First, a sincere apology to those who have been wounded by the anti-Catholic bashing on the board, not just today but in the past. It was worse by an order of magnitude today, but it has happened in the past, and I should have been more on top of things.

This board is for the enjoyment of ALL its members. It's my job to keep it that way, and I failed, and I apologize for that.

Y'all are such a fabulous group of people. I don't think there's any forum like this one anywhere in the world. That's not bragging about me, that's bragging about you. I've had an awesome wonderful experience here and on Politijab. But we all have to keep in mind that there may be people who are not evil at all, who are your friends and neighbors, and who practice a religious faith that means a great deal in their lives.

You can't generalize about all Catholics based on the behavior of some of them. If we had been talking about black people or about Jewish people, nobody would have to point out how that kind of over-generalization is 1) totally invalid and 2) extremely offensive. For the record, every long-term girlfriend I ever had was Catholic. None of them were evil women. None of them thought like birthers. Two of them were way smarter than I'll ever be. I'd be horrified if any of them read some Catholic-bashing on my forum.

Let's be considerate of our fellow forumlings, now and into the future, por favor.

I'm going to implement a new Forum Rule, but it may take a day or so to word it properly. I'll be glad to read your suggestions for making it workable and fair.

Last, I'd like to thank my mods. They do an awesome job. It's hard to keep up with all the posts, and I reckon some/all of us were off the board today, like I was off the board almost all day. My blood pressure is high enough already, TYVM. Without my mods I'd be lost and unable to cope.

Don't sweat it.

As long as we can still bash the Amish, all is good.

I said nothing any reasonable person would find objectionable and am offended at this characterization of what most people were saying in that thread.

It appears one institution, a sovereign state for that matter, is immune from all criticism.

If this was not directed at me, okay. But I don't recall any other sovereign state that gets a permanent dispensation from all criticism because its apologists scream and throw a fit until the admins are forced to step in and censor.

One joke in the thread was out of line. Perhaps some other comments. Other people were having a reasonable discussion. For the moment, I'll set a few ignores and get on with my life.

What I read in the thread that started this revealed some very hurt and angry feelings. Generally speaking, that's not good. We're all friends here. We don't always agree with each other, and that should be ok. Ideally, we should be able to disagree with each other without being put in a bad mood about it.

I will say this, as a non-Christian since birth and childhood: I, too, have dated a few Catholic girls in my time. They were awesome. I'm friends with them years later, to this day, in that we exchange birthday wishes and season's greetings now and then. I also dated, and then married, a former Catholic girl. Not only was she evil, but when the shit really hit the fan between us, I actually implored her to consider going back to her church because I desperately believed that was one way we could restore some form of a moral compass in our chaotic relationship. She didn't go back. We divorced.

I will openly criticize the Catholic Church, to the extent it has opened itself up to criticism by delving into the political arena on a number of issues. But I will also praise the Catholic Church for that very reason. For example, it takes a principled stand against the death penalty, from which it has never wavered. I think the key to avoiding hurt feelings is to stick to facts, stick to specifics, avoid generalizing, and certainly avoid attempts at "humor" that common sense should tell you are not socially acceptable.

Foggy, don't feel bad. You can't be here to babysit and herd cats all of the time.

Yep.

Cats are Catholic?

Seriously, chili? Cat'lick, duh!

What do I know, I'm a dog.

Thanks foggy. I have managed to avoid the thread, and having buried a favourite aunt who was a Sister of Mercy on Thursday, I probably won't venture in.

Religions, like any group of people, will have good folks and bad folks. I'm not religious, but most of the Catholics (and every other denomination I know) have been fine people.

For some reason I couldn't reply earlier. But Foogie fixeded it.

Thanks, Foogie.

What I wanted to say was all was forgiven as long as Foogie never lets Typhoid Orly back in as a member. 'Cuz that would cut down what I could post considerable like. (To maybe zero.)

Coexist.

ETA we really need a smiley for that Coexist thingy.

Or............... people could choose not to be offended by what people they don't know say on the Internet. Just a thought.

I was raised Baptist (Mom's side of the family) and Catholic (Dad's side of the family). There is plenty of Evangelical bashing on this forum. I like NASCAR; posters here poke fun at NASCAR fans. Are we seriously going to make a new rule every time someone gets their feelings hurt? How old are we?

I choose to act like an adult and realize that others are going to say things I don't agree with or even things that offend me. That's kinda what happens when you post on the Internet.

You, speechless?

