The Papists

The Legend of Korra

I had a thought…it’s a bit of a stretch so bear with me. 

The other day I was watching “The Legend of Korra” with my little brother. For anyone who doesn’t know it’s the sequel series to “Avatar: The Last Airbender”. I don’t watch much TV so I’ve never really seen either show. 

After watching a few episodes I realized the plot line. The Equalists want to rid benders of their abilities. 

One character in particular stood out to me. That Soto guy who made the cars. He joined the Equalists because he didn’t like benders. He didn’t like benders because one firebender killed his wife. I sympathized with this guy a bit, it’s understandable that you’d be extremely upset after your wife dying. However I (and any other viewer of this show) thought “But you can’t blame all the benders for what one did!” Then I noticed in both Avatar and in The Legend of Korra, many firebenders had killed parents, and yet people watching this show understand “most benders are not like that”.

Which brings me to my point. I feel as though (despite it being fiction) this parallels  the scandal surrounding the Catholic Church. If you replace the groups as such, maybe you can see where I’m coming from: 

Benders= Priests

Soto (Equalists)= Media/Society

Fans of the show (people who know benders are good)= Catholic Laity

A small number of Priests did some terrible things and suddenly all Priests are bad. It’s the same mentality that Soto guy had, one bender did something bad and suddenly all benders are evil. 

But the reality is, that just like we know that most benders in the show are good, so too are most Catholic Priests.

-Javi

Yes the Pope has spoken about this topic, and in no way is the Church trying to pretend this didn’t happen. 

As Phillip and Olivier pointed out, because of the recent scandals, the Church has become so much more strict and secure about who can get involved in ministries. When I went on Mission Trip last year, I had to go to a 3 hour long Virtus training on child abuse where they talked about real cases involving Priests. Not only that but they send you emails to continue your training and you can’t continue in the ministry if you don’t stay up to date with them. 

The Church is not trying to distance itself from the scandal but from the stereotype that has come about from it. We acknowledge the fact that these things have happened and the Church is dealing with them. But we want to distance ourselves from the stereotype because in reality the stereotype doesn’t exist as I explained in this post. The majority of Priests are good holy men, we can’t blame them all for something only a few did. 

-Javi

No I don’t think molesting children is part of a “happy life”. I think it’s terrible what happens to children when they are abused and it hurts me when the Church is in these kinds of things. The truth is, the statement that “so many priests do it” is a lie. I acknowledge that there have been incidents, too many if you ask me, but one cannot hear of some rare cases and then assume all Priests are pedophiles. We need to pray for our clergy that they may continue on their path to become holy men of God. 

Here’s some quick facts about the amount of Priests that have been involved.

-Philip Jenkins, is a professor of history and religious studies at Penn State University, and has written a book on the topic. He estimates that 2% of priests sexually abuse youths and children. 

-Sylvia M. Demarest, a lawyer from Texas has been tracking accusations against priests since the the mid-1990s. By 1996, she had identified 1,100 priests who had been accused of molesting children. She predicts that when she updates the list, the total will exceed 1,500 names. This represents about2.5% of the approximately 60,000 men who have been active priests in the U.S. since 1984.

-Conservative columnist Ann Coulter claimed, without citing references, that there are only 55 “exposed abusers” in a population of 45,000 priests. This is an abuse rate of 0.12%.

-Various news services reported that 200 Roman Catholic priests in the Philippines have been investigated for “sexual misconduct and abuses” over the past two decades. That would represent almost 3% of the total population of about 7,000 priests. However, it appears that misconduct includes many offenses, from child abuse to rape to keeping adult mistresses..

-  Cynthia Stewart’s “The Catholic Church: A brief popular history.”

-In England according to

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/may/16/catholic-church-vatican-letter-child-abuse

The percentage is less than half of one percent.

Also, it’s not only in the Catholic Church that these things happen. Nor has the Church completely dismissed these incidents. She is doing a lot to try and avoid scandals like these.

