"lewd and irreverent bingo nights on the church premises"

LOL - brilliant! All the best of luck to them.

That's tradition for ye, lol

Big Deal... nearly 1 in 10 of our population are LGBT. Their licence fee money goes to pay for the BBC and so why shouldn't they have programmes which reflect both their general lifestyle and lifestyle choices…

The text in question 'Is it ethical to be Catholic' is so very badly wrong on so many levels that I don't think I'll even try to point it all out. Suffice to say for now that the author reads the encyclical 'Deus Caritas Est', with its emphasis on real marriage (ie, heterosexual, faithful, monogamous) as "an invitation for us to work out what the rich elements and gifts of same-sex love can be. How we are to set about creating a Catholic culture of same-sex love."

That has to be borne in mind when the rest of 'Is it ethical to be Catholic?' is read, I think, otherwise his pretty words could easily fool the innocent reader.

"nearly 1 in 10 of our population are LGBT. Their licence fee money goes to pay for the BBC and so why shouldn't they have programmes which reflect both their general lifestyle and lifestyle choices…"

Because it's a damned travesty? (Where's Torquemada when you really want him?)

Yes, and who says that "nearly 1 in 10" are LGBT. (Took me a little while to work that one out!)

Where to start on this one? The Roman Catholic church have absolutely no ground to stand on regarding such issues. As an organisation fully aware of the widespread paedophilia in it's midst, to the extent of top down cover-ups over decades if not centuries, any pronouncements it cares to make on any sexual or moral matters should be roundly ignored.

The fact that anyone, particularly the gay community who have been long vilified by the RC church, are prepared to associate with this sorry organisation should be a source of encouragement to all.

--Human Animals--

Encouragement? For a re-introduction of the Inquisition, perhaps, but hardly for the degradation of the Church.

Going by your sorry excuse for a logical argument, any institution which has ever had in its employ individuals who have erred and abused the positions they occupy within that institution should be 'roundly ignored'. What nonsense.

Now, if you could produce evidence that the Church teaches condonement of such filthy and abominable activities, you might have a leg to stand on, but since you'll never find such evidence (there being no such teachings) you don't.

Oh well. Next!

Well at least the vestaments will be fashionable.

Hey - my license fee is paying for this - how am I supposed to feel?

Sorry Mr Smith but we're not talking about a few 'bad apples' here. We're talking an organisation which has covered up, denied, moved around and kept in-house literally thousands of cases of child sex abuse. Not just in Ireland or the UK -- world-wide. Not just the odd bishop -- this stuff has been known about at the very top and all points in between for decades.

Now I don't know about you, but personally I view the sexual abuse of children as the most vile, disgusting and indefensible crime on the statute book. The fact that the Roman Catholic church obviously didn't and probably still doesn't speaks volumes for an organisation supposedly based on morality.

Put it this way -- if a relative of yours was caught abusing children and subsequently tried to lecture you on sexual morality, how much respect would you give him?

David,

"Hey - my license fee is paying for this - how am I supposed to feel?"

How do you think I feel when 80 to 90% of television is not worth watching?

There's a healthy tradition of dressing up as vicars and tarts at fancy dress parties.
Here in Brighton most of the clergy are openly gay, so they don't need to dress up; I've heard them call each other sluts, honestly.
Its a mad mad world.
which is why I prefer the knights of the garter, however that can be misinterpreted too ;)

Don't really see a problem with this, in an of itself, as it highlights different views and lives that are entitled to be seen as much as any other.

However, the BBC is unlikely to put the same resource into covering religous services by fundalmentalist evangelical christians. It is certainly unlikely to show the same level of respect to both groups and it is hard to deny that an agenda is at work here.

This is why David is correct to lable the Beeb as hopeless.

Dawkins,

ONLY 80-90% - I would put it more like 99%, the exception being those programmes I am on ;-)

NRG -- could perhaps be that 'fundamentalist evangelical Christians' tend to preach intolerance? Ranting about issues such as homosexuality, abortion and evolutionary theory (all of which are legal and widely accepted in western society) is perhaps not something the beeb wish to encourage.

David,

LOL :0)

Have they invited you to Stormont on the 8th? I'm told all the glittering celebs will be there.

Well, Human Animals, if you really want the Roman Catholic Church to start hanging paedophile priests, start drafting a letter to send it to Il Papa. I'll happily add my signature to that missive. Perhaps you've not noticed, but paedophilia in priests is felt by real Catholics to be an absolute black abomination.

The fact that it happens, though, aside from the obvious necessity to punish most severely those guilty of it, has no reflection on the truth of the teachings in question. Why this animosity against taking the teachings on their own merits? You employ the illustration of a cousin, but that doesn't work here. We're talking about an institution composed of many persons, not just one person.

Mr Smith -- as a non-subscriber to organised religion, I'm basing my argument on 'doings' not 'teachings.' Church teachings are largely irrelevant, even to many of it's members these days --supposed 'set-in'stones' such as contraception, divorce and sex outside marriage are generally ignored.
What I'm concerned with is church actions.

