Author Topic: Is the Church Above The Law? Church Double Standards (Read 49460 times)

barrister · « **Reply #150 on:** Mar 29, 2012 at 09:16 AM »

Court to decide if students will be allowed to attend rites
By Ador Vincent Mayol, Patricia Andrea Pateña
Cebu Daily News
8:32 am | Thursday, March 29th, 2012

... Balili said if the court rules in favor of the petitioners, they will comply with the decision and allow the students to join the graduation ceremony on Friday.

“Well, if the petition is granted we have no choice but to follow, we are law-biding citizens. St. Theresa produces law-abiding citizens,” he said.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/168929/court-to-decide-if-students-will-be-allowed-to-attend-rites

barrister · « **Reply #151 on:** Mar 29, 2012 at 06:31 PM »

Cebu court lets girls in ‘bikini photo’ case to join graduation rites
By Charisse Ursal
Inquirer Visayas
5:02 pm | Thursday, March 29th, 2012

...The Regional Trial Court ordered St. Theresa’s College on Thursday to allow two 16-year-old seniors to attend their graduation ceremonies on March 30, after the school barred them doing so for posting pictures of themselves in bikinis in their Facebook accounts.

... In granting the TRO, Judge Navarro said the school also violated its own handbook when it didn’t accord due process to the students.

The manual requires that students be first informed of the infractions and be asked to present their side before a decision is made.

The court also chastised the principal for the manner she berated the students and called them names because it traumatized the students.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/169033/court-chastises-school-for-barring-girls-from-graduation-over-bikini-photos

rusty · « **Reply #152 on:** Mar 30, 2012 at 08:29 PM »

Cebu school defies court, won’t let students attend graduation
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/169733/cebu-school-defies-court-won%E2%80%99t-let-students-attend-graduation

barrister · « **Reply #153 on:** Mar 30, 2012 at 10:34 PM »

Uso na pala ngayon ang hindi sumusunod sa TRO. Yan ang blowback ng ginawa ni Secretary de Lima.

Ma-contempt sana yung mga school officials, plus a multi-million peso award for moral damages, plus criminal convictions for grave coercion and child abuse.

rusty · « **Reply #154 on:** Mar 31, 2012 at 02:35 AM »

6 boys banned from grad rites over prank 'kiss'
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/169117/catholic-school-bars-6-boys-from-joining-graduation-over-public-kissing%E2%80%99%E2%80%99
http://www.rappler.com/nation/3178-6-boys-banned-from-grad-rites-over-prank-kiss

barrister · « **Reply #155 on:** Mar 31, 2012 at 11:54 AM »

Quote from: rusty on Mar 31, 2012 at 02:35 AM

6 boys banned from grad rites over prank 'kiss'
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/169117/catholic-school-bars-6-boys-from-joining-graduation-over-public-kissing%E2%80%99%E2%80%99
http://www.rappler.com/nation/3178-6-boys-banned-from-grad-rites-over-prank-kiss

According to updated news, the boys will be allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony, but as punishment, their diplomas will be temporarily withheld.

That's the more humane penalty.

barrister · « **Reply #156 on:** Apr 01, 2012 at 12:29 PM »

Cebu bishop backs Catholic school's stand on 'bikini students'
(The Philippine Star) Updated April 01, 2012 12:00 AM

CEBU CITY, Philippines – Archbishop of Cebu Jose Palma praised yesterday the decision of a Catholic school to bar five high school students from taking part in graduation rites for posting photographs of themselves in bikinis in their Facebook accounts.

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=793184&publicationSubCategoryId=63

Shakatak · « **Reply #157 on:** Apr 01, 2012 at 06:36 PM »

Quote from: barrister on Apr 01, 2012 at 12:29 PM

Cebu bishop backs Catholic school's stand on 'bikini students'
(The Philippine Star) Updated April 01, 2012 12:00 AM

CEBU CITY, Philippines – Archbishop of Cebu Jose Palma praised yesterday the decision of a Catholic school to bar five high school students from taking part in graduation rites for posting photographs of themselves in bikinis in their Facebook accounts.

