Archbishop Chaput

[PsyD2013]

20 hours ago, Eternalbluepearl said:

My spouse acting as my brother and avoiding sex was how I got divorced in the first place though.

 

20 hours ago, Eternalbluepearl said:

My spouse acting as my brother and avoiding sex was how I got divorced in the first place though.

Mine too!  I happily shared this information when I gave statements to the archdiocese for the annulment my ex-husband desperately wanted.  

[laPapessaGiovanna]

58 minutes ago, PraiseDog said:

I'd love to hear your take on all the Pre-Renaissance popes who were far from celibate!

They were celibate meaning that they weren't married. Priesthood sacramental vows include celibacy not chastity and not in all the Catholic traditions, for example iirc in the Armenian tradition priests are married also the priests that come from the Anglican tradition are married. Chastity for priests is subsequent to the rule of no sex outside marriage but should they have sex it would be a sin but not as big as breaking priesthood vows. Monks take the chastity vow. 

[fundiefan]

All this does is reinforce my longstanding opinion that the Catholic church is a fucked up entity out for power, money and control.

I've never understood how (supposedly) celibate men had any say in marriage. And that's just the least of it. 

Mostly, it's do as I say, not as I do. Exceptions are always - always - made. My ex had a friend who got married for the first time when he was 40. For his new wife, however, he was husband #5. His uncle happened to be a priest at a local parish and he married them, in the church. After they paid some cold, hard, cash to have two of her prior marriages annulled. The other two didn't matter, I guess, because they were not church weddings or some stupid reasoning.

No thanks, Catholics. 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

19 hours ago, NachosFlandersStyle said:

Yes, technically you are not supposed to take Communion unless you've been to confession about any of the "big" sins. In a large diocese though it pretty much operates on the honor system. If the priest or server doesn't know your business they're not gonna question you before handing over the wafer. Instead you just get awkward reminders like this.

 

Personally, I think the attitude towards divorce will be the first to change among the church's sexual teachings. At least among American Catholics I know, there seems to be pretty broad agreement that it's cruel and outdated.

Unfortunately here (Italy) among most of the Catholic population there's still the idea that a divorce is a failure, that they somehow failed to make it work for the sake of the family and that it should be avoided as much as possible and such bullshit. Because life is a valley of tears and you have to suffer if you want to gain a place in paradise don't you know? *sarcasm

ETA I think this is the consequence of being a population with mostly one religion, it's difficult to make comparisons and to dialogue with believers of other faiths and the Church hierarchy has little challenge and no competition. This is mostly true for the older and the less educated,  unfortunately a very big part of our population. 

[nokidsmom]

I have never understood why a bunch of celibate men, who are never allowed to be married, can tell other people what to do with their sex lives.

[Cleopatra7]

26 minutes ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

They were celibate meaning that they weren't married. Priesthood sacramental vows include celibacy not chastity and not in all the Catholic traditions, for example iirc in the Armenian tradition priests are married also the priests that come from the Anglican tradition are married. Chastity for priests is subsequent to the rule of no sex outside marriage but should they have sex it would be a sin but not as big as breaking priesthood vows. Monks take the chastity vow. 

Chastity simply means rightly ordered sexuality (as defined by the Catholic Church, of course), which for married people means monogamous, heterosexual sex that is "open to life," and for priests and monastics means celibacy (I.e. refraining from sexual activity). The discipline for priests in the Roman rite is celibacy, but priests in the Eastern rites can prior to ordination.

 

4 minutes ago, nokidsmom said:

I have never understood why a bunch of celibate men, who are never allowed to be married, can tell other people what to do with their sex lives.

Conservative and traditionalist Catholics would say that the Catholic hierarchy is blessed by the Holy Spirit to have insights the rest of us don't have about a variety of subjects. However, the prohibition on birth control seems to simply be a case of, "We've always done it this way and it can't change" combined with Aridtotelian pseudo-science that hasn't been relevant in over four hundred years. The Pontifical Commission on Birth Control recommended that birth control be allowed for married couples, but Paul VI torpedoed that and reaffirmed the older teaching in Humanae Vitae, because Pius XI's previous encyclical on contraception, Casti  Connubi , was still within memory and to change the policy would look contradictory. If the Catholic Church's teachings on sex were that convincing, it would go into the public square with them, but since these teachings are based on a selective reading of history and outdated Aristotelian science, they just have to use the "religious freedom" card to clobber everyone else into submission.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

11 minutes ago, Cleopatra7 said:

Chastity simply means rightly ordered sexuality (as defined by the Catholic Church, of course), which for married people means monogamous, heterosexual sex that is "open to life," and for priests and monastics means celibacy (I.e. refraining from sexual activity). The discipline for priests in the Roman rite is celibacy, but priests in the Eastern rites can prior to ordination.

