Pope: sex abuse revelations were a 'shock'

[peter12]

Well I think your use of labels and broad generalizations early in this thread didn't help make your points clearer, they merely confused the issue.

I think, in my defense, it's a lot easier to speak in general terms when you don't know the knowledge of your audience. At least, that's been my experience on the board.

I find terms like "liberal" to be highly problematic due to the variety of uses they've been put to in different fields. Liberal can mean something different in philosophy of the 1600-1800 era than it can mean to political scientists, and it can mean something different to the average person. When using terms that span so many different fields and so many different times you really have to just drop them or very precisely define them. Because what you think is a perfect and very specific word that fits what you want to say will be read by others and those others will have very different connotations associated with that word based of their background. So yeah I find the use of terms like liberal, bourgeois, etc to be more confusing than they are clarifying.

Perhaps, although I think my use of the terms is justified. The term "liberal," philosophically, basically comes from the Enlightenment and has always remained the same, regardless of its ideological representations. At least, I think we are proving what Foucault said about language, it does, at least partially, reconstruct reality according the speaker.

Perhaps it is because you are more schooled in a certain period of philosophy. I have focused mostly on stuff from 1800-now, I find a lot of the older philosophy I've read to be too distanced from our current concerns, too closely tied to religion in some cases. There is a lot of interesting stuff from the last 150 years that to me seems more relevant to living in today's world. I've started Marcuse's Eros and Civilization which I find quite fascinating so far.

I am reasonably well-read in Plato, who I still think is the greatest of all the philosophers, mainly because everything that we discuss today... well he said it first. Also, all philosophers since are essentially responding to Plato, from Aristotle to Foucault.

I am also well-read in the early Enlightenment figures; Locke, Hobbes and Machiavelli. I've just been getting into the Romantic reaction; especially Rousseau and Marx. I'm just saying this to give you a general idea. I think you are right, we are jarring because our juxtaposed views don't match up that well.

Well Nietzsche touches on many issues that I think are relevant today. And I think he's contributed a psychological aspect into philosophy that was necessary and mostly lacking before him. Because when it comes down to it, we aren't purely rational, purely logical beings and that is one of the greatest errors a philosopher can make. We do many irrational things, and many of our motivations drive us to do things that we would not theoretically do if we merely considered doing those things in a vacuum. We have biological instincts and urges which cause us to do many an irrational thing. Aggression, vanity, attraction, love, and many other oddities of human existence can not be explained with mere logic, but a biological/psychological perspective needs to be brought in. Once you fuse psychology with philosophy you can start to look at what the good life might entail given the specifics of our own psychology. I think Nietzsche knew himself and humanity very well and he gets down the psychological roots of many issues. He's an honest philosopher.

This I agree with almost entirely.

As to how this relates to religion and contemporary atheism, I think his arguments about why certain peoples and people believe in Christianity, his examination of the roots of its psychological beginnings are very important to understanding it and why it persists. His arguments about what kind of psychological effects certain beliefs (like original sin) may have on a person are very profound as well. He examines a lot of issues through the lens of, is this positive for life? For example he has both respect and contempt for the ascetic life, respect because it demonstrates a mastery of oneself, but contempt because it denies life and natural urges. His arguments for what areas of life has been touched or intertwined with religion are quite powerful and his focus on morality is one of the most compelling.

Compelling doesn't always mean correct though. Someone like Plato, is in my mind, has just as much to say. One always has to compare when reading philosophy and consider what the writer is saying in relation to one's own time.

The current atheistic rah-rah guys like Hitchens and Dawkins do not have the writing calibre, nor the power of argument that Nietzsche has.

This is exactly what I have been saying.

They use a few of his arguments but overall as a person who grew up in the church, I've found Nietzsche's argument against Christianity to be the most compelling I've read thus far. And because I grew up in the church and my parents are very much hard-core into Christianity, it is an issue that is very important to me. Nietzsche I think was somewhat ahead of his time, and the issues he focuses on are issues that we deal with today. His genealogical method of examining morality in "The Geneology of Morals" inspired people like Foucault to do use that method more rigorously in his examination of topics like sexuality and madness.

