Disgusting Catholic priests

[Kelly2363]

31 minutes ago, Riverwalker said:

Not sure where you are going with this. I do agree we cannot pretend these things didn't happen, but should we be identifying ourselves with them, or with the new life we have been given in Christ

II Cor 5: 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

I never suffered such a thing myself so I will defer to one who has

 

 

I came into the church from prison having been saved in solitary confinement in 1984 being largely predicated on the utter distress of a damaged mind and spiritual hatred of God that stemmed from my life. What I am saying, however, is that the church I went into ten months after being converted and then released from prison had a man my own age who endured similar things to myself. It was he who stumbled at me because I told him that using his life experience as a mechanism for promoting the love of God was a serious mistake. I could see that he wasn't preaching the gospel and then showing empathy - he was showing empathy to uphold an essential carnal gospel that had it that Christ was not sufficient. I told him that Christ was more than sufficient and he needed to change his approach. He stumbled at me and in the end he lost his faith, his wife and his second born child - all because he poisoned his own heart and could not see that Christ is our entire deliverance - and empathy is mere human understanding. 

His saying to me was - if he has once broken mens' necks, but now only broke their legs, then he was improving. So I said that to the man who's legs he broke their was no improvement - only his broken legs.

As to dealing with the recent investigation into Catholic priests abusing children in the French Catholic system - they are no more in truth to the even greater number that have fathers abusing their children sexually in the home from catholic families. The reason why those dreadful catholic cases are used in my view is because they report to a political and not a true spiritual meaning. Spiritually, Christ is sufficient. That is what my friend in my first church would not receive. I was the witness of it - and he still would not receive it. I don't go as far as to say that God will deal with those men - because those men may repent and if they do God will forgive them. I do say that when their guilt is undoubted then they should be starkly punished to cause others to fear God who set the instrument of the government into place to punish wrong doing. 

Edited October 4, 2021 by Kelly2363
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[Starise]

So very sorry to hear of your experiences @Kelly2363.

I guess I could technically say I was abused by today's lax standards of correction. Not verbally abused but on more than one occasion I had the belt and the peach tree switch applied to my rear end probably much harder than some. Never anything sexual. I do believe my parents loved me. Some today would cry abuse. Back then it was standard practice. No sit in the corner back then. When pop started to take off his belt you knew it was too late.

I had to check to see if my rear end was all still back there. I say all of that to say this. Some say there's abuse which isn't really abuse. They simply think it is because they have never had a whoopin'. They are of the "go sit in a corner" mentality.

There's correction, there's abuse and then there's ABUSE! What I had in comparison was nothing. It is amazing to me the obstacles some people have had to endure at such young ages while still growing into well adjusted adults. Praise God! Even more amazing are those who have come to Christ after enduring abuse from men of the cloth. I can't imagine anyone ever returning to a church ever again after that, yet God is still a God of healing both inside and outside. This whole subject really pushes my sense of justice to the edge. I can't say what I would do if I caught a person doing some of these things to a child. I might well be in prison for seriously hurting or killing someone. Sorry. I haven't quite arrived yet.

Sadly, in some families under pressure, the trickle down goes to the kids. 

Edited October 4, 2021 by Starise

[Kelly2363]

1 hour ago, Starise said:

So very sorry to hear of your experiences @Kelly2363.

I guess I could technically say I was abused by today's lax standards of correction. Not verbally abused but on more than one occasion I had the belt and the peach tree switch applied to my rear end probably much harder than some. Never anything sexual. I do believe my parents loved me. Some today would cry abuse. Back then it was standard practice. No sit in the corner back then. When pop started to take off his belt you knew it was too late.

I had to check to see if my rear end was all still back there. I say all of that to say this. Some say there's abuse which isn't really abuse. They simply think it is because they have never had a whoopin'. They are of the "go sit in a corner" mentality.

There's correction, there's abuse and then there's ABUSE! What I had in comparison was nothing. It is amazing to me the obstacles some people have had to endure at such young ages while still growing into well adjusted adults. Praise God! Even more amazing are those who have come to Christ after enduring abuse from men of the cloth. I can't imagine anyone ever returning to a church ever again after that, yet God is still a God of healing both inside and outside. This whole subject really pushes my sense of justice to the edge. I can't say what I would do if I caught a person doing some of these things to a child. I might well be in prison for seriously hurting or killing someone. Sorry. I haven't quite arrived yet.

Sadly, in some families under pressure, the trickle down goes to the kids. 

 

A friend with whom I fellowshipped in the Outer Hebrides in the early 1990's told me an account of his son once getting into a theft charge with the courts and the judge told him to go home and to thrash his son. His son was a teenager at that time. That took place back in the early 1980's. This friend had been used by God in the Hebridean Revival that was a truly spectacular revival and so I listened with intent when he spoke in the church. I never did physically punish my own children because when I came to the point that they were over the line - they saw it too - and their obedience to come to me with no knowledge of what I would do - convinced me that if they trusted me then - it was I who needed to learn how to be a better parent and so remove them from their childish disobedience as soon as possible. The simple fact is that by 7 years they grew out of it. 

 I suppose I was very fortunate with my own children and so it is possible to realise that many children have been ruined from an early age because the term ABUSE has been politicised and passed into legislative frameworks that have made its meaning far too broad and far too attractive to political zealots to utilise to especially harm Christians who do still smack their childrens' bottoms when they have warned them to stop being disobedient. It's one of those extremely difficult issues that won't be solved easily.

As far as institutional abuse of the kind that thousands of children have endured - I am much less understanding - even though I recognise that where there is a true repentance then so will there be a true forgiveness of God. I actually went to visit the deputy head who sexually abused myself about five years after I left care. He remained silent and never once did he acknowledge what he had done. So unless I became angry with him he would have simply been able to continue to hide behind the veil of decency and professional skills. I didn't get angry with him and when I was converted in prison I actually asked God to forgive him and not hold what he had done against myself - against him. That was an easy thing to do because I knew that my thefts that had got me into prison were no less a meaning than his vile crimes that he escaped from. 

Most people find that a hard thing to receive - and I understand why. Yet in the light of knowing Christ in that first love of Him it is possible to forgive anything at all done against oneself knowing that the Father is the one who has the full account. It has been amazing to me also how the Lord heals just as soon as we first know Him when he overcomes the profound obstacles of our lives - when we have been vexatiously abused from being small children. That reality is so extraordinary that it cannot be offset by a vengeful heart - and not least by those for whom such a vengeance is most appealing due to their lives. It is better to allow these things to pass into the instrument of the law and to governments. That way we will not be able to incite a claim that several thousand French Catholic Priests should be publicly whipped or executed. If they did that then we would all be driven to vengeance or else to becoming the object of a spirit in vengeful men that is just as vile as the vile priests. 

Nevertheless, I have taken men to the cell and to imprisonment for their crimes against others. Only when they have first heard the Gospel and have something better to hold onto than their own guilt. That was the black cap judge of old. He put on his black cap and then sentenced the man to death and called upon God to have mercy upon his soul. Only then did the minister come to his cell and give him a chance at life with Christ. 

 

Edited October 4, 2021 by Kelly2363
Added last sentence.

[Waggles]

13  Now that all has been heard, here is the final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 
14  For God will bring every deed into judgement, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.   Ecclesiastes 12:

Daniel 12:2  And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

Edited October 4, 2021 by Waggles