What’s Wrong with the World

Speaking of Orwell and false memories, check out how Reuters' inexcusable spin about Pope Benedict not being intimidated by petty gossip. Reuters' overrated ability to read "signals" has spread a rumor to the point where sex abuse victims are now being led to believe the Pope is intransigent and indifferent.

While I think the media is out to get the church over this, I also think it's perfectly reasonable to ask: (1) whether the policy of putting pedophiles back in the ministry (at times by send them to a new diocese) had the approval of the Vatican; and (2) how Ratzinger handled abuse cases while bishop of Munich.

-Neil Parille

I also think it's perfectly reasonable to ask

I haven't seen anyone suggest it wasn't. Catholics least of all.

Boy, reading that first quote really raised my estimate of Dawkins' intellectual honesty. I'd not seen it before. Then the following quotes folded in the qualifier "in the past tense".

Wait, it is Orwellian for someone to change his view of the evidence (and thus their ultimate judgment) over a period of 4 years? I guess that means that Feser has always been at war with Eastasia, since at one point he was an atheist but now is a Catholic!

Well played. [golf clap]

Okay, back to the 2 minutes hate.

The Pope's genes made him do it, are we not but vessels for carrying our genes about town? Destiny and all that.
Dawkins has always struck me has a guy who got his head caught in a pencil sharpener and never recovered.

It must be recognized that for the Rulers of Thought pedophilia is not the issue. Recall that not many years ago the Boy Scouts were treated like the youth division of the KKK due to their policy of not accepting open, pronounced homosexual men as scout masters. How medieval.

Charities ceased their benefactions, public parks were denied the organization, the media waxed apoplectic over, what else, the prejudice and denial of rights, so alleged.

And this was over men who wanted it known they were homosexual. No defense was acceptable and the protection and consideration of children and their parents was, as in most cases liberal,unworthy of consideration.
After all, there's a cause involved here.

When the first wave of reported abuses in the Church arose, it must have been deemed wise by editors here and there,[ an editor is someone with an IQ over 80, ] to stiffle the crusade against the BSA. It's obvious why.

Recently there has opened a court case where a family has brought charges against the BSA because a scout master molested their son. It seems a can of worms has been opened and in the presentation of evidence a other cases are coming to light.

Don't bet your lungs on this making the front page of the NY Times.

This leaves us with;
a] a burning hatred towards the Catholic Church, and not just Dawkins.
b]a dishonesty within some circles that is viciously evil.
c]the children? Pawns, only pawns.

Wait, it is Orwellian for someone to change his view of the evidence (and thus their ultimate judgment) over a period of 4 years?

By 2006 there was certainly enough evidence for him to make or not make the statements he made in 2010 versus the ones he made in 2006.

There are grounds for attacking the Pope on this, but they aren't in Dawkins' quoted words above or referenced here at all.

The main grounds for attacking the Pope would be that now that he has a clear picture of what happened and authority to act, he has not acted with such severity against the abusers that their successors will live in terror of getting caught by the Pope.

Given the scope of what has happened, the Pope could be forgiven for even going so far as to ignore canon law altogether to purge the wolves in sheep's clothing from the church because he has a higher duty to his flock than to the mavens of legal procedure on such matters.

The Dawkinses of the world have been salivating over the death of the Church for centuries. Indeed, the Faith has "died" over the years; 5 deaths, says Chesterton, up to the Age of Reason.

"I have said that Asia and the ancient world had an air of being too old to die. Christendom has has the very opposite fate. Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave."

"It was said truly enough that human Christianity in its recurrent weakness was sometimes too much wedded to the powers of the world; but if it was wedded, it has very often been widowed."

"It would seem that sooner or later even its enemies will learn from their own incessant and interminable disappointments not to look for anything so simple as its death. They may continue to war with it, but it will be as they war with nature; as they war with the landscape, as they war with the skies. 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.' They will watch for it to stumble; they will watch for it to err; they will no longer watch for it to end. Insensibly, even unconsciously, they will in their own silent anticipation fulfill the the relative terms of that astounding prophecy; they will forget to watch for the mere extinction of what has so often been vainly extinguished; and will learn to look first for the coming of the comet or the freezing of the star."

