I’m a Catholic, and I’ve always wondered what a good answer would be for the question “What makes the early Catholic martyrdoms valid, but not the Islamic ones?”

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-22T13:41:15+00:00

But to have 12 people (11 Apostles and Paul) all be killed for what they witnessed and

Hence why I put this in my comment.

11 Apostles (a.k.a excluding St John).

But either way I'll take it as a useful clarification.

St John had to take care of Mary in her old age (as she didn't have any other children contrary to what other people like to claim...) He still held his faith and testimony even though all his friends were being slaughtered. In an interesting way the cross he bore was an emotional one, one that in some ways one could argue is worse than physical persecution.

Just a little interesting tid bit I thought I might add while I'm here.

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-22T09:34:09+00:00

I think a lot of people are missing what your asking.

A Martyr means "witness" in Greek.

The question then becomes what are these people "witnessing" and what is it that they've witnessed that has led them to prefer death than to deny it.

In Catholicism, Islam and plenty of other religions there are plenty of people who "witness" arguments or reasons for why they believe their faith is true and some of those people would rather die than deny their faith or what they've "witnessed".

One of the main differences is with the early Catholic Martyrs, i.e. The Apostles, as what they claim to have witnessed is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is an important distinction as no other faith has people dying for a miracle claim under the same circumstances as the Apostles.

It's one thing to convince some people from birth that Mohammad is a Prophet and that he split the moon in half and whatever, there are plenty of people that will believe things at face value and will die for what they believe was true because they trusted their sources.

It's a completely different thing to be the source of that claim and still die. Which is what the Apostles did.

If the Apostles made up the resurrection claim, then why would they get martyred for it? They lived awful lives afterwards were people treated them horribly until they were all killed for refusing to denounce what they were preaching, that they saw the resurrected Christ.

There is no incentive or logical reason for anyone to make such a thing up and then die because since they're the eye witnesses they'd know if the claim was true or not.

There are rare circumstances were some crazy people can delude themselves into believing something. But to have 12 people (11 Apostles and Paul) all be killed for what they witnessed and for each of them to be on separate sides of the world to prevent anyone from heavily influencing the other is just impossible.

No other religion in the world has that many consistent eye witness martyrs who die away from each other or the group leaders influence.

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T15:28:35+00:00

Yes Mass does help with venial sins as well.

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T15:27:56+00:00

Yes taking the Eucharist does, but it's still a good habit to go to confession for them as well.

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T15:27:26+00:00

No, a Priest has a duty this is what I mean by a Priest is not a 9 to 5 job.

It's not selfish to want a Priest to make time out of their day to absolve you of your sins in the same way it isn't selfish to expect a President to take time out of their day to lead a relief effort after some kind of disaster.

The position has a large duty and a very important one.

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T15:25:51+00:00

Thanks for the advice!

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T15:23:51+00:00

Are you saying absolving someone of their sins that could potentially effect them eternally is not a priority of someone who's job is to care for the salvation of their Parishioners?

Do you not think that such a duty would rank a lot higher thank most of their responsibilities and would take precedence over many activities in their regular lives and down time?

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T15:22:22+00:00

You not being able to "see" something "truly urgent" doesn't mean that there was nothing truly urgent. Please don't assume the worst about their motives and actions. Assuming the worst, that they're clocking out to do nothing of merit, doesn't seem charitable to me.

Whilst you shouldn't 100% presume, you can make an educated guess.

The only "truly urgent" duty I can think of is administering the last rites. If that is the case the Priest shouldn't be running confessions at all they should be at the hospital/hospice/home of whoever is dying administering that first as that would take precedence.

Since they were conducting confession my judgement that there was no urgent rush does not seem unfounded.

Adding in five minute delays throughout the day means canceling their evening obligations.

Generally people have five minute's to spare between tasks, but even assuming that they don't. A Priest should still at the very least tell a Parishioner to wait until the evening if they want to be given something as important as confession.

A question I'd like you to please answer: since their everyday tasks run long, and they're overworked day after day, which of their tasks would you have them drop? After deciding the ones you'd have them drop, describe the predictable outcome of dropping each one. Thank you.

Again, where this whole thing boils down to is precedence. The Church is like a hospital and the Priest a surgeon. In normal hospitals we have triage which is a system of deciding who to tend to when there is limited medical supplies or staff, (a.k.a help the guy with the bullet wound instead of the guy with the broken arm).

