A media favorite: angry ex-priest and fact-challenged psychotherapist A.W. Richard Sipe
[This is another entry in a continuing series of profiles about individuals whom the mainstream media often cites in its coverage of the Catholic Church abuse narrative.]
When the media needs a reliable voice to bludgeon the Catholic Church over the issue of sex abuse from decades ago, one of its favorite voices is Richard Sipe, an 80-year-old ex-priest and mental health counselor.
What the mainstream media never reports, however, is Sipe's troubling track record of falsehoods, distortions, and nastiness. As is frequently the case with other purported experts cited by the media, Sipe uses the issue of clergy sex abuse as a means to advance his attack on the Catholic Church, especially its teachings regarding human sexuality.
Priest celibacy caused the Holocaust?!
To understand how disdainful Sipe can be of the Church and its teachings, especially those related to sexuality and priest celibacy, one can simply look to his 1995 book, Sex, Priests, And Power: Anatomy Of A Crisis.
In his book, Sipe actually claims the Church's so-called "celibate/sexual power system" was a root cause of the Nazi Holocaust. One must read it to believe it:
"The most frightening aspect of analyzing the the structure of the celibate/sexual power system is to realize how it was determined by banal sexual impulses which women are the objects of domination …
"When I substitute 'Jew' or 'homosexual' for 'woman' in the schema, I am struck with how everything fits with Nazi theory and practice … Numerous parallels with the celibate/sexual power system make it chillingly familiar and and force us to acknowledge that they both, system and power, spring from the same human impulses. I cannot forget that the people and forces that generated Nazism and the Holocaust were all products of one Christian culture and the celibate/sexual power system." (pp. 179-180)
Unbelievable.
Hundreds of popes murdered?!
However, Sipe's wild theories about the Holocaust should not be a surprise considering some other public statements that the bitter ex-priest has made. In a 2010 feature about Pope Benedict, Sipe actually claimed to ABC News that "several hundred [popes] have been murdered" in the Catholic Church's 2000-year history.
It is a bizarre assertion, indeed, considering the fact that there have only been about 266 popes since the Catholic Church's foundation.
Nastiness replacing facts
A.W. Richard Sipe
For example, in his appearance in HBO's fact-challenged documentary Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, Sipe claimed he has "great respect" for the Catholic Church, but then in the very next breath he actually asserted that the Church knowingly and intentionally "selects, cultivates, protects, defends, and produces sexual abusers."
One wonders who on earth could possibly "respect" an organization that would target children to be used as sex objects. Yet Sipe appears to want to give off an air of credibility by claiming "respect" for the Church so he can advance his wild theories and claims about the Catholic Church and its teachings.
Dissent upon dissent
Sipe erroneously blames the requirement of priestly celibacy as a root cause of the sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests many decades ago. (Yet even though Sipe got married in the very same year that he petitioned for his exit from the priesthood, he has said that the celibacy requirement was "relatively easy" for him. Go figure.)
However, the most reliable studies reveal that Catholic priests have never offended at a rate higher than clerics of other religious denominations – including those where celibacy is not a requirement – and have actually abused at a rate far lower than that of men of the general population. [See TheMediaReport.com's "Fast Facts"]
And Sipe would surely be hard pressed to explain the rampant and ongoing child sex abuse happening today in our nation's public schools, where celibacy is obviously not a requirement among teachers.
Indeed, a 2004 U.S. Department of Education report revealed that "the most accurate data available" reveals that "nearly 9.6 percent of [public school] students are targets of educator sexual misconduct sometime during their school career," prompting the author of the study to later opine, "[T]hink the Catholic Church has a problem? The physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests."
It will be interesting to see how many accusations roll in to the effect that this TMR article ‘attacks’ Sipe by pointing out the inconsistencies and incoherences in various elements in his position and his claims even as he himself has stated those elements. To doubt or question is to ‘attack’. Neat.
Or that he should be given a pass since he is engaged in such a Good Cause.
Or that nobody’s perfect but what the heck?
Or that while there may be a whole lotta abuse going on elsewhere, it is only the Church that deserves the most stringent scrutiny (we’ll leave the hugely dubious dynamics of the Stampede out of it for the moment) because she holds herself and her priests forth as some sort of “divine”.
We have seen it all before.
Sipe is in "good" company with Senead (Baldy) O'Connor, David (Not my brothers keeper)Clohessy and Christopher (Unhitched) Hitchens, they all have the best "street cred" any loon would ever need.
Here's an interesting Sipe comment (it's older, but, still relevent) buried in an article linking the activist-radical homosexual agenda and the fabricated Church abuse matter.
http://www.wnd.com/2002/06/14206/
It ain't celibacy or pedophilia that's the problem, folks
Do also peek into the "Pedophelia common among gays" and "Gay culture in Church" imbed-link articles, too.
Yep, "…thousands of popes were murdered…", along with the "…millions of blacks lynched in the US…", per Winfrey, the renowned historian.
The lies, exaggerations and distortions of the left are consistent, if nothing else (such as ingenious or creative).
I have read some of your articles. I have a simple question, actually maybe a couple of questions. I would like to know why you are consistently slanderous and unChristian in your comments on so many people. Is this a new tenet of the Catholic Church …that charity has been banished and replaced by license to slander and lie? My second question is…what is your point?
As if on cue.
Could ‘Huguccio’ please give some examples of the “slanderous” and “unchristian” material that he has seen? As for the question about whether the asserted (and yet-to-be-demonstrated) “slanderous and “unchristian “material constitutes a new tenet of the Catholic Church” … well, no it isn’t – if you’d like a “simple” answer to your “simple question”. If you don’t have the time to go back over articles about others of the “so many people” then any quotations in support of your assertions from just this Sipe article would certainly be nice for starters.
If you are serious about the question to TMR – “what is your point?” – please confirm that. Because it seems that the “point” was rather clearly made and I don’t want to take up readers’ time if you were just kidding around. We’ve had a problem with just-joking-around comments and so it would really help if you could clarify that question and confirm that you are actually looking for serious comments in response to it.
I suppose that Huguccio was referring to articles written by Mr Sipe.
The question should be: What effect has catholic doctrine regarding sexuality had on innocent people's lives?
I think even you know the answer to that.
Condom use could save lives by stopping the spread of the HIV virus.
Church says: No condoms.
Birth control could alleviate poverty and the
untold horror of unwanted lives.
Church says: no birth control
and exactly why are we supposed to see the church as being moral?
The Church is not against the birth control. The Church promotes the Natural Family Planning (PNF), a method that has yielded excellent results even in difficult countries (http://www.bmj.com/content/307/6906/723). So please do not mystify the position of the Church.
For the condom use as a barrier against AIDS check online AIDS statistics regarding New York City.
