Filum Romanum - A Thread for the Catholic Church

EDIT:

Self-thumped. It seems this line of discussion is unwelcome for some.

edited 4th Oct '14 7:50:35 AM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei

/struggling with curiosity So many thumps in a row, want to see what was said, lol.

Apparently, there's an upcoming meeting wherein certain matters including "birth control" will be addressed. I'm trying to be not too hopeful.

Plants are aliens, and fungi are nanomachines.

So Pope Paul VI published Humanae Vitae, and most of us know about the controversial bits. However, it also called upon scientists and doctors to find answers to reproductive health issues that “are in accord with faith and right reason.” As a result, there is a "Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction" based in Omaha, Nebraska, and its founders will be at the canonization ceremony for the late Pope, who will now be an official saint. read more

So. Here is an interesting bit that someone might care about. I am interested in other precedents and such. Long story short, the health institution in Costa Rica, the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social, is trying to charge the Catholic Church the costs for healthcare of about 1150 priests and others.

In Costa Rica, social healthcare goes like htis. The government pays a bit, the employee pays a bit, and the employer pays a bit, all based on the salary of the employee (but everyone has access to everything). Up until now, however, the church was not charged any of this, as they were since 1984 operating into a "collective insurance" of sorts that is being disputed. The dispute is that the relationship between a priest an the catholic church is one of employer-employee and hence needs to be considered for those payments, and to give social healthcare assurance to priests (which they already get anyways).

Now, this contention between the Eiscopal conference in Costa Rica and the Caja are taken to the law, as the Episcopal conference is none too happy to pay this money and they have already said, if they are forced to do this they will have to reduce social aid programs to be able to pay the Caja.

So I am wondering...are there any precedents for this? it is not like they are taxing the church as a business. Oh, and it seems to be focused on the Catholic Church only because it is the vast majority in Costa Rica.

Links are Here and here (In Spanish)

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

Well, priests are definitely "employees" of the Church. They are paid a stipend by the Church, and almost always provided with housing (rectory, parish house, monastery...) at the expense of the Church, or a housing stipend if there is no housing provided. I don't know whether a clothing or food allowance is included, but even so, I don't know how you would argue that they aren't employees, or that the Church is not their employer.

So it sounds like the question is, can such an employer opt out of the government health program by providing an equivalent coverage?

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

If I understand correctly, CR has government sponsored health care, in which part of the cost is taken by the employer. Apparently the Church has been exempted from this charge, and now the CR government wants to start charging them. Is that right?

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

Correct. However they will not charge the priests, for they technichally receive little to no salary outside of the stipend the church gives them. As Madrugada mentioned they are indeed given those accomodations and others by the church but no defined salary. Hence, the tri partite "Employee-Employer-Government" payment would be unfair to charge to the priest who gets no actual salary.

And what they had (or sorta have) is a "collective insurance". That is, ever since 1940s when they stipulated this together, that the Church would look after their own and take care of them. there are private hospitals and venues of immediate care they are provided.

This also spurs from the fact the Caja, the social healthcare system, is pretty much in crisis due to an immense amount of reasons. It is not going well at all.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

AH. So then the real question is, have the priests been using the government health care rather than (or in addition to) the health care the Church provides and if so, how much? If there's been more than the occasional draw on the government program, especially if it's been for things the Church program could have or should have have been used for, then yes, asking the Church to pay the employer part sounds fair to me. If the cost to the government program has been negligible, then I'd say no.

edited 6th Oct '14 11:15:02 AM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Yes. The priests have been treated by the government's health program. Furthermore, this is, again, not something they are charging to the priests, but to the episcopal church in the capital.

Furthermore the complaint they have sent to the law, that is, the episcopal church's attempts to repeal the notion is that "The Church has no relation to Priests as Employers. Hence they do not fit under that category under the law. The priests serve God and only him"

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

Ah, yeah. That argument is specious and a quibble.

By any reasonable standard, the priests are employees of the Church. The Church assigns pays them, gives them housing, and in return expects that they will do the jobs assigned to them by the Church, at the times and locations indicated by the Church, subject to Church oversight and policies and subject ot promotion or demotion according to their performance in those jobs. The Church is, to all effects, their employer. The fact that the priests signed a lifetime contract doesn't change that.

Saying "The priests serve God and only Him." is ... really a pretty pathetic argument.

edited 6th Oct '14 11:37:38 AM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

The worst part is if it works which is very possible. CR is a hyper conservative country and there's plenty of money to be had on that.

I just wonder if they will stop at the Catholic Church if such is achieved, and I wonder if there are precedents in other places for somthing like this, too.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

Then Costa Rica should order God to pay His taxes, or seize His assets for noncompliance.

I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.

Now imagine god angrily telling the Repo men to return his TV cuz' he was watching Braveheart

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

I get the feeling God wouldn't be much more likely to show up in court than Satan.

Polish archbishop says that teaching boys to clean up for themselves (rather than having girls do it for them) could have 'dangerous consequences'.

You know the discussion last page over whether the Polish objections to the treaty had any merit? I think they've lost any credibility they may have had here.

First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.

O_O

Will not click.

Plants are aliens, and fungi are nanomachines.

