87 Replies to “Let Me Fix That Headline For You”

  2. I’ve noticed that with more belief in one’s own ‘healing graces’ so comes more sin. Progressives believe they are here to fix society and they break. The Catholic Church comes to ‘heal’ sinners and is a hive of child molestation, political skullduggery, homophobia, and mysticism (they only said Galileo was right just a few years ago!). The Roman Church has caused a lot of suffering and destruction and death. What an outdated anachronism. It should have gone the way of Zoroastrianism (a much cooler religion).

  3. I guess you didn’t get that “sock in the mouth” reply.
    Who took great pains to remove the sin and stain of child molestation from the handful who crept into churches? Pope Benedict, that’s who.
    Who was employed in the service of the Church, stole Copernicus’ idea and then tried forcing his employer to take a stand on the issue but only ended up in the comfort of his home? Galileo.
    Anachronistic? Is this from the same person who refers to gaggles of imaginary people supporting his far-left ideas?

  4. Who was employed in the service of the Church, stole Copernicus’ idea and then tried forcing his employer to take a stand on the issue but only ended up in the comfort of his home? Galileo.
    Galileo never stole Copernicus’s heliocentric model he just made excellent observations that supported it. I’m actually embarrassed for you right now.

  7. Texas Canuck – A simple parish priest, bog priest (so-called) or secular clergy can preform mass (consecration) the same as the Pope. This is the ultimate. Also, he has the power to forgive (or retain) sins. We are told that when the apostles were in the upper room, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, that Christ appeared in their midst, and that he breathed on them and said `Receive the Holy Ghost, whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven ……`. A Pope can do no more.

  9. “It is they who are vindictive, ignorant, merciless, mean, harsh, and lacking in charity.”
    That’s the way I see it Batb.
    We in the west could do well to set aside our bigotry of “faith” and the Christian faith in particular. In China of all places, the Christian faith is growing and it is growing in spite of and sometimes with the sanction of the Communist leadership.
    Even atheists in the west are starting to wonder if we haven’t discarded the very essence of what gave our culture its predominant position in the world.

  10. Dear Ken;
    I don’t agree that “Maybe we should return to the unofficial military mess rules of no discussion about women, politics and religion.” We just have to get more practice at disagreeing with each other and still respecting that you can have a different opinion.
    If we stop talking about politics and religion Ken, we’ll talk about nothing important. It is a paradox how we can talk about the weather and sports but not about religion and politics. In the end we never really hash over the most important stuff.

  11. All of Christianity is bad…
    The same could be said of officially atheist regimes who have murdered a 100 million people.

  12. Frankly, nold, by the West’s trashing of Christianity — and, sadly, the great joy, no glee, of some in doing so — is like killing the goose that lays the golden egg. If you can imagine a cityscape without its Christian churches, you can imagine the most bleak, barren, and violent of Dystopias.
    Of course, there are far too many without any imagination, just condemnation. They are to be pitied for their willful and intransigent ignorance.
    Kyrie eleison.

  13. I should have added, for those without imaginations, if you can imagine a cityscape without Christian charity …

  14. Yes, the churches, at least, provide a brake on runaway immorality. Beyond that, not many teach the Word of God any more in depth than a verse or two per Sunday. Not much wonder most people are Biblically illiterate.
    Sheep go where they are fed, not much wonder most churches are empty. Man’s word doesn’t cut it, one man’s word is no better than another man’s word. Wouldn’t even buy a cup of coffee, let alone forgive a sin.

  15. Actully I agree with you, but as we have seen reported this morning someone like Mulcair thinks only his values count. Radicals on every side negate meaningful conversation or debate.

  16. In this day of socialism and moral relativism where the only truth that exists is based on ones experience and the opinions/feelings of the global community/village, not upon the authority of God and his word, where anyone from either a Catholic or Protestant denomination dares to speaks God’s truth to power is swiftly neutralized by any means deemed necessary, his resignation is not all that surprising. This newly resigned Pope knows all to well, having been a part of Hitlers Youth in his youth, what plans the hordes directly from hell have in mind to do to the church-nothing would make the dark principalities happier than to turn her into a whore working for them like other denominations have done-Purpose Driven Churches being just one example (relationships with others and ones desired purpose replacing relationship with God and His purpose).
    I hope that the Catholic church elects a righteous Pope with the stamina he will undoubtedly need to prevail against the exceedingly dark powers and principalities from within and without that are determined to humiliate her into submission.

  17. Yes, the churches, at least, provide a brake on runaway immorality.
    But atheists are incarcerated at a lower rate than non-atheists. Atheism wins.

  18. There will be a new Bishop of Rome.
    As there will continue to be bishops who are his equals in the many geographic areas around the world of the Orthodox church.
    It was Rome that broke away from the Catholic and Apostolic Church in 1054. Any human being with a sense of historical accuracy will then know that the Protestant Church broke away from the Church of Rome.
    Thomas Mulcair apparently even broke away from the breakaway.