Sexual continence could save as many lives if not more, and souls to boot, not to mention is recommended by the CDC — but no, we can't ask that, it's too hard for these pitiful two-legged beasts. /sarc
A good friend (a liberal one I might add) knew Sipe pretty well and used to recommend his writings to his college theology classes at times. He said that he had gotten really wacky in recent years.
josie says:
August 8, 2013 at 2:18 am
A pedophile has victims (many) that are 11 yrs or younger. I thought that you have stated that you were in high school (it is a little vague) when you allege that you were "abused" (now , you call it rape?). I have always wondered about your assertions and what you said, your protests, your incorrect observations. your reporting method and so much more. In any case, you need to get your terms right, too
WHEN did I ever say I was in high school ? Please post those comments if you have them. I said my abuser Fr. Hermley taught at Father Judge H.S. If you know so much about me you would know at what age I was abused.
Rape, Sexual abuse, sexual molestation it all means the same to me. The term sexual abuse is only a polite term the media uses to lessen the pain of the truth by your clergy members.
And next time don't wait until a comment section to close to leave your false statements thinking I would never hear about it or see it for myself.
JR’s comments of 753PM today offer an opportunity – I would say – to take a quick look at “Catholic doctrine regarding sexuality”.
First of all, in the Catholic Vision, no human is “innocent” – not even a Pope or even a declared Saint. (Except for the Virgin Mary.) We humans are all so deeply afflicted with that fundamental tendency to use other human beings or even use our own selves – all made in the Image of God and purposed to respect and fulfill that Image in others and in ourselves.
Thus – since JR was already off the rails when he began his comment – the matter here is already beyond “I think you already know the answer to that” since JR himself obviously doesn’t have the accurate answer to it.
“Condom use could save lives” but in the Catholic Vision that’s not really getting water onto the core of the fire and instead is simply spraying the water on the smoke. It’s the entire use of the human sexual capability in such a way as to derange our comprehension of the Image of God in others and in ourselves that is the core of the problem (in the Catholic Vision). It’s like saying that we should put more lifejackets on Navy vessels rather than training the officers and crews to handle the ships well so that they don’t blow themselves up or run themselves into other ships or onto the rocks. More lifejackets is a solution, but it is hardly the most efficacious and comprehensive solution to the problem.
The difference here – between JR’s sort of modern secularist Monoplanar approach and the Catholic Multiplanar approach – is in the starting-point: JR starts with merely saving physical lives, the Church starts with saving souls as well as physical lives. One might recall that bit from the New Testament about fearing the possibility of Hell – meaning: fearing the possibility of misreading your entire life project and the core nature of your own and all humans’ existence and thus dying not only in a state of un-fulfillment (‘fulfillment’ here used in the genuine Catholic sense) but even in a state of anti-fulfillment (if I may coin the word. This is a thought from the same Jesus with Whose ideas JR will from time to time confront believing Christian and Catholic readers here. We might also think of that Jesus bit about What does it profit a person if in gaining the whole world, the soul is lost … and so on.
Birth control – if practiced in such a way as to not open the door to a general sense that sex is OK whenever you feel like it – might well contribute to the alleviation of poverty but – again – in the Catholic Vision physical poverty is not the core or heart of the matter. Back in 1967 Paul VI was fearful that if things went too far in that direction, then we would wind up with a culture where sex was just another recreational option or even a major u vital – perhaps the major and vital – element in ultimate human fulfillment. Here we are in AD 2013 with hook-up culture and STD infections through the roof, especially among the young, and the AIDS crisis (introduced into the West by … well, does anybody not-know how it was introduced? ) and people – like untrained pilots or warship-commanders in some of my military and naval analogies – simply bouncing around the crowded skies banging into each other or firing off their main armament with no real sense of the seriousness of such a ‘recreation’.
There are indeed many “untold horrors” of unwanted lives – but who created the lives in the first place, without ‘wanting’ to do so? Without taking the responsibility for the creation of those lives in the first place? We insist on police officers getting training with firearms before they are sent out with a badge and a gun, but modern culture today seems to think that being trained and educated into the use and misuse of the sexual capacity is somehow just ‘oppression’ or what-have-you.
So exactly how are we supposed to see JR as being informed enough about actual Catholic thought to ask worthwhile questions or why should we consider his take on what is “moral” as being serious, comprehensive, and reliable? Did his “reading” education not include some reading and research on the same level as the fundamental matters about which he seeks to toss out questions?
So catholic "vision" is not about saving lives, the only ones we have, but saving "souls" somethings you have zero proof even exist? Because you magically believe in a after life again with zero proof.
And poverty is "unimportant" to men who live in palaces, eat, beyond well, and have servants and pensions. But people who have next to nothing to exist on. need to focus on what does or doesn't happen after they die.
Isn't sexuality the one constant free pleasure most humans have? And isn't the orgasm (itself the continuation of the great explostion that created everything we know in the first place? to be used by consenting adults when ever they feel like it?. Why? Again the answer comes from the vapor. a roaring NO! Translated by the priest caste into dogma.
"Just 'oppression'"? What is just or minor about oppression?
Physical poverty may not be the "heart of the matter" for you; but for those who live it and in it; it is the problem.
Morality is, to me, how well we treat our neighbor here and now; not in some nonexistant after place. And aren't you being cavalier with other peoples lives if we buy your unproven creeds? And isn't the very neccessity of faith to "prove" the existence of god; heaven; and hell a big set up for controling real people and their real lives in the present?
(addendum:) To promote my neighbor’s happiness is to promote my own.
I am hopeful that reading comprehension is not entirely dead among this generation. Thanks for trying, Publion.
One of the things Hitler most despised in the Catholic clergy was the celibacy vow: according him every man has the duty to have children. It is not a coincidence that the newly founded National Reich Church (Reichskirche) was a Protestant Church. It is not coincidence also that Nazis in order to discredid the Catholic Church used false allegations of sexual abuses with many trials which were wide covered by the press.
Domy is your first name, So?
So Mr Sipe should look elsewhere for the origin of Nazism and Holocaust.
JR’s comment of 912PM on the 8th:
Whether the mis-reading or non-reading of what I actually say is a) deliberate as part of an intentional gambit or is b) unintentional due to whatever infirmity, JR once again displays useful gambits.
As I had said, the Catholic Vision is not only about the physical-material or Monoplane; it is also about the spiritual-nonmaterial and the Multiplane. Thus the Church’s Vision includes a primary concern for the complexity of the human being, who participates in both Planes of Existence, the material and the immaterial and spiritual. Did I somehow not make that clear?
But I am going to imagine that the Cartoon Mental Shoebox of 3x5s has nothing to handle that complexity, so JR will try to reduce my comments to something for which he has a 3×5: thus that the Catholic Vision “is not about saving lives”. It’s this type of maneuver that has become far more common in the past few decades, especially with the dawn and expansion of the Web.