That diatribe was a heap of desperation. Since he is losing relevance, I guess Dawkins has to resort to idiotic revenge fantasies. That's one dream that will never come true.

"The main grounds for attacking the Pope would be that now that he has a clear picture of what happened and authority to act, he has not acted with such severity against the abusers that their successors will live in terror of getting caught by the Pope.

Given the scope of what has happened, the Pope could be forgiven for even going so far as to ignore canon law altogether to purge the wolves in sheep's clothing from the church because he has a higher duty to his flock than to the mavens of legal procedure on such matters."

While I understand and sympathize with your feelings, this statement ignores the reality of the Catholic Church, ca. 2010.

I do not believe a modern Pope could make his weight felt, even if he wanted to. The Pope has very few tools at his disposal now to rein in a wayward bishop, and even then he'd need the support of many bishops to do so. It is a lamentable but undeniable fact that many bishops, I would say sizable minority if not a small minority, can no longer be described as Catholic and have actively worked to subvert and undermine the Faith for at least the last 50 years, each to his own little tune but all in harmony with the great leftist march through the institutions. Were the Pope to take to the field against the bishops - and remember it was (is) the bishops who shielded the abusive priests, and remember also that some of the more prominent of these bishops are themselves homosexuals - he would face a revolt against which he would be powerless to do anything. In fact, one could argue this is already the case; Summorum Pontificum for example has been studiously ignored in the vast majority of dioceses in the West since its promulgation in 2007. Pope Benedict has largely set himself on a quiet, guerilla course, doing what he can to preserve the small, orthodox core of the Faithful so that they will survive the coming catastrophe and collapse of much of the institutional Church, in the Western world at least. I think he is very much taking his page from his namesake St. Benedict, adapted for the times. This Pope proposes, not imposes, because there is little else he can do.

It's almost trite to say it, but the false god that ought not to be held is to the barren modernists and power grubbers, the God of Christianity.
Some people just can't stand competition.

In my 4:28 PM above, I meant to say "sizable minority if not a small majority."

The decline of Richard Dawkins as a public intellectual is a sad thing to see.

*The Selfish Gene* really was a wonderfully clear and lively exposition of recent evolutionary theory. But his increasingly unhinged rants against what's left of Christianity make for painful reading.

Does posting the contradictory comments of a rabidly anti-Catholic zealot lessen the scope and severity of the problem within the Church? Is this simply an attempt at diverting attention from the issue? I would hope not.

Steve, are you claiming that the pedophilia crisis is the result of "the great leftist march through the institutions"? The roots of the problem extend much further back than the last fifty years. The first large wave of such claims resulted from the actions of priests who underwent their formations during the 1940's and 50s. Actually, I would not classify these atrocities as pedophilia as most people understand the term--the sexual abuse of very young children. Rather, the root cause is homosexuality. With few exceptions, these cases center around priests taking advantage of boys just before or into early puberty.

Imagine growing up Catholic in the first part of the 20th century. If you had any homosexual inclinations, you were met with the Church's unyielding teachings on the matter: It is a perversion and against the natural order. (Dr. Feser wholeheartedly agrees and pulls no punches in that regard) Further, if you dare act on such inclinations, it is a mortal sin, you are condemned to Hell forever. So how do you deal with such impulses, especially if matters of faith are important to you, perhaps even central? Since you are destined for celibacy anyway, why not overcome such deviant inclinations and dedicate yourself to God's service? Perhaps by doing so, and submitting yourself as completely as possible to God's will, such inclinations will be overcome and disappear.

Unfortunately, despite your best intentions, and even with the unique grace infused by ordination, you find your appetites unabated. Even worse, you find yourself in a unique position of trust and authority which you soon realize will enable you to indulge the very passions you were trying to overcome. No, not by freely associating with other adults with such an orientation--that would be too risky, but by imposing yourself on boys without the maturity or strength of will to resist your attentions. As abusers have noted time and again, once they crossed that line, it became easier and escalated from there, especially as they found they could get away with it.

