Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:madeleine wrote:....because Christianity is based on the premise all of humanity is in need of Salvation. Our need for Salvation is made fairly obvious on a daily basis, including by "Directors, and fellow Believers", and people who don't believe at all...everyone, including ourselves.
Hello Ms. M,
So, essentially there's nothing any Christian leader could do that would cause you to reconsider the truth claims of Christianity?
V/R
Dr. Cameron
The Truth of Christianity is a Person, Jesus Christ, not an ideology.
The Catholic mindset is, Christ is at the head of the Church, and so the Church is Holy because of Him. The Body of Christ, the Church, is made up of fallible humans. There is no Catholic belief that would ever indicate we can become perfected on our own. This is only made possible by Jesus Christ. In Him, with Him and through Him, is the only Way in which we are perfected.
The problem is not Jesus Christ, it is our lack of faith, and it is only Jesus Christ Who is the Solution. Those who commit atrocious crimes are fully aware of the sins they were/are committing, and they know they are in willful defiance of God and are failing as a disciple of Jesus Christ. No doubt, their sins wound the Body of Christ, and cause faith to fail in some. But, my faith is not reliant on humans. (Personally, I got over that in my secular humanist years.)
Also, the view the secular world has of the Church hierarchy is similar to a board of directors. This is not the view that Catholics have of the clergy. While it has been a persistent temptation in Catholicism to create an elitist class, this has been responded to with anti-clericalism among the laity. Not in the form of hating our clergy, but in the form that people are learning to not put them on a pedestal. The clergy are servants of the Servant.
Those who behave in a manner other than servant, have a struggle with serving themselves as the center, rather than Jesus Christ. It is the first temptation of our First Parents, eat of this fruit and become gods....this favored temptation of Evil is forever in our midst. Those who are abusing youth and children, have made themselves gods, and are defiant before God. Some, from their testimony in court and interviews, are defiant to their deaths. In this stance, they have rejected everything that I believe, and that Jesus Christ taught. This does not change the Truth of Christ Crucified, or the fact that I believe the organism He created to transmit this Truth, remains His. To believe otherwise is to believe God has left us orphans, which, is in defiance of Scripture and the teachings of Christ Himself.
The message of the Cross is, Jesus Christ saved us while we were still sinners. There is no person worthy of this Sacrifice, it is a Gift, freely given. God's Mercy. This is not to say those who are committing these grave sins, and are unrepentant, will not know God's Justice. They are visible to both His Mercy and Justice.
As a Catholic, I believe that Mercy is found through Jesus Christ, and the only remedy is Him. He established a Church for the benefit of the faithful, and for these clergy, Christ's Church is their path to Redemption. As Catholics, they have available to them the Sacrament of Reconciliation, also called confession. A false confession, or a confession never made, will not find God's forgiveness, but the Church always has hope for all sinners. So it is the approach that has been made, for decades. Abusing priests need even more the healing Sacraments of the Church, and some of these priests have preyed on God's Mercy, pretending to be repentant. This deception is in the open now, as it should be, but it has never been hidden from God.
The world must turn to Christ.
Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction -Pope Benedict XVI