Ministers, Priests And Truth!

[Dave]

Ministers, Priests & Truth!

Peter and Paul Ministries

1)Protestant Ministers have a divorce rate equal to the general population. Over 50% of first marriages fail in the USA. Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States. U.S. Dept. of Statistics, Vital Statistics.

2) Barbara Zikmund author of Clergy Women: An Uphill Calling and Rev. Helen Cohen of UUA General Assembly have done in depth studies about the trends of women ministers over the past thirty years. The results are as follows: women ministers are more theologically liberal, more likely to be divorced, and much more likely to leave the ministry than their male counterparts. Rev. Cohen study also reveled that with the inception of women ministers people have noted a, "loss of moral authority, turning ministers into caretakers, and a complicating attitudes about authority." Every Protestant denomination that ordained large numbers of women over the past thirty years has suffered losses in membership. The United Methodist for example have lost over 10 million members and Episcopalians have lost half of their adherents in the United States.

3)The Christian Science Monitor April 05, 2002 reported that despite headlines focusing on the priest sex scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, most American churches being hit with sexual abuse allegations of minors are Protestant.

4)Pedophiles and Priests by Philip Jenkins, Professor of History and Religious Studies at Penn State, has done extensive research of pedophilia and sexual abuse among the clergy and has come up with some rather eye opening facts. It seems that while 1.7 percent of Catholic clergy have been guilty of pedophilia , a whopping 10 percent of Protestant ministers have been found guilty of the same crime. Jenkins argues convincingly not only that clergy sex abuse is far less widespread than the headlines suggest, but that there is nothing at all particularly Roman Catholic about the problem. Jenkins unmasks the media’s unholy war against the Catholic Church, and he shows how dissidents within the Catholic Church have used this issue as a weapon to advance their agenda of a married clergy and women priestesses.

[Aloysius]

:( let's pray for our protestant brothers and sisters who seem to have more of a problem with their ministers than we are having with our priests (although it isn't attacked as much by the media) pray 4 the broken marriages, pray for the broken families, pray for the broken churches

let's pray that they respect every word and letter and part of a letter of the Bible and reject women ministers. (and also come back to the Church! )

10% to our 1.7%,,,, they need our love and support. i know the intention of this thread is just-- to show it isn't just a RC problem, but let's not act like they have acted with our sex abuse scandal (at least some of them:makin priest jokes etc.)

let's pray for them. love them. help them if possible. The whole world has a sex abuse crisis, let's pray for it to be eradicated from the Catholic Church, from the Protestant churches, and from the face of the planet.

[Freaky Chik]

Yeh, let's pray for sexual purity among all our churches (wheareas be protestant or catholic). Sexual immorality is such a huge thing in this world! gah!

[BLAZEr]

I hope they pray for us too. We have a bigger problem with our MEDIA than they do.

Also, Fr. Groeschel tells a story of being in an airport and this little Jewish lady coming up to him and saying "Father, I think it's horrible what they're doing to your church. You know, if it continues, we'll be next."

Gooooooo Judaism!

[Anna]

sweet.

[ReformationNow]

I hope they pray for us too.  We have a bigger problem with our MEDIA than they do.

Also, Fr. Groeschel tells a story of being in an airport and this little Jewish lady coming up to him and saying "Father, I think it's horrible what they're doing to your church.  You know, if it continues, we'll be next."

Gooooooo Judaism!

I don't get it? :blink:

[MartinLuther]

That line about 10% of Protestant clergy being pedophiles is a blatant lie and is acknowledged as such on a catholic apologetics site that isnt as hateful as this place.

From http://www.john654.org/pedoph.html

The following is an excerpt from an article I had on this site. I contacted Dr. Jenkins about the statistics mentioned in the next paragraph, and he said in his email to me:

"I'm glad of the chance to correct this. That ten percent thing (number of protestant clergy) is simply wrong, though it has been floating round for years. It is a simple misuse of a survey of Protestant clergy going through treatment, and it cannot be extrapolated to the whole community."

