AusCelebs Forums

i concur

You conk who?

here here!

and when I read this in cockhead's post:

>>I am a man of The Catholic Church.

it all made total sense ...

lets talk about the evils of the catholic church - they make even the extremist jews, muslims and everyone else look like angels!

From the Australia Sex Party's recent press release ... some interesting numbers in here about the catholic church.

SEX PARTY LASHES POPE
The Australian Sex Party has called on the Rudd government to convene a Royal Commission into child sex abuse in religious institutions as a priority during its first sitting of federal Parliament in 2009. This follows Pope Benedict’s midnight mass Xmas homily in which he accused the ‘pornography’ industry of abusing children.

Party convenor, Fiona Patten said that the Pope’s call completely ignored the widespread abuse of children in Catholic churches and was a clear and transparent attempt to shift responsibility for the epidemic to an innocent third party. “The Pope should look to clean up his own backyard “, Ms Patten said. “Fifteen priests were charged with sexually assaulting young children in Australia during 2008 – all of them Catholic – and I believe that this is just the tip of the iceberg.” She said that another four Catholic priests were before the courts or under investigation with up to 100 individuals around the nation waiting for their day in court. 2008 was also the year that the Roman Catholic church finalised payments of $60million to people who had been abused in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese.

By 2000, 450 church clergy had been dealt with by the courts for child sex abuse and since then the rate remained at approximately 20 per year. “If this rate of proven child sex abuse was continuing to happen in any other profession, governments would have held a formal enquiry ages ago”, she said. “Because of the political hold that the church has on the Cabinet and the Shadow Cabinet, nothing is being done to investigate why churches are continuing to breed record numbers of paedophiles. Now, as Bravehearts, ASACP and many other child protection groups are saying, only a Royal Commission can deal with the issue honestly and openly”.

Ms Patten said that the church’s sexual problems were reflected in its attitudes to the sex industry. “Even at a local level, the Catholic church still routinely opposes development applications for adult sex shops on the ridiculous grounds that they will lead to an increase in child abuse”, she said. “There has still never been a single conviction for a child sex assault from anyone employed in the sex industry which means we should be appealing development applications for churches.”

Australia’s adult retail industry employs approximately the same number of people as the religion industry – 20,000.

Up front, let me say that I grew up in a catholic family and went to catholic schools etc etc. I consider myself a lapsed catholic. I don't go to church other than weddings and funerals, but my kids go to catholic schools. This is mainly because I think the mainstream catholic church as an organisation has lost touch with the community, and has little relevance in life. There is no denying that the leadership of the catholic church has shown appalling hypocrisy in the above statements that cj quoted. I have never seen nor heard about any direct abuse in all the time I was involved (and at times I was quite heavily involved). That said, I know that abuses have happened in my area due to individuals being charged and jailed, Ridsdale being the most obvious example.

There are many people who are similar to me - they consider themselves catholic, but are not actively catholic. I think we need to make a distinction here between the undeniable abuses committed by the clergy, and the fundamentalists that Uppy was referring to. Catholics (referring to the normal, church going public) are by and large decent, law-abiding people and many are very upstanding leaders in the community. From what I see, catholics don't have a 'fundamentalist' approach group, with the exception of break off groups like Mel Gibson's.

In no way am I attempting to gloss over the abuses committed mostly by priests, but also by other clergy. I am simply saying that clergy abuse and fundamentalism are separate things. As a father, I personally find paedophilia sickening to the core, and I hope that the bastards who have committed these crimes get what's coming to them.

Catholics tend to think of their church as one big organisation that incorporates their faith, their leadership headed by the pope, their physical buildings (the actual churches) and the congregation (the people that they go to church with. So criticism of The Church as a whole is often taken personally, because they consider themselves an integral part of The Church. If the criticism is directed at the clergy, that is viewed as a different thing, because they are not a member of the clergy. Just trying to explain the mindset.

I think that Uppie was referring to the fundamentalists that we often see from other religions, who openly encourage their followers to commit acts of treason, war and violence, or bizarre lifestyle choices that have nothing to do with religion at all.

Now before anyone gets on their high horse and starts shooting me down, I encourage you to read back over my post. This is simply my opinion and I have deliberately been careful in the language used.

I suspect that the days of having celibate priests, nuns, brothers etc are numbered. To use that word hypocrisy again, going to a wedding and hearing a priest talk about the sanctity of marriage, the beauty of the gift of children etc etc, the 'h' word is the first to come to mind because he (the priest) can never know first hand about these things.

I'd be interested in other people's thoughts, but play nice.

And for those who thought AC couldn't have reasonable, adult discussions about controversial subjects, read above!!!!! Great post Bully ...

Your point about the difference between accusing the clergy or 'the church' is something I've never thought of in that way before. With everyone talking in generalizations and everyone being offended in some way by the generalization about the group they belong to, we're never going to 'get over it' - it being the never ending battle to be right.

The same works in return though - when the pope tells homosexual's that they are committing a sin against God, he encourages hate and ignorance towards and from the Catholic community. He is simply a man. A man with a role that has a long history, but he is still just a man. Some Catholics seem to have missed this very important point ... the Pope is not God.

Unfortunately for those Catholics who live a more compassionate, considerate and caring life, they will still be judged by the Pope's actions. What I find so hard to understand is why someone would proudly state they are Catholic (or any other religion) unless they believe and live all of the principals of that religion. So many Catholics are like Bullwinkle where they have lost faith because the true, peaceful message God would be giving has been replaced by lectures about condoms and butt sex.

I think I am baptized Uniting Church or Anglican, but my family has so many remarriages and mixed heritage that I really have no idea what my history is in religion. As an adult I've read a little about many religions and find the most inner connection to the Buddhist and Hindu religions ... but by the time these religions were formed, man was already greedy.

The ten commandments, the principals of buddism/hindu and Islamic rules in the Qur'an all see to come from the same place, which I believe is just something that exists inside of all of us ... respect and compassion for the energy that created us and that will take us back when we die.

Somewhere the human ego took over ...

i know ill offend alot of people here but i cant stand melissa doyle. she is just TOO nice and friendly and patriotic if that makes sense. she just annoys the hell outta me....and also just sunrise in general, stop trying to be my family and my best friends and just read me the news for god's sake!

A good reply, cj, thanks. Just to take you up on one point, I doubt that many people of catholic faith would see the pope as God. Certainly he is worshipped and held in awe, but not mistaken as God by anyone with a bit of grey matter between their ears. In fact, personally I see the pope as a bit of an embarassment, further adding to my 'lapsing'. Why in God's name (ha - get it!) would you appoint a 78 year old man to run a worldwide organisation with hundreds of millions (billions?) of members? FFS, it just doesn't make sense. After the debacle of the last pope being basically dead for the final 2 years of his reign, you would think they would learn.

Your mention of the church's view of homosexuality, contraception etc only re-inforces my view that it is out of touch. I can understand that the powers that be want to maintain and respect their history, but the world is a much different place than it was just 20 years ago, let alone 50.

That all said, a return to the christian (note christian, not catholic) ethos that most of us grew up with would be quite welcome. The lack of respect for anything these days is a contributing cause to many of the ills of the world, particularly here in Aus. I don't mean let's all go back to church every Sunday, but at least have some consideration for our neighbour.

Mossy, I'm with you. But I reckon "Kochie" is worse. What a sanctimonious, smug, self-absorbed tosser he is.

No need to apologise, mate. Your post in this thread is the first one that was actually on topic for quite some time.