Couldn't help but share this.........

[tp]

During the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church penalized Protestants by depriving them of their property, their freedom, and their life.

Actually that happened the Orthodox believers in Croatia in the 1940s as well. Even those that did finally convert to catholicism still lost their property and goods.

According to Canon 665 (Section 2), monks and nuns who leave their religious community without permission, desiring to get away from the power of their superiors, are to be “sought out” in order to “help” them return and “persevere” in their vocation.

The only way from them to break away for good from their superiors 'searching out' probably would have been for them to get married as marriage has been big no no for 'clergy' since celibacy (for the priesthood anyway) was introduced by Gregory VII in 1080'ish.

Well that's my thoughts on it anyway.

[Wasp]

blueangel said:

the nonsense in that post could only come from n.ireland where a bizarre and unhealthy fascination with the catholic church seems to exsist in some minds.

Man you are one narrowminded bigot stating this could only come from N.Ireland. None of this comes from any Unionist site or infact N.Ireland/British site.

BTW why is it nonesense, please explain what is nonsense in my post. If not then keep quiet because obviously your pretence of being athiest shines for your defence of the Catholci church by suggesting that what I posted could only come from N.Ireland. Try various Catholci websites including there very own Catholic encyclopedia. You can be a right bigot sometimes.

[Blue Angel]

indeed - anti-catholicism is big in some sections of the american evangelical movement to -i retract my remark - it could have come from there to -where again there is an unhealthy obsession with the roman catholic church. Look up the know-nothings one day for historical antecedents of that in an american context.

i'll be quiet now and go back to been a bigot - i shall endeavour to match such fine masters of the craft as aidan and blueman perhaps. I will compose posts about the evil empire of protestants that is the united kingdom to counter ones about the unfree sectarian romish rebel pirate state perhaps After all we have to have equal time for eejits from all sides so i will represent the nationalist side in this context to balance things out

[Wasp]

Now that did really make me laugh, you can be quite funny and I am being serious. Anyway could you tell me what part is nonesense. If what I have stated is true and I did say for you to check the Catholic encylopedia, then surely there is a very big fixation of Protestants from the Catholic church and that is without evening mentionig there views on the orthodox and jewish faiths.

[Blue Angel]

my fiancee has a point for you wasp and she is from the orthodox church - she just pointed out that the russian orthodox church was repsonsible for severe persecutions of protestants as well as the roman catholic church. She was reading this thread and mentions that before the early 20th century marriage for example between protestants and orthodox church members in russia was illegal and you could end up doing a hefty jail sentence for it. There was also HEAVY persectuion of protestants in many areas of russia where they were regarded as heretics or seeking to lead the russian people into apostasy. And that's without even mentioning the troublesome matter of pogroms against the jews in russia - the catholic church sure wasn't carrying those ones out (though it carried enough of its own out elsewhere)

The point been that all christian religous groups have tried killing each other in the name of love at points.

My own take is very simplistic and perhaps a bit naive and is this - however lifts their hand against another in the name of their faith instantly renounces that faith.

[Blue Angel]

here you go -article 85 of the old russian legal code - helpfully provided by the missus :- Art. 85. For Russian subjects of Orthodox and Roman Catholic confessions marriages with non-Christians and with those of the Protestant confession and also marriages with pagans are entirely prohibited.

there was a kind of hierachy in the country about christianity - orthodox was best, catholics were grudgingly seen as christian and protestants were seen as troublemakers often inspired by foreigners.

this kind of shite from all quarters tends to confirm my belieft that all of them are royal pains in the bum - and that the following quote abouts theologians in all religions are a good one to have in your head at all times:-

Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: 'My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.' This stranger is a theologian." - Denis Diderot
"It is a thousand times better to know how to cook than it is to understand any theology in the world." - Robert G. Ingersoll

[Wasp]

I have read very little on the Russian orthodox Church as my main interests lie in western faiths, various branches within the Catholic Church, Protestant Church, touched on Islam, Billy Graham, Charasmatics and a wee bit of Hindu.

It is not so much what they done in the past, it is what continues to go on in the present day and what still stands. For example do you know man is currently raising the dead just like Jesus did?

[Blue Angel]

if jesus ever raised the dead which i don't believe he did - if jesus did exsist i believe he was something akin to a visionary such as gandhi or asoka who was trying to vainly tell the world to stop fighting and killing in the name of religion. I don't see myself as belonging to any church simply because they all have the arrogance at some level or other of declaring themselves 'right' and everyone else 'wrong'. They think in binary terms and it's non-productive. I find things to despise in both Opus Dei and Ian Paisley's outlooks - as both are sanctiomonious and amazingly arrogant to give you an example of both Catholic and Protestant traditions you will be familar with.

[Wasp]

A modern example of the vaticans spiritual coercion is the 1962 election in Malta. The Catholic Church officially declared that it was a mortal sin to vote for Mintoff (the Labor Party candidate).