JR has also solved the human-existential-complexity problem by claiming that there is no “soul” to humans because there is no “proof” – although in order to justify this assertion he would first have to explain what “proof” constitutes in regard to the Multiplanar rather than the Monoplanar. He most likely has no 3x5s on any of that. The human need for Meaning as well as for physical survival and purely Monoplanar ‘meaning’ is rather amply demonstrated in human history; either a) the species is congenitally and fundamentally deranged and deluded or else b) there is something else in the reality of humans and their existence that is not accounted-for in the materialist and Scientismic approach. Perhaps he would care to share his thoughts on that. (Hint: if (a), then JR is willy-nilly on the cutting-edge of human knowledge and leaves most of the species in the dust.)
Meanwhile, going along with “zero proof” is a course of action JR seems quite eager to recommend when we come to considering his own assorted allegations, claims, assertions, and so on.
The double-quotation marks around “unimportant” in his comment indicates a quotation from … what? The word is not in my comment and is not one I used in relation to “poverty”.
This connects then with his thought that “physical poverty may not be the ‘heart of the matter’ for you; but for those who live it and in it; it is the problem” (punctuation mistakes not corrected). Notice the slyness here: In his second part, JR dodges the core issue of whether “physical poverty” is or is not the “heart of the matter” and simply calls it “the problem”. Nice dodge. But still a sly dodge.
Beyond that, we are told what those who live in poverty think because … JR is in constant contact with large numbers of them? Surely he does not number himself among them since he has that million he got for the still-to-be-demonstrated allegations (minus, of course, the torties’ cut). We notice again how Abuseniks we see on this site have somehow appointed themselves or presume themselves to be authoritatively knowledgeable-about various huge groups (not easily defined, by the way) … Wigs worn over tin-foil hats?
And once again we are given a fine demonstration of just what the Church (and certainly Paul VI) feared almost half a century ago: that sex would be seen primarily as a “pleasure” (and a “free” one at that).
Although actually, JR chose to say “sexuality” which – come to think of it – is not the same thing as sexual-activity. But looseness with concepts is OK in a good cause, or perhaps when making potentially very very remunerative accusations.
And again, it is precisely the Church’s position on sexual activity that it is never “free” in the sense of having no costs or consequences (it’s a rather juvenile approach, to consider that something is “free” just because there is no cash price-tag attached to it). There is no such thing as a free-lunch – surely JR heard that somewhere along the line. In the matter of sexual-activity, there are intra-psychic and interpersonal costs and consequences to be considered. Just as with pilots and ship commanders who – when any activity or project is undertaken – must always consider how much fuel it’s going to take. I recall one gentleman who advised his staff on Day One that the first thing he was going to calculate in his mind about any proposal was how much fuel it was going to burn. Because fuel is a limited commodity and you have to husband that resource carefully and use it in the most efficient way possible. This, of course, is hell and gone from the Boomery idea (or Cartoon) that ‘sex is freeeeeeeee!’ and you can groove to it on a Sunday afternoon or whenever else you want to and it won’t cost you a cent. Against which the Church has always stood to remind the kiddos – sort of like a family lawyer or accountant trying to rein in some newly-rich heirs – that they shouldn’t now just live their lives “somewhere to the left of Whooopeeee!” (from that Jason Robards movie – I think it was Max Dugan Returns from 1983 or so).
And then – with a jaw-droppingly sublime inanity – JR connects the “orgasm” to the “great explosion that created everything we know in the first place”. But the orgasm, in and of itself, creates precisely nothing (except the orgasm-experiencing individual’s temporary ‘high’). It is only – as the Church has constantly said – when the sexual act is transacted in the context of carefully considered responsibility that life is best created. And while the ‘responsibility’ part can also be left out and life simply ‘created’ through carelessness or inadvertence or in a lust-filled fit of absence of mind, yet then you wind up with the very “unwanted” lives that JR has complained about in a recent comment.
Too much thinking to fit on a 3×5, I imagine.
And as I have suggested before on this site, a “dogma” can very easily be the authoritative enshrinement of what has come to be seen as a vitally important reality. Thus in the instant sexual-activity matter, the “dogma” simply enshrines a certain fundamental wisdom or common-sense that if you aren’t careful in how you deploy your sexual-activity you can wind up creating a whole lot of problems for yourself, everybody else, and especially for whatever poor person is ‘created’ by your actions. And surely that common-sensical wisdom is demonstrated nowadays through its very absence as part of the modern cutting-edge approaches to ‘freeeeee’ sexual activity urged upon us by various interests who – I would say –manage to be slyly calculating and fatuously feckless at the same time.
“Oppression” is a word tossed around so much today that one must actually stop and consider a) what is considered ‘oppressive’ and b) just how much limitation constitutes nothing more than ‘oppression’. Some people manage to feel ‘oppressed’ over some rather inconsequential things indeed nowadays; you have to conduct some further examination before proceeding along this line of thought.
And there remains the question: for persons indeed suffering the ‘oppression’ of – say – poverty, would they accept the modern cutting-edge trade-off: give up Meaning and get out of poverty. Many otherwise poverty stricken societies and cultures resist modern cutting-edge Western schemes precisely because the they judge the trade-off as being too expensive … they want Meaning and can’t see a ‘rich’ life without Meaning (as opposed to the Western reduction of the ‘richness’ of life to the purely material acquisition of stuff).
And yet this ties in with the Abusenik gambit as well: what is “just or minor about oppression?”. Depends on the ‘oppression’, I would say: no human agency can rectify all the ‘oppression’ in the world and what constitutes the criteria by which we can judge an ‘oppression’ along the spectrum from minor to major? Is a two-year old denied an ice cream cone ‘oppressed’? If we must leave the definition of ‘oppression’ up to each individual (who then demands public governmental power to be deployed to make that ‘oppression’ go away) then we are heading toward an abyss over an impossible bridge.
But this is the same dynamic as we see in the victimist strategy of defining ‘abuse’ and the consequences of it (the ‘pain’, if you wish): so long as ‘abuse’ and any consequent ‘pain’ can be defined merely by anybody who wishes to make a claim (or ‘report’), then almost anything can (and probably will) constitute ‘abuse’ and ‘pain’ and we are back to the spectral-evidence of the Salem Witch Trials and we are again looking at a government power deploying itself (as in Vietnam) in chasing impossible-to-pin-down specters all over the place while making a hash of life and law in the process.
Thus an arm over the groin can be worth a cool million.
Thus this victimist strategy is a tort-attorney’s dream (as still-Father Doyle and his associates realized in their 1985 Report): if the laws can be deranged so as to permit all sorts of non-evidence-based maneuvering and if the media can contribute by creating a public predisposition to accept even the most outré claims, then if you can just come up with warm bodies willing to sign a Complaint under oath, you are off and running to the game of the great piñata.
(And as I said in a recent comment: as state and federal monies start to fail, the pols need to i) distract people with some soap-opera replete with Innocence and a Purely Evil Archvillain and ii) give the ‘hope’ that perhaps the Church’s vast and limitless wealth can somehow make up for personal fiscal shortfalls, even though federal, state, county and even municipal monies are drying up. And the torties can try to recapture their own salad-days as well.)
