How America's Catholic Church crucified itself

[FORD]

I dated a Mormon chick for a little while, but couldn't get past the Holy Underwear Which is why I stopped seeing her. She had a friend who could have been the LDS equivalent of Jenny McCarthy. If I had converted, I probably could have had both of em. Just can't hang with a church that tells you caffeine is evil though. Not to mention the occasional mug of Stout

[ELVIS]

Mormonism is another false teaching...

[FORD]

Right wing dominionism is also a false teaching.

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by ELVIS
Mormonism is another false teaching...

Yes, they're all evil and hellbound....

sanctimonious prick

[Hardrock69]

Originally posted by ELVIS
Mormonism is another false teaching...

Umm...you mean MORONism.
Yeah, it is a false teaching, just like Mary being a virgin, Jesus rising on the third day (he was only one of many to accomplish this), etc.

It is all a bunch of fairy tale bullshit.

[Nitro Express]

Non of the Mormon girls I dated had the funny holy underwear and may I say that is some of the ugliest, horrid stuff you can put on a woman. Anyways, they hadn't been through the temple cerimony yet and aren't required to wear the ugly undies. No, most of the Mormon girls I got to peel their underwear off had panties and even G-Strings. Lot's of hypocracy and gameplaying. It's fun for two semesters but I had to get the hell out of Dodge. I missed the underground rebellion and the trips to Las Vegas when I was at UW. Sometimes it's almost worth being in a strict religion because breaking all the rules is so much damn fun.

[Hardrock69]

LMAO! That is why Catholic Gurls are so rabid in the sack.....all that repression.....

Reminds me of Joe's Garage by Frank Zappa....

[MichaelAnthony]

Only a Jew would post this diatribe. By the way, there is more homosexual and child molestation activity in our school system and boy scout organization than in the Catholic Church. It's because Jews run the media and they want to destroy Christianity and put it under a microscope. Jews run the education system in America, so the powers that be will do whatever they can to avoid the truth about child molestation in our school system. It's the truth.

Mikey doesn't like it.

[Seshmeister]

Originally posted by MichaelAnthony
Only a Jew would post this diatribe. By the way, there is more homosexual and child molestation activity in our school system and boy scout organization than in the Catholic Church. It's because Jews run the media and they want to destroy Christianity and put it under a microscope. Jews run the education system in America, so the powers that be will do whatever they can to avoid the truth about child molestation in our school system. It's the truth.

Mikey doesn't like it.

Mikey is a bigot.

[FORD]

Do you know the way to San Jose, Mr. Anti-Semite??

[FORD]

Originally posted by Adolf Anthony
Only a Nazi skinhead cocksuker would post this diatribe. By the way, there is more homosexual and child molestation activity in my bedroom in SAN JOSE CALIFORNIA than in the Catholic Church. It's because corporations run the media and they want to destroy Christianity and put it under a microscope. Fascists run the education system in America, so the powers that be will do whatever they can to avoid the truth about child molestation in my bedroom. It's the truth.

Mikey doesn't like it.

[steve]

I was raised Catholic.
Secular humanist/agnostic/atheist now

The main crux of the Catholic Church is Cronyism. Corrupt Vatican politicians picking other corrupt Vatican cronies for jobs.
There is no democracy within the political structure.
The parishoners themselves are so middle of the road it's not funny...in America at least.

Most Catholics in America use condoms. Most have no problem with birth control, etc...nowadays. Some are even OK w/ abortion! The American MEMBERS are FAR from extremists.

But you've got the guys who run the organization...and they have some FUCKED UP really really WEIRD ideas about sex. And their distorted views about sex drive everything from these affairs w/ young boys to telling third world folks that condoms are immoral...which has FUCKED UP a whole generation of young African Catholics who really really listen to Catholic doctrine.

The problem is, Catholic parishoners are so apothetic that even in the face of thousands of kids getting raped, they do nothing to reclaim their church.

[Seshmeister]

Good to see you back Steve!

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by MichaelAnthony
Only a Jew would post this diatribe. By the way, there is more homosexual and child molestation activity in our school system and boy scout organization than in the Catholic Church. It's because Jews run the media and they want to destroy Christianity and put it under a microscope. Jews run the education system in America, so the powers that be will do whatever they can to avoid the truth about child molestation in our school system. It's the truth.

Mikey doesn't like it.

Did you love the Priest or was it purely (homo)sexual?



IP check please.

San Jose eh?

[Seshmeister]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-money3dec03,0,5843035.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Scandal could prompt church to sell property
With $4 billion in real estate and more priest abuse payouts looming, who controls parish holdings is a key issue.
By Paul Pringle and Ted Rohrlich, Times Staff Writers
December 3, 2006


Hit with an initial $40-million bill for its share of 45 clergy sexual abuse settlements announced Friday, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles warned that it will have to make cutbacks. And the 485 remaining molestation lawsuits could cost hundreds of millions more.

