Catholic priests claim Irish people have become Pagan, blame everything but themselves

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The report from the Irish Roman Catholic clergy and published on the ACP website blames problems the church is facing on people's lack of time or interest and faith rather than its own institution.
It said: “There seems to be a substantial number of bishops, and some priests, who believe that the problems we are facing are not due to any difficulties in the Church or with the priesthood, but are caused by a lack of faith in the people.
"The people, they told us, have bought into the evils of materialism and consumerism, and don’t have time or interest in faith any more. They have, to all intents and purposes, become pagan. And they believe that ‘evangelisation’ is the answer."

Yeah, that's right, blame consumerism, blame capitalism, blame pop culture, blame demons and the devil. It's never ever EVER the church's fault, no the pope is Father Perfect and the last five centuries were just fucking peachy. You fuckers never learn, do you?

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However “there didn’t seem to us to be any practical ideas, or indeed energy, around how this evangelisation could be progressed,” it added.

It wouldn't do a damned thing anyway, no Pagan worth their salt is going to buy into your bullshit because we value critical thinking and personal freedom too much. Not to mention having to stomach the idea of belonging to an organization that openly enslaved and abused people and suppressed scientific and social progress for most of its ~2000-year existence right up into the modern era.

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"We also highlighted the fact that there are now sufficient numbers of false allegations against priest to cause concern," the report said.

what

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Expecting these men to bring about any real change was clearly not living in the real world.

Expecting anyone in the Vatican to live in the real world is not living in the real world.

Yes Xerro, try to make this about you.

He makes everything about him.

You are unnecessarily outraged over an insignificant issue.  Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, as the original purpose of this site was to bitch about fanfiction, but you aren't remotely funny or eloquent about it.

And stop linking the Huffington Post.  At least put it in the Original Fiction area where it belongs if you insist on doing it.

xerrofoot wrote:

It wouldn't do a damned thing anyway, no Pagan worth their salt is going to buy into your bullshit because we value critical thinking and personal freedom too much.

>Claims to value critical thinking
>Is a pagan
>Made TheHedonist use greentext
>That's Mikey's schtick
>You cad

xerrofoot wrote:

Expecting anyone in the Vatican to live in the real world is not living in the real world.

I mean this is a fair point but shitting your own flawed theology all over the thread before saying this isn't exactly on-message.

All I'll say is this:

When the Catholic Church started weighing on the recent abortion debate here (surprise, they're against it), extremely uncharitable things regarding why, given their track record with children, they would be in favour of more children born to parents who didn't want them would pop into my head.

Cyberwulf wrote:

All I'll say is this:

When the Catholic Church started weighing on the recent abortion debate here (surprise, they're against it), extremely uncharitable things regarding why, given their track record with children, they would be in favour of more children born to parents who didn't want them would pop into my head.

And BOOM goes the dynamite. 

America has its share of uber-religion fucknuts, but likely most laugh them off for the fools they are and most are nowhere near any position of legislative power. And the few that are will be dead in thirty years, tops.

Not only.
I'm from the *other* European country where the population is mostly catholic, and believers don't really know where they stand on issues of faith. I don't know what gets reported abroad, but the previous Pope was mostly about "authorities ought to treat illegal immigrants humanely", "capitalists ought to abstain from cut'n'run business", "politicians shouldn't allow same-sex unions."
The reasons for the third are pretty much the closer the Church gets to discuss matters of faith these days. Small wonder there are fewer and fewer people willing to listen.

xerrofoot wrote:

no Pagan worth their salt is going to buy into your bullshit because we value critical thinking and personal freedom too much. Not to mention having to stomach the idea of belonging to an organization that openly enslaved and abused people and suppressed scientific and social progress for most of its ~2000-year existence right up into the modern era.

yes it's much better to worship a pantheon of capricious gods and goddesses who control every aspect of the environment, fertility and human life and must be placated by human and animal sacrifices lest dire things occur

Cyberwulf wrote:

xerrofoot wrote:

no Pagan worth their salt is going to buy into your bullshit because we value critical thinking and personal freedom too much. Not to mention having to stomach the idea of belonging to an organization that openly enslaved and abused people and suppressed scientific and social progress for most of its ~2000-year existence right up into the modern era.

yes it's much better to worship a pantheon of capricious gods and goddesses who control every aspect of the environment, fertility and human life and must be placated by human and animal sacrifices lest dire things occur

Funny. So the choice is either one capricious god who controls every aspect of life, of a couple of them? Can I believe in a capricious universe that controls every aspect of life, but can't really be placated by anything, so dire things will occur no matter what kind of fruit, vegetable or livestock I sacrifice?

Jay/Cris wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

xerrofoot wrote:

no Pagan worth their salt is going to buy into your bullshit because we value critical thinking and personal freedom too much. Not to mention having to stomach the idea of belonging to an organization that openly enslaved and abused people and suppressed scientific and social progress for most of its ~2000-year existence right up into the modern era.

yes it's much better to worship a pantheon of capricious gods and goddesses who control every aspect of the environment, fertility and human life and must be placated by human and animal sacrifices lest dire things occur

Funny. So the choice is either one capricious god who controls every aspect of life, of a couple of them? Can I believe in a capricious universe that controls every aspect of life, but can't really be placated by anything, so dire things will occur no matter what kind of fruit, vegetable or livestock I sacrifice?

