Priest embezzles > $100K for his mom's cosmetic surgery
- Thread starter Monello
- Start date
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Chuckt
Guest
How can the average lay catholic stop it before it happens? There is not enough oversight or responsibility for the average Catholic because they obviously aren't allowed to do anything.
PeoplesElbow
Well-Known Member
Jesus could make her crows feet and turkey neck disappear with a snap. But this guy wasn't Jesus.
Unlike how much control you have over Osteen's millions and how he spends that..for example. Amirite?
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Chuckt
Guest
Dr. Walter Martin spoke out against Kenneth Copeland and he was off of channel 17 almost instantly. When you have radio power, a doctorate degree, the church and dedicated followers then you have authority and can do something like that.
Other people like me have a harder time because we don't have money, thousands of followers, many lawyers and many people willing to stick up for me.
Crime exists where people don't follow the Bible and when people don't have rules in place then others can do what they want.
TheLibertonian
New Member
The pope has begun cleaning out the catholic banking system quite thoroughly, but let me throw this out there.
A local mcdonalds manager embezzles money to pay for his own holiday.
Why aren't you talking about how mcdonalds is corrupt to the core and how the regular employees can't do anything? Or how about the McDonalds CEO should know how about every single managers personal accounts and finances.
And like the McDonalds, the catholic church has rules, and if you violate those rules and the central authority finds out they tend to land like a sack of bricks on top of you.
Also, not all priest take vows of poverty. It's a vow.
"I saw a preacher man in cuffs, he'd taken money from the church, he'd stuffed his bank account with righteous dollar bills. But even still I can't say much, because I know we're all the same, we all seek out to satisfy those thrills".
A local mcdonalds manager embezzles money to pay for his own holiday.
Why aren't you talking about how mcdonalds is corrupt to the core and how the regular employees can't do anything? Or how about the McDonalds CEO should know how about every single managers personal accounts and finances.
And like the McDonalds, the catholic church has rules, and if you violate those rules and the central authority finds out they tend to land like a sack of bricks on top of you.
Also, not all priest take vows of poverty. It's a vow.
"I saw a preacher man in cuffs, he'd taken money from the church, he'd stuffed his bank account with righteous dollar bills. But even still I can't say much, because I know we're all the same, we all seek out to satisfy those thrills".
Unless you are a pedophile, then the central authority just moves you to another church.
TheLibertonian
New Member
Which central authority? The pope? The pope didn't know.
It's hard to be objective, I know. But think. If you must hate, sharpen your hatred with facts, not stereotypes.
Indeed, catholic bishops in the U.S. and over the world did shuffle around pedophile priest in order to save the church face.
However, to go back to my McDonalds analogy, and yes I'm aware this isn't how McDonalds operates but I'm trying to make a point:
A McDonalds regional manager finds out that the manager of a local McDonalds is a pedophile. Obviously if this comes out it will be a major blow to the franchises image, and firing him isn't something that can be done without investigation, which would also be bad. So the regional manager decides to shuffle the local manager off.
Do you think it would be reasonable for the CEO of the corporation to know that a regional manager decided to move a local manager to a different store? Keeping in mind the regional manager is seperated by three degrees from the CEO.
To put it more bluntly, there are 240 bishops in the united states who oversee 194 dioceses. There are 45 arch bishops, and 13 cardinals in the U.S.
We don't KNOW how many priest there are in the United States.
I certainly think the guilty should be bought to justice under both secular and religious law, but, and this is important, saying that an entire organization is corrupt because of the actions of a relatively small percentage of actors is, well, stupid. And again, the current pope has been doing work to take care of this issue.
The church has always had a wall of silence though. It's finally breaking. It may not comfort those who have suffered for it but it can prevent it in the future.
And ultimately, everyone is human. Pedophiles are sympathetic in the sense that, they were BORN pedophiles. If homosexuality, heterosexuality, et al, is not a choice, then neither is any other form of sexuality. In the churches past, it acted as a bastion (ironically) for homosexuals to both live their lives in peace and sometimes find other homosexuals to have relations with. Pedophilia when ACTED upon is illegal and abhorrent. Merely -being- a pedophile is not, because they got boned when the dice were rolled on assigning sexuality.
The church must clean up, it must hold accountable those within the organization, and in most ways the current Pope is doing just that. Not sure what else you want.
It's hard to be objective, I know. But think. If you must hate, sharpen your hatred with facts, not stereotypes.
Indeed, catholic bishops in the U.S. and over the world did shuffle around pedophile priest in order to save the church face.
However, to go back to my McDonalds analogy, and yes I'm aware this isn't how McDonalds operates but I'm trying to make a point:
A McDonalds regional manager finds out that the manager of a local McDonalds is a pedophile. Obviously if this comes out it will be a major blow to the franchises image, and firing him isn't something that can be done without investigation, which would also be bad. So the regional manager decides to shuffle the local manager off.
