Ed Dionne: Papal election turns back on Vatican II

No doubt the fish dinner is traditional, but the antecedent- 'no meat on Friday'- was seen differently before the recent changes:
"In other instances the law of abstinence alone binds the faithful; thus ordinary Fridays are simply days of abstinence ... Throughout the Latin Church the law of abstinence prohibits all responsible subjects from indulging in meat diet on duly appointed days ... As a consequence, the law of abstinence embodies a serious obligation whose transgression, objectively considered, ordinarily involves a mortal sin. The unanimous verdict of theologians, the constant practice of the faithful, and the mind of the Church place this point beyond cavil."
From http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01067a.htm
Regards, Doug in New Mexico, still the home of 'all you can eat fish' during Lent.

I just don't trust people that refuse to change their minds when other facts or opinions are presented. Don't bother me with facts, my head's made up.

I also don't trust actions that are not done out of love.

Remember Jesus condemned the Pharasees who were the most religious and pious people of the time.

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as you seem to have read more into things than were stated. Pharisees and Sadducees were two sects among the Jews, and the former were, for the most part, notorious (meaning widely recognized as) hypocrites; the latter, a kind of freethinkers in matters of religion (similar to cafeteria Catholics like Dave who feel free to pick and choose only those tenets that suit their lifestyle).

Read Mathew 12 and you should note immediately how closely Pharisee thought and methodology aligns with modern liberal "progressive" philosophy and methodology.

Using a sash brush in an attempt to paint an angel on a pin head distorts the image beyond the intent--Pharasee [SIC] as wielded by you in your comment being that image.

that modern, mainstream Judaism is Pharisaical. One key difference, by losing Sadducee influence, is that the Jews now also believe in "souls" zipping right up to heaven, or some hereafter, right at death.

Anyway, the "Jewish leaders" all were looking for the Messiah of Daniel at that time, and all rejected Jesus, at least in public. (Nicodemus may have been an exception.) Mt 23 is a good place to go for blanket condemnation of such leaders. Whether it describes Pharisees is no longer as important as the note that it certainly describes many "church leaders" today.

Whenever I see a photo of one of today's gaudily-robed churchmen in procession to his mansion, my first scriptural thought is, "... but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."
Regards, Doug in New Mexico

They are violence-loving fanatics. Big difference.

situational and morally deprived liberal radicals and activists do. I wouldn't want old BUNDY living in my neighborhood, nor would I want Stalin, Lenin, nor Saddam. I wouldn't want Bill Clinton lecturing children on sexual morals nor another of the ultra left prosletizing to youngsters about the use of abortion as a means of birth control because a foetus is really just a parasite.

Would you?

enemies and even themselves and their biographers Diana--nary a one was from the right nor conservative in any way.

You are welcome for the refresher if you had forgotten your previously learned history.

Liberals believe in human rights and self-government, and Stalin believed in (and tolerated) neither. My high school history teacher (Mr. Devlin) used to say that the political spectrum isn't really a line, it's a circle, with the far right and far left meeting. Thus there's not much effective difference between Stalin and Hitler, even though conventionally one is "far left" and the other "far right."

-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
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The opinions expressed above are my own,
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at least that is something you are consistently noted for.

Try hard to remember back to what your Mr. Devlin actually taught you about Stalin and what he did and how he got people to be his willing followers.

Now look at the DNC. Same same!

We can all agree with Mr. Devlin that there isn't much difference between the most extreme left and the most extreme right but you appear to have zeroed in on the "circle" and missed out on the methods. The Extreme right doesn't have much problem admitting where they are but the Extreme left try to imagine themselves as moderates and have their followers convinced of this too--witness those imagining and actually defending Kerry, and Kennedy, and HRC as not being extremists but simply moderates even in the face of the visible evidence.

One is amazed that you remember Mr. Devlin but seem to have forgotten most of what he likely taught Dave.

The DNC? A body of little organization and no power -- to equate that with Stalin is ludicrous. Now, Tom DeLay, on the other hand... OTOH, from what we've heard of Bolton, he'd be very Stalinesque if given the power to do so -- it's a small step to trying to destroy one's livelihood for daring to disagree to the next step, of ACTUALLY destroying that life.

-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
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The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!

