Comments on: Catholic Bashing

Catholic Bashing

sciurus — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 04:28:22 -0800

More immediate Catholic Bashing. [more inside]

By: sciurus

sciurus — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 04:30:51 -0800

Why not talk about the Hammond organ instead? I'm not sure if drezdn knew he was citing a 55 year old article but the immediate turn to pedophilia is not what the thread is meant for either.

By: Pretty_Generic

Pretty_Generic — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 04:36:57 -0800

It's about banning the use of particular kinds of organ in church. It was inevitable.

By: Witty

Witty — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 05:09:25 -0800

Just delete the thing... it's stupid any way, even if it was current.

By: jalexei

jalexei — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 05:30:00 -0800

Not the greatest post, I agree.

any institution that 'condones by cover-up' rampant paedophilia.

And there was no need to turn things in this direction. But even as a practicing Catholic, I must admit this statement is (sadly) more or less accurate, though I hope we can at least change "condones" to "condoned".

Is it "bashing" when it's true?

By: jpoulos

jpoulos — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 05:56:26 -0800

"Bashing" just means: "It's a criticism I don't agree with, so I will discredit it by tossing out this new word someone told me to use." It's the equivalent of "politically correct" in the 90s. "It's safe to ignore this criticism, because it's just 'bashing'."

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 06:04:19 -0800

No, I think "bashing" means "gratuitously attacking". Which I think is perfectly apt in this case.

By: tommasz

tommasz — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 06:17:43 -0800

The link to the Vatican ban adds nothing to the FPP and basically derails the comments right from the start. It's just a crappy post.

By: SpaceCadet

SpaceCadet — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 06:20:35 -0800

No, I think "bashing" means "gratuitously attacking". Which I think is perfectly apt in this case.

I agree. It's such a MeFi knee-jerk to speak of paedophilia whenever anything to do with Catholicism is mentioned. Imagine if AIDS was always brought up whenever homosexuality gets mentioned. Both are distasteful and innaccurate connotations of each set of people as a whole.

By: Johnny Assay

Johnny Assay — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 06:24:56 -0800

By: DrDoberman

DrDoberman — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 06:46:06 -0800

I am saddened that the church has held numerous debates over something as pathetic as which type of church organ is acceptable, whilst ignoring really pressing issues (including the paedophilia that is rife by code of silence). I think if you look at my comment war and other nasties were also mentioned.

Sorry if anyone was offended, I felt it was a valid comment on a crazy situation. If the PC brigade want to destroy the thread, so be it.

By: Witty

Witty — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 07:31:06 -0800

At least the PC Brigade doesn't touch little boys on their pee-pees DrDOBERMANNNNNNNN!

By: XQUZYPHYR

XQUZYPHYR — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 07:38:21 -0800

Okay, that was funny.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 08:09:35 -0800

The post was meant in no way to be catholic bashing (especially considering my religious background). I just thought the history of the hammond organ was interesting.

Thanks to the people who posted the other links though.

By: MrLint

MrLint — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 08:21:32 -0800

hey if you cant bash facts and reality whats left?

By: mathowie

mathowie — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 08:25:28 -0800

This is all due to a couple strongly off-topic comments by DrDoberman, and not mefi as a whole. Everyone else is talking about organs in the thread, which I think is a perfectly valuable one. The old link was a bit of nostalga and wasn't meant to be bashing of anything.

DrDoberman, chill out.

By: sciurus

sciurus — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 08:28:28 -0800

drezdn, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt on your post, but the first comment threw me for a loop for reasons previously stated. It is a nice little thread now, the other links help out quite a bit.

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 08:40:08 -0800

"...talking about organs in the thread..."

Hee!

And really, yay for anything involving a B3. Classic. Thanks, drezdn.

DrDoberman, if you really don't see what the problem is, try this thought experiement: imagine you're the drunken uncle ranting about politics at your nephew's birthday and spilling your drink on his friends.

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 08:44:06 -0800

I think it's funny that an organized international church went to all the trouble of banning an electric organ. That's certainly not "Catholic-bashing".

Doberman's first comment seems somewhat meaningful, though tendentiously stated. It's true that, even in the 1940s, the Catholic Church should have been turning its attention to more significant problems than the ways in which its musical instruments produced sound.

The second comment, though, went over the line. In my opinion.

The church of my childhood had a real organ in it; the first time I went to a church with a Hammond organ, I was irresistibly reminded of skating rinks and baseball parks.

By: seanyboy

seanyboy — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 08:55:01 -0800

imagine you're the drunken uncle ranting about politics at your nephew's birthday and spilling your drink on his friends.
Cool! ... I want to be that Uncle.

By: mischief

mischief — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 09:03:05 -0800

Since they haven't excommunicated me yet, catholics deserve all the bashing they get.