JR’s bit about “unproven creeds” once again demonstrates the initial fallacy I discussed at the beginning of this comment: what it takes to “prove” a belief to an individual is somehow not the same thing as what it takes to prove a scientific hypothesis. Thus one can’t quite get by here by pulling off a comparison of apples and oranges: what is required to prove matters material and physical is not the same thing as what is required to convince a human being about the non-material and spiritual.
One thinks, finally, of the cargo-cult native complaining that the ‘couch’ in his hut (actually a refrigerator laid on its side) is not as comfortable as he had hoped and he wants it ‘fixed’: the cargo-cult native still doesn’t realize the potential of the refrigerator because he has no idea about the very concept and existence of electricity.
Because it is precisely not “the very necessity of faith to ‘prove’ the existence of god”. Human beings experience God in the depths of their heart, and sense on the most fundamental level that somehow their need for Meaning is being met, and with a Relationship as well. The purpose of religion is to somehow articulate that and create a historical vessel in which that Relationship may be continued and sustained. And then we get to the specifically Christian and Catholic articulations of that Vision (which I have been working on all along here).
So: No, no amount of effort is going to succeed in convincing human beings that since you can’t ‘prove’ God like you can prove Newton’s various Laws then there is no God. (And as I recently said here, I exclude Darwin deliberately since there are fundamental difficulties with his theory that have still not come fully to public attention, although – as I also said – Agassiz and even Darwin himself realized their existence when his theory was still new.)
And a “real” life without Meaning … is not going to be a ‘real’ life any more than the couch-refrigerator is going to be a fully-realized benefit to the cargo-cult native who has no concept of the invisible but powerful energy of electricity.
Now, the "new and improved" definition of Faith requires proof, so black is white and red is blue, the lefty transformation (from sanity to insanity) is complete.
We may have reached a place where any sensible (…if it ever really was) dialogue or debate is even possible anymore.
To Domy- the very same strategy that was employed against early Christians (Catholics), which was to demonize those that were not outright murdered (martyred) by labelling them as sexual deviants, has certainly been [re]applied throughout history. Among the most notorious of these demonizations was that character assassination which was perpetrated against the Knights Templar.
The world can be thankful that Adolph did not execute successfully on his own reproduction mandate (how ironic). There is very little, if any, daylight between the philosophy and tactics employed by the extreme radicals of the right and left. Review of the full spectrum of these ideologies puts faithful Catholics (not the rest) at the polar opposite position of both fascists and progressives (leftist-socialists-communists). And, for that, we can thank God.
No one said faith demanded proof.
Your assertions to the very existence of a god that is a Catholic god requires proof. (For both actually). Why do you catholics have it right and not (pick your poison) the other godsters. But the rest of mankind, the non christians,will be punished by burning forever because they don't believe in J.C.? That's what your faith says is true.
This is an add on to my 12:43 p.m post.
To promote my neighbor's happiness is to promote my own.
I would assume those who have been following sexual abuse cases have heard yesterday the pimp for the Philadelphia Archdiocese fr. Lynn will have his appeal hearing begin on Sept. 17th and heard by a three judge panel and Lynn's defense team paid for by the AOP will be paying a bill that sure will exceed the already 6 million dollars spent by the AOP.
The shock regarding this appeal is not that the defense team will be defending this individual because of his innocense in a case he has been found guilty of by a jury of his peers, but by a loop hole in the law.
A convicted individual who made the statement "I dropped the Ball" when it came down to the protection of a child. A man who would not be living his present life looking at the world through bars and being told when to sleep and when to wake if he had only picked up a phone. He could have been the hero in all of this.. Instead he is more dangerous then any abuser. He was willing to feed thousands of children to the wolf.
Oh horror! The pope thought sex might just be used for pleasure ; rather than to create donors to the church's coffers?
Presumption being that pleasure isn't good enough or that if pleasure's involved mutual respect leaves the room? Nonsense.
D,you're no martyr and if you arn't fascistic, I don't know who is.
Historically it might interest you to learn that the left and fascists were polemic opposites. 20 million Russians paid with their lives because of that polemic. You're talking, as usual, out of your "hat".
I have to say this P, your entire reasoning here only makes sense if your a cleric and or if your a perpetrator or maybe just an apologist for the unrepentant.
At 654PM on the 9th, JR’s nice 3×5 or bumper-sticker thought, added on to a prior comment, raises more questions than it answers (if, indeed, it was intended to answer any questions at all).
The whole bit depends on the definition of “happiness” – and without that definition then as I said we have here nothing more than a bumper sticker (which, come to think of it, was how most Boomer thought operated: it had to be catchy and cool and fit on a tee shirt or bumper-sticker or a little button you could tack somewhere onto your clothes.
Thus: Is ‘happiness’ actually an objective to be sought and toward which one’s efforts and resources should be directed? Or is ‘happiness’ merely a consequence and effect of pursuing some other objective – such that one needn’t really focus on one’s ‘happiness’ at all because, if one is doing things right, then ‘happiness’ will simply follow along?
What is “my neighbor’s happiness”? Is it exactly the same as my own except that it is my neighbor rather than myself who feels it? Or is “my neighbor’s happiness” different from mine?
For that matter, what is the relationship of “happiness” to – say – “fulfillment”? Are they different words for the same term? Or do they differ, each with a separate meaning?
Questions JR is welcome to consider.
Saving us all some time here, I would say that the Church’s approach to foregoing is something along this line: The nature of the human-being is tied in fundamentally to the purpose of the human being, which is to fulfill in his/her own life the Image of God inscribed in him/her (the Church’s role here being to provide a stable reference point for preserving the Christian Vision and sustaining the Catholic community in the pursuit of this objective (i.e. fulfilling the Image of God within oneself according to one’s Gifts and within the parameters of the Christian Vision as preserved by the Church).
Thus, ‘happiness’ becomes the complex sense of fulfillment and achievement and synergy-with-the-Divine that arises when one has managed to bring one’s own self and actions into some level of congruence with the Image of God within oneself and the Will of God for all human beings.
And since we can never totally fulfill the Image of God within us, then this is an ongoing, dynamic, and ever-expanding potentiality in us, and one toward which we should orient all of our energies and gifts and attention.
And thus we might become “happy” – in the Catholic Vision.
But if we go the Boomer route, we get something like this: happiness is whatever makes me feel good, and whatever makes you feel good, and if I can just feel happy and help somebody else to feel happy (whatever that ‘happy’ may be for them or for me) then that’s what happiness is all about.
As you can see, the Boomer route works out to nothing but a feeling. And a feeling that is locked into this-world and into each ‘self’.
While the Catholic Vision provides a purpose and a Meaning and a Relationship (capital ‘R’ – meaning one between oneself and God) and a shared relational field between oneself and other human beings, and a general set of parameters within which one can focus oneself and one’s energies in order to work toward achieving and ever-more comprehensively achieving that Purpose.
