The dark side of Roman Catholic Church

Hi there,
the basic problem for the Catholic Church is that, according to its own doctrines, it is sinless. It is theologically incapable of admitting error. We all sin, but only the Catholic Church denies this. It will admit that its followers sin, and appologise on their behalf, but of its leadership, they are sinless. Therefore, the crusades as such cannot be appologised for, they were called for by a pope. Some crusaders may have gone off the rails, but that is all. Likewise, some catholics may have sinned during ww2, but not the Catholic church as such.

Concerning the German churches during the Nazi era, unfortunately, both Catholics and Protestants largely cooperated with the Nazis. They did defend their own rights, but in the narrowest sence. Within this defence, certain casualties were taken. These should not be exaggerated, however. In 1937, a forty year old Catholic priest was charged by the Cologne court with making seditious statements. One of those statements lamented the number of priests who had spoken out against the Nazis. Only 60 of the 25,500 priests in Germany had cases pending against them, he declared.

In Bavaria, where there were 5,750 Catholic clergy, 8 were executed by the Nazis, and 312 suffered some form of imprisonment. Not one bishop in all Germany even went to jail during the Nazi era. Likewise, for the Protestants of Bavaria, where there were about 1,500 clergy, none were executed, and 34 suffered some form of imprisonment. This is hardly indicative of a general church resistance to the regime. Certainly, for the Catholics, the annihilation of the Jews prompted nothing like the mass action, boycotts and protests which characterized the Kulturkampf of the 1870s. After the war, Cardinal Faulhaber (who had only months before described the war as an exemplary model of a just war) initiated a study to show the “powerful and nearly universal resistance of the clergy against Nazi ideology and church policy.” In this way, the “myth of Catholic resistance” was created. Having rejected any guilt, they now decided that, in accordance with the papal radio address, they were victims and heroes. In fact, as seen, resistance was confined to “a few critical individuals and groups ... The Catholic Church largely co-operated with the Nazi regime.” In Austria, out of 8,000 Catholic clergy, 35 were executed. This did not stop the Austrian episcopacy from releasing a statement declaring: “no group had to make greater sacrifice in terms of property and wealth, of freedom and health, of life and blood as Christ’s church.” One consequence of this comforting myth was that church leaders expressed sorrow for their own suffering, and largely neglected the real victims of the Nazi era.
Colin

 

What utter rubbish Colin, of course the Catholic Church is not sinless, you are muddling aspects of infallibility here which is only in extremely defined and limited areas regarding matters of Faith. The Church is peopled by humans full of virtues and vices who act according to their will at times rather than to God's Will and terrible things have and can be done in the name of the RCC, on the other hand so have many wonderful and good things been done.

 

There were always some group of dissent in the religion, and such dissent group happened to be in case of Nazis and Franco regime too. However, it doesn't exonerate the religion from the charges of masacres.
B-G, watch out for yourself because you may be contaminated with the ideas on this board and then you may be condemned by RC as a heretic dissent. Problem is that RC demonstrated too many problems in the past for us to ignore and to forget. The right way for RC to repent on the past is that they should declare " Decompostion of Roman Catholic" give up their business, which may not be possible until they are decomposed by the Lord.

 

Briony, are you saying the Catholic Church has admitted to containing errors and sin within its official teachings and practice?? That church councils can be in error, that church doctrines may be faulty?

 

Not at all Colin, your post suggested that the RCC could not sin in any way which of course is nonsense. However, in the area of defining dogmatic truths by the pope this is where the difficult concept of infallibility comes in.

Church councils can have error introduced but I shall not air my opinions here as I am uncertain of my grounds. As a Traditional Catholic, we have grave concerns regarding Vatican 2 which has promoted Modernism and Liberalism which have been roundly denounced by a succession of previous popes, AND there were a number of protestant advisors admitted to the Council which is all rather peculiar....

 

Eliyahu, as a Traditionalist I am part of a group which is reviled by the mainstream church....better I was a voodoo dancer at the moment, (this of course grieves the group that I worship with) However, despite graves concerns I see myself as a catholic.

 

Oooh, does that mean you're Opus Dei or a Tridentine/ Lefebvrist?

Colin, the Catholic idea of infallibility attaches primarily to the episcopacy as a whole/ collectively (ultimately vested in the Pope but only if the Bishops in Council are unclear or cannot decide) and appertains to matters of faith/ doctrine only. What it isn't is a guarantee that individual priests and bishops are infallible and are somehow not sinners - even murderers; the Catholic Church explicitly says that that is not what infallibility means. Therefore whilst Church Councils cannot err on matters of doctrine, individual Bishops at those Councils can and do; in theory a Bishop could be a serial killer, state that he believes that Krishna saves and still deliberate at the Council and that would not invalidate the doctrinal decisions of that Council.

