"Olim aureos sacerdotes ligneis vasculis litasse, nunc versa vice ligneos aureis uti." - St Boniface (attributed by Beatus Rhenanus).
"Once, golden priests offered cups of wood; now on the other hand wooden priests use golden cups."
It is not a new complaint!
IIRC some of the Anglican clergy who joined the Catholic Church recently were pretty shocked at the sudden damage to their pay packet
The interesting thing is that this came as a surprise.
So I wonder whether a side effect of Pope Francis turning his attention to Church finances (at least, as he is expected to do) might be more public awareness of how little money priests etc actually get.
@waxeagle Is this real estate primarily church grounds, seminaries, hospitals, etc.? The Catholic Church has its own city-state, and many historic sites, so not exactly a surprise.
@Alypius Right, they own some of the most historic buildings in the world. Often times they even own the most valuable and historic piece of real estate in a city (specially in Latin america). But regardless, in 2011 they were the 3rd largest land owner in the world
@JamesT heck, if the church is actually well off (or can manage to trim some of hte bureaucracy and corruption), then he should see that they actually get paid a fair wage....
@waxeagle Terrible journalism. Most of the people at the start are single persons who own land. I was expecting that they would simply place "the Catholic Church" as an owner (which would have been ridiculous), but instead they place the pope, which is even worse, since he does not own any of that. You might as well say that the president owns all the land in the US.
@Alypius he's the head of state and has absolute authority over every bit that the church owns. He has as much right to be there as QE2
regardless, that doesn't change the fact that the Catholic church owns 177 million acres of land, and that it's quite obviously (see the Guardian article) that at least part of that portfolio is investment property. Sure a good chunk of it is the city they own, and another sizeable chunk is stuff where they are actually doing ministry (churches, hospitals, schools etc). But certainly not all.
which is fine. The church has bills to pay, and they do a lot of good. But you can't pretend they don't have a huge amount of assets at their disposal (even if you don't consider them to be rich, though I'd dispute that)
@Alypius yep. Which makes him a dictator btw. But that's not the point here...we can go into that one later :)
@waxeagle Sure, if you want to say that; and he's elected by a "meritocratic" regime.
@waxeagle The point there is that the article is trash, because it attributes to the Pope (a person) much more land than he actually "owns", and blatantly misrepresents the position of the pope.
@Alypius that articles's source article. Which includes the following sentence:
> but the Pope is understood to own all the land of the Catholic Church's institutions, religious orders and dioceses as monarch, on much the same basis as the Queen owns her acres. The estimated total of land held by the Pope is around 177 million acres.
@waxeagle I'm still trying to look up this second article. Unflattering picture of the pope at the top? Check. Vapid conclusion referencing some sort of secrecy at the bottom? Check. I'm not sure if I want a bite of this sandwich.
@waxeagle I'm surprised you don't dispute it. How exactly does he own land in another nation as the elected monarch of Vatican City? That other nation "owns" that land.
@waxeagle He has absolute authority when it comes to doctrine. He has the power to demand everyone's land under threat of excommunication, but that doesn't mean he owns that land himself. The article is also mixing nationally owned land with personally owned land. I presume that the Queen owns most of the land that the Irving brothers own, since they're in Canada, which the Queen apparently owns.
Let's imagine that a country, let's call is bobtopia, is run by a corporate entity, let's call it bobco. Bobco owns the entire country of bobtopia, it's an Island so they bought the whole thing, they lease all the propery to employees and people who do business with them. Bobco is owned solely by a guy named Bob. Bob also owns all of the factories, warehouses and retail outlets of Bobco that are scattered throughout the world.
And the monarchy there is established in such a way that the monarch is considered to be the actual personal owner of all the property? (It does not work that way for the Queen, for example; that monarchy claims land as a nation)
@waxeagle Sure, so this Bobco is recognized as a sovereign entity and state or something. Some of the distinctions here are pretty important: you don't "own" land internationally unless other nations say "ok". That type of ownership differs substantially from the sort of ownership system that the nation itself sets up.