Think of what ‘happiness’ is for a musician: it flows from the sense – after years and intense effort at mastering the instrument – that s/he and the instrument and the music and the other members of the orchestra and the conductor and the Composer have all been brought into a working relationship with each other within the individual musician’s own life and as an achievement of all his/her efforts. Then and only then does the musician feel ‘happiness’.
Contrast this with the idea that happiness is merely a feeling and one should basically spend one’s days trying to get that feeling to spark up for a bit inside oneself, doing whatever it takes to get whatever that feeling is to suddenly well up for a while. Sort of like a sugar or drug ‘rush’.
The Church’s approach is that of the musician. The modern and Boomery approach is the second one, looking for a ‘rush’ or ‘high’.
You can’t fit all this on a bumper sticker or a tee shirt or a 3×5 card in a Mental Shoebox, but who doesn’t know that?
The world doesn't know that, P.
Other wise explain the rush to get away from such lame "thinking".
Pleasure, sexual pleasure and our bodies ability to feel it. Comes from eons of evolution .
What if your diety has been misinterpreted and that if we follow our bodies pleasure signals that those are the stepping stones to god? As compared to abstinence.
Wllhelm Reich believed the orgasm was the great healer. I quote him:
"Because you have no memory of what happened ten or twenty years ago, you're still mouthing the nonsense of two thousand years ago. Worse you cling with might and main to such absurdities as 'race' ;'class'; 'nation' and the obligation to observe a religion and repress your love".
Your nonsense would only fit on a bumper sticker on a 20 story bulldozer. Like they have for taking off mountain tops in West Virginia.
I only wish what you pos,t made more sense because of it's length; but it doesn't. [edited by moderator]
Wilhem Reich believed many things and unfortunately he experienced them on people who could not choose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich#Orgonomic_Infant_Research_Center
What if the moon is made of green cheese?
After 2,000 years, you really think that suddenly you (or Reich) came along and have it all figured out, as opposed to those other benighted nobodies?
Fascists and Communist were not polar opposites, they were/are both dictator-philosophies trying to occupy the same niche- or, space (physical law prevents such dual occupation). They just had slightly different methods for achieving the same evil goal.
I claim no victimhood (martyr); unlike a few other chronic, whiney malcontents here, I am healthy (mind, body and soul), happy, independent of any state ownership (welfare) and productive (contributive to society), just as God intended. The self-described abuse victims here should give up their dependence on the state and donate their church lottery winnings to charity (Catholic Charities are the best), and finally learn to fend for themselves, it is good for the mind, body and especially, the soul.
I dont see a whole lot of happiness being promoted by any victim-claimants, or their progressive msm cheerleaders. All I see is hatred and bigotry for their Catholic and/or non-progressive (lefty) neighbors.
Just look at the miserable face of Sipe- is that a healthy, happy guy?
god who?
I have worked since i was 14 . I personally paid for my last 3 years of high school (where I was sexually used) by working after school cleaning a machine shop. They machined parts on lathes.
I was latter drafted into the Army and worked for 2 years guarding your pathetic ass. That you might be ill educated and hostile to your fellow humans. Wanna talk about your military career again, D?
What great labors have you performed, Hercules?
And why not get the corporations and the 1% off of welfare, by making them pay taxes? Huh?
Are you shut off from feeling by your beliefs? If so why? Qui Bono baby? Certainly not you. [edited by moderator]
This last post at 1:10 was directed at P.
There goes all that [in]famous lefty-love, the same useless-selfish and unproductive (shallow) kind that was spread all over the sixties and ever since. The kind that breeds disease, disrespect and defeat for the elevation of the human condition – the kind that advocates for the most extreme and destructive selfishness, and death.
MAJ Nidal Hasan and PFC Bradley Manning are just a couple of other examples of military that might expect special dispensation from the citizenry (funny- I dont feel very 'protected' by them), too- well, before they became traitors. Interesting that they also claim membership to special "entitlement" groups. Not really impressed with the warrior that has to toot his own bugle – chances are, he never made it off the base (or out of KP). Just the same, because you may have done something productive in your life (even if it was accomplished rather against your will), does not excuse the obvious deterioration into the entitlement free-ride mentality (if not worse) that utilized (and still advocates for) state resources to steal from the Church.
I do certainly agree about all corporations paying taxes-they all should, but their rate should be lower, as well. The US has the highest corporate rate, it isn't good for the economy. It does appear that capital cronyism is alive and even "well-er" in the current leftists administration than it was in Reagan's or either Bush's. How ironic for such rabid anticapitalists.
Lefty-parasites need to work more (they are the largest sector of the 50% of that '99%' that do not pay any Fed income taxes), whine less and be far more discretionary about 'spreading their love' around- along with all the other attending lower lifeforms that are tragically 'shared' as a result.
The first thing I would suggest is to learn what "love" actually means; it doesn't mean dropping your drawers every time you get a glance or glass of wine. That isn't love, just ask your parents, grandparents, grandchildren- or even your dog – who probably exercises more discretion in his intimate relationships than does the average loosey-goosey lefty.
God loves us and wants us to respect ourselves – mind, body and soul. Obeying His natural (moral, ethical) law is the best kind of love for us. The kind that lasts a lifetime, and beyond.
The idea of comparing a murderer to Bradley Manning is the kind of lunacy we've come to expect from you D. Bradley Manning blew the whistle on the truth of your war in Iraq and he and Snowden and Daniel Ellsberg are real American heroes.
The base bigotry that drove Major Hasan mad would have not occured if the Islamophobia ( a front to possess the regions oil) supported by you D. hadn't driven America mad.
I remember why I left the church and christianity now. [edited by moderator]
Looks like Mother Russia is finding her way back home- http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/world-leaders-should-unite-to-end-anti-christian-persecution-vladimir-putin/
Who would have imagined that shredding the Iron Curtain a mere generation ago (thank you Pope John Paul II and President Reagan) could have led to [former?] Socialists (and KGB agent) making more sense on the Mideast violence, especially the horrendous persecution of the Christians, than the US secular "leadership"- such that it is?
We may find ourselves looking to the Russian front to defeat evil once again.
I wouldn't count on it.
Delphin and Publion have the attitude seen by some of those parents of delinquent children who over and over again state how innocent their child is and how their child could not commit such a crime. Their kid is a good boy or good girl.
Well, their kid (the catholic church) has been caught red handed committing a crime and because the lack of supervision by the parents (parishioners) the child will be thrown in prison and have that record for the rest of his life.
Jim, you and I can comment to the day we die. But the bad parents (Delphin, Publion and Josie to name a few) will always believe their child is an angel even after being faced with that arrest record and witnesses.
Well said Dennis.
Since we have to deal with phantoms here, We know nothing about who or what P and D are.( Josie at least gives her name.) We are battling the unknown. Those who snipe from cover. They pontificate; and lie. They just plain lie.