  20. Your wrong about atheists having lower incarceration rates. A fellow atheist of your tested the data. http://scientificinquiry.blogspot.ca/
    “There seems to be a general belief among atheists that the amount of atheists in the US prison population is proportionally much smaller than the amount of atheists in the general US population. I myself am an atheist and have read this interpretation of the statistics on many atheistic websites. I never really found those accounts convincing, since they seemed to declare that anyone categorized as “No Religion” in the general population was an atheist. During my previous semester at school I had to complete a project for my statistics class. For my project I decided to compare the religious affiliations of inmates in the US prison population to the religious affiliations of the overall US population. My goal for the project was to discover any existing correlations between a particular religious affiliation among the US prison population and the overall US population. I will summarize the results here, but you may also download the power point I made for the class if you prefer here (it contains graphics that may make it easier for you to interpret the data): http://www.fileshack.us/v/4757391/Matt_Benjamin_Final_Project_Presentation.ppt.html ”
    Conclusions:
    Which religions had a proportionally lower amount of prison inmates?
    Christian:
    Prison: 64.15% – 64.26%
    General: 76.56% – 76.73%
    Hindu:
    Prison: 0.0699% – 0.19%
    General: 0.29% – 0.45%
    Atheist:
    Prison: 0.11% – 0.23%
    General: 0.35% – 0.52%
    Note: While the amount of atheists among the prison population is proportionally lower than the amount recorded among the general population, the discrepancy is not nearly as significant as previously claimed. Furthermore, we do not have the correlational strength between these two variables and cannot assume any kind of a causal connection. If we were to have correlational data that showed a strong relationship between these two variables then we could conclude that they were somehow related, although this would not alone tell us what was causing the relationship. A better way of discovering whether or not a theistic believe leads to greater or less propensity to commit crime would be to ask questions such as “Does God exist?” or “Is there a hell?” as opposed to asking people what label they give themselves.

  21. Ironic, don`t you think, in light of your comment correcting the conflation of `catholic` and `Roman Catholic`, that Ontario`s Roman Catholic separate school system likes to refer to itself as `Catholic Education`.
    I would have thought that it might have occurred to the particular brain trust over there that such self-congratulation and self-aggrandizement might be offensive, and that a little more circumspection ought to be in order, given the distinct, privileged, and protected status that that particular faith, which is associated with a relatively small minority of the population, currently enjoys over others in respect of Ontario education. In fact, it might have occurred to them that denominational education has been abolished in NL and QC already, and that Ontario`s system is the anomaly that rests upon a historical rationale that Quebeckers, who have traditionally, at least, had a closer association with the RC Church than Ontarians, have abandoned — and we all know how tough it is for them to give up historical rationales for things.
    But, then again, maybe not: this IS Ontario after all, where you can lose an election by promising to extend equal treatment to other denominations, and where you can win an election by calling, with a straight face, the denominational system a public system.
    For my part, I like the idea, to borrow a certain stylistic construction that we also know well, that `religion has no business in the classrooms of the nation`. It`d be nigh time that we had a single publicly-funded education system, which has the added value of being the only kind of education system Ontario is going to be able to afford in the future, thanks to the shameless profligacy of the Province`s current administration. The easiest way forward is a referendum on the subject at the next provincial or municipal election, followed (assuming a clear referendum question carries) by a constitutional amendment which would require the consent of only the provincial parliament and the Dominion parliament.

  22. “…It`d be nigh time that we had a single publicly-funded education system, which has the added value of being the only kind of education system Ontario is going to be able to afford in the future, thanks to the shameless profligacy of the Province`s current administration…”
    Maybe. But quality is the issue, and I’m not convinced that the existence of a single publicly-funded system would improve that.
    As far as I’m concerned, we won’t get quality returning to public education until the protectionist barrier of universal education taxes is removed. In other words, competition is what is needed.
    Level the playing field – excuse parents who choose to send their kids to private scholols from the extra burden of education taxes. Then the publicly-funded boards will either compete or die.
    What was good for the wheat board should be good for the school boards. If, as they claim, they truly provide a quality product, then they’ll have absolutely nothing to worry about, will they?
    But, I digress. Yes, yes, La Presse hates the Pope/Roman Catholics/Christians.

  24. batb: “By virtue of my baptism, for instance, I am part of the Royal Priesthood of the people.”
    Not to pick a fight, but where you do substantiate statement this from?
    Cheers
    Tom
    x-rc, x-jesuit.

  26. I like “joined the Hitler Youth”.
    As if it was optional rather than compulsory for Germans of his age.
    (Also, johnbrooks: See 1 Peter 2:9, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
    The Catholic Church interprets that – quite reasonably – as every Christian – and one becomes one by baptism, after all – being a member of that “royal priesthood”, like John Paul II said.
    Not to be confused with the Protestant doctrine of “universal priesthood”, based on the same thing, as the Catholics still hold that ordained priesthood is a separate and necessary feature of the religion.
    But I’m an atheist, so I have no dog in that fight.)

