Separation of Church and State...too much, too little, or just right? (1 Viewer)

[Ferox]

Longest serving. The Labor part broke up, and so hasn't been in government as long.

 

[Name_Taken]

Ah ok, sorry my bad, I thought you meant longest as in when they were founded.

 

[Ferox]

Yeah, I can see how my wording was ambiguous. Sorry about that.

 

[HumanDichotomy]

Fuck Tony Abbott.

 

[Scorch]

Anyway, I think it would be funny if the government stopped funding religious, specifically Catholic, organizations. If you think the state government's going a crummy job now, imaging if there were NO Catholic schools, NO Catholic hospitals, and NO Catholic social services. The state government would be unable to handle the increased demand for public schools, hospitals and social services, and would fall apart in an instant.

... they would ... probably use that money to fund secular, public services that would function just as well minus the indoctrination, manipulation of the truth and tax immunity ...

 

[Ferox]

Not really. The government doesn't fully fund Catholic organisations; they're mostly funded, I believe, by parishioners. So if the organisations disappeared, the government couldn't even hope to replace them with the money they put in now.

I'll put it simply because you've shown time and time again that you're a little slow: Catholics benefit you with their services--even if you're anti-religious enough to describe Catholic hospitals as places of 'indoctrination'.

 

[Scorch]

Not really. The government doesn't fully fund Catholic organisations; they're mostly funded, I believe, by parishioners. So if the organisations disappeared, the government couldn't even hope to replace them with the money they put in now.

Catholic schools receive considerable amounts of public funding that would be put to just as good use being pumped into regular schools.

I'll put it simply because you've shown time and time again that you're a little slow: Catholics benefit you with their services--even if you're anti-religious enough to describe Catholic hospitals as places of 'indoctrination'.

Name one major public hospital in Sydney (assuming you're from Sydney) that is funded to a major extent or almost exclusively by the Catholic Church. There aren't any.

That being said, Hamas and Hezbollah and even the Taliban fund public services in their respective nations, and it doesn't at all excuse their crimes. The fact that the Catholic Church funds schools or whatever doesn't at all vindicate themselves from the fact that they have, for at least the past 60 years and into the present day, sheltered sex offenders, officially covered up such things and interfered directly with police investigations to attempt to punish such sick crimes against children or the fact that they were involved directly in spreading anti-semitic hatred prior to WW2 and the Holocaust in Europe and other such heinous crimes.

 

[Tangent]

Most Australians are religious.

Australians vote in a disproportionate percentage of religious politicians than the corresponding percentage of religious people in the population (which is still like 65%).

One could say its merely democracy at work. Just because Australia is secular, that doesn't mean that religion has no place in public policy, especially when the majority of the population subscribe to various religious views.

Sorry, this is going back a few pages now. Just like to point out that most Australians haven't read the bible either.

 

[Phoenix Fury]

Basically, launch the Church into space, when its distance from Earth is beyond the distance of the Andromeda galaxy, we will have reached the perfect level of separation.

 

[Graney]

Not really. The government doesn't fully fund Catholic organisations; they're mostly funded, I believe, by parishioners. So if the organisations disappeared, the government couldn't even hope to replace them with the money they put in now.

I'll put it simply because you've shown time and time again that you're a little slow: Catholics benefit you with their services--even if you're anti-religious enough to describe Catholic hospitals as places of 'indoctrination'.

The balance of catholic school funding is: user pays + government support

The balance of catholic hospital funding is: insurance + user pays + government support.

Parishioners don't contribute two beans. Being irreligious wouldn't affect their balance sheets in the slightest, as private, secular institutions they could operate under exactly the same terms.

 

[Ferox]

Honestly , I don't know how hospitals are funded, and I'm willing to withdraw my remark about that, but you're wrong on the schools part. The diocese definitely helps fund its schools, and it's funded by parishioners. Parishioners contribute several beans.

I agree of course that this hasn't got much to do with religion; any private school subsidises public schools. It was merely an observation that absolute separation (no funding any religious organisation) isn't always beneficial (and that still stands for things like hospitals). If religious organisations are fulfilling a a public service, funding it is beneficial.

EDIT: Ever heard of Godwin's law? No one's going to take you seriously, Scorch, when you start associating the Church with the holocaust. It gives the impression your argument is based on emotion, not reason. And I'm sure you want to demonstrate to the world just how rational your hatred is.

 

[Scorch]

The diocese definitely helps fund its schools, and it's funded by parishioners. Parishioners contribute several beans.

Great. These schools do exactly the same job that public schools do. The state would be in no way fucked because of it.

EDIT: Ever heard of Godwin's law? No one's going to take you seriously, Scorch, when you start associating the Church with the holocaust. It gives the impression your argument is based on emotion, not reason. And I'm sure you want to demonstrate to the world just how rational your hatred is.

