Fall of the Catholic Church

Quite Trumpian is the way in which you imagine you’re in a position to pass judgment on people other than yourself for what you see as their failure to meet your standards - they must be “a la carte” Catholics who have no real interest in church rules or church requirements, they just like having a big day out for the communion and chatting to the neighbours on Christmas morning, because they’re not behaving in accordance with your standards. That’s your opinion. It’s not a fact, and repeating it as many times as you like won’t move it from being an opinion to a fact.

All you appear to be trying to do is use any opportunity to condemn anyone who you imagine is not behaving in accordance with your standards. I’m not interested in answering to you on their behalf. I don’t have to. There’s no denial on my part that mass attendances are falling, and have been for decades, and undoubtedly will do in decades to come as Irish society becomes more and more multicultural and the percentages of other religions and none continues to rise. Naturally that will mean that the percentage of people who identify themselves as Catholic in the census becomes smaller.

It will also mean less observance of Sunday Obligations among Catholics. It will also inevitably mean that there are less Catholics in Catholic ethos schools, something that’s also been happening for decades, and like I said earlier in the thread - if I’d a euro for every parent who says they’re not religious themselves, but they want their children to make their Communion and Confirmation, I’d be minted!

The fact is that you appear to want me to care about something I just don’t. I do care that you imagine yourself in a position to pass judgment upon other people, because that’s just a nasty attitude. I expect it of a child, I don’t expect it of an adult who I assume should know better, especially when they preach about the ills in Irish society they attribute to religion.

They're not my standards. I don't make the Church rules about Mass attendance. They ARE the catholic church standards, and non-attendance IS a grievous sin, except in some unusual cases, which don't include 'couldn't be arsed to get out of the scratcher'.

You can keep saying it until the cows come home. That doesn't change the facts. They're not my standards.

I don't give the slightest toss as to whether they go to mass on Sunday morning or not.

I DO give a toss when you try to impose indoctrination of other people's children, based on the supposed Catholicism of these people.

No, you're point ex that the judgement came from Andrew.

Then why are you regurgituating reams and reams of unnessecary rubbish instead of just quoting the post where Andrew said this?

Reems of rubbish that have nothing to do with the point to which you are respoding doesn't achieve this. It just makes it look like you're chainging the point and replying to that instead hoping that no on will notce and bring you back on topic.

You sould be now know, that doesn't work on me (or a few others in this thread - not your fitst time, is it?)!

I didn't lose you - you lost yourself....!

As I said before, look to England to see where such indifference inevitably leads. Ireland is Catholic in name alone just as England is Church of England in name alone. Welcome to the future.

That all sounds perfectly great, except that the RCC were very quick to make judgments about everyone else. Gays, divorcees, single mothers, non catholics.

Sin is at the very core of the catholic belief system, and thus judgment comes with that.

The requirement to attend mass is their own rule, they created it. Posters are not saying it is a sin not to attend mass. They are merely pointing out that, by the church's own rules, they are not fully catholic and thus the claim about how much of Ireland is catholic cannot be taken at face value.

I could argue that if you were ever a Catholic but now claim to be an atheist you can't be, because you've have no means of leaving the RC.

So self declaring then as atheist is also invalid. In fact you could lie about everything on the census none of it is validated.

What you need is referendum not a census.

That all sounds perfectly great, except that the RCC were very quick to make judgments about everyone else. Gays, divorcees, single mothers, non catholics.

Or, rather more accurately - people within the RCC were quick, and still are quick, to make judgements about others who they imagine themselves to be morally superior to in some way, by focussing on the parts of Catholic theology which suits their purposes. So for example there are gay Catholics who make judgements about divorced Catholics, divorced Catholics who make judgements about unmarried mothers and their children, gay divorced unmarried Catholics with children who make judgements about non-Catholics… ad Infinitum, I’m sure you get the picture.

One of the best examples of it is the Twitter spat and the subsequent falling out between Steve Bannon and Cardinal Raymond Burke after a French writer wrote a book implying that the Hierarchy in the Vatican were doing quite a bit more than reading bedtime stories from the Bible to each other after lights out -

https://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/2/16323/bannon-and-burke-the-end-of-an-unholy-alliance

Sin is at the very core of the catholic belief system, and thus judgment comes with that.