I can't cite any hard figures as to how many priests might be homosexual, but I am certain of one thing: The percentage is far higher than in the general population. I was a member of a religious order myself, and as I recently went through a directory of the personnel in my former province with a priest with whom I started formation, we agreed that at least 80% of the brethren are homosexuals. Now what percentage of those are sexually active, I can't say. Also, I can't claim that this province is typical, though I strongly suspect it is not unique.

How should the Church respond to these realities? The most obvious step is to deal openly and decisively with offenders--no matter who they are. If the Pope made serious errors in judgement in dealing with such a situation, he should accept full responsibility. For longer range solutions, it seems the celibacy rule for priests should be seriously re-evaluated. A further measure would be to minister to homosexuals as whole persons, not as individuals afflicted with a basic disorder which must be repressed--and we see the tragic results of that when they try to do so in the priesthood. I have little doubt that such abuses have been systemic in the Church since celibacy was imposed--they were just much easier to cover up in ages past.

Highlighting how irrationally Dawkins responded does nothing to address this crucial issue, Dr. Feser--It just seems as though you are intent on taking another shot at an arch-foe.

Is there solid evidence for a lower rate of sexual abuse of the young in denominations or profession lacking the celibacy rule?

Thomas C.: no, I am not claiming *anything whatsoever* about the "pedophilia crisis." I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Roman Catholic, so I don't think it's much of my business.

I am, however, like Richard Dawkins, a bit of a Darwinian - so his antics *do* interest me.

"Further, if you dare act on such inclinations, it is a mortal sin, you are condemned to Hell forever."

Um, what?

Ever hear of the forgiveness of sins? It's right in the Apostles' Creed. I'm pretty sure Catholics believe in it. Maybe I should go check the Catechism...

(I'm not Catholic, either, though I am a Christian.)

Goodness, gracious.

"Highlighting how irrationally Dawkins responded does nothing to address this crucial issue, Dr. Feser--It just seems as though you are intent on taking another shot at an arch-foe. "

It does, however, defend the Pope against his slanderers in the media. As far as I can tell, the most recent trend in the news was to not focus on the abuse in general, but attempt to link the Pope to an abuse case in some way. Some fair questions could be asked about the Pope's time in Munich, yes, but talking heads convicted him without a trial and on little evidence, rather than waiting for the records to be released. The Wisconsin issue is, as far as I can tell, a non-issue, yet people are already writing obituaries for the Church's moral authority and specially Ratzinger's papacy. It is against these things that Dr. Feser writes, not against the crisis writ large.

"Ever hear of the forgiveness of sins? It's right in the Apostles' Creed. I'm pretty sure Catholics believe in it. Maybe I should go check the Catechism..."

Yeah, only mortal sins unrepented of condemn one to Hell. If one repents and confesses their sin through the sacrament then the stain of that sin must be purged from them in Purgatory, along with the rest of them. I think Thomas' intention was to state the strength of the ban on such actions, rather than give a precise theological treatise on the forgiveness of sins.

Yeah, only mortal sins unrepented of condemn one to Hell. If one repents and confesses their sin through the sacrament then the stain of that sin must be purged from them in Purgatory, along with the rest of them.

No - by doing penance in this life, even Purgatory can be avoided by those who have sinned mortally.

At the least the pope should remove some bishops who enabled the abuse of children, such as Bernard Law. Didn't he get a nice job at the vatican?

I recall once when Frank Beckwith said that MSNBC should fire Pat Buchanan for his views on the holocuast. I asked him if the pope should fire Bernard Law and he refused to answer (or if he did, I didn't see it).

I think Thomas' intention was to state the strength of the ban on such actions,

Since Thomas was once a member of a religious order, he knows better than what he said. His intention was to exaggerate, as far as I can tell. I don't have much sympathy for it and think the exaggeration was rather telling.

