Posts by Joe Wylie
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Thanks Tess, a good link. Not exactly a blog, but a well-articulated and heartfelt opinion piece, and the comments are interesting. Sadly, though, voices within the church such as Thomas Doyle's will remain muted until the Vatican deals proactively with abuse. Like most such statements, and your blaming of the bishops, it stops short of calling upon the pope himself to act with urgency. In a hierarchical organisation where a leader holds close to absolute power nothing will change while scapegoating remains an option.
It's not so long since Ratzinger characterised revelations of abuse as primarily attacks on the church, a position which he has never really recanted. It'd be a great day for the church if the Vatican uncovered and actively dealt with entrenched abuse, rather than making token apologies years after the fact, but as long as the pope's word is up there with the gospels the problem will persist.
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Please, can you stop reading my words in the worst light possible.
How about providing a link to one of these catholic blogs that offers constructive criticism of the policies of the current papacy? On an issue that you might personally feel some sympathy with. It's something you've been conspicuously unwilling to do in any of your posts so far.
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Where ever there are vulnerable children or adults there will be people who take sexual advantage of that.
Ah, so you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs then. That seems awfully cynical.
Just as it is unfair to taint all clergy by the actions of a few, the same goes for gay activists:
The old 'you'll find a few bad eggs wherever you look' defense. The church's problem is that the abuse is institutional, facilitated by a culture of silence brought about by unquestioning obedience to earthly authority. Children don't tell because they fear going to hell, "good" clergy and caregivers know something's amiss, but maintain their silence.
If 'faithful' catholics were to constructively criticise the church's authority, much like a diehard National supporter might express misgivings about some action taken by John Key, it would be evidence that the culture of secrecy was on the wane. This happened in the time of Roncalli/John XXIII, but ever since the Vatican has worked to return the papacy to the status of an absolute monarchy.
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A long as you're so upfront about taking your world view on sexual morality unquestiongly from a bunch of aplogists for persecution and child abuse - which is pretty much the tone of the current Vatican hierarchy, despite the cosmetic attempts to spin things otherwise - it's a bit rich to expect to be taken even halfway seriously.
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I mean seriously, do I need to make you a t-shit that says "feel free to disagree with Tess" and make you wear the damn thing until the point hits home?
In your dreams. Shouldn't you rather be knocking up a hairy undergarment and mortifying yourself through prayer and fasting for the sake of steven's misguided soul? Really, you wannabee carmelites are going soft.
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So people can debate it, even legalise it, you can call rocks "fish", or call trees "sky", but it doesn't make it so.
Until such time as a future Vatican decree might endorse the consumption of rocks on Friday (stranger things have happened). Then the obsequious and grovelling 'faithful' will, as always, comply.
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Oh, you don't want to get me started on Santa Claus.
Only because I don't wish to be party to a threadjack. I'm sure you'd have some interesting stuff to say, closer to the 'season', perhaps.
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Actually, that happened way less than it is advertised (and was of course avenged many thousandfold when the tables were turned), but is worth pointing out that to the extent that Christians were prosecuted, it was for sedition, not for their religious beliefs as such.
Now that's getting rather close to spoiling things by telling kids that there's no Santa Claus. When I were a young 'un, captured by the tykes, us kiddies were actively encouraged to pray for a martyr's death. While we were assured that it would hurt like hell (and the more painful the better - graphic descriptions of being boiled in oil or roasted upside-down were all the go in the catholic pedagogy) it was a guaranteed shoo-in to heaven.
Suffer the little children.
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We'll knock the Jesus part out of him (not in that sense, Ms Bradford)
But not, presumably, whup the living bejeezus out of him. If I'm not mistaken, that's an Irish catholic thang.
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those yummy Corpus Crispies? (chased down with a good red - natch!)
Sounds like a nice alternative to the lo-fat (I-can't-believe-it's-really-Jesus) communion host.