@Alypius right, this is effectively both public and private ownership in one tight little bundle. because the corporation and the nationstate are effectively one entity they both own it and that's fine because they are one.
and because Bobco is basically the only supplier of Panama hats left on the planet (they drove Ecuador out of business half a century ago), other nations recognize them because the need jaunty caps all over the world.
(by the by, Bobco/bobtopia, is totally going to be a short story some time soon...maybe the setting for my next novel attempt)
@waxeagle National claim to land is not quite the same as public ownership. Public ownership is an "ownership system" that the nation can establish. Anyway, this island has 1000 acres. What next?
@Alypius source is Rerum Germanicarum, vol. 2 of 3. Online here if you like that sort of thing - books.google.com/books?id=netFVvYRfwIC&pg=PA98 (quotation comes from roughly where the marginal note is, on that page)
@Alypius well Bobco (and therefore it's owner bob), owns all of his factories, retail outlets and warehouses (privately owned by Bobco, and therefore Bob). Then there are the bobtopian embassies (Bobtopian soil, so controlled by absolute monarch, Bob).
@Alypius Bobco buys a clean shell company from an Indonesian who has set it up, but never done anything with it. It then becomes a wholly owned subsidary of Bobco which Bob owns.
I don't think you're on the same page as me about how each country has a different ownership system that Bob has to adhere to in some way in order to own land; and even when he does, he does not own that land in the same way he owns land in Bobtopia
@waxeagle So on the deed, in Indonesia, is written "Bobco, foreign company"?
@waxeagle Secretly owned, or? Obviously, you're comparing Bobtopia to Vatican City, but that's just not how it works. You can, of course, stipulate that every diocese is really a "shell company" for the Vatican, but then you might as well stipulate that any land that I own is simply owned by the pope. It isn't, though.
The Church is set up in a way that bishops are not really "under" the pope. Bishops own land in their diocese. They are the leaders of "Churches", in the sense of "letter of Saint Paul to"
It isn't like a corporation with officers. It's just that the pope has the final say on matters of doctrine, and most of the governing body happens to reside in Vatican City.
@Alypius I believe he wrote two books that were divinely inspired. I believe he spoke words that were divinely inspired that were recorded in the book of Acts (though perhaps not the exact words).
@El'endiaStarman I argue conception because it is when development starts. Before that there is no development; there is no change in the cells. They do not divide, multiply, nor grow into anything. After conception they rapidly change, divide, multiply and grow into a person. Any stage after conception seems arbitrary.
For the record, I think it's perfectly fine to say that "The Church" owns all that property. But not the pope, because this undermines the other bishops. The pope is just a bishop with primacy (and some other things).
@Alypius fair enough, that's an argument the article made, I'm willing to abandon that in favor of saying church owns it. It doesn't really change the point I was making. That the church owns a great deal of land (of untold value at this point due to historical significance and location).
granted a lot of that land is unsaleable nor would the church ever sell it. But I doubt that's the case for all of it.
@Alypius yes, 1.2B members was the number quoted in news reports this week. That's a lot. Which means they have a lot of bills to pay. I get why they own what they do and I don't begrudge them that. They do a lot of good.
@waxeagle Of course, I understand. I didn't mean to make it seem like I think you're being hostile about this, international land ownership just tends to be a pedantic issue.
My main point is that it's very hard to claim that the Church is rich. You pointed to property, but the vast vast majority of that property is "public" to Catholics.
@Alypius I'd have to argue that they are in fact very rich, because they have an insane amount of collateral. Cash will never be a problem for them. Whether or not they choose to behave like they are rich is another matter entirely. Wealth is measured by assets as much as by cash on hand.
@waxeagle I'm entirely against that. There are more effective means of fighting AIDS, and to encourage moral evil for the sake of a good outcome is strictly forbidden.
@Alypius adultery? it's a sin. no argument there, the bible is quite clear, though making it illegal is somewhat foolish... Homosexuality is also a sin. However, I am not against gay marriage. That's up to the state, not the church.
