Last November, a 27-year-old woman was admitted to St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix. She was 11 weeks pregnant with her fifth child, and she was gravely ill. According to a hospital document, she had "right heart failure," and her doctors told her that if she continued with the pregnancy, her risk of mortality was "close to 100 percent."The patient, who was too ill to be moved to the operating room much less another hospital, agreed to an abortion. But there was a complication: She was at a Catholic hospital."They were in quite a dilemma," says Lisa Sowle Cahill, who teaches Catholic theology at Boston College. "There was no good way out of it. The official church position would mandate that the correct solution would be to let both the mother and the child die. I think in the practical situation that would be a very hard choice to make."
To Lisa Sowle Cahil, the theology professor at Boston College, I would say we live in a "practical" world, not some woo-woo world where others are expected to adopt "beliefs" snatched from thin air. Remembering that dogma is defined as a belief or set of beliefs that a religion holds to be true, nothing underscores the lunacy of dogma more than this horrid example.
Well, I take that back. Actually there is a more horrid example. In March of 2010, a nine year old girl in Brazil had been sexually assaulted by her stepfather since the age of six. When she started complaining of severe stomach pains she was taken to the hospital where it was discovered she was four months pregnant with twins.
Cardinal Giovanni Batista Re, who heads the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, told reporters that although the girl fell pregnant after apparently…apparently?!!.. being abused by her stepfather, her twins had, "the right to live, and could not be eliminated".
So what did the Catholic Church do? They excommunicated her doctors. The only reason the little girl was not excommunicated was because "she is still a child in the eyes of Church authorities." The cardinal said, "It is a sad case but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons.”
A sad case? Is this the highest condemnation the cardinal could muster? It makes me want to grab the cardinal by his clerical collar, twist it till his face turns blue and say, “No, the real problem is the Catholic Church and its dogmatic teaching.” And the real solution is not asking some priest to “absolve” the stepfather (who by the way was not excommunicated) but to tie him to the same bed he used to rape this innocent little girl and to remove his testicles without benefit of anesthesia.
Once a religion declares something to be "true" it's stuck with it. That is why religion (especially the Christian religion) will go to great lengths to twist an argument around until it is barely recognizable in order to support their dogma. This is why the Catholic church puts itself in the absurd position of excommunicating her saviors while offering to absolve the sin of the sexual deviate who raped her. What insanity!!
Makes one wonder why Ms. Cahill would not abandon her profession of teaching Catholic Theology and get a real job in the real world.
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Charlie said, "Once a religion declares something to be "true" it's stuck with it. That is why religion (especially the Christian religion) will go to great lengths to twist an argument around until it is barely recognizable in order to support their dogma. This is why the Catholic church puts itself in the absurd position of excommunicating her saviors while offering to absolve the sin of the sexual deviate who raped her. What insanity!!"
ReplyDeleteI will go even further and say, the protestants made a grave error when they chose to build their belief system on the fables and evil of the Catholics. They needed a Dawkins, but had only a Luther and Calvin to guide them. If you were going to break away from insanity, why create your own and try to make it more acceptable?
Jim
Since our laws require disclaimers in order to sell most products all churches should be required to make this disclaimer before each sermon.
ReplyDeleteThere are many extant writings accredited to the Apostolic Fathers, Clement of Rome, Barnabas, Hermas, Ignatius, and Polycarp. These writings contain no mention of the Four Gospels. We have at this day certain most authentic ecclesiastical writers of the times, as Clemens Romanus, Barnabas, Hermas, and Polycarp, who wrote in the order just named, but in Hermas you will not find one passage or any mention of the New Testament, nor in all the rest is any one of the Evangelists named.
Many believe that there is only one book that contains the life and teaching of Jesus the Nazarene- the Holy Bible's New Testament. But in fact, there are hundreds of important texts, scrolls, manuscripts and letters that exist, but were excluded from the later "authorized" version of the canon. The New Testament itself is actually made up of 27 different books, letters or portions of texts, all carefully selected and edited more than 300 years after Christ's death.
Justin Martyr, the most eminent of the early Fathers, wrote around the middle of the second century and makes more than three hundred quotations from the books of the Old Testament, and nearly one hundred from the Apocryphal books; but none from the Gospels. -- In the latter half of the second century, between the time of Justin and Papias, and the time of Theophilus and Irenaeus, the Four Gospels were most likely written or compiled.
So, let me make this clear. Our Gospels which provide all the information known about the man we call Jesus, were not quoted by the religious leaders the first one hundred years after his death. You can also add the book of Acts to that list which claims to give the history of the church. It wasn't until after 150 CE. that these works were quoted. This fact is well documented in works of religious history. When the early leaders of the church ignore our most sacred writings defending the church, one has to ask why. I would welcome anyone who can show me a single quote of the gospels (in our bible) or the book of Acts before 150 CE. Actually, I would just love to meet a fundamentalist preacher who has read the works of those early church writers.
Jim
"Actually, I would just love to meet a fundamentalist preacher who has read the works of those early church writers.
ReplyDeleteDon't hold your breath, Jim .