Filum Romanum - A Thread for the Catholic Church

Pope Francis and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traded words on Monday over the language spoken by Jesus two millennia ago.

Pope Francis to meet with sexual abuse victims.

Is it actually important for the Jews which language Jesus spoke? I thought they wouldn't really care.

Unless they want to brag about it.

From the actual report, it sounds more like Francis intervened through force of habit than anything else; I imagine one who takes their Jesus seriously might be a bit pedantic in that regard.

Ah, yeah, that make sense.

The BBC has an article on it — Who, What, Why: What language would Jesus have spoken?

Basically:

Makes perfect sense.

Francis makes the first mistake: Pope tells married couples: have children not pets.

What did people expect him to say?

I'd prefer he said something along the lines of, "Whether you have children and/or pets, what matters is that you treat them well and care for them".

edited 3rd Jun '14 9:45:28 AM by Quag15

For what it's worth, yet again, I completely agree with him, both from within and without a religious mind-frame.

What a shame. I was looking forward to seeing Pope Francis come out as the first atheist Pope.

He's basically saying that just keeping animals around because they're lower maintenance doesn't replace real human contact and ties and that your dog can't take care of you when you get old. I'm not seeing anything too controversial with this statement.

Yeah if there's anything to pick at in what he said at the mass I'd have gone for him saying that "fertility was one of the three planks of a successful marriage,". Though I'm thinking there's some poetic usage there, he doesn't seem to be talking about fertility in the physical sense but more in the sense that a good marriage will create something beyond it.

What Shima said, pretty much. His comments about the "culture of wellbeing" is aimed at something that might be better called a "culture of convenience": I/we don't have the time kids would take, I/we don't want to change my/our lifestyle to accomodate kids, and such.

This, so very much. It so depresses me when people are so complacent.

Also, the thing about fertility being "one of the three planks" — he didn't say it was the only important thing, or even the most important thing. Just that it is an important thing, and that a marriage is stronger for it (although I bet that in the sermon,itself, he was talking about being open to fertility, not fertility itself — the Church doesn't regard infertile people as somehow less married or less worthy of being married).

Take the metaphor apart — if you have to cross between two rooftops, and you lay one plank down, you have a way to get across. It's narrow, though, and tricky, and easy to mis-step. If you lay two planks down side by side, the way is sturdier and wider and a bit easier to cross. if you lay down three planks side by side, you have a walkway that's still stronger and easier to cross. Is that third plank absolutely necessary? no, you can cross on two, or even on one, but it makes the crossing safer and easier.

Like I said, I don't think he was talking about physical fertility, more spiritual and emotional. To quote "Eventually this marriage gets to old age in solitude, with the bitterness of loneliness. It is not fertile; it does not do what Jesus does with his church: he makes it fertile.", that doesn't sound like he's talking about physical fertility, more fertility in that the relationship is able to grow and flourish.

Ignore

edited 3rd Jun '14 7:07:08 PM by demarquis

So very curious...

Here's a real problem that the Church should probably deal with. Sharpish.

796 little skeletons, in a fucking septic tank - some for the guts of a century. Horrific. 1961 is also recent enough that some of the perpetrators may still be alive; being charged for improper disposal of a corpse should be the least of their worries.

edited 4th Jun '14 4:58:23 AM by Achaemenid

Yeah, if I'm not mistaken, Catholic doctrine has it that willing openness, at least, to the possibility of physical reproduction is non-negotiable. (Note that "X is inherent to & can't be separated from this concept" is NOT the same as "X is the most important or defining thing about this concept.") Infertility happens; temporary and non-obstructive respites like the rhythm method happen; marriages late in life happen; but the RCC says that fertility isn't something one can just calculatedly subtract from the picture and still have what you'd call a marriage.

Now, I don't happen to agree with the position above, or care much for it. But that's the longstanding, carefully articulated Catholic dogma for better or worse, and it's a Pope's job to believe, articulate, and defend it: I'd actually think less of a Pope who didn't.

It's an absolutely sickening story, but it's only a part of what was going on during that time period.

The home was only open for 35 years. That's 22 babies dead every single year, and it wasn't like there was a huge amount of people in the home.

Many of those children weren't put into that home because they were orphans, but because they were born out of wedlock. There was no reason for many of those children to even be there. They should have been with their mothers, but the mothers were often sent to Magdalene laundries for daring to have a child outside of marriage. The last Magdalene laundry, which, by the way, involved keeping unmarried mothers to be used as slave labour, closed in 1996.

The Church needs to acknowledge this. The silence and denial is making things worse, and there's still survivors alive today, fighting to be acknowledged and recognized by the Church. At least if they admitted things and tried to make it up to the victims, they'd be more respected, and it'd have to help their image a bit.

edited 4th Jun '14 7:49:42 AM by QueenPanic

1961 was 53 years ago. Any of the women who were members of the order at the time would have been at least in their early-mid 20's, (the process of becoming a nun varies from order to order, but no order will accept final vows without a novitiate of at least several years and no order will accept a girl who isn't at least 18 into the novitiate — so 22 or 23 is the youngest a woman can become a full member of the order) and not in any position to have done anything to stop this. Those women would be in their mid to late 70's now. What exactly should be done to them?

Ignore it? no. Sweep it under the rug? no. But prosecute elderly women for something they had no power to stop? No.

Just Following Orders?