It is, and it does, but the judgement doesn’t come from other people, as they don’t have that authority. Catholics are urged to restrain themselves from rash judgement of other people and to show compassion, understanding, love and support, basically restrain themselves from the urge to be a dick, in secular terms.

That’s why I said earlier it’s a pretty solid moral philosophy to live by, one that many people tend to overlook when it suits them in order to portray themselves as being in some way morally superior to other people - they do the whole tolerance and respect and love for other people gig too, with themselves at the core of their own beliefs which they expect other people to practice, while appearing to absolve themselves of the same obligation. It’s why I struggle to take seriously the whole idea of “get religion out of schools so we can preach to children about love and tolerance and respect for other people”…

Of course I absolutely get the point of it - they’re advocating from their own perspective, which is fine if they wish for their perspective to be taught to their own children. It’s not fine if they wish to inflict their philosophy on children who aren’t theirs whose parents or guardians do not wish for their children to be indoctrinated into that philosophy. In the most basic terms - I support religious freedom, it’s guaranteed by our Constitution in any case, both freedom of religion, and freedom from religion.

The problem is that successive Governments have failed miserably in addressing the freedom from religion part of that provision, particularly in terms of providing for education in accordance with the rights of the family and the common good of Irish society. It’s just sneery on the part of the Department of Education to suggest that because there are adequate places in existing schools, this fulfils the States obligation to those families. It clearly doesn’t, IMO.

The requirement to attend mass is their own rule, they created it. Posters are not saying it is a sin not to attend mass. They are merely pointing out that, by the church's own rules, they are not fully catholic and thus the claim about how much of Ireland is catholic cannot be taken at face value.

That’s not ‘merely’ what was being said at all though. The exact post, and what was said, is this -

Eh no, it's not my rule or my standard. It is the church rule.

From: https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/obligation-to-attend-mass-on-sundays-1101

"The obligation to attend Sunday Mass exists. It is a commandment of the Church which binds under the penalty of grave sin. "

These people are committing grave sins by the standard of their chosen church, yet they think they can tell others how to educate their children?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119159275#Comment_119159275

That judgement of anyone goes quite a bit further than just “merely pointing out that by the church's own rules, they are not fully catholic”. That’s why I had such an issue with it, and I’d have an issue with anyone who went on like that thinking they could sit in judgement of other people and pronounce judgement upon them as if they themselves are morally superior to others. Whether or not someone is or isn’t religious doesn’t excuse them from the obligation to examine themselves first, and restrain themselves from passing judgement upon other people. There’s other times then and I simply wouldn’t be bothered, as their opinions just aren’t worth being taken seriously, and to respond to their provocation offers their opinion a legitimacy and recognition it doesn’t deserve. It’s clearly just sneering, which is motivated by attention-seeking.

The problem is that a lot of them don't have a choice - and THAT is the crux of the issue.

Of course religious people should have a say, but not the only one. In many areas the choice for those not wishing to indoctrinate their child is to go to a school some distance away. Away from their friends, team-mates and neighbours.

Nobody is suggesting that religion shouldn't be taught, but that it should be taught outside of school. Like sports, ballet, etc. If you are interested in it do it on your own time, not taking valuable teaching time away from children (and by valuable I don't mean just normal school work). Extra PE classes, home ec, art, music etc.

You’re not judging individuals, you’re just judging individuals….

Riiiiight, well however you choose to square that contradiction in your own mind is entirely your own business. I’ve lost interest in attempting to unravel it tbh.

This is simply not true though. Article 42 of the Constitution states this very clearly -

3     1° The State shall not oblige parents in violation of their conscience and lawful preference to send their children to schools established by the State, or to any particular type of school designated by the State.

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/cons/en/html#part13

The crux of the issue is that the Department of Education claims that if there are adequate places in already existing schools, the State has fulfilled it’s obligation to provide for education. That’s not coming from the RCC, it’s coming from civil servants within the Department of Education, who really don’t appear to give a fiddlers one way or the other about what anyone fills out on their census forms.

What do you mean by accomodate?

There are those who willingly choose to send their child to a school with a catholic ethos and religious education is implied and given. Where those parents have choices of an alternative non denominational school where there is no catholic or religious ethos, and no religious teaching, should those parents be trying to force the hand of the board of management or the principal in providing an alternative to them during periods of religious instructions or sacramental preparation?

And therein lies the misunderstamding: you assume that I'm talking about "no religious teaching" - I have no problem with religious instruction at school, but it should be an optional extra not the default.