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Church Turns To Facebook To Find Priests

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."

17 of 286 comments (clear)

  1. A better, more old fashioned solution by erroneus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Perhaps they should actively seek to inspire people rather than trying to protect and defend themselves. There may have been a time when their church was above and beyond criticism, but those days are long gone. They need to accept this fact and focus on the positive rather than the negative. Furthermore, they need to look within themselves and to blame themselves for the current public opinion of their church. (In other words, instead of blaming the victims for speaking out, blame the people who did the victimizing!)

    Then, after all that, do good works... LOTS of good works. That used to work in the past. These days, one rarely hears much about the good works of the church...

    1. Re:A better, more old fashioned solution by nomadic · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The Church could completely reinvigorate itself and make sure there are plenty of priests by doing two things: (1) allow women to be priests; and (2) allow priests to marry. Until they do either one or both of those things they'll continue to weaken.

    2. Re:A better, more old fashioned solution by Corporate+Troll · · Score: 3, Insightful

      (1) allow women to be priests; and (2) allow priests to marry.

      No, no, no.... Wrong approach... Allow women to be priests and make it mandatory to attend weekly orgies for clergy.

      That would boast priesthood numbers for sure!

  2. Just allow priests to marry already. by rolfwind · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It will largely take care of the pedophile problem and the dwindling number willing to be priests in one shot.

    Priests marrying wasn't disallowed all throughout church history anyway, it was political nonsense to do away with questions of inheritance.

    1. Re:Just allow priests to marry already. by Xtravar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The Catholic Church is the last (Christian) religious institution to have the "sacred dogma" marketability. It's a very large bullet point on their sales presentation slide. "We have been around the longest. We are full of mystical, intriguing quirks that lend to our legitimacy."

      Once they start giving in to modern concepts (and giving up dogmas), they begin to lose that essence and have less to compete against other Christian sects with.

      It's also a great source of pride, however depraved that may seem.

      So, they need to change slowly. They don't want to seem like some willy nilly religion that makes arbitrary rules. THEIR rules are from God.

      If they were to change in the midst of this pedophile scandal, it would seem as a reaction to the scandal and not edict from Heaven. That would lose credibility among followers, priests (who've had to be celibate all this time), and those potential followers looking in.

      In other words, the writing's on the wall, but the situation is delicate.

      --
      Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
  3. Re:Please refrain from pedophile jokes... by Zedrick · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But are all the schools trying to cover it up every time something like that happens, and protect the teacher in question?

  4. Re:Please refrain from pedophile jokes... by sznupi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Also wrong. The biggest threat to children are parents (or generally close family and "friends"). As with most of serious crime BTW...

    --
    One that hath name thou can not otter
  5. Re:Please refrain from pedophile jokes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Alright, I'm an atheist! That means I can joke about it as much as I wish!

    But I wont, because frankly it's just painful. But I'll give you some free advice (the worst kind, I know): if the best you can say to defend your own religion is that all other religions are just as bad or worse but have somehow managed to keep a lid on it... then maybe it's time to look for a new religion, or, and I say this from experience, to let go of them altogether.

  6. Re:Please refrain from pedophile jokes... by MyLongNickName · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Mod +5 funny. Or +5 naive. I'd love to think that there is some religion or non-religion that consistently makes people better people

    But centuries of data shows otherwise.

    Utimately, it comes down to individuals and their individual choices. I've known very good Chrisitans and very evil ones. I've known very good Atheists and ones who I certainly wouldn't trust my kids with.

    The bottom line is that you need to judge people individually and not collectively

    --
    See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
  7. Re:Please refrain from pedophile jokes... by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In a word: Bullshit.

    The biggest threat to kids is family, and family friends. Those statistics make all others look small.

    --
    ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
  8. Re:Please refrain from pedophile jokes... by Dr.+Manhattan · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Actually, I'm not aware of any solid data indicating that priests are more likely than anyone else to abuse children or young adults. Not that I'm a fan of the Catholic Church (or any other religion). But the real problem was hiding the abuse and not dealing aggressively with the abusers.

    And even then, to be fair, back in the 1970's and before, there weren't mandatory reporting laws for sexual abuse. Society in general has become more aware of the problems; the Church really wasn't out of step with the prevailing attitudes.

    (Of course, what does that say about their claims to be moral leaders?)

    --
    PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
  9. Re:JUST WOW by MrNaz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's not the most ridiculous thing about this. Think about it, they're looking on Facebook for people who want to be celibate.

    I don't rate their chances very highly.

    --
    I hate printers.
  10. Bad taste slashdot. by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This really falls in the So What List. The catholic church is looking for more priests whats new. So they are using Facebook as a tool. So what... A good for them.

    Now this is just in bad taste for slashdot as it will only really be just a forum to make fun of problems that a religion is having.

    This Ain't News for nerds, this isn't news for geeks, if you are not interested in joining the priesthood it doesn't even matter. You just wanted an other forum to make fun of catholics.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  11. Proof please? by sjbe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not the schools, but the teacher unions do.

    Last I checked teacher's unions don't have a lot of pull in the district attorney's office.

    While false accusations are a real problem, I'm pretty sure I've never heard of a case of a teacher's union covering for a real sexual abuse case. Care to link to some actual proof for your assertion?

  12. Re:Please refrain from pedophile jokes... by thijsh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Religious/non-religious does not make a lot of difference... but a religious authority does! God trumps your mom, dad and government... and the priest who just told you to shut up about the abuse is a direct representative of god. This little detail and the fact that those priest eagerly forgive themselves or even make it 'right' by claiming that that little bit of evil is OK because of all the good they can do because of it is just sickening (not only with sexual abuse, but also like mother Theresa who let unfortunate people suffer so she herself could be closer to god).

    In my experience any man who claims to have a more direct line to god (or the supernatural) than you should be avoided at any cost. I'm certain that if there would be no religious leaders there would be almost no problems with religion...

  13. Re:Please refrain from pedophile jokes... by silanea · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you seek consistency in your beliefs, try agnosticism.

    Were I to care about other people's faith I would rather recommend apatheistic ignosticism. Since I don't, I recommend spending your time on improving your area's data on OpenStreetmap rather than meditating about the finer aspects of particular faiths. Religion has yet to do anything useful for the world at large, but OSM has aided me innumerable times in the few years since its inception.

    --
    Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
  14. Re:JUST WOW by Sir_Lewk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Give me a break, those are all piss-poor examples. Psychologists don't give advice on how to best be mentally ill, and the job of divorce lawyers is to offer legal services, something they are indeed very experienced in.

    Would you go to a relationship counsellor who was never in a relationship? Well, you might, but it is hardly surprising that those of us not already blinded might think twice about it.

    --
    "linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)