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Sorry if people were pointing out how horrible the Roman Catholic church is. I know being faced with the truth can sting. I notice you didn't go out of your way to angrily defend the church when another poster on this thread called them kiddy molesters. I guess even you can't defend the Catholic Church's whole hearted and full throated support of systematically raping children.
I specifically said that the ROMAN CATHOLIC church is not in the buisness of subsidizing schools. And that is true. If you would have read later I also said that individual diocese will indeed support a school financially to keep tuitions low. However, that isn't the church, that is the congregation. Rome doesn't send money, they ask the people of the community to support the school.
And although no one knows how much money the Catholic Church has, it's ridiculous of you to not think that it could be measured in the billions of dollars. This institution has been around for 2000 years playing the system and writing the rules. For a period of history the Catholic Church owned ONE THIRD of Europe. That's right, all the cities, all the farm land, all the real estate, the Catholic church owned ONE THIRD of it, and never had to pay taxes. You don't spend 2000 years aquiring wealth and not have something to show for it...don't be so naive. Now I admit that certain Roman Catholic Diocese's have declared bankruptcy in the United States.....but that was just a legal maneuver so they wouldn't have to pay billions of dollars in judgements against them for ...you know....all the kiddy rape. Sort of says a lot about a religion when they will declare bankruptcy rather than make resitution for decades of rape and abuse. I am sorry I keep saying the word "rape". It's just the first word that comes to my mind when I think of the Roman Catholic Church.
And I think it's surprising you would defend the pope and say he doesn't wear a crown. What do you think that funny golden hat he wears is? The papal tiara is still in existence, in all it's ruby encrusted glory. The big hat that the pope wears? His pretiosa? That's a crown baby! A piece of head gear to tell him apart from the common folk. And even if he DIDNT wear a crown....he still lives in a palace big enough to be it's OWN COUNTRY. The pope lives in Vatican City, his own theocratic kingdom in the middle or rome. The operating budget for his 110 acre slice of heaven (an eigth the size of central park) is $353 million a year.
Please don't criticize us for calling the Roman Catholic church rich. It is. The pope has his own country, in it he has a golden palace, he sits upon a golden throne, wears a golden crown. I am sure individual Catholics are wonderful people, I have met quite a few. But the church? The institution? The men who run it? Rotten to the core. And really really into raping little children.
The less than 1% of priests who molest kids are despicable people (less of a percentage than teachers and "protestants" who molest kids).
The Church as a whole is the greatest organization in the history of mankind and single-handidly responsible for building Western civilization as we know it.
The Roman Catholic church is clearly the richest religious institution in the world. How much of is assests are liquid is another matter, but simply selling the contents of the vatican museum could keep a NASA Mars program afloat.
It's a sign of the church's rich heritage of artistic and engineering talent, unmatched by most other modern religious denominations in the world. Those assets are better off in the Vatican than in the hands of ignorant collectors who have no idea or appreciation of their significance.
The less than 1% of priests who molest kids are despicable people (less of a percentage than teachers and "protestants" who molest kids).
The Church as a whole is the greatest organization in the history of mankind and single-handidly responsible for building Western civilization as we know it.
The less than 1% of priests who molest children were protected by the other 99% of the priests who helped hide their behavior and swarmed around them and defended the rapists when the truth finally came out. You see when a "teacher" rapes a kid, other teachers are horrified. The principal is horrified. The School investigates it. Not the same as the Catholic Church.
The Church leadership knew what was happening, and hid it. Which is worse? The kiddy rapist, or the enabler of the kiddy rapist?
Oh...and PEOPLE bit western civilization. Not the church. The pope didn't lay one brick. He only layed children.
I like Catholics. Most of my family are Catholics. I have met amazing and wonderful catholics in all walks of life. The INSTITUTION, the church itself, is rotten to the core.
It's a sign of the church's rich heritage of artistic and engineering talent, unmatched by most other modern religious denominations in the world. Those assets are better off in the Vatican than in the hands of ignorant collectors who have no idea or appreciation of their significance.
And the vatican can keep them. I have no problem with that. I have a problem with people saying that the Catholic church doesn't have billions of dollars when they clearly do. You can't cry poor when you live in a castle.
The Catholic church was built upon the ideas of Jesus Christ. A man who said it would be easier for a camel to pass thru the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. A man who said to give up all your worldly goods and follow him. And the pope has a palace. Something was clearly lost in translation.
The only reason why those assets have such a high value is because they were created by great men such as Michaelangelo and Raphael (and because they happen to have died). Those "billions", assuming this is indeed the true value, did not suddenly appear out of nowhere and nor are they available for the expropriation or claim by less talented people.
