Kat, would you listen to anybody who told you either to use or not to use condoms? I think the fact of the matter is, you would not follow that person's advice unless you agreed with that advice.
Do you think adult "Catholics in South America and other (third world) countries" are so primitive and so stupid and so inferior to you, that they cannot make their own decisions?

Most Catholics don't even know what the Pope says on most issues. In my 2,500-member Catholic parish, it's quite likely that nobody, not even the priest, has read more about what the Pope says than I do. My pastor sometimes tells people, "Ask Joe, he's the theologian."

If the Pope practices mind control, he does it very inefficiently.

Naemanson, my pastor is an alcoholic and he's paranoid, and he's incompetent in many ways. On the other hand, he does very well at the things you'd expect a priest to do, like showing compassion when visiting the sick or hearing confessions, and putting his heart into celebrating Mass. I show him respect for the things he does well, and I'm very hard on him about the things he doesn't do well. I've known him for thirty years, and I play hardball with priests - I expect them to live up to high standards. And because of that he feels threatened by me, so I suppose he has good reason to hate me. It happens. Priests are human beings. If you expect a church full of human beings not to act like human beings, you are deceived. If you expect an institution with over a billion members to be perfect, you are deceived. There are many groups within the Catholic Church that are extraordinarily good, and many that are extraordinarily bad.

But I have found that if I stick with it, I can make a profound difference in my parish community.

Oh, and Naemanson, the reality is that some (many) church people are extraordinarily good, and some are a pain in the ass. It's up to them to choose who and what they are, and how they behave. That's real life.

And yes, Ed T, it would be very nice if the Pope changed the rules and allowed for married and women priests, and you are right that is something I cannot do. But I know lots of Catholic women who are very effective ministers, who have accomplished remarkable things despite the silly Pope and his silly rules. I know other Catholic women who felt called to ministry, so they left the Catholic Church and sought ordination from another denomination. But every organization has laws that need changing. Intelligent people work to get the laws changed, realizing that they are going to have to negotiate with those who don't want the laws changed. That's life.



Once again, I ask you all to think realistically about how organizations work, about how things are accomplished by large numbers of people - when people do good things, they do them on a small scale and generally with a fair amount of autonomy. That makes a significant contribution to the larger organization. HOWEVER, it is almost certain that while some parts of a huge organization are doing good things, other parts aren't. So many of you seem to think that when the Pope barks, people are supposed to mindlessly fall in line and do good works - and if they don't, or if the Pope says something that isn't totally wise, then the whole Catholic Church is evil. That is NOT a realistic view of how any human organization works.

-Joe-