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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (42455)	4/20/2005 5:21:16 PM
From: Kevin Rose	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 173976

Yes. Catholicism is hard to understand because of its contradictions, history, and demand for absolute and unquestioned fealty from its parishioners. Having lived it for the first 30 years of my life, it seems to me that Catholicism works best when life is harsh. When people start to get comfortable and no longer worry whether they're going to starve or be slaughtered by barbarians the next day, they wake up and realize what a flawed religion it is (hence, the intense irony of the new popes previous writings on the 'inadequacy' of other religions). Further exacerbating the situation is the problem of the priesthood. In old days, and in developing countries, being a priest is seen as a great honor not only for the priest but also for his family. So, they can attract the best candidates, people who will put up with some of the more ridiculous tenets of the Church (like celibacy). But, in developed countries, the position is no longer as attractive, and they have to let the entry standards down considerably. That's where you get the pedophile priests, the priests who have affairs with their married parishioners, the crazy priests like the guy who jumped into the Olympic marathon. And the Church hierarchy does not weed out these losers, because quite frankly, they need the manpower. The Church has crazy rules, now and in the past, and to question those rules is forbidden. The new pope was part of the 'new inquisition', stamping out dissent and calls for reason from within the Church. When will the Church wake up and recognizes its faults? It seems that it would prefer to retain its flaws and simply sink into irrelevancy...