This is way OT for a thread that is about the purported closings of Catholic schools. Please leave your bitterness in another thread.
Nonsense. The OP specifically asked "How can catholic schools close, isn't the Roman Catholic church the richest religion in the world?" That opens the door to talk about how much money they have.
And since schools have children in them, then it is extremely topical to talk about how less catholic schools might mean less children getting raped.
Not all priests rape kids of course. Probably very few do. And any teacher can rape kids, catholic or not. However in a public school system if a kid got raped, and that kid went and told his parents or another teacher, then there would be an investigation, there would be a methodology that would be followed to protect the current victim and any future victims of the rapist. That's in a secular society.
In the Catholic church however, the victim is ignored. And the hiearchy of the church commands the lay person to deny the victim help, to shame the victim into silence, and then they move the rapist to a different school/diocese to provide him with multiple other victims. In an ecclesiastical society, nothing is more important than protecting the institution, the religion. What's a little kiddy rape amongst friends, right? The most important thing was to protect the church.
Look at Penn state. The religion there is football. And when ONE person in the instituion decided to rape children, EVERYONE covered up for him and helped provide him with victims. Because the most important thing was to protect the Penn State football team.
I am sorry if it is hurtful to you, but the leadership of your church made certain decisions over a period of DECADES to sytematically hide and deny the abuse and rape of THOUSANDS of children. Because they CHOSE to do that...the word "Catholic" and "priest" are now synonymous with "Child rapist". That's not our fault. It's the fault of the Catholic Leadership. Take it up with them.
The only reason why those assets have such a high value is because they were created by great men such as Michaelangelo and Raphael (and because they happen to have died). Those "billions", assuming this is indeed the true value, did not suddenly appear out of nowhere and nor are they available for the expropriation or claim by less talented people.
I never said they are. I specifically said that it took the church 2000 years to build up their wealth. What I AM saying however is that the church has billions, and to deny that fact is naive. They can do whatever they want with their money, more power to them. They raped and pillaged pretty hard to earn all that money, why shouldn't they do what they want with it. But don't cry poor when you have billions. Don't file bankrupty right before you are going to trial for kiddy rape b/c you don't want the victims to be able to sue you civilly and take your money, which is what SEVERAL American diocese's did prior to their criminal proceedings.
That's right, the catholic church of America says they are going bankrupt as a legal maneuver to not have to pay for raping children for decades.
Nonsense. The OP specifically asked "How can catholic schools close, isn't the Roman Catholic church the richest religion in the world?" That opens the door to talk about how much money they have.
But that has been answered already. Read prior posts - much of those assets are either not available for monetization or not available to use for other purposes. What more is there to discuss exept to make useless rants?
Quote:
Originally Posted by JayBrown80
And since schools have children in them, then it is extremely topical to talk about how less catholic schools might mean less children getting raped.
You're stretching the argument JB. This is obviously OT. Why not start a thread and talk about how abose occurs in ALL schools such as PS 87?
I never said they are. I specifically said that it took the church 2000 years to build up their wealth. What I AM saying however is that the church has billions, and to deny that fact is naive. They can do whatever they want with their money, more power to them. They raped and pillaged pretty hard to earn all that money, why shouldn't they do what they want with it. But don't cry poor when you have billions. Don't file bankrupty right before you are going to trial for kiddy rape b/c you don't want the victims to be able to sue you civilly and take your money, which is what SEVERAL American diocese's did prior to their criminal proceedings.
That's right, the catholic church of America says they are going bankrupt as a legal maneuver to not have to pay for raping children for decades.
Look, sometime in history, an artist named Michaelangelo, along with Botticelli and others, offered to do a paint and decoration job in a chapel within the Vatican. The job was paid for by a pope who came from a rich/well-connected family. Now that job is worth astronomical amounts but the church maintains that it is merely a steward of the great works and financial generosity of other people. Is there anything bad with that???
Look, sometime in history, an artist named Michaelangelo, along with Botticelli and others, offered to do a paint and decoration job in a chapel within the Vatican. The job was paid for by a pope who came from a rich/well-connected family. Now that job is worth astronomical amounts but the church maintains that it is merely a steward of the great works and financial generosity of other people. Is there anything bad with that???
Not at all. They were in the right place at the right time. Good for them. I am not telling the Catholic Church how to spend their money. Seriously, good for them! I am not advocating that the church sale all their possessions and give it to the poor (that would be Jesus advocating that, not me). I don't care what the Catholic Church does with their money, I am just pointing out to the naive people on this thread that the church is INDEED rich.
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