Bishops as marriage experts

Catholicism and Judaism follow the Ten Commandments so one expects the leaders of said religions to support the sanctiy of marriage.

To wit:

Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery.

Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife.

Then there is this:

"FIRST-YEAR CONTRACEPTIVE FAILURE RATES
Percentage of women experiencing an unintended pregnancy - (and the decision to have or not have an abortion)
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contr_use.html

Method Typical

Pill (combined) 8.7 %
Tubal sterilization 0.7
Male condom 17.4
Vasectomy 0.2
3-month injectable 6.7
Withdrawal 18.4
IUD
Copper-T 1.0
Mirena 0.1
Periodic abstinence 25.3
Calendar 9.0
Ovulation Method 3.0
Sympto-thermal 2.0
Post-ovulation 1.0
1-month injectable 3.0
Implant 1.0
Patch 8.0
Diaphragm 16.0
Sponge §
Women who have had a child 32.0
Women who have never had a child 16.0
Female condom 27.0
Spermicides 29.0
No method 85.0
Abstinence 0

Followed by the Commandment:

Thou Shalt Not Kill

The problem is not Catholics, many of whom oppose the Vatican's constant interference in the Congress, along with its lobbying the United Nations (UN) to ban distribution of condoms in third-world nations.

The current tax code allows this medieval institution to aggressively lobby as it does, to thwart freedom and come to the aid of dying and suffering people.

This church has raised tens of millions to pay off the victims of pedophiles, to prevent freedom of choice in Ireland, to influence the United States Congress on health care.

Is it not time to separate church and state?

We must pass legislation making it illegal for religious institutions to lobby elected and appointed officials.

We must also end their tax exempt status, particularly egregious in this period of economic distress.

I for one have absolutely no interest in reading anything about marriage that is written by men who have sworn off marriage. Men that want to tell other people how to live their lives. And will someone PLEASE tell me why they think cohabitation is a bad thing? It's like these crazy 'religious' folk think that if your married all of a sudden BOOM you have instant life-long connection. It doesn't work like that. You have to WORK at marriage. You have to get to know each other so deeply that you are eternally connected. You don't wake up one day, say "I do" and immediately become husband and wife (well, in the literal sense you do, but you know what I mean). It takes time. Just like progress takes time. DEAL WITH IT crazy religious people. Gay marriage is ON IT'S WAY!!

For reads on this topic and more, check out:
http://byrdsview.blogspot.com/

From Mark 10: 6-12 we have more reasons for the RCC to emphasize the sanctity of marriage:

"But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' /7/ 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, /8/ and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. /9/ Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." /10/ Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. /11/ He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; /12/ and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."

See also:

(1) 1 Cor 7:10-11
(2) 1or2?Q: Luke 16:18 = Matt 5:31-32
(3) Matt 19:9
(4) Herm. Man. 4.1:6b,10

Said passage was, according to most contemporary NT and historic Jesus exegetes, uttered by the simple preacher man aka Jesus.

To wit:

"The opposition here is not just to divorce. To forbid divorce one has only to say that divorce is never legal. That is exactly what happens in the much less radical 252 Moses and Divorce [2/1]. The attack is actually against 'androcentric honour whose debilitating effects went far beyond the situation of divorce. It was also the basis for the dehumanisation of women, children, and non-dominant males' (Kloppenborg, 1990:196)"

Read more at: http://wiki.faithfutures.org/index.php?title=015_Against_Divorce

I think it is quite arrogant to lecture people on a subject you have no actual experience with. It is obvious to me that the Catholic Bishops are only intending to tell people how to live, but the Catholic Bishops do not live the same way. One life for the Catholic Bishops and some lesser life for the common masses.

I think the Catholic Bishops are out of touch with reality. Taking advice on banking issues from a bank robber is about the same analogy, as taking advice on marriage issues from a Catholic Bishop. No offense to bank robbers.

Patrick

The ironic thing is for some of these "experts on marriage" the only "romance" they have ever had in their lives was 30 minutes with an alter boy in the rectory.

The mere thought of some guy who does not live in the real world and as a married man "counseling" people on something like marriage that he knows absolutely knowing about is ridiculous and extremely harmful. Patrick said it well at 6:02 - one life for the Catholic bishops and something much less for the rest of us. Something has to be done about the amount of influence they have been allowed to obtain over the way the masses live their lves. If they are going to influence law then the tax exemption has to go.

Sort of like asking your cat how to drive the car.......

...and given the "relationship problems" preists have had, and we have seen emerge after decades of the Catholic hierarchy hiding them, these are not exactly the kind of people who should be doling out advice on intimate relationships....

I'm with George Bernard Shaw on this: "Whatever the Pope knows about sex, he shouldn't."

Certainly if the Catholic faithful want to take guidance on their own lives from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bigots and the Pope, that's their business. But with respect to civil marriage, they have the same level of credibility as does the equally celibate Dalai Lama, although as far as I know the Dalai Lama has never been actively complicit in the massive institutionalization of child sexual abuse.