Maltese Catholics who voted for Mintoff were placed under interdict. It became a mortal sin to vote for Mintoff. Catholics who voted for Mintoff were banned from church life and from the sacraments. They were denied a Christian burial. Instead, they were buried in a section of the cemetery that was called “the rubbish dump,” implying that the soul of the dead person was damned.

[Wasp]

There are things in the bible which are open to debate, there are things which can be twisted around, but there are things that most certainly can't be and there lies a big problem. While my faith goes like a yoyo, I never stop believing or have major doubts like I used to. The bible is my comfort, my warning and my terror.

Now incase there is any misunderstanding I am a strong supporter of religious freedom and everyone regardless of faith or background has a right to celebrate/practice their faith. I have supported the rights of Catholics in the past several times for example in the sameway I have supported the rights of Protestants.

Unfortunately Irish history almost makes religion a taboo subject incase we offend. If we do say something against one of the main churchs then we are classed bigots etc. I disagree with the Catholic church, I disagree with parts of many Protestant Churchs but that does not make me anti-Catholic, nor does it make me not want them to have the right to religious freedom or anything like it.

[Shades40]

It amuses me how Protestants continually attack the RCC especially when religion is on the wane in Ireland, it looks like obsessive behaviour and only makes people think they have an ulterior motive for these attacks and thus unbelievable

[Blue Angel]

i really do feel a lot of this stuff needs to go out of the window in northern politics - it makes the place look a laughing stock on a wider stage and people from outside ireland are often bemused by it. There's lots to criticise in the catholic church and there's no-one here who would argue that, but the ulterior motive often seems to be 'see what themuns believe', and a need to assert a moral superiority.

[Jim]

shades40 said:

It amuses me how Protestants continually attack the RCC especially when religion is on the wane in Ireland, it looks like obsessive behaviour and only makes people think they have an ulterior motive for these attacks and thus unbelievable

I would say protestants are a lot more devout than the catholic population are.

Seems that way with most of the protestants that have been on here anyway.

[earl]

I think it's great. Here we see a clear example of why Unionism is so far behind and losing more ground everyday, simply because many Unionists are not concentrating on what's actually relevant to the modern world.

This obsession about the RC church is a direct hangover from the 17th century, with no more relevance today as a flintlock musket. Hand on my heart, I grew up with a deeply religious mother, I grew up in a majority Catholic area, went to a Catholic Primary school and was an alterboy but I've never heard as much about Catholic doctrine as I have from Unionists on these sites! It would appear that for some, their whole raison d'etre is to defend against, and be wary of Catholicism! For some, the siege of Derry never ended.

I mean, look at this story for example:

_________________________________________________________________

Church of Ireland Dean will not be deterred in rosary row



A Church of Ireland dean has insisted that his Dublin cathedral will continue to sell rosary beads in spite of opposition from an Ulster-based Protestant group.

The Evangelical Protestant Society (EPS) had written to the Dean of St Patrick's, the Very Rev Dr Robert MacCarthy, demanding an end to the sale of rosary beads in the cathedral shop.

Secretary of the organisation Wallace Thompson said he had been on a visit to the cathedral recently when he noticed the items.

"I was really quite surprised," he said.

"I came home and thought I should write to the Dean to say we were concerned and ask him what his reaction was. He came back very quickly to me and his reaction was very clear."

Mr Thompson, who is also a DUP special advisor to the Northern Ireland Executive, said he was "not at all" satisfied with the Dean's answer, which stated that the beads were sold because most of the visitors to St Patrick's were not Anglican.

"My argument is that it's a silly principle because if you pander to what people want it might not be what people need," Mr Thompson said.

"In a Protestant church I don't think they should be selling things that are Roman Catholic.

"I think you need to give people what you believe is in their best interest. A Protestant church should stock Protestant literature, not things like that."

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph last night, Dr MacCarthy pointed out that rosary beads had been sold in the shop since 1970 and would continue to be sold there.

"We have done so for 37 years," he said.

"They are obviously much in demand because we get €70,000 gross a year from the sale of rosary beads.

"As far as I'm concerned the majority of visitors to the cathedral are not Anglicans, never mind Evangelical.

"We get about 320,000 visitors a year. If a large number of those want to use rosaries as visual aids in their prayers we're delighted.

"I get about two letters a year objecting to the sale of rosary beads usually from Northern Ireland addresses."

The EPS, which was founded in 1946, is described on its website as an " inter-denominational Protestant voice in the 21st Century" and counts around 3,000 supporters, most of whom are based in Northern Ireland.

Its aims are "to promote and defend the tenets of historic Biblical Protestantism and to fulfil the role of an umbrella organisation uniting Protestants of different churches and backgrounds".

