TIME article: Ratzinger's views on women - Page 4

[calpurnia]

Originally Posted by suzywanII

Also, I was unaware that most Africans are Catholic. I presumed they were mostly Muslim or animist. Are imans all over the world handing out condoms and preaching to their effectiveness. This is not just the respnsibility of the Pope.

Around 50% of Africans are Christian... I don't know the denomination breakdown within that. 40% are Muslim, & the remaining 10& practice indigenous religions.

Interestingly, I just did a quick check of three countries (one Muslim, one mixed, one Christian) & the HIV rate was lowest in the Muslim country, middle in the mixed religion country, & highest in the Christian country. I wonder whether this is coincidence or not. Three countries obviously isn't enough to base a hypothesis on & examining religion doesn't take into account other cultural practices obv... but still, perhaps something to consider.

[ChasingPeace]

Birth control is permissible in Islam, including condoms.

[calpurnia]

Curiouser & curiouser.

[DaryLLL]

Africa is totally messed up and you know why? White Christians. Who needs to get in there and fix it?

Bill Clinton--a white Christian!!!








Anyone read The Poisonwood Bible?

[Annie]

Originally Posted by AllyRae

So, is it ok for Catholics to start threads on why they feel other religions are awful? No, that would be disrespectful and it's never really ok to sit there and bash another's belief system. I can assure you that I probably disagree with many parts of your spiritual/religion, but I don't start thread after thread bashing it... I have more respect for people whose beliefs I don't share...because I know that spirituality/religion can be an important part of someone's life. You don't have to agree with something to be respectful enough to not bash it.

ITA with everything you've said. I'm a cradle catholic and cant tell you how many times I've had to hear people bashing the church, but would never think of bashing any other religion.

What I want to know is why do non catholics even care what the pope says or believes? Its not their religion and has absolutly NO impact on them whatsoever.Why the fascination?

[Annie]

Originally Posted by girlndocs

It's not "bashing" to point out that someone is doing or endorsing toxic, discriminatory things that hurt other people. Like it or not (definitely not, for me, of course) the Catholic Church has a big influence on "morals" the world over and has many people in its thrall, often people in 3rd-world nations or poor people who don't have access to information to be exposed to the other side of a question.

For someone who is lauded as a moral leader to have such shockingly medieval views on gays and women, and to sway followers with threats of damnation if they should step out of line with those views, is just ... horrific.

LIke I've said before, and I'm saying it again, how does the leader of one religion, out of all the religions on earth, have such a huge effect on morals worldwide? Yes there are catholics worldwide, I'm one of them, born and raised. But you know what? We're all free to chooose what we take and dont take from the church's teachings or even if we want to stay in the church. Not ot mention there's alot of leeway in the way you interprest the teachings. The new pope has a very consedive interpretation, others dont. Please dont make the church or pope out to be this morally horrible oppresive world force. It's not. Like I said, i'm a cradle catholic, and female, and I dont and have never felt repressed. My view of women's place in the church is that of one of sacrednes and respect. True we're revered for our childbearing and mothering abilities, most likely because it's a traditional and two millenia old institution??

[Annie]

Originally Posted by girlndocs

It's not "bashing" to point out that someone is doing or endorsing toxic, discriminatory things that hurt other people. Like it or not (definitely not, for me, of course) the Catholic Church has a big influence on "morals" the world over and has many people in its thrall, often people in 3rd-world nations or poor people who don't have access to information to be exposed to the other side of a question.

For someone who is lauded as a moral leader to have such shockingly medieval views on gays and women, and to sway followers with threats of damnation if they should step out of line with those views, is just ... horrific.

LIke I've said before, and I'm saying it again, how does the leader of one religion, out of all the religions on earth, have such a huge effect on morals worldwide? Yes there are catholics worldwide, I'm one of them, born and raised. But you know what? We're all free to chooose what we take and dont take from the church's teachings or even if we want to stay in the church. Not ot mention there's alot of leeway in the way you interprest the teachings. The new pope has a very conservative interpretation, others dont. Please dont make the church or pope out to be this morally horrible oppresive world force. It's not. Like I said, i'm a cradle catholic, and female, and I dont and have never felt repressed. My view of women's place in the church is that of one of sacrednes and respect. True we're revered for our childbearing and mothering abilities, and what's wrong with that? I mean I'd love to be called mom? And I'd imagnie that this is probably because the church is a traditional and two millenia old institution?? As said before, if you dont like it choose a more liberal interpretation, ignore it, or whatever your heart tells you.