I find these hysterical charges against others perplexing. First, you're charging that church officials murdered a pope. Now, you're suggesting that Bolton is very close to being a murderer. Do you have a guilty conscience or something? I'm otherwise perplexed by these extreme charges you are throwing around.

Or are we back to Schiavo again? Big difference between someone in a persistent vegetative state and an underling that dared to disagree with your extremist stance...

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The opinions expressed above are my own,
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BIG difference between Schiavo and the Underling. Terri is dead. The underling is reemployed. I'ld take the reemployment any day of the week particularly if you can be welcomed back to the mother ship.

'left' message?

Granted they used it a vehicle for their own power, just as many seem to acccuse all conservatives of doing with consevatism.

Most of us don't carry conservative to extreme any more than most liberals don't mimic Stalin, inspite of the oft repeated Nazi associations to the 'right' politics.

JMO

Roger

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populist stance, but to call the eventual vicious dictatorships that were the result "liberal" exhibits a particularly unrealistic view of the world.

Dan

If Conservatives are rigid, then what are Liberals?

a problem isn't it?

How are Democracy and multi-culturalism exclusively parts of secularism. Your claim is way off base.

in the same tradition that upheld the "divine right of kings" and condemned "modernism," which specifically included democracy, until the late 19th century. And I probably should have said "pluralism," rather than "multi-culturalism." The Church still decries the fact that birth control and divorce are now legal in Italy, frinstance. It's fine for a Church to preach something to its members, but to try to impose those beliefs on others by force of law (and in an earlier era, by force of torture) is not consistent with the free will and human dignity that it also preaches. Sort of like the US preaching democracy while (unfrtunately, often successfully) working to overthrow democratically elected governments of which it disapproves by force of arms (e.g. Nicauragua, El Salvador, and Allende's Chile).

-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
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The opinions expressed above are my own,
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against the current Church. Catholicism, taken as it was intended, is a love for all others and a forgiveness of sins. Most Catholics, in the US and abroad, believe in those principles.
As for the stance against birth control and divorce... what do you expect. These two items clearly go against basic tenants of Christian belief. To blindly accept them out of a sense of plurality is absurd. As for preaching to others... the Church has always had a strong sense of evangelism. There is no fault in attempting to influence law-making bodies either, as any group can do this based upon their respective beliefs. To criticize the Church is hypocritical if you do not also criticize AARP, NAACP, unions, and every other group that tries to impose its beliefs on everyone else. As many people do, you demean Christians and their beliefs because you feel they are not "valid."
As for resisting change, in the sense that the Church does not alter its beliefs due to popular sentiment, it is resistant to change (not modernism - different things), yet that is the same with any group established on the basis of its beliefs.

>>As for the stance against birth control and divorce... what do you expect. These two items clearly go against basic tenants of Christian belief. <<

How is it, then, that most Christian Churches have no such proscriptions? I've already discussed the moral bankruptcy of the "natural law" argument. JP2 actually didn't believe in the concept of birth control -- he periodically toyed with the idea of even banning "natural family planning." In his first trip to Washington, he said something like "depriving existing children of a few material things is less important than giving them the joy of additional brothers and sisters," and "God instructed man to increase and multiply and fill the earth!" My response to that is "we done over-filled it already!" His response to that argument was aimed at the developed world -- that the world could support many more people if the world's resources were "fairly distributed" -- the implication was that "fair" meant "even," and that bare subsistence was enough.

-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
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The opinions expressed above are my own,
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They don't need to provide additional guidance on birth control because it falls under the scope of "Thou shalt not kill." In other words every life is precious and no measures should be taken to deny life, which birth control does.

so the result is mass starvation, DR. The question isn't whether the human population will be limited, the question is whether it will be done rationally, with no pain and suffering to living human beings, or will occur by Malthusian forces, with maximum pain and suffering for everyone on the planet.

-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
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The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!

change regarding birth control. I note that you equate a baby with a deer. That's a revealing argument.

Anyway, you claim to be a scientist. Don't you have the foggiest notion of the dynamics of systems? Humans have intelligence. They can modify their behaviour to avoid mass die offs from disease and food shortages. The system would simply adjust to either throttle back reproduction by available means, or increase available resources. That, in fact, has been what has happened for several decades now. The system would not catastrophically crash .