To put this into one context, in Catholic dogma remarriage after divorce is a "no-no." If the bigots, archbigots, and cardinals were to want to impose this view on Americans as a whole, making it part of civil law, would anyone pay attention to them?

Two arguments which are constantly recycled should be laid to rest. These are that celibate bishops can have nothing to say about marriage and all the bishops (and priests) are crypto-pedophiles.

If you actually read anything they write about marriage, they are simply interpreting and restating the major points of the received tradition of marriage within Christianity. If you're not Christian, then skip it.

There are plenty of marriage counsellors who are not themselves married and yet they offer advice which people pay for. Psychiatrists usually have no direct personal experience of the many conditions they treat and yet some people turn to them for guidance. We don't say: "Unless you are a schizophrenic, what do you know about schizophrenia?"

The logic that wisdom or commonsense observations about marriage can only originate with people who are or were married is nonsense. Some wise married people may offer advice which is different from what the bishops might say, but it doesn't follow that only married people can have knowledge about the subject.

As for bishops and priests all being pedophiles, this is just indulging in malice and ignorance. Sort of like saying all Americans are liars, murderers and warmongers because the country regularly elects and supports leaders who possess these qualities. Since the number of clerics who committed immoral acts was around 5%, there is less validity to the slur against them than there would be against Americans if one wants to play the slur game.

isn't this the sort of real-life biblical and moral guidance we need from the church's spiritual and theological leaders?

Emphatically YES!

Good points Matthew_DC. It's refreshing to hear a voice of reason among the Post comments for a change.

I suspect most of the vitriol toward the Church comes from folks who feel challenged by the truth of the Church's teaching. After all, its easier to stone the messenger than to face a reality that challenges the way you live.

CCNL and Matthew_DC: while it's perfectly fine for the Catholic Church to tell Catholics what to do, it is not OK for the Church to tell others what to do.

Moreover, ignoring the Church isn't going to fix the problem of the Church's attempt to influence public policy in a country with a Bill of Rights that says expressly that Congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment of religion. We are spending a lot of time and money addressing the problem of the Taliban overseas. Perhaps we should be just as worried about the Taliban-like clergy here in the U.S. and in other allied countries that seek to force all of us to abide by their ideas about what God wants or does not want. That's called Theocracy, not democracy.

"If you actually read anything they write about marriage, they are simply interpreting and restating the major points of the received tradition of marriage within Christianity."

That would seem to be tradition for its own sake, where the tradition is not questioned.

"There are plenty of marriage counsellors who are not themselves married and yet they offer advice which people pay for."

The key word there is "advice." That is not what the clergy members in the various religions are offering. Instead, they're giving orders, insisting that everyone MUST do as their religions say.

"The logic that wisdom or commonsense observations about marriage can only originate with people who are or were married is nonsense."

I agree. Telling others how to live is objectionable from anyone, whether the person is a Catholic bishop, an evangelical Protestant minister, a Muslim imam, a Buddhist priest, a Dharma lama, a New Age guru, or a secular self-appointed self-help expert. It would be a whole different situation if these religions simply offered advice and didn't make any claims of absolute truth.

The RCC needs to keep out of peoples' bedrooms. Period. Their objection to contraception in marriage is strictly self-serving. They want married couples to reproduce, a lot, so that the emptying pews in the RCC churches fill up again with paying customers.

The bishops have no business saying anything about marriage.

This document of the Roman Catholic Church is a total affront to my humanity and self-worth as a gay man. What a farce! I've been to bed with too many Roman Catholic priests to have any faith in quality of a lecture from these bishops.

Stop sniveling over hiding pedophiles in your clergy and cough them up for trial before you interfere in government any more. They're a bloody stain on the Pope's white dress.

Could we be seeing a number of divorced persons ranting on about Christian and Jewish rules/guidelines about marriage as a means to lessen their feelings of guilt??

BTW, both religions have very liberal annulment procedures.

Then there is this from Hammurabi's code:

"If a man has taken a wife and has not executed a marriage contract, that woman is not a wife.

If a man take a woman to wife, but have no intercourse with her, this woman is no wife to him.

If a man's wife be surprised (in flagrante delicto) with another man, both shall be tied and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the king his slaves.

If a man violate the wife (betrothed or child-wife) of another man, who has never known a man, and still lives in her father's house, and sleep with her and be surprised, this man shall be put to death, but the wife is blameless. "

And there are an additional 55 codes relating to wives in the code. The entire code is reproduced at http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM

Hello...the role of a Bishop is to authoritatively teach the fullness of truth of the Catholic faith to the "real world"...which sometimes includes a lecture or two. Nothing at all wrong with that. In fact, I rally admire their guts to take an authoritative stand even though some adolescents don't like it. Pulleeez, stop the whining and gnashing of teeth. If you don't agree with the teaching, that's fine, don't be a Catholic. But these childish Catholic bashing, and yes bigoted, rants by people who don't understand what they are talking about is getting really old.

