Helpline for priests who feel bullied or depressed, as their faith communities melt away
Is that the "boot on the other foot" helpline?
Irish priests told to stop bashing bishops
The annual general meeting of Ireland’s Catholic Priests has been told to ease up on attacking their seniors, amidst increasing concerns over the future of the Church in the country. At the same time, the Church is considering a confidential helpline for priests who feel bullied or depressed, as their faith communities melt …
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Thursday 9th November 2017 17:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
Tale from a Catholic
A few years ago, here in the USA, I was thinking about joining the Freemasons. When I looked into them seriously I saw them as a group of intelligent people that liked to network with other intelligent people. So I wanted to network, personally and professionally, and make new friends. The only requirement was that I had to believe in God. They attended plays, went to movies, went to bars, had barbecues together. No weird rituals.
I checked with my local Catholic church and was told by joining the Freemasons I was threatened by implied excommunication and exclusion from all Catholic sacraments. The written church regulations forbade it and read like something out of the middle ages
But the scary part was to the priests, the Bishop, the Catholic laypeople I spoke to, were all sheeple on the issue. Despite how clearly out of date the regulation was, these sheeple all just did not give a shit. They all admitted that the Church regulation was ancient, and looked foolish, but they did not want to fight for what was right. Whenever I mentioned God or Jesus, it was like I was inconveniencing them.
I hate to write this but for the priests, laypeople,even the Bishop they were just doing a job and didn't give a shit about right/wrong. I ended up not joining because there was the risk I would be denied a Catholic funeral, which would hurt the loved ones I leave behind.
As a lapsed Catholic trying to reconnect with my faith, I found the experience very very depressing, very demotivating.
It reminded me of the old joke - a priest goes to his Bishop and cries, "Father, I don't believe in God anymore, what should I do?" The Bishop whispers back to the Priest, "Fake it."
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Thursday 9th November 2017 20:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Tale from a Catholic
Considering what the Freemasons believe and what Christians believe are in opposition, this is reaction is not surprising. Freemasons are essentially Deists, which means that they do not believe that G-d or "the Divine Architect" actually intervenes in the world. This is a bit difficult to reconcile with a believe system that insists that G-d took flesh, was tortured and died, which looks a lot like intervening in the world.
The irony is that Freemasonry was spread through Europe by the Catholic aristos fleeing Ireland after the usurpation of James VII by William of Orange and James' daughter Mary (who it seems was a virgin... and hence no issue).
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Friday 10th November 2017 14:27 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: Tale from a Catholic
Freemasons are essentially Deists, which means that they do not believe that G-d or "the Divine Architect" actually intervenes in the world
Sounds more like old-fashioned Gnosticism to me..
(Essentially the line went like this: God is good and matter is evil. Since evil cannot survive in the presence of God, it therefore follows that God is not able to interact with the world at all. See the Cathars for an examle of how well this all worked out.. It's also a good example of how logic fails when your starting premises are false.)
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Friday 10th November 2017 09:50 GMT Jim 59
Re: Tale from a Catholic
The last papal declaration on Freemasonry was made in 1985, with objections centering around the nature of Freemasonry as an alternative religion. I don't really think of Freemasonry as a religion, but it does seem to present itself as one.
At about the same time in the UK, there was a series of scandals when it emerged that prominent Establishment and Govt figures were Freemasons. It was judged that Freemasons were favouring other Freemasons (eg. for promotion/advancement), which is a moral problem, and was helped by the organisation's strict secrecy rules. It's reputation, at least in the UK, ver really recovered.
I think Freemasonry has reformed and modernised in the meantime, but who knows?
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Thursday 9th November 2017 14:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
Yep, it's one of the things I love about it too. Which makes it all the more odd when the censors start rejecting posts from long standing silver badge wearing commentards, who make equally harmless innuendo in a comment thread a few days ago. I would welcome consistency. It was like being policed by a member of the National Viewers and Listeners Association.
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Thursday 9th November 2017 20:20 GMT Lars
nick_rampart, could that have been a comment regarding something by Andrew Orlowski, he seems to have a greater demand to accept or reject comments than others at ElReg, or perhaps there are times when he sleeps or is at the bar as some of my comments are waiting and waiting for many hours.