Here are some other links about the how child abuse is not specifically a Church problem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BxH6nGH-o4&list=PLA86DD3F621629FFC&index=56&feature=plpp_video

http://old.post-gazette.com/forum/comm/20020303edjenk03p6.asp

http://www.themediareport.com/fast-facts/

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/24/opinion/main1933687.shtml

“Catholicism isn’t about a handful of priests, who don’t know what it means to be a Priest” -Matthew Kelly

-Javi

On Celibacy

In the debate on Gay Marriages, many people use the argument that celibacy leads to a life of depression and loneliness.

However, the Catholic Church (in my opinion) is the only Church that can say with authority that celibate people can live happy—if not happier—lifestyles. 

Why?

Because our Priests and Religious take vows and promises of Celibacy and find it much more rewarding. I’ve spoken with many Priests and Seminarians who are against changing the rule on Celibate Priests. I also heard from a Priest that the hardest Promise isn’t of Celibacy…but of Obedience. 

Here’s the thing: When we desire sex and romance, there is a much deeper desire that is rooted in there…it’s for love. We all desire to be loved. God is love. He is infinite Love. So those desires for sex and romance are satisfied through God, because in reality; only He can satisfy.

“Out of the depths You cry ‘Come and be satisfied!’ Father You sing, over Your children!” -Matt Maher

-Javi

For this question, I had my friend Baby Tom answer it. He’s a pretty knowledgable guy about this stuff: 

Ok so, this is how it’s gonna go down:

Basically, there are 5 easy lessons for Catholic dating. Easy as in easy to understand. Definitely not easy to follow through with. The main thing to remember is even if you get lost or led astray by Satan, God can and will redeem you and your significant other. So do not worry if something bad happens, because Christ can always turn it into something good. Now for the steps: You are ready for dating in the Catholic perspective if:

1) Solid friendship: do you have a solid friendship with this person? Do you hang out a lot and share many friends? Have you had some good times with his/her family? Do you share many common interests? Do you laugh more than you argue with the other? ~ friendship is first because without it, a relationship is nothing more than a business transaction. You become users of one another not looking for the good for each other, but seeking self-satisfaction and the heart cannot be kept in that kind of interaction and be safe.

2) Built on Christ: do you share your faith with one another? Do you both go to confession either monthly or at least often enough to grow in holiness? Do you go to mass together and apart from one another? Do you adore Christ in the Sacrament privately? Do you and your possible significant other pray with other friends? ~ Listen, if Christ is not the foundation of the friendship above, it will fail→guaranteed. Maybe not today or tomorrow or in 50 years but eventually, it will falter because Christ is not the Rock it is built on. Pray often with your love interest and without them. If you don’t, your bond will be weaker than if you did.

3) Discernment: have you offered up this possible relationship in prayer during Mass or adoration? Do you ask God to guide you? If you’re a man, do you ask Mary to let you see her daughter through Mary’s eyes? If you’re a woman, do you ask Christ to let you see his son through Christ’s eyes? Because these two are the only perfect figures in the universe and their relationship is eternal and perfect, they will show you the purity and preciousness of the other if you let them show you. You must discern. This kind of decision is one of the most important of your lifetime – it will help determine who you will be with for a great portion of your life so you need to ask the Holy Spirit to guide you through it.

4) Peace: do you have peace in making a decision to date the other person? Now it is important to make a disclaimer here: I am not talking about absolute peace (aka no worries at all/not nervous at all). Just as a man should be nervous when proposing to his future bride, so also should the two be discerning a relationship. If there are no nerves in it, it is not something worth fighting for because there’s no sense of adventure. The kind of peace that both should have is the same peace that Mary and Christ had at their most iconic/troubling moments of life: Mary meeting the angel Gabriel and she was “troubled”, yet she submitted her life to God’s Will. Christ was suffering true agony in the Garden of Gethsemane yet he offered his life to the Father. They originally had no peace in these realms to offer their lives, yet they offered themselves to the Father’s Will and was graced with true peace. They probably were still “troubled” but they had the peace they needed to say, “Not my will but yours be done,” and “I am the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your Word.” Asking yourself if you have peace is extremely important.