At 1240PM on the 11th we are advised by JR – speaking here for “the world” – that it doesn’t know “that” (taking us already off the rails since it is unclear whether the “that” refers to a) my ideas or to b) the fact that the ideas I expressed in my most recent comment won’t fit on a bumper-sticker). At least the Pope only speaks to the world. But as I have suspected for quite some time, we are not really in the world when engaging the material from some commenters.
Readers are welcome to consider whether there is a “rush to get away from such lame ‘thinking’” (let alone whether there is a rush to embrace the type of thinking we have seen presented here by certain mentalities). Or whether JR is a reliable guide to assessing ‘thinking’ in the first place at all.
He then assures us that “sexual pleasure” and the ability of our bodies to feel it “comes from eons of evolution”. Let us grant for the purposes of the discussion here that “evolution” is a workable theory; then let us – as I said in recent comments – consider that aggression and eating are also such ‘evolutionary’ products; and then ask: so what? What is the point JR is trying to make (presuming he is trying to make one at all)? Is it that since we have evolved a capacity, then we should use it whenever and however and wherever we please? Does ‘evolution’ somehow imply a lack of boundaries for evolved capabilities? Does evolution rule out any ‘selection’ we can exercise as to deployment of those capacities? (These answers are probably not on a 3×5 card in the Shoebox.)
“What if”? “What if your deity has been misinterpreted”, he wonders – such that “if we follow our bodies pleasure signals that those are the stepping stones to god?” And “as compared to abstinence”. Well, without trying to do too much upper-structure repair work on what well may be a hull-holed vessel, I could suggest for step one here that we consider Jesus (to Whom JR often makes reference): what do we see in Jesus’ life in regard to abstinence? Can one read the Gospels and rationally walk away with the impression that he was all for bodily-pleasures? And not much for “abstinence”?
We are then treated to the spectacle of JR plumping for Wilhelm Reich – like does find itself attracted to like so often in this world. Reich came up with the theory of “orgone” (a word derived from – waitttt for itttt! – ‘orgasm’) which is, Reich figured, the core energy that energizes the universe and which – waittttt for itttttt! – is actually what most people mistakenly refer to as ‘God’.
We are not given too much to go on, though. In fact, JR just gives us – in best Proof-Text style – a quotation with no explanation or thoughts (possibly because JR has no thoughts about it, or possibly because JR would rather not have to write too much). At any rate, the quotation as given makes no sense unless we somehow get the context to know what Reich means by saying “because you have no memory of what happened ten or twenty years ago”. And then we would still be left with Reich’s assertion about “the nonsense of two thousand years ago” – which is his opinion and he’s welcome to it, right up there along with his theory about “orgone” energy being the actual life-force of the universe. (Readers may recall that he also built a machine – called an “orgone accumulator” – which was a box in which his patients and groupies could sit in order to have their “orgone energies” focused. To what purpose one is welcome to imagine.
He did, however, have some rather interesting thoughts on defense-mechanisms and suppressed rage and chaotic lifestyles which might be of use to some commenters. Yet he wound up urging sexual permissiveness as a solution – which is a sequence of conceptual dots I can’t quite connect. Perhaps others can, and might share the process of their thinking better than Reich did. One can only imagine the attractiveness of his sex-makes-the-world-go-round theories to certain impressionable types.
The rest of the comment is what it is and are best taken with some popcorn and a soda.
I might also note that JR has already told us that during the two years he spent in the Army “guarding” us all he was counting the days to get out. Not really the type of soldier the military is looking for to get the serious work done. And – again – a two-year draft hitch is a “military career” only in a universe at some sharp angle to our own.
I can make no sense of the 1:12PM comment – which we are told was “directed at” me. However there is no Latin phrase “Qui bono”. There is the Latin phrase cui bono, but if that’s what he meant, then perhaps he might explain what relevance he sees in it.
To salvage readers’ time here, I would offer a couple of articles by James Schall, SJ, and a third by someone else, that are of relevance to more serious material we have been discussing in comments recently.
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2012/the-point-of-christianity
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2011/what-is-roman-catholic-political-philosophy
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2009/christianity-is-not-moralism
I am the world. Isn't everyone?
[edited by moderator] I was drafted against my will, kidnapped by my government and had my life put in danger at the ripe old age of 19.
Where were you and D during Viet Nam? Praying or shopping perhaps? What did you do in the war Daddy?
Mocking Reich proves what? That he's "wrong"? And some idiot pope is right. Your premise a divine conscious personal saving all male diety (well 2 males and a bird, really) is the "right' god? All with nothing to prove it? (I think the birds a male too) Sheesh! What drivel.
Would that your brain and your 3X5 cards were in a shoe box. tommorrow's trash day in my nieghborhood.
[edited by moderator] I've never claimed a military career, ever. Do you ever get anything right but spelling? [edited by moderator] I'm sure of it.
You know JR, I see your knocks at the Church all over the internet. Why must you come to Catholic blog and spew you venom? I think it demonstrates your very great need to convince yourself of atheism and fallibility of the Church. If you knew for certain, you wouldnt have the need to invade those of us who are certain of God and His Church. But, what I really wanted to say is I really do enjoy you persistence, although most of your arguments are typical. Please hang around and hopefully you will come to see the truth. However, I for one, would appreciate less insults and hubris. For example, its kind of foolish calling the popes idiots. This only demeans yourself given that for at least the last 150 years each of the popes could run circles around your intellect. And for the rest of history, they were pretty damn significant thinkers also. These men, while you may disagree with their conclusions, were no slouches of philosophical thought, or theological , or psychological, or you name it! Its not like they havent heard your arguments, and if only they had they would be convinced of your stupendous wisdom. My point is simply that a little more respect around here would be appreciated. You can get as nasty as you want anywhere else. But, keep coming around! Its not like there is anything Catholicism has to fear from your mind that it hasnt already confronted. And this nonsense that the Church no moral authority because of the sex abuse crisis is like saying the US government should stop with any foreign policy because of Vietnam. Its stupid. First of all, bad priests and bishops are not the truth of Catholic Church! The truth of Her teaching is still truth whether or not Her fallible members are sinners. As Chesterson says, "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it has been tried and been found difficult" Living up to the standards of the Church is hard, and many fail, but simply because we fall doenst mean the standards arent valid. And yet you and your Catholic bashing cohorts always like to use the sex abuse crisis and alleged wrong of the Inquisition , etc etc. as reasons to ignore the Church. So unless you are perfect like Christ, Im not sure anyone has the need to hear you out either. But we do. God bless you for your continued seeking!
Yea, total abstinence from sex is right and Reich is wrong for saying the opposite. Prove it.
What ranks did you and D attain in your military careers?
Once again we are given more Notes for the Notebook on the Playbook. In yesterday’s episode by commenter Ecker at 905PM, we are treated once again to that we-are-talking-among-ourselves-and-not-to-you myah-myah exchanges. As we grow up we tend not to wind up in the presence of such pathetic immaturity, but then – on the Web – there is always the possibility that one will wind up in the (virtual) presence of persons one would not usually want to get too close to in actual life.
