Catholics are making it up.

ringo writes: My point is that no, we shouldn't take seriously their ideas on how families should behave.

If African families take them seriously and spread HIV as a result, that's a different issue. "We" are not Africans. "We" can not solve African problems by blathering

Pope Francis became the first pontiff to address the United States Congress on Thursday. [...] After the speech, members of Congress from both sides of the aisle lauded the pope's speech, with many praising his message of compassion for society's most vulnerable.

ringo writes:No. Best to stop whining about it on the Internet and do something tangible.

There probably are plumbers who rape children

The Vatican says it has arrested two people, a high-ranking priest and a former employee, on suspicion of leaking confidential documents.
They were members of a commission set up by Pope Francis to help reform Church finances.
Officials believe they passed records of its discussions to journalists investigating Vatican corruption.
The documents form the basis of two new books on the controversial state of the Vatican's finances.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis has signed off on the miracle needed to make Mother Teresa a saint, giving the tiny nun who cared for the poorest of the poor one of the Catholic Church's highest honours just two decades after her death.The Vatican said Friday that Francis approved a decree attributing a miracle to Mother Teresa's intercession during an audience with the head of the Vatican's saint-making office on Thursday, his 79th birthday.No date was set for the canonization, but Italian media have speculated that the ceremony will take place in the first week of September -- to coincide with the anniversary of her death and during Francis' Holy Year of Mercy.
"This is fantastic news. We are very happy," said Sunita Kumar, a spokeswoman for the Missionaries of Charity in the eastern city of Kolkata (earlier called Calcutta), where Mother Teresa lived and worked.The miracle responsible for Mother Teresa's canonization concerned the inexplicable cure of a Brazilian man suffering from a viral brain infection that resulted in multiple abscesses. By Dec. 9, 2008, he was in a coma and dying, suffering from an accumulation of fluid around the brain.The Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, the postulator spearheading Mother Teresa's canonization case, said in a statement Friday that some 30 minutes after the man was due to undergo surgery that never took place, he sat up, awake and without pain, and was a day later declared to be symptom-free.The Vatican later attributed the cure to the fervent prayers to Mother Teresa's intercession by the man's wife, who precisely at the time of his scheduled surgery was at her parish church, praying alongside her pastor.

But Mother Teresa’s first miracle has officially been recognized for more than a decade. In 1998, one year after her death, her intercession reportedly cured an Indian woman of a stomach tumor.TIME reported the story of Monica Besra and her tumor in 2001. There was no way any doctor would have operated on me at that hour, Besra told TIME of writhing in pain in a home that was run by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity on Sept. 5, 1998. So the nuns just started praying and kept a Mother Teresa medallion on my stomach. The pain subsided, and the tumor vanished.As Episcopal Bishop Salvatore Lobo explained at the time, Besra’s recovery met the requirements to be declared a miracle: It is organic, permanent, immediate and intercessionary in nature.Though Besra’s husband would later say that he believed that medicine had cured his wife, not divine intervention, Mother Teresa’s first miracle was officially recognized by the Vatican and counted toward her beatification in 2003.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - The following is the official statement of the postulator of the cause of canonization of Mother Teresa, Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, MC, presenting the miracle that led to Pope Francis’ decision to proclaim her a saint.On 17 December 2015, Pope Francis approved the promulgation of the decree recognizing a miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Teresa of Kolkata. The case submitted by the Postulation of her Cause of Canonization concerns the miraculous healing that took place in 2008 in Santos, Brazil. The case involves a man having a viral brain infection that resulted in multiple abscesses with triventricular hydrocephalus.The various treatments undertaken were not effective, and thus his condition continuously worsened. By 9 December 2008 the patient was in an acute clinical state: obstructive hydrocephalus; he was in a coma and dying. It was decided to proceed with emergency surgery. At 18:10 the patient was taken to the operating room, but the Anesthesiologist could not perform the tracheal intubation for anesthesia.Meanwhile, from March 2008, the patient's wife continuously sought the intercession of Blessed Mother Teresa for her husband. To her own prayers of intercession were joined those of her relatives, friends, and the parish priest, all of whom were praying for a miraculous cure through the intercession of Mother Teresa.On this same day, 9 December 2008, when the patient entered into serious crisis and had to be taken for an emergency operation, intensified prayers were addressed to Blessed Teresa for his recovery. Precisely between the hours of 18.10 and 18.40 the patient's wife went to her parish church, and along with the pastor, turned to Blessed Teresa begging with greater determination the cure of her dying husband.At 18.40 the neurosurgeon returned to the operating room and found the patient inexplicably awake and without pain. The patient asked the doctor, "what I am doing here?" The next morning, December 10, 2008, when examined at 7.40 the patient was fully awake and without any headache; he was asymptomatic with normal cognition.The patient, now completely healed, resumed his work as a mechanical engineer without any particular limitation. In addition, it should be emphasized that despite the tests that showed a state of sterility due to the intense and prolonged immunosuppression and antibiotics, the couple have two healthy children born in 2009 and 2012.On 10 September of this year, the medical commission voted unanimously that the cure is inexplicable in the light of present-day medical knowledge. On 8 October the theological commission also voted unanimously that there was a perfect connection of cause and effect between the invocation of Mother Teresa and the scientifically inexplicable healing. On 15 December the case received the final approval of the congress of Cardinals and Bishops of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints meeting in ordinary session.The date of the canonization will be officially announced in the next Consistory of Cardinals.Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, MC

