I'm currently
reading on why there seems to be tension between non-Catholics, mostly the Reformed Protestants, and Catholics. Now, it's usually on the part of the Protestant who gets a bit testy when Catholicism is in the discussion of faith. From my observation Catholics are similar to Americans who "likes everyone" yet "everyone" has "issues" with Americans. The tension is fairly interesting and exciting to read; it's as if Protestants feel like they got shafted from the religious limelight or something.
Here's is poster "Blake"'s "
Top Ten" (with my commentary in below) -
10: Kiddy-fiddling. Okay, okay–I recognize that your religion is
actually against this, that other religions have the same problem, and
most of the “children” were actually teenagers (making the term
“pedophilia” clinically inaccurate), but as you know, the cover-up has
cost you a lot of goodwill.
Fair enough. But then how about public education on the elementary levels? How about the entertainment industry? Let's keep things in
perspective.
9. Bullying political behavior around the world, basically in every
country where Catholics dominate. (“The Inquisition, what a show…”)
The RCC a bully when it dominated? Please, tell me more. You gotta name more events besides one, especially the ever famous Inquisition in the 1100s. I sorta saw the Crusade card pop up.
8. Birth control. On many issues there is disagreement, even
argument, but this one just leaves Protestants scratching their heads.
(Cue Monty Python, “Every Sperm is Sacred”) And is it my imagination, or
does the Church forbid oral sex as well? (“Open thou our lips…”)
Okay, just admit you just want to be slappin' skin and "gettin' it" without the possible natural "consequence" aka end result of bed gymnastics: a child. I will be honest I never saw this issue as a legit issue mainly because a child
is the natural end result if sex is done honestly. Body and soul, right? As for oral sex, it's a grey area. I haven't anything forbidding fellatio. Sex is for procreation and bonding. Now one can argue that oral sex is the misuse of ones mouth and therefore equal to anal sex, but that confusing the anus with the vagina, or using the anus because your sex partner doesn't have a vagina.
7. Thomas Aquinas, whose theology has been the official Catholic
ideology since the 19th century, despite general agreement among
philosophers that he did not really succeed in proving the existence of
God or the truth of Catholic doctrine in general.
I've read that Plato royally fucked up science without any papers or arguments on where he went wrong. I will take the rejection of Aquinas as the same prejudice as those who rejected Plato. Plus, who are these philosophers? Are they theologians as well? Are the modern day philosophers in academia? If you're aware, the health of philosophy - as a discipline - isn't strong today (as of 2016). There seems to be no consensus on anything (that's were continental philosophy and analytical philosophy receive demerits) and a vast majority in philosophy are atheists. Atheist turned believer (a Catholic), Ed Feser tries to explain
it.
6. Do Buddhists go around proclaiming that they saw giant images of Buddha appear in the sky? ‘Nuff said.
A petty issue. I'm a millennial so I don't see this as an actually issue.
5. All that flamboyant frilly stuff. It’s ironic that they’re trying
to kick the gays out, because if gays were to start their own religion,
it would probably look a lot like Catholicism.
I have no idea where you got the idea that if homosexuals started their own religion with be similar to Catholicism. You're assuming that all of the apostles were homosexuals (Blake, are you implying about yourself?). There's a huge fallacy in the road, better not hit it. Oh wait, you already did ...
4. Exorcism. Come to think of it, Satanists and Catholicism would
probably be a natural fit. (You know–all the robes and spooky music…?)
This beyond stupid. This list is getting more pathetic as I read.
3. The “sausage factory” for turning out saints: JP2 dies, they wait a
bit, somebody claims to have been healed by ghost of JP2 (or however it
goes), JP2 advances a notch.
Meh.
2. Having a pope who is sort of infallible, or at least very
authoritative. Liberals hate the conservative ones (which is all of the
ones in recent memory), conservatives distrust a system in which some
future leader can wave his hand and presto! women priests or whatever.
It’s the religious version of having a dominatrix.
The Pope isn't "sort of" infallible. He's infallible on religious issues, which encompasses many things. As for comparing the Pope's authority to a dominatrix, well, that's stupid as well. I'm not even sure what that Blake is even aware of what the Pope's job is and why Catholics react the way they do. I don't believe the Pope, deep in some secluded chamber within the Vatican walls, has a torture chamber so he can practice BDSM on his most trusted cardinals or a random Italian boy. The reason why conservative, or traditionalists, do not like a liberal Pope because the RCC's doctrine does not uphold or gives reason for a female priests. The RCC isn't the Episcopalian Church. It's common sense, Blake.
1. Refusal to accept that you’re just one more denomination like everybody else.
Why should Catholics accept it? The RCC and Catholics acknowledge other denominations exist but so far non-Catholic denominations have not successfully refuted any of Church's teachings on why it's wrong, or "just like any other." The RCC is a religious "leader" in the way the USA is the "leader" of the free world. USA is not just like Canada, or England, or Sweden, or Norway, or Australia. It's the USA. And the RCC is the RCC.
