Easter: Message of Jesus?

Quote: FrGamble

Good. It is good for people to know the truth including the atrocities and scandals..

Easy to say now that you have no
choice. But hiding the truth is what
the Vatican does best, look at the
recent pedophile scandal. If not for
the Boston newspaper exposé, we
would still be largely in the dark as
to the extent the Vatican went to
in hiding these awful men from the
public. Control is the Vatican's middle
name, and in the past they had a
stranglehold on information.

You are conflating the Vatican with Boston or more appropriately Cardinal Law.

Quote: FrGamble

You are conflating the Vatican with Boston or more appropriately Cardinal Law.

That's because they're one and the
same. He did everything with the
blessing of Rome. He was rewarded,
not defrocked, wasn't he.

The Vatican did no such thing. No, he was living out his days in obscurity and disgrace. Did you notice his funeral, the death of a Cardinal, I didn't either because it was nothing to speak of. I did pray for the repose of His soul and God's Mercy upon him. Do you really think it is a reward to go from being the Cardinal Archbishop of Boston to a lowly priest without his name hardly on the bulletin of a large Church in Rome?

Quote: FrGamble

The Vatican did no such thing. No, he was living out his days in obscurity and disgrace.

Wow, you really are ignorant of the facts.
After he left Boston, he moved to Rome:

"Law was a member of the Congregations for the Oriental Churches, the Clergy, Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, Evangelisation of Peoples, Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Catholic Education, Bishops as well as the Pontifical Council for the Family. He held membership in all these congregations and of the council before resigning from the governance of the Archdiocese of Boston, and at that time was also a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture. He became even more influential in these Vatican congregations and, being based in Rome, he could attend all their meetings, unlike cardinals based in other countries.

In May 2004, Pope John Paul II appointed Law to a post in Rome, as Archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. In Rome, Law was considered an active and important conservative voice within many of the Vatican offices in which he served. Robert Mickens, a longtime Vatican journalist, reported that Law believed he had been "badly done by", and that other cardinals saw him as a victim rather than a guilty party. Until his retirement, Mickens said, "He did not lose his influence. He was a member of more congregations than any other bishop.... Cardinals that are members of these offices can't always go to the meetings–they are not in Rome–but Bernie Law did and he goes everywhere and he keeps his head held high.

Doesn't sound like a life of obscurity to
me. Sounds like he was revered and lost
none of his influence. Quite the punsihment
for his evil deeds..

"other cardinals saw him as a victim rather than a guilty party"
That kinda says it all about your wonderful
Church, doesn't it.

Oh Bob, as someone who lived and studied in Rome during these times I can assure you 100% that he was indeed looked at as guilty and lost all his influence and authority. He was one of many of the these "archpriests" in the major basilicas without any authority other than perhaps able to give tours to visitors, which of course he wouldn't do. Don't you know it is a punishment to go to meetings? Seriously, I'm not sure where you get your sources (as usual) but the one quoted seems legitimate enough without any real sense of what was happening to Cardinal Law. I think it is amazing you take one anonymous quote as the Gospel truth and a summary of the entire Church's opinion of Law. You require so little evidence or none at all to believe the things you want to believe and you require absolute proof and reject all evidence for anything you don't want to believe. There is a lesson here.

Rest assured from someone who knows; he lived out the rest of his days in obscurity and disgrace. I pray he also lived them out in prayer and penance.

Quote: FrGamble

Oh Bob, as someone who lived and studied in Rome during these times I can assure you 100% that he was indeed looked at as guilty and lost all his influence and authority. He was one of many of the these "archpriests" in the major basilicas without any authority other than perhaps able to give tours to visitors, which of course he wouldn't do. Don't you know it is a punishment to go to meetings? Seriously, I'm not sure where you get your sources (as usual) but the one quoted seems legitimate enough without any real sense of what was happening to Cardinal Law. I think it is amazing you take one anonymous quote as the Gospel truth and a summary of the entire Church's opinion of Law. You require so little evidence or none at all to believe the things you want to believe and you require absolute proof and reject all evidence for anything you don't want to believe. There is a lesson here.

Rest assured from someone who knows; he lived out the rest of his days in obscurity and disgrace. I pray he also lived them out in prayer and penance.

Bear with me. Thinking out loud, and not sure where I'm going.

I was on a large gambling boat tonight, and the same thing happened 3 times that happens to me all the time in public. Complete strangers come up to me, start talking, and within a couple of minutes start pouring their heart out, about politics, their marriage, their kids, their lives....what is that?

I think people.have stopped listening to each other. And if they find someone like me, who listens, they just barrel forward with their inner monologue, just because someone is listening.