______________________________________________________________

So the Anglicans who use the church aren't all that bothered about this issue, otherwise, they'd have wrote to the Dean complaining. Instead, he gets complaints from NI from people who don't even go to his church about it! Any that wally Wallace was also recently on Irish national radio, denouncing the pope as the anti-christ! A person who is involved in the political institutions of what is meant to be modern NI, spouting hate-filled bile about religion. Sure, he's in a modern democracy and is welcome to have his own opinion, but a person who's in a certain position within a countries political institutions should know better than to air contentious views, that are obviously insulting to some people. Imagine the reverse. Imagine an Irish politician on an NI radio station making a crude point based on a sectarian mindset. It probably would bring the GFA down!

I think it's great for nationalists/republicans that there are so many Unionists with this mindset. They will not win any battle for hearts and minds. Their viewpoint is too insular, defensive, backward looking and of no relevance to the modern world. Some of them can't even tell the difference between religion and politics, nevermind the difference between the 21st century and the 17th!

The next few decades are going to be like shooting fish in a barrel. As NI is further exposed to the outside world, people will realise that minsets such as those demonstrated on this thread belong in the past and have little bearing on their lives. Is knowing canon law going to help Billy from Shankill get a job? Is having an indepth knowledge about a religion that you hate going to attract investment to NI? Sure, it will help re-enforce some of those old fears and prejudices, but will it improve anyones lot? The commons sense answer is no, but I don't think some people care all that much. They like that negative feeling in the pit of their stomach, and they like to feed it and keep it fed.

[Wasp]

In reply to the above posts first of all many Protestants are proud of there faith and there religious freedom. Sadly like in all faiths there are those who know nothing about there own faith but know enough to attack other faiths. It is nlaughable to say Unionists are obsessed with the Catholic faith, first of all there are plenty of Catholic Unionists and secondly this alledgecd obsession is worldwide within Protestantism considering what the Catholic church has done throughout the centuries and still continues to do all beit to a lesser extent. Some of there present day doctrines still support the horrendous crimes that it committed.

Take Argentina for example, In 1979, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission visited Argentina and inspected the most notorious detention centre, the Navy Mechanical School in Buenos Aires. They found no prisoners. As Horacio Verbitsky reveals in this extract from his extraordinary book, the prisoners had been dispersed, some of them to El Silencio, an island property that had belonged to an official of the Catholic archbishop of Buenos Aires. The Catholic church’s complicity in torture and murder in Argentina should be no surprise; it had, after all, long precedents in extreme doctrines that came to Argentina (and elsewhere in Latin America).

Now here is an excerpt from the jesuit oath :

I furthermore promise and declare that I will, when opportunity present, make and wage relentless war, secretly or openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Liberals, as I am directed to do, to extirpate and exterminate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex or condition; and that I will hang, waste, boil, flay, strangle and bury alive these infamous heretics, rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women and crush their infants' heads against the walls, in order to annihilate forever their execrable race. That when the same cannot be done openly, I will secretly use the poisoned cup, the strangulating cord, the steel of the poniard or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honor, rank, dignity, or authority of the person or persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or private, as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agent of the Pope or Superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Faith, of the Society of Jesus. -Subterranean Rome by Charles Didier, translated from the French and published in New York in 1843. Dr. Alberto Rivera escaped from the Jesuit Order in 1967

An open letter on behalf of Serb and Jewish survivors of wartime atrocities by the fanatical Catholic Croatians known as the "Ustasha" requests the UN Secretary General to investigate allegations of genocide committed by the Vatican and Franciscans. Specifically the victims claim:

The Vatican and Franciscans knowingly helped Croatian and Nazi war criminals escape justice by organizing and funding the Nazi smuggling ratline based at San Girolamo and the Vatican whose many beneficiaries included Eichman, Barbie, Artukovich and Pavelic. Allegations of money laundering of the Croatian Nazi (Ustasha) Treasury consisting of loot stolen from concentration camp and other victims; and as to the Croatian Franciscan order, actual participation in genocide against Serbs, Jews, and Roma comprising the over 500,000 victims of the Croatian Nazis slaughtered in Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia during Word War II.

BTW I have a copy of the letter that was sent.

In 2001 the vatican was accused of a modern inquisition, The Vatican department responsible for maintaining orthodoxy in the Catholic Church is coming under attack over its "inquisitional" methods. The church should safeguard its faith, but not by means unworthy of that faith In a strongly-worded editorial, a leading US Catholic magazine America says the methods used by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are out of date and do not respect human rights.

From the vatican website (updated version)

Can. 1311 The Church has the innate and proper right to coerce offending members of the Christian faithful with penal sanctions.

But then why worry because none or few of you believe in the Catholic Church and have no time for it. So if it is still acting like supreme ruler, dictating to and abusing people etc etc etc you have no need to worry about it. Just as long as they no longer have any grip on the republic on major issues such as health and education. They don't have, don't they??