What are your thoughts re Hegelian dialectic?

[Falco Underhill]

Interesting: Pope Francis often referred to "clericalism" as a problem in the Catholic Church. Refusing to address the problem of pederasty in the Church, he once blamed the sexual abuse crisis on "clericalism" instead, which left me scratching my head.

None of it made sense to me until Robert C Mickens, author of The Implosion, thankfully explained it. He explains CLERICALISM very well here, and I quote -

The Catholic Church is juridically and structurally a priest - or, I would say - a clerical-centric organization. That's really unfortunate, but that's the fact. Structurally, the Church revolves around the clerics, and that's why we're closing parishes. We don't have enough of them. And we have not found a way to open up ministry to other people besides celibate men. All men. All celibates. (Sic) This kind of clerical-centric organization becomes ugly and grotesque when, at its worst, this clerical-centrism becomes clericalism.

Clericalism, that is, the idea and ethos of a priestly class or caste system, separated or raised above the rest of the body of believers - the baptized members of the body of the faith - this CLERICALISM is not only another warning sign, I think, of this impending implosion, but I would go so far as to say it's a cancer in the Church. Clericalism is a cancer in the Church! It has no place in the body of Christian belief. Its resurgence in far too many of our newer bishops, and our younger clergy, is a cause of worry.

FINALLY, I have discovered what CLERICALISM means! Basically, it's a class consciousness among the clerics, which causes them to feel priveledged, and insulated in their ivory towers, unsympathetic towards us mere peons. It becomes about power and control.

So no wonder I couldn't find "clericalism" mentioned anywhere in the Bible — because It's a neo-marxist category!'. (Where else does the idea of class consciousness come from?)

So, no surprises there. After all, Pope Francis is a Jesuit, and Jesuits think this stuff is hip.

So - anyway- if one wonders how this class consciousness was the cause of the sexual abuse crisis, one is informed that the abuse was really not so much about sex as it was about power and control over one's victim.

(Oh, okay. Now I see. It's all starting to make sense now...)

So, since class consciousness in this case is about power and control, and sex abuse is really about power and control, we simply need to deal with this class consciousness and the problem of sexual-abuse will be dealt with automatically!

How do we get rid of the clericalism class consciousness? We just need to alter the clerical-centric organization of the Church, and that will fix the abuse problem.

Well, while I still don't understand how the four principles will lead to the deconstruction of the "clerical-centric" Church structure, it's not hard to see how this CLERICALISM critique can! (In fact, it seems tailor-made for it.)

So he goes on to explain that the reason parishes are closing is also because the structure of the Church is predominantly clerical-centric.

A shortage of priests (who administer the sacraments) will continue to cripple the Church unless we open up the priesthood to others besides celibate men.

(Hmmm... I wonder if Korah would have had more success if he tried this argument on Moses in the desert? "Sorry, Moses, we just can't have this priestly class here. We've got to open it up to some women and some LGTB people, donchyathink?")

So, it seems the deconstruction of the Church hierarchical structure will solve two problems —

1. The sexual abuse crisis
2. The shortage of priests

And I have a feeling that, for them, it would somehow solve just about any other problem you can think of as well.

Thankfully, Robert Mickens explained CLERICALISM to me. Now, if only he could explain the mysterious role of the four principles in deconstructing the clerical-centrism of the Church, too, which i still don't get.

[MaxPC]

Falco, good definition of clericalism re this bit:

Clericalism, that is, the idea and ethos of a priestly class or caste system, separated or raised above the rest of the body of believers - the baptized members of the body of the faith.

For several decades now, the Catholic Church has been emphasizing that there different vocations but one call to holiness.
+Clerics/priests are separate in their vocation with different faculties and mission: he is "married' to the Church.
+Married couples are also separate and take holy vows of exclusivity to one another: one man and one woman who live in a chaste and exclusive relationship.
+Religious, i.e. monks and nuns are also vowed to God through the Church.

My experiences:
+In spite of the mass media bleeding ledes, if one looks closely most of the sexual abuse cases occurred before the 1990s.
+Since the 1990s, with one or two exceptions seminaries have combatted clericalism by improving their training of priests in their proper roles. The seminary/seminaries who did not improve had their leadership removed and replace in the last decade.
+While we have a shortage of priests we are not alone; there is a universal shortage of ministers in all denominations. I believe the preoccupation with secular pastimes is creating a "deafness" to the call of the Holy Spirit to ministry.

At the end of the day, Sunday morning quarterbacks love to write editorials about favorite inflammatory topics. As intelligent and discerning readers these can be launch pads for charitable discussions to discover God's voice in it all.

[MaxPC]

Mark 8:36
36 for what shall it profit a man, if he may gain the whole world, and forfeit his life?