You two don't listen to each other, by the way. But that's not it.

The thing that's changed in our part of the world is an enormous loss of civility in disagreement. I think the Vatican is likely one of the remaining bastions of it, and that could perhaps explain the diametric reports about Cardinal Law.

Put yourself in his slippers for a moment. He was not, to my knowledge, an abuser or pedophile himself. But he was aware of these behavioral problems from priests he supervises (not that I understand the chain of command in the Church ). He chose to protect the priests primarily, and their congregants secondarily, by moving the priests to other dioceses. But wasn't his responsibility to those priests? From his POV, if the priests were successful and valuable to the Church , and there are ever-fewer men taking vows, AND the Church teaches compassion, forgiveness, and mercy as primary tenets, how does he do something more punitive and embarrassing to the Church, by defrocking and prosecuting these abusers?

Now, in hindsight, he looks like a craven idiot for those choices, but being him in the moment, I'm not sure anyone as dedicated to the Church as an Archbishop must be would have done anything differently.

And so, with Cardinal Law withdrawn to Rome, the other Cardinals would of course protect him from outside reporting, and value what he brought there as they could. But among themselves, I would guess there was a fair amount of ostracism, condemnation, and displeasure with him, probably tinged with "there but for the grace of God go I", and I'm sure Law took that to heart.

Which means it's most likely you're both right. That would be the civil face the Vatican would show towards Law, both in person, and to inquiries from outside.

And that, to me, is a lot of what's changed here (in our country). The loss of civility in disagreement. The ability to respect the person making an argument, not just by saying you respect them, but by the tone of your conversation with them.

In short, people are just rude to each other now, in ways they did not allow themselves to be when I was growing up. The woman who dumped her thoughts out in a monolithic gush talked about that at some length. And in some ways, as RAHeinlein said repeatedly, this loss of civility indicates better than any other metric how close we are to failing as a country or a civilization.

Part of making America great again, if that's truly the agenda, would have to be a return to civility. True about politics, religion, other hot-button issues.

Think of a rainbow, but striped radially. There's a sliver of white on one end, a sliver of black on the other. In between, miles and miles of grey. And yet nearly every argument of that type is only held in back and white. No commonality. No intersection. No grey.

I challenge each of you to find 3 things about the other's POV you agree with. I can do it. But can you?

Quote: beachbumbabs

I challenge each of you to find 3 things about the other's POV you agree with.

What fun would that be. Women don't
understand men. We're competitive, it's
in our DNA. We fight for our viewpoints,
our goal is to be right. Anybody can wimp
out and get along, those are the guys who
get crushed under the weight of somebody
elses convictions. Who wants to be that guy..

Quote: FrGamble

he lived out the rest of his days in obscurity and disgrace..

That's the line the Church wants out there,
but the truth is, insiders say he was well
thought of by the other Cardinals and
looked at as one of the victims. This comes
from all kinds of sources and makes perfect
sense. It's how the Church has treated 'their
own' since there was a Church. The oldest
men's club in the world, they stick together.
Of course they treated him well, people who
live in glass houses and all that..

Quote: beachbumbabs

I challenge each of you to find 3 things about the other's POV you agree with. I can do it. But can you?

I do want to say that I agree with you that civility and kindness are so very important and so often lacking in our society today and I confess often in my discussion with Evenbob. It is not often that I am aggressive or directly insulting but I sometimes word things with a edge to them or are very sarcastic. I also very much want to show Evenbob when he is wrong and make him deal with his mistake, admit it, and work on another idea or philosophy. So sometimes I may press too hard.

I would have a much easier time saying 3 things about the person I like. Evenbob is persistent, has a wealth of life experiences, loves animals, and is a human being made in the image and likeness of God.

The problem is finding 3 things about his POV that I agree with. How do you agree with falsehood? He doesn't understand that to make a truth claim, yes even about the non-existence of something you need evidence or all you have is blind faith. He doesn't understand that evidence is not proof and that you don't need proof, only a culmination of supporting evidence to believe in something. He proposes historical myths and exaggerations about the Catholic Church's history that have been objectively proven to be false without ever learning or moderating his statements. He treats the Catholic Church in a prejudiced and bigoted way that he does not treat any other organization, religion, or country.

Okay, wait this is about what I agree with him on.

I agree that with him that we will live forever. I agree that the universe is a beautiful and mysterious place that we are always discovering more about. I agree that ego and pride are obstacles to discovering truth (although I maintain that he is not consistent on this point). I agree that the Catholic Church is far from perfect and that it should always be more transparent. I agree that there is no unicorns or Easter Bunny.