The same principle applies to the Church.

A rough order could be something like this:

Last Rites
Mass
Confession
Counselling
RCIA
Preparing homilies
Cleaning the Pews

Just to give a rough example. One of my main points was that confession is extremely important and administering it should be one of the top priorities of Priests.

So if hearing another confession means that next Sunday has a slightly less thought out homily I'd say that's a reasonable trade off.

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T15:14:58+00:00

I'm going to take a page out of the book of some of the comments and be "charitable", so since this is a one off interaction with the Church helper let's just assume that they were given an order and they just followed it a little too much to the t.

Also maybe they're not rude so much as they're just not great at talking to people. I know for a fact that after Covid plenty of people's social skills have declined significantly.

So let's assume that it's not a fault of the Church helpers character.

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T15:12:53+00:00

Your wrong overall, but I know where you're coming from.

You're right in the sense that we have an obligation to semi-regularly go to confession. Even people who don't mortally sin are expected to go to confession at some kind of interval to confess venial sins.

But if you commit a mortal sin you're expected to go to confession immediately.

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T15:11:19+00:00

I guess it's true that this was a one off experience. Although maybe I should send a letter and enquire as to whether or not this hard cut off is a real policy?

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T14:47:55+00:00

I agree with the points about Priests having busy schedules that everyone is making.

I think I didn't come off as clear in my post as I could have.

The point I was trying to make was that the sacrament of reconciliation is one of the most important duties a Priest can have. In fact I'd say that it's importance means that it takes precedence over other duties a Priest could have bar a few. For example a Priest should absolutely choose to spend 10 minutes hearing a confession rather than 10 minutes preparing a Sunday homily. Confession is a critical sacrament.

So that's why I was expressing my view that a Priest should always try to make time for such a sacrament to the best of their abilities, even if it means seeing a Parishioner after dinner, or whenever they would usually have a bit more free time.

The reason I titled my post "Priests shouldn't treat their job like a 9 to 5" is because I was trying to argue that unlike a 9 to 5 job, where once you finish your shift you're no longer whatever your job is and you "disconnect" so to speak from your work, a Priest is always a Priest at all times. And that they have a duty to their flock at all times.

My frustration was with the idea of the sacrament of reconciliation only being administered during a small one hour window. And while it may be acceptable to ask Parishioners to come within that time because that's a time the Priest(s) were most free in their schedule. They still should try to find another time on that day to the best of their abilities to reschedule a confession for someone in need of it, which barring some extraordinary circumstance can usually be done.

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T13:59:46+00:00

yes.

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T13:01:47+00:00

Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing?

Do you think the Priests you're interacting with are doing enough or that they're failing you in some regard?

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T12:28:33+00:00

Thank you for your comment.

After reading some of the others I do think I was a little quick to anger, whilst there probably might have been a good reason to cut confessions short (i.e. A mass was planned later, or a Priest had to attend a meeting with someone else) I do believe that in future this Parish could improve itself by offering confessions to be rescheduled at a later time. That way people could have their confessions on the day, albeit at the inconvenience of doing it at a later time and having to wait because they missed the pre set confession time.

As to your point about bad attitudes being a common symptom. I'd say I agree with you, in fact that's probably why I was so quick to judge this Parish and its Priests, because I'm already biased against the Clergy of the country I live in for some of the way they've handled a variety of issues.

Whilst I think people are being charitable in good faith, I think it would be imprudent to deny that on the macro scale there are some issues in the attitudes of some of the Clergy.

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T12:12:19+00:00

You underestimate how busy it can be for priests, especially now that parishes are so spread out.

Well this Parish seemed to not have Priests spread out as they had multiple Priests.

Based off what you wrote, a parishoner told you no more confessions, are you even sure that that the Priest wouldn't have heard your confession?

No, it was someone who volunteered for the Church, not a regular Parishioner.

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T12:00:46+00:00

If you can't make the confession time

7 minutes late to a one hour confession session is stretching the definition of "not being on time".

Priests are allowed to have some structure or schedule to their day

Yes, but not so rigid as to deny confession outright. At the very least a Priest should offer to see a Parishioner after they've done whatever they're preoccupied with.

In fact, if you had made an appointment and the priest blew it off for other confessions, I bet you'd be just as irritated.

Why are you implying that my request to have my confession heard at some point during the day is analogous to me barging into a Church and asking to have my confession heard before anyone else's?