I'm American. Our constitution's first amendment prohibits the establishment of religion. That has been interpreted that the government should not provider favoritism to one religion over another. Christianity says that adultery, homosexuality and any number of other things are wrong. That does not means that he government should prohibit them. In fact I would argue that the constitution protects a sinner's right to sin.
In any case, while the constitution deals with the establishment of religion at the level of the government itself, the government must serve the people, and if the people have certain views that they want the government to reflect, it shouldn't matter where those views stem from.
there was a change in the 20s as women gained the right to vote, there was a change in the 60s for civil rights. Gay marriage is the next change, regardless of whether we like it or not. And that's just the 20th century, things have changed through out America's history. I'd be hard pressed to make an argument against gay marriage at this point that doesn't sound exactly like an argument made for keeping slaves, prohibiting women from voting or segregating schools.
(that's not to say there isn't one I can't make, but I can't think of one off the top of my head)
@waxeagle Yes, but the point is, you're absolving yourself of any responsibility for what the government chooses. But perhaps you don't think that marriage is a religious issue, and only a civil issue.
@El'endiaStarman Because you are a Christian, and you have moral convictions, and you decide what your government should deal with and how it should deal. You're prohibited by the constitution from ever having your government become a Theocracy. That's all.
@El'endiaStarman because people want marriage to have legal benefits and consequences. And because the way we've organized society, there are things that need gov't sanction marriage (taxes, federal benefits, insurance, hospital visitation rights, adoptions, and like 100 other things).
@Alypius Our government is also a Republic, meaning that we're supposed to be considerate of the minority and not let the majority overrule them.
@waxeagle I agree. My point was that we have this marriage problem because we've juxtaposed the religious and civil components of marriage. A secular government shouldn't meddle in exclusively religious matters, but that's unavoidable if the religious and civil components are intertwined.
@El'endiaStarman There's a line in there somewhere: thieves are another minority, and they might think that it would be better if theft was legal, but we shouldn't care. So how do we know that homosexual civil marriage falls on one side of the line or the other?
@El'endiaStarman right. Now we could do what other countries have done (I know for sure that Ecuador does this). Have no officially sanctioned church marriages. If you want a religiously sanctioned marriage you have to have 2 weddings one before a justice and one before a pastor/priest. The church marriage is not a legal bond, and the legal bond is not recognized by the catholic church (though other churches may choose to recognize it).
@waxeagle That's a good idea. I myself am partial to the marriage/civil unions solution.
@Alypius Thievery is an injustice against another member of society. Who does gay marriage hurt? Put aside the issue of the couple raising a child and assume they never do that.
@El'endiaStarman I'm not sure about civil unions, myself. I haven't thought about the issue enough, but one point that comes to mind at the moment is the fact that (generally) society expects marriage to produce more humans. Married people get financial breaks of whatever variety for that reason, not as a reward for "falling in love".
If the government prevents a drug producer from giving drugs to a single consumer, then I must reply that homosexual civil marriage does not count as victimless.
But that strays from the point. In general, I agree that the government must allow for personal freedoms. Policing certain acts would violate that. However, marriage is something that the government must actively endorse.
@El'endiaStarman Absolutely. But that might be a tangent.
@Alypius It is the beginning of a tangent. See, this is where we differ. A secular government should not be involved in religion, and the morals of the vast majority of people are informed by religion. So, for some morals, government should stay out of them.
However, there are some acts that should be banned by the government, such as murder or thievery. Those are acts that harm another member of society.
Up to this point we agree.
We diverge on whether a member of society should be allowed to harm themselves.
@El'endiaStarman We probably don't disagree. Legal measures that prevent this would infringe on personal liberty, so we don't make those laws. However, we don't actively promote (in fact usually we actively combat) things that facilitate self-harm.
I think my strongest secular argument against gay marriage is that it fails to live up to a certain social contract: you've decided to make more humans, and we love having more humans, so we will recognize you and help you out.
