Vatican welcomes Anglicans into Catholic Church

[FlaSoxxJim]

ROME, Italy (CNN) -- The Vatican said Tuesday it has worked out a way for groups of Anglicans who are dissatisfied with their faith to join the Catholic Church.

The Vatican says more Anglicans have expressed an interest in joining the Catholic Church.

 

The Vatican says more Anglicans have expressed an interest in joining the Catholic Church.

 

The process will enable groups of Anglicans to become Catholic and recognize the pope as their leader, yet have parishes that retain Anglican rites, Vatican officials said. The move comes some 450 years after King Henry VIII broke from Rome and created the Church of England, forerunner of the Anglican Communion.

 

The parishes would be led by former Anglican clergy -- including those who are married -- who would be ordained as Catholic priests, said the Rev. James Massa, ecumenical director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

 

CNN Story

 

Interested in hearing varied thoughts on this.

[iamshack]

CNN Story

 

Interested in hearing varied thoughts on this.

Maybe they needed fewer child-molesting clergymen...

Edited October 21, 2009 by iamshack

[southsideirish71]

Maybe they needed fewer child-molesting clergymen...

 

They could solve that by allowing clergy to marry. That and their crazy secrecy and inability to apply the laws of god and punishment to their own. Lets excommunicate the young rape victim who has an abortion, yet Father Pokey gets a new address because of the complaints from the locals on his production of Roman Polanski's greatest home hits with the local altar boy population.

 

[Rex Kickass]

This has everything to do with the issue of gay clergy.

[FlaSoxxJim]

This has everything to do with the issue of gay clergy.

 

Absolutely. The Roman Catholic Church is willing to be radically inclusive toward Anglicans as long as they are of like-minded intolerance regarding openly gay clergy. Beyond that, though, the logistics of what is apparently being proposed by the Vatican seem like they would be quite a challenge.

[Texsox]

There is an wrong assumption here that being married will somehow stop someone from being a pedophile. Pedophiles and child molesters want access to children. They take jobs as coaches, teachers, janitors in schools, volunteer with youth groups, and yes, become clergy. No matter what their vocation, it is very unfair to rip others who share that vocation or the many people involved in those organizations. There are very few things I can't find a laugh at, but the abuse of children is one of them. The group that should be scorned is pedophiles and abusers, not coaches, teachers, clergy, etc.

[Kyyle23]

There is an wrong assumption here that being married will somehow stop someone from being a pedophile. Pedophiles and child molesters want access to children. They take jobs as coaches, teachers, janitors in schools, volunteer with youth groups, and yes, become clergy. No matter what their vocation, it is very unfair to rip others who share that vocation or the many people involved in those organizations. There are very few things I can't find a laugh at, but the abuse of children is one of them. The group that should be scorned is pedophiles and abusers, not coaches, teachers, clergy, etc.

 

 

Tex, i just dont know where you are going and where you are coming from sometimes.

[bmags]

Those that protected the pedophiles are in a group just as bad.

 

BUT, the implication with this ruling kind of seems to be you don't need to be celibate to be a Catholic priest. And also that Tudors was such a hit it moved it's way into Catholic policy.

 

The policy of celibacy they probably liked as a way to show how strong their messengers of God are, but surely they realize what an consequential policy it is. Is it not as admirable especially in the states to show a man (not a woman, still, correct) who can make his marriage work?

[FlaSoxxJim]

Tex, i just dont know where you are going and where you are coming from sometimes.

 

I get where he's coming from, and yes the easy slams at the catholic church over sex abuse cases can become tedious (Not that they aren't warranted when they shine a light on the church turning a blind eye to known pedophile clergy, as pointed out in another post above). But all of hat is a distraction to the thread topic.

[Texsox]

Churches, not just the Catholic Church, "protected" clergy while they were erroneously "protecting the privacy" of the victims. Schools protected the perpetrators while trying to avoid negative publicity on their schools. Sports teams protected pedophile coaches while protecting their and sometimes the victim's interests. Back in the dark ages, rape was treated the same way. The wrongly placed shame on victims of sex crimes created a climate where offenders were protected. Thankfully that has changed.