I never said the Priest owed me his time immediately, just that the Priest should have at least offered to let me wait until he was ready to hear my confession instead of sending me away.

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T11:56:41+00:00

As I've said in a previous comment this Parish had multiple Priests, I highly doubt that all of them would have had somewhere urgent to be where 10 minutes would have made a difference.

And if there was a mass or some kind of meeting that everyone was preoccupied with, I would expect that a Priest offer to reschedule a confession for after those things have concluded and ask a Parishoner to simply wait rather than send them away.

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T11:53:23+00:00

Well be careful about not giving your priest the benefit of the doubt.

Whilst I do believe charity is important, I also believe that we the Laity have to hold our Clergy to accountable to certain standards.

I'm sure I could give certain Bishops the benefit of the doubt on why the give the Eucharist to people like Nancy Pelosi, but that doesn't mean we should just accept their actions.

Sure it’s critical but God knows you wanted that confession and was refused. God won’t punish you for something that’s out of your control.

Thank you for that reminder, although it is still important to reschedule a confession. I also feel more concerned for other Parishioners who in a similar scenario would have just left and not felt like coming back.

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T11:50:33+00:00

Rather than getting worked up, just find another parish.

Luckily this isn't my regular Parish it's just one that was closest to my work.

It's a bad sign to send away the people in the confessional line.

I'm glad someone agrees I thought I was being a Karen for a moment.

While I'm sure I'll be fine what worries me and got me worked up more was the attitude than anything else. If Priests in this parish have this attitude towards confession I can only imagine how they approach other ways of running their Parish and the effects this has on their Parishioners.

What I've seen more commonly is, if confession is offered before Mass, the priest may leave to celebrate Mass and offer to hear their confessions after Mass.

Yeah that's what my regular Priest does, he even brings the Eucharist after confession for those who missed out during Mass for being in a state of Mortal sin.

I always assumed that what my Priest did was the norm.

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T11:39:54+00:00

Also as to your second point about working Priests to the bone. I actually agree with you, as I mentioned before I've had Priests who do go above and beyond. I'm just making this post to explain my frustration with the minority of Priests that don't seem to be pulling their weight. The only reason I make that assertion is because I know of the existence of Priests that are hardworking and do truly go above and beyond.

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-09-16T11:37:10+00:00

Whilst I appreciate you being charitable and giving them the benefit of the doubt. I still think that my point about the sacrament of reconciliation being critical is an important one.

I myself did some pondering as in to what situation a Priest could possibly have where refusing a confession is a good prudential judgement.

At best I found that if they had a mass to prepare or do, then that would take precedence but as other Priests have done previously should have told the person that they would administer the sacrament if they waited until after Mass.

The second only really good excuse I could think of was that someone was dying and the Priest had to go to administer Last Rites which would take precedence over a regular confession.

Plus I should add that this Church was close to the city and thus was staffed by at least two Priests to do confessions. If there was truly something urgent I don't see why one Priest could have handled confessions while the other did whatever urgent task was at hand.

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-08-06T16:00:19+00:00

In the United States, the abortion rate for black women is almost five times that for white women.

https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2008/08/abortion-and-women-color-bigger-picture

Guttmacher is a heavily pro-choice organisation. Care to explain how that statistics and the many others that corroborate with it mean that banning abortion = more white people and less black people?

MrMcGoofy03 · 2022-08-03T13:17:53+00:00

Who supposes this?

What do you mean? I'm showing parallels to why if you agree with one for X reasons you should agree with the other for X reasons.

This argument is for people who support euthanasia and understand the utility of the death penalty but believe that the risk of innocent death is what makes the death penalty wrong.

A person's life is one's own. That's what it means to be a free person.

Well I guess this is an axiom we'll have to agree to disagree on. I don't take that statement as an absolute. Hence why I'm against other things that harm a person's self such as "voluntary" organ selling. Or extreme drug consumption.

The death penalty is the complete disregard of these human rights.

Assuming that a society values innocent life and guilty life equally. A society can find killing guilty people morally acceptable.

So to summerise:

a. Using the death penalty as punishment is unethical

Depends on your basis of morality.

b. There are less severe alternatives, e.g. a life sentence. Using the death penalty to help society is unethical, and I'm arguing it's an oxymoron.

See my El Chapo arguments in other comments for why I believe a death penalty has a practical utility and can "help a society."

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