Just for comparison, let's take a Baptist parallel: suppose one of the delegates to the SBC Conference which produced Faith and Message 2000 was secretly engaged in an adulterous affair - does that in any way invalidate F&M2000?

 

Gosh Matt 10 out of 10...I attend a SPPX chapel.

 

Briony,
The only thing that really scares me about the RCC is the fact the average Catholic doesn't care what the Pope or Church says. Especially in America but it seems to be growing rampant everywhere except in Central and South America. It seems more and more Catholics support abortion and homosexual marriage even though His Holiness Pope Benedict and John Paul the 2 both condemned those philosophies. (Note: I'm not painting the whole Church this is just an observation.) It's good to see Roman Catholics like you.
In Christ,
Nate

 

B-G, just out of interest, do you regard the current Magisterium as being the Real Deal (TM)? or do you lean more to THESE GUYS ?

 

Matt I could not access your link. Regrettably there is a lot of disharmony within the RCC with Modernism and Liberalism endeavouring to devour 2000 years of orthodoxy. The politics and wrangling frankly make my head hurt.

I love the Tridentine Mass for its transcendent beauty and timelessness. I concentrate on the treasury of spiritual teaching available to the catholic in order to grow in my interior life and mature in my desire to become more atuned in the Will of the Divine. The experience of religion is as individual as the members of the human race.

I agree that a lot of folks who are catholic seem to have become disorientated in what God Wills, it would be unfair to state only Catholics have this disorientation.....the world is very alluring and very distracting to one and all.

 

The link was to the True Catholic Church.

 

I understand there have existed certain group which was rather focussing on the truth itself, but they were all the time very minor or overshadowed by worldly powerful group like Jesuits.

Look at Thomas A Kempis, I liked his book Immitation of Christ very much. But if anyone like him lived today, he would depart from RC and join a sincere group of Protestants. I understand he is recognized by Jesuits as well, and even Pascal might be influenced by him, John Wesley too. In that aspect, I understand that it is absurd to condemn all the RC's as the same, but would maintain the same overview since such group are scarce to find.

 

I checked out the link Matt, and yes they are on the fringe of the RCC and in my humble opinion flirting with heresy being sedanticivist (I think that the spelling is right!), meaning the Chair of St Peter is vacant, I do not believe that to be the case, I do believe there are serious problems from the top of the Earthly church downwards however......

 

Eliyahu, there are many who attempt to use A Kempis as a guide within the church. There are those who are luke warm or even gelid but call themselves RCC. That is humanity for you, I am sure if I attended your church I would find admirable Christians and some less so. It is very easy to come across people who are poor examples anywhere, and we tend to tar the whole group by those examples, again this is a tendency of human beings....is it not great that the Lord God can be bothered with such a motley crew.

 

I would have little argument with Roman Catholic, once they are dominated by the peaceful people like A Kempis, Francis, and some Brethren of common life, etc. even though I may want peaceful discussions on many doctrinal issuses. I don't think they were on the hardline with such doctrines.

 

The Roman Catholic Church practices the deeds of the NICOLAITANES more than any other denomination. This alone causes them to be the greatest hindrance to salvation among all of the denominations.

 

Briony, come join us on sola island , you'll see we don't practice as the nicolaitanes.

 

As I have no idea what niciolantes means I shall continue on, but thank you I think.

A late night tonight as I went to Mass for Holy Thursday where the ceremonies included the washing of the feet by the priest with twelve altar boys (it was elbow jostling room up at the altar!) and then the stripping of the altar afterwards. The congregation is then invited to watch for a little while in commemoration of the disciples with our Lord in the garden. It makes me rather weepy due to the solemnity.

Friday services are from noon until just before 3pm. This is a desolate period running into Holy Saturday . All the ceremonies are to remind us of the Passion and of course the glorious resurrection of Our Lord on Sunday.

 

'nicao'"to lord over" and 'laitans' "laity". Therefore the thought is that the Lord Jesus hates the idea of any mediator between God and Man, such as a priest or pastor, besides Himself.

They were a class of professing Christians, who sought to bring into the church a false freedom or licentiousness, thus abusing Paul's doctrine of grace (2 Pet. 2:15, 16, 19), and were probably identical with those who held the "doctrine of Baalam" mentioned in Rev. 2:14. Baalam caused the Israelites to sin by inciting them to eat meat sacrificed to idols and to fornicate (Num. 25:1-2), two of the few restrictions placed upon Gentile converts to Christianity by the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:29).