Anyhoo, Ecker is on about “parents of delinquent children” and how my material reminds Ecker of that (JR so very much agrees). I haven’t made any comments about “delinquent children” so there goes the literal relevance and I can’t see any figurative relevance (although once certain mentalities set themselves to ‘imagining’, then all bets are off. Especially when it comes to telling stories about their life and their ‘abuse’.
If Ecker has any quotes from my material that support his ‘imagining’ that I have ever excused the Catholic Church then let Ecker put those (accurate, please) quotes up here. (Hint: don’t anybody hold their breath.)
But what Ecker’s little bit actually tries to do here is to deflect from the ever-open question as to just who was genuinely victimized and who was not. And – closer to home – if any of the prime ‘victims’ who have battened on this site are indeed genuine or otherwise-classifiable. This ever-open question always requires the raising of whatever dust can be raised in order to distract everybody’s attention.
Then we get an interestingly-time-stamped series from JR.
At 0951 this morning he tosses-off the his old stuff about myself and others being “phantoms” (because – waittttt for ittttt – we don’t use our real names like JR and Ecker, because real-names make ‘stories’ – waittttttt for itttttt – ever so much more rational, coherent, believable and (not to put too fine a point on it) sane.
Fresh from having taken upon himself the task of speaking for “the world” (even Ecker has only appointed himself official chief spokeperson for all the “activists” in this country … although there is that Admiral’s-Wig we saw on display a while back) JR now accuses others here of ‘pontificating’ and – waittttt for ittttt – ‘lying’. Once again, I submit the possibility and even probability of that trusty psychological defense-mechanism (Reich worked with it, among many many others) called “projection”.
Then at only 956AM, mere minutes later, JR has given extended thought to yet another point: his drafting (“against [his] will” … as if there were any other type of drafting) in 1966 or so means that he “had my life put in danger at the ripe old age of 19”. Yet he was, by his own admission, in the Canal Zone. Giap did not get that far. He then asks me where I was during Vietnam and “what did you do in the war” – suffice it to say: I was not sitting on my tentpegs in the Canal Zone counting the days until I could get out.
Then at 1011AM JR plaints about “mocking Reich”. Actually, I just put Reich’s thoughts out there – but they appear (certainly in JR) to have induced mockery on their own. Perhaps JR – having read a great deal in Reich’s oeuvre, would care to share with us some of his most insightful moments and favorite bits of Reich’s thoughts.
Clearly JR – among all his informed reading – still hasn’t grasped the difficulty of about presuming that a) human beings and belief do not function according to the same rules as b) Science and material calculations. Thus – as we see so often in the cheaper neighborhoods of the atheist community on the Web – there is a rather juvenile presumption that if they can simply shout-out the (magical mantra) ‘logic’ that since you can’t prove God the way you can prove … well, ‘real’ stuff … then God is unproven (and – another whole layer of complication) un-provable.
But since Faith is a relationship, and one involving therefore the non-material and spiritual elements of the human personality (knowledge, will, desire, intuition), then we are already in a different realm from material stuff.
That his little ‘logical’ magic-mantras are fundamentally irrelevant in the matter of the Faith relationship … is going to put JR’s garden-variety cottage-industry ‘atheism’ out of business. Let’s see how long it takes for him to figure that out on his own.
Then at 1014 he writes sarcastically that “total abstinence from sex is right and Reich is wrong for saying the opposite. Prove it.” But while JR is (finally) correct that Reich is wrong for declaiming the total immersion in sex, neither I nor the Church had proclaimed the “total abstinence from sex” – at least not for the vast majority of people. I needn’t prove it – the readership is welcome to make of it what they will. This isn’t a class (although I wonder sometimes about a ‘group’) and nothing needs to be ‘proven’ to JR, who surely has demonstrated here that he has more than too much on his plate already.
Then at 1018 – mere minutes later – the fruit of more deep thought yields JR’s question as to “what ranks did you and D attain in your military careers?”. First, he has just minutes before claimed that he had no military career so why ask the question? Second, we really have nothing but JR’s (oft-demonstrated ‘word’) that he actually was drafted, couldn’t wait to get out, yet went 5 or so steps up the promotion ladder in just those two years because … well for whatever reason. Who knows if a story like this is true? If it were to be demonstrated at some future point that at low rank he was sectioned-out or even court-martialed at for any one of half-a-dozen possible ‘issues’ we still see demonstrated in his material today, I wouldn’t at all be surprised. Meanwhile: a) I consider JR’s military career stories to be a proto-version of his allegation stories until sufficient demonstration is provided; and b) this being the internet modality, anybody can pretend to be anything they want and claim anything they want; and c) the entire military career subject is irrelevant to the material and issues we are dealing with here.
So, what about quoting and idolizing an insane, emotionally dysfunctional and criminal child molester (Reich) don't we "backwards religous types" and "imaginers" get?
Perhaps the fact that you and your types (radical-anarchist social misfits) were given any voice within the normal spectrum of the world is were the first mistakes were made. Just like permitting, with a wink and a nod, the seminaries (and the schools, military, athletics, etc.) to promote/encourage homosexual recruits.
Maybe we got what we asked for after all. And, maybe you, as a self-claimed abuse victim, shouldn't honor or respect child molesters.
Thanks for the info I didn't know that about Reich, Domy. Leonardo was a great artist but he too was a child abuser. But I do thank you for the info.
Hey you can't even quote your diety? D you've never even heard of Reich before now.
Nobody said I was perfect. If I had known about the accusations made about Reich; do you think I would have quoted him here? (and now i won't be quoting him anywhere else) So again thank you Domy.
Good — but a bit late.
Here's a link to a Phillipine orphanage run by nuns funded by the church that cares for children fathered by catholic priests.http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5635&Itemid=189
Yeah, we know, if the lefty-rads don't like what you say, you're racist, 'phobic and dumb, only the elitist libs are wonderful, right and smart (….in their ever-shrinking bizarro world).
Sorry, but the data (those rascally facts, again) is in: Being non-leftist (Republican, Conservative, Libertarian and moderate Democrat) means having a higher IQ, being better educated, earning a higher income, being in/maintaining intact families, committing or being subject to less crime, being healthier (including mental/emotional health), contributing more personal income to charity, paying more (per capita) higher (individually) taxes and being generally happier (find your own cites).
If you want to know how those lefties are measuring up, just visit any filty and dangerous OWS outpost/campsite (bring an Uzi or a bodyguard and some bleach) and survey the "scenery". Or, just pop in to Detroit, Oakland, Philly, Chicago, Newark, Camden, Baltimore or any other lefty hell-hole city.
So, who really is "smarter"?
Unlike a minority of the TMR commenters (almost exclusively restricted to the "victim" crowd), some of us don't find our worth in what others think (they know) about them.