The payouts will certainly hurt, but the archdiocese has vast wealth, most of it in land. A Times analysis has found that the archdiocese is the recorded owner of one of the biggest real estate portfolios in Southern California — at least 1,600 properties with an estimated value of about $4 billion.

What the nation's most-populous Catholic jurisdiction might be willing to sell, however, is likely to feed an ongoing debate within the church over who controls parish property — the prelates governing the institution or the parishioners.

Most of the archdiocese's property is devoted to religious purposes, such as churches and schools. But there are also oil wells, farm parcels, commercial parking lots, a fashion district building and the land under an Alhambra car dealership.




But few doubt that archdiocesan programs will suffer in the end. Many note that, when confronted with a $4.3-million budget shortfall in 2002, the archdiocese closed ministries for students, the disabled, minorities, and gays and lesbians.

Tom Honore, a Los Angeles parishioner who sits on the national board of Call to Action, which pushes for reforms in the church, said the archdiocese should sell nonessential property to settle the claims. "Before schools, parking lots should go," he said. "I am very concerned. Families and communities are built around parishes."

Hennigan said schools and churches are "not vulnerable" to closure and sale, but he hedged a bit. "You can never say never on anything," he said.

The archdiocese will not declare bankruptcy to protect its assets from the litigants, Hennigan said. Four other dioceses have taken that step because of molestation lawsuits.

Most of the properties have been in the archdiocese's hands for many years, and county assessments of their value are out of date. The Times broadly estimated their current worth with a formula that applied regional increases in median home prices to archdiocesan properties.

Land records and most experts consulted by the newspaper suggested that, at least since the early 1990s, commercial, industrial and church properties have increased in value at a similar rate to that for single-family homes, although some studies suggest that commercial and industrial prices have risen at a lower rate.

Experts in church sales also cautioned that, even in the area's vibrant used-church market, Catholic churches might sell for less because of their design.

Some more marketable
If recent settlements are a guide, the archdiocese and its insurers could have to pay $500 million or more to dispense with the rest of the molestation suits. That would be far and away the costliest resolution in the U.S. Catholic Church's marathon run of sex scandals.

The archdiocese says it expects insurers to pay almost all of the remaining settlements, but the liability companies insist that the church should bear most of the burden.

At the same time, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony has staked out a position on internal ownership rules that seeks to restrict the plaintiffs' access to billions in church and school property. He has asserted that churches and schools belong to individual parishes and that the archdiocese doesn't have the authority to liquidate parish property to settle lawsuits.

Mahony's stance appears rife with possible church-state conflicts, pitting canon against civil law. Plaintiffs say he is merely trying to avoid fairly compensating abuse victims.

The finances of the archdiocese are difficult to decipher, in part because it does not include the assets of parishes and other church organizations in its public balance sheets. On its website, the archdiocese reported gross assets in the last fiscal year of just $510 million, all of it in property and funds controlled by the central administration.

Looking at property records

A Times examination of property records and other documents suggests that about $175 million of the archdiocese's real estate portfolio is in properties not classified by the tax assessor as used for religious purposes or cemeteries — and thus more likely to be available for settlements.

In addition, the archdiocese has investment funds of about $660 million, although it says most of that money belongs to affiliated organizations and parishes, according to the church's newspaper, the Tidings.

Mahony said the archdiocese set aside $40 million last year toward Friday's settlements. He has not said how the church would pay for its share of settlements in the remaining lawsuits.

"Our goal is to have no impact to our parishes or ministries that would imperil our ministry," the cardinal said. "There are ways to combine services, maybe to accomplish the goals with fewer personnel, down the road."

But many parishioners fear that the settlements will cut into the archdiocese's network of churches, schools and ministries, which serve 4.3 million people in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

The archdiocese's contention that its insurers are obligated to pay for the rest of the claims has been disputed by liability companies, which contend that California law renders coverage void because church superiors had reason to expect that the abuse would occur. The two sides have also differed on the dollar and time limits of the coverage.

Church and legal experts predict a compromise.

In 2004, the Diocese of Orange split the cost of a $100-million settlement with its insurers. The diocese paid the $50 million with a bank loan and by tapping investments.

The archdiocese's attorney, J. Michael Hennigan, said his client could not begin to pay half of a bill that could exceed $500 million without "great pain."

He said the archdiocese is weighing which nonreligious property it could sell and will explore bank loans. If more cash is needed, Hennigan and others said, a fundraising appeal might be launched.