#142 | Posted by geezer1 at 2008-11-14 03:39 PM
,,, funny how the church can take these wonderful moral stands ...
Are you suggesting that because of some possible error, the Church should embrace immorality? What's your point?
... they would rather pay out millions to settle lawsuits ...
Your imagination is really unrestrained, powered by the engine of hate, isn't it?
What makes you think that the Church wants to pay out millions of dollars in claims rather than use the money for other purposes? You make it seem as if that were a goal. Do you seriously believe this? Or is it hyperbole or senile dementia, "geezer?"
... against pedophile priests ...
Back in the fourth century if memory serves me, geezer, the Church was concerned that religious functionaries were accumulating money for their families rather than filling the coffers of the Church. Eventually, in the 11th and 12th centuries, official edicts were issued, and vows of celibacy were introduced at the ArchDeaconate level to insure that the moneys accumulated would be directed to religious purposes.
In this modern age with homosexuals out of the closet and seemingly unashamed of their nature, they infiltrated the Church, and misused its facilities and practices to satisfy their deviant urges. Instead of celibacy, these man renounced their oaths and exploited the facilities of the Church to enable them to prey on boys for whom they were authority figures. The Church itself is an institution that was opposed to homosexual practices on a doctrinal basis. Hopefully, the Church has successfully purged itself of predators who concealed themselves in it.
Now here is a series of outlays that you criticize.
... or to build bigger churches ...
... or to buy nicer cars for pastors or Dolce and Gabbana shoes and clothing for the Pope.
... and yet when it comes to feeding hungry people in the world ...
You do, geezer, recognize that your cautions are nonsensical.
As you undoubtedly are aware, but may have put out of mind, there are numerous activities that are necessary to sustain an institution or a person as a functioning entity.
A man cannot only breathe and abandon food, or vice versa, and survive, Similarly, being an institution entails participating in a range of activities, not only one.
So, "feeding hungry people," while it might be charitable, and help the hungry (assuming in a simplistic way that as in Darfur or Somalia, supplies could be delivered, which they cannot because of hotile force opposition), is just one aspect and not a crucial one of Church function. If the Church adopts such undertakings, it cannot limit itself to them, and yet function as a Church.
A Church also needs meeting places. But you get the picture. It cannot abandon all of its actitivities and focus on those which you find of value, but which are secondary to the function of the Church.
The aim of the Church is to prepare you for salavation, and these other activities are secondary.
You may not appreciate religious priorities, but then you are not required to conform your ideas to those of the Church.
(cont.)
