Hey all, just a reminder as we discuss this difficult subject, of The Pillar’s comment policy: Christian charity.
It is our believe that Pillar readers - Christians of exceptional judgment and discernment - can demonstrate how to discuss serious and contentious issues while excelling in charity toward their interlocutors, and the issues they discuss.
Hey all, just a reminder as we discuss this difficult subject, of The Pillar’s comment policy: Christian charity.
It is our believe that Pillar readers - Christians of exceptional judgment and discernment - can demonstrate how to discuss serious and contentious issues while excelling in charity toward their interlocutors, and the issues they discuss.
The uneven discipline during this pontificate is something that hurts me deeply. I am going to spend some time with my family and pray instead of comment further.
JD the Pope is spiritually abusive toward American conservative Catholics, he constantly castigates us and makes no secret of his contempt for us. Yes let us be as charitable as we can, but the only appropriate reaction to an abuser is to resist and to name the abuse for what it is
Castigates and speaks with contempt (your examples of abusive behavior) sound more like "verbally abusive" to me. I am not sure how I would leap from those directly to "spiritually abusive" (since I guess I have mostly seen that phrase in connection with a rotten spiritual director, or within a religious community, etc.)
In the case of verbal abuse, yes, it could be useful to remind the victims "this was not an appropriate thing for that person to say; it was a verbally abusive thing, which you did not deserve" (or, depending on the thing that was said, "which no one ever deserves", e.g. if he called conservative Catholics "fat and ugly" there is no circumstance in which that would be appropriate.) It could also be useful to remind the victims of their options: they can go no-contact, which (since the relationship with the Pope is strictly one-way and no one ever has to worry about "what if we are both invited to the same party" in this life... there will eventually be an important wedding to which we are all invited, of course) would simply mean not reading any news coverage about what he has said; or they can go low-contact which means (in a one-way relationship with a celebrity) being very selective about what news coverage to consume and confining it to very special occasions. Or they can continue to have a one-way abusive relationship with a celebrity who never encounters them in person, by obsessively reading news about the celebrity even though they know they won't like reading it (like secretly following an ex-boyfriend on social media in order to feel bad, letting him live rent-free in one's head), which is a strange choice but a common one in this modern era. It is a lot easier to stop reading news about the Pope than to deal with co-parenting with a face-to-face chronic verbal abuser.
Hey all, just a reminder as we discuss this difficult subject, of The Pillar’s comment policy: Christian charity.
It is our believe that Pillar readers - Christians of exceptional judgment and discernment - can demonstrate how to discuss serious and contentious issues while excelling in charity toward their interlocutors, and the issues they discuss.
Let’s do it.
Belief.
Thank you JD.
The uneven discipline during this pontificate is something that hurts me deeply. I am going to spend some time with my family and pray instead of comment further.
JD the Pope is spiritually abusive toward American conservative Catholics, he constantly castigates us and makes no secret of his contempt for us. Yes let us be as charitable as we can, but the only appropriate reaction to an abuser is to resist and to name the abuse for what it is
Why do you say that? And please define "conservative Catholic" so we are all clear what you mean. Thanks.
Castigates and speaks with contempt (your examples of abusive behavior) sound more like "verbally abusive" to me. I am not sure how I would leap from those directly to "spiritually abusive" (since I guess I have mostly seen that phrase in connection with a rotten spiritual director, or within a religious community, etc.)
In the case of verbal abuse, yes, it could be useful to remind the victims "this was not an appropriate thing for that person to say; it was a verbally abusive thing, which you did not deserve" (or, depending on the thing that was said, "which no one ever deserves", e.g. if he called conservative Catholics "fat and ugly" there is no circumstance in which that would be appropriate.) It could also be useful to remind the victims of their options: they can go no-contact, which (since the relationship with the Pope is strictly one-way and no one ever has to worry about "what if we are both invited to the same party" in this life... there will eventually be an important wedding to which we are all invited, of course) would simply mean not reading any news coverage about what he has said; or they can go low-contact which means (in a one-way relationship with a celebrity) being very selective about what news coverage to consume and confining it to very special occasions. Or they can continue to have a one-way abusive relationship with a celebrity who never encounters them in person, by obsessively reading news about the celebrity even though they know they won't like reading it (like secretly following an ex-boyfriend on social media in order to feel bad, letting him live rent-free in one's head), which is a strange choice but a common one in this modern era. It is a lot easier to stop reading news about the Pope than to deal with co-parenting with a face-to-face chronic verbal abuser.