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=793184&publicationSubCategoryId=63

bishop Palma should read and read and read Romans 13.... and put more emphasis especially verses 1 and 2

sharkey360 · « **Reply #158 on:** Apr 01, 2012 at 07:08 PM »

From a few days ago.

sharkey360 · « **Reply #159 on:** Apr 02, 2012 at 07:43 AM »

Lim: Fury over a bikini

A 16-YEAR old girl uploads a photo of herself on Facebook wearing a bikini and holding a lighted cigarette. Her school, St. Theresa’s College, bars her from participating in graduation ceremonies.

Like most people my age, I frown upon inappropriate pictures and remarks that many young people post without any real understanding of its consequences. But I must crawl out of my cave.

While most people know that nothing one posts on the Internet is truly private, this realization does not really sink in for the “social-networking” generation. Privacy for this generation is not a choice between posting and not posting. Rather, it is a choice of privacy settings.

I understand that schools have rules and regulations. But I question the breadth of such powers to regulate the conduct of their students. Should these rules and regulations cover what students wear or do even outside school premises in private activities with family and friends?

Where does the Student Handbook end and the Constitution begin? Should school officials be spying on their students by looking into their Facebook accounts? Have we been transported to the cold-war era? When has wearing a bikini become obscene? Are we in the Middle East?

I do not condone drinking and smoking not just for teen-agers but for adults as well, but I accept that teen-agers drink and smoke perhaps in the misguided belief that it is hip to do so. As enlightened and mindful adults, it is our role to change their minds.

During Spanish times, women whose ankles showed underneath their long dresses were considered immoral. But the year is 2012. A bikini is appropriate swimwear. Some people find dirty dancing obscene. Well, I know someone who finds ballet obscene because of the costumes dancers wear that cling tightly to the body.

I think that students who study in Catholic schools should be more thoughtful about their conduct. Parents should be more mindful in their choices about where to enroll their children. School officials should enforce discipline but should show greater compassion to erring students.

As a former college instructor and surrogate parent, I can say that each time my ward errs; I ask myself where I erred. I ask myself where I went wrong, how I can improve and how I can prevent this from happening again.

It’s not a perfect process. But while I do want to be a Tiger parent, I realize that if adults can make monumentally stupid mistakes, teen-agers, more than ever, will make even more.

Who should set the parameters of morality in society? While we all accept that we have varying opinions on what is lewd or obscene, to be sanctioned for one’s “morality” is a very serious thing. Who undertakes the role of the moral police? Has the Taliban moved to Cebu?

If priest-molesters and rapists are allowed to say mass and continue their priestly duties, should students from Catholic schools who wear bikinis, hold lighted cigarettes and dirty dance in private social gatherings be barred from their graduation ceremonies?

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/opinion/2012/03/31/lim-fury-over-bikini-214225

sharkey360 · « **Reply #160 on:** Apr 02, 2012 at 08:00 AM »

Mongaya: Above the law

I READ posts by some defenders of St. Theresa’s College (STC) and I don’t want to quarrel with them with what they describe as unbiased views. To these defenders, only members of the Cebu media and all others who criticize STC are biased.

These defenders are saying that the nuns possess photos that would harm the five girls if these were released. It’s really a wonder how the nuns got hold of the photos in the first place when even the media could not (or would not) hack into private Facebook accounts.

They would need to argue in court that the photos were obtained legally, that the evidence are not fruits of a poisoned tree, asthe defense in the ongoing impeachment trial would say. Are STC officials, in effect, saying a little lady handed them the evidence or somebody left these at the school gates?

However, I am alarmed at how they justify defiance of a court order that would have allowed five students to join the high school graduation rites last Friday.

The nuns could have showed some respect for the law by entertaining the court sheriff. But, no. The school guards unceremoniously blocked the five students, their parents, and the court sheriff from entering the school.

Come to think of it, STC authorities treated agents of the court like vagrants. The court sheriff does not deserve being left at the campus gates.

The nuns of STC successfully showed that they believed they are above the law. As educators, they are teaching young Theresians that they can brazenly disobey court orders to prevent either applause or boos during the graduation rites.

