The Catholic Thread

Male priests? Aren’t nearly all alter boys… boys?

Many Catholic schools are gender segregated with nuns teaching girls and preists teaching boys.

In the US, altar girls have been present in increasing numbers since the mid-1990’s.

And I would guess most Catholic grammar schools are no longer segregated by gender nor are most taught by nuns and priests. In my area, even the Catholic high schools are taught by the laity.

I don’t mean for this to sound dismissive but your notion of Catholic education seems dated.

So are many of these rape allegations that were hidden for 30 years.

Uh…ok.

They aren’t. The laity do the lion share of the teaching and administration. I went to one, and the only priest was the principal.

And for all the Church’s faults, the schooling isn’t one of them. Such schools are typically leaps and bounds above their competitors.

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I know this because I went to one, and I am self-evidently brilliant.

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It hasn’t worked this way for quite a while. Even when it did (pre 1980’s in most diocese) this only accounts for schools. In the church, boys and girls both serve the altar and choir. The opportunities for a priest to prey on girls are present, but I don’t see cases many of it.

There are sociologists who studied catholic clergy and estimated like 45-50 percent of them aren’t celibate, and most of that activity is homosexual. Same guy estimated a 6% abuse rate. Didn’t really want to go find all those reports and firebomb the thread with a sociologist’s speculations. Not exactly physics-level science, didn’t seem like fair play.

If the population of clergy is skewed (for whatever reason) toward homosexuality in the first place… it would make sense that of the 6% of clergy that were/are abusive, more of them would target boys.

I didn’t know this part: The catholic church has guidelines that if a gay person has been celibate for three years they can become clergy. The more you know.

As someone mentioned up-thread, if this is generational/repeating abuse then these priests are just doing what was done to them (not a moral justification, but maybe an explanation for targeting boys).

There are reports the current Pope even covered for somebody accused of abuse before he became Pope. That’s the part everyone is so mad about, the systemic cover ups worldwide to protect the offenders.

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I knew some people who went this route because they were Catholic and obviously homosexual. As a Catholic they were not going to come out or want to be married to a woman. Celibacy is logical from that standpoint.

From the outside looking in, I thought it was a tragedy that the boys (soon to be men) had to choose between living their lives as the person they were born and being disowned or hiding in a “normal” life as either a priest or husband married to a wife.

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But you do walk funny.

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That’s a bicycle injury.

Yeah, the seat just fell off by itself.

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It is called a racing seat! God, some of you no-wheelers are just so ignorant of the lingo.

I think this is a great point.

Sorry for the delay! I read down to the thirty-sixth reply without seeing these posts addressed so I will just go down the line. Hopefully it won’t be too many redundant topics.

You are one-hundred percent right!! Pedophilia (exposed in early '02) and ephebophilia (current evil in the Church) need the light of truth to be eradicated.

Well as a Catholic, I believe Christ (specifically three of the synoptic Gospels) when He says in Luke 22:19 “And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’” So the bread is literally the Body of Christ. Why? Because Christ says “This is my body given for you.” He doesn’t say “symbol of my body” or anything like that. GOD can do anything, surely He can transform bread into His Flesh. If GOD wanted to change anything else using the priests of His Church, He would simply create a Sacrament. Even a heratic has the power of GOD, Luther had that until he left the Church through his own actions.

How many other Christian denominations have (typically its ephebophilia, but not always) men who rape other boys? If I provide the source, you will simply question my source.

The current pope himself as a history now coming out that he helped cover it up and move a guilty priest to another parish. There is no excuse for his actions and I am pointing out that he is simply a sinful man just like we all are. Again, no excuses though!!

I will try my best to help you understand Basement_Gainz!

  1. A number of things have to happen for a person to be declared a saint.

First- , the person’s local bishop investigates their life by gathering information from witnesses of their life and any writings they may have written. If the bishop finds them to be worthy of being a saint, then he submits the information that he gathered to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Second , the Congregation for the Causes of Saints can choose to reject the application or accept it and begin their own investigation of the person’s life. If the application is accepted, the person may be called Servant of God. **

Third , if the Congregation for the Causes of Saints approves of the candidate, they can choose to declare that the person lived a life heroically virtuous life. This isn’t a declaration that the person is in heaven, but that they pursued holiness while here on earth. If this is indeed found to be the case, the person may be called Venerable .

Fourth , to be recognized as someone in heaven requires that a miracle has taken place through the intercession of that person. The miracle is usually a healing. The healing has to be instantaneous, permanent, and complete while also being scientifically unexplainable. Miracles have to be first verified as scientifically unexplainable by a group of independent doctors, then the person is approved by a panel of theologians, and then the final approval lies with the pope. If this is the case, a person is declared a blessed.

Note: Besides the number of miracles attributed to them, the difference between is a blessed and a saint ** is that the scope of devotion for a blessed is narrower – usually limited to a specific group of people or a particular region of the world while a saint is held up for devotion for the universal Church.

Fifth , a second miracle is needed in order to declare someone a saint . The confirmation of a second miracle goes through the same scrutiny as the first.

The five-step process is a general outline for how someone becomes a saint. There are definitely exceptions to this process and situations that may change the process as well.