If some people are sterile, this is a different matter than the unfortunate case where someone is in love with someone of a gender that they cannot even in principle reproduce with.
Furthermore, there are a number of actual legal practices surrounding consummation that would be chopped out because they are unsustainable when it comes to gay marriage.
@Alypius I will bet you a penny (because I'm not a gambler) that @TRiG will say that the social construct of marriage should not (or doesn't) include having kids.
Then in general you shouldn't get the societal rewards. If you don't put yourself in intimate proximity with a person who you may in principle end up procreating with, you don't get societal rewards under the title of "marriage".
(My argument there is against the various forms of legal recognition, not against the "concept" of marriage; though I think the concept is very important.)
@fredsbend Actually, evolution can indeed make predictions. What would happen if you put a group of humans (large enough to interbreed well) deep in a cave where they had no light whatsoever (but still food and water)? Specifically, what would happen to their eyes over the generations?
Ok. Tell me if I got this. There are two kinds of sin: Mortal and Venial. There are three types of Mortal sin: Regular, Grave Matters, and Capital Sins. — fredsbend10 hours ago
@El'endiaStarman Perhaps I misunderstood your statement. You need to note that Evolution and evolution are not the same thing. Evolution (big E) is the theory of origins; a study on history. Evolution (little e) is a study of biology. Creationism and evolution (little e) are incomparable. Creationism and Evolution (big E) are in the same bucket.
Clearly evolution can make predictions given certain circumstances and Evolution has noting to do with predictions or science or even contributing to science and biology. It is an historical theory, not scientific, on origins derived from the science of biological evolution.
As a study on your example I can tell you assuredly that within 10 days the pupils would dilate fully and render the eye almost completely blind (we can thank Hitler for the marvelous studies that led to the discovery of this fact. It is not listed here, but pretty sure I read about it somewhere).
After that the eye structure would continue in many many many generations. It's nerve connectivity to the frontal lobe is to great to expect deterioration. Further, deterioration is very unlikely to assist in survival in any way. Considering the general safety, at least from beasts and such, very little survival pressure would exist in a cave, therefore, we could expect very little evolution for 1000's of generations.
In Sci-Fi we might like to pretend that they would develop the ability to see infrared vision, or super hearing, or whatever. The fact is that evolution science is simply not that exciting. We can't even force such things with highly controlled experiments. I actually blame Sci-Fi for convincing people, otherwise ignorant of the processes of evolution, that Evolution is even possible.
I am speaking for mammals, birds, reptiles, etc. Just in case someone wants to point to bacteria or something equally unique in respects to evolution.
@DanO'Day Oh, yes. You showed me that earlier. It is on my watch list. Thank you.
@TRiG Science means knowledge. Knowledge is definitive. Creationism and the Theory of Evolution are neither. They are theories on history not science. Neither can be called knowledge. Neither can be called science. The subject of origins does not even belong in a science class. It is a topic of its own.
@TRiG This is true. The best case study is that of Thailand. They were on track to population and poverty disaster that would have disgusted the world. Contraception is one of the top five reasons Bangkok, Thailand is one of the largest business centers in the world and the Thai people as a whole have better lives than only one generation ago.
@TRiG @Alypius makes a good point about the charity from the Catholic Church. Compared to percentages they are one of the best, I think I have read. LDS is one of the worst.
You can see the definition of both here: idol and icon.
Icon
a devotional painting of Christ or another holy figure, typically
executed on wood and used ceremonially in the Byzantine and other
Eastern Churches.
a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol or as worthy of
...
@Alypius Would you agree with this? ^^^
Anybody got something else?
I was really hoping for a slew of responses from the catholics here, but I only got that one and he isn't even catholic or protestant!
@fredsbend No question that hopes for a 'slew of responses' is a good SE question. More than one response is good, but not a 'slew'. If a question is properly focused, a few stabs at it by the right experts should pretty much pin it down and leave little room for improvement.
Obviously that answer is pretty weak. I'm not defending that!
I wouldn't worry about it too much though. Any expert will see that still needs a better answer.
