Degenerates, Buffoons, and Clods

In these times of a Church governed to some extent by degenerates, buffoons, and clods, and presided over by a Pope of whom the less said and thought, the better, it is salutary to recall the Church as it was in the time of St Augustine of Hippo:

(From Wikipedia)

The Circumcellions or Agonistici (as called by Donatists) were bands of Berber Christian extremists in North Africa in the early to mid-4th century. They were considered heretical by the Catholic Church. They were initially concerned with remedying social grievances, but they became linked with the Donatist sect. They condemned property and slavery, and advocated free love, canceling debt, and freeing slaves. Donatists prized martyrdom and had a special devotion for the martyrs, rendering honours to their graves.

The term "Circumcellions" was coined by others, based on "circum cellas euntes", they go around larders, because "they roved about among the peasants, living off those they sought to indoctrinate."

The Circumcellions regarded martyrdom as the true Christian virtue (as the early Church Father Tertullian said, "a martyr's death day was actually his birthday"), and thus disagreed with the Episcopal see of Carthage on the primacy of chastity, sobriety, humility, and charity. Instead, they focused on bringing about their own martyrdom.

On occasion, members of this group assaulted Roman legionaries or armed travelers with simple wooden clubs to provoke them into attacking and martyring them. Others interrupted courts of law and verbally provoked the judge so that he would order their immediate execution (a normal punishment at the time for contempt of court).[ The sect survived until the fifth century in Africa.

I am not saying it could be worse, because at least those poor deluded souls were not elevated to bishoprics, but simply that the current situation is not the end of the Church.

Be angry and pray. They have got to die sometime.

MAY THEY DROWN IN THEIR OWN ENURESIS BAGS

Yup, the f*ckw*ts' forum is at it again, as reported in the Catholic Herald.http://disq.us/12wgna. I quote in full.


More than 140 Catholic theologians from universities in Austria, Germany and Switzerland have called for the Church to end priestly celibacy, ordain women and allow lay people to help select bishops, among other changes.
The 143 professors said their appeal was made in response to the clergy sexual abuse scandals that surfaced in Europe last year and that they no longer could remain silent in the face of what they say is a lingering crisis within the Catholic Church.
The theologians, who also called for the Church to welcome same-sex couples and divorced and remarried couples, said their statement was issued to open a discussion about the future of the Church.
“We have the responsibility to contribute to a new start,” the statement said.
Judith Konemann, a professor from Munster and one of the signatories, told the German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung: “It looks like we struck a nerve.”
Most of the changes sought by the theologians have no chance of being adopted by the Catholic Church. The Church teaches that it has no right to ordain women to the priesthood, and that any sexual activity outside of marriage, understood to be between a woman and a man only, is sinful.
Regarding divorce and remarriage, in the Catholic Church civil divorce doesn’t exclude one from the sacraments. A person cannot receive the sacraments if he or she remarries outside the Church while still bound by a previous marriage.
The German bishops’ conference said it would discuss the proposals at a meeting in March. Pope Benedict XVI will visit his native Germany on September 22 to 25.
The theologians’ appeal comes two weeks after a group of prominent German politicians urged the bishops to ordain older married men because of the dwindling number of priests.
The German bishops have said two-thirds of all parishes will not have their own priest by 2020 and have embarked on an effort to merge parishes in response.
The statement said that enacting the reforms would attract people back to the Church.
“The Church needs married priests and women in Church ministry,” the theologians said. The Church should not “shut out people who live in love, loyalty and mutual support as same-sex couples or remarried divorced people”, they said.
The professors also questioned actions by Pope Benedict that have brought back older worship practices. “The liturgy must not be frozen in traditionalism,” they said.



Perhaps they are not the aged would-be hippies my title suggests, but I wish them, as my mother-in-law used to say, in Hanover, where no doubt some of them are.


A pox on them! (Shakespeare, who may have been a Catholic)