There is a lot out there, but they chose to compare Catholicism (in the 20th Century, no doubt!) with radical Islam.

WE didn’t do anything. Just as I wouldn’t blame a modern German born after WW2 for the Holocaust, it’s a bit silly to lay millenia old happenings on modern Catholics. It’s very convenient to bash the modern incarnation of a religion by zeroing in on what happened a millenia ago. It’s also disingenuous. I said that we “don’t” kill apostates, not that the Catholic religion didn’t “ever” do it. I would think that a reformation or evolution counted for something but not for Catholic haters or even some self loathing Catholics. Bringing out the Inquisition!?! Are you mad?!!?

This stuff is all pretty obvious but I guess not so for those who are incapable of seeing the obvious.

As for pedophelia, I would never defend what some priests have done or the horrible way the Church has managed it, but if you look at the data you get this with rabbis, Protestant priests and preachers, muslims, and even public school teachers in a totally non religious setting. To conveniently pull that out when trying to bash Catholicism or equate it with Catholicism (as many have done) is also sleazy.

I guess that I have to start alerting people that Dinocrat is an anti Catholic site…. Sad.

All Monty Python hilarity aside: Why did were witches burned? To stamp out the pagans. How is Islam killing converts to Christianity any different than the Catholic church killing pagans?

We don’t do it NOW, but we did. The comparison is historically apt. This site is littered with posts talking about the difficulty of an Islamic Reformation. The Catholic Reformation wasn’t exactly a piece of cake.

Reading the post I was reminded of Leviticus – a 4000 year old health code. It is amusing and its only value is historical.

Many pre-Vatican II Catholic rules are the same: Amusing and of no practical value. Go back further and it gets even better: Indulgences! I remember learning about them in Catholic school. Talk about the rich buying off the power structure! The Vatican could teach Congress and K Street a lot of lessons.

The snide remark about pedophiles was a bit off-topic, but that doesn’t make it wrong.

If you did the same to muslims you would have to sleep with one eye open because a death fatwa would be issued, and that alone proves that your comparison was at the least ill informed and at the worst part of a wider anti Catholic agenda.

BTW, we don’t kill ex-Catholic Apostates or carry out “Honor Killings” either…. (rolling eyes)

We’re STILL waiting.

But you are forgetting one very important point in the comparison. When Catholics have sinned against their Church, or fellow memebers, or society at-large, they have strayed from the teachings of Jesus and sinned against him as well. They must seek forgiveness and correct what is wrong.

Whereas with Islam, when the followers commit these acts, they are not straying from the teachings of their prophet, but rather they are following his teachings to the word. For me this distinction is noteworthy and frightening.

I’m sorry that you made this comparison. It makes me feel differently about your site.

Annette

When your worth as a human being, your virtue, your goodness is separated from your actions, when you are judged by your peers solely on whether or not you are a member of the group, then the religion ceases to be a personal matter, and instead becomes a powerful social imperitive. If you are good or evil, not because you DO good or evil, but because you are loyal to a church or not, and if this in-group/out-group mentality informs social action, [i]then almost anything can be justified in terms of the faith.[/i]

If apostates are evil, nonbelievers are damned, and all outside the church are living worthless and doomed lives; if all their knowledge and achievement is seen as irrelevant (and foolish, regardless of it’s truth and utility), if all their virtue and benevolence is irrelevant, then there is only one value, only one thing that is important in the world: the propogation of the church and submission of all to your beliefs.

It ultimately doesn’t matter whether this doctrine or theology is employed by Christians or Muslims – I think it creates similar motives and similar problems if faithfully applied.

I think, perhaps, that some of these parallels are why certain Republicans get mealy mouthed when dealing with sharia. They are tripping over how to condemn the barbaric behavior of the muslims, without condemning in principle the doctrines behind some of their own beliefs.

No kidding, who could make it up?

Also the capybara, a giant south American muskrat, was considered “fish” for Catholic purposes. I figure the local capybara rancher made a deal with the cardinal, a few pesos changed hands, a cut for Rome, and voila!

What!?!?! Many older Catholics who I know think the Church has gotten too liberal and long for the old days and the old ways.

So now you guys are anti Catholic? What of the many Protestants and Evangelicals who rest easy “knowing” that all Catholics are going to Hell? What a joke. I wonder why you failed to mention the PRESENT DAY Evangelical who is waiting for the Rapture and praying for the building of the Temple to usher it in? Huh? They sit there buying up the “Left Behind” book and video series. You want to talk about crazy religious people you talk about Protestant Fundies, not Catholics. Why not mention that?? That is FAR MORE synonymous with what is going on in the muslim world than ANYTHING modern Catholicism has EVER done or preached.

The “problem” with most Catholics today are that they are not practicing and they don’t bother to learn about their own religion before fleeing to Evangelical Born Again-ism or atheism. Read Karl Keating and you will learn all about it.

The RC Church has changed a lot, liberalized, and they still have work to do. As with anything run by men it’s not a perfect organization. The problem today is that the Catholic Church has, in some ways, liberalized too much. Hopefully Pope Benedict will do his part to make it even more Conservative as it should be. We really don’t need lukewarm twice a year Catholics who are too lazy to learn about their own Faith. People like “Sue” end up blaming Jesus Christ and leaving the Church to “live life independent” of religion for what? That makes a lot of sense. (rolling eyes) Uh, Sue, read some Karl Keating…… Don’t blame Jesus or God for your or others’ shortcomings.

To even mention old line Catholicism in the same sentence with radical Islam, for ANY comparison, is an insult second to none. I almost couldn’t believe what I was reading!

I’m waiting for an apology to the Conservative Catholics (Republican voters most) who read this board.

When I was thirteen, I had a click moment…feminists will understand this, maybe? others, too?

I stopped being Catholic. Years later I tried again. Lite Catholic aka Episcopalian. That took me a year to get out because the “father” of the parish, left his wife and 5 kids to shack up with a woman who left her three kids and husband. I decided then and there that I would live my life independent of “religion”. For more decades than I like to think about I have done just that and thank every day I did.