The most sinful of acts is the 'taking of life' - physically or psychologically, yet, the Church spends no discernable time critiscising the war in Iraq.

Typically church leaders choose to focus their holier than though attention on vulnerable, minority groups rather than face up to the wrong doings of their seemingly all powerful political leaders - allowing them to get away with the biggest 'sins' of all. No wonder congregations are diminishing and voter turn out is disappearing in western countries right around the world.

Rancitas, I appreciate where you’re coming from, but don’t infer design from science. If you don’t like anal sex, or if you want to point out health risks associated with the practice, fine. But don’t present personal feelings as “scientific fact”. It’s pretty hard to argue against so-called “intelligent design” or other religiously based corruptions of science if you do.

Philo says,

“The Church for decades has been plagued by homosexuals abusing boys”

The issue isn’t homosexuals, it’s paedophiles and others who have difficulty refraining from abusive sexual practices against vulnerable people.

While attacking the Catholic Church on their practices around avoiding sexual exploitation is like shooting fish in a bucket, it’s worth asking why they exclude people with a normal adult sexual life (homosexual or heterosexual) from their clergy. Has it not occurred to them that this is a selection criterion that is guaranteed to deliver them more than their fair share of people with serious psychosexual problems? Couple that with a highly authoritarian structure that seriously lacks accountability to the usual checks and balances that regulate society, and you have an obvious recipe for disaster.

The latest statement from the Vatican about homosexual unions causing “violence” to children is yet one more example of an organization hell bent on doing as much damage to their own credibility as seems humanly possible. I have enormous sympathy for people inculcated with Catholic doctrine from childhood who are struggling to relate to the real world with intelligence and integrity. But we don’t help them by getting involved in arguments about whether language is nice enough or too “judgmental” when what is being said, rather than the language it’s being said in, is seriously corrupt

saintfletcher,
Your last post was totally irrelavent. We have DOCS employees and School teachers involved in teaching and caring for the children in our Church. All with the approved accreditation.

Lol@ Philo, you have no idea what you are talking about do you?

"Real teachers with real accreditation": oh whoopee! And DOCs employees who are also employees of your church: Stiff cheddar mate! What section of DOCs do they work for? Child protection and abuse investigations? I bet they don't. Your attempted diversion is irrelevant, and making excuses for your slack church is most suspicious after what you disclosed in your previous post.

With all this so called "approved accreditation"? Accredited for what?

State Schools have better networks of recourses and actually have better trained teachers. The State School system doesn't have the scale of problems that you speak of in the Church private system.

Make up your mind Philo, does your Church have a problem, or doesn't it?

Now look at your outcomes. You are the one that said you had serious problems in your Church. I simply suggested a solution. I didn't miss the point at all, I just informed you of the set protocol accepted in the State of NSW. Your Church has a problem? Take responsibility for your failure.

Why are you now back peddling and contradicting yourself, by making excuses for your church? Behavior like yours is what perpetuates paedophilia as you help them hide in your Church in the firstplace. Are you serious about resolving the problem, or are you going to fiddle fart around whinging in one post, then denying the same issue in the next post, totally contradicting yourself?

Please be consistent and factual before you accuse gays and lesbians, in disrepute, by accusing them of a crime that they are innocent of. If you are hiding something, you are the criminal.

Now that you retreat diverting the problem by declaring it "irrelevant": just after obsessing over the same thing, I wonder, mate, what exactly are you hiding? Hate, fear or something more sinister?

Bennie, I apologise, after reading your post again, I see where you are coming from. However I must reiterate, tolerance is not in the religious dictionary. The only words expressed in the monotheistic dictionaries, are god, lie, cheat, deceive, invade, conquer, destroy, blame others.

Philo, I have many years of experience dealing with DOCS in NSW. It's full of psychopathic control freaks, brain dead dykes and fat useless emotionally crippled women. The number of wrongful vindictive mistakes and failure to act, made by this department runs to thousands of incidents a year.

Again you provide an example exemplifying the despotic approach of your belief. The only accreditation most DOCS workers have is an arts degree and a desire to hurt as many people as they can with their infantile belief in their god like superiority

Just to give you some more info Philo, during my time within the church, it was common practise for catholic and high church priests to castigate those who didn't provide in their weekly donations to the church, at least 15% of their income, even if they were destitute. In all church factions I had involvement with, a concerted effort was always made to bury sexual problems or blame the victim.

The number of sexual attacks upon parishioners reported yearly ran into the thousands, all who reported them were subjected to ridicule, denial and denunciation by the church. I found this with all the different churches, most loving and caring.

Homosexual activists have largely persuaded the courts and the mainstream
media that their sexual practices are quite innocuous and therefore pose
no threat to society. But the authors of a new study recently published
in Psychological Reports reach a very different conclusion, uncovering
disturbing evidence that homosexuality entails serious malign
consequences, at least as serious as prostitution or illegal drug use.

Parsing national survey data collected in 1996 by the National Centers for
Disease Control, the authors of the new study adduce strong evidence that
in the "disturbances of public health and social order" for which they
were responsible, "those who engaged in homosexuality were similar to
those who used illegal drugs, participated in prostitution, or regularly
smoked." In other words, the researchers limned "similar patterns" for
these groups (homosexuals, prostitutes, illegal drug users, and regular
smokers) in "criminality, dangerousness, use of illegal substances,
problems with substance abuse, mental health, and health costs."

More specifically, just as criminality, drunk driving, poor psychological
well-being, and reliance upon health care or addiction treatments were
more common among prostitutes, drug users, and heavy smokers than among
abstinent peers, even so all of these threats to public order and solvency
showed up much more among homosexuals than among heterosexuals. More
specifically, homosexuals were significantly more likely than
heterosexuals to have been booked for a crime (p<0.01), more likely to
have driven under the influence of alcohol or drugs during the previous
year (p<0.05), more likely to report a mental health problem (p<0.05),
more likely to have visited the emergency room for an illness or accident
during the previous year (p<0.10), and more likely to have received
treatment or counseling for drugs or alcohol during the previous year
(p<0.05).