He said texts of the period used “the language of intimacy” for spiritual relationships.
If the text/papyrus is found on Other Religions, especially Islam, it is Gospel.
” A previously unknown scrap ofancient papyrus written in ancient Egyptian Coptic includes the words “Jesus said to them, my wife,” — a discovery likely to renew a fierce debate in the Christian world over whether Jesus was married.
The existence of the fourth-century fragment — not much bigger than a business card — was revealed at a conference in Rome on Tuesday by Karen King, Hollis Professor of Divinity atHarvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“Christian tradition has long held that Jesus was not married, even though no reliable historical evidence exists to support that claim,” King said in a statement released by Harvard.
“This new gospel doesn’t prove that Jesus was married, but it tells us that the whole question only came up as part of vociferous debates about sexuality and marriage.”
Worse is the behaviour of the News paper which’scrubbed ‘the portion.
:Father Benedict Groeschel,Defender of Paedophiles.
‘A Catholic newspaper has removed an interview from their website in which a priest said that pedophiles are seduced by children in “a lot of the cases” and the abusers should not go to jail.
“People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to — a psychopath. But that’s not the case,” Groeschel explained. “Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him. A lot of the cases, the youngster — 14, 16, 18 — is the seducer.”
“Well, it’s not so hard to see — a kid looking for a father and didn’t have his own — and they won’t be planning to get into heavy-duty sex, but almost romantic, embracing, kissing, perhaps sleeping but not having intercourse or anything like that,” he continued.
Groeschel called the abuse “an understandable thing,” and pointed to Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, who he called a “poor guy.”
“Why didn’t anyone say anything? Apparently, a number of kids knew about it and didn’t break the ice. Well, you know, until recent years, people did not register in their minds that it was a crime. It was a moral failure, scandalous; but they didn’t think of it in terms of legal things.”
Groeschel pointed out that “sexual difficulties” were rarely prosecuted 10 or 15 years ago, and now if “any responsible person in society would become involved in a single sexual act — not necessarily intercourse — they’re done.”
“And I’m inclined to think, on their first offense, they should not go to jail because their intention was not committing a crime,” he added.
“Father Groeschel’s suggestion that sex abusers of any profession should not get jail for a first offense — because, he claims, they don’t ‘intend’ to abuse — is simply incomprehensible,” one Catholic told columnist Matt Abbott. “Doesn’t he know that a good intention does not by itself make an act good? Hasn’t he read the Catechism of the Catholic Church?”
“Moreover, with all due respect to Father Groeschel, it is utterly irresponsible to suggest that a priest, who is in a position of moral authority, should be excused for permitting himself to be ‘seduced’ by a young person.”
Groeschel has a PhD in psychology from Columbia University and hosts a television talk show on the Eternal Word Television Network, which also owns National Catholic Register
As an after thought , the priest has tendered an apology!?
The excuse is more insulting than the comment.
Look at the tone and tenor.
Akin to ‘Sorry, I should not have called you a bastard’
‘
A prominent Catholic friar has apologized for saying that child victims of sex abuse may at times bear some of the responsibility for the attacks because they can seduce their assailants, and that first-time sex offenders should not receive jail time.
“I did not intend to blame the victim,” the Rev. Benedict Groeschel, of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, said Thursday. “A priest (or anyone else) who abuses a minor is always wrong and is always responsible.”
As founder of the Trinity Retreat House, which operates “to provide spiritual direction and retreats for clergy,” Groeschel has worked with priests involved in abuse.
His initial comments were published by the National Catholic Register, a conservative Christian publication, which also issued an apology.
“Child sexual abuse is never excusable,” the newspaper said in a statement. “The editors of the National Catholic Register apologize for publishing without clarification or challenge Father Benedict Groeschel’s comments that seem to suggest that the child is somehow responsible for abuse. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
A German court set off religious controversy late last week with its ruling that the circumcision of young boys on religious grounds is illegal. Some commentators categorize the ban as just one of many legislative restrictions on religious minorities in Germany, and as part of growing religious intolerance in Europe.
Reutersreports that the Cologne court took action after police were alerted by a doctor who treated the 4-year-old son of first-generation Turkish immigrants Muhsin Sapci and his wife, Gonca, for bleeding after the boy underwent circumcision. A prosecutor sued the doctor in court.
The court ruled that the removal of the boy’s foreskin amounted to bodily harm and involved intolerable health risks. The Economist writes that circumcision was deemed to violate Germany’s constitutional protection of individuals’ physical integrity – religious freedom and parents’ rights came second – and thus should be considered a crime.
The court further suggested waiting until the age of 14 so boys themselves could decide whether to be circumcised.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel intervened over the court’s decision last Friday by promising the Muslim and Jewish communities that they are free to circumcise their children. Meanwhile, the Guardian writes that the government is urgently looking for a way around the ban.
Medical risk
Given the legal uncertainty, medical practitioners are afraid lay people will start performing the operation, and ritual circumcisions will go underground. The New York Timesreports that the German Medical Association condemned the court’s decision for potentially exposing children to medical risk, but it also warned surgeons not to perform circumcisions for religious reasons until legal clarity was established.
“Right now everything is controlled, most people go to a doctor and the child is covered by insurance,” Muhsin Sapci, the young boy’s father said. “If they try to outlaw it, it will still be done, but differently, and that could have consequences.”Public outcry
Germany is home to 4 million Muslims, the second biggest community in Europe, and to about 120,000 Jews. In a rare display of religious unity, the leaders of both faiths teamed up in Brusselsand Berlin last week to demand a reversal of the ban.
The Pope’s right hand man has blamed the ‘devil and the media’ for the latest Vatican documents scandal.
Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone has made the accusations in response to a scandal over leaked Vatican documents in the Italian media.
Cardinal Bertone told an Italian Catholic weekly that journalists reporting on the leaks scandal are ‘pretending to be Dan Brown, inventing stories and replaying legends’.
Brown is the best selling author of ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and ‘Angels and Demons’.
The Associated Press reports that Vatican has been on the defensive ever since sensitive documents alleging corruption and exposing power struggles began appearing in the Italian media in January.
A recently published book contained dozens of documents from Pope Benedict XVI’s own desk and is seen as part of a plot to undermine Bertone’s authority.
Pope Benedict XVI has also complained about media reports that: “Went well beyond the facts, offering an image of the Holy See that doesn’t correspond to reality.”
Now Cardinal Bertone’s interview with Famiglia Cristiana has taken the complaints to a new level.
He blasted the ‘vehemence’ of some Italian newspapers in seeking to create divisions between the pope and his collaborators where there weren’t any.
“The truth is that there’s a will to create division that comes from the devil,” said Cardinal Bertone.
“The Holy See isn’t perfect and none of us wants to hide the church’s shadows and defects.
“But the Italian media in particular has gone too far, violating the privacy rights of both the pope and the people who correspond with him by publishing leaked documents.”
He also said that, contrary to media reports depicting factions opposed to him within the Vatican bureaucracy, he enjoys ‘an extraordinary climate of communion’ with his colleagues. Bertone added: “Personally, I don’t sense any sign of cardinals or church personalities being involved in any conquest of some phantom power.”
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