The STC lawyer could cite all the legal technicalities to justify the defiance. But whatever he says cannot erase the fact that the school deliberately demonstrated how to be above the law in upholding school policies.

Our educators in STC are teaching school policies first, damn the courts.

In their zeal to uphold the school’s conservative values like its prohibition on wearing of bikinis even in private swimming occasions, the nuns practically told the world that STC’s values as an educational institution may not include being a good corporate citizen.

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/opinion/2012/04/01/mongaya-above-law-214361

rusty · « **Reply #161 on:** Apr 20, 2012 at 09:00 PM »

Vatican chastises US nuns for spending too much time on poverty

CHICAGO - A prominent U.S. Catholic nuns' group said on Thursday it was "stunned" that the Vatican reprimanded it for spending too much time on poverty and social justice concerns and not enough on abortion and gay marriage.

In a stinging report on Wednesday, the Vatican said the Leadership Conference of Women Religious had been "silent on the right to life" and had failed to make the "Biblical view of family life and human sexuality" a central plank in its agenda.

It also reprimanded American nuns for expressing positions on political issues that differed, at times, from views held by American bishops. Public disagreement with the bishops - "who are the church's authentic teachers of faith and morals" - is unacceptable, the report said.

The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a "doctrinal assessment" saying the Holy See was compelled to intervene with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious to correct "serious doctrinal problems."

The nuns' group said in a statement on its website, "The presidency of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious was stunned by the conclusions of the doctrinal assessment."

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/global-filipino/world/04/20/12/vatican-blasts-us-nuns-spending-too-much-time-poverty

Klaus Weasley · « **Reply #162 on:** Apr 20, 2012 at 10:24 PM »

Nothing says Christ-like quite like living in a palace while telling people outside who are doing work to stick more closely to doctrine.

sharkey360 · « **Reply #163 on:** May 12, 2012 at 02:17 PM »

The 12 Best Reasons Why The U.S. Is Not Now, And Never Should Be, A Christian Nation

Christians today have the same problem as their fellow believers of two hundred years ago: “One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was that not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian.” –The Encyclopedia Britannica, 1968.

The ‘Christian’ label did not even fit some of our early Presidents. However, whether religious or not, the great intellects of democracy had a vision of all that the United States could be. They wouldn’t have dreamed of imposing religion on their fellow Americans; they knew that this nation’s greatness came from not being a Christian one. In their own emphatic words:

1) “Enforced uniformity confounds civil and religious liberty and denies the principles of Christianity and civility. No man shall be required to worship or maintain a worship against his will.” Roger Williams, Puritan minister and founder of Rhode Island, in The Bloudy Tenet of Persecution, 1644.

2) “As the government of the United States of America is not on any sense founded on the Christian Religion, – as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen (Muslims), – and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.” –Treaty of Tripoli

–initiated under President George Washington, 1796

–signed into law by President John Adams, 1797

–ratified unanimously by the Senate, 1797

–Published in full in all 13 states, with no record of complaint or dissent.

3) “But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed.”–John Adams, letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816

4) “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship… I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.” –Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT

5) “I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.”–Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Miller, 1808 [note that this does not say Christian religion; it refers to all religions, equally]

6) “History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose.” –Thomas Jefferson to Baron von Humboldt, 1813

7) “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.” –James Madison, letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774

“Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?” –James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance, addressed to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of VA, 1795

9) “What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people… A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not.” –James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance, 1785  .

10) “During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.” –James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance

11) “He had no faith, in the Christian sense of the term– he had faith in laws, principles, causes and effects.” –Supreme Court Justice David Davis, on Abraham Lincoln

12) “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” –First Amendment, Constitution of the United States

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/05/11/the-12-best-reasons/

RU9 · « **Reply #164 on:** May 25, 2012 at 08:21 AM »

Bishops Play Church Queens as Pawns
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: April 28, 2012

Who thinks it’s cool to bully nuns? While continuing to heal and educate, the community of sisters is aging and dying out because few younger women are willing to make such sacrifices for a church determined to bring women to heel.

