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Is the Roman Catholic Church in Freefall?

Thor 2 said:
Cardinal George Pell is taking leave of his Vatican duties after informing the Pope he plans to return to Australia to fight historical sexual assault charges in court and clear his name.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-...e-leave-to-fight-charges-in-australia/8664516
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It's been in free fall for 50 years minimum. Pell isn't the only Catholic authority who is guilty of covering up for pedophile priests.There have ever been a few Catholic cardinals in the US and Ireland as well as the last pope who were also involved in such actions.
 
acbytesla said:
It's been in free fall for 50 years minimum. Pell isn't the only Catholic authority who is guilty of covering up for pedophile priests.There have ever been a few Catholic cardinals in the US and Ireland as well as the last pope who were also involved in such actions.
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The rate of decent has increased somewhat though I think.

From a related news item:

The Vatican appears to have moved forward from the politically damaging and protectionist approach it took with Polish Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski.

Archbishop Wesolowski was the Apostolic Nuncio (Vatican ambassador) to the Dominican Republic from 2008. The Archbishop was investigated in that country after sexual abuse allegations were made against him, but the Vatican recalled him in 2013, invoking diplomatic immunity.

He was subsequently defrocked, lost his immunity, and died under house arrest awaiting an ecclesiastical trial — an internal Church process — in the Vatican.

Before he died, the Church indicated Wesolowski could also have faced charges in the Dominican Republic. But that did not happen, and the whole sorry matter was a public relations disaster.
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The Church is in damage control and learned from previous mistakes.

In the light of the above one has to wonder if Pell asked to go and defend himself or was pushed. Some are now asking if the Church will cut him loose.
 
Thor 2 said:
The rate of decent has increased somewhat though I think.

From a related news item:




The Church is in damage control and learned from previous mistakes.

In the light of the above one has to wonder if Pell asked to go and defend himself or was pushed. Some are now asking if the Church will cut him loose.
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Nope. There still exists a generation that hold hard to the RCC no matter what. When they shuffle off this mortal coil, then things will move apace.

Just recently, a former neighbour passed and left her house and all her worldly goods to the RCC. Thus does the church accumulate wealth. That is, however, becoming rare where before it was commonplace. Before, it would be regarded as a holy act, now it is regarded as lunacy.

Personally, I do have a will. All I own goes to my kids equally. End of. In former times people reserved at least a portion for the RCC. Those times are ended. That will take some time to filter through. The RCC is epically slow at recognising reality.
 
More like a slow, but inevitable, descent.

The Catholic Church is an institution run by celibate men. Now, why would people stay celibate like that? Is it because of their deep faith in Jesus Christ? Yeah, that could do it. Of course, it could also be because they are gay, and hiding from their own sexuality because actually living it out is against the law. Now that it isn't against the law, suddenly not very many people want to be priests or nuns. That leaves a big problem for the church. If they want to continue to have leaders, they are going to have to give up on something they considered definitive.

And of course in general they were opposed to sex, and it turns out that people kind of like sex, and once they figured out how to avoid making babies, but still having sex, they kind of turned their backs on an institution that was so anti-sex.

And then, it turns out that those guys who ran away from their sexuality, couldn't run all the way away. Some were actual pedophiles, and some others were those who preyed on the young and naïve. So these people who were so devout that they eschewed the company of women in favor of a relationship with God, actually weren't interested in women in the first place. Just boys and young men.

I don't know if the church will be able to remake itself as something other than an anti-sex league. I kind of doubt it. I think membership will continue to plummet, and within my lifetime they will be seen as mostly a curious holdover from the middle ages. There will still be millions of followers, but that's a small fraction of the total from my youth.
 
The Big Dog said:
Betteridge's law of headlines
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Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.

As with similar "laws" (e.g., Murphy's law), it is intended as a humorous adage rather than the literal truth.
 
Meadmaker said:
More like a slow, but inevitable, descent.

The Catholic Church is an institution run by celibate men. Now, why would people stay celibate like that? Is it because of their deep faith in Jesus Christ? Yeah, that could do it. Of course, it could also be because they are gay, and hiding from their own sexuality because actually living it out is against the law. Now that it isn't against the law, suddenly not very many people want to be priests or nuns. That leaves a big problem for the church. If they want to continue to have leaders, they are going to have to give up on something they considered definitive.

And of course in general they were opposed to sex, and it turns out that people kind of like sex, and once they figured out how to avoid making babies, but still having sex, they kind of turned their backs on an institution that was so anti-sex.

