Priests urge stem cell opposition

The Church by this action has chosen to step out of it's roll as spiritual advisor to it's flock and enter the political arena.. Havimg immersed itself in the politics of the land and is lobbying to impose it's religious beliefs upon the population at large . It would appear in view of this they should no longer be entitled to a tax exempt status.

Recently the lose of tax exempt status has been cautioned when church leaders have from the pulpit and otherwise suggested "Told" parishioners how to vote.
Would this be a similar situation or to far a stretch?

Any pronouncement by the Catholic Church on any moral issue is a big fat joke, as far as i am concerned.

The Catholic Church has gotten a such a free ride on this sex abuse scandal, that the press coverage is a scandal in and of itself.

First, Father Bruce Ritter was held up as the shining example of Catholic social action through his Covenant House. Turns out that he was a pedophile. That news lasted about three days in the papers. For several years, the press boosts Ritter and Covenant House to the skies, and when the Ritter is exposed they put it on the front page for a day or two and forget about it.

Fact is, Ritter expanded Covenant House's operations internationally, and turned the whole operation into an international sex trafficking ring. Read much about that in the papers? Hah!

Then, sometime in the late nineties, some diocese down in Texas had to pay $20 million dollars in sex abuse settlements. How big was that played up in the rest of the country? Hardly at all. How many editors had the guts to send investigative reporters to take a hard look at the goings on in the Catholic Church? None that I heard of. Catholics comprise 25% of the US population, so the editors were afraid of losing a quarter of their readers.

Here in Connecticut, where almost half the population is Catholic, when yet another priest is found out, the news reports on the state TV stations call it "another chapter in the agony of the Catholic Church". As if the Catholic church is the victim of sex abuse, instead of the perpetrators. Unbelievable.

Can anyone imagine any other institution, religious or not, which would get such a free ride from the press and the governemnt if these things were exposed? I can't. Can you imagine is a school system or a government agency did anything like this? Or a privately run firm? There would be investigative reporters giving front page coverage of virtually every victim, government task forces would be set up to both prosecute and to make up legislation to prevent it from happening again. Any of this stuff happen to the Catholic Church? No.

My advice to the Roman Catholic Church would be: Given the amazing free ride you have received from the government and press-a free ride nobody else would get-the sane thing to do would be to SHUT UP on any and all moral pronouncements until you have done a very thorough, very public housecleaning and issued such mea culpas as are necessary that you have indeed come clean. Even then, it will take years, perhaps decades, before anything the Catholic Church says can be taken seriously as having any moral force whatsoever.

Instead of doing this, however, the Catholic Church is still in damage control mode on the sex scandals, and is getting aggressively outspoken on moral and social issues. And the press plays along, letting them get away with it.

What a public shame.

So this thread is nothing more than another screed against a religious organization?

Gee, that is so rare these days... :rolleyes:

VATICAN CITY - In the first major ruling of Pope Benedict's reign, the Catholic Church yesterday imposed restrictions on homosexuals becoming priests, although it said there would be no crackdown on gays who have already been ordained.The ruling came in a long-awaited, eight-page Vatican document that has already sparked controversy after widespread leaks in the past few weeks.

Its strict line on the place of gays in the clergy has won praise from conservatives and condemnation from liberals. There is already a shortage of men seeking to enter the priesthood, and critics say the ruling will only deepen the crisis.

The "instruction" by the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education says men "who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture'" cannot be admitted to seminaries. The only exception would be for those with a "transitory problem" that had been overcome for at least three years.The urgency of the document has been highlighted by a sexual scandal in the United States three years ago, involving mostly abuse of boys by priests. Gay-rights groups and others accuse the church of using homosexuals as scapegoats for the pedophile scandals.

The instruction says gays must be "accepted with respect." But in a commentary in the Vatican newspaper, Msgr. Tony Anatrella, a French Jesuit, said homosexuality risked "destabilizing people and society," had no social or moral value and could never match the importance of the relationship between a man and a woman.

The U.S-based Human Rights Campaign called on all Catholics, regardless of sexual orientation, to complain to their local pastors.

"We're speaking to Catholics in the pews and urging them to consider what Jesus would do if he saw his neighbor treated this way," it said in a statement.

During the 2004 campaign, when the pro-choice Kerry is running against the pro-life Bush, the head of the Catholic Church in Colorado says that any Catholic who votes for a pro-choice candidate is required to go to confession to atone for the sin.

Sounds like advocacy to me.

Absolutely no different than someone with Planned Parenthood telling their members that they should not vote for anyone who is anti-abortion since by doing so would be damaging to their cause.