........anywho

On criticism of Catholicism, I direct it at the leadership. The anointed leaders, not common parishioners, have the platform. If Catholic leaders, speaking as the official authoritative voice of the church, are behaving badly by trying to impose their views on the society as a whole (anti-gay, anti-choice, or whatever), except the church to receive blow-back from those it wants to oppress.

If you are Catholic and feel hurt and offended when the church is criticized, ask yourself 'why?'. Do you agree with the church's position on the issue? If yes, then I don't care you were offended. If no, are you working to reform the church towards abandoning the bad behavior?

I'm not going to apologize for posting that story.

I posted about a Catholic Bishop using his platform, that platform being a MASS, to compare Obama to Hitler. At mass.

And, unless otherwise directed, I will continue to post any story regarding the Catholic Church's involvement in health care issues.

And anywhere else they decide to go politicking.

Same as I would for any group.

I agree.

Foggy, I do appreciate all you do.

If you don't want me to post any story about any religion, let me know.

Not directed at you, Highlands, but just generally in response to the point you've made...

As a brown person with a funny sounding name who has put up with a fair share of ridiculous and offensive remarks from ignorant morons in my lifetime, here is the personal approach I take on this issue: if I'm not willing to say it to a perfect stranger standing next to me at a dinner party, it shouldn't be said in public, on the Internet, or anywhere else other than among my private circle of friends. This is an easy rule to follow. Even if you are a fourth generation, card-carrying member of the KKK who thinks women belong in the kitchen, this simple rule makes it extraordinarily easy for you to live your life.

Yes, there are also people who refuse to follow that rule. These people are known by the rest of us as, "rude."

I agree with you, and personally follow this rule as well.



and unfortunately, all the rules in the world won't stop douche canoes from acting like douche canoes.

I don't want to offend anybody either but I generally agree with high and others who are not okay with not getting on religious organizations that do immoral things, especially when those religious organizations also think they have the right to run or set the rules for civil government. And most especially with religious organizations who own their own gol-durn state, get freakin' ambassadors from honest-to-gawd governments, and more damned good attention than the bad attention they've earned over the last couple k years. As to what I'd say at a dinner party, that's just a tad too generalized a standard to me. For one thing, I don't put speaking truth about stuff in the same category as, say, a dirty joke. For another, what would have brought this subject up at a dinner party? I wouldn't just bring up the whole general category of the excesses and wrongs of religion (IMO) myself out of the blue. But I wouldn't necessarily shy away from it under the right circumstances. I'm getting older and less patient with folks who will still use gawd as a self-righteous stick or crude shield for their own bigotry or other bad/unethical behavior 'in His name" or "for his sake".

Religion has gawd "on it's side". And one helluva lot of murderous, despicable wrong to my fellow man has been done by religious authority and folks who cow-tow to it over the centuries. And it would like to do a lot more if it only had the power. So while some folks -- many folks -- still take solace in their faith, I suggest some may need to have more of that and thicker skin for those who don't, as long as they're not personally being attacked.

Now I haven't read all of the thread in question, having a workday and all and then seeing the lock come down, I hurried to the end of thread to see why. And maybe some things went over the top. But maybe locking the thread down in response did some of that too. Maybe not. I don't know.

But gawd, I get just a little bit impatient at how far some folks will go to defend a nameless faceless "almighty" gawd who, if he were real, would have earned one of those scary judgment day appointments his own self in spades for the boundless evil done in his name without his raising a finger to stop it.

Since I was one of the people who spoke up in the other thread, I want to try to make sure how I feel is not misunderstood.

I think Mimi's original post was fine. I think it was great. I'd love to be able to have a discussion about things like the Catholic Church's political efforts - which the bishop's inappropriate comments were part of. I'd like to be able to have discussions about the Catholic Church's involvement in health care issues. I think those are discussions that are worth having.

The problem has been with having those discussions rather than very generalized ones.

Look, I don't know if I consider myself Catholic or not right now. I was raised Catholic. It's a large part of my cultural background. It's probably more significant than any of the various national/ethnic components that went into my makeup. I'm not a churchgoer right now, and a lot of that is the result of the things that the current hierarchy - particularly the US portion - has done. I've got no problem at all with criticism directed toward the Church.

I don't think I'm particularly thin skinned when it comes to this subject. I definitely don't have a problem with most of the critiques; I probably agree with virtually all of them to at least some extent, and I fully agree with a lot of them. But there have been a few threads now where I've looked at things that were said about priests, the Church, or Catholics and thought that they would not be acceptable remarks if directed against other groups. I did not take those concerns to Foggy or anyone else. I'm mentioning it now only because I think it might show that there are multiple people who have independently had similar reactions.

