Vatican Rules: Ordaining Women Priests a Crime Like Sex Abuse

[AngryOldDem]

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/07/09/vatican-rules-ordaining-women-priests-a-crime-like-sex-abuse-of/

<<New rules the Vatican is expected to issue soon on penalties for priests who sexually abuse children will also put the ordaining of women in the same category of the most serious crimes under church law.

Church sources told Catholic News Service that the new "norms," as the policies are called, will include the "attempted ordination of women" among the list of most serious crimes, or what are known as "delicta graviora."

Word that the Vatican will also use this opportunity to codify the attempted ordination of a woman as among the "delicta graviora" is a surprise, however, and is not likely to please either victims advocates -- who have been pushing for much more stringent and universal church policies against abusers -- or those who favor a greater role for women in the church.

"Quite frankly, it is an outrage to pair the two, a complete injustice to connect the aspirations of some women among the baptized to ordained ministry with what are some of the worst crimes that can be committed against the least of Christ's members," U.S. Catholic editor Bryan Cones wrote at the monthly magazine's web site in a blast that appears to echo the views of many.<<

_____________________________________________________________

If women wondered how they are really viewed within the Church and by Church hierarchy, here's their answer.

If only the Church were just as quick to address the problem of pedophile priests instead of letting that TRUE crime ride for decades.

[hlthe2b]

1. Ahh, the Mel Gibson approach to Catholicism

this Vatican needs to be cleaned out of all the pedophiles, all the pedophile priest apologists, and all the regressive misogynistic ilck.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. LOL. Perfect!! You have nailed it.

:mad:

[KeyWester]

2. If it is like sex abuse....

then they should a blind eye to it .. :eyes:

[izquierdista]

3. I guess they are ready

To have lots of women priests and put them on the traveling circuit, bouncing all over the place.

[madrchsod]

5. this criminal organization has it`s roots in sexual abuse

http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article05111001.aspx

[earthside]

6. Members?

I simply do not understand why, in this modern age, anyone would retain membership is an organization with the history and current practices and beliefs of the Roman church.

[Angry Dragon]

24. Of the people I have talked to

the ones that call themselves Catholic but do not really practice the religion it has more to do that they grew up in the church. They call themselves Catholic but are not the blind faithful.

[Catshrink]

7. 'cuz girls are icky

[MineralMan]

10. More that women are scary. The fear of the power of women is

the background of most misogynistic practices. And what is the source of that power that engenders such fear in weak men? It is the power to give birth and to nurture the young. Almost every misogynist still can be cowed by his mother, if she simply gives him "the look."

Further, most men can remember the sweaty palms and anxiety of courtship attempts during their adolescence. I know I can. What were we afraid of? We were afraid that we would be rejected in our clumsy attempts to initiate what is little more than reproductive behavior.

These fears are the reason the RCC does not ordain women, and the root reason they do not allow priests to marry. If women are not their equals, they need not consider them. If women are not their wives, they needn't worry about them. If women are not part of their group, they needn't fear them.

It is an ugly cycle, but one that has been repeated in many ways at different time.

[Dulcinea]

13. That's part of it.

Also, the Roman Catholic Church didn't want to be financially responsible for the widows & orphans of its priests. So it demanded celibacy as a money saver. And, as you pointed out, that way it didn't have to deal with women or their concerns at all; women could be subordinate to men and not stand in the way of the RCC becoming the largest, wealthiest religion on earth. In other words, it's run like corporate America, with all the wealth flowing to the top.

[MineralMan]

14. That's true, too.

No doubt.

[Catshrink]

20. Not to mention having to pay a living wage

If there's a marriage, there is procreation. The kids need food, shelter, clothing, schooling, etc. and all of that eats into the budget.

[Angry Dragon]

21. I would add one item to that

While the priests were allowed to marry rich parishioners would leave monies and property to their priests and these items would not find their way into the church coffers.

[MineralMan]

8. Since the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy is set up as a closed society,

the only way to change it is for the members of that church to stop supporting the organization until it reorganizes itself and rids itself of evil practices. Otherwise, the organization will just keep on doing what it has been doing for centuries, with complete impunity.

The responsibility for forcing change falls directly on the lay membership. If they do not act, nothing will change. It is that simple.

[tom_paine]

9. Decades? You really think that was only going on for DECADES?

I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you if you believe that.

Try CENTURIES. My God, if the Conspiracy of Silence barely broke down only after the entire world was wired, how easy it must have been in Medieval Times to cover it up. Especially with so many poeple being so much more deferential to authority, and the authorities so much more powerful and so much more incestuously connected.

One might argue that much of the Inquisition came from S&M repressed priests who, shall we say, found the Inquisition's methodologies...stimulating, even if they weren't participating in it personally.

[AngryOldDem]

18. You're right...

It's been going on since the Church was founded.

It's only taken them a couple of millenia to realize the seriousness of it all.

[tom_paine]

31. Took 'em 350 years to accept the the Earth wasn't the center of the universe

Remember that 1992 announcement?

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/31/world/after-350-years-vatican-says-galileo-was-right-it-moves.html

The Church is what it and all religions were designed to be from the very start. To help and assist the Aristocracy maintain power and subjugation of we Peasants.

You'd think pople would make the connection that what God seems to want, unquestioning obedience and faith, is EXACTLY what the Aristocracy and Tyrants have wanted.

"Yep, just keep yer' head down and tote that barge. Don't worry about the Baron on the hill robbing everyone blind and hanging them for poaching a rabbit. God will see too it that they get theirs in the afterlife. Be patient and wait for it. Never question that it WILL happen, that there WILL be justice...after we're all dead."