1 Corinthians 1:18
18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

[temporal1]

.. most of the sexual abuse cases occurred before the 1990s. ..

i agree, the 1990’s were when scandals were revealed in new ways: with use of the internet. victims were able to connect as not before. “divide+conquer” of victims became harder to accomplish.

there have been changes. sin is persistent. not confined to Catholicism. or Christianity. or religion.
authentic Christianity is best. sin plays havoc, sin is not of Jesus Christ. the price of sin is high.

the internet is not all good. (wouldn’t that be something??) it is used for good, and for evil.

[ohio jones]

FINALLY, I have discovered what CLERICALISM means! Basically, it's a class consciousness among the clerics, which causes them to feel priveledged, and insulated in their ivory towers, unsympathetic towards us mere peons. It becomes about power and control.

So no wonder I couldn't find "clericalism" mentioned anywhere in the Bible — because It's a neo-marxist category!'. (Where else does the idea of class consciousness come from?)

It never ceases to amaze me how much clericalism there is among Mennonites.

[Bootstrap]

It's doubtful anyone here has read Hegel in the original because most of us don't speak/read German. (Including me) Hegel is notoriously difficult to understand even for those who do read German and Hegelian scholars who do read it notoriously take pride in that obscurity as though it put them in a class of their own. Most of those who do understand it have help from interpreters. (Including me)

So why all this Hegel-speak? Why not use plain English words that we actually understand? I think that's my point. It's all part of the posturing. "I know the name of a German philosopher, that makes me an expert on Western Culture" - but the person saying this has no knowledge of Hegel. This kind of name-dropping is an important feature of a certain style of posturing.

If we focused on facts we actually can get our hands on and things we actually understand, we would have very different conversations.

[Bootstrap]

I admit that I have not read Russell Moore or JD Greer. I didn't know that this was expected - the topic gives no hint of that.
I also admit that I have not read much of Hegel in original (it's hard to read), but as a student of a philosophy I have of course read a lot about Hegel and the Hegelians (on the Left and on the Right) - Hegel had a longtime influence on historical studies (and all cultural studies here in Germany were predominantly historical`for more than a century).
If there is a theory about a Hegelian conspiration in the SBC, could please someone explain it to me?

The article seems to be accusing people like Russell Moore and J.D. Greear, if you know who is who in this controversy, but it is careful not to be specific about anything. These are two people whose writings I am familiar with, they clearly want to hold the line on both LGBT and abortion. They both preach Jesus and the Kingdom of God and holiness.

The SBC does not have a lot of liberal accommodationists. They do have some conservative political accommodationists - remember the church choir that wrote a hymn called "Make America Great Again" and performed that hymn for Trump?

[Bootstrap]

The SBC is bleeding members due to its racism, sexism, pattern of covering up abuse, overt partisan politicization and anti-LGBT policies. Not because some secret cabal of Hegelian conspirators is implementing some dialectical master plan to undermine the church. What percentages you want to assign to those different reasons for decline is, I suspect, anyone's guess.

I think Christians need to be true to Christ even when it is not popular. And in general, it won't be.

We can be true to Christ by promoting lies, secular partisan politics, racism, or hatred. But we can't be true to Christ by promoting abortion and LGBT, either. We need a Christianity that looks like Christ.

[Bootstrap]

Sure there are gay "catholics" but they would be excommunicated as they are disregarding papal authority and living in death sins. Just because you can find them is meaningless to the overall statement Josh made. Those catholics are not in good standing with their authority structure by virtue of the church rulings.

As far as I can tell, excommunication is very rare. The Catholic Church never excommunicated Hitler or Mussolini (both Catholics), they have not excommunicated Joe Biden, that's why discussion of denying him communion makes front page headlines.

A few basic statistics on where everyday Catholics stand. They look a LOT more like mainstream American culture than the Southern Baptist Convention does.

[Falco Underhill]

It's doubtful anyone here has read Hegel in the original because most of us don't speak/read German. (Including me) Hegel is notoriously difficult to understand even for those who do read German and Hegelian scholars who do read it notoriously take pride in that obscurity as though it put them in a class of their own. Most of those who do understand it have help from interpreters. (Including me)

So why all this Hegel-speak? Why not use plain English words that we actually understand? I think that's my point. It's all part of the posturing. "I know the name of a German philosopher, that makes me an expert on Western Culture" - but the person saying this has no knowledge of Hegel. This kind of name-dropping is an important feature of a certain style of posturing.

If we focused on facts we actually can get our hands on and things we actually understand, we would have very different conversations.

Well, thanks for your input, but when I write it isn't with much concern for your personal standards in mind. Don't like my posts? Don't read 'em. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