Yet the nuns must be yanked into line by the crepuscular, medieval men who run the Catholic Church.

“It’s not terribly unlike the days of yore when they singled out people in the rough days of the Inquisition,” said Kenneth Briggs, the author of “Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church’s Betrayal of American Nuns.”

How can the church hierarchy be more offended by the nuns’ impassioned advocacy for the poor than by priests’ sordid pedophilia?

How do you take spiritual direction from a church that seems to be losing its soul?

It has become a habit for the church to go after women. A Worcester, Mass., bishop successfully fought to get a commencement speech invitation taken away from Vicki Kennedy, widow of Teddy Kennedy, because of her positions on some social issues. And an Indiana woman named Emily Herx has filed a lawsuit saying she was fired from her job teaching in a Catholic school and denounced as a “grave, immoral sinner” by the parish pastor after she used fertility treatments to try to get pregnant with her husband.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York recently told The Wall Street Journal that only “a tiny minority” of priests were tainted by the sex abuse scandal. But it’s a global shame spiral. The church leadership never recoiled in horror from pedophilia, yet it recoils in horror from outspoken nuns.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/dowd-bishops-play-church-queens-as-pawns.html?_r=1

Klaus Weasley · « **Reply #165 on:** May 25, 2012 at 05:13 PM »

Catholic Church now talking about turning away non-Catholics in emergency rooms.

I don't see Jesus anymore in the institution of the Catholic Church.

sharkey360 · « **Reply #166 on:** May 25, 2012 at 06:12 PM »

Quote from: Klaus Weasley on May 25, 2012 at 05:13 PM

Catholic Church now talking about turning away non-Catholics in emergency rooms.

I don't see Jesus anymore in the institution of the Catholic Church.

They are so wrong and so out of touch!

Inch by inch, societies around the world are moving closer to the Catholic social agenda utilized during the fascist era of Spain (Francisco Franco's dictatorship).

Nelson de Leon · « **Reply #167 on:** May 25, 2012 at 07:59 PM »

Quote from: Klaus Weasley on May 25, 2012 at 05:13 PM

Catholic Church now talking about turning away non-Catholics in emergency rooms.

I don't see Jesus anymore in the institution of the Catholic Church.

I think it is their belief na kailangan madami ka pang kailangan dasalan ng saints and/or intercessors para madinig ang prayers mo ni Jesus. Probably kaya hindi mo makita pa si Jesus sa institution nila.

Para ngang Nazi style. BTW, di ba Hitler was a Catholic? Or was raised by catholic parents?

barrister · « **Reply #168 on:** May 25, 2012 at 08:25 PM »

Quote from: Klaus Weasley on May 25, 2012 at 05:13 PM

Catholic Church now talking about turning away non-Catholics in emergency rooms.

I don't see Jesus anymore in the institution of the Catholic Church.

That's not true. This is a blatantly dishonest article by americablog. No wonder I can't find any other website that confirms it.

Here's the New York Times source article, maliciously distorted by the americablog writeup:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/opinion/dowd-father-doesnt-know-best.html?_r=1

It's just an Archdiocese's propaganda, which uses a sarcastic style, that opposes the US government's new policy on contraception.

sharkey360 · « **Reply #169 on:** May 27, 2012 at 08:52 AM »

David Barton Says Church Law Should Overrule Supreme Court Rulings

In other words, if the Bible has a verse that conservatives interpret to be contradictory of Supreme Court rulings, David Barton says the Supreme Court decision is invalid. This is why the Christian right is such a threat to the Constitution and our system of government and why it’s so important that we have separation of church and state in this country. If Barton had his way, Supreme Court decisions that rule in favor of abortion rights, gay rights, and many other rulings would be reversed by Biblical decree. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the Bible overrules the Supreme Court. Barton’s video is just more proof of how much the Christian Right hates the Constitution and our system of government.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/05/24/david-barton-says-church-law-should-overrule-supreme-court-rulings-video/

RU9 · « **Reply #170 on:** May 27, 2012 at 02:33 PM »

Vatican in chaos after butler arrested for leaks
Published May 27, 2012
Associated Press