Dredge writes:If you don't believe ANY miracles are possible, then naturally you are going to deny any claimed by the Catholic Church.

Dredge writes:No, I don't think that's correct. My understanding is, this Pope wants but so far he's been unsuccessful due to opposition from most of the other bishops.

Dredge writes:But if you refuse point blank to believe in miracles, no amount of evidence will ever be enough.

Dredge writes:If a woman (or an accomplice) confesses an abortion, an ordinary priest is not allowed to grant absolution, but has to ask the local bishop for permission as a means of emphasizing the evil of such sins.

As far as I know, it is a grave sin for any Catholic anywhere to use contraception.

According to a tradition that can be traced back at least to the 12th century, when it was recorded in the Codex Calixtinus, Saint James decided to return to the Holy Land after preaching in Galicia. There he was beheaded, but his disciples managed to get his body to Jaffa, where they found a marvelous stone ship which miraculously conducted them and the apostle's body to Iria Flavia, back in Galicia. There, the disciples asked the local pagan queen Loba ('She-wolf') for permission to bury the body; she, annoyed, decided to deceive them, sending them to pick a pair of oxen she allegedly had by the Pico Sacro, a local sacred mountain where a dragon dwelt, hoping that the dragon would kill the Christians, but as soon as the beast attacked the disciples, at the sight of the cross, the dragon exploded. Then the disciples marched to collect the oxen, which were actually wild bulls which the queen used to punish her enemies; but again, at the sight of the Christian's cross, the bulls calmed down, and after being subjected to a yoke they carried the apostle's body to the place where now Compostela is. The legend was again referred with minor changes by the Czech traveller Jaroslav Lev of Romitl, in the 15th century.[18]The relics were said to have been later rediscovered in the 9th century by a hermit named Pelagius, who after observing strange lights in a local forest went for help after the local bishop, Theodemar of Iria, in the west of Galicia. The legend affirms that Theodemar was then guided to the spot by a star, drawing upon a familiar myth-element, hence "Compostela" was given an etymology as a corruption of Campus Stellae, "Field of Stars."In the 15th century, the red banner which guided the Galician armies to battle, was still preserved in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, in the centre Saint James riding a white horse and wearing a white cloak, sword in hand:[19] The legend of the miraculous armed intervention of Saint James, disguised as a white knight to help the Christians when battling the Muslims, was a recurrent myth during the High Middle Ages.

RAZD writes:What's special about catholics

Is it somehow better if someone else made it up and then you are told to believe it?

RAZD writes:Each religion organization has text material that has stories someone else made up that they tell the followers to believe.Does that make the stories better? Does it make them less made up?

RAZD writes:Having existed through (and been a major cause of) the dark ages, while maintaining services in an archaic language that very few (church elites) understood, where pomp and ceremony were the drawing points for the crowds, I would expect no less.

How do they compare to Orthodox Greek Christians?

RAZD writes:And I think any ceremony or procession or need to get approval for anything (like weddings, etc) has to be made up.

Can you think of any church is not involved in power and control of people and wealth?