Do you think the Pope should resign?

I have a strong bias against this particular pope, failing now to mention a few others, as he as a theologian was part of my total disgust when I left the church many years ago and a trigger for my somewhat later take on all religions as contrivance. See, I'm jolly well hostile.

However, I've mellowed a tad and find religion can have good effects as well as the famous poor effects we know so well. I'd like the church to recover but doubt it has the self scouring potential to truly redevelop.

0 Replies

As terrible as it is that children and young people have been misused I think some facts should be said.
It is less than 5% of all American Roman Catholic priest who have misused children over the last 50 years. It was all wrong to try to cover it up I my opinion and the priests have to be punished just as any other person who has done a thing like that.
Unfortunately children and young people are misused in non religous schools, youthclubs and sportsclubs too at least here in Europe and I am sure also in USA .These are things that now is coming out after it came out in the Roman Catholic church. Before it was also kept as a secret. Would you also say that the Minister of Education should step down or the Minister of Sports because it was kept secret for about 30-40 years?
In England women have misused children in daycare centre and even a nurse in a hospital. There colleges did not report them.
There are also Lutheran priests in Scandinavia who have done it. Should the Arch bishop or the Queen of Denmark step down of the same reason?
80-90 % of all children are misused within their own family by fathers, stepfathers, brothers and other relatives.

2 Replies

@saab,

Quote:

As terrible as it is that children and young people have been [misused] sexually abused I think some facts should be said.

I think the test is whether there was any cover up of any criminal behavior. Likely, the pope cannot be brought to justice in the US, Australia, Canada, ... .

If the queen of Denmark was found to be involved in a cover up, then she too should feel the full weight of the applicable law. In the absence of such a law she should feel the full weight of public opinion.

1 Reply

if the pope wants to continue to play for the catholic church and they want him and the offer on the table is good enough then he should re-sign

if any of those conditions are not met, he should become a free agent

0 Replies

@hawkeye10,

Sorry when it relate to harm to children everyone have a dog in the race.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Quote:

Sorry when it relate to harm to children everyone have a dog in the race.

No, because you have available the legal system to hold to account wrong doing. If he should go to jail the Church would have every right to keep him as their leader. The two are separate, accountability to all people and standing in the Church.

1 Reply

@mags314772,

I'll settle for the Vatican to close all the doors to all Catholic churches permanently. Sell all the churches property. Donate all of the billions of dollars to charity. Give a simple apology, a good night blessing, and a good luck to you all. Effectively ending the Catholic religion forever.

1 Reply

@tsarstepan,

OH YEAH......and a deep and sincere apology for all the death, heartache and suffering it has caused over the centuries

1 Reply

@mags314772,

Quote:

OH YEAH......and a deep and sincere apology for all the death, heartache and suffering it has caused over the centuries

Oh I hope not, I am so sick of people apologizing for the dead....they have no right, and thus it is worthless. It is a PR move.

0 Replies

@hawkeye10,

Quote:

The two are separate, accountability to all people and standing in the Church.

Sorry you had stated, by my understanding, that people outside the church have no moral right to express an opinion on the leadership of the mother church and that is silly.

The Pope is a public figure with great powers that clearly extend outside the membership of his church to the rest of society and as such, we all have a right to express an opinion on his fitness for that post just as non-Americans have a right to express such an opinion concerning Americans Presidents for that matter.

Flipping the issue around the Pope would have no right under your theory to express an opinion of any issue that does not effect a church member directly such as a death penalty case that does not involved a church member or abortions by non-Catholic women.

Your logic does not seem to hold water my friend.

1 Reply

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100325/ap_on_re_eu/church_abuse_wisconsin

0 Replies

@JTT,

There has been no cover up as far as I know within the Danish Church. Just mentioned the Queen as she is head of the church of Denmark.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Quote:

The Pope is a public figure with great powers that clearly extend outside the membership of his church to the rest of society and as such

Once upon a time that was true.....

Quote:

Flipping the issue around the Pope would have no right under your theory to express an opinion of any issue that does not effect a church member directly such as a death penalty case that does not involved a church member or abortions by non-Catholic women

in my view anyone can have an opinion on the Pope, it is who should be Pope that only Members have a right to have an opinion on. On your flip position, I agree. The Pope should only be talking about matters of the Church. I think I remember Bill Clinton while pres going to Rome to get the Pope's blessing on something, and I thought at the time WTF. I dont care what the Pope thinks about anything, and I dont know too many other non Catholics who do.

0 Replies

High Seas said:

Quote:

the Vatican did say some years ago that whoever was pope at the time was wrong about Galileo

My goodness, how magnanimous of them. Within our lifetimes was it?And so timely of them too.

0 Replies

@saab,

Quote:

There has been no cover up as far as I know within the Danish Church. Just mentioned the Queen as she is head of the church of Denmark.

I realized that, Saab. That was one of them there contrary ta fact conditionals.

0 Replies

Quote:

Do you think the Pope should resign?

Yeah, i think the S.O.B. should resign . . . or be fired. I also think it will never happen. The corruption of power runs too deep, and has lasted for far too long.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Quote:

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

1 Reply

You won't get power more absoluter than what that old fecker wields. He's virtually an emperor.

0 Replies

@Francis,

thanks for reminding us of another schism in the church

Quote:

In 1870 came the great crisis in Roman Catholicism over Pope Pius IX's promulgation of the doctrine of papal infallibility.

Lord Acton, who was in complete sympathy on this subject with Döllinger, went to Rome in order to throw all his influence against it, but the step he so much dreaded was not to be averted.

The Old Catholic separation followed, but Acton did not personally join the seceders, and the authorities prudently refrained from forcing the hands of so competent and influential an English layman. It was in this context that, in a letter he wrote to scholar and ecclesiastic Mandell Creighton, dated April 1887, Acton made his most famous pronouncement:

"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it. "[3]

0 Replies

So, I have this banner add below the page: 'Vatican Gifts'
and then, below that, 'The Blessing from the Vatican City'

1 Reply

Do you think the Pope should resign?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know