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican's inquisition into the source of leaked documents has yielded its first target with the arrest of the pope's butler, but the investigation is continuing into a scandal that has embarrassed the Holy See by revealing evidence of internal power struggles, intrigue and corruption in the highest levels of the Catholic Church governance.
The detention of butler Paolo Gabriele, one of the few members of the papal household, capped one of the most convulsive weeks in recent Vatican history and threw the Holy See into chaos as it enters a critical phase in its efforts to show the world it's serious about complying with international norms on financial transparency.
The tumult began with the publication last weekend of a book of leaked Vatican documents including correspondence, notes and memos to the pope and his private secretary. It peaked with the inglorious ouster on Thursday of the president of the Vatican bank. And it concluded with confirmation Saturday that Pope Benedict XVI's own butler was the alleged mole feeding documents to Italian journalists in an apparent bid to discredit the pontiff's No. 2.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/05/27/vatican-in-chaos-after-butler-arrested-for-leaks/

sharkey360 · « **Reply #171 on:** May 28, 2012 at 01:45 PM »

Has your church been meddling with the legislative processes and the education sector?

Science Defeats Creationism In Oklahoma In Flawless Victory

Three anti-science bills that would have severely set back the education of students in Oklahoma died quietly last week when the legislative session came to an end.

Among the bills that were killed includes:

SB 1742, which would have allowed teachers to challenge evolution using the Biblical theory known as creationism.

HB 1551 died previously in early April. That bill amounted to a full-fledged attack on climate change and evolution. Republican state Rep. Steve Russell attempted to amend an unrelated education bill, called HB 2341, to include the anti-science language of HB 1551 but that also failed.

With the end of the legislative session, all of these efforts to force creationism into science classrooms have been defeated meaning science has once again prevailed in another Republican dominated state. Earlier this month, science scored victories over creationism in Missouri and Alabama.

With these victories, Republican attempts to replace science with religion have been thwarted for the time being. Educators and scientists across the nation have been fighting in defense of science and the education of our kids for months, and now they have big wins in three different states. Science and fact once again reigns supreme.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/05/27/science-defeats-creationism-in-oklahoma-in-flawless-victory/

RU9 · « **Reply #172 on:** May 31, 2012 at 03:25 PM »

A Brave Catholic Pastor Defends Nuns, Blasts Vatican Crackdown

The Vatican sounded like the Pharisees of the New Testament;—legalistic, paternalistic and orthodox— while “the good sisters” were the ones who were feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, educating the immigrant, and so on. Nuns also learned that Catholics are intuitively smart about their faith. They prefer dialogue over diatribe, freedom of thought over mind control, biblical study over fundamentalism, development of doctrine over isolated mandates.

Far from being radical feminists or supporters of far-out ideas, religious women realized that the philosophical underpinnings of Catholic teaching are no longer valid. Women are not subservient to men, the natural law is much broader than once thought, the OT is not as important as the NT, love is more powerful than fear. They realized that you can have a conversation with someone on your campus who thinks differently than the church without compromising what the church teaches.

The Vatican is hypocritical and duplicitous. Their belief is always that someone else needs to clean up their act; the divorced, the gays, the media, the US nuns, the Americans who were using the wrong words to pray, the seminaries, etc. It never occurs to the powers that be that the source of the problem is the structure itself.

US nuns work side by side with the person on the street. They are involved in their everyday lives. Most cardinals spent less than five years in a parish, were never pastors, are frequently career diplomats. Religious women in the US refuse to be controlled by abusive authority that seeks to control out of fear. They realize that Jesus taught no doctrines, but that the church, over time, developed what Jesus taught in a systematic way.

This investigation is not about wayward US nuns. It is the last gasp for control by a dying breed, wrapped in its own self-importance. It is a struggle for the very nature of the church; who we are, how we pray, where we live, who belongs, why we believe. The early church endured a similar struggle. The old order died. The Holy Spirit won.

http://content.seekandfind.com/bulletins/14/0244/20120527B.pdf

Klaus Weasley · « **Reply #173 on:** May 31, 2012 at 05:07 PM »

I'm glad that there are some sane, compassionate men of the Church out there who really knows what it means to be a follower of Christ.