Do you think it would be reasonable for the CEO of the corporation to know that a regional manager decided to move a local manager to a different store? Keeping in mind the regional manager is seperated by three degrees from the CEO.
To put it more bluntly, there are 240 bishops in the united states who oversee 194 dioceses. There are 45 arch bishops, and 13 cardinals in the U.S.
We don't KNOW how many priest there are in the United States.
I certainly think the guilty should be bought to justice under both secular and religious law, but, and this is important, saying that an entire organization is corrupt because of the actions of a relatively small percentage of actors is, well, stupid. And again, the current pope has been doing work to take care of this issue.
The church has always had a wall of silence though. It's finally breaking. It may not comfort those who have suffered for it but it can prevent it in the future.
And ultimately, everyone is human. Pedophiles are sympathetic in the sense that, they were BORN pedophiles. If homosexuality, heterosexuality, et al, is not a choice, then neither is any other form of sexuality. In the churches past, it acted as a bastion (ironically) for homosexuals to both live their lives in peace and sometimes find other homosexuals to have relations with. Pedophilia when ACTED upon is illegal and abhorrent. Merely -being- a pedophile is not, because they got boned when the dice were rolled on assigning sexuality.
The church must clean up, it must hold accountable those within the organization, and in most ways the current Pope is doing just that. Not sure what else you want.
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Chuckt
Guest
Our local church started saving for a building but then a dozen or more people put their names on the account making it an "AND" (joint account) account so without the other signatures, the money couldn't be spent because all names a required to sign. It reduces fraud.
However, when Catholics say that the Church is the authority then the church never does anything wrong and there is no need for oversight which tells me that there is probably more things going on that you will never hear about because there is no oversight and no accountability. This mindset allows the pedifilia to go on, the embezzlement to go on, etc., because the person in the pew cannot question the authority. If I go to the local Catholic church, can I see their books or can I see the cooked books?
The McDonald's analogy is their application process is, "Do you want a job" and they are kids who want no responsibility which is why they don't really have real jobs.
Of course...local chuches have local boards and public accountants that do their books. As usual you don't know what the F..k your talking about.
Genius
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Chuckt
Guest
The company where I work has accountants and we are audited by outside accountants. It has been corrected but one of the past accountants didn't pay the worker's social security for a year and it wasn't discovered until someone went to retire.
Just because you have an accountant doesn't mean that it can't happen. It means your church may not be sophisticated enough to figure out the problem.
PricewaterhouseCoopers to audit the Vatican
This is a good first step. The results could be quite interesting.
Show PWC the money
This is a good first step. The results could be quite interesting.
Show PWC the money
TheLibertonian
New Member
I'm sorry, you seemed to have catholicism and protestantism confused. Catholic priest are required to earn a degree. Then they have to display their knowledge of biblical theology, NOT TEXT, to other priest, and they have to complete at least four years of seminary.
http://study.com/articles/Become_a_Catholic_Priest_Step-by-Step_Career_Guide.html
Any protestant can declare themselves a priest, admittedly depending on individual denominations and such. Which is why catholic priest tend to be decent theologians and a lot of protestant reborn preachers not so much.
One of the reasons the goers of the church may not question everything the priest says is because the priest spent 4 years studying theology and the bible at seminary before being allowed to become a priest. Far be it from me to declare the greengrocer reborn can't be a good theologian though.
Also, you're flat out wrong. Again, you're confusing protestant fundamentalism with catholic interpretation. I'ts one of the key differences between Catholicism and parts of Protestantism.
The church is not considered infallible, by any stretch, because catholic doctrine is that they don't believe that the bible was literally written by god. It's a book about god written by men, who are fallible. The bible is not to be literally taken.
The concept of Papal Infallibility is often misunderstood. The infallibility of the pope is only brought in when he speaks "ex cathedra", which is a specific thing that he has to declare before hand. Otherwise, if the pope is NOT speaking ex cathedra, he's not considered to be infallible.
"the Roman Pontiff"
"speaks ex cathedra" ("that is, when in the discharge of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, and by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority....")
"he defines"
"that a doctrine concerning faith or morals"
"must be held by the whole Church"
TheLibertonian
New Member
As I said before, the church IS moving, but we're talking about a 1500 year old organization (give or take). It moves slow.
onel0126
Bead mumbler
And in two thousand years, this has only been done twice!
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Chuckt
Guest
You're changing what I'm talking about. I never said that Catholic priests didn't have education.
Libertonian, I don't know who you are, but I think I like you. Welcome to the forums!
It's nice to have another apologetic here.
I wish I was as well versed as you two......
TheLibertonian
New Member
Apologetic?
I'm an Atheist. I just happen to have a background in religious history.
I apologize for nothing. But if people are going to hate, going to despise, going to destroy, they must do so from a position of knowledge. Hating something based on ignorance is foolish. Hate something because of the truth of it.
IF I need to make crap up to hate something then it probably doesn't deserve my hate, say, unlike stalinism or facism or the castes system etc.