Church Clamps on Cafeteria Catholism

Bob McDob · Post by **Bob McDob** » 2003-12-01 09:40pm

So I read in the newspape that the bishops want to take down Catholic politicians who don't follow their directives.

These penalties range from a ban on speaking at conventions to outright excommunication (when was the last time they did that? The 1500s?)

I dunno if this'll dissuade anybody. Personally, I'd go for the liberal catholics changing their name to Orange Catholics. I'd convert in a heartbeat.

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2003-12-01 09:41pm

Reference?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-12-01 09:58pm

It wouldn't surprise me that they would threaten to excommunicate people for speaking out against their policies when they refused to excommunicate Hitler. The Catholic Church and sanity parted ways a long time ago, if indeed they ever even knew each other in the first place.

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2003-12-01 10:02pm

Regardless, I would like to see a reference, as this is a bit of a heavy charge to accept just on an anonymous somebody's say-so on the internet.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-12-01 11:36pm

Darth Wong wrote:It wouldn't surprise me that they would threaten to excommunicate people for speaking out against their policies when they refused to excommunicate Hitler. The Catholic Church and sanity parted ways a long time ago, if indeed they ever even knew each other in the first place.

Some priests like to hand out blanket excommunications like candy. I'm not sure if they carry any weight.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-12-02 12:06am

Howedar wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:It wouldn't surprise me that they would threaten to excommunicate people for speaking out against their policies when they refused to excommunicate Hitler. The Catholic Church and sanity parted ways a long time ago, if indeed they ever even knew each other in the first place.
Some priests like to hand out blanket excommunications like candy. I'm not sure if they carry any weight.

Of course they don't. Excommunications require a Bishop's approval, at least. And if the Church wants to, fine. It'll result in less Catholics and more people seeing what a monolithic, outdated, worthless organization the Church really is.

Bob McDob · Post by **Bob McDob** » 2003-12-02 12:07am

Iceberg wrote:Reference?

It was in the newspaper. Associated Press I think. Couldn't find it online, though. I don't think there wasn't any mention of the higher levels, which means this might be a case of individual priests and bishops moving out of their own volition.

Bob McDob · Post by **Bob McDob** » 2003-12-02 12:10am

Here's the article.

http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0 ... 47,00.html

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-12-02 12:12am

Bob McDob wrote:
Iceberg wrote:Reference?
It was in the newspaper. Associated Press I think. Couldn't find it online, though. I don't think there wasn't any mention of the higher levels, which means this might be a case of individual priests and bishops moving out of their own volition.

I got your reference for you:

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/7386301.htm

By the way, it was not until 1977 that the Church stopped excommunicating divorced Catholics who re-married. And yet, Hitler was OK. Even after WW2 ended, he was still a member in good standing of the Catholic Church.

EDIT: Whoops, I saw you posted again while I was writing that. Oh well.

Bob McDob · Post by **Bob McDob** » 2003-12-02 12:15am

Wouldn't John Paul II have done something about that? Seeing how he fought the Nazis and had a ... strong dislike for Hitler.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-12-02 12:33am

Bob McDob wrote:Wouldn't John Paul II have done something about that? Seeing how he fought the Nazis and had a ... strong dislike for Hitler.

By the time he came to power one might argue that nobody cared any more; I don't know. But Catholic responses to the Holocaust were confusing and contradictory; the point has been made before that they must have been sitting with at least part of one leg over the fence, given wartime actions which seemed to condone the Nazis at times and undermine them at others.

The Jewish Virtual Library wrote:The often-espoused view that the Pontiff was unaware of the seriousness of the situation of European Jewry during the war was definitively found to be inaccurate. Numerous documents demonstrated that the Pope was well-informed about the full extent of the Nazi's anti-Semitic practices. A letter from Konrad von Preysing, Bishop of Berlin, that proved that the Pope was aware of the situation as early as January of 1941, particularly caught the attention of the commission. In that letter, Preysing confirms that "Your Holiness is certainly informed about the situation of the Jews in Germany and the neighboring countries. I wish to mention that I have been asked both from the Catholic and Protestant side if the Holy See could not do something on this subject...in favor of these unfortunates." The letter, which was a direct appeal to the Pope himself, without intermediaries, provoked no response. In 1942, an even more compelling eyewitness account of the mass-murder of Jews in Lwow was sent to the Pope by an archbishop; this, too, garnered no response.

The commission also revealed several documents that cast a negative light on the claim that the Vatican did all it could to facilitate emigration of the Jews out of Europe. Internal notes meant only for Vatican representatives revealed the opposition of Vatican officials to Jewish emigration from Europe to Palestine. "The Holy See has never approved of the project of making Palestine a Jewish home...[because] Palestine is by now holier for Catholics than for Jews." Some Catholic higher-ups violated this position of the Vatican by helping Jews to immigrate when they were able to; most did not.