One rather funny rejection of one of my comments (and I cannot remember by who) was when I called Stephen Fry a fairy*. What I find sort of funny is that I did not know this "modern" twist to the word nor did I know him that well (nor do I give a shit about it). As it is now, for me, with all this additional information, all those wonderful fairy tales like the Tooth fairy and Noah, all of them shine in a different light and It disturbs me because it's so damned stupid.
As I remember Orlowski seems to have some "problems" with the Wikipedia, so I looked him up and there he is and hardly without his own input, or how does the thing work. What caught my curiosity is that he has left out date of birth and place of birth. And yes, the Wiki is not perfect, that would be impossible, and the more it's about religion or politics the more one should question it, but on more technical stuff rather valuable. It's also quite fun to compare the same topic in different languages. A topic for some other day.
* referring to Jeeves and the author a fairy in his own right.
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Thursday 9th November 2017 23:13 GMT Shugyosha
"One rather funny rejection of one of my comments (and I cannot remember by who) was when I called Stephen Fry a fairy*."
You can't even call Stephen Fry a fairy?!? Next you'll be telling me you can't even smear racial slurs on someone's car in excrement without someone taking offense! It's political correctness gone mad!
Fucking hell mate, get yourself into the 21st Century. If that's the kind of bigoted shite that's being moderated, then El Reg is doing a good job as far as I'm concerned.
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Thursday 9th November 2017 15:20 GMT Loyal Commenter
Here's the link for those who don't like to copy and paste:
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Thursday 9th November 2017 15:07 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Perhaps what they need is lawyers?
Then priests might start getting automated phone calls saying, "Have you been bullied by the baby-eating Bishop of Bath and Wells? If so, simply press 5 and we can help you with getting compensation. Where there's blame, there's a claim."
Or did they not mean that kind of helpline?
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Thursday 9th November 2017 15:22 GMT Nick Ryan
Re: no helpline required
Oh dear... are you seriously suggesting that they should do something constructive instead of "sending thoughts and prayers"? Many cults/churches/religions/faiths (delete as applicable) rely on "sending thoughts and prayers" and if these aren't working then where, or when, will it all end?
Please note: the only acceptable responses to this post are "Amen" and a repost or link.
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Thursday 9th November 2017 16:11 GMT Muscleguy
Re: no helpline required
Don't kill the mutants, science has learned a heap from mutants, they are natures found experiments. My entire PhD was on a natural mutant mouse.
Don't kill the mutants, round them up, put them in carefully designed and uniform housing isolated from the environment*, with controlled lighting and provided food and water. Mutants should expect to be mated with a sibling.
*yet the mice still knew when it was spring. Litter numbers and sizes went up. Best idea was they sensed pollen coming in through the aircon or on our clothes even though we wore scrubs with hairnets etc.
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Thursday 9th November 2017 15:39 GMT Teiwaz
Re: no helpline required
"sending thoughts and prayers"
Having grown up in N.I during the troubles, saw this message too much.
One lunacy or the other, there was little else to do but 'appeal for calm', another favourite, in the hopes of preventing another round of tit-for-tat.
Both phrases over-used, while meant well, are a clear sign of a robotic automatic response. Something that should never be, has become a part of everyday life.
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Thursday 9th November 2017 16:20 GMT Kane
Re: no helpline required
"Many cults/churches/religions/faiths (delete as applicable) rely on "sending thoughts and prayers" and if these aren't working then where, or when, will it all end?"
Don't you mean "Send me your cheques and pay packets"?
"Please note: the only acceptable responses to this post are "Amen" and a repost or link."
Whooops! Amen!
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Thursday 9th November 2017 16:22 GMT Muscleguy
Hic!
Did they ever solve the drink driving problem? Due to falling congregations. Left over communion wine (not all drunk, fewer people) has to be drunk by the priest because it has been blessed.
Yet also because of falling attendances many rural priests had to cover more than one parish. Meaning they were driving drunk.
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Thursday 9th November 2017 20:10 GMT Destroy All Monsters
Sceptical Deplorable is Sceptical
Those worried for the church as a whole might take some comfort from the fact that priests seem to be in great demand in other parts of the world.
Definitely not in the Middle East and other countries ravaged by a series of invade-the-world/invite-the-world US presidents allied to NATO allied to batshit crazed Sunni from Hell out of Saudi Barbaria.
I hear adherents of The Christ on refugee boats may even be considered excessively diverse, beaten up, then thrown overboard to feed the fish (the converse of using fish to feed the flock).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
