Zzzzzzzzzz
Anti, again, not a very good comparison. The most the Mc Donalds Corporation itself could do would be pull the franchise. The parent corporation wouldn't be liable for damages unless it was a company-owned store, not a privately owned franchise; or if there was proof that they had a corporate policy in place that allowed or encouraged the practice. ( That's why the hot coffee suit involved the Mc Donalds Corporation, not just the local store owner: there was a company policy setting the temperature that the coffee was to be served at; the store owner was folowing a specific company rule.)
edited 17th Sep '14 9:33:24 AM by Madrugada
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
It fits perfectly because I was never said the RCC shared legal responsibility for the Spanish Inquisition(that would probaly be the Spanish monarchy
). But they have had a moral responsibility. Which they didn't use. They should indeed have pulled the franchise. When they din't they made themselves morally complicit in their crimes.
United Earth
Isn't the whole thing a case of Fair for Its Day? Is what the Inquisitions did immoral by the standards of Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Francis, or even Jesus himself?
edited 17th Sep '14 12:26:46 PM by TheHandle
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Arresting people because there was a crucifix that had spider webs or something? Jesus wouldn't care about that shit ("Not Making This Up" Disclaimer).
It's Values Dissonance. That stuff is part of the past now. So, we should let that go, since it has been studied thoroughly and the Vatican made some apologies about some issues which were related or part of that thing.
edited 17th Sep '14 1:21:53 PM by Quag15
In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
Fair for Its Day and Values Dissonance are not compatible with a claim to eternal moral authority.
Just judging the RCC by it's own standards should still be allowed.
edited 17th Sep '14 2:22:40 PM by Antiteilchen
Who Am I?
If by "eternal moral authority" you mean that the RCC claims that everything it does is eternally and unchangably right, I'm not aware that they have ever made that claim.
That said, the Pope should do something more about the Magdalene Asylums. For example: UN demands that Pope launches investigation into Magdalene laundries
: "Pope Francis must launch an investigation into decades of abuse of girls and young women at Catholic-run workhouses in Ireland, the United Nations has demanded.
It has also called for religious orders involved or the Vatican itself to pay compensation to survivors and families of victims of the notorious Magdalene laundries."
The first demand seems perfectly appropriate to me. The second is a legal issue, as we all agreed.
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
Indiana Solo
@Handle- "or even Jesus himself?"
...given it runs contrary to most everything he said, no. It was bad, should have been handled better.
It claiming eternal moral authority is a bit of a stretch, given a main tenant is that we're all sinners, including preists, bishops, ect.
edited 17th Sep '14 3:32:35 PM by Joesolo
I'm baaaaaaack
In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
But they do (or did) proclaim that you can only be saved by joining them. If you're going to claim to be the highest and only moral authority on earth you should expect people to hold you to high moral standards. At least you could follow the moral standards you force others to obey.
Who Am I?
It's clear that they shouldn't allow priests and other agents of the Church to abuse anybody. I think that applies to any institution, regardless of claims to moral authority or not.
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
Indiana Solo
Said morals are what we're supposed to strive for. The whole point is that we're not perfect and will falter, but have to try to improve as we will be forgiven if we seek it.
United Earth
Is that cake frosting?
Just a quote off the top of my head:
“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
"Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
And a quote by Saint Paul, for good measure:
I know that the last part of Saint Paul's quote can sound distasteful (it does so to me as well), but the point is: even if you are absolutely certain you have a legitimate grievance against someone, you do not get to punish them, to "give them what they deserve". You must just strive to live in peace with everyone, without wasting time judging other people's souls or trying to give them their due.
Even if the accusations that the Spanish Inquisition levied against its victims — mostly, to be "fake Christians" who secretly practice Judaism or Islam, or to be heretics — had been valid, to imprison, torture and murder people for them would not have been at all in line with the tenets of Christianity.
It's not a matter of freedom of belief per se: that's a modern concept, whose origins lie in the Western Enlightenment and not in Christianity (in hindsight, one might argue that the principles of Christianity lead naturally to it, if pursued to their consequences, but it's undeniable that for most of history Christians did not see things in this way). The issue here is that even if someone is really your enemy, you don't get to take revenge against them.
edited 18th Sep '14 2:06:34 AM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
Pope Francis's skull cap attracts €105,000 bid on eBay. Italian TV show that got pontiff to part with skull cap says money raised will be given to charity fighting child mortality in DRC.
Pope Francis the 'pontiff of the poor', says Greece's Alexis Tsipras:
The Greek firebrand, among the loudest critics of the politics of austerity, emerged from discussions with the pope saying the two men had seen eye-to-eye on such issues as banks, profits and the need for Europe's left to deepen dialogue with the church. "We come from different ideological starting points," said Tsipras, Europe's first leftwing leader to be invited to the Vatican. "But we meet on [the matter] of pan-human values."
The dialogue had ranged from Europe's economic crisis, the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, the gulf between rich and poor and the tragedy of uncontrolled migration, he said.
The Argentinian-born pontiff agreed to meet the politician after months of clandestine negotiations between European leftists and the Holy See.