"Could we be seeing a number of divorced persons ranting on about Christian and Jewish rules/guidelines about marriage as a means to lessen their feelings of guilt??"

Speaking personally, I've never been divorced. There's nothing inherently wrong about a mutually acceptable divorce where no adultery was involved. Adultery is wrong because it causes harm to the aggrieved spouse through betrayal and deception. And in some cases, there is harm to the lover through additional deception.

Why do we care what a foreign government that condemns democracy (Humanum Genum) and the freedoms of speech, worship and conscience (Rerum Novarum and the Syllabus of Errors) and who blessed Josef Mengele, Martin Bormann, Franco and Mussolini and who protected those who preyed on American youth thinks? And just when did the Vatican announce that Jews could own land, not wear yellow stars and practice professions?

"Hello...the role of a Bishop is to authoritatively teach the fullness of truth of the Catholic faith to the 'real world'...which sometimes includes a lecture or two."

Morality is not an authoritarian concept. True morality means valuing the effects of one's actions on others, as opposed to simply doing what one is told. I wouldn't want to be married to someone who stayed faithful only because she was following a rule.

And numerous religions claim to possess or represent truth. When any religion claims to be a proxy for a supreme authority figure, the burden of proof is on that religion to prove its claim. There's no way to substantiate any such claim from anyone - I could just as easily claim the existence of gods who want humans to perpetually hop on one foot. Obviously, some religions' truth claims might have merit on their own as useful ways to pursue happiness, but the issue is their claimed sources.

This is like an apple explaining what an orange is.

Matthew-DC: Who said, "...all the bishops (and priests) are crypto-pedophiles."???

Some aren't some are. That's not the issue. The issue is that the Pope and his Cardinals Law, Mahoney and Rivera are hiding some. That's the hypocrisy and not that a representative number of pedophiles in general society show up in the Catholic Clergy.

You further snivel. "Since the number of clerics who committed immoral acts was around 5%, there is less validity to the slur against them than there would be against Americans if one wants to play the slur game"

Are you separating child molestation from your definition of "immoral acts" or are you a papal Karl Rove playing with semantics. If 5% of priests are child molesters, don't you think that's a little high compared to the rest of society? Even if it's not, do you not hold your "Christ's Church" to higher standards?

You can call it "malice, indulgence" or as another poster put it "childish Catholic-bashing" all you want but that does not change the truth that you Church, your Pope, your Cardinals, your Archbishops and your neocon Republican American Bishops are committing a heinous sin against God and man's laws by aiding and abetting these criminals and by condoning that sin, you and other Catholics are equally complicit.

justadadsc dismisses those he disagrees with as "people who don't understand what they are talking about"
____________________________-

you can ask my rectum if I know what I am talking about

Why anyone listens to these papist mullahs anymore is beyond me. And how they have any authority on gay marriage, contraception, and abortion, when zero of their dollars, zero, fund any of these matters is unfathomable. Do what you want in your own church, but don't you dare tell me or any other non catholics how to live our lives or govern ourselves. If you want to live in a theocracy, move to the vatican or saudi arabia. Otherwise, get used to the fact that there are some of us who simply couldn't care less what you think and won't tolerate your interference in our lives or our government.

If someone wants to marry his or her dog and then divorce that dog that's his or her business.

But what I have a problem with is anyone trying to get a tax write-off for beastality.

That's ridiculous.

The problem is that if you marry another human being though then there are rules.

We can't treat women like property anymore - its in the constitution.

Now I don't like it that the Bishops had to point that out - it doesn't say much for the American people.

I wish everyone was smart enough to realize that for themselves but apparently many of us are not.

So I suggest a course in remedial reading.

The Catholic Church has no authority in matters of civil law and the government has no authority on matters of religious opinion.

If the Catholic church doesn't intent to impose their religious opinions on everyone by force of civil law, then why do the continue to confuse their religious marriage laws with our secular civil marriage laws.

The Bishops seem pretty bright to me but evidently they are not smart enough to know the difference?

I know a lot of Catholics and I just can't imagine any of them looking to the Bishops for guidance on marriage. Actually, I suppose this is a political document to be used by (or used against) Catholic politicians, so it has some purpose.

The Catholic Church inserting itself into politics? Some things never change.

accessory after the fact - a person who gives assistance or comfort to someone known to be a felon or known to be sought in connection with the commission of a felony

RACKETEERING ACTIVITY - (A) any act or threat involving …dealing in obscene matter, ……, which is chargeable under State law and punishable by imprisonment for more than one year; any act which is indictable under the following [sections] of 18, U.S.C.: …..1461-1465 (obscene matter), 1503 (obstruction of justice), 1510 (obstruction of criminal investigations), 1511 (obstruction of State or local law enforcement), 1512 (tampering with a witness, victim, or informant), 1513 (retaliating against a witness, victim, or informant), ….. 2251-2252 (sexual exploitation of children), ..|”

Catholic teaching is that it is wrong for a married couple with fertility problems to use artificial insemination (AI) to procreate. Why?