@fredsbend The answer is straightforward but a bit sparse, and a bit confused on the Catholic view. I'm actually surprised to see that the question didn't get any responses as well - I saw Dan's first comment, and just left it to him.
@fredsbend If you agree with e-volution, then it might help if you pointed out the most central claim of E-volution that you reject. I don't really see any difference between them.
@TRiG: Remember that video you posted a while back about American slang, and the British guy had done self-duets? This is what that reminded me of: Lord of the Rings in 99 Seconds
@Alypius Massive lacking in the fossil record. There simply is little to no evidence of link species for us to apes and otherwise. Every time they say they found another 'species' read closely and learn that they found only a few bone. Sometimes even just one tooth. I just think it very bad science to claim an entire species existed because you found a single bone or skull.
If the species actually existed (the bone found does not actually belong to an already known species) then there should be many, many more fossils that demonstrate it. We have thousands of fossils for known species. Only a handful for 'link' species.
I also have trouble believing that it is good science to 'date' a rock based on radiometric decay with the assumption that nothing has tainted the rate of decay of the millennia, never mind millions of years.
Summary: I seriously doubt dating methods as precise and the fossil record seems to be seriously lacking.
@fredsbend How much research have you done in the subject of radiometric dating? And I mean real get-to-the-nitty-gritty-bits, not just reading websites that speak about problems with it.
@El'endiaStarman That sounds disturbingly familiar for some reason.
@El'endiaStarman "How much research have you done in the subject of Christianity? And I mean real get-to-the-nitty-gritty-bits, not just reading websites that speak about problems with it."
@El'endiaStarman Some. I admit probably not enough. It seems not only obvious to me, but I think well known fact that radiometric decay rates are not constant. Exposure to water and other reactive chemicals affects it. So does sun light and other electromagnetic exposure.
@El'endiaStarman oh yes, of course. The old argument. If you don't take it as fact it is because you don't understand it. I hear that a lot from a lot of people.
@El'endiaStarman Yes, Carbon 14 is the isotope found most in living tissue. It is somewhat rare in non-living tissue. Carbon 12 is your regular, run of the mill carbon. 14 decays to 12 after tissue ceases metabolic function.
It is common practice to not use carbon dating for dates that are expected to be over 5000 years, so that's not really one that I would care to argue with because it does not affect my current beliefs.
@El'endiaStarman Yes, but it would still be called radiometric decay. from c-14 to c-12 loss of a proton is rare. Not rare for U to Pb. Normal actually.
@fredsbend ...um. You just dropped your scientific credibility a bit further. Carbon is carbon because it has 6 protons. Any other number will make it a different element. Atoms of carbon with different numbers of neutrons are called isotopes (because they behave chemically similarly) and atoms of carbon with different numbers of electrons are called ions (because they behave electrically different).
@El'endiaStarman Yes, I know. Chem 101. Loss of any particle in an atom is still called radiometric decay. That has nothing to do with the fact that decay may significantly change the atom.
@JamesT I keep seeing you give very solid answers to questions on Catholicism, and I see from your profile that you're not a Catholic. Do you mind if I ask how you came to be familiar? Most other people outside the Church seem to ... "not have the same amount of background", to put it one way.
@fredsbend Your statement did imply it. See: "from c-14 to c-12 loss of a proton is rare" -- by definition it would not be rare, it would be impossible. Loss of a proton would make it something other than c-X.
Excited electrons are just in a higher energy state. Absorbing enough energy bumps them up and dropping down releases energy (in the form of EM radiation).
@El'endiaStarman they got a mention in college chem (like 6 years ago, but pretty sure we were told that it wasn't an accurate picture...but I'd have to dig up a text book again :() and I didn't actually need the courses...
@Alypius - I came to be interested in Catholicism from two directions. One is that it is very hard to read much from the medieval period without learning something, at least regarding the Catholicism of the day. The other is more personal: I wish that we could all be friends! So I ended up learning a lot about why certain Protestant canards about Catholics aren't true.