  27. (Also on their bullet point list, the last one – “Turns out, the Pope is Catholic!”
    I can’t wait for the reaction to whoever the new Pope is, because it will be the usual shock and confusion when he turns out To Be A Catholic.)

  28. All of which is entirely true, Jamie, but from my perspective, concern about quality and choice are substantial reasons for amalgamating the systems — I was just talking equity.
    The existence of four publicly-funded school systems in Ontario (which has nothing to do with the issues you raise) is used as a smoke-screen — `You don`t need any more choice, you have all you need now in our public system.` This is precisely the argument Dalton McGuinty used in the 2007 election campaign. And a not-so-subtle corollary of this position is the implication that, if you want quality, it`s `Catholic Education` for your kids. So all of this is very self-serving and very condescending — keep the expensive cartels in place, thereby crowding out opportunities for real competition and alternative choices that could develop outside or in conjunction with a single, smaller and lower-cost public system (and I`ll take it as read that a public system would continue to exist in some fashion, which is all I meant in the previous post).
    And speaking of condescending, I watched a bit about the Pope`s resignation on the Beeb yesterday morning and again this morning (not being the slightest bit interested in what CNN or CBC had to say on the subject). I don`t know what the problem was (maybe relations between the Church and the BBC have indeed pretty much broken down to the extent suggested by this item), but the two Church officials that I saw interviewed, including the Archbishop of Southwark, made pretty clear that they viewed the reporters` questions as impertinences — a degree of hostility and defensiveness I cannot recall seeing in the past from RC Church officials, who I find normally quite positive and forthcoming. While I offer no quarter to the media, I don`t think that helps the Church much, given the (nearly) unprecedented turn of events — and the associated opportunities and pitfalls.

  29. ‘Hard to countenance that “Tom” is an ex-RC and, especially, an ex-Jesuit, and that he doesn’t know about the baptized being part of the Royal Priesthood of God’s own people:
    The baptized, by regeneration and the annointing of the Holy Spirit, are consecrated to be a spiritual house and a holy priesthood, that through all the works of Christian people they may offer spiritual sacrifices and proclaim the perfection of him who has called them out of darkness into his marvellous light (cf. 1 Pet.2:4-10).
    http://www.ldysinger.com/@magist/1962_Vat2/03b_roy-prt_msp.htm
    1 Peter 2: 4 – 10:
    Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture:
    ‘See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
    a cornerstone chosen and precious;
    and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’
    To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,
    ‘The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the very head of the corner’,
    and
    ‘A stone that makes them stumble,
    and a rock that makes them fall.’
    They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
    But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.
    Once you were not a people,
    but now you are God’s people;
    once you had not received mercy,
    but now you have received mercy.

  31. Thanks, Sigivald the atheist, for pointing out what I just did. It always amazes me how atheists, non-Catholics, casual observers, often know more about Roman Catholic teaching than Roman Catholics, present and ex.

  32. batb
    That’s the whole point, where do equate Roman Catholic baptism with Royal Priesthood?
    I agree we are royal Priesthood by faith in Christ and His shed Blood and that our job is to should shew forth the praises of Him who hath called us out of darkness into His marvellous light;
    I see also that Peter is writing to encourage believers who are going through hard times/trials to remember their inheritance and walk separately from the world, and remember we were redeemed by the precious blood of Christ and that we should desire God’s Word as a baby does for milk to grow thereby.
    We are the new temple, the one Jesus spoke of being torn down and built up again, we are the lively stones, where we can enter into God’s grace by faith in Him provision at Calvary (and nothing else).
    I see that, but I don’t see where the RC (infant or else baptism is associated with that scripture of making one a royal priest.)
    That is all I’m asking, where is the association backed of course by scripture that puritans to it, not twisted in order to fit a doctrine of men through the ages.
    This is what set me free, I asked.
    ——
    Sigivald
    Appreciate your input but you invalidated the point by saying “quite reasonably – as every Christian…” I guess I”m unreasonable to challenge the RC twisting of scripture then?
    Of course signing off with the atheist line is just icing on the proverbial cake.
    I have no bone to pick either with atheists either. 😉
    Ps 14:1, and 53:1

  34. I don’t equate “Roman Catholic baptism with Royal Priesthood.” (We’re not baptized RC or Anglican or Presbyterian, etc. We’re baptized into Christ’s body, the Church, within whatever denomination we belong to. I wasn’t, nor was my family, Roman Catholic when I was baptized.)
    But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.
    That’s Scripture. Anyone baptized is part of the royal priesthood. It’s not just the prerogative of the RC Church.

  35. Batb is correct. When Sir Roger Casement was received into the Roman Catholic faith before being hanged for treason, he was baptized only on condition that it had not been done previously by any Christian church. (It was suspected that he had been secretly baptized by Catholic members of his family also, though unnecessary; this was common on both sides of the issue in Ireland) I believe he was first confirmed and gave his confession, especially on matters mentioned in the so-called “black diaries” and received first and last communion (viaticum)within hours of his death.

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation