RC Monsignor on "Stairway to Heaven"
By Jim
Jan
05
2019
"Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan says her office has found 500 more Catholic clergy accused of sexually abusing children than the state’s six archdioceses have publicly identified." - RNS
"The Italian Episcopal Conference [CEI] has submitted the proposed change to the Vatican for approval, changing the line 'lead us not into temptation' to 'abandon us not when in temptation,' reported the Italian newswire service Ansa and the [U.K.] Express." - Washington Times
"Top U.S. bishops have admitted their disappointment and frustration as the Vatican has blocked immediate action on the child sex abuse scandal." - Christian Post
"By a two-to-one margin, American Catholics now give Francis negative marks for his handling of the sex abuse scandal" - Pew Research
"[T]he Vatican, ...now appears to be on the verge of repeating its mistake by completing a deal with the government of the People’s Republic of China, on the 85th anniversary of the Reichskonkordat." - National Review
Amidst the unfolding homosexual, sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, it’s appropriate to consider the Roman Catholic position on the nature of pastoral ministry. The fact is that Roman Catholicism teaches (1) the priesthood is a special class above that of the laity, (2) that a priest is marked by the Holy Spirit in an indelibable and permenant way, (3) that he can thus represent Christ during the Mass, and (4) he therefore has the sacerdotal authority to make Christ present in the elements of the Lord’s Supper, and (5) a priest can never lose this authority and marking by the Spirit, even if (for example) the priest sexually abuses children. This is an un-Biblical and un-Christian position. The Catechism of the Catholic Church advocates this false teaching:
The divinely instituted ecclesiastical ministry is exercised in different degrees by those who even from ancient times have been called bishops, priests, and deacons. Catholic doctrine, expressed in the liturgy, the Magisterium, and the constant practice of the Church, recognizes that there are two degrees of ministerial participation in the priesthood of Christ: the episcopacy and the presbyterate. The diaconate is intended to help and serve them.