I am not talking about in-vitro fertilization.

It seems to me that AI is fully in line with pro-life and procreation goals. Also, there is no down side to AI like surplus fertilized eggs, multiple births, surrogate parents, etc. Can someone with Catholic knowledge explain this to me? I have read the explanation on several Catholic websites, but the logic makes no sense to me.

Carstonio wrote, "I wouldn't want to be married to someone who stayed faithful only because she was following a rule."

I'd be surprised if there's a man or woman on earth who's been married more than a year who hasn't been tempted, at least once, to be unfaithful to their partner. At those moments, it's commitment to *live by a rule* - not warm feelings - which preserve the integrity of the marriage.

"Conjugal love," the bishops write in their indictment of contraception, "is diminished whenever the union of a husband and wife is reduced to a means of self-gratification. The procreative capacity of male and female is dehumanized, reduced to a kind of internal biological technology that one masters and controls just like any other technology."

What a joke. What arrogance. Like these fools know the first thing about sex (covering up and enabling the sex crimes of pedophiles doesn't count)and the dynamics of sex in a marriage.

Who do these men who choose the unnatural, abnormal, bizarre life of celibacy think they are?

It's incredidle how many people in the 21st century still allow these purveyors of superstition to control so many aspects of their lives, even something as intimate as their sex lives.

"I'd be surprised if there's a man or woman on earth who's been married more than a year who hasn't been tempted, at least once, to be unfaithful to their partner. At those moments, it's commitment to *live by a rule* - not warm feelings - which preserve the integrity of the marriage."

One lives up to the commitment because one loves the spouse, knowing that acting on the temptation will harm him or her. Thinking of the commitment as a rule or an obligation means that one doesn't really care how one's actions will affect the spouse or anyone else.

When I hear a married man joke about "the ball and chain," I feel like saying to the guy, "Look, if you don't love your wife and you feel trapped, then stop stringing her along by pretending to love her." That probably causes more harm to the wife than trying to divorce her.

I encourage these bishops to live their lives the way they want to. I also encourage them to leave the rest of us alone.

Too bad there isn't a "report offensive comment" button for the Bishops letter. In any case they seem to whitewash the idea that David, Solomon, and most other biblical prophets were polygamists. So how can they now insist that the 1M1F marriage is the only valid arrangement?

Besides, just like with contraception, if they or their followers don't believe in gay marriage, don't do it! Just don't limit what other people can do.

There is that "Carstonio" ID again. Remember, this is basically an anonymous blog and imposters abound.

As posted earlier, what gave this infinitesimal slice of supernatural believers the ability to DICTATE to a large percentage of the world's population on matters that shouldn't ever concern them?

While not a practicing anything, the thought that what goes on in the privacy of the home (or anywhere else for that matter) would be judged by some clown that got his position of power from a guy in Rome is beyond ridiculous.

Hell in this great country we fight like mad to keep the government out of our business and then these bozos just decide they can stick their miters in our business on the grounds that their "holiness" gives them the right to, I DON'T THINK SO!

Why don't they try and cut down the number of divorces of their so-called "sacred marriages"? Since more than half of all marriages (not counting common law and shack-ups) end up separating, I don't see how any "holy men" out there can lecture anyone about marriage.

catholic bishops on marriage? makes about as much sense as baptists on religious tolerance, or religious jews on the best pork barbeque. these birds really need to stick to something they know all about, pedophilia, say.

Besides the Christian and Jewish Commandments:

Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery
and
Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbors Wife

and the words of Jesus, Mark 10:7-12:

"But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' /7/ 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, /8/ and the two shall become one flesh.'

So they are no longer two, but one flesh. /9/ Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

/10/ Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. /11/ He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; /12/ and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."

See also:

1or2?Q: Luke 16:18 = Matt 5:31-32
Matt 19:9
Herm. Man. 4.1:6b,10

, we have this from Paul:

1 Corinthians 7:10

10 But to the married I give instructions, (A)not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband

1 Corinthians 7:11

11(but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife"

Then again there is this from Hammurabi's code:

"If a man has taken a wife and has not executed a marriage contract, that woman is not a wife.

If a man take a woman to wife, but have no intercourse with her, this woman is no wife to him.

If a man's wife be surprised (in flagrante delicto) with another man, both shall be tied and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the king his slaves.

If a man violate the wife (betrothed or child-wife) of another man, who has never known a man, and still lives in her father's house, and sleep with her and be surprised, this man shall be put to death, but the wife is blameless. "

And there are an additional 55 codes relating to wives in the code. The entire code is reproduced at http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM

But before Hammurabi's code, we have this from the Egyptian Book of the Dead's Confessions, Chapter 125:

"I have not copulated (illicitly); I have not been unchaste.