What are you talking about? I referenced nothing that wasn't historical fact.

The Catholic Church played a large role in the dissemination of anti-semitic propaganda during the Middle Ages up until WW2. In response to please of help from Jews, an Arch-Bishop of the Catholic Church, Karol Kmetko, responded in March 1942 (in the middle of the Holocaust):

"You shall not merely be deported. You shall be killed, and this will be your punishment for your killing of our saviour."​

In a meeting with officials of the Catholic Church in 1933, Hitler declared:

“I have been attacked because of my handling of the Jewish question. The Catholic Church considered the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years, put them in ghettos, etc., because it recognized the Jews for what they were. In the epoch of liberalism the danger was no longer recognized. I am moving back toward the time in which a fifteen-hundred-year-long tradition was implemented. I do not set race over religion, but I recognize the representatives of this race as pestilent for the state and for the Church, and perhaps I am thereby doing Christianity a great service by pushing them out of schools and public functions.”​

... and not a single member of the Catholic Church disagreed. Not only that but Hitler did not make a single historical statement there that wasn't accurate.

So what I am doing is associating the Catholic Church with the spirit of anti-semitism that was present entirely throughout Europe for the better part of the one thousand years prior to WW2, with anti-semitic discourse that inspired the likes of Hitler, with PR meetings with Hitler where he spread his anti-semitic garbage and was not met with disagreement by the Catholic Church and with directly brutal and disgusting responses to the rampant slaughter of Jews throughout Europe by high-ranking archbishops of the Catholic Church.

Godwin's law doesn't even apply here.

 

[Ferox]

Great. These schools do exactly the same job that public schools do. The state would be in no way fucked because of it.

Yes, but like private schools they do it at a cheaper cost for the government because they aren't fully government funded. The state would be fucked if they vanished tomorrow, because the Church is the second largest educator in this country. It's a small example how funding a religious organisations can be beneficial, nothing earth-shattering.

There's no denying the Church was historically anti-Semitic. However, it never condoned nor advanced the holocaust. I'm sure you'd agree there's a subtle difference between bigotry against a religion (which I'm sure you know all about) and genocide. You've associated the Church with the actions of the Nazis and furthermore given the Church some credit for their actions. Godwin's law applies.

Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That's an independent, secular article on the head of the Church during WWII

"The relationship between Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust has long been controversial, with some scholars arguing that he kept silent during the Holocaust, while others have argued that he saved thousands if not tens or hundreds of thousands of Jews."

It ranges from silent to saving Jews. Quoting one bishop is not proof that the Church advanced the Holocaust. That's such utter nonsense I have to wonder if you possess any rational thought at all, because so far you seem motivated purely by an obsessive ideological hatred of all things religious.

 

[SeCKSiiMiNh]

Basically, launch the Church into space, when its distance from Earth is beyond the distance of the Andromeda galaxy, we will have reached the perfect level of separation.

this^

 

[Scorch]

Let me direct you once again to what I am associating the Catholic Church with:

So what I am doing is associating the Catholic Church with the spirit of anti-semitism that was present entirely throughout Europe for the better part of the one thousand years prior to WW2, with anti-semitic discourse that inspired the likes of Hitler, with PR meetings with Hitler where he spread his anti-semitic garbage and was not met with disagreement by the Catholic Church and with directly brutal and disgusting responses to the rampant slaughter of Jews throughout Europe by high-ranking archbishops of the Catholic Church.

• the spirit of anti-semitism that was present entirely throughout Europe for the better part of the one thousand years prior to WW2 | Check, this one is self-evident and we both agree. Robert Runcie, former Archbishop of Canterbury, made the point that:
  
  "Without centuries of Christian antisemitism, Hitler's passionate hatred would never have been so fervently echoed...because for centuries Christians have held Jews collectively responsible for the death of Jesus. On Good Friday Jews, have in times past, cowered behind locked doors with fear of a Christian mob seeking 'revenge' for deicide. Without the poisoning of Christian minds through the centuries, the Holocaust is unthinkable."​
• PR meetings with Hitler where he spread his anti-semitic garbage and was not met with disagreement by the Catholic Church | There are numerous documented incidents of Hitler making pacts and public relations campaigns with high ranking members of the Catholic Church all over Europe before WW2 and on almost all occasions he spouted the same kind of hatred and bigotry that would become the basis for the ideology of the Holocausts. Indeed the Catholic Church even signed a political Reichskonkordat with Hitler after he had stated just months earlier:
  