You didn't like / sidestepped the 'cousin' scenario -- try this one.

You're the manager of a large company with particular responsibilities for the care of children. You discover that some of your employees have been sexually abusing the children in their care.
Do you:

A. Report the matters to the police together with a dossier of available evidence.

B. Sack the employees and keep quiet.

C. Move the employees to a different department and deny everything.

I would suggest that answer A shows high moral fibre, answer B moral ambivalence and answer C moral bankruptcy.

Add to that the fact that this was not some isolated parish in the middle of nowhere, but the global policy of an organisation predicated on morality and spiritual truth, and you have one almighty stench.

Again I question why ANYONE would wish to associate with such a corrupt organisation, and why anyone would listen to their pronouncements on sexual morality.

Human Animals,
The Church is a company alright, a company of sinners. I guess the General Manager if you can call him that is Jesus, with the Pope as his Vice-President and the bishops as sort of second rung executives and the priests as salesmen.

Now when things like this happen, our first job is to trust our manager because in our company the manager is always right.

However the customer is still often right as in this case. In the issue of paedophilic salesmen, the customers and the manager seem to be saying the same thing - that the salesmen and executives have messed this one up big time. Since they're both saying the same thing, our job is obviously to listen to them both.

Adrian,

The problem of paedophilia amongst clergy of any denomination, is somewhat more than just another 'error of judgement', it is a total betrayal of the lay congregation's trust in them for the protection, - both physical and spiritual, of our most precious creation - our children.

In purely religious rhetoric, we could say that we are the creation of God, and by extension, so are our offspring.

Surely the guilty priests are also betraying the very faith they are supposed to be upholding, and are as guilty as any other traitor.

To be betrayed by the very 'Keepers of the Faith' has to be the most heinous betrayal of all time.

That the 'Vice-President', (how apt a title!), and his executives see prevarication and half-hearted apologies as sufficient to restore our trust in the leadership only compounds the insult to the universal congregation.

Considering that this not a recent problem, and has been discussed and generally considered for decades, it is surprising that there has been little sign of penitence, or contrition, by the people concerned, all the more surprising, as both are supposed to be 'pillars' of the Christian faith.

Sure, the perpetrators have been held reluctantly to account, but this is a problem that goes to the very core of the religious hierarchy, all levels must have been aware of it, and are as guilty 'by default', as the perpetrators themselves.

To carry blithely on in such an unconcerned fashion, hoping that time will eventually heal the sense of betrayal, is surely not really good enough.

Human Animals -

... or D. If your name's Margaret Hodge and you're the (Labour) Leader of Islington Council, you cover it up and attempt a legal injunction against the newspaper which exposed you.

You then jack it in, become a Labour MP and end up as Minister for Children.

Make mine a large one and trebles all round.

Good contribution though. It's a change to see one liberal taking a tough line on one crime, unlike Leftist filth who excuse kiddie fiddlers even when convicted:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/03/nbike03.xml

... and block laws intended to protect children:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6540749.stm

Good post, Ernest Young. I am especially horrified by the stories that came from Australia.

While none of this has affected my faith I don't deny that people who have been brought up to expect high standards of behaviour from their priests and nuns would have been severely affected by this crisis.

Two additional concerns of mine:
1. That paedophile priests (who constitute a small fraction) are being lumped together with those who molested adolescents and who are not technically paedophiles but more correctly homosexuals.
2. That the true reason why so many homosexuals and a few paedophiles as well were admitted to the priesthood isn't being discussed adequately.

Adrian,

As I have said previously - it doesn't affect my faith, but it has destroyed any respect that I may have had for the Catholic or the Anglian church...

Do the archbishops have any concept of the harm this sordid episode has done to their cause? - it certainly does not seem to be the case.

Human Animals - "You're the manager of a large company with particular responsibilities for the care of children. You discover that some of your employees have been sexually abusing the children in their care"

Exactly - the cover up was disgusting as you rightly point out. This 'company's' 'employees' lecture people on morals then when the employees turn out to be very much the opposite of moral they cover it up but carry on lecturing on... morals. Utterly disgraceful.

"Again I question why ANYONE would wish to associate with such a corrupt organisation, and why anyone would listen to their pronouncements on sexual morality"

I dont. At all. though i maintain some hope in my faith, I condemn their hypocrisy - if we dont then thats beyond wrong. You become complicit.

Ernest - well said...

Adrian,

Just curious: where do you draw the line between children and adolescents? Over here sex with a girl or boy under 18 is a criminal act.

Dawkins,
Though it's a crime in the eyes of every civilised society, the case of an adult having sex with an adolescent above the age of 14 isn't one of psychopathological disorder and hence is technically not paedophilia. Most of these priests are homosexual predators but calling them paedophiles is an exaggeration except in a small minority of cases.