Tsipras, 39, who stood as the bloc's candidate for EU commissioner in the European elections, and whose Syriza party is leading polls in Greece, presented the pope with an olive branch, the symbol of peace. In return, Pope Francis, 77, gave Tsipras a copy of his apostolic exhortation, the Joy of the Gospel, outlining what some have described as his radical views on the church's role in the modern world.
"It was a meeting of the like-minded," said Panos Skorletis, Syriza's spokesman. "The pope has a disposition for dialogue with people of other backgrounds, outside the church. He believes in dialogue between the church and the left."
To be fair to both Bible and Catholicism, however, the Catholic Church has had two millenia to define its own doctrine with or without the Bible, and if you're a Catholic, then when your reading of the Bible conflicts with Church teaching on the subject, that probably means that other theologians have wrangled out a definition and interpretation that suited the needs of the Church, and it's your job to obey the Vicar of Christ because Jesus himself is not around to interpret his words for you.
The idea of a just war-that is, a war that Christians have a right to prosecute-goes back to St. Augustine, after all. So even the founding fathers of the Catholic Church as an organization have taken the "plain meaning" of Jesus' words with a grain of salt.
I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.
United Earth
![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
Mad Pinoy
Basically, the cardinal trusted some random guys to take his car for maintenance. Instead they ran off and bought drugs. The church had faith in people they probably shouldn't have, but I think this is more on the men than the Vatican.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
United Earth
Yup. The headlines would have made you think the RCC had drug-smuggling rings somewhere within. That would have been an infamia... and would have made for an awesome South Park episode, with ecclesiarchs high on Peyote speaking to bible-accurate Angels...
edited 20th Sep '14 10:31:49 AM by TheHandle
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Is that cake frosting?
I'd like an opinion from other Catholics here.
A place nearby where I am organizes a weekly "Ecumenical Eucharist": I went today out of curiosity, and while it was quite different from what I'm used to — there was no Eucharist at all, for instance, at least none I could recognize: we just had some tea, chatted a while, then prayed and sang some songs — I quite enjoyed the experience (and really, I do need to meet more people around here).
Now, it goes without saying that this is not at all an Eucharist according to the Catholic understanding of the term, and that this does not count as a Mass for the purposes of fulfilling the Sunday obligation. But as I said, it was pleasant, both from a religious perspective and from a social one.
What I'm wondering, however, is: if I wanted to make it a habit of doing this every week (in addition to Catholic Mass), could I do so without falling into syncretism or giving the impression that I am seeing no difference between the Catholic Eucharist and this?
If they had called it an "Ecumenical Meeting" or something like that, I'd have no worries whatsoever about this; but the use of the term "Eucharist" in that context is giving me pause...
edited 21st Sep '14 8:48:37 AM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
United Earth
Syncretism is bad?
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Zzzzzzzzzz
^ I don't see a problem with it. As far as "giving an impression"; like so many other things, you can do your best, but you ultimately cannot control what others decide to see.
If it isn't a Catholic or primarily Christian organization, they may not even be aware that "Eucharist" isn't just a synonym for "religious gathering"
edited 21st Sep '14 9:15:51 AM by Madrugada
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
Is that cake frosting?
Yes?
It's one thing to learn from people of different religious beliefs, to be friends with them, and to work together with them on shared objectives; but to make a haphazard mix-and-match mess out of multiple religious traditions — or to act as if there were no difference between them — is ultimately, I think, to act disrespectfully towards all of them.
It's not that insights and practices from other religions are always to be avoided (for instance, the Catholic Rosary probably evolved out of the Buddhist and Hindu practice of prayer beads, and there's nothing wrong with that), it's that confusion is.
If you take two rich, self-consistent, theologically sophisticated traditions and try to squash them together by randomly grabbing whatever catches your fancy about either of them then what you'll get out of the procedure will be absurd and superficial.
And then of course there's the pesky little detail that I believe that the Catholic Church — despite my frequent gripes about it — does have a rightful authority that puts it well apart from the other Christian denominations (this is not in any way a criticism against non-Catholic Christians, obviously)...
Thanks!
edited 21st Sep '14 9:44:47 AM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
Carciofus, as it sounds like something analogous to what the Early Church actually got up to in the way of services. I don't think you really need to worry all that much about what flavour it is, unless it's when chatting with a really hidebound priest.
Stuff like that is where all masses and services come from, at heart. Including early Catholic ones, after all. 
Heck, a mass from 400 AD would still be Catholic, but... it wouldn't be anything near the modern format. Would that suddenly invalidate it as a spiritual experience? I doubt it. It also doesn't sound particularly heretical to me. <shrugs> If the essentials are covered and people enjoy it, it's golden. Doesn't matter if it's had a bit of streamlining or is done in a relaxed atmosphere.
edited 21st Sep '14 10:59:19 AM by Euodiachloris
Basically, they're using the second definition of Eucarist, which is a gathering of Christians for faith, bonding and support in the style of the last supper. (This doesn't need to be a literal supper.) Which is accepted even in Catholic dogma. It's just not the primary definition. It doesn't mean they're using the word wrong or heretically. They're just a bullet point down in the dictionary.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
They might not be legally responsible but morally very much so. Especially if your whole stick is morality. It's essentially a morality business failing at their core competency.