Copied from - How Does Someone Become a Saint? A 5-Step Process - FOCUS

  1. The college of Cardinals elect the Pope via a blind ballot. He is in charge of the entire Catholic Church, throughout the whole world.

  2. Ask a priest if they can devote enough energy to a parish and to a wife without giving one a shortened amount of effort which they rightly deserve. They can give advice because they hear from the entire congregation and not just one couple. That’s what a priest told me anyway when I asked the same questions.

(Legalsteel addressed this below but I will add my spin nonetheless)

I realize you are addressing Sloth here but I am a Catholic defending my Faith ; )

Above ^ I addressed this very topic. The Son of GOD said the Bread will become His Flesh after the priests blesses the bread, nothing more needs to happen. We are talking about GOD and He can literally do anything He wants, even if us mere finite humans are mystified by it. The priests only has the power granted to him by GOD, in this case specifically through the power of ordination and Holy Oil from the bishop.

Here is a great marinade that I love. Take your favorite cut of steak (I love me some tri-tip with marbling) and place olive oil, garlic and worcestershire sauce in a Ziploc and you can either freeze or use the meat after a day or two. Less than an hour before grilling (I use like twenty minutes), put some maple syrup in the sack. After the meat has been in the marinade, grill it up and eat up. A meat thermometer helped me learn how fast I cook a steak for authentic rare.

  1. Never met any priest or otherwise to claim this, but you obviously know different guys than me.

  2. Council of Trent addresses this very issue and their reasons don’t jive with yours.

https://www.futurechurch.org/brief-history-of-celibacy-in-catholic-church

Yeah, Costco is a heck of a deal if you live close enough to one. During the time of Martin Luther’s ninety-five problems with the Church at that time, the vast majority were correct. Actually all but three were actual problems. He went off the deep end when he said that a layman could read, understand and interpret the Scriptures. Don’t forget the printing press was just invented and he could say anything he wanted about the Church without being held accountable with his criticisms. No arguments though, at the time the Church was vastly corrupted. Actually similar to how many in the Church today are heratics. Interesting side note, did you know Martin Luther was a Catholic monk with two secretaries and he was so busy he stopped praying The Liturgy of the Hours? In the Catholic Church it is a mortal sin for anyone in the ordained class to NOT say the daily prayers.

The Hail Mary for example is simply from an angel named Gabriel as he visited the Virgin Mary just as Christ was conceived. Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee . . . .

Another point, as humans we need all five senses to focus our brains. When saying my Rosary I talk in my brain and hear the prayers, the beads are felt in my fingers, I smell incense in Church during Masses and finally the statures represent what they are thought to look like. Do you keep pictures of your loved ones around the house or in your wallet? Not really that much different.

loppar - do you have anything to back your claims. There was traces of truth threaded in your post with vast leaps to slam something far more complicated than your description. A source would be appreciated.

Saints are typically great sinners before they turn to GOD and plead for salvation. A great saint and doctor of the Church comes to mind; St. Augustine. Saints are role models who left their earthly passions behind and pursued a holy life trying to attain salvation. Have you ever asked a friend to pray for you? Asking a saint who is in heaven is no different, after all the saints have attained the beatific vision.

Many of the great thinkers before Christ, like Socrates or later Aristotle thought quite closely to the teachings of the Church and her understandings. Impressive that these great thinkers where closer to GOD than many realize.

Impressive how close you are to the authentic truth! Nicely done zecarlo! Major props ; )

I’m authentically trying to understand the thinking here. Do you believe the Catholic Church is the only institution with widespread abuse of young men? I promise abuse is not only in the Catholic Church but evil people are in the whole world at large. Predator men saw an opening in becoming a priest and many other predators followed suit. I have heard that over eighty percent of the priests in the Vatican are gay. The Church has always taught that if a young man is indeed gay, he should be expelled from seminary, yet the opposite has been happening for nearly sixty years. We are in for a long battle of irradiating evil in this institution.

After four pages or replies, I will post this and then address the rest of the thread. I have to pad my post count ; )

edit - trying to fix my quote mistakes but they still exist; sorry.

I wasn’t aware dry aged beef was such a riveting topic with religious figures. Themoreyouknow

Edit: NVM I kept reading. Think he just put in my quote the wrong spot

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Celibacy will create an ephebophilia or a pedophile?!? Any data to back your hypothesis? There is a retired priest where I grew up that was caught with child torture porn (I never even knew that was a thing!!) and a bunch of drugs (weed, LSD and ecstasy) in his house. If someone believes you can’t be healthy while being celibate AND the celibate life make people become monsters of the world, I have some ocean from property in South Dakota to sell them. Acres for pennies on the dollar.

I couldn’t have made this post better in anyway, thank you Dr_Pangloss!

Yeah I screwed up and when I try and fix it, but I never can get it right. I haven’t learned to quote the "newer format" quite yet. Sorry I foobarred your quote.

edit - figuring out this quoting system

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This is wrong.

Yes. Most of the early spread of Christianity was basically constant Christian mob violence (Alexandria being the most notorious example) and straight up murder of people who bathed.

The most intolerant one wins.