Catholocism

[millais]

Catholics are right about one thing, condoms and pulling out should never be used.

it is an effective way to grow the flock so it is not outpaced by competing religions.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

I make no comment one way or another on the theological claims of the Church.

But as a temporal entity? It is dying. Two examples from very different countries, alike only in that they're both traditionally Catholic and are both now becoming ... something else, I guess.

Barely half the population of Guatemala now claims to be Catholic. And I'd submit the raw numbers are much, much worse than that in the sense that people who sign up for nutty faiths like Pentecostalism, Assembly of God, flavors of Baptist from the deep end of the pool or Seventh Day Adventism (the main Protestant faiths in Latin America) are a helluva lot more committed to their faith than somebody who keeps worshiping at the church of their great-granddaddy.

What Pope Paul VI once referred to as "Most Catholic Ireland?" No more, bitches.

Weekly Mass attendance levels in Dublin are currently put at 20-22 per cent (of the population), while being as low as 2-3 per cent in some working-class parishes.

A century ago, hell 30 years ago, this would have been unthinkable.

What's interesting is that while Catholicism is rotting on the vine in both countries, in Guatemala people seem to be substituting one faith for another, while in Ireland people are just saying fuck it, and noping out of all religion. As in, Irish Protestants are basically doing the same thing as Catholics, and attendance at their churches as fallen every bit as drastically.

Apropos of nothing, kind of an amusing quote I stumbled while re-reading Darkness at Noon

When the existence of the Church is threatened, she is released from the commandments of morality. With unity as the end, the use of every means is sanctified, even cunning, treachery, violence, simony, prison, death. For all order is for the sake of the community, and the individual must be sacrificed to the common good.

Dietrich von Nieheim, Bishop of Verden: De schismate libri III, AD 1411

I guess Koestler's point was to compare Stalin's show trials to the Inquisition, but I can't see the present Pope Hippie/Francis (first of his name, didn't realize that) uttering anything similar. Which is too bad, because without something akin to it, the slide into senescence can only continue.

 

[nier]

I can't remember the last time I went to church but being Catholic is okay in my eyes because there's the wine at mass and I used to chug that shit like a motherfucker when it was my turn for a sip

 

[KillaClown1488]

Vatican II was a mistake.

 

[Florence]

I can't remember the last time I went to church but being Catholic is okay in my eyes because there's the wine at mass and I used to chug that shit like a motherfucker when it was my turn for a sip

I think they use horrible wine at my church specifically for that reason.

 

[nier]

I think they use horrible wine at my church specifically for that reason.

I'm pretty sure it was shitty cheap wine when I look back on it, but I was too young to realize it.