His call for a re-evaluation of values and morals deals directly with your question of what we replace God with, a question that was very much on his mind as well.

My atheism is generally not really atheism, but more of a sympathetic deism. I came by it almost entirely though Plato. It's amazing that when you are raised in the Church, even to the slight extent that I was, how little outside context you are given. Reading Plato made me realize that the ethics talked about as divine revelation in the New Testament had been expressed far more eloquently and expansively much earlier. By a pagan, no less. Well, Plato wasn't a pagan, but he wasn't a Christian either.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by troutman

That is an interesting concept. However, many great artists were nasty human beings, not to be admired at all, except for thier art. Ex. Miles Davis

Well a distinction can be made there. Nietzsche loved Wagner's music but hated his anti-semitism. Nietzsche was a great admirer of Wagner at first but they had a break and Nietzsche wrote about it. But he wouldn't subscribe to the simple notion that nice people are to be admired and nasty people are to be frowned upon. The issue is a lot more complicated than that for him, and he can see that so called "evil" men may have helped preserve or advance the human race at times.

Maybe a quote would help illuminate some of his complicated thoughts on morality, on good/evil, on niceness. Obviously this is merely a short sample of his complicated thoughts on those subjects.

From The Gay Science (116)

Herd Instinct - Wherever we encounter a morality, we also encounter valuations and an order of rank of human impulses and actions. These valuations and orders of rank are always expressions of the needs of a community and herd: whatever benefits it most - and second most, and third most - that is also considered the first standard for the value of individuals. Morality trains the individual to be a function of the herd and to ascribe value to himself only as a function. The conditions for the preservation of different communities were very different; hence there were very different moralities. Considering essential changes in the forms of future herds and communities, states and societies, we can prophesy that there will yet be very divergent moralities. Morality is herd instinct in the individual.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by peter12

Perhaps, although I think my use of the terms is justified. The term "liberal," philosophically, basically comes from the Enlightenment and has always remained the same, regardless of its ideological representations. At least, I think we are proving what Foucault said about language, it does, at least partially, reconstruct reality according the speaker.

Yeah the problem is most people have not taken very much philosophy and so the default meaning of liberal to most people these days will have political meanings, connotations and such. Further confusing the issue is that one can be a social liberal, an economic liberal, etc. One can be a "Liberal" which can have a very specific meaning. One can be liberal.

liberal |ˈlib(ə)rəl|
adjective
1 open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values : they have more liberal views toward marriage and divorce than some people.
• favorable to or respectful of individual rights and freedoms : liberal citizenship laws.
• (in a political context) favoring maximum individual liberty in political and social reform : a liberal democratic state.
• ( Liberal) of or characteristic of Liberals or a Liberal Party.
• ( Liberal) (in the UK) of or relating to the Liberal Democrat Party : the Liberal leader.
• Theology regarding many traditional beliefs as dispensable, invalidated by modern thought, or liable to change.
2 [ attrib. ] (of education) concerned mainly with broadening a person's general knowledge and experience, rather than with technical or professional training.
3 (esp. of an interpretation of a law) broadly construed or understood; not strictly literal or exact : they could have given the 1968 Act a more liberal interpretation.
4 given, used, or occurring in generous amounts : liberal amounts of wine had been consumed.
• (of a person) giving generously : Sam was too liberal with the wine.

Liberal is a tough word to use liberally :P

We can see from the definition I pulled out of my dictionary that it has very different meanings in the political sphere, the legal sphere, the theological sphere, and the educational sphere. One thing that University taught me is that words have changed over time and have been used in very different contexts by different fields or in different eras. Even in just the political sphere the meaning has changed over time. I find certain words problematic because there often isn't enough context surrounding them to know which exact usage and connotations the writer was aiming for. Liberal, conservative, and bourgeois are such loaded terms that have so many different meanings to different people and have been used in very different times in very different ways.

[Ford Prefect]

RC priests should just get married to each other, kind of like my first wife should stick to women, and leave everyone else alone.