Isn't that Catholicism?

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Jay/Cris wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

xerrofoot wrote:

no Pagan worth their salt is going to buy into your bullshit because we value critical thinking and personal freedom too much. Not to mention having to stomach the idea of belonging to an organization that openly enslaved and abused people and suppressed scientific and social progress for most of its ~2000-year existence right up into the modern era.

yes it's much better to worship a pantheon of capricious gods and goddesses who control every aspect of the environment, fertility and human life and must be placated by human and animal sacrifices lest dire things occur

Funny. So the choice is either one capricious god who controls every aspect of life, of a couple of them? Can I believe in a capricious universe that controls every aspect of life, but can't really be placated by anything, so dire things will occur no matter what kind of fruit, vegetable or livestock I sacrifice?

Isn't that Catholicism?

Naw, that's where the capricious god offers you a shiny carrot that makes everything better when you die. Also, it's where you can sacrifice either money or genuine repentance to absolve yourself of all the bad things you did, so you still can get that shiny carrot.

Jay/Cris wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

xerrofoot wrote:

no Pagan worth their salt is going to buy into your bullshit because we value critical thinking and personal freedom too much. Not to mention having to stomach the idea of belonging to an organization that openly enslaved and abused people and suppressed scientific and social progress for most of its ~2000-year existence right up into the modern era.

yes it's much better to worship a pantheon of capricious gods and goddesses who control every aspect of the environment, fertility and human life and must be placated by human and animal sacrifices lest dire things occur

Funny. So the choice is either one capricious god who controls every aspect of life, of a couple of them? Can I believe in a capricious universe that controls every aspect of life, but can't really be placated by anything, so dire things will occur no matter what kind of fruit, vegetable or livestock I sacrifice?

so yeah on reflection a way better zing for hoofboy's assertion that no "pagan" (whatever he imagines that means in his imagination) would convert to catholicism because they're so enlightened would've been a link to/picture of Constantine I or if I didn't feel like being clever perhaps a thorough ridiculing of the fact that he liberally sprinkles his religion with chunks of "celticness" while ignoring the fact that "pagans" converted to christianity in droves because they got to keep their important festivals and some of their gods but honestly I didn't think that anyone would assume I was literally forcing them to choose one of the only two choices in the world ever

I stopped finding pagans anything but silly after I made the mistake of telling a group of them that if I was to worship any pagan deity it would be Ishtar. She's not pagan and might even be a Catholic demon according to them. I guess only the Celtic deities are allowed to be worshipped anymore.

Or the pagans I met who worshiped Satan.

I always find it very ironic when Christians, Catholics in particular, use the term 'pagan' in a derogatory fashion. After all the resurrection, virgin birth, lighting candles for the dead, the mid-winter festival and the Eucharist are all pagan beliefs and traditions kept alive by Christianity.

Anon wrote:

I always find it very ironic when Christians, Catholics in particular, use the term 'pagan' in a derogatory fashion. After all the resurrection, virgin birth, lighting candles for the dead, the mid-winter festival and the Eucharist are all pagan beliefs and traditions kept alive by Christianity.

You do realize it's a catch-all term for anything outside Judeo-Christianity, right?

Penguin wrote:

Anon wrote:

I always find it very ironic when Christians, Catholics in particular, use the term 'pagan' in a derogatory fashion. After all the resurrection, virgin birth, lighting candles for the dead, the mid-winter festival and the Eucharist are all pagan beliefs and traditions kept alive by Christianity.

You do realize it's a catch-all term for anything outside Judeo-Christianity, right?

Only when used as a noun. As an adjective it means of or relating to pagan beliefs. There's no exclusion clause for the pagan practices that were later adopted by Christianity.

So?

This comic seems appropriate

It was always God's plan for his followers to co-opt Christmas and Easter why else do you think he made humans worship Cernunnos in the first place? Like, duh.

Like seriously now we have this really cool boogy-man. Thanks, God!

Cyberwulf wrote:

but honestly I didn't think that anyone would assume I was literally forcing them to choose one of the only two choices in the world ever

Hahaha c'mon you know perfectly well that if there is a way for what you wrote to be taken completely wrong it is going to happen, especially if it gives someone a chance to be a smug dick hole about it.

Penguin wrote:

So?

So, in spite of the word's meaning, Christianity still manages to be a deeply pagan religion. In fact there are denominations of Christianity that were created in an effort to make it less so.

Anon wrote:

Penguin wrote:

So?

So, in spite of the word's meaning, Christianity still manages to be a deeply pagan religion. In fact there are denominations of Christianity that were created in an effort to make it less so.

Simpsons did it.

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

but honestly I didn't think that anyone would assume I was literally forcing them to choose one of the only two choices in the world ever

Hahaha c'mon you know perfectly well that if there is a way for what you wrote to be taken completely wrong it is going to happen, especially if it gives someone a chance to be a smug dick hole about it.

It would be me normally, but I honestly stay the fuck away from religious debates.