[ChasingPeace]

Recall that the Vatican is a country. The Pope is a head of state. And the Vatican behaves as such. The Holy See is a non-member state permanent observer in the United Nations and maintains self-categorized "diplomatic relations" with other nation states. http://www.holyseemission.org/index2.html
It participates in policy discussions, addresses the UN on policy issues, etc.
Because of its (hotly debated) nation state status, the Catholic Church is able to influence international policy and extend its reach beyond practicing Catholics. When you have the Vatican lobbying to prevent access to condoms in Africa, this affects more than Catholics.

[DaryLLL]

Good point, CP. No separation of church and state in that country! :LOL

[EFmom]

What I want to know is why do non catholics even care what the pope says or believes? Its not their religion and has absolutly NO impact on them whatsoever.

Blatantly untrue. The catholic church constantly lobbies politicians to deny me access to safe and legal abortions. That has an impact on me and on my daughters.

The catholic church has put on a full court press in my geographic area to buy up all the hospitals in an effort to limit the access of women to reproductive health care. Ditto on the effect for me and my daughters.

The catholic church has lobbied strenuously to deny civil rights to gay people. That has a huge impact on my two gay cousins, who would very much like to marry the loves of their lives. It also has an impact on me, since I am trying to raise my children in an atmosphere that teaches that discrimination against any minority group is wrong.

BTW, I was raised catholic and suffered more years of catholic "education" than I care to remember, so it is not a case of being unfamiliar with the institution and its actions and teachings.

[RowansDad]

Has a purge begun?

Editor's ouster worries Catholic publications

"In the Chicago offices of US Catholic, a monthly magazine, the editor held an emergency meeting yesterday with her staff to discuss coverage of controversy.

"In New York, the editor of the biweekly Commonweal magazine arrived at his office to find a blunt e-mail message from a critic declaring, ''You're next."

"And at Boston College, the school's president was asked at a faculty lunch to explain whether the ability of professors to question teachings of the Roman Catholic Church is now under threat at the Jesuit university.

"The announcement Friday that the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, an oft-quoted commentator on the workings of the Catholic Church, has been forced to resign after seven years as editor of America magazine has sent shock waves through the worlds of Catholic journalism and academia. Reese was ousted after facing five years of criticism from the man who is now Pope Benedict XVI for publishing articles that questioned the Vatican's writings on issues such as same-sex marriage, stem cell research, and salvation for non-Christians."

More here:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/ar...ations?mode=PF

[Mommiska]

Originally Posted by AllyRae

To the first point.... That doesn't make any sense to me at all... It's like saying "well, I don't believe that people should shoot their neighbors because I think that's murder....but if Joe down the street wants to kill his neighbor, well, that's his choice because maybe that neighbor did something really bad to him. If the Catholic church believes abortion is murder, there *is* no grey area...there *is* no area where the Catholic church will say "yeah, it's murder, but for you, it's ok". That would be hypocracy...

I've meant to get back to address this for ages, but with three children...well, you get busy!

AllyRae - this is one of the problems people outside the Catholic Church (and other fundamentalist churches, for that matter) have with the Church(es) when it comes to the abortion topic. When I read what you wrote, it was very frustrating, as it seemed to entirely miss the point I was trying to make.

It is not hypocrisy at all to believe that abortion is morally wrong, but to also believe that criminalising women who feel forced into an impossible situation and who feel as if they dont' have any other options is the wrong solution to the problem.

The point I was trying to make was this - if we believe abortion is morally wrong, then we should work to end (as much as possible) abortion. BUT - criminalising abortion is not the best - or even a good - way to do this.

I'd offer you the same movie suggestion I offered SkyLark - please go rent Vera Drake and see what life was like for women (both rich and poor) who felt like abortion was their only option back when abortion was illegal. I do not think it is a good idea to go back to the situation depicted in that movie.

I DO think it is a good idea to address the reasons WHY women feel they need to have an abortion. Interestingly, the Democrats seem much better at this, while the Republican agenda (while being great on the pro-life rhetoric) is crap.

Abortion statistics can be hard to track down, but it appears that they were going down under Clinton (and had been declining previous to that as well, I believe) - but (in States were records have been kept) they've gone up under Dubya - the great 'pro-life' president.

Why? I'd guess it's because, thanks to Dubya's social policies (i.e., cut help for underprivileged moms and kids, so that his wealthy cronies can have their huge tax breaks - oh, and also so we can go to war in Iraq on false pretenses), more women feel backed into impossible situations where abortion feels like the only viable option.

It's easy for us to sit back and shout 'adoption', etc. - but if we've never walked in the shoes of the woman who chooses abortion, if we've never faced the problems she faces, then our words are pretty darned hollow. And hypocritical.