Similarly, the attempts of Jews to escape from Europe to South America were sometimes thwarted by the Vatican. Vatican representatives in Bolivia and Chile wrote to the pontiff regarding the "invasive" and "cynically exploitative" character of the Jewish immigrants, who were already engaged in "dishonest dealings, violence, immorality, and even disrespect for religion." The commission concluded that these accounts probably biased Pius against aiding more Jews in immigrating away from Nazi Europe.

The claim that the Vatican needed to remain neutral in the war has also been refuted in recent months. In January of 2001, a document recently declassified by the U.S. National Archives was discovered by the World Jewish Congress. The document was a report in which Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, Pope Pius XII's secretary of state, detailed and denounced several abuses committed by the Soviet Army against German inhabitants of the Soviet Union. The report was widely viewed as demonstrating that the Vatican had no compunctions about speaking out against atrocities, even when doing so would violate neutrality.

It would appear that there was not exactly what one might call unity of purpose in the Catholic church's dealings with the Nazis.

Nathan F · Post by **Nathan F** » 2003-12-02 12:35am

Durandal wrote:
Howedar wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:It wouldn't surprise me that they would threaten to excommunicate people for speaking out against their policies when they refused to excommunicate Hitler. The Catholic Church and sanity parted ways a long time ago, if indeed they ever even knew each other in the first place.
Some priests like to hand out blanket excommunications like candy. I'm not sure if they carry any weight.
Of course they don't. Excommunications require a Bishop's approval, at least. And if the Church wants to, fine. It'll result in less Catholics and more people seeing what a monolithic, outdated, worthless organization the Church really is.

I'd say a couple billion people of all religions would disagree, Durandal.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-12-02 12:43am

Darth Wong wrote: It would appear that there was not exactly what one might call unity of purpose in the Catholic church's dealings with the Nazis.

Not real shocking for an organization as factionized (is that a word?) as a church.

No, that is not a defense.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-12-02 01:06am

Nathan F wrote:
It'll result in less Catholics and more people seeing what a monolithic, outdated, worthless organization the Church really is.
I'd say a couple billion people of all religions would disagree, Durandal.

Why? I wasn't under the impression that anybody but Catholics would be a fan of the Catholic church.

Falkenhayn · Post by **Falkenhayn** » 2003-12-02 06:29pm

Darth Wong wrote:It wouldn't surprise me that they would threaten to excommunicate people for speaking out against their policies when they refused to excommunicate Hitler. The Catholic Church and sanity parted ways a long time ago, if indeed they ever even knew each other in the first place.

This example is a brilliant piece of logic if I ever saw one.

So as a matter of principle, you would spit in the face of a man holding a shotgun to your adam's apple?

Bob McDob · Post by **Bob McDob** » 2003-12-02 06:38pm

What If 2 had a nice essay on what effect the church might have had. It basically implied that the Vatican was safe because Hitler wouldn't risk alienate the entire Catholic population of Germany.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-12-02 07:31pm

Nathan F wrote:I'd say a couple billion people of all religions would disagree, Durandal.

What the Hell are you talking about? Just because people disagree with my assessment of the Catholic Church's value to the human race changes the fact that it's an unrepentantly misogynistic, bloated, invasive, archaic and corrupt institution?

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-12-02 08:38pm

So as a matter of principle, you would spit in the face of a man holding a shotgun to your adam's apple?

They could've excommunicated him either posthumously or during the final collapse of the Reich.

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2003-12-02 09:46pm

HemlockGrey wrote:
So as a matter of principle, you would spit in the face of a man holding a shotgun to your adam's apple?
They could've excommunicated him either posthumously or during the final collapse of the Reich.

Once he was dead there would have been no point in it; indeed one could argue that excommunicating him posthumously would indicate a far graver failure of moral character than failing to do so in life.

Stuart Mackey · Post by **Stuart Mackey** » 2003-12-03 01:09am

Henry 8! Henry 8! Henry 8!

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2003-12-03 12:23pm

Bob McDob wrote:So I read in the newspape that the bishops want to take down Catholic politicians who don't follow their directives.

These penalties range from a ban on speaking at conventions to outright excommunication (when was the last time they did that? The 1500s?)

I dunno if this'll dissuade anybody. Personally, I'd go for the liberal catholics changing their name to Orange Catholics. I'd convert in a heartbeat.

DOWN WITH THE PAX!
*Puts on Ouster skinsuit.

The church is barely clinging to power as smart people become less religious. They have to hold on to the stupid majority.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Church Clamps on Cafeteria Catholism

Church Clamps on Cafeteria Catholism

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