True. What I meant is that priests make a vow of celibacy not of chastity as monks do. So if they don't lead a chaste life it's a sin as it is for every Catholic but not as ferociously condemned as breaking their vows.

[DaisyD]

15 hours ago, CyborgKin said:

Oh yeah, the RCC still deny that Mary and Joseph ever made the proverbial beast with two backs.  Way to miss the point and focus on all the wrong things, guys. *sigh*

One of my favorite parts of the movie Dogma.

"Mary gave birth to CHRIST without having known a man's touch, that's true. But she did have a husband. And do you really think he'd have stayed married to her all those years if he wasn't getting laid? The nature of God and the Virgin birth, those are leaps of faith. But to believe a married couple never got down? Well, that's just plain gullibility."

[samira_catlover]

@47of74: was at a MAJORLY ecumenical/interfaithy event, and we had a RC priest offering the holy mass for Easter.  His acolyte was a Native American medicine woman in her full regalia.  He carefully mentioned "by the time we get to the Eucharist, I will have given absolution for sins three times, so please don't worry if you haven't been to confession for a while----repent, try and do better, and come on down for the Food of Life, or a blessing if not comfy with the Sacrament.  God LOVES you, wants you here: come home, kids, 'cause He misses you so much!"

(Have I mentioned how much I adore syncretic worship, where people of the Deity share hopes and prayers, and to the Nether Heck with Leaderly Folk Who Just Can't Get Along:  http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/julyweb-only/7-29-31.0.html)

[47of74]

8 hours ago, samira_catlover said:

@47of74: was at a MAJORLY ecumenical/interfaithy event, and we had a RC priest offering the holy mass for Easter.  His acolyte was a Native American medicine woman in her full regalia.  He carefully mentioned "by the time we get to the Eucharist, I will have given absolution for sins three times, so please don't worry if you haven't been to confession for a while----repent, try and do better, and come on down for the Food of Life, or a blessing if not comfy with the Sacrament.  God LOVES you, wants you here: come home, kids, 'cause He misses you so much!"

(Have I mentioned how much I adore syncretic worship, where people of the Deity share hopes and prayers, and to the Nether Heck with Leaderly Folk Who Just Can't Get Along:  http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/julyweb-only/7-29-31.0.html)

Yeah @samira_catlover some Catholic priests are awesome.  The main reason I stayed in the Catholic Church as long as I did was because of such priests, who were more concerned about the people in their churches than they were about all sorts of rules and regulations.  They are the ones that should be leading the Catholic Church.  Instead they spend their entire careers as parish priests or burn out and leave (like the guy who did both of my grandparents and uncle's funeral did just a few weeks ago).  Or the priest at my aunt's funeral - who made it clear it was OK for me to take communion at her funeral even though I wasn't a Catholic anymore.   

And then there are other priests.  You know they're bad news when even my mother verbalizes her dislike of said priests.  They're the ones who go out of their ways to make asses of themselves even at funerals for family members.  Like the priest who did my great-uncle's funeral did, going out of his way to make it clear that a number of my great-uncle's were not worthy to receive communion.  He just really torqued me off.

And if you look idiots like Chaput, Law, Jenky, and Burke and many others have no business being in charge of so much as a hotdog stand, but they got promoted up pretty far in the church.  I think a big reason the church has so many problems is that the people the top leaders in the church promoted into leadership roles are there because of how well they toe the line on orthodoxy rather than any actual leadership ability.  Hopefully Francis will start to turn that around a bit, so I hope he has a long and fruitful papacy.

[ADoyle90815]

I'd say that this is one of the many reasons I'm not Catholic, despite my Irish ancestry from my dad's side. One reason people like to get married in the first place is that they get to have culturally acceptable sex with someone for the rest of their lives. Often, if someone is trying to live as this asshole says remarried Catholics should live, they find themselves divorced.