I have not fornicated.

I have not defiled the wife of a man.

I have not cheated."

Bottom line: The sanctity of marriage has emphasized since men and women became civilized.

Bottom line: The sanctity of marriage has been emphasized since men and women became civilized.

I have never understood how someone who has never been married and has never had sex can be qualified to decide how other people should handle these aspects of their lives.

For couples who don't want children (or don't want them yet), contraception increases their ability to be fully present in the moment while making love to their siginificant other because neither has at the back of their minds the nagging thought of "I hope we're not making a baby." The desire to give one's beloved physical pleasure through sex without conception taking place is not a desecration of the act unless you believe that the one and only purpose for the act is to make a baby.

I made the mistake once of marrying a man without cohabiting first. Had I lvied with him, I would have learned before legally binding myself tohim that he had a violent streak, and I would never have married him. As a result of my experience, I don't recommend marrying anyone until you have lived with him.her for at least a year. That gives you time to find out if there are any deal-breakers in the relationship before signing the paperwork.

It is now 2009 and 2010 is just around the corner.
WILL WE EVER BE FREED FROM THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH'S DARK AGES MINDSET ?

The bishops are free to believe what they believe, and (if they choose to leave the Church and marry) follow their own advice. And anyone who wants to follow the bishops' advice is also free to do so. But the bishops should really stop pushing their beliefs on the rest of us, even to the extent of working to make them the law of the land. This behavior, like that of the protestant religious right, is for many of us slowly but surely imbuing the word "Christian" with a self-righteous moral absolutism. When most of one's encounters with "Christian" are also encounters with absolutist intolerance, pretty soon a certain repugnance attaches itself to the word. Oh--and one more thing: how come the bishops don't lobby congress on the death penalty the way they do on abortion?

Certainly, it's not necessary to have been a schizophrenic to counsel schizophrenics, nor is it necessary to have been a child molester to counsel them effectively (or to turn them in). And I don't think that anyone is saying that the Catholic bigots and archbigots should not say that faithful conjugal love in a straight marriage is highly desirable.

But where they go absolutely off the rails is in their claims that ONLY conjugal love in a straight relationship is acceptable, that it is wrong for people to practice birth control, and that it is vital for victims of involuntary sex or whose fetus is malformed to have to carry that fetus to term. These are positions that the Church, headed by a Pope who has never had responsibility for pastoral care of a community, holds based on its own interpretation of what it considers scripture and is trying to force onto the rest of America, which has different interpretations, including as to the validity in civil life of scripture.

A reminder to the bigots and archbigots: Bacon double cheeseburgers and permanent press are also abominations, and I don't know when last they urged that a childless widow should marry her brother-in-law. And of course, given the multiplicity of wives among the Patriarchs, there is no biblical justification for marriage = 1 man + 1 woman.

You can believe whatever you want to in Church, and you have the same right as anyone else to present your opinion to the public. But you certainly have no right to try to insist that civil society follows the interpretation of marriage presented by people who rejected marriage for themselves and who reject the idea of gender equality.

My neighbor is a scientist and deals with basic cellular biology. He states the Catholic ideology as expressed by the Vatican remains in the 14th Century. I wonder if marriage advice from the same is creditable?

Well, the RC bishops should have advised us Texans before we outlawed marriage in 2005.

Somebody write a letter to Constantine and tell him to quit meddling in our civic affairs.

Sheesh. This guy just never quits.

Why don't we change the definition of divorce?

Marriage automatically means divorce when any of the two partners says that their marriage is now a divorce.

Thus, a marriage is a divorce when anyone says it is.

This will eliminate the need for divorce lawyers and divorce court.

Laughable coming from the Catholic Church. So quick to judge the morality of others when they have protected pedophile priests for years. The Church was always more concerned about the public relations disaster than the trauma these young boys suffered.

Also, keep out of the abortion discussion and lobbying Congress on healthcare!

We should all be really glad that the only thing the Catholics can do is to snipe from the sidelines. There was a time, of very long duration, when the Catholic bigots, perverts, and murderers had free rein to torture and burn any who disobeyed the tyrant in Rome, his henchmen and executioners, and their message of "glad tidings." Fortunately, Western society managed to pull the Catholics' poison fangs during the Enlightenment so the only thing remaining to them is to harp on the imagined superiority of their fantastic ideas, reminiscent of Lord Xenu and his antics. It is annoying, but a far cry from wielding actual power. Who cares what the Catholics believe as long as they lack the teeth for enforcement? Let them rant and wail. Up theirs.

When the 'Ego' comes face to face with Reason and Authority, it is amazing how fast "Guidance" becomes "Lecturing"!
Notice how quick the author's INITIAL premptive, 'scratched' word, "Lecture", was picked up by the 'Ego-driven'. Anything to avoid questioning "My Way or the Highway"! Read Henry VIII, etc. and 'stray' away.................

