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The future of Catholicism


Darzin

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1 hour ago, Week said:

We haven't even broached the enormous, obscene wealth that the church has - land money, artifacts, etc. 

I did broach it, with the word, "wherewithall" which I assume will be a most significant arm of its continuing evolution and survival. That wherewithall it began accumulating thousands of years ago. Pretty hard to dismantle that. Not even the nazis could.  Or Napoleon. In fact, not even Henry VIII and Oliver Cromwell and their minions weren't quite able to do that entirely within a single, smallish island in which the Roman Church was abolished, dissolved, prohibited and kicked out. It certainly didn't manage to it on the island of Ireland.

 

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41 minutes ago, IFR said:

Yes, there are quite a few institutes such as this. It seems to be a habit of organized communities.

Sexual abuse is one manifestation of an abuse of power. I do believe that if you have enough powerful individuals, some will assuredly abuse that power and use the established structure to their advantage. I do think that has been a pattern of human behavior.

I'm a little puzzled why you think I'm suggesting that one should excuse the Catholic church? It's perfectly understandable why one would be outraged by the church and want to hold it accountable. I've never suggested otherwise.

The access to minors in inappropriate situations, response to criminal sexual abuse of minors, cover up of said abuse, and complete lack of accountability or reform across the organization is unique and damning. And, again, this is an organization that many people choose to be a part of and give money to -- not the case for the billion+ people in China who live and work at the whim of CCP.

My argument of 'excusing' is that any mention of human nature completely ignores all of the above where the negative outcomes of human behavior (abuses, cover up, dodge broader accountability) is enabled by the power structures and secrecy of the RCChurch. 

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I am not excusing or advocating for the Church in These Times at all.  But as an historian I have to ruminate on the fact that the Church has survived every state and government in which it operated, particularly its core regions, for thousands of years. It has a depth of experience and comprehension of how people work that we can't even imagine. 

In fact I've been expecting a rejuvenation of people wanting monastic lives, even.  The Church has cycles for certain, and it became over and over The Resource of survival in the worst of times, and the worst of times are here again with Climate Change.

 

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6 minutes ago, Zorral said:

I am not excusing or advocating for the Church in These Times at all.  But as an historian I have to ruminate on the fact that the Church has survived every state and government in which it operated, particularly its core regions, for thousands of years. It has a depth of experience and comprehension of how people work that we can't even imagine. 

In fact I've been expecting a rejuvenation of people wanting monastic lives, even.  The Church has cycles for certain, and it became over and over The Resource of survival in the worst of times, and the worst of times are here again with Climate Change.

 

This is an interesting topic - as a corollary, I've been thinking about a *good church's role in community building, organizing, and support across a group of people within some proximity of home or family and there is no non-religious group, that I'm aware of - aside from political parties maybe (*shiver*) - to fill this gap or that of your bolded point. It feels ripe for disruption aside from it's necessity to be at least not for profit. At this point, I think social media is filling that gap for both religious and non-religious and we're seeing the negative impact of that.

*Might even be RCC!

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41 minutes ago, Week said:

The access to minors in inappropriate situations, response to criminal sexual abuse of minors, cover up of said abuse, and complete lack of accountability or reform across the organization is unique and damning. And, again, this is an organization that many people choose to be a part of and give money to -- not the case for the billion+ people in China who live and work at the whim of CCP.

I think you would be surprised at how many people voluntarily support China. And how many people are pressured by cultural or family reasons to support the Catholic Church.

As has been pointed out by others in this thread, many institutes have allowed child abuse to occur. The magnitude has been different, but this is only because the Catholic church happens to be larger in scope.

But I think we are talking past each other in some respects. I think you believe that child abuse is a uniquely awful expression of suffering and since this is one of the major forms in which abuses of power took place under the Catholic church bailiwick, the church is uniquely awful. I do not share the belief that child abuse is uniquely awful. I think it's bad, but also that there are many forms of suffering which deserve equivalent consideration.

It's a subjective thing of course, and so we probably won't come to an agreement in this discussion.