5) Finally, have a willingness to leave each other if called to do so: you do not need one another, I repeat, you do not need one another. This is the opposite of what society tells us: “you need a guy/girl in order to be happy/successful.” But it is not true. Ask yourself are you really that miserable being single? I bet you can name way more good times than bad while being single. What makes you think you’ll be miserable being single a year from now or 2 or 10? You won’t be. You’d have friends and family always and as long as you are with Christ, you already have everything. A desire to have the other is greater than a need for the other. Think about it: Christ doesn’t need us yet He wants us. Doesn’t that love mean more than if He needed us? Yes it does. Because He died willingly and it was not necessary, it means everything. Also, if you are both called into a relationship and then called out of it you MUST follow that call. If you truly want to be happy, you must be willing to pick up your cross and follow Him, no matter what.

But, do not worry. The most common phrase in the Bible is “Do not worry/do not be afraid.” Christ has you in His hands and if you just keep looking up at Him, He will guide you to the eyes of your future spouse.

-Baby Tom

I hope that answered your question, God Bless!

-Javi 

We don’t.

But we do recommend you get the facts instead of relying on prejudice and stereotype.

God bless you!

So let’s just get this straight

beholybehappy:

• Celibacy is not a repression of lust; and
• Marriage is not a legitimate justification to indulge in lust

We all need to rely on Christ to overcome sin and to transform our hearts so that we can understand and live out an authentic sexuality.

This is what the Church teaches. Want to know more?

Ultimately, the first marriage of Adam and Eve in Genesis anticipates the final “marriage of the Lamb” in Revelation, that is the marriage of Christ and His Church, and in some way gives us a foretaste of that eternal union. Sexuality isn’t just about sexual intercourse, as much as our culture rejects that notion. Just like the celibate person, the “asexual” person expresses his sexuality by becoming a sincere gift to others, which leads to a a kind of spiritual fruitfulness.

For more information, I would recommend Blessed Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.

Be holy! Be happy!

- Phillip

There is a big difference between not supporting gay marriage and illegalizing sodomy. Christians are morally obligated to not support gay marriage because that means supporting sin, but people do, of course, have the capacity to sin if they wish. Free will, you know. And the government is not yet, thank God, in the habit of ruling every minute detail of our lives. (Though sodomy was illegal in many states for a long time. I bet some of those laws are still on the books. And just for the record, I think such laws are ridiculous. How are you going to enforce them? Peer into people’s bedroom windows? Less government is better government.)

Lying is illegal, actually. Fraud and perjury, for example, are strongly frowned upon by the law. Unless of course it’s a politician doing it.

And personally, I don’t want the government regulating any relationship, whether homo- or heterosexual. People are going to pair off with or without government interference, and the Church will continue to help baptized Christians receive the grace of sacramental marriage no matter what the government decides to do.

As for personal belief: that’s just it. It’s not “just” a personal belief. Where the law and morality overlap, we’re talking about something that is not simply personal opinion, but objective fact. That is why Christians have the right and the obligation to evangelize for the truth—not to force their religion on others, but to debate in the public sphere. Particularly about something as fundamentally important as the definition of marriage and family. The law has always had to legislate in such objective moral areas—“thou shall not kill,” for example.

God bless you.

The Catechism reminds us that we are all called to embrace our sexual and gendered identity (CCC# 2333). In Scripture, St. Paul condemns the idea of  men trying to women and women who try to be men. Inasmuch as dressing in a drag is rejection of one’s physical sex and attempt to become another, it is not morally acceptable. 

There is a much fuller exploration of this issue here.

None of this means that there is no place in the Church for the LBGT* community or that anyone who suffers from sex or gender confusion is a bad person or anything like that. I strongly recommend that any Catholics who are struggling with this issue or have questions read the relevant Catechism passages and speak to spiritual director, preferably a priest.

God bless!