:rofl:

[Ichingcarpenter]

11. I was listening to Tolstoy 'short' story on my ipod while a work today

Father Sergious....... no wonder Tolstoy was excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church
He had great humor too, and irony.

Yet a century later we still have this Bull Shit going on

[randr]

12. The real riddle is why women would want to join a pedophile cult

[Ichingcarpenter]

15. Because the nunnery is all that?

Now think about that one?

I'm a Nun and want to change the church because I can't get laid either.

But we can change these heathens to the true teachings of the Catholic Church.

Long Live the Roman Empire.

[Jack Rabbit]

16. I'm not Catholic, so I'll restrain myself

Not being Catholic, I won't comment on the merits of ordaining women into the priesthood other than to say that it appears to be based on ancient symbolism rather than any modern human social reality.

Nevertheless, it strikes me as a bit bizarre to lump an attempt to ordain a woman into the priesthood with pedophilia, something that is a clear crime in which the perpetrator uses his power to force himself on a weaker victim and abuses the trust that the victim has in the perpetrator. There is nothing symbolic in such an act and it has nothing to do with any esoteric doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. It is as much a crime if committed by a teacher against his student or a scoutmaster against a Boy Scout.

What the Church fathers do not seem to understand is why human society is so outraged when Church authorities move to protect a cleric accused of pedophilia rather than let secular authorities investigate the matter, bring charges if warranted and punish the cleric if he is found guilty in a fair trial. This behavior is an arrogant way of the Church placing itself above the society in which it operates as well as a way of placing its clerics so far above its parishioners that it has the effect of allowing a cleric to commit a crime against a parishioner with almost complete impunity.

For the Church to make it easier for a Catholic congregation to defrock an offending priest is certainly a step in the right direction. Still, the Church fathers must understand that the priest has committed an offense against society at large and that a modern, secular society, through the power of a secular state, is the entity which must punish the offender, regardless of what the Church does or doesn't do.

[Ichingcarpenter]

17. My Father reverted to Catholicism at 74 after my Mom Died

For his new wife, it was part of the 'deal'

Up until then he was an agonistic or even encouraged me to be a choir boy
and a leader in the Methodist Church which was on the forefront of social
work.......

He was born a Catholic but became a Scientist and a truth seeker.

I know that when he dies the tax laws are better if you give most of the money to the church
then the family does better

It happened with his sister who died and loved me.

[Karenina]

19. Not at all bizarre from that mindset.

"Nevertheless, it strikes me as a bit bizarre to lump an attempt to ordain a woman into the priesthood with pedophilia, something that is a clear crime in which the perpetrator uses his power to force himself on a weaker victim and abuses the trust that the victim has in the perpetrator. There is nothing symbolic in such an act and it has nothing to do with any esoteric doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. It is as much a crime if committed by a teacher against his student or a scoutmaster against a Boy Scout."

EVE IS GUILTY.

[Jack Rabbit]

22. "Eve is guilty"

As I said:

(The prohibition against ordaining women) appears to be based on ancient symbolism rather than any modern human social reality.

There is some family oral history that says your most humble hare is descended from a highlander who was hanged for rustling sheep. Assuming the story is true, I don't think that I owe the descendants of the shepherd any restitution at this late date.

Of course, that's the modern way of looking at things. We don't inherit the sins of our forefathers. The esoteric teaching of the Abrahamic religions views matters a bit differently.

[Ichingcarpenter]

25. And that's why the Gnostics lost in the 300s because

The holy Roman empire.... was Roman.


The Gnostics lost and so did humanity

[Karenina]

27. I would tend to agree.

Look at what the "Holy" Roman Empire has been busted for recently. Never mind it took them 500 years to "forgive" Galileo.

They bin humpin' around and LYIN' LIKE DOGS since da gitgo.

http://www.thesmartset.com/print/article/article05111001.aspx

No more "holy than Bobby Brown...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWi3AcqQl5I&feature=related

who, after having made a mint on this little ditty, lost a paternity suit. That is IIRC. :rofl:

[Jack Rabbit]

30. Let's get something straight historically, guys

The Holy Roman Empire was not the Roman Empire. It was established in 962, with Otto the Great, a great-great-great-grandson of Charlemagne, as emperor. It was abolished in 1806 by Napoleon Bonaparte, who forced the last emperor, Franz II, to abdicate. Franz, who was also King of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia (three separate offices), then assumed the title Emperor of Austria.

Voltaire quipped that it was "neither holy, Roman, nor an empire."

You and IChingCarpenter seem to be conflating the HRR (Heiliges Römisches Reich) with the Roman Empire after Constantine legalized Christianity (AD 313), or with the Church of Rome itself.

I agree with IChingCarpenter that Western religious tradition lost a great deal with the persecution of Gnosticism and other "heresies". Full disclosure: I am a Unitarian and I don't believe there is any such thing as heresy.

[saltpoint]

23. If through the scaffolding of the Catholic Church women

wish to serve other human beings it seems to me that they should be encouraged and permitted to do so.

Indeed there are any number serving now, who, if ordained, might very well do a far superior job than the autocratic assholes currently in place in the Catholic hierarchy.

The closer you get to the very top of the hierarchy the far less Christian it becomes. At a point soon in that hierarchy, the tenets of Jesus' ministry become unrecognizable.

And let's not even get started on the public relations angle.

[Forkboy]

26. Well, they don't have any trouble with child abuse so this must be acceptable as well.

[Odin2005]

28. Sick, sick fucks!:

[L0oniX]

29. I don't know why that pedophile organization gets any consideration as to anything they say.

[Liberal_in_LA]

32. religions suck