[suzywanII]

Mommiska, I agree with what you wrote 99.9%. The only thing is the RCC is not a fundamentalist church. I believe the Church has far more room to manuever (when it comes to abortion, for instance) because of this. I don't know why they don't.

[asherah]

I would love to ignore the Catholic Church.
And I would, if it would stay out of world and U.S. politics.
Until then, I absolutely WILL worry about it and pay attention to it and express opinions about what it does.

[AllyRae]

Originally Posted by Mommiska

I've meant to get back to address this for ages, but with three children...well, you get busy!

AllyRae - this is one of the problems people outside the Catholic Church (and other fundamentalist churches, for that matter) have with the Church(es) when it comes to the abortion topic. When I read what you wrote, it was very frustrating, as it seemed to entirely miss the point I was trying to make.

It is not hypocrisy at all to believe that abortion is morally wrong, but to also believe that criminalising women who feel forced into an impossible situation and who feel as if they dont' have any other options is the wrong solution to the problem.

The point I was trying to make was this - if we believe abortion is morally wrong, then we should work to end (as much as possible) abortion. BUT - criminalising abortion is not the best - or even a good - way to do this.

I'd offer you the same movie suggestion I offered SkyLark - please go rent Vera Drake and see what life was like for women (both rich and poor) who felt like abortion was their only option back when abortion was illegal. I do not think it is a good idea to go back to the situation depicted in that movie.

I DO think it is a good idea to address the reasons WHY women feel they need to have an abortion. Interestingly, the Democrats seem much better at this, while the Republican agenda (while being great on the pro-life rhetoric) is crap.

Abortion statistics can be hard to track down, but it appears that they were going down under Clinton (and had been declining previous to that as well, I believe) - but (in States were records have been kept) they've gone up under Dubya - the great 'pro-life' president.

Why? I'd guess it's because, thanks to Dubya's social policies (i.e., cut help for underprivileged moms and kids, so that his wealthy cronies can have their huge tax breaks - oh, and also so we can go to war in Iraq on false pretenses), more women feel backed into impossible situations where abortion feels like the only viable option.

It's easy for us to sit back and shout 'adoption', etc. - but if we've never walked in the shoes of the woman who chooses abortion, if we've never faced the problems she faces, then our words are pretty darned hollow. And hypocritical.

Oh, I'm not saying you're wrong at all... I think that one of the most important things in the world is to stop the problem to begin with--stop rape, stop the situation that causes women to feel they have no other options, and instead teach both women and men to respect themselves, respect their partners (or other people in general) and respect the sanctity of life. I think men need to be held responsible for ducking out of parental responsibilites (I mean, everyone knows about the "runaway bride", but how come "runaway dads" are acceptable?), I think mothers need to be held in higher esteem, and I think noone should ever have to make the choice to abort or starve themselves and children.

I do not think that allowing abortion and forgetting about the real issues will help. I don't feel like throwing a woman in jail for getting abortions will help either... I think that a lot of the times, people say "oh don't worry...you can always get an abortion", and then never deal with WHY that daughter, that sister, that friend, that girlfriend needed to get the abortion in the first place. I don't like that it's a bandaid in some instances. If the option wasn't so easy to obtain, perhaps other options would be available...perhaps parents wouldn't kick their daughters out for getting pregnant. Perhaps the government would offer more support for young single mothers. Perhaps young men and women would be more careful (not saying all abortions are the result of carelessness...but there are quite a few cases where people use abortions as birth control).

I just think that to get at the root of the problem, people need to get out of the mentality that they can just recommend someone get an abortion (and yeah, there are a lot of parents, partners, friends, relatives, etc. who suggest abortion before anything else...before offering to even help the woman out...) This may not help in all cases, but in some, it might.

And I will never consider W as the "pro-life" president...there's so much more to pro-life than being anti-abortion...

[Benji'sMom]

The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by AIDS not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass.

.
You mean it's not true? Hmm - imagine that! You learn something new everyday.

[stafl]

please keep the discussion on-topic

thanks

[suzywanII]

Originally Posted by asherah

I would love to ignore the Catholic Church.
And I would, if it would stay out of world and U.S. politics.
Until then, I absolutely WILL worry about it and pay attention to it and express opinions about what it does.

I agree that the church should stay out of politics. I believe it is corrupting the Church *and* politics. I was having this same debate on another board: should religion and politics mix? I said no, but many women, liberal, feminist women, said that it should. Especially when it comes to things such as social justice, death penalty, war, etc. Catholic groups helped push for the FMLA. In your eyes, is this OK?

Though I do agree with you that the Church should cease lobbying and so forth, I really believe it is the politicians doing you a disservice. The Church has its own beliefs, which they are allowed, however, it is our government that is beholden to the people to keep religion out of lawmaking.