Wait, it is Orwellian for someone to change his view of the evidence (and thus their ultimate judgment) over a period of 4 years? I guess that means that Feser has always been at war with Eastasia, since at one point he was an atheist but now is a Catholic!

Well, no, it isn't strictly speaking Orwellian to change one's mind. However it is Orwellian to reverse your position without explanation, or indeed, acknowledgment of the prior contradictory stance. Under the circumstances, it suggests--demands--that rank opportunism is the motivator. On the positive side of the ledger, I find it perversely comforting that apostles of naked reason have their herdmind torches and pitchforks moments.

What does Dawkins think he's proving by referring to Benedict as "Pope Ratzinger"?

I can't cite any hard figures as to how many priests might be homosexual, but I am certain of one thing: The percentage is far higher than in the general population. I was a member of a religious order myself, and as I recently went through a directory of the personnel in my former province with a priest with whom I started formation, we agreed that at least 80% of the brethren are homosexuals. Now what percentage of those are sexually active, I can't say. Also, I can't claim that this province is typical, though I strongly suspect it is not unique.

This doesn't even rise to the level of salicious gossip.

Were the Pope to take to the field against the bishops - and remember it was (is) the bishops who shielded the abusive priests, and remember also that some of the more prominent of these bishops are themselves homosexuals - he would face a revolt against which he would be powerless to do anything.

This theoretically could be true. But in point of fact, it hasn't really been tried. The real extent of the problem was known or knowable to anyone with ears and eyes at least as far back as the early 90's. I remember reading an article, in the early 90's, about a bishop who actually collected the homosexual cast-offs of other dioceses. Almost certainly Paul VI, but definitely, JPII, and Benedict, should have made the attempt to take the field. In some places and against some bishops.

For instance, what about simply removing one bishop a year per country? Start with the worst ones, the ones that even their fellow bishops felt were way out on the fringe, the ones whose support would be wavering and non-enthusiastic in the bishopric. Or, for instance, simply take over a new seminary every year or two.

There might well have been resistance. The question is, would that resistance have been effective, and would it have been large-scale? Nobody knows, because the popes in question never really tried. They decided to take the "I don't really believe in using the power of the papacy as power" approach.

But even these in-your-face type actions would eventually have been unnecessary if the popes had used their authority to appoint bishops wisely. Nearly every bishop seated in a diocese today was appointed by JPII or Benedict, and these popes SHOULD have known what the problems were and what kind of men to appoint. The fact that they DIDN'T appoint the right men says that there is a massive, major breakdown in the managerial life-cycle of the institution: the capacity and willingness to correctly handle the replacement of next-level leaders is a core role of the executive. If after 32 years of JPII and Benedict the bishopric is not solid, then the chief executive has not been doing his job.

Tony, sorry, it isn't that easy. A new CEO may shuffle things up by replacing as many as a half dozen executives who will, in turn, do the same all the way down. The Pope does not enjoy that kind of hierarchy, rather he must oversee some three thousand bishops. Then it gets worse.

First, the scouting process for future bishops is managed by other bishops. Sure, the Pope has the final say, but his say extends to selecting one of three candidates, or throwing all three out and demanding another lengthy scouting process. Of course, there is no guarantee that the next three won't be just as bad or worse than the first three, so it ends up as a battle of wills. Things are complicated as the Pope must pretty much decide based upon memories of chance meetings, office-cooler anecdotes from other members of the Curia, or most likely, what the bishops wrote in as why they think these three candidates are so swell. This is all going on while the laity, priests, and diocesan functionaries are all stuck in a standstill until a new bishop arrives. So, does the Pope throw back the three candidates a dozen times or more while radicalized bishops play a game of "chicken" with a diocese on the line, knowing that they have all the advantages? And now lets have this happen while dozens of more vacancies arise each year.

