How can we trust priests for confession and celebrating the Mass if they are committing grave sins like pedophilia? Why are these sacraments performed by such priests valid? There is probably some % of priests that do not believe in anything. I would honestly feel completely destroyed if I found out that the priest I've been going to for 20 years is a pedophile.
Why not just follow the life of the saints? At least we know we can follow their example
God is not going to send you to hell for such a spergy legalistic reason out of your control. Demons love to give us reasons to turn away from God, to not go to church, to distrust others and isolate ourselves away, to not go to confession, to not seek spiritual guidance.
Also the Jews work hand in hand with demons when they spin these stories in their hatred of Jesus Christ. Very few priests have been actually convicted in America of pedophilia. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a (((false flag))) operation.
The reports of pedophilia in the priesthood are greatly exaggerated (it's pretty much just homosexuals who have infiltrated seminaries).
Pedophilia and homosexuality have the same root which is Satan.
Most Americans don't have any idea what bris is or that what the Jews do to their babies.
I would recommend though talking to your priest before joining a church and getting a sense of if he's a modernist or a truly holy man. We have to just pray to the Holy Spirit for discernment in these matters.
It's almost like this was an issue centuries ago and it was dealt with. Look up Donatism.
This is what pushed me toward the Eastern church.
A priest has been ordained; he has received the Sacrament of Holy Orders, hence he can administer the other sacraments. Whether or not the priest sins—in whatever capacity, great or small—has no bearing on this because the power and grace he administers come from God, not him. In a similar way, there are plenty of knowledgeable and astute anons on this board who are, nevertheless, gross sinners.
As I said, because they find their source, their primary cause, in God, not man.
Correct. Pray for them.
As would anyone.
The saints all received the sacraments, were loyal to the Church, followed her decrees, etc.. This is because they had their lives orientated towards God, and not towards some vain hope in virtuous men.
They deal with the same issues
This. Thank God I'm Orthodox!
Correct, they're dealt with, not covered up for half a century.
Same here for me, but only slightly. Although I will say that our church has seen many more inquirers come from a Catholic background in the last 2 years or so. A practicing, devout Catholic background, not cultural Catholics.
Donatism is a heresy condemened bythe Council of Carthage in early 5th century. St. Augustine fought really hard against it.
en.wikipedia.org
The teaching says:
So yes, even the East has tried to cover up sex abuse as well.
You have one example where it was covered up for 15 years, whereas the state of Pennsylvania alone has hundreds of examples with cover up schemes lasting much longer. Now I'm absolutely certain that you can find a few more examples, but nothing will compare to the turmoil in the Catholic church. And that's a terrible shame, I don't take any pride in that statement.
The main problems the Orthodox Church faces are not sexual in nature, but rather more political as we see with the Ukraine or even the state of the Church in North America.
...
And yet your earlier claim of
Is false. Remember these are the ones we know about. Think about the ones we don't know about. Cope all you want, but satan attacks all of the denoms with perversion wether you like it or not.
I'm in an independent baptist church and if anyone in a church leadership was doing something like that, no one should stay. No one should stay under that reprobate leadership.
2 Peter 2 makes clear that's one sign of false prophets. God also makes it clear to warn others of false prophets, which is kind of the opposite of what you guys are doing here.
Hello donatists
The saints say these are valid, you are totally ignorant on this subject.
soundcloud.com
listen to this series you are literally expressing a heresy
Also don't let people fill you with hot air either, the abuse rate is like 1-2% and the bulk was in the 70s-90s it hasn't been a serious active thing for a looonnnggg time. That whole grand jury report that came out was pointing out more stuff in that time period/not active ongoing stuff. It's not a serious concern that you need to be actively careful about or something.
nice try lmao
The Boomer (Modernist) clergy are doing the molesting. And the most child molestations are done in a secular institution - by PE teachers. Maybe it's a sign of the times, and not a scathing indictment? Remember that Catholics are the majority of Christians so they'll naturally have more cases of pederasty. The proportion however, is what matters.
80% of American men are circumcised as babies. We know.
Not my metropolitan. Where did you hear this???
I’m not talking about circumcision but bris where the rabbi… ugh it’s too gross.
But whoa why are so many Americans circumcised? That’s insane I had no idea.
They confuse a few writers, theologians, and Kallistos Ware for the entirety of the Church. It's not worth replying to posters who bring that up as you're right, the Church doesn't accept those things.
Most folks believe it's for hygiene. A lot of it is a sort of "peer pressure", that old chestnut of "I don't want my son to think he's weird." Circumcised fathers tend to circumcise their sons. Both the CDC and the AAP say that the health benefits outweigh the risks, and so on and so forth. It will take generations for the practice to end in the US. Generations and education. I mean, a circumcised father has never had to learn how to clean an uncut penis, so it's not as easy for him to teach his son, so he just says, "Ok" and signs the form to let the hospital cut the penis. We've been doing it for so long now that it's completely normalized.
The sacraments are a holy and incorruptible mericles from God. Nothing man can do can ever prevail against them. Anyone who receives the sacraments have them whether or not they use them, and they come directly from God and not from whoever is physically administering them.
Luther further articulates this in his Large Catechism
The Church isn't just your metropolitan, you are in communion with people who openly advocate for those things. Divorce is an age old tradition for EO and contraception is the normal teaching now, abortion isnt' as wide spread but when you have one Church openly advocate for it and you are in communion with them that is you saying it's okay.
According to developmental magisterium, every catholic priests has a mark of Christ into their souls which cannot be removed (even if he denounce his faith) .
So from the position of the Vatican, the acts their homosexual leaders is a issue of public presentation, not really a soteriological one.
Then why did Paul said not to share the sacrements with non-believers?
Well it did take about 2-300 years to finally remove the papists from the Church, even longer to get rid of the iconoclasts, so the 40 years or so we've had this nonsense of a few men thinking divorce and contraceptives are fine is par for the course. Frankly though, if you want to make a huge issue out of that then that's fine, I'll take those problems every single day over those the Catholic church is unfortunately suffering through now.
Where??? You haven’t given any specifics.