And then, it turns out that those guys who ran away from their sexuality, couldn't run all the way away. Some were actual pedophiles, and some others were those who preyed on the young and naïve. So these people who were so devout that they eschewed the company of women in favor of a relationship with God, actually weren't interested in women in the first place. Just boys and young men.

I don't know if the church will be able to remake itself as something other than an anti-sex league. I kind of doubt it. I think membership will continue to plummet, and within my lifetime they will be seen as mostly a curious holdover from the middle ages. There will still be millions of followers, but that's a small fraction of the total from my youth.
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That is almost certainly why one of my college friends became a priest, although "against the law" is stretching it a bit unless you mean religious law. I don't know if he molested boys but I suspect it's the case.
 
Trebuchet said:
That is almost certainly why one of my college friends became a priest, although "against the law" is stretching it a bit unless you mean religious law. I don't know if he molested boys but I suspect it's the case.
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This is a horrible thought. Don't think much of your friend do you?
 
Trebuchet said:
That is almost certainly why one of my college friends became a priest, although "against the law" is stretching it a bit unless you mean religious law. I don't know if he molested boys but I suspect it's the case.
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Bowers v. Hartwick (sp?), upholding a sodomy conviction, was decided in 1993, and only overturned in 2003.

Until 2003, homosexuality was illegal in some places in the US, although rarely enforced for several decades. Going back before that it was indeed a crime and frequently enforced. It was a capital crime in many places for centuries, and still is in a few, although not many where there are a lot of Catholics).

And of course, until about the 60s it was extremely taboo, socially. By the '80s it had started to be a bit more acceptable, and only in the last ten years has it become ok to most people, such that the ones who are not ok with it face more condemnation than the homosexuals themselves. (Of course, that varies from place to place in America.)

But of course, you get the point. For most of the church's history, it was either illegal, or strongly condemned socially, so one could not lead a normal life as a gay person. The Catholic Church provided a place where gay people could attempt to hide from their sexuality, by taking Holy Orders.

It was in the '80s when I started hearing talk about the prevalence of homosexuality among priests and nuns. I don't know if there has been a serious study that could be taken seriously, but I have heard voices from within the church say that the church needs to acknowledge that most of their priests are gay. Not some, but most. I don't know how seriously to take that, but it isn't just anti-Catholic outsiders who say it.
 
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acbytesla said:
This is a horrible thought. Don't think much of your friend do you?
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He was my friend 50 years ago. When he came to visit us 40 or so years ago, a couple of times, he always had a couple of teenage boys with him. I didn't know he was gay then, nor had near so much about Catholic sex abuse come out, but I thought it seemed a bit creepy.
I think much more highly of him now that he's come out and left the priesthood.
 
Filippo Lippi said:
And this pope, don't forget him
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Interesting article Filippo. The following was news to me, that some are comparing Francis to Trump:

It’s not meant entirely seriously,’ says a well-placed source. ‘No one is suggesting that Jorge Bergoglio is tempted by the same sins of the flesh as Donald Trump.

‘And there’s another difference. The Americans can kick out their old rogue after four years. Francis doesn’t have to stand for re-election by the conclave. Which, believe me, is lucky for him, because after the misery and nonsense of the past couple of years he’d be eliminated in the first ballot.’
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acbytesla said:
It's been in free fall for 50 years minimum. Pell isn't the only Catholic authority who is guilty of covering up for pedophile priests.There have ever been a few Catholic cardinals in the US and Ireland as well as the last pope who were also involved in such actions.
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When I was in college 30 years ago, I took a course on "Religions of the World." We discussed the RCC, and the question is, "How long will the Church survive?" They were people in my discussion group arguing that it would be gone in 30 years.

Here we are, 30 years later, asking the question, "How long can the Catholic Church survive?"

SSDD

I'm sure there were those in 1520 asking the question, "How long can the Catholic Church survive?"

(recall 1517 was when Luther posted the 95 theses and started the Reformation)
 
It is also important to remember that while the RCC is stagnating in Europe and most of North America, it is still very popular and growing in Central and South America, as well as many parts of Asia and Africa. This can easily be seen in the rise in attendance in churches that cater to immigrant populations in the US. Since the RCC is still viewed as a "Western" institution due to the prominence of the Vatican, it would be a mistake to assume the arc of he church as a whole is accurately reflected in the woes presented here.
 
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