Plan B Forum

ONE priest said he learnt more about God from Alcoholics Anonymous meetings than the Catholic Church. Another compared the fervour of World Youth Day to the Hitler Youth.

And a 47-year-old, whose only ambition had been to be a priest, said: ''Given the state of the church today, I look forward to the night when I go to sleep and just don't wake up again."

Such were the varied, often frank and sometimes bleak views of Australia's Catholic clergy revealed in an anonymous survey.
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The Charles Sturt University academics Chris McGillion and John O'Carroll approached 1550 active and 160 retired priests for their views on their lives and their church, and 542 took part in the written survey.

The results, plus 50 face-to-face interviews, were the basis of their book Our Fathers, which revealed that many thought the Vatican was out of touch, bishops were bad managers and the future of the church was a cause of great concern.

''You've got a very representative group of mainstream priests responding,'' said Mr McGillion, a former Herald journalist.

What emerged was a priesthood in a professional crisis, rather than a vocational one, he said. While 90.2 per cent said their lives as priests had been fulfilling, 47.4 per cent found the workload ''excessive'' and 54.3 per cent thought they had too little say in the life of the church.

Only 35.4 per cent thought bishops were doing a good job, with one saying their performance was ''between poor and mediocre''. But 43 per cent did not feel nurtured by their bishop while 41.5 per cent did.

Almost 65 per cent did not think Rome understood the challenges facing priests and 70.1 per cent thought it often failed to understand the nature of the Australian church.

This schism was reflected in the respondents' views on church teachings. Only 19.2 per cent thought it sinful for married couples to use birth control.

Almost 70 per cent thought abortion was always a sin but only 40.2 per cent said the same of sex before marriage. More than 70 per cent thought celibacy for priests should be optional and several priests made ''no secret of the fact they were in long-term committed relationships with women''.

Lay involvement was seen as the church's greatest internal challenge, with many acutely aware of - and affected by - dwindling attendances.

The general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Father Brian Lucas, would not comment on the survey, saying he had not seen the book.

A spokeswoman for the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, was given a copy this week but would not comment yet.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/priests- ... 1b8r1.html

ONE priest said he learnt more about God from Alcoholics Anonymous meetings than the Catholic Church.

Why do you, having blown your nose, have to open up the handkerchief and take a look at the contents. I mean why? What do you expect to see in there? A Turner seascape perhaps, the face of the Madonna, an undiscovered Shakespearian sonnet?

Gob wrote:Not surprising he learned more from AA than from the seminary?

Andrew D wrote:

Why do you, having blown your nose, have to open up the handkerchief and take a look at the contents. I mean why? What do you expect to see in there? A Turner seascape perhaps, the face of the Madonna, an undiscovered Shakespearian sonnet?

Yellow or green mucus is often (always?) a sign of infection. Clear mucus is not. Blood is an indication of, well, bleeding. Given an opportunity to obtain potentially significant information about one's own health easily, painlessly, and non-invasively, why not take advantage of it?

Spiritual term in the Christian tradition
Main article: Spiritual dryness

The term "dark night (of the soul)" is used in Christianity for a spiritual crisis in a journey towards union with God, like that described by Saint John of the Cross.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, a 19th-century French Carmelite, underwent similar experience. Centering on doubts about the afterlife, she reportedly told her fellow nuns, "If you only knew what darkness I am plunged into."[1]

While this crisis is usually temporary in nature, it may last for extended periods. The "dark night" of Saint Paul of the Cross in the 18th century lasted 45 years, from which he ultimately recovered. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, according to letters released in 2007, "may be the most extensive such case on record", lasting from 1948 almost up until her death in 1997, with only brief interludes of relief between.[2] Franciscan Friar Father Benedict Groeschel, a friend of Mother Teresa for a large part of her life, claims that "the darkness left" towards the end of her life.[3]

Jesus Christ may also have experienced such a crisis, when uttering My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? on the cross, before dying.

Typically for a believer in the dark night of the soul, spiritual disciplines (such as prayer and consistent devotion to God) suddenly seem to lose all their experiential value; traditional prayer is extremely difficult and unrewarding for an extended period of time during this "dark night." The individual may feel as though God has suddenly abandoned them or that his or her prayer life has collapsed. It is important to note however that the presence of doubt is not tantamount to abandonment—as there is a strong Biblical tradition of authentic confusion before God. Psalms 13, 22, and 44 display King David, the 'man after God's own heart' undergoing serious confusion before and anguish with God, yet this is not condemned or mentioned as being unfaithful, but rather as the only measure of faith that David could have in the face of such withering apparent abandonment.

Rather than resulting in permanent devastation, the dark night is regarded by mystics and others as a blessing in disguise, whereby the individual is stripped (in the dark night of the senses) of the spiritual ecstasy associated with acts of virtue. Although the individual may for a time seem to outwardly decline in his or her practices of virtue, in reality he becomes more virtuous, as she is being virtuous less for the spiritual rewards (ecstasies in the cases of the first night) obtained and more out of a true love for God. It is this purgatory, a purgation of the soul, that brings purity and union with God.

dgs49 wrote:For those with mid-to-high two-digit IQ's:

Natural birth control: abstinence, the so-called rhythm method, coitus interruptus. Totally harmless, totally natural. Usually effective.

dgs49 wrote:Isn't it ironic that earth-first "progressives" who would recoil in horror at injecting the female with chemicals for most anything else find it "normal and natural" to do so when the purpose is to subvert and disable the human reproductive system?.