It's too the CBCP is by and large closer to the Vatican establishment rather than the more sane, liberal voices within the Church.

RU9 · « **Reply #174 on:** Jun 02, 2012 at 06:52 AM »

U.S. nuns push back against Vatican crackdown

Fri Jun 1, 2012 12:41pm GMT

By Stephanie Simon

(Reuters) - The largest organization of U.S. Catholic nuns on Friday rejected a Vatican assessment that they had fallen under the sway of radical feminism and needed to hand control of their group over to a trio of bishops.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, whose members represent about 80 percent of nuns in the United States, issued a sharp statement calling the Vatican's rebuke "unsubstantiated" and "the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency."

The nuns said the Vatican's report has "caused scandal and pain throughout the church community and created greater polarization."

Tensions between U.S. nuns and church authorities, both in Rome and in the United States, have been simmering for decades as nuns have taken an increasingly independent and outspoken role in politics and social outreach.

The Leadership Conference has aired frank discussions of issues that deeply discomfit the Vatican, from ministry to gays and lesbians to the patriarchy of church culture. Some nuns have made public calls for the church to relax its stance against contraception; others have worked to ordain women as priests, in ceremonies the Vatican does not recognize as valid.

The Vatican also complained that the nuns have focused most of their attention on social justice issues, such as poverty, and have not spent enough time promoting the church's view on divisive political questions such as abortion and gay marriage.

To bring the sisters into line, the Vatican announced earlier this spring that it would put the Leadership Conference under the effective control of a trio of bishops, who would have the power to rewrite its statutes, its meeting agendas and even its liturgical texts.

http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFBRE8500P620120601?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

Nelson de Leon · « **Reply #175 on:** Jun 02, 2012 at 09:45 AM »

They can turn over the control of their organization to the trio bishops and instantaneously resign from their membership and start a new group.

Klaus Weasley · « **Reply #176 on:** Jun 02, 2012 at 10:27 AM »

Quote

The Vatican also complained that the nuns have focused most of their attention on social justice issues, such as poverty, and have not spent enough time promoting the church's view on divisive political questions such as abortion and gay marriage.

The question is: What would Jesus do?

Klaus Weasley · « **Reply #177 on:** Jun 06, 2012 at 11:24 AM »

Anti-gay marriage bishop paid $20,000 to pedophile priests.

Please, conservative Catholics who love the Church unconditionally and think we should listen to the bishops for our morality and the health of our eternal souls, explain to me why I should keep doing it?

sharkey360 · « **Reply #178 on:** Jun 08, 2012 at 09:41 PM »

Philadelphia trial revives Catholic Church sex-abuse crisis

The statistics are staggering:

•More than 6,100 accused priests since 1950, Doerr said. She draws the number from two reports: a 2011 analysis by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City and the latest annual report by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), which tracks U.S. Catholic statistics.

•More than 16,000 victims, chiefly teenage boys, since 1950. However, "since there is no national data base tracking clergy abuse, we may never really know how many victims there are across all the dioceses and across time," said Mary Gautier, senior researcher for CARA.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2012-06-05/philadelphia-priest-sex-abuse-case/55453208/1

sharkey360 · « **Reply #179 on:** Jun 11, 2012 at 11:05 AM »

Church leaders slam Aquino admin for ‘surrendering’ to US

The religious leaders also said it is wrong that the Philippine independence is being “surrendered” to another power aside from God.

“The Lord wants every people and every nation free, free to do God’s will and not the will and whims of other nations however powerful they may be. God is the only genuine power whose will is to be honored and kept,” said the EBF.

The EBF is a fellowship of bishops from the United Church of Christ, United Methodist, Episcopal Church in the Philippines, Iglesia Filipina Independiente, and the Roman Catholic churches in the Philippines.

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/breaking-news/2012/06/11/church-leaders-slam-aquino-admin-surrendering-us-226245#.T9Vx4nPgL8I.facebook

How about freedom from religion?