Catholic patriarchal hierarchy and Evangelicals to blame for economy....

[LeftHander]

They have literally banked on the greed of their followers and willingly supported the sin of greed.



Pay your 10% , your tithing, and you are saved, loved and welcome.

As you become more successful so does your spirit and the pleasure of you after life. The more you have here means your reward will be even greater in heaven.

They created the people who were capable of increasing personal income by any means necessary. To the point of absurdity and global economic collapse.

(clarified the title...to not offend DU Catholics that are poor.)

[Davis_X_Machina]

1. As a Catholic...

..I'd like to thank you for your incisive economic analysis, and penetrating theological insight.

[LeftHander]

2. you are welcome....nt

[stray cat]

3. Is this sarcasm or just a way out there ignorant , bigoted, self-righteous rant?

I assume sarcasm

[biopowertoday]

4. The OP Sure makes DU look stupid.

[LeftHander]

7. Well being attacked by both of those organizations....

Does not endear me to them.

So make me understand why Evangelicals need limousines, private jets and $1000 prayer requests.

And why being a "good catholic" means giving as much as you can to the church. Mr. Pope is not making the Catholic church look very smart either....

Certainly you can add a load of other factors to the greed and consumptive nature of humanity. But if these organizations are going to preach morality then they need also to address the nature of greed.

Picking and choosing both the Bible and morality...

[pnwmom]

19. Being a good Catholic has nothing to do with how much money you donate.

You don't even have to be a registered member of a parish or donate anything at all to be a good Catholic. You can attend Mass every week and receive the sacraments without being a member of any parish.

[pnwmom]

27. If you have a gripe with the Catholic Church -- you say you are being attacked

by them -- then address the real issue, whatever it is.

But the idea that the Church is at the bottom of our economic troubles makes no sense.

[LeftHander]

5. Seems greed has been a forgotten sin...

for a long time.

The analysis by the Vatican of top sins did not include greed and Evangelicals are unabashedly money centered.

[Fresh_Start]

6. Funny I read that the Vatican has declared

accumulating obscene wealth and causing poverty to be new social moral sins.

[LeftHander]

8. Maybe they need to advertise that.....

Seems the rhetoric against same sex marriage is a lot louder....

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

9. Look, I don't like either, but I wouldn't blame the economy on them

[pnwmom]

10. This is NUTS. Catholics do NOT believe that wealth is a sign of virtue.

Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. Jesus said that it was easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven -- and this parable is told in Catholic masses every year. This is why the Catholic Church has invested so much in organizations that do charitable work.

And Catholics don't tithe. Any donations are completely voluntary, unlike in some denominations. Some people put a dollar into the basket when it comes around. Some people put nothing in -- and no one judges them for that.

And you don't have to be a registered parishioner to attend Mass -- anyone can attend. Among registered parishioners, average yearly donations to the Church are only about 3% of income.

[Davis_X_Machina]

15. Hence all the bingo games.... n/t

[pnwmom]

18. Not all Churches have bingo games. None of the Churches in my city do.

But if they want to have bingo games to pay for fixing their gutters, or whatever, I'm not going to blame them.

[dflprincess]

24. Pnwmom is correct (and I say this as a lapsed Catholic)

The Catholic Church never preached the gospel of greed to it's member nor were we ever required to tithe - you were expected to help support the parish but it was based on what you thought you could afford. You may have legitimate questions about the wealth the Vatican has acquired, but the parish bingo game was/is used to help cover expenses. The prizes were never that large and, at least around here, I notice that the churches around here don't have bingo games much since the casino opened in the southern 'burbs.

Actually, for all the problems I have with the Church, it is what helped make me a liberal. I took the nuns seriously when they hammered the Acts of Mercy (feed the hungry, house the homeless, etc) into us.

[poverlay]

32. You couldn't be more right(sorry-correct:)). I am a lapsed Catholic as well. I have all sorts of

major issues with the catholics. However, in my entire life, I have never seen an American Catholic church put emphasis, from any level, on wealth accumulation. In fact, poor always seemed to be the Catholic hallmark to me. God knows that those Catholics suck at tithing too. A couple bucks in the collection basket perhaps, but it surely wasn't 10% of income.

What made me hit "reply" to agree with you was that I too have the beatitudes, ten commandments and all the rest beaten into me bone deep. When I think of Christianity and Jesus I think of "Do unto others...", "Let he who is without sin...", "...The greatest of these is love..", etc. etc. ad nauseum.. That's what I was taught through a lifetime of Catholic school, C.C.D., R.E., retreats, leadership councils. So many nuns and laypeople worked so hard to teach me these things that I would be a real dufus not to defend their memory and work.

If wealth creation was their goal they've been doing a terrible job of it for forty years or more...

[JerseygirlCT]

37. I think the whole idea that those who are successful are somehow

more worthy and blessed is more a Calvinist thing - not Catholic at all. And those who began thinking that way were really perverting Calvin, from what I've learned.

Long winded way of saying I completely agree with you.

[MineralMan]

11. Sorry, but that's just nonsense.

Please think about it and try again.

[Davis_X_Machina]

13. How much fun would that be? n/t

[MineralMan]

16. Well, there is that...n/t

[Davis_X_Machina]

21. I've been on here since '01...

...and become almost inured to the Catholic-baiting.