@waxeagle fredsbend is joking but he's fairly close to the truth. We're understanding the atom better and better, so we have to keep changing our model. One recent change was the alteration from "electron shells" to "electron orbitals".
@waxeagle It seems to me that once you start talking about the processes of sub-atomic things there is always at least two opinions how it actually works.
@waxeagle Yeah. I always thought it odd that they first teach you how we used to view the world. Then they completely undo all of that and teach you how you should view the world now.
@waxeagle I myself consider myself pretty knowledgeable about physics and relativity and the like, and only within the past year have I learned that $E = mc^2$ isn't the whole thing.
@waxeagle Yeah. I know. Physics is math. That's why they teach it last in high school instead of first. In the perfect world we would all be taught math up to physics level. Then we would tackle the sciences moving reverse of Bio, Chem, then Physics.
@waxeagle I read this article a while back about this team that was developing batteries that used something like molten sodium to store electricity. They had super high capacity and scaled really well, so they would be good for backup power.
@El'endiaStarman I heard once that using super cooled sliver they made 'batteries' that were simply a ring of silver. The current simply circled indefinitely.
@waxeagle Or mayo. Not kidding. My cousin swears up and down that mayo did a better job cooling than all the major brands in some study he read about. I'm not gutsey enough to try it though. Not on a new processor anyway.
@fredsbend Gallium apparently has a melting point around room temperature. They also note that alloys of sodium and potassium can reach melting points of -11 C.
@El'endiaStarman interesting. depending on how the heat transfer works, you could have a much much smaller area need for a cooler to achieve much greater performance. Because right now a high quality solid metal CPU cooler is flat monstrous.
@waxeagle I haven't read the paper in detail, but I remember mention about gallium's viscosity compared to water and say that that would allow it to be pumped through small tubes with relative ease.
@JamesT Sometimes I very much suspect that a great number of good people are not capable of just being friendly, but actually have no religious differences whatsoever, and simply do not know enough about each other, and each other's views.
Not all people, of course (sadly), and I don't mean to imply that certain points of doctrine can be ignored when considering unity.
@El'endiaStarman Yes. I sometimes have trouble seeing how to apply this view towards certain people, who seem so obstinately opposed to the Church, for example. I guess what comes to mind is the fact that they have the law of God written into their hearts.
One of the important incidents for this in my own life was witnessing one of my friends (a very evangelical Protestant) reduce another (Irish Catholic) to tears, as he harangued her about Mary. I later found out that the way she described her relationship with Mary - lacking any theological vocabulary but speaking from the heart - was just what the Catholic Church has been saying for literally centuries.
And yet we still hear this conspiracy theory that dulia vs latria is a magisterial veil over secret idolatry.
as opposed to a distinction born out of the sense of the faithful
Anyway, I decided that listening to Catholics is a good thing and yelling at them is not.
@JamesT Another example of God making something good of something bad.
I actually just posted an answer to a question about that. I'm not sure if it comes across as a bit... emphatic, I hope not. I have trouble understanding what sort of perception people have of prayer if it differs so much from my own that talking to a saint is impermissible.
@El'endiaStarman Yes, I guess you could change melting points if the pressure is lower than sea level. But bending and warping the container would change its volume which would affect that melting point. I suspect getting the pressure just right in a container to keep the melting point where you want it is a difficult balancing act.
Some people might claim that a wife must do what her husband says in every situation and they will site the Bible as it being the Divine order of things.
It does seem that the Bible gives authority to fathers over their wives and children but to what extent? What does the Bible say about the fat...
@fredsbend I'm pretty sure it's at normal atmospheric pressure. Think about mercury, for instance. Obviously liquid at room temperature. The designation of "metal" does not mean that it necessarily has a high melting point; rather, that is a chemical property which can be altered by alloying.
You can see the definition of both here: idol and icon.
Icon
a devotional painting of Christ or another holy figure, typically
executed on wood and used ceremonially in the Byzantine and other
Eastern Churches.
a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol or as worthy of
...