Realtime wrote, "Read Henry VIII, etc. and 'stray' away........."

Good idea. I hereby renounce any allegiance to Rome (I didn't have any in the first place, so that's easy.) Then I will establish my own church, the Church of Richard, or, if you will, the Church of Dick ...

They are free to espouse anything they desire. I'm equally free to ignore it or follow the advice. It's not like I'm paying them for their opinions. Even when I do pay people for their opinions, I seek out more information. Does anyone here never seek a second medical opinion? Only get one bid on a contracting job?

Snippet taken from this site: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm

Barna report: Variation in divorce rates among Christian faith groups:
Denomination (in order of decreasing divorce rate)

% who have been divorced
Non-denominational ** 34%
Baptists 29%
Mainline Protestants 25%
Mormons 24%
Catholics 21%
Lutherans 21%

** Barna uses the term "non-denominational" to refer to Evangelical Christian congregations that are not affiliated with a specific denomination. The vast majority are fundamentalist in their theological beliefs. More info.

Barna's results verified findings of earlier polls: that conservative Protestant Christians, on average, have the highest divorce rate, while mainline Christians have a much lower rate. They found some new information as well: that atheists and agnostics have the lowest divorce rate of all. George Barna commented that the results raise "questions regarding the effectiveness of how churches minister to families." The data challenge "the idea that churches provide truly practical and life-changing support for marriage."

Warning: Catholic espiscopaphobia may make you illogical...

"sex within marriage can be just as life-giving and sacramental with contraception, and maybe even more so."

To whom does avoiding conception give life?

There is religious dogma. And then there is reality. And never the twain shall meet. Sexually inactive priests and the hierarchy under which they exist have an expectation of ZERO experience with married life. What they know about marriage they read in the Holy Bible. Therefore their advice can be assumed to be valueless. On a job application as a sex therapist, a priest would put down NO EXPERIENCE. Sexual intercourse with a woman is, according to dogma, supposed to be a religious experience. Apparently that experience is diminished in the eyes of God when steps are taken to minimize the risk of pregnancy. Questions. Are there not sufficient human beings on Earth to ensure continuance of the species until such time as God sees fit to end it all? Isn't it a little self-serving for The Church to shout at the lumpen masses of believers that they must bear child after child, even if they cannot afford to raise them, because The Church needs more and more members? The Church dictates that its priesthood, the interlocutor between the masses and God, shall not engage in sexual activity. This denies the organism one of the pleasures of life. Apparently the story that The Church promulgates is supposed to be sufficiently compelling so as to be a substitute for sex. Those priests who are weak may become pedophiles or get serviced commercially. That's evidence that God and his priests are not on the same page concerning sex. The Church is an Authoritarian organization that substitutes its received wisdom, developed over many centuries, for scientific knowledge and newly-developed understanding. It is good to know that the world is 6,000 years old, that we are all descended from Adam and Eve, and that Eve was tossed out of Eden for daring to ask questions. Now. Can we close the storybook and go to sleep?

Men pretending to be God.

How would this celibate gaggle of white-haired males react if a married expert in institutional bureaucracy and the dynamics of caste systems were to evaluate the Catholic hierarchy?

I don't know exactly what Guttmacher report CCNL is referring to, but if you click on the link that CCNL has provided, there is no failure rate of zero indicated for abstinence in the failure rate table provided in the link.

However, for periodic abstinence, the failure rate is 25.3 percent.

Unfortunately, the Guttmacher report forgot to add the obvious i.e. abstaining from intercourse has a zero failure rate. We simply corrected their obvious omission.

Once again: Then here is this from Hammurabi's code:

"If a man has taken a wife and has not executed a marriage contract, that woman is not a wife.

If a man take a woman to wife, but have no intercourse with her, this woman is no wife to him.

If a man's wife be surprised (in flagrante delicto) with another man, both shall be tied and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the king his slaves.

If a man violate the wife (betrothed or child-wife) of another man, who has never known a man, and still lives in her father's house, and sleep with her and be surprised, this man shall be put to death, but the wife is blameless. "

And there are an additional 55 codes relating to wives in the code. The entire code is reproduced at http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM

But before Hammurabi's code (1792 BC), we have this from the Egyptian Book of the Dead's Confessions (2600 B.C.E. - 2300 B.C.E), Chapter 125:

"I have not copulated (illicitly); I have not been unchaste.

I have not fornicated.

I have not defiled the wife of a man.

I have not cheated."

Bottom line: The sanctity of marriage has been emphasized since men and women became civilized.

I find the bishops' particularly narrow definition of marriage to be deeply saddening. By their definition, my brother and his wife, who have been married for 27 years, are not REALLY married -- they were unable to have children. They do not use contraceptives; God made them that way. They live; they love; the are valuable members of their community; they participate in the life of their church. Does the lack of children really invalidate a marriage? I don't think so.