For me personally, the biggest issue has been the use of the pedophilia scandal as a generalized bludgeon any time anyone brings up an issue related to the Church. The bishop that Mimi's article discussed was out of line. Way out of line. The conduct was outrageous on it's own merits. It was hard to have a discussion of those actions, because pedophilia had been dragged in by the 3rd post in the thread. And it wasn't brought up in a way that was even tangentially connected with the subject at hand. It was used simply to make the case that the Church is bad in general, and in a very inflammatory way. ("Bishops rape..." is not a phrase that's likely to contribute to a discussion of a bishop doing something stupid and offensive that does not actually involve rape.)

Yes, the majority of the thread was not that sort of remark. The majority of the thread was on topic and relevant, if critical of the Church. (For good reason in this case - I didn't see anyone defending the bishop.) That's probably true of all the threads where issues related to the Church have come up. But that was also far from the only thread where off-topic issues were brought in as ad hominem arguments, and far from the only thread where inappropriate comments were made. I can't remember a thread, for example, where Church misconduct has been discussed and people haven't brought in pedophilia. I'm even fine with discussing the pedophilia scandal, and I'm very, very critical of how the Church has handled that. But it's a topic of it's own. I don't know why it has to become part of so many threads.

Yes, we could all try to decide not to take offense at things that strangers say on the internet. But I don't consider most of you to be strangers, which makes that kind of tough.

Anyway, that's my .02. Maybe I'm out of line or over-reacting. It's possible. I've got enough general stress to leave me pissed at the entire universe on a regular basis, and I've been known to turn into a flaming asshole when I'm pissed off at the world. But that's not what this feels like. YMMV.

TFB isn't just the "internet". We are a community. We are family. Some of us know others quite well here. The new rule isn't about occasional offenses. The new rule, as I understand it, is being created to honor what is a core belief for fellow members. Religion matters.

Your comment about evangelicalism is good. To my knowledge, we don't have any evangelical members. To my knowledge, I am one of the members with the closest ties to the evangelical movement. I criticize the evangelical movement. But I hope that if a fellow member who was an evangelical told me that I was insulting their faith, I would have the decency to apologize and try to do better. That isn't what happened today (or at other times when Catholic bashing occurred).

I think that a major part of the issue is that we have beloved members here who, after expressing their frustration and feelings of hurt and offense, were ganged up on, told that they were being unreasonable and then the bashing continued.

Why can't we respect one another enough to say "Hey, I didn't mean to offend; lets return to the issue another time IF AT ALL."

I don't understand why some decided that it was worth jeopardizing relationships just to be "right" (in their opinion). The anti-Catholic bashing was beyond appropriate. The anti-Catholic bashing has occurred repeatedly; can't it just stop? If it takes a rule to stop it, then shame on us for needing the rule. But at least a rule gets the behavior under control.

Foggy is right; why do we tolerate bashing Catholics when we would never, ever in a gazillion years defend the bashing of Jews, persons of color, those of differing sexual orientations, etc?

How old are we? Hopefully old enough to be compassionate and back off when we hurt another member. I thought we were compassionate people (well, except to birthers and trolls). I though we wanted to be respectful. In general, we are compassionate, respectful people.



If you are offending others, ask yourself 'why'. I'm sorry that you don't care if others get offended. Sounds like it is a good thing that a new rule is being put in place. Obviously it is needed.



I don't think you posted or said anything wrong. The thread was immediately hijacked. Rather than sticking with the topic of the article, people attacked the entire church and church members. Your article had nothing to do with that.

You post excellent info, Mimi. I hope you don't stop.

^^^^^^^ Thanks, Mike. Well said.

Sorry you feel that way. If you believe a religion has a special right to marginalize me, or the person I love, in the public square (or worse, in our laws), then I, in turn, will treat them with the same amount of 'respect' they offer.

You can empathize with the church's rights to spew hate, but not my right to love. I get it.

Thanks Foggy. I checked in just to see what was happening.

I have zero problem with what Mimi posted originally. That was a fine post and needed to be said. The guy was an asshole, and I wouldn't be surprised if he is not getting a severe dressing down about now.

But no-one wanted to talk about that. Zorbas had the grace to at least say I was right with the "Catholics are Nazi" comments, which could be argued as somewhat on topic, but everyone else clung to their usual talking points like liferafts off the Titanic. And are doing it even now. And yes, you all were saying things that any reasonable person would find offensive and have done continuously in the past.

Thanks to everyone who apologized to me, I happily accept your apology.

I'll leave it at that. Back to a break from the board.