[Huntingwhale]

[KootenayFlamesFan]

The special coming up on the 25th and 26th should be interesting to watch. This story in particular is very disturbing. I'm glad these men are suing the pope.

From 1950 to 1974 the headmaster of St. Johns, Father Lawrence C. Murphy, raped and molested as many as 200 deaf boys, according to court and church documents. Kohut has now filed the first sex-abuse lawsuit against the Vatican actually naming Pope Benedict, previously known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as a defendant.

Ratzinger was once head of the Vatican’s powerful CDF, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, charged in certain circumstances with investigating the sexual abuse of minors by priests. And though church records show the abuse by Father Murphy was brought to the attention of Ratzinger and the CDF years ago, a church trial against the headmaster was stopped and he was allowed to remain a priest.

On July 17, 1996 the Archbishop of Milwaukee, Rev. Rembert Weakland, wrote to then-Cardinal Ratzinger at the CDF, describing Father Murphy’s abuse and his “use of the confessional to solicit sinful actions.” Rev. Weakland asked Cardinal Ratzinger how to proceed.
After eight months and two more letters to the Vatican, Rev. Weakland heard from Cardinal Ratzinger’s secretary, telling him to proceed with a secret church trial, which could result in Father Murphy being defrocked, or removed from the priesthood. The trial preparations were under way, and the case was moving ahead. One church document describing the local investigation results said the Murphy situation “may very well be the most horrendous, number-wise, and especially because these are physically challenged, vulnerable people.”
But as the secret trial preparations moved ahead, on Jan. 12, 1998, Father Murphy wrote a personal letter to Cardinal Ratzinger.
“The accusations against me were for actions alleged to have taken place over twenty-five years ago,” Murphy wrote. “I am seventy-two years of age, your Eminence, and am in poor health. I have repented of any of my past transgressions.” The priest basically asked to be left alone, writing “I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood. I ask your kind assistance in this matter.”

Cardinal Ratzinger’s secretary described Father Murphy’s personal letter, and then asked Archbishop Weakland “to give careful consideration” to “pastoral measures” instead of a trial, such as counseling and supervision “destined to obtain the reparation of scandal and the restoration of justice.”
The local archbishops disagreed, and one wrote back to Rome that “scandal cannot be sufficiently repaired, nor justice sufficiently restored, without a judicial trial against Father Murphy.” And in May 1998, Archbishop Weakland and several other Milwaukee officials flew to Rome to meet with Cardinal Ratzinger’s team about the case. Notes from the Wisconsin Archdiocese log of that meeting state: “It became clear” that Cardinal Ratzinger’s office “was not encouraging us to proceed with any formal dismissal…”

Asked if the Murphy decision were a mistake, Monsignor Scicluna said, “No, I wouldn’t call it a mistake. I would call it a different take on a very difficult case.”

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/0...t-time/?hpt=C1


Absolutely disgusting. Nothing like a 'secret' trial for a pedophile/rapist. That man should have been handed over to the local authorities long before his death, regardless of his age. It's unbelievable how it was swept under the rug, and the scary part is that this is only one man, one case. How many more cases like this are out there?

[Cheese]

Abuse victims seek int'l court case against pope


Clergy sex abuse victims upset that no high-ranking Roman Catholic leaders have been prosecuted for sheltering guilty priests have turned to the International Criminal Court, seeking an investigation of the pope and top Vatican cardinals for possible crimes against humanity.
Attorneys for the Survivors Network argued that no other national entity exists that will prosecute high-level Vatican officials who failed to protect children.
In the U.S., no Roman Catholic bishop has been criminally charged for keeping accused clergy in parish jobs without warning parents or police. Within the church, only the pope can discipline bishops. The few who have been publicly punished by the Vatican have been sanctioned for molesting children, not for negligence in supervising priests.


Times are getting tougher for the Holy See.

[metallicat]

Whatever happened to the religious prophecies that this Pope was supposed to die fairly soon after being elected? Or was it that he was supposed to be the anti-Christ?