Catholic Church Has a List of Forbidden Books
I wish I knew the sales numbers for "forbidden books." What I hear most often are lists of forbidden books, lists that give publicity and generate interest in them. My guess is that when the Catholic Church spends for money taken from people in the pews to pay salaries of staff to read, hold meetings and issue press releases about forbidden books, it is a fool's journey. I would guess those in the pews buy "forbidden books."
That the Catholic bureaucracy uses money taken from those in the pews and wastes it on deciding which books believers can and cannot read explains why it is a declining institution. To begin with, the men in power think they are important enough to decide on behalf of church members what church members should and should not read. We see a little of Donald Trump's exaggerated view of himself here. Jesus told Peter to run the church and today's clergy think they have authority from Jesus to decide what people read. When a large institution like the Catholic Church cannot manage its employee's time productively it will pay eventually the consequences.
Then there is the huge collective ego that church members pay close attention to such edicts. I don't think there is evidence Catholics avoid buying these books. Most often they sell well.
These days on the web atheist sites are filled with genuine pornography from the Bible. I never knew there was such terrible stuff in there until recent years. The Catholic Church should warn the faithful to avoid those passages that refer to private body parts and the sex act. It is possible, of course, clergy do not know of these passages.
The biggest problem is the public's perception the Catholic church is filled with clergy people would dislike if they knew them. That is, of course, a problem in Protestantism as well. When clergy from both bodies praised Trump, a man of known moral deficiencies, it pointed to self serving institutions that had no principles themselves.
Both the Catholic and Protestant denominations give us a lot of ammusement. Read whatever you want.
oh my, those horrible Christians again. gulling their stupid members. don't want porn in the schools! how unreasonable! bet that you have a special CD with all the atheist "talking" points on it. just crank it up and bingo you have a post. ironically tho' it seems to me that there is quite a lot of censonship activity on the leftist side of the political spectrum. toppling statues, folks like you telling us that there is no place for Christian witness in the public square, banning "racist" books like To Kill a Mocking Bird. Huckleberry Finn, etc. any thoughts about that olde chap?
ReplyDeleterhip talk coming t
P.S. how about all the campus/leftist thugs (thugs they are and censors they are)who shout down or otherwise try to shut down speakers or profs that they don't like? maybe it's time to think about glass houses and stones.
ReplyDeletetsm -- I don't know the particulars of what you are referring to. That is, campuses are made up to both liberal and conservative staff and administrators. Which group prevailed in these cases and why I don't know.
ReplyDeleteAt NDSU, some years ago we had a Dean of Engineering. He was very right wing politically and very religious. He told some faculty privately he did not believe women should be engineers. A couple of women were hired when he was there and they left after a year or two.
get a grip. we all know that the so called prestige campses are dominated by leftists. NDSU may have been an exception (but NDSU is not the world).. I have read numerous accounts of speakers who have been shouted down or profs like the one at Hamline U here in the TwinCities who was fired for showing her class a pic of the Great Prophet. radical Islamists took exception and the president of the school caved. last I heard the matter is in litigation. there are numerous other such incidents (even worse) and I will be happy to share them with you as I come across them.
ReplyDeletetsm "...dominated by leftists."
DeleteWhere on earth did you link "leftists" with the firing of the Hamline Professor?? If anything, one could say the matter was "dominated by the right." All kinds of "leftist" organizations and individuals are trying to overturn the decision. At Christian Wheaton College in Chicago just a few years ago a young woman professor was fired for saying something positive about homosexuality--I've forgotten just what was involved. It was clearly the Christian right that got her fired. Your post reflects the fact you really don't know much about the topic of university campuses.
in the Hamline instance it was radical Muslims,call them right or left, I don't care. the point is that radicalized groups are very censorious. in any case, I have had the opportunity to hear or even talk to conservative faculty who can tell you about what goes on at many prestige schools today. stop playing ostrich.
ReplyDeletetsm -- "call them right or left, I don't care."
DeleteWell, now, that is the opposite of what you posted earlier. Your first post said the dismissal was due to the left. Muslims who do not want the image of their leader shown anywhere are conservative religious people. They are the opposite of the left. They are birds of a feather with conservative Christians. It is the left that is trying to overturn the dismissal.
Campuses have people from the left and right. Alums that give money, legislatures that pass funding and local committees of citizens are formed to hire Presidents are nearly all conservative. That you know a few conservative professors that complain does not impress. Universities are complicated places and that you need to know more about than currently you do.
you can call them rightists if you want to. that is if it makes you feel good. I will stick with leftists. I think that that is a better predicate, given their tactics and all. and yes, universities are complex places, but are you not aware that surveys have shown that a large majority of the faculty at prominent universities identify as leftists of one type or other. especially in the so called humanities.you claim to be a sociologiest, look it up. BTW. the liberal predominance was evident at the university I attended back in the 1950s. in those days tho' liberals were much different than the post modern types that have since moved in. that said, it might make you fell better to know that there was a lot antiCatholic bigotry just below the surface back in the 1950s.
ReplyDeletetsm -- "you are not aware that surveys.." show universities trend liberal.
DeleteOf course I'm aware of that. And I know full well faculty in the social sciences and humanities are more liberal than others. Some say schools of business trend liberal. Nevertheless, making sweeping generalizations about "liberals" and "conservatives" is fraught with problems. Religious vs. not religious I'm certain is different than voting Democrat vs Republican.
As to religion, there is one constant. Polling has shown the more years of university the less likely to be religious. This is the case outside universities as well as inside. When you have an institution made up of PhDs, what would you expect? University educations tend to destroy myths. Religion is myth. Religious leaders and right wing politicians don't like having their people go to college. Trump has said often, "I love the uneducated." Republican legislators don't like to spend money on public education, schools or universities. It is not in their political interests.
Unions would surely be considered a bastion of liberalism. Probably efforts have been made to unionize every college and university. Mostly these efforts fail.
You refer to universities as the enemy. Your actual enemy is knowledge and education. Your Catholic faith and Christianity in general simply cannot hold its own against them. Now knowledge and education are streaming into smart phones. Your side is losing. If there were no universities, you would still be losing.
Fiirst, I don't think of universities as an enemy. I just think , rather, that we have to see them for what they are, warts and all. as to PhDs. there are many that are religiously observant. there are others who are humble and wise, knowing the limits of human knowledge. (like the old gentlemen profs). and then there are a quite few who are arrogant oafs. and you wanted examples of campus thugs: seems that yesterday they broke up a speech by someone who was critical of the transgender "movement". called him a fascist (forgetting that they themselves act like fascists), among other things. think that it was at Pitt.
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