Okay, so let's talk about removing a bad bishop. Now, chances are, the worst of the worst bishops are usually screaming radical leftists. The problem with removing such a bishop is that nutcase is actually what most moderate bishops wish they had the guts to be. Let's face it, your average moderate bishop doesn't want to deal with a revolting laity ("Tell me about it, they stink on ice") or be subjected to ridicule. So they remain closet radicals, while living vicariously through the radicalism of their more open peers. Until the sex scandals, Archbishop Weakland was considered an avant garde genius. The living legend of the Hootenany Mass was not a far-left nutcase, but a untouchable leader.

That the bishopric has generally improved since the 1970's through all that insanity is testament to their ability to subvert the perverse champions of the SoVII.

Patrick, I recognize the problems.

First, the scouting process for future bishops is managed by other bishops.

First, the pope became a bishop, and an archbishop, and a cardinal, through these processes. If he can't see the problems with these processes, then he is part of the problem isn't he?

Let's assume that the pope can see the problems with the process. Did he make major shake-ups with the process? Re-write the rules from the ground up? Why not? You mean that he KNEW that the process was stacked against him, and he STILL decided to play the game with those rules? How bone-headed is that? He is not just a player on one of the competing teams, he is ALSO the referee and the guy who writes the rule book.

kay, so let's talk about removing a bad bishop. Now, chances are, the worst of the worst bishops are usually screaming radical leftists. The problem with removing such a bishop is that nutcase is actually what most moderate bishops wish they had the guts to be.

Then they aren't really moderates, are they? They are really closet screaming leftist radicals. You are assuming that the bishopric is actually much worse than I thought that it is. Which makes me wonder why you can suggest That the bishopric has generally improved since the 1970's .

But in any case, you don't say what the problem is with removing a Weakland or a Card. Bernardin. Yes, he would have some support. What do you suppose those in support would have actually DONE, that is worse than, um, leaving them in place to have their way with the diocese? What worse were they about to do to us that they didn't actually do to us?

Or, another method would have been to go right past the bishop and start removing priests who damaged the mass, who violated canon law, who preached heresy, not after 30 years of unrepentant behavior followed by formally leaving the Church, but after 6 months or a year.

Did he make major shake-ups with the process? Re-write the rules from the ground up? Why not? You mean that he KNEW that the process was stacked against him, and he STILL decided to play the game with those rules

Third, the competency to hear cases of sexual abuse of minors shifted from the Roman Rota to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith headed by Cardinal Ratzinger in 2001. Until that time, most appeal cases went to the Rota and it was our experience that cases could languish for years in this court. When the competency was changed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in my observation as well as many of my canonical colleagues, sexual abuse cases were handled expeditiously, fairly, and with due regard to the rights of all the parties involved. I have no doubt that this was the work of then Cardinal Ratzinger.

http://catholicanchor.org/wordpress/?p=601

It should not go unobserved that many of these attacks are published in the Jewish owned press.

Now, this is not to say that all Jews are guilty because some Jewish papers, acting as the Secular Sanhedrin, attack the Pope and the Catholic Church during Holy Week. And it is not to say that the soul sources of attacks are from sources owned/operated by Jews.

But, there are not a few Jewish Publications with Jewish writers who solicit and publish false accusations against The Vicar of Christ in ways reminiscent of how the Sanhedrin solicited public false testimony against Jesus.

And the silence of the Jews about this is deafening - especially so given that they, repeatedly, attack Pope Pius XII for being silent (even though he wasn't).

If a Christian owned paper published lies about a prominent Rabbi and Judaism during Yom Kippur there would be hell to pay and everybody knows it.

And among the first to condemn the liars would be Catholics who would not only condemn the lies and the liars but they would label the liars antisemitic.

But no such thing is happening in this instance. I know of no Jew/s who is/are condemning these mendacious attacks and execrable tactics and labeling them as AntiCatholic bigotry.

Many Jews in the Media are not treating this fractious issue with any semblance of ethical journalistic standards and, sadly, there are too few Catholics willing to identify who it is who is launching these mendacious campaigns against The Vicar of Christ during the Holiest week in The Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church has done honest, forthright, and arduous work in trying to repair our relationship with the Jews.