Try to remember this, LuLu's, faithful Catholics are humble before our God. He blesses us with talents, and grants our rewards (He is our "provider"), unlike the heathen-pagans who worship their "providers" – Obama, Pelosi, Boxer, Biden, Emanuel, Nutter or Reed.
That's some loser gang you've got yourself hooked up to, there - takes a whole lot more than faith to keep that lot up on your pedestal.
I have an I.Q of 127. If I was smarter, I wouldn't be posting here.
You don't have to be Einstein to know what sites like TMR and Bigtrial.net represent.
Fact is there is usually those main players who comment on these sites, and if any of those players are removed the site may cease to exist or at the very minimum you would have in-fighting by those who claim to represent the same side.
If Freud were alive today I am sure he would think these sites and those who comment here would be an interesting study.
Dennis,,
I don't think that you realize….well, why not tell us what you think The Media Reprt and Bigtrial "represent". I will bet that you get it wrong.. Otherwise, why haven't you set up camp all dy on one of the many victim sites that may offer you support or an anti-catholic site that you may really enjoy.
Also, why not ask your therapis (no need for Freud) what he/she thinks of the comments that you (and Jim) make so often.
In the matter of the comments of 1111AM and 624PM of the 14th:
Why some commenters don't have sites of their own – since they seem to be under the impression that they have much to impart – remains an unanswered question. Instead they piggyback on other sites. Perhaps 'parasitical' is not too strong a word.
Still, through their comments we have one of the most comprehensive Abusenik Playbook notebooks of any site on the web. Which is no small thing.
Perhaps they realize that if their material had to bear the primary weight of a site, then that site wouldn't get many readers at all – and thus they figure they'd best continue as they have been doing, if they are to get any attention at all.
Commenter Ecker manages to include both Einstein and Freud in his comment, although without demonstrating that he has any working familiarity with the ideas of either of them. Perhaps he would like to suggest just what aspects of Freud's work are specifically applicable.
And again we see an idea raised by them on the BigTrial site: that if it weren't for their efforts, the site would have nothing at all to recommend it. And that if commenters here didn't have their material to deal with, we would all fall to arguing among ourselves.
As if the world revolved around them. Although they do have to Keep The Ball Rolling. And that job is only going to get harder now, as time goes on.
I have always been amazed at the emotional immaturity that is displayed in Ecker's comments. The faulty thought processes aside, a 50 year old man (who I suppose does not have employment) should be able to occupy himself with something other than himself at some point. It is a very small world he lives in. Maybe a little study of Freud (which he probably never had) would help him as well as occupy his time. He could start with defense mechanisms, for instance.
The two resident wingnuts are no more than fly-swatting exercises for those of us committed to understanding the leftist brain function (or more accurately, malfunction) and learning what is necessary to apply a fix to our society, which is currently sickened by this progressive disease.
The attacks against our Church are only one symptom of this insidious infestation- which threatens US freedoms (perhaps even sustainability/sovereignty) and, no less, the current world order.
While it is intellectually tiresome to have to repeatedly address the same logic failings in their claims and criticisms, every word or thought contributed by them provides insight into the inner workings and grindings of their minds.
God gave us mountains (and gnats) so that we could learn how to climb (…and swat).
May I suggest you not swat as you climb or you could find out about an after life sooner than you think.
Publion, Delphin and Josie,
Jack of all trades master of none.
It is funny to read as one stated above that the attacks of the catholic church will be one reason why there will be a fall of US freedoms or the current fall of world order.
I would like to know what makes this person feel that the catholic church is "the correct and only faith' ? Since that individual is posting comments on this blog I am sure he has no experience of what is waiting for him when he dies. Is there the possibility of a greater being we call God ? Is there the possibility that the only thing that awaits is a hole in the ground ? Or is there a possibility when he passes he will be met by 72 virgins ?
I do know his words and the words of his fellow commenters remind me of other individuals like David Koresh, Jim Jones and others who believe there way is the only way.
Oh, Josie you are right. I do not work. I am RETIRED. Once again I invite you to Bing or google my name and you might know a little bit more about me. I suggest Bing.
I would add one more element to my Keep The Ball Rolling imagery:
As I originally stated it, it gives the impression that the Ball is on a flat surface. This does not capture the vitality of the core dynamic.
Imagine that the Ball is being rolled uphill. For quite some years now – and with great help from various other 'interests' like the secularist-liberals and the mainstream media – the Abuseniks have been able to make a relatively easy job of Keeping The Ball Rolling, even though it is being pushed uphill. But if the Ball (in this new envisioning) ever stops Rolling forward and up … then it will start Rolling backwards, towards the very groups that started it moving in the first place.
This adds an entire new dimension to the image: there is now tremendous and immediate and palplable motivation for Keeping The Ball Rolling. Because if the Ball stops moving in its present direction, it is going to start coming right back at all the 'interests' who set it in motion to begin with.
So every Question that is asked helps in this regard.
In regard to the Ecker comment of 551PM yesterday:
In what way has Ecker demonstrated himself here to be “master” of any “trade” at all? This master-ship only exists in his mind, where he apparently imagines himself to be the foremost “activist” in the country, at least in the Catholic Abuse Matter.
Anyway, a) it’s not about being a “master” of anything, but rather of submitting intelligent, rational, and clearly substantive ideas in comments – and we haven’t seen anything like that from Ecker (among others).
And b) I haven’t looked anybody up on the Web and I won’t be doing that because it’s not a matter of reputation but rather solely a matter of the quality of the comments submitted and the material presented here. This is not the place for coasting on ‘reputation’ (which, the Web being what it is, may not be accurately described anyway).
This site – to me – is not about ‘reputation’ but merely about people coming together to discuss and deliberate on a vital and important Matter. If a person can do that, then s/he will have proved the validity of any encomia that exist out on the Web. And if not, not.
Sipe's a product of the 1950s and 60s and the truly bizarre St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, MN. St. John's was at the forefront of brainwashing the laity by changing the liturgy. Look up the connections between Benedictines and Nazis in Europe. The Benedictines are drenched in occult mysticism.
What I wrote: "The attacks against our Church are only one symptom of this insidious infestation- which threatens US freedoms (perhaps even sustainability/sovereignty) and, no less, the current world order"
What [edited by moderator] wrote in response: "I would like to know what makes this person feel that the catholic church is "the correct and only faith' ?
And, this is a perfect example of why the lib-progressive brain and the faithful Catholic brain can not successfully or effectively communicate. The leftist brain exists on lies and distortions- the kind that happily condemns innocents ; and the faithful Catholic brain exists on Truths.
Other than yet another example of the notable Grand Canyon divide between the healthy and the diseased brain, it is still heartwarming to learn that this particular afflicted brain did at least get to retire early on his winnings from the Church abuse matter lottery.
Isn't it interesting how any dialogue/debate here is always eventually turned away from all else and back toward the so-called victims themselves. Rather self-centered little buggers, aren't they?