Category Church

Liberty University and the evangelical logic-hammock

From the very beginning, I was primed to be a Liberty University student. My upbringing as a dissatisfied fundamentalist Christian had built an aching for a more accepting, understanding religion that focussed less on the semantics and more on the sincerity. Growing up, I was surrounded by people who defined their faith as the drinks they avoided and the movies they skipped, and I longed to find a community that emphasized their personal relationship with Christ over their public acts of piety.

Scientists pledge to increase interference with the Church

Usually, you expect biting satire to come from The Onion, or Private Eye. this unexpected piece of genius comes from the Guardian in response to the meddling of churches and religious organisations recently to the proposed law changes to allow three-parent families relevant to mitochondrial donation. The church was deemed irresponsible for trying to sway politicians on the matter.

Dawkins, Abortion and Catholic Fervour

Someone with whom I once did teacher training is now a fervent Catholic and blogger at his site. We have had many a strong argument on facebook, and recently he alerted me to this blog post to see what I thought. I am now going to critique his piece on abortion and Dawkins.

1 in 50 priests are paedophiles, says Pope

Pope Francis has been quoted as saying that reliable data indicates that “about 2%” of clergy in the Catholic Church are paedophiles.

The Pope said that abuse of children was like “leprosy” infecting the Church, according to the Italian La Repubblica newspaper.

An attack on egalitarianism and the worst post and comments I have ever seen

I have recently had a conversation on facebook that left me truly flabbergasted. I think it qualifies as the most jaw-dropping conversation I have had. It was with someone whom I did teacher-training with (though who chose not to finish the course). Now I wouldn’t normally go into detail about personal matters when evaluating somebody’s claims and positions, but I think it explains so much in terms of cognitive dissonance, and is so relevant to the topic, that it does need mentioning. The person in question has certain tendencies which are deemed sinful to the Catholic Church. He lives in Brighton, ironically a city in Britain known for its diversity and sense of equality.

Sex, Doubt and the Pope

Many liberal Catholics have been encouraged by Pope Francis’s comments about sexual ethics in a recent interview. His general point was that these are lesser matters, not to be emphasized at the expense of the church’s essential message of healing and salvation.

Texas mega-church learns the hard way that God alone is a useless defence against disease

This report in The Freethinker details the importance of a robust vaccination programme for the health and wellbeing of citizens across the globe. This is science (bitches – ooh, Dawkins, so rude) and this is how it helps progress.

Or, this is backward church anti-vax thinking, and this is how it hinders progress.

It is no surprise that something like this has happened. In fact, I believe we had a measles outbreak earlier this year in the UK (esp. Wales) due to a lack of vaccination in certain demographics.

Pope Francis to visit favela indicative of Catholicism on the wane in Brazil

Tour comes amid division over how to stem flow of believers, particularly from poor communities, towards evangelism

When Pope Francis returns to his home continent on Monday as the first Latin American pontiff, the world’s attention is likely to focus on the adoration of more than a million worshippers expected at a giant open-air mass on Copacobana beach.

But it is during a lower-key visit to a small favela community on Thursday in the north of Rio de Janeiro that he will address the biggest threat to the pre-eminence of the Catholic church in the region: the exodus of believers to US-style evangelical preachers.

Los Angeles Catholic church files show decades of sexual abuse

As I am on holiday, I have scheduled a number of easy news repost for your delectation. From the Guardian:

Court-ordered release of documents reveal what Catholic orders knew of sexual abuse by priests, brothers and nuns

In therapy sessions, the priest confessed to shocking details he’d kept hidden for years: he had molested more than 100 boys, including his 5-year-old brother, had sex with male prostitutes, and frequented gay strip clubs.

Church of England vs Wonga.com – genius satire

Those of you across the pond may not have heard about the Church of England’s broadside against the seedy world of payday loans. More ‘reputable’ companies have sprung up offering ridiculously high interest and low security loans to desperate people in need. The whole business is spurious and morally dubious at best.