 

The climate has changed, for example, unless you believe that female teachers abusing their young teen students is a new phenomenon, schools hid those crimes. Yet, when teachers are mentioned, we rarely start the pedophile comments.

[bmags]

fine, all adult figures are rapists.

[NorthSideSox72]

They could solve that by allowing clergy to marry. That and their crazy secrecy and inability to apply the laws of god and punishment to their own. Lets excommunicate the young rape victim who has an abortion, yet Father Pokey gets a new address because of the complaints from the locals on his production of Roman Polanski's greatest home hits with the local altar boy population.

Of equal importance is allowing women to be clergy.

 

If the Catholic priesthood includes men and women, and allows marriage, this isn't going to change existing priests that are creeps into non-creeps. But it attracts a very different and much broader audience to the priesthood, and so the priesthood is no longer seen as a place to run and hide from your issues in that regard.

 

[bmags]

Of equal importance is allowing women to be clergy.

 

If the Catholic priesthood includes men and women, and allows marriage, this isn't going to change existing priests that are creeps into non-creeps. But it attracts a very different and much broader audience to the priesthood, and so the priesthood is no longer seen as a place to run and hide from your issues in that regard.

 

Hopefully, within a decade, these final steps will be seen as fruitful to attract a broader audience for Catholics. Because I find it despicable.

[Soxy]

I joined the Anglican church several years ago--and to be honest the tide is really in the opposite directions. Tons of Catholics come over to the Anglican fold (even our priests--former Roman priests that left to get married). I don't think that this will be a mass exodus for Anglicans.

[HuskyCaucasian]

Absolutely. The Roman Catholic Church is willing to be radically inclusive toward Anglicans as long as they are of like-minded intolerance regarding openly gay clergy. Beyond that, though, the logistics of what is apparently being proposed by the Vatican seem like they would be quite a challenge.

I wont fault the Catholic church for being "intolerance" towards gay clergy. Heck, i fault those who DO tolerate gay clergy. If you claim to be a Christian bible based religion, and you say homosexuality isnt a sin, you arent following the bible. The bible has many things you can interpret, but homosexuality is not one of them.

 

It's pretty clear:

Leviticus 18:22 - "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable."

Romans 1:26-27 - "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."

1 Corinthians 6:9 - "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral... nor homosexual offenders... will inherit the kingdom of God."

 

The problem is too many Christian denominations are not sticking true to the word of God. They are bending to popular culture.

[FlaSoxxJim]

I joined the Anglican church several years ago--and to be honest the tide is really in the opposite directions. Tons of Catholics come over to the Anglican fold (even our priests--former Roman priests that left to get married). I don't think that this will be a mass exodus for Anglicans.

 

Agreed, the RC church is going to continue to lose more members to the more liberal Episcopal lines than it will gain from having conservative hardliners join the fold.

[Soxy]

I wont fault the Catholic church for being "intolerance" towards gay clergy. Heck, i fault those who DO tolerate gay clergy. If you claim to be a Christian bible based religion, and you say homosexuality isnt a sin, you arent following the bible. The bible has many things you can interpret, but homosexuality is not one of them.

 

It's pretty clear:

Leviticus 18:22 - "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable."

Romans 1:26-27 - "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."

1 Corinthians 6:9 - "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral... nor homosexual offenders... will inherit the kingdom of God."

 

The problem is too many Christian denominations are not sticking true to the word of God. They are bending to popular culture.

Yeah, and Leviticus also has provisions for HOW to sell your child into slavery properly, how a rape victim should be forced to marry the perp, that you can't sow seeds together in a field, that you can't eat pork or shell-fish.

 

Paul also says that women should have their head covered in church and remain silent. Sometimes (like in Paul) the Bible says that we are saved by faith and faith alone but Luther's most hated book of James says that we our actions are tantamount to salvation. And the correct translation is sodomites. So, hopefully you aren't planning on raping any strangers. Or sticking your p in anything other than a v. Because anything involving your p that isn't a v is sodomy.

 

Also, a comment on the adultery thing--aren't you the married man that is always posting about hot chicks? And drooling over them? Because I seem to remember Jesus saying that anyone that has lusted after someone in his heart is an adulterer. In which case you should probably pluck out your eyes that are causing you to sin. Just saying.

 

And don't even get me started on Divorce in the bible.