  “I have been attacked because of my handling of the Jewish question. The Catholic Church considered the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years, put them in ghettos, etc., because it recognized the Jews for what they were. In the epoch of liberalism the danger was no longer recognized. I am moving back toward the time in which a fifteen-hundred-year-long tradition was implemented. I do not set race over religion, but I recognize the representatives of this race as pestilent for the state and for the Church, and perhaps I am thereby doing Christianity a great service by pushing them out of schools and public functions.”​
  This Reichskonkordat gave the Nazi government the political and moral support of the Catholic Church in return for the Nazi government's introduction of compulsory Catholic teachings in schools in Germany and other such political gifts. Guenter Lewy, in his The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany says:
  
  There is general agreement that the Concordat increased substantially the prestige of Hitler's regime around the world. As Cardinal Faulhaber put it in a sermon delivered in 1937: "At a time when the heads of the major nations in the world faced the new Germany with cool reserve and considerable suspicion, the Catholic Church, the greatest moral power on earth, through the Concordat expressed its confidence in the new German government. This was a deed of immeasurable significance for the reputation of the new government abroad.​
• directly brutal and disgusting responses to the rampant slaughter of Jews throughout Europe by high-ranking archbishops of the Catholic Church. | I don't at any point believe that I said that the Church was directly involved in perpetrating the Holocaust. However I find the approach of the Catholic Church to be both brutal and disgusting. Whilst 6 million people were being slaughtered for being Jewish, the Catholic Church pretended it wasn't happening. In fact the Vatican was entirely aware of the slaughter of the Jews when they attempted to negotiate with the German ambassador from 1942-44. They were unconcerned with attempts to render justice to those responsible and even after the Holocaust continued further a dialogue of anti-semitism. As Dr. Michael Phayer says:
  
  Questions about Pius XII's moral leadership arose shortly after his death in 1958. These concerns [began]... with statements by German bishops at the time of the sensational Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem and on the eve of the Second Vatican Council in 1960. Julius Doepfner, cardinal of Munich, spoke of regrettable decisions that had been made by church leaders during the Nazi era and German bishops collectively apologized for the 'inhimane extermi- nation of the Jewish people.'
  
  What is troubling about Pius's preocuipation with diplomacy is that Jews would continue to be murdered as peace negotiations were underway. [Note: the author refers to peace negotiations undertaken by the German ambassador to the Vatican between 1942 and 1944 - HWM]. Pius knew this, of course. A high-ranking official in the Papal Secretariat of State, Monsignor Domenica Tardini, told the German ambassador that the United States would probably object to Weizsaecker's (latest) proposal for negotiations because of the 'Jewish matter.'
  
  The difficulty with Pius's inadvertence to the Holocaust lies in the fact that Catholics in high and low stations kept reminding him of it. The most persistent of these was Konrad Preysing, Bishop of Berlin, who wrote to Pius thirteen times in fifteen months during the most active period of the Holocaust. When Pius finally responded to his friend from the Weimar era, it was not the fate of the Jews but the fate of Christendom and of the Church that preoccupied him.
  
  While the Vatican showed keen interest in getting the perpetrators of the Holocaust freed, and, as we have seen, had to be restrained by its trusted envoy Bishop Muench, it showed little or no interest in the question of restitution for survivors of the Holocaust.
  
  As did most Italians, Pope Pius sought to save native Italian Jews during the Holocaust, but he did not allow the Jewish tragedy to upset his world vision which remained fixed on his church and the Marxist danger.
  
  If the Holocaust was not sufficient cause for Pius to break with Germany during the war, it is not surprising that antisemitism, restitution, and strict justice for war criminals would not be his priorities during the Cold War.​
  
  I find this response by an extremely important political body (which it was during these times) and apparently flawless moral guide to be disgusting and brutal in its self-serving and cold manner.

 

[Graney]

Honestly , I don't know how hospitals are funded, and I'm willing to withdraw my remark about that, but you're wrong on the schools part. The diocese definitely helps fund its schools, and it's funded by parishioners. Parishioners contribute several beans.

I would be very surprised if those schools couldn't be viable as private institutions, whatever parishioners contribute couldn't be replaced by other fund raising.

That said, I actually don't care about religious ownership of any government institution. It is fine, even good for religious organisations to own and operate major infrastructure. The only caveat is that they should have to compete on a free market with all other potential providers, and prove that they can offer the best value for money and services. Which religious schools do, so that's fine.

Stuff like catholic hospitals refusing to perform services such as abortion, is fair grounds for removing their funding, when they are providing an inferior service for the money they are receiving, than another private provider could offer.

 

[Scorch]

I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea of religious schools, as long as standards on education are met and enforced in terms of curriculum. However the idea that the state's health or education system would fall apart without the Church is laughable.

 

[Scorch]

No response Ferox?

 

[pman]

Everyone seems to think we are becoming secular, I don't disagree with secularism in a country, religion has no plac in politics, the worry is, we are becomming more muslim, not more secular