[47of74]

Now that Lord High Ray has been promoted out of the way Archbishop Chaput is trying to be the biggest jerk in the USCCB...

religionnews.com/2016/10/20/philadelphia-archbishop-chaput-welcomes-smaller-church-of-holier-catholics/

Quote

In a speech delivered Wednesday (Oct. 19) at the University of Notre Dame, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput also suggested that many prominent Catholics are so weak in their faith that they ought to leave the church.

Chaput singled out Democrats such as Vice President Joe Biden and vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine for special criticism, linking them to the concept of a “silent apostasy” coined by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and saying Catholics who do not champion the truth of church teaching are “cowards.”

“Losing people who are members of the church in name only is an imaginary loss,” he continued. “It may in fact be more honest for those who leave and healthier for those who stay. We should be focused on commitment, not numbers or institutional throw-weight.”

In his talk at Notre Dame, Chaput, who is known for his conservative political views and his firm stances on doctrine, said both candidates were obviously flawed — though he did express admiration for Trump’s “gift for twisting the knife in America’s leadership elite and their spirit of entitlement, embodied in the person of Hillary Clinton.”

My response to this guy.  Get bent, Archbishop.  Guys like you are the reason people who are much better Catholics than you could ever hope to be have left the church.  Guys like you are the reasons people who are much better at actually following the teachings of Jesus Christ are leaving the church in droves.  You've done more to harm the church than the most militant atheist ever could ever dream of doing.

[Carm_88]

Ugh! This makes me sad. Why do there have to be such douchebags? Let people worship in their own way, not everyone is going to do it your way. 

[PennySycamore]

Well said, @47of74!  

Fuck you, Archbishop Chaput!

[Cleopatra7]

When you have a religion that consists (on paper, at least) of over a billion people, there's no way there can be any kind of uniformity on what that religion means. Religion works on different "tiers" in the sense that people who ostensibly belong to the same religion but practice it in very different ways based on their educational level, culture, race, gender, state of life, time period, etc. During the so-called white Catholic ghetto of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Irish-American community that made up the bulk of bishops, priests, and religious looked down on other Catholics, especially Italian-Americans, because they thought these other ethnic groups were "doing Catholicism wrong" (see Robert Orsi's "The Madonna of 115th Street" for an ethnographic study of this phenomenon).

During the medieval period, the vast majority of Christians didn't even know the basic prayers that a young child learns during his or her first communion preparation today. The era of Latin Christendom didn't require mass literacy (even most kings and nobles were illiterate because reading wasn't a skill they needed), and it would be erroneous to think that the average peasant experienced Catholicism in the same way a learned cleric like Thomas Aquinas would have. Even Aquinas was only voice voice of many in the world of medieval theology; during the time Aquinas lived, the most important author was Peter Lombard and his Sentences, and Aquinas's most famous work during his lifetime was a commentary on the Sentences, not the Summa Theologicae. That Aquinas is world-renowned and Lombard only of interest to medievalists shows how theological currents change within an institution that supposedly never changes. Conservatives and traditionalists want to impose a uniformity in Catholic belief and practice that never existed.

[Hane]

@47of74, a couple of years ago my BIL asked me to serve as lector at his father's funeral. The priest knew me, as he'd been the chaplain of the divorced and remarried Catholics group I belonged to in the early '80s. I'm a UU now, but didn't bother pointing it out. He asked me to remind the congregation about communion being only for Catholics, but I conveniently forgot. I also slipped gender-inclusive language into the readings I did. He either didn't notice or chose not to say anything, but I gave vanishingly few fucks, and my BIL told me I'd done a great job.

[smittykins]

When my cousin(a Catholic convert)married in 1987, her parents and our grandmother received Communion; IIRC, it was just before they started putting the notice in the missalettes that said "We welcome those not united with us to worship but you can't take Communion."  I assume they received a dispensation from the bishop.

[DaisyD]

I received communion at a Catholic funeral for a friend who committed suicide when I was an athiest teenager. The priest was putting crackers in people's mouths as they left the church. I was vaguely aware that it was only for catholics, but he insisted it was fine, so I accepted. Churches like that were ridiculously intimidating to me back then. I wasn't about to rock the boat.

Now that I think about it, two of the three suicide funerals that I've been to were in catholic churches. Making up half of my visits to them for that purpose (I've only been to a Catholic church service 4 times). No wonder I have a somewhat bleak view of catholicism...