Talk:Mass (religion)

Friday mass
How did the Catholics reconcile 'no meat on Friday' with transubstantiation? 11:05, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Pedo priests?
A little overboard on the pedo jokes? Maybe confine them to one section? This is starting to read like an ED article. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 18:31, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
 * As much as I like making fun of religion, this article just reads like a silly bash. I'd say, change it, or move it to fun space.  You can say the same, still be skeptical, still have humor but not just be catholic bashing in a better written article.--[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]En attendant Godot  19:02, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
 * They weren't even particularly funny and was hard to read, so I removed it as shite. -  π    silverbrain.png 01:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I think one should keep in mind the long history of discrimination against Catholics in many Protestant countries (e.g. UK, Australia). Would people find the jokes as funny if they were about Jewish rabbis instead? I think not, but it is very similar. 06:57, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * There has been no scandal about paedophile rabbis and since mainstream Judaism requires rabbis to marry women the job appeals to heterosexual men who like adult women. There is a major paedophile scandal in the RC church and any publicity for that including jokes helps keep the pressure on them to put their house in order.  Normally I consider pedo jokes irresponsible and I won't make such jokes unless there is some benefit from the jokes.  Here I feel there is benefit. Kirk Johnson (talk) 09:29, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The Catholic Church is not the only religious body to have had molesters among its ranks. It is also not the only religious body to have been accused of covering up abuse it was aware of. See for example the current sexual abuse scandal in the Jewish community in Melbourne, Australia -, , , . Also, traditional Jewish law contains rules against reporting other Jews to the non-Jewish authorities (mesirah). Those rules originate in times when Jews were persecuted, and reporting (actual or suspected) wrongdoing of one's fellow Jews to the non-Jewish authorities might lead to persecution. However, while most Jews would say those rules don't apply in contemporary Western society, many traditional/ultra-Orthodox Jews interpret those rules to prohibit reporting sexual abuse to the authorities (see e.g. Agudath Israel of America's policy that sexual abuse should be reported to a rabbi not the police). And don't think I'm picking on Jews here specifically, most religions/denominations have these issues in their closets. Anglicans have had a fair few scandals of this nature too (, , , ...
 * Why is the problem bigger in the Catholic Church? Well, one point is the Catholic Church itself is a lot bigger - if sexual abusers are equally distributed, you'd expect to find a lot more Catholic molesters than Jewish or Anglican ones, because there are a lot more Catholics than Jews or Anglicans. And, I think the Catholic community is much further down the road in admitting and facing up to these issues in its past (and present), while for many other religious communities the journey is only just beginning and hasn't even started, and the bad stuff is still stuffed away in the closet where few can see it.
 * Is celibacy an issue? Possibly; but Catholics aren't the only religious group to practice celibacy anyway. Look at Eastern Orthodox monks/nuns/bishops, Buddhists monks, Hindu renunciants, etc. If celibacy encourages child sexual abuse, why don't we have such scandals for these other groups? It's a lot more complicated than just celibacy, obviously. (And, just because these other groups don't have sexual abuse scandals, doesn't mean none happened, it just means it is still in the closet...) 20:12, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

If you want to write an asrticle in mainspace about these groups see that it is well referenced and that the references are unbiased. Kirk Johnson (talk) 06:25, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I think my point was more, that we shouldn't joke about the Catholic church's problems, because:
 * Sexual abuse of children isn't funny
 * It makes it seem like a problem specific to Catholicism, when it is actually a broader problem, which other religions have had too, and society more generally also. It does appear to be worse in the Catholic Church, but whether reality matches appearances, and if it really is more common, then why, are complex questions, which it is wrong to simplify (as jokes inevitably do)
 * It shows ignorance, or insensitivity to, the long history of discrimination against Catholics in the English-speaking world
 * 08:58, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
 * And, let me see - Buddhists molest kids too! and the Buddhist authorities cover it up. So we have Catholics doing it, we have Jews doing it, we have Anglicans doing it, we have Buddhists doing it. Could it be, rather than being some problem SPECIFIC to the Catholic Church, that the molestation of children, and the later covering up of it, is a much broader problem, common to many (or most or all) religions, and even to non-religious aspects of society also? 23:45, 23 July 2011 (UTC)