"Living a married life in joyful gratitude and openness fosters hospitality," they wrote. "When the spouses become one flesh, their openness makes them a home to each other. Their communion with each other becomes a home for children, including adopted and foster children. Their family, with its heightened awareness of human dignity, reaches out in hospitality to the poor and to anyone in need."

Ask any same-sex couple sharing a committed relationship if they would have any disagreement with the above statement, whether they choose to parent children or not.

I would posit that human dignity has more to do with how we choose to treat each other as humans than in the pronouncements of any authoritarian doctrine.

I could not care less what a bunch of emotionally stunted, sexually immature, self-hating, sex-obsessed freaks thing they understand about marriage or sexuality. They're like a bunch of teenage bookworms who can tell you exactly what goes into a mixed drink while having not the foggiest idea what one tastes like and call you wrong if you think a somewhat different mix is more satisfying. Instead of all their elaborate mental masturbation, I suggest they get f'ing laid.

I'll speak as the liberal Christian that I am. I wish that "Christians" would stop espousing positions that are clearly hurtful to others, and clearly at odds with the simple reality that we see around us in life. These usually legalisic pronouncements are painful and hurtful to others and alienate people from Christianity. Honestly, a lot of secular folks hold opinions more in keeping with Christ's message of love than those who scream about the scriptures and make sure to call themselves "Christians."

In the immortal words of Fiorello La Guardia, upon hearing the Pope pontificate about sex:

You no play-a the game, you no make-a the rules.

Even today, the Catholic church still bars women from all positions of power. It still opposes equal rights for gays, compassionate euthanasia for the dying, and the responsible use of contraception. A church with so many manifestly immoral and irrational positions, which so plainly elevates its own dogmas over human equality and well-being, should not delude itself into believing it can speak with any moral authority to the rest of us.

It is LONG past time that this terrorist political organization (as its sole purpose now seems to be harrassing innocent individuals who have done NOTHING to them) not only lost its tax exempt status, but is investigated for fomenting violent hate crimes.

They are as much a part of humankind's medieval past as the Taliban that our troops in Afghanistan are fighting. Treat them as such.

While the Church's stances on some issues (divorce, gay marriage, and contraception) is positively medieval, I did once get a rational expanation for the dislike of cohabitation.

A priest explained that premarital cohabitation was, in a way, a good idea. You get to see if s/he is insane, a jerk, a drug user, actually has 4 million kids, whatever. And, presumably, if you find out any of those things, you bail and leave him/her. However, since you've already moved in and are in the "trial run" mindset, when you get married, you may still be in the "trial run" mindset.

My priest explained that, since you'd gone into living with the other person thinking that you'd leave if the arrragement didn't work out, you're more likely to divorce than undergo counseling/work at saving the marriag, since you retain that mindset that there is an easy escape route.

Again, it depends on the people. I'd never marry without that test run. But the Church *does* have a reason for the railing against cohabitation, right or wrong, other than moral waffling about sex. (Just FYI.)

I've read a lot of comments deriding the bishops lack of experience. However, personal experience is not the only kind.

Anyone in the pastoral services has the responsibility to care for their church members, providing spiritual comfort as well as spiritual guidance. I'm sure by the time they have made bishop, they have guided and supported their charges through just about everything and have seen what works and what doesn't.

So don't knock their experience or seeming lack thereof. In my view, they have both experience and objectivity.

Mr. Waters' snarky and unselfconscious ignorance is unbecoming a serious discussion.

By his logic, only murderers may hold an informed opinion on the subject of murder.

For that matter, by his logic whole academic disciplines are baseless. How can an historian know or say anything about slavery, the French Revolution or the Black Death, since she did not personally experience these things? How can a scientist draw conclusions from an experiment unless he himself is the subject?

Thank G-d the bishops are willing to speak out on behalf of truth. Too bad Mr. Waters's ignorance seems invincible.

It's the end of the line for the religious corporations all over the world. What have they really done to aid mankind? Did they ever stop any wars? If one wishes to believe in their God, they can. They do not need to support these huge corporations and maintain the cathedrals they build. Why pay to heat these places when
you cannot even afford to heat your own home? Why pay money to maintain their massive fund-raising schemes to keep themselves in finery and support their living and vacation expenses? We cannot take vacations ourselves and yet these priests travel quite a bit. They have wonderful lives, fully paid for by the church and never have to worry about health insurance or a roof over their heads. There is always food for their bellies, while those they purport to counsel, go hungry. They could care less about the homeless and hungry.

Religion is just another money making enterprise and growing bigger all the time. They must be taxed just like the poorest of the poor are tax on their measly dollars. Do you know of a poor Catholic priest? I don't, and have been part of that faith for over seven decades. In fact I've got a priest in my family and we all call him the moocher, because we see him when there's a party going on. He lives better than all of us and has no worries about his living expenses as he gets ready to retire. A swank apartment in a lovely retirement community, a car and medical help to look after him when he needs them. The rest of us should be so lucky.