The excerpt to the article that was inaccurate is here:

A Penn State historian, Philip Jenkins, has done an in depth research of pedophilia and sexual abuse among the clergy and has come up with some rather eye opening facts. It seems that while 1.7 percent of Catholic clergy have been guilty of pedophilia (or sexual abuse particularly of boys), a whopping TEN percent of Protestant ministers have been found guilty of pedophilia!

I dont need to read any more of your lies. Im out of here.

[INRIWarrior3]

So what are you saying Martin Luther, that the only clergy that molests children is Catholic? Ohhh wait I hope that wasn't a hateful statement toward you (extreme sarcasm).

INRIWarrior

[skuba steve]

Please don't get me started on using abused people as statistics in your pointless arguments.

And although this topic poses a huge problem, the love of money is a much bigger problem in the church.

Why do you think Jesus said "you can't serve both God and money" when he could have said something about sexual sin or any other sin????

Because greed is a much bigger problem which gets very little exposure.

Speaking of Stats...

Last time i looked... the USA has 6% of the world's population but uses 60% of the worlds resources.

Greed is bad.

[PedroX]

Martin Luther,

At the worst, Dave is guilty of not checking his sources more thoroughly, not of maliciously spreading lies. Dave is actually fairly even handed when it comes to protestants, and has often shown grace and friendship to them on this board. The point of his post was to expose the lies that the media spread about Catholic clergy. The website you linked to has several excellent articles reinforcing this point. I suggest you read the one written by Crisis magazine entitled "10 myths of priestly celibacy".

I'm also curious to know what is so hateful about phatmass. Sure, a few of the apologists get carried away, and say some mean things, and sure some of the protestants have a tendency to jump the gun and call us names, but most people apologize rather quickly. Where's the hate?

peace...

[MC Just]

I think Scuba steve should leave Phatmass.

[CatholicAndFanatical]

Sure, a few of the apologists get carried away, and say some mean things,

i never get carried away, I just state the truth and only the truth. Truth sometimes hurts, which is why the Church is being attacked so much, not only by media but also from non-Catholics who beaver dam us without really knowing anything about us.

I think Scuba steve should leave Phatmass.

simma bro, deep breathes. we dont wanna start things. I know its frustrating with hard hearts in here, but lets be an example. Kinda like some of us were on the Former Catholics for Christ forum, you knew who was Catholic because we had the most intelligent posts and stayed the calmest.

CatholicAndFanatical

[CatholicAndFanatical]

I dont need to read any more of your lies. Im out of here.

so thats all your going to say martin? You dont even had a rebutle for us? Seems that if you are so sure that these are false claims that you must know the truth right? I mean, why is that so hard to believe? prot ministers would be more likely to commit adultery and/or have a divorce than a Priest, why, for the simple fact that Priests, dont marry, they give 100% of their lives to Christ, just like the apostles did. Sure there are some that are corrupt, and they will be weeded out. but the huge majority of the Priests we have are excellent Priests, faithful, and dedicated to serving us and bring us to Christ.

Martin Luther, I would expect a half wit response from the other prots, but I can tell your different. So why not just let it all out, give us some facts to back up why you think these are false claims and why you think were so hateful. Im not hateful, i luuuvz jew

CatholicAndFanatical

[BLAZEr]

I don't get it?

Sorry, I can see how that wasn't clear. I just meant to say that the sexual abuse of children isn't the only problem, but that the distorted Media attention is the problem.

I used the story of Fr. Groeschel to illustrate that other people of faith can see through the smear. This little Jewish woman, rather than believing the media's bias about Catholic priests and pedophilia (and more importantly homosexuality) saw that it was really a secular press' attempt to smear religion in general. That's why she said "They'll be after us next."

So much for me trying to leave some things unsaid . . . I'm sure you've noticed how long my posts tend to be . . . I was trying to be brief up there! LOL :rolleyes:

[PedroX]

CaF,

I'm sorry, I was not meaning to imply that you or anyone in specific was getting carried away, rather I was simply admitting that sometimes all of us can be a little caught up in the moment. This doesn't take away from the truth of what we say, but rather reveals our humanity. Again, my apologies if you felt that I was in anyway attacking you.

peace...