Dear Tom,
I'm not the Holy Father but your
e-mail at least deserves a comment.
You said:
- If the Catholic
Church will not protect the most
vulnerable among us from predation
by priests why should anyone take
seriously the claims of the Roman
Church as God's appointed authority
on Earth?
No one in the Church will ever officially
defend the horrific acts (if they
are true) that have
happened to many of the faithful
in our Church. No one!
What the main stream media, who has
recently been bashing the Holy Father,
has to remember is that the Pope's
free will is not one free will with all the bishops he has appointed.
This is a childish, uncatechized
view of free will.
Each person has their own free will
that they will be responsible for
at their Particular Judgment.
Your reply: But the Pope is
infallible!
My reply: Infallibility does
not mean that the Pope's choices
for bishops will always be the best. He
could make some terrible choices
or more probable . . . bishops, that started
off as holy bishops, could be brought
down by that bastard, the devil;
someone the national news media doesn't
believe in.
Infallibility is a negative safeguard.
It guarantees to the faithful that
the faith Jesus entrusted to St.
Peter and his successors to defend
and safeguard, will never change.
Example:
- Our belief in the Trinity
- Our belief in the sacraments
- Our belief in the male priesthood
- Our belief in a proper understanding
of salvation and justification
- Our belief in a proper understanding
of No
Salvation Outside the Church.
- Our belief in Heaven, Purgatory,
and Hell
will never change.
- Could they
be clarified? <Sure! but not changed.>
We want people to understand our
Lord's Teachings correctly. Infallibility does not guarantee
that the Pope will always make the
right choices on non-theological issues, like the assignment or appointment
of new bishops. Neither does it guarantee
that he will have the best view on questions dealing with private theological opinions. He could have a private theological opinion that is erroneous.
Infallibility comes in when he speaks publicly and officially to the Church on issues of faith and morals. In these cases, he is protected by the Holy Spirit from making doctrinal errors.
He will always strive to make
the best choice, but he is not infallible
in the cases I have mentioned. Infallibility just
guarantees he will be prevented from
teaching doctrinal error, not that
he will always teach the best that
can be taught!
You should take the claims of the
Roman Church seriously only if you
want to take Our Blessed Lord Jesus
Christ Himself seriously.
Matthew's Gospel states:
17 And Jesus answered him, Blessed
are you, Simon Barjona! For flesh
and blood has not revealed this
to you, but my Father who is in
Heaven. 18 And I tell
you, you are Peter, and on this
rock I
WILL BUILD MY CHURCH,
and the powers of death shall
not prevail against it. 19 I
will give you the keys of the
kingdom of Heaven, and whatever
you bind on Earth shall be bound
in Heaven, and whatever you loose
on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven." (Matthew
16:17-19)
There is only one Church that existed
back then, that also exists today:
the Roman Catholic Church.
In addition: Surprise!: It's not
the Pope's Church; he is just the
Prime Minister of the Church just
as Mr. Gordon is the Prime Minister
of England.
Queen Elizabeth reigns over the Prime
Minister, just as [Jesus|the Holy
Spirit] reigns over the Popes, guiding
them, yet respecting their free will
to do stupid, non-doctrinal things that
can sometimes hurt the Church.
You should really read some Church
history Tom. My favorite papal case
was back in the sixteenth century.
Pope Sixtus V had planned on officially
publishing a [botched|heretical]
version of the Latin Vulgate Bible. This
was the only version Catholics were
to use.
From Pope
Fiction by Patrick Madrid:
By now, expectation was at a boiling
point. The news in Rome had it
that the official promulgation
would happen any day. Advance
copies of the new Vulgate had
been bound and delivered to all
the cardinals in Rome along with
advance copies of the bull officially
publishing it. Everything was
now ready for the pope to promulgate
the new version. Nothing could
stop him. All he had to
do was take the last fateful step.
but, the next day, they found him
dead in his bed due to a brief illness :
)
He had been in excellent health,
and was one of the more vigorous
and active pontiffs in the history
of the papacy. But as the last
moment, it seems the Holy Spirit
fulfilled, once again, Christ's
promise that He would guide the
Church into all truth. Advanced
copies of the version were quietly
withdrawn by the cardinals.
The bull announcing it, was never
issued. At the request of the
new pope, Gregory XIX, under Cardinal
Bellarmine's supervision, a new
commission was formed to carry
out the revision of the revision.
Pope Fiction, Pages 250-251
Let me put it another way. I remember
hearing about some Protestant observers
who were overseeing the events of
Vatican II.
One observer thought the Church was
falling apart and appeared chaotic.
He questioned a Catholic Cardinal
on this and, paraphrasing the Cardinal,
said:
We've been trying to destroy this
Church [by our sins] for about 2,000
years and can't; it's got to be Divine!
For short:
- each person has their own free
will
- Infallibility is:
- a negative safeguard that
nothing heretical will officially be taught, and
- does not guarantee the
best appointment of new
bishops
- you have to separate bad behavior
of the members of the Church from
its official teachings
You said:
The Church has covered up these horrific
acts for hundreds of years and abandoned
the victims.
There is no denying that the Church's
handling of cases of sexual abuse
and pederastic priests was, for years,
more than deplorable. The acts of
these priests are criminal.
Changes in the manner of handling
these tragedies have come far too
late.
Objectivity and intellectual honesty
require us to insist, however, that
those changes have nonetheless come. Here is an example
you won't hear from the T.V. or
news media:
Charter to protect children by
the United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops
- Nevertheless, hundreds of years?
No, this problem started back in
the 60's and 70's. Bishops allowed
bad seminary professors into the
seminary. Once the devil gets hold
of the culture within Catholic seminaries,
the spirituality in the Church will
decline among all the faithful.
I would disagree with your view that
the Church has abandoned the victims;
it has helped many since 2002.
You said:
Perhaps you should
use your substantial riches to alleviate
suffering.
- Who says the Pope doesn't?
- Do you want to take a guess
at what the largest charitable
organization in the world is?
The Catholic Church! You're just
not going to hear it on the national
news.
You said:
Defrock these
monsters.
Once again, you're just not going
to hear it on the nightly news with
Diane Sawyer, Brian Williams, or Katie
Couric.
I have yet to hear one good piece
on the great work that the Catholic Church
does on the nightly national news.
Hope this helps,
Mike
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