Isn't it time our goodwill and arduous efforts are reciprocated?

In the meantime, amidst the hysterical madness, recollected in pacific dignity, The Vicar of Christ, in his person is recapitulating the Passion while the NY Times, the Secular Sanhedrin, calls-forth liar after liar to bear public false witness against him so as to Crown the Vicar of Christ as King of the Guilty.

He has silently taken the beating; he has been flailed with the Scourge of Lies; he has been dressed in a Robe of Reprehensibility; he has been Crowned the King of Guilty; and he has Shouldered the Cross of Hatred; and he is walking towards Calvary as the mob continues to mock him and accuse him and demand he apologise and resign even though he is not guilty of even one of the many false charges made against him.

Why do they rage against him? Because they know who he is.

A certain Luther site certainly gets it:

http://www.logia.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=121&catid=39:web-forum&Itemid=18

Dear I am not: in my opinion, Benedict XVI appears to be approximately twice the pope that JPII was. I honor him for that. He has taken bold steps in certain areas, steps that I applauded loudly when they came out (such as his motu proprio - a GREAT example of side-stepping the bishops and their behind his back stone-walling).

Nevertheless, it remains true that the kinds of steps taken have been nowhere near root of the systemic problem Patrick noted above: the process of finding and appointing new bishops. For that problem, it may perhaps be true that he is working the system as well as it CAN be worked to appoint the best bishops the system throws out to him. But why limit yourself to such a small and crabbed percentage of the possible good bishops out there. I live in a diocese where AT LEAST 15 of our priests would have been a better bishop than our current bishop. Letting the system force the pope into a "pick a card, any card - but you always pick the card we want you to" is just a failure of executive leadership.

Tony, where to begin?

The pope's sole "power" over bishops around the world is based entirely on:
1) Appealing to their conscience.
2) Calling upon other bishops to help persuade him.
3) Rallying the laity to protest.

That's it. The pope does not own any cathedrals but St. John Lateran. The pope has no binding legal authority that is recognized by other nations.

At best a draconian removal of faculties from the bishops would be ignored. More likely it would be dead on arrival, mocked, and destroy the laity's trust in the papacy (kind of like Humanae Vitae). Worst case scenario plays out like Great Schism of 1054.

However, let's say that Pope Benedict acquires super powers that allow him to rule over the bishops with unquestionable power. That's all well and great, but Pope Benedict will not live forever. Sure, the next pope may well be a holy and virtuous man, but may not necessarily be an able administrator or a judge of character. It is not impossible to imagine this scenario, as some of us can remember in the sad reign of Pope Paul VI. Don't get me wrong, he wasn't a bad man, just a terrible administrator.

As for moderate bishops, I didn't quite explain myself. Back in the 70's, the overwhelming majority of non-radical bishops in the West sympathized with the radicals. That overwhelming majority has slowly declined, and by the time of the sex abuse scandal, was nearing parity with timid orthodox bishops. I am not contradicting myself, as I merely stated that the radical bishops only had an advantage, not a lock.

I suppose one of the reasons why the press ran away with the sex scandal story was because the hard left was losing its grip on the episcopacy. After all, liberal journalists have no problem with organizations like the ACLU helping pervert networks like NAMBLA abuse children, but the Church must pay for their casting liberalism to the side.

Patrick, I see you've drunk the Kool-Aid down to the dregs.

Where is one shred of evidence that BXVI would get rid of apostate bishops if he could? And I don't want any of your silly speculations. I want evidence.

Were the Pope to take to the field against the bishops - and remember it was (is) the bishops who shielded the abusive priests, and remember also that some of the more prominent of these bishops are themselves homosexuals - he would face a revolt against which he would be powerless to do anything.

I could be mistaken, but in the US, at the very least, there are likely criminal conspiracy charges that could be filed against many of those bishops. The Pope could simply sidestep the matter in the US, at least, by inviting the Director of the FBI to come to the Vatican for a morning espresso...