[FlaSoxxJim]

The problem is too many Christian denominations are not sticking true to the word of God. They are bending to popular culture.

 

Not all Christian denominations are biblical literalists, as you well know. If you are willing to accept that a 7-day creation and a boat filled with two of every animal on earth are not literal fact, you should be able to respect the opinions of modern Christians who think the Old Testament authors were wrong about their God's views on homosexuality as well.

 

[bmags]

And yet, being gay is not in the ten commandments, many of which are broken every day, and Christians ask forgiveness for from their God, with the hope that with Jesus in their heart he will forgive them. And they will continue to sin, and they will continue to ask for forgiveness.

 

But being gay, said to be wrong by the cultural standards of millenia ago, is intolerable.

 

If I wanted to de-legitimize the bible I would merely quote leviticus all day. And it would be countered this would the Old Testament, and then I can quote silly quotes from then. But the core of Christianity, unchanging, was that those that allow their full faith into their Lord and God, and work to be a good Christian shall be redeemed. But apparently this can only apply to a certain segment of people? What a joke.

[BigSqwert]

Religion...bwahahaha.

[bmags]

Actually looking back, I hate my post because it iimplies each moment of love in a gay person's life is some individual choice as such as committing a sin. And I don't believe that. Essentially, this is like saying people of Indian descent cannot be Christians.

 

 

[NorthSideSox72]

Religion...bwahahaha.

Atheists... bwahahaha.

 

Pointless.

 

[FlaSoxxJim]

Essentially, this is like saying people of Indian descent cannot be Christians.

 

And that's wrong?

 

[southsider2k5]

I wont fault the Catholic church for being "intolerance" towards gay clergy. Heck, i fault those who DO tolerate gay clergy. If you claim to be a Christian bible based religion, and you say homosexuality isnt a sin, you arent following the bible. The bible has many things you can interpret, but homosexuality is not one of them.

 

It's pretty clear:

Leviticus 18:22 - "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable."

Romans 1:26-27 - "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."

1 Corinthians 6:9 - "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral... nor homosexual offenders... will inherit the kingdom of God."

 

The problem is too many Christian denominations are not sticking true to the word of God. They are bending to popular culture.

 

The Gospel according to

St. Matthew

7

 

1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.

2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. Mk. 4.24

3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

[Rex Kickass]

I wont fault the Catholic church for being "intolerance" towards gay clergy. Heck, i fault those who DO tolerate gay clergy. If you claim to be a Christian bible based religion, and you say homosexuality isnt a sin, you arent following the bible. The bible has many things you can interpret, but homosexuality is not one of them.

 

It's pretty clear:

Leviticus 18:22 - "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable."

Romans 1:26-27 - "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."

1 Corinthians 6:9 - "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral... nor homosexual offenders... will inherit the kingdom of God."

 

The problem is too many Christian denominations are not sticking true to the word of God. They are bending to popular culture.

 

I remember this coming up with a priest at a catholic center I went to at IU Gary. He talked a lot about how there are different schools of thought on what Paul actually meant when he talked about this. The text you are talking about in Romans refers to orgies in Rome. The text you are talking about in Corinthians may very well be simply cultural, or it may have referred to extramarital pedophilia. The word Paul used was arsenokoitai which is an old greek word, that many scholars think refers to the practice of married men committing adultery with younger boys. Also tied in with that word in the particular passage you cite is malakoi which I understand to mean morally lax. So it's very possible that Paul never meant to speak of homosexuals in a broad brush, but rather a specific subgroup of people he considered to be immoral. Also, in the same book that Paul wrote, he also viewed men with long hair as "unnatural" as well, so Paul's views may be colored as cultural.

 

In fact, I believe the Bible should also be viewed with the culture of the religion it represents in mind. It wasn't until the fifth century that the concept of the trinity was introduced into the Bible, and that working with translation after translation over 2000 years, there are some changes to the text itself based on those translations that may shade meaning in a number of ways.

 

The intolerance of "gay clergy" by the Catholic church is shameful anyway and a direct violation of their own catechism which does specifically adress homosexuality as present and valid. It calls for gay people to have a celibate life but does recognize that a homosexual being homosexual is not specifically sinful in and of itself.