On a far happier note, today is the 443rd anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto, and the Feast of Our Lady of Victory (which commemorates it, the Battle of Vienna, and the rest of that hard-fought campaign largely coordinated by the Church). So do let's hoist one today to the memories of the great Don Juan of Austria, Innocent XI, General Bragadino of Cyprus, and his majesty Jan Sobieski!

"She was the kind of dame they write similes about." —Pterodactyl Jones

Because one archbishop said something dumb? I don't really have an opinion about the treaty — I did not really take the time to read it or the bishops' objections yet — but I don't see why this Archbishop's comments should automatically invalidate everything that Polish bishops said about something else.

Also, I would not mind being able to read what precisely this Archbishop said — not just a couple of quoted sentences, but the whole speech. Call me suspicious; but while the article claims that the Archbishop said something so outrageously dumb as "making male children clean up after themselves might have dangerous consequences" (that is, make them gay), none of the quotes we are given actually says that. Generally speaking, Bishops — regardless of their conservative or progressive leanings — are not complete idiots; and while I'm not familiar with this particular one, generally speaking I'm more confident in their ability to present nuanced points of view than in a random journalist's ability to quote them correctly without parodying them in order to get a catchy headline.

Is there any translation of Archbishop Gadecki's statements? Or alternatively, if any Polish-speaking troper has read them, could they confirm or deny that that's really what he said?

edited 7th Oct '14 7:28:36 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Apologies for bringing it back up but...are there no precedentes for the catholic church being charged something from the government, like what is happening in CR as of now? Still interested in knowing legal precedents in other countries for cases like this.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

There are a number of countries that impose taxes on the Church.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

Those sound like a tax where money is taken from people and given to the church, not from the church to the government. Am I horribly misreading them?

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

You're right. My bad. Ignore.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

I did some digging, and the interview (in Polish) is at www.naszdziennik.pl/wiara-kosciol-w-polsce/101425,polska-rodzina-cierpi-od-lat.html. [N.B. — copy and paste the link in your browser, deleting the space after the comma: for some reason it doesn't work when linked in the text]. I don't speak Polish, but running the interview through Google Translate gave me this as the text of the paragraph in question:

"- Today is a formidable challenge - promoted under the guise of a program for equality - genderyzmu ideology. Some parents like to teach boys that should clean up after yourself and do not wait until they do it for them girls. Password [N.B. — this word also translates as 'slogan' or 'motto'] is also appealing that all people are equal and have the right to happiness. But at the same time parents often do not realize that, in the name of overcoming stereotypes culturally conditioned appears on the occasion of different models of same-sex partnerships as equivalent to the family."

So I guess his idea is not directly to attack telling boys to pick up their stuff, but rather to say that if gender stereotypes are left behind, there will be no reason to object to partnerships such as same-sex marriage that are against the teaching of the church. If this is (slightly) less blatantly stupid that the contextless quote, it also seems more cynical.

In terms of the treaty, I haven't looked into it enough to have a strong opinion on it either. However, when statements such as the one above are combined with "However, [the Church] added that the 2011 convention, signed in December 2012 by Poland’s government, treated marriage and family “as a threat” and obligated states to bring up children in line with “nonstereotyped sex roles,” ignoring the views of parents and the church" (from the article linked on the last page), I find it hard to respect the Church's reservations on the subject (although there may be other valid objections I don't know about).

edited 7th Oct '14 1:04:52 PM by BokhuraBurnes

First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.

Thank you.

It appears to me that another interpretation of the passage might be something along the lines of "the theory that gender is simply a social construct is growing in popularity because it is promoted under the guise of a program for equality; and also because parents like to have a reason to tell boys that they should clean after themselves, instead of waiting for girls to do it".

So perhaps he's not saying that it's wrong for boys to clean after themselves, nor that if these stereotypes get left behind then same-sex marriages will become legal; but instead, he's arguing that one of the reasons why modern perspectives on gender are growing in popularity is because they give parents a way to argue against boys' idea that cleaning after oneself is "women's work".

Regardless of how one feels about same-sex marriage and so on^note Personally, I am definitely in favour of civil same-sex marriage, at the very least, that's not a wrong observation: the stereotypical ideal of "masculinity" is utterly toxic, and this might be one of the motivations that might lead people to reject gender essentialism.

edited 7th Oct '14 1:42:57 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I think that is a possible, if charitable, interpretation of the passage. (Not knowing Polish, I won't debate the nuances.) At the same time, I think the problem remains: if you don't want to accept the world of gender stereotypes, and you also want to live in a world which rejects same-sex partnerships and so on, what is your logic for doing so? As he tacitly admits, the logic that makes it possible to say 'boys are just as responsible for cleaning up their own stuff as girls' also tends to lead to 'two men or two women can take on the same responsibilities for keeping a faithful, monogamous marriage as a man and a woman'. On the contrary, Theology of the Body-style arguments that argue for a non-constructed 'masculine' and 'feminine' nature in humans necessarily suggest the importance of gender-conformist behaviors (even if, at least in theory, both sexes are equal in dignity and worth).

So I'm not letting him off the hook: is gender complementarity key to humanity or not? If not, why argue against same-sex marriage? If so, why shouldn't boys let the more 'caring' sex look after them (and serve them in return in a more 'masculine' way)?

edited 7th Oct '14 2:57:06 PM by BokhuraBurnes

First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.