Both The Papacy and The Bishopric were Divinely-Constituted and it is Peter's Job, after selecting a Bishop,to, among other things, heed the words of Jesus;

And the Lord said: Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren.

There are all sorts of suggestions about what our great Pope ought do but I think he is managing this crisis with the Common Good of the Church in mind and I do not see how it would serve the Common Good for the Pope to start sacking so many in the Bishopric who, arguably, are eminently sackable.

That is the sort of precedence a bad Pope could use to cause severe mischief by sacking orthodox Bishops.

Just think of all of the usurped power the POTUS has accumulated over all of these years and now we have a President who is using all of that ill-gotten power in ways that make the thought of a possible Pope Judas seem like not so bad an idea.

I have always thought that one, tangential, reason that Jesus chose Judas was to set an example we ought to heed.

At times, we will have bad men to rule over us and rather than faithfully discharge their Duties to Teach, Rule, and Sanctify, they may turn out to be wimpy pols, lusting after filthy lucre, anxious to find Common Ground with the world which seeks to destroy us.

We may be saddled with a Bishop Judas in our Diocese and it is prolly the case that if we are are, and we can not move, then we will have to wait for the answer to so many of the problems inside the Catholic Church - the Funeral Rite.

And then Jesus will deal with them.

And if we live in a Diocese administered by a Bishop Judas, we remember the words of St. Augustine:

Do what they say, not what they do

Well then, shepherds, hear the word of the Lord!” What must you shepherds hear? Thus says the Lord God: behold, I am above the shepherds and I will call them to account for the sheep in their hands.

Listen, sheep of God, listen and learn: God will call the bad shepherds to account for his sheep and for their deaths. As he says elsewhere in Ezekiel: Son of man, I have appointed you as sentry to the House of Israel. When you hear a word from my mouth, warn them in my name. If I say to a wicked man, “Wicked wretch, you are to die,” and you do not speak to warn the wicked man to renounce his ways, then he shall die for his sin but I will hold you responsible for his death. If, however, you do warn a wicked man to renounce his ways and repent, and he does not repent, then he shall die for his sin but you yourself will have saved your life.

You see, brethren? Do you see how dangerous it is to keep quiet? If you remain silent, you die; and rightly. You die for your impiety and sin – it is your negligence that kills you. He who has said, As I live, says the Lord might have found a living shepherd – but since the shepherd was negligent, not warning those he had been given authority over, those whose sentry he was, he will die justly and the sentry will be justly condemned. But if – the Lord continues – you say “you are to die” with one I have threatened with the sword, and he does not avoid the sword and it comes and kills him, he will die in his sin but you will have set your soul free. That is why we must not keep silent – and you, even if we did keep silent, must listen to the words of the true Shepherd in holy Scripture.

Since I raised the question, let us see if he takes the sheep from the dead shepherds and gives them to good ones. I certainly see him taking the sheep from the bad shepherds: I am above the shepherds, and I shall take my flock back from them and I shall not allow them to feed my flock. In this way the shepherds will stop feeding themselves. For when I say to them, “Feed my sheep,” they feed themselves and not my sheep. I shall not allow them to feed my flock.

How does he stop them from looking after his sheep? Do whatever they say, but do not do what they do. It is as if he were saying, “Their words are my words but their actions are their own.” When you avoid what the bad shepherds do, they are not in charge of you any more: when you follow what they say, it is my words you are following and it is I who am tending you.

I think it is very sad; it is clear that Richard Dawkins has been affected by events in his childhood, some of which we may not know, and needs to receive healing and forgiveness and reconciliation and restoration to God.

note to Johnt: Your posting implies that you believe that all homosexual men are by nature pedophiles. This reasoning would then, I presume, lead you to believe that all heterosexual men are a severe danger to all young girls. Being male but neither gay nor attracted to very young women I would like to make a suggestion to you that you try to diminish you prejudices and remove your head from it's apparent present location.