Church Turns To Facebook To Find Priests 286
crimeandpunishment writes "The Catholic church of France isn't looking for friends on Facebook, it's looking for priests. The church has turned to Facebook as part of a campaign to attract young people to the priesthood, in an effort to combat its drastically dwindling number of priests. It may be working. The Facebook page attracted more than 1,200 fans in one week."
ban the organization? (Score:1, Interesting)
Social networks are already banning sex offenders right? Why aren't they banning organizations that harbor sex offenders? Surely that is a far worse offense, and probably would be shameful enough on the organizations that they might do something about it.
Re:A better, more old fashioned solution (Score:3, Interesting)
As such, I believe homosexuals have always been overrepresented in the celibate castes.
That does seem to be the case, indeed. I have a buddy who, at one point, tried to become a catholic monk (not sure which order); he was eventually rejected from the monastery because of...mild (easily controlled) epilepsy; yes, those isntitutions are so archaic. But during his probation there it turned out not only that one of the ways of dealing with "hardships" of monastic life is quite rampant alcoholism (well, that might be a reason of rejecting epileptics, too...), but also that there's a way above average proportion of homosexuals - between 1/3 and 1/2 of population of his order. Not that he would mind it much, being himself a homosexual...
That of course a singular sample; but I can't see any plausible reason why other monasteries and also seminaries would be much different.
Their own bible condems them (Score:3, Interesting)
1 Timothy 4:1-5:
1 But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, 3 men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; 5 for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.
Note how it says forbidding to marry is a teaching inspired my demons. I mean, wow, don't they read their own book?
Re:Please refrain from pedophile jokes... (Score:3, Interesting)
The ancient Greeks and Romans would often do what we would consider rape their slaves, sisters, children. There was no "sense of regret" because... it wasn't considered as big of a wrong. They weren't "hurting" anyone, it was about 10-20 minutes of discomfort for the 'victim', and everyone would go on with their lives. You could also say they had lower rates of sexual abuse simply because there was no such concept in the minds of the "victims".
The point I'm making is, in the absence of religion there would be no such thing as sexual abuse, because the entire concept was created by religion in the first place. Religion is what made the chain go touch->feel good->feel guilty that you felt good->feel angry at the person who triggered that response without your permission. They could just as easily have demonized tickling in the same way...
Re:Their own bible condems them (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:JUST WOW (Score:4, Interesting)
Give me a break, those are all piss-poor examples. ...Would you go to a relationship counsellor who was never in a relationship?
Male ob/gyn's never experience the condition they monitor and offer advice on, don't they? And this is a poor example, then again... why?
the job of divorce lawyers is to offer legal services, something they are indeed very experienced in.
which is exactly my point: priests are experienced in offering pastoral counseling/services, which is something they are indeed very experienced in. Thanks for proving my point.
Re:Please refrain from pedophile jokes... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm thinking that you aren't getting how statistics works. Atheists on average are less likely to rape than the religious. rape along with a whole slew of other things... violent crime, divorce....
"The bottom line is that you need to judge people individually and not collectively"
I was talking about a group. You are just blanket denying the importance or usefulness of statistics in general. Which is frankly quite insane.