41 minutes ago, Week said:

My argument of 'excusing' is that any mention of human nature completely ignores all of the above where the negative outcomes of human behavior (abuses, cover up, dodge broader accountability) is enabled by the power structures and secrecy of the RCChurch

I understand that. I believe that's part of large institutions that permit power abuse. I don't think it's unique to the Catholic church.

Once again, please note that our definitions of abuse differ. I'm allowing for different manifestations of abuse, and not accepting the opinion that child abuse is the worst sort.

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Social media is an empty husk compared with the in-person community you get from the church. I honestly think social media does more societal harm than good but that’s for a different thread.

The community aspect of organized religion cannot be overlooked. If you move somewhere new a Church would be a great place to meet new people assuming you are a believer or at least inclined to tolerate it. Additionally my local Catholic parish is involved in all kinds of local community ministries in which I have considered participating - and maybe will once my son is older - despite the fact that I’m an agnostic who doesn’t really want to go to mass. I may not agree with everything they do, or believe exactly as they do, but it can be a very good vehicle for helping local poor, in need, refugees.. etc. And a good old fashioned way to meet some of your neighbors. It’s definitely not all negative.

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3 minutes ago, S John said:

The community aspect of organized religion cannot be overlooked. If you move somewhere new a Church would be a great place to meet new people assuming you are a believer or at least inclined to tolerate it. Additionally my local Catholic parish is involved in all kinds of local community ministries in which I have considered participating - and maybe will once my son is older - despite the fact that I’m an agnostic who doesn’t really want to go to mass. I may not agree with everything they do, or believe exactly as they do, but it can be a very good vehicle for helping local poor, in need, refugees.. etc. And a good old fashioned way to meet some of your neighbors. It’s definitely not all negative.

Absolutely. It's rarely helpful to view things in black and white.

A good perspective of the merits of religion as nexus for community building (despite the problems of religions) is Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harrari.

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Organized religion is bad. Instuitionalisation. As Pascal said, Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction

That's y I don't have a problem with spirituality. Individual emphasis. But factions, bad. 

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2 hours ago, IFR said:

And how many people are pressured by cultural or family reasons to support the Catholic Church..

This is true across religions and again not a positive argument for religion in general. 

 

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10 hours ago, Week said:

Boy scouts? Hell, no.

Public college? Probably yes, though without the scale of world-wide ongoing abuse with payments in a tens of billions.

Military? Hell, no.

Taxes? I addressed as these are compulsory.

Is there another non-government organization worldwide that has directly lead to as much abuse and suffering as the Catholic Church? Perhaps criminal syndicates. At least their raison d'etre is crime.

Sexual abuse has been shown to be endemic among NGO's working in parts of the world suffering natural disasters, famine and war, and UN peace-keeping missions.  

It is not a defence of the Catholic Church to point out that other organisations which claim to wield moral authority have covered up for rapists and child abusers in their own ranks, but never suppose that this kind of abuse of power is restricted to the Catholic Church.

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2 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

Organized religion is bad. Instuitionalisation. As Pascal said, Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction

That's y I don't have a problem with spirituality. Individual emphasis. But factions, bad. 

IMHO, some people will do evil very cheerfully for all sorts of reasons other than religious conviction.

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I think an organization holding itself to be the one true church should be able to do better than to have a pedophilia problem. At the same time if you really believe the Catholic church is the only organization that can provide licit communion I see why you'd stay. But even the stated teachings of the church cause a lot of pain the rules about divorce, and LGBT individuals have caused a lot of pain and will continue to do so. 

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9 hours ago, IFR said:

I think you would be surprised at how many people voluntarily support China. And how many people are pressured by cultural or family reasons to support the Catholic Church.

As has been pointed out by others in this thread, many institutes have allowed child abuse to occur. The magnitude has been different, but this is only because the Catholic church happens to be larger in scope.

But I think we are talking past each other in some respects. I think you believe that child abuse is a uniquely awful expression of suffering and since this is one of the major forms in which abuses of power took place under the Catholic church bailiwick, the church is uniquely awful. I do not share the belief that child abuse is uniquely awful. I think it's bad, but also that there are many forms of suffering which deserve equivalent consideration.

First bold, if you live in China then you do not have a choice. By the same logic, USians are also guilty of our governments excesses and evils as well.

