is something that's part of your past and your childhood. They want to hang on to that.

I don't know, I guess I see it both ways - you can see in the one thread where ISUKappa, aurora b & I were talking about Lutheranism that we don't agree with everything.

Do you mean Liberation Theology? If so, that would be considered liberal.

"With Cardinal Ratzinger at the helm of the church, conservatives can expect even greater support for movements like Opus Dei and Communion and Liberation, which are strong in places like Chile and Peru. "

-Rudey

I'm with you now -- I wasn't reading the conjunctions correctly. Communion and Liberation is a conservative ecclesial movement founded in Italy in 1954.

To go back to your earlier question: No, there are plenty of other conservative, progressive and everyting in between movements.

According to CNN data taken from 2 years ago (the height of the scandel), when weighted against the number of churches, there have been approximately equal numbers of Catholic and Protestant reports of sexual abuse by church officials.

Both of these figures were far higher than any other faith, so maybe we should chew on that portion of the presentation.

How were the cases handled?

A lot of people took issue to Catholic priests being moved around by Cardinals who hid what they did and still exposed these molestors to new victims, and later on, to the Vatican hiding these priests so they couldn't be charged.

I don't think Protestants have the same governing body that allowed for that, did they?

-Rudey

Agreed, completely - this point is extremely important, as to my mind that's the root of the scandel. When looking at the behavior of the leadership of the RCC, the errors become endemic (and considerably more serious). Any discussion of sexual abuse within the Church should focus on exactly this behavior - which was my point by comparing the two 'halves' of Christianity.

There is nothing implicitly 'Catholic' about the actual acts; however, the Vatican and some Cardinals acted with what can certainly be construed as negligence.

Also - there is really no analogous structure to the Vatican/Papacy in Protestantism as a whole.

And this was my point when I said that the abuse scandals were a mess to deal with. Granted they shouldn't be happening at all, but as GP said, a pedophile is a pedophile. But the way it was handled after the Vatican knew it was happening can't keep happening. So I'm curious how the new Pope will prevent it from happening again.

MysticCat- My grandmother was from Berlin, and her best childhood friend and her best friend's brother decided not to do the Hitler Youth, and never did. They still live in Berlin, and never mentioned having ot get a "waiver" to not join, apparently they told their parents that they didn't want to, and weren't forced at all. My grandmother didn't join the Hitler Youth, but that was all shortly before she left for a concentration camp.

And Rudey- I am a Jew against the current pope, but as I'm not Catholic, I don't feel that my opinion matters in the slightest. If this who the Catholic Cardinals want to lead, who am I to shun their traditions? It's not like they haven't been shunning mine for centuries.... oh, whoops!

You can be against anything and whatever you want. I would just wish you would be more educated and learned when it comes to making those decisions.

-Rudey

So the guy was a hitler youth briefly, so were tons of germans during his time. What was he, like 12 when he was in it? Big woop, you can't get all up in arms about this guy before he gets a chance to do his job. If he was Austrian, maybe there would be reason to worry, but I think his life and devotion to the church and the fact that the cardinals picked him should be reason enough to give this guy some leeway.

He's the friggin' pope, I just don't follow this whole Nazi crusade in the media...

Well, obviously I can't speak to the specifics of that nor argue with them. They were there, I wasn't. All I have to go on is that every historical account I have read on the subject has said that joining the Hitler Youth was compulsary after 1936. If they say they didn't have to join, I have no basis on which to doubt them.

I don't think, however, that their personal experiences necessarily prove that the historical accounts are wrong about membership being compulsary, but rather would assume that, for some reason, they were able to avoid compulsary membership. In other words, their experiences don't necessarily disprove the rule but show exceptions to the rule.

I would assume that there is always the possibility that complusary participation was more rigorously enforced in some parts of Germany, or even in parts of cities like Berlin, than in others. I also wouldn't be surprised if it was more rigorously enforced among the children of members of certain professions and particular social groups than others.

Also, I wonder if it's possible that some who say they didn't "join" really mean they didn't "participate." It would not strike me as surprising if the practice was to enroll kids in the Hitler Youth whether they liked it or not (or knew it or not) and whether they actively participated or not.

New Pope Hailed for Strong Jewish Ties:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...=1078113566627

Of course nobody will know what will happen until it happens.

-Rudey

Well, they could very well be exceptions to the rule, and for all I know, they might have been enrolled but never informed of this. They did say that if their father had been a party member they would have had to join and participate, but he wasn't.

As to profession and areas of cities/ the country: They were professor's children, as were my grandmother and her siblings, maybe since the profession was considered more subversive and liberal, they didn't try to recruit those children?

Basically, I disagree with the Catholic Church on quite a bit of issues. But in addition, I no longer feel it's very relevant to my life. My relationship is between God and I and I don't need the Catholic Church to dictate it to me. God knows what I've done whether or not I make a point of telling him (i.e., going to Church).

So I just choose to be a non-practicing Catholic after 18 years of Catholic schools, weekly church and heavy involvement.

Why haven't I just left? Well, I just haven't gotten around to it. I haven't taken the time to find somewhere else that I would fit in better. It's just not that important.

But yes, I do wish that the Church would modernize a bit and realize that the world we live in now is a world that was never envisioned during Jesus's time. Women are held at a MUCH higher standard than they were in biblical times and that should at least be taken into account.

A number of Catholics I know (my family mostly) are mostly annoyed by the centralized power and the pulling back from things that Vatican II opened up.

Seems quite possible to me. Often, academics were not big Nazi-fans, which is why many of them left the country.

Correctamundo... totalitarian and fascist governments can't stand academia and intelligentsia - can't have any freethinkers subvert the gospel spouted from the party line.

Along with the Hitler Youth requirement to be racially suitable, the children and his or her family had to be politically reliable as well.