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
Mohandas Gandhi

A parish priest that I once knew said that most priests were Democrats - but most bishops Republicans. I can see that...

Once again: Then here is this from Hammurabi's code:

"If a man has taken a wife and has not executed a marriage contract, that woman is not a wife.

If a man take a woman to wife, but have no intercourse with her, this woman is no wife to him.

If a man's wife be surprised (in flagrante delicto) with another man, both shall be tied and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the king his slaves.

If a man violate the wife (betrothed or child-wife) of another man, who has never known a man, and still lives in her father's house, and sleep with her and be surprised, this man shall be put to death, but the wife is blameless. "

And there are an additional 55 codes relating to wives in the code. The entire code is reproduced at http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM

But before Hammurabi's code (1792 BC), we have this from the Egyptian Book of the Dead's Confessions (2600 B.C.E. - 2300 B.C.E), Chapter 125:

"I have not copulated (illicitly); I have not been unchaste.

I have not fornicated.

I have not defiled the wife of a man.

I have not cheated."

Bottom line: The sanctity of marriage has been emphasized since men and women became civilized.

"I suspect most of the vitriol toward the Church comes from folks who feel challenged by the truth of the Church's teaching. After all, its easier to stone the messenger than to face a reality that challenges the way you live." -- ryanbin72

Could it be that some folks just aren't comfortable accepting some other folks who believe in demonic possession, virgin births, transubstantiation and a place of eternal, vengeful punishment as the ultimate arbiters of absolute truth and reality?

Hmmm, and what do Wiccans and other pagans think about the sanctity of marriage???

Based on the descriptions of pagan handfasting/marriage and handparting/divorce rituals described at http://www.herbalmusings.com/wiccan-handparting.htm, it is surprising that the coven witches have not signed the Manhatten Declaration since handfasting and handparting are actually very "Christian-like".

Actually they still can at http://manhattandeclaration.org .

Re: Validity of Celibate Persons' Opinions on Marriage

Aside from the fact that all Catholic Bishops are male, which could, conceivably, introduce a certain amount of bias into their views on the subject, they also, presumably, derive a fair portion of their views from divine revelation. While other persons who also accept the truth of such revelation may be convinced of the narrow view of marriage the Bishops hold, those who do not accept answers originating from outside time and space might need more than vacuous hand-waving to be converted to their position.

All of that is, of course, a moot point if the denial of civil rights to some citizens can be affected through a simple referendum -- in which case the majority doesn't have to offer any damned reason whatsoever.

Mr. Waters, you wrote:

"I'd suggest that most married couples would say that sex within marriage can be just as life-giving and sacramental with contraception, and maybe even more so."

Lol. Unless I am mistaken, the whole point of contraception is to ensure that a sexual union IS NOT life-giving. Lolol? No?

Oh, you don't mean biological, but spiritual life, I presume. That's nice. And for us humans, whose spiritual existence is grounded in a biological body, how do you suppose that happens, pray tell? How do we have a spiritual life independent of our biology?

Ryan Haber
Kensington, Maryland

My husband and I have been married for 20 years. We have had lots of sex in those years and even though we have never used birth control, we know that there has never, ever been a chance of us conceiving a child. Of course, according to our own church, our marriage is not as valid as every one elss's. I don't for a second believe that the church accepts someone like me and my family ( we have adopted 2 kids). The church lumps us all together with gays, abortionists and every one else who doesn't meet their "standards."
The bishops, etc. are killing their own church by pushing everyone away.

Linda813,

And what rule or page in the RCC catechism "lumps" you with gays and abortionists??

My RCC brother and sister-in-law were married for 40 years and could not have children. They adopted four children. All are members in good standing with the RCC.

I dunno about any other folks that went through the Catholic pre-Cana classes, but when my husband and I attended them back in 1993-94, all of the couples in our group were already "living in sin."

The Roman Catholic Church is both a church denomination and a political organization with its own little country in Italy.

A person above kept trying to claim the Commandments for the Israelites actually came from another religion. I don't believe that.

In non-RCC denominations and their members, some of the most out-spoken folks against same-gender marriage are those who have been divorced and remarried.

Jesus said that anyone who got remarried after a divorce committed adultery. That strongly implies that the remarried-divorced person would be constantly be committing adultery and not just once by getting remarried.

Jesus did proof-text scriptures to shut up the Pharisees who tried to entrap him with theological questions.

Genesis 2:24 seems to be an added to the text sentence which was put there by a person copying scripture texts. How could anyone know about a man leaving his father and mother and live with his wife when neither of the 1st 2 humans parents?

The 1st born son of a family (in the Bible) didn't even leave home when he got married. His wife left her father and mother and moved in with her husband and her in-laws.