There's about one of these eruptions per day, and when I see them, I usually just think of Dorothy Day, and Dom Helder Camara, and Michael Harrington and other heroes of my youth, and exercise the virtues of patience and charity towards my neighbor.

What can you do?

[MineralMan]

23. Yah, it goes on on a lot of sites. Annoying as the dickens,

and I'm an atheist. The Roman Catholic Church, for all its flaws, has championed the rights of poor people around the world for a long, long time.

Anti-catholic posts are, to me, just as noxious as anti-jewish posts, or racist posts, or anti-whatever posts.

[Davis_X_Machina]

25. What can ya do? 'Tis a fallen world.

St. Augustine, whatever his other flaws -- and he was a seriously hung-up dude -- warned us of the inherent depravity of mankind. Considering he never saw a newspaper, or logged onto a website, that was pretty perspicacious.

[MineralMan]

30. Well, I don't buy into the depravity of mankind

or original sin or any of that stuff. Augustine is an interesting sort of philosopher, though, and worth studying. His writings, however, are hardly free of error.

I take mankind's nature as neutral, overall. The society a person is born into more or less determines a person's outlook on things. Among those things is religion. Here in the West, we're more or less born into a society that more or less reflects the Christian moral tradition. Always more or less, of course. So, we do, more or less, as instructed in the New Testament. Or, at least, we do what we please, and can find support for it somewhere in those writings.

[pnwmom]

26. Thank you, MineralMan, for your support.

As a Catholic, I have had a lot of problems with the hierarchy, particularly with the current one. Some on the right might call me a "cafeteria Catholic." So be it.

But the Catholic Church has always promoted a very progressive social doctrine. Thank you for recognizing this.

The OP, on the other hand, displays both ignorance and bigotry.

[MineralMan]

29. No problem.

I don't like broad generalizations written from ignorance. Never have.

Even though I dispute the validity of all religions, I dislike ignorant criticisms of them.

[JVS]

12. Your premise is as stupid as saying it's because people gave money to United Way

[pnwmom]

20. (delete)

[get the red out]

14. They do both strongly imply

that to get to heaven you must vote for republicans because of abortion rights, feminists, and gays.

[pnwmom]

17. Tell that to the millions of Catholics who provided the swing vote that

elected Obama into office this year.

Some members of the hierarchy do promote the candidacies of Republics, unfortunately. But not all, and many fewer at the level of parish priest.

[MineralMan]

31. That's sorta silly, since Roman Catholics have

voted primarily for Democrats for a long time. You may want to rethink your statement, after consulting some factual information.

[pnwmom]

22. This is nothing but ignorance and bigotry.

The Catholic Church does not teach that wealth is a path to virtue -- it teaches the opposite. That is why the Church and church members have always been heavily involved in charitable work.

And Catholics don't tithe -- they can attend regular services without being parish members or even donating anything at all. The net effect is that Catholics' yearly donations to the Church (which doesn't include other charitable donations) are among the lowest of all denominations.

[zagging]

28. Get real

Every good simple minded conspiracy starts with the Jews.

[Occam Bandage]

33. Charitable giving destroyed the economy?

The things you learn on DU.

[ZombieHorde]

34. I'm just not buying it. (pun intended) nt

[knitter4democracy]

35. Thank goodness we Orthodox are off the hook.

:eyes:

Most evangelicals don't go for prosperity theology. That's more of a nondenom thing, though it's an insidious theology that's creeping into the church I grew up in. I don't see Catholics doing that kind of thing at all--especially peace and justice Catholics.

As for the ignored Eastern third of Christianity, we're just too weird and unknown, I guess, to get painted with your broad brush.

[beam me up scottie]

36. Oh brother.

Here we go again, what, are you guys on a schedule or something?

Y'all show up in here every few months, crap all over the place and the regulars get stuck cleaning up after you.

The only way you can clarify the title so it won't offend DUers is to ask the mods to delete this fucking thread.

I hope you're not an atheist because we'll have to change our bylaws so that we can disown you for making the rest of us look bad.

But we will use the NTAF if we have to.

[Deep13]

38. You know what, I'm not going to exempt RC believers who are poor.

Without the active support of regular people all over the world, the RC Church could not do anything.

Anyway, my concern about Christianity is not necessarily its economics, although the whole dominion over the Earth thing does effect it. Rather it is the "ethic" that one become holy by suffering, that faith is a virtue and that people vote the way their religions tell them to and that is almost always conservative.

[Why Syzygy]

40. Two in a row .. "AFFECT" not "EFFECT"

Just trying to help.

[Deep13]

41. Here's the definition for "effect" I have from dictionary.com.

–verb (used with object)
10. to produce as an effect; bring about; accomplish; make happen: The new machines finally effected the transition to computerized accounting last spring.

Maybe this is a minority view, but it is certainly no worse than using "partner" or as a verb or "impact" as a synonym for "effect" or "affect."

[Why Syzygy]

42. I was taught not to use it as a verb.

If it's a difference in style, I'll live with it. :blush:

[Evoman]

39. Yeah, but where do the jews fit in? You gotta fit them into your theory somewhere.

If your going for crazy, I say go full in.