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 10:17:20 -0800

"....any institution that 'condones by cover-up' rampant paedophilia." - I don't see the Catholic Church as condoning rampant paedophilia as much as I see it teaching rampant denial. There's a difference.

The Catholic Church has positions I deeply respect and others which I abhor. But I think one of it's primary messages - a covert one - is that it's always best to hide such abuses as paedophilia behind the institutional veil.

I think that approach to be both dumb, ass-backward, and unrealistic. But then, I have a dim view of most or all organized religions.

Next : Buddhist bashing!

By: namespan

namespan — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 10:27:08 -0800

Yeah! Buddhists are SO...

so...

passive?

damn them

By: SpaceCadet

SpaceCadet — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 10:59:31 -0800

Since they haven't excommunicated me yet, catholics deserve all the bashing they get.

Yeah, right: all catholics deserved to be bashed by sanctimonius Mefi-ites because some of them (tiny minority) are paedophiles.

Your comment is as bad as saying "All gays deserve to be bashed because some of them are paedophiles". See how far you get with that comment.

By: Hildegarde

Hildegarde — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:15:25 -0800

Er....

The problem isn't that there are some pedophiles in the Catholic church; the problem is that the Catholic hierarchy has made it a point of policy not to protect children from those pedophiles. That's an established fact.

It's hard for people to overlook that.

By: jpoulos

jpoulos — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:24:39 -0800

Yeah, right: all catholics deserved to be bashed by sanctimonius Mefi-ites because some of them (tiny minority) are paedophiles.

"The Church" is not the same as "all Catholics". The two groups are, in fact, entirely too distinct.

Plus, what Hildegarde said.

By: darren

darren — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:47:03 -0800

"Lighten up, Francis"

/Stripes quote

By: SpaceCadet

SpaceCadet — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:47:03 -0800

The problem isn't that there are some pedophiles in the Catholic church; the problem is that the Catholic hierarchy has made it a point of policy not to protect children from those pedophiles. That's an established fact.

Er....Hildegarde, then shouldn't people who say "catholics deserve all the bashing they get" actually be aware that it is only the heads of the catholic church who deserve all the bashing they get?

People seem to forget they are including tens of millions of followers when they say "catholics". "Heads of the catholic church" requires more keystrokes, but hey, you get to be more accurate.

By: reklaw

reklaw — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 13:28:41 -0800

Stop bashing the Catholics! Leave their organs alone!

By: Jart

Jart — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 13:56:03 -0800

Institutions cover up the misdeeds of their members. The Church covers for their priests, police cover for crooked cops, colleges cover for their professors, parents cover for their children, the military covers up for soldiers, blah blah blah.

If the group is large enough, then they're either covering up misdeeds... or finding a scapegoat to blame them on.

By: jmd82

jmd82 — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 14:35:24 -0800

The problem isn't that there are some pedophiles in the Catholic church; the problem is that the Catholic hierarchy has made it a point of policy not to protect children from those pedophiles. That's an established fact.

[rant]
Have you ever actually been involved with the Church on any local level? Has ANYONE here in the last couple years since all of this happened?? Yes, Pedophilia needs to be dealt with and should have never happened in the first place, but to say the Church has done nothing to protect the children is ignorant at best, no offense. I've been involved through Youth Group and other such activities for years, and the rules have become very very strict. Most Churches I've been associated with will lock a Priest under lock and key if he is alone with youth for any amount of time regardless of the reason (except Confession). I, a college student, am never allowed alone with teens and kids of the Church or am I will be kicked out of the ministry.
Yes, the Church as a hierarchy has royally screwed up in this whole ordeal and I think those Priests involved should go to court. However, people don't stop to think what is being done on a Parish level and the fact is the overwhelming majority of the work is done on the local Parish level. It just so happens that the hierachy is what gets noticed
[/rant]
*this is not meant to vindicate what happened, but rather to point out that to say the Church is willfully doing nothing is simply inaccurate*

By: wendell

wendell — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:21:12 -0800

MetaFilter: Organ Bashing.

By: mischief

mischief — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:48:11 -0800

I didn't say anything about bashing catholics for being pedophiles. I say bash them for being catholics, the sheep and the shepards both.

Although I am an atheist, I am also still a catholic by birth (since they have not yet excommunicated me); therefore I can say 'bash the fuckers' all I want because I am one of them.

So nyah! ;-P

By: Sidhedevil

Sidhedevil — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 17:18:32 -0800

Mischief, you're not important enough to excommunicate.

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 20:54:35 -0800

Perhaps you are misunderexcommunicating him.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 21:00:39 -0800

ot? : have any of those priests actually ever been excommunicated?

By: sharpener

sharpener — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 21:50:15 -0800

jmd82: I think those Priests involved should go to court

You mean jail, right?

By: jmd82

jmd82 — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 22:08:14 -0800

You mean jail, right?

If/when they are found guilty in the court of law by a jury, yes.