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The Forum > Article Comments > The Ryan Report, child abuse and matters closer to home > Comments

The Ryan Report, child abuse and matters closer to home : Comments

By Shane Wood, published 26/6/2009

'A busy life filled with a routine of prayer, study, sport and work would suffice to keep us from any temptation.'

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The Catholic Church in the west is rapidly reaching the point where radical changes will have to be made for it to remain viable: there are not enough new priests in training to even run the remaining seminaries, much less staff the churches. Ultimately it will have to:

1) Employ priests from African, Asian and Latin American countries in the West -- nothing wrong with this in principle, but it will be hard to convince conservative elderly Westerners that they should follow a spiritual guide from Uganda or the Philippines, and perhaps also to convince committed Third World priests that their vocation lies in Vaucluse or Toorak.

2) Employ women priests, as more enlightened denominations have done for some time. Unfortunately even if this doubles the current supply it is not going to be nearly enough.

3) Embrace teleconferencing for its services and communion; an interesting idea but unlikely to be a hit with the current members.

If Father Wood has any other ideas which he thinks are more likely to succeed then I would be interested to hear them. If he believes that merely relaxing the celibacy requirement and improving training will be enough to keep the church supplied with priests then I suggest he looks at the similar difficulties being faced by Anglican, Episcopalian and Orthodox denominations.

There are simply no longer enough people in the West who regard priesthood as a worthwhile career choice. Father Wood should be asking himself (and his spiritual advisers) why.
Posted by Jon J, Friday, 26 June 2009 9:05:21 PM
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runner
You haven't heard of it: so what?

Is the test of whether something has happened that you have heard of it?

What reason is there to think you would have heard of it? Have you researched the question? Have you read the relevant history?

For a history of the church's strictures against every kind of sex, including married sex - which they illegalised as much as six months of the year - see 'Sex in History' by Gordon Rattray Taylor.

And for history on the church's propagation of the doctrine that the reason for Adam's expulsion was that he had performed the sexual act, or at least had acquired sexual knowledge, see 'The Ideas of the Fall and Original Sin' by N.P. Williams.

Wing Ah Ling has not misrepresented the scriptures - he has correctly represented the history of church doctrine about human sexuality.

Your attempt to argue that Christians are not sex-negative is just a laughable display of the commitment to deliberate ignorance or intellectual dishonesty that he criticises.

The fact is, the Christian religion is one long tale of sexual ignorance and suppression of sexual behaviour of one kind or another - or all kinds - punctuated by the kinds of sexual crimes and abuses the author discusses.

From the inside looking out, the Christian religion is about God so loved the world, that he sent his only son etc.

But from the outside looking it, it's just one big sexual perversion.
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Friday, 26 June 2009 11:08:10 PM
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I don't think the original sin could have been that Adam and Eve had sex, otherwise how is it that Genesis says:

1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Adam and Eve were created, then told to go forth and multiply, *then they committed some transgression or other and were made leave Eden.

Two possible explanations occur to me (and there are probably others):

1. When they were told to go forth and multiply; they were being directed to go forth and do some math: "Go forth and calculate."

2. The whole thing may be symbolic, as I believe many Biblical writings are - which is in keeping of the history of the ages, where wisdom was passed down in parable and colourful stories so that it would be remembered by subsequent generations who were predominantly illiterate.

In any case, I don't think there is any problem with Christianity; problems begin with what people DO with Christian beliefs and teachings - twisting them to their own non-spiritual purposes.
Posted by Pynchme, Saturday, 27 June 2009 12:54:23 AM
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Jardine K. Jardine

YOu write

'Wing Ah Ling has not misrepresented the scriptures - he has correctly represented the history of church doctrine about human sexuality.'

He along with you cherry pick your warped interpretation of Scriptures to justify your own perverse views.

I am actually surprised you actually agree that their is sexual perversion. Fancy you being so absolutely sure about something. I would of though you were into moral relativism.
Posted by runner, Saturday, 27 June 2009 8:29:31 AM
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<< He along with you cherry pick your warped interpretation of Scriptures to justify your own perverse views. >>

So sayeth, Runner, who managed to type the above without choking on his own hypocrisy.

He also wrote:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8753&page=0#138837

In his "cherry-picked" version of Christianity, only those who ask forgiveness of Jesus will spend eternity in Heaven - everyone else no matter how compassionate, honest and decent will rot in hell.

Aaaah religion can be used to justify anything.
Posted by Fractelle, Saturday, 27 June 2009 10:46:28 AM
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I am not saying that the Scriptures do say that the original sin was sex. I am saying that the church later propagated that doctrine.

The fact is that, based either on the scriptures, or on later interpretations, the church has managed to come to the conclusion that virtually all human sexuality, including much of married sex, is wrong.

Runner, don't bore me with your tedious personal arguments.

The Christian horror of sexuality is evident in runner's drivel.

Obviously it's hard, starting from a Christian viewpoint, to arrive at any view of sex, other than that it's something negative. According to the orthodoxy, sex in general is bad, and then an exception is made for heterosexual married sex. But according to the sexual ideal, the couple should marry as virgins, and die faithful, thus having had sex during their lifetime with one person.

This is because, as with their understanding of the origin of species, Christians start with scripture and moral precepts, and then don't bother too much about the actual evidence of facts. But if the facts obtrude themselves on their notice, they try to suppress or ignore them.

But if we look first at the actual facts of human sexuality, we find that the pattern described in the Christian ideal is virtually nowhere the norm, which is, a *series* of *nearly* exclusive monogamous relationships. Even in very Christian societies, not just Ireland, but the religious orders themselves, the pattern described by scripture and church as being our true human nature, is very little in evidence.
Posted by Wing Ah Ling, Saturday, 27 June 2009 5:21:40 PM
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