The second bold, I am close with a survivor of extensive child abuse and yes, it is uniquely awful. I'm not sure what you even intend to mean here or compare it to but, fuck, it is pure evil to abuse children.

9 hours ago, S John said:

Social media is an empty husk compared with the in-person community you get from the church. I honestly think social media does more societal harm than good but that’s for a different thread.

I agree - and though I clearly drew a distinction of *good churches and not necessarily religion in general. The point being many churches are dying out because younger generations are not attending. The solution, in my mind, does not yet exist -- social media is not a replacement and a continuation of church, as presently manifested, is more and more irrelevant.

*Might be Catholic. Unlikely perhaps, but might be

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Both social media and organized religion do more harm than good. 

But the catholic church was as involved many genocides and mass murders and is clearly an inherently evil organization that should be destroyed. 

Even nowadays it does far more harm than good and gets way too much funding from governments as it still runs many schools and stuff like retirement homes(a catholic org is the biggest org running things here in Austria and the most hated employer in the field by far because of its unsocial nature). Homes for people with disabilities only got somewhat humane here in Austria after they got rid of the nuns that ran them until the late 80s.

Edit: The assets of the church should be sized and its wealth should be given to the countless people it and its clergy harmed. 

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8 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

This is true across religions and again not a positive argument for religion in general. 

 

In the context that you pulled that quote, it was a neutral statement. It was intended to observe that the governmental institution China is not a purely compulsory entity; nor is the institution of the Catholic church a purely voluntary entity. This was addressing the content in the post I quoted.

Responding to another poster, I did mention the community building qualities of the Catholic church, and that can be viewed as positive or negative depending on your outlook.

I agree with you that this is a characteristic of all religions (and secular ideologies) that is not unique to Catholicism.

My perspective on this matter is largely influenced by Sapiens, which I found persuasive in several aspects. It expresses its thesis far better than I could.

1 hour ago, Week said:

Thr second bold, I am close with a survivor of extensive child abuse and yes, it is uniquely awful. I'm not sure what you even intend to mean here or compare it to but, fuck, it is pure evil to abuse children

 

First, let me say that I'm very sorry to hear about this person you are close to experiencing that kind of trauma. I wish the both of you the very best.

I would also like to say that from my perspective this is a friendly discussion, and I have no intention of upsetting you if you feel emotionally invested in this topic and feel distress at contrasting opinions.

That said, I will proceed with my response.

I do not think that anecdotes are particularly helpful in making generalized statements. I'm not going to divulge whether I have any personal connection to abuse to amplify the credibility of my statements (this is not a criticism of you, this is simply my personal preference), because I do not think it does amplify credibility.

I will point out that the longitudinal response to abuse is multifaceted. It depends on the age of the victim, whether the incident of abuse was transient or chronic, and for sexual abuse and otherwise the severity of the event(s). Individuals will respond differently to a given trauma. Some will recover quickly to severe trauma, and some will express long term maladaptive behaviors to comparatively less substantial trauma.

We cannot measure the consequence of trauma in how much a person "suffers". There are no units of pain. We can simply observe a pattern of associated behaviors (future somatic effects, alcoholism, propensity for revictimization, likelihood to perpetrate event on others, later financial and family stability, etc.). 

And of course, with regard to the topic of abuse,  we have so far limited the perspective to an anthropocentric point of view, which I do not agree with.

At any rate, things are less clear cut than I think you make them out to be.

But again, I do not believe that we are going to agree with each other on this issue, and so I probably will not respond to you further on the subject of childhood abuse in the Catholic church (other topics in this thread may be worth discussing though, and we may find agreement there). 

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I'd say the worst child abuse scandal in the UK, in my lifetime, was the way that people working in social services and the police, who were charged with child safeguarding in Rotherham and other Northern towns simply looked on, or looked the other way, as boys and girls were raped by grooming gangs. 

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Well the church has two options when it comes to growing in popularity. The traditional approach of invading countries and murdering people if they don’t convert is clearly out.

The other more viable option is to copy how other cults have adapted and become a sort of self help society that picks on the emotionally vulnerable and offers the promise of community and a sense of superiority. 

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