Hey smooth.
I owe you a PM. Just got back from a lengthy business trip...
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Originally Posted by smooth
I agree with what you're saying here.
Mr. Mephisto:
It doesn't seem right to me that you claimed to want to only discuss this as an example of a trend, rather than the details. So a few people in here are saying that a priest ought to be able to remove a disruption from the service--regardless of whether the disruption comes from a person with disabilities or not.
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No, a few people said that disabled people should not be treated any differently, or complained about political correctness.
I'll say it again, people are missing the point. And that is, disabled people
SHOULD be treated differently. They
should be shown understanding, compassion, welcomed into the community, shown they have value (both personal and to society).
That's why I have reacted to what I see as a petty and incompassionate response to this story. Good grief, the people invovled directly can see the point. The only ones defending this priest's actions are a few on this board! Not his parishoners, not his colleagues and not his direct superior.
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Yet, then you uses the actual incident to label those few people as wholly intolerant because they don't disagree with the actions of this particular priest (or at least, didn't say so at first).
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I'm not labeling anyone anything. I said that acting compassionately towards the disabled is not political correctness, but it is human decency. And this is something that some people here are lacking; or so their responses would imply.
I have
absolutely no problem with a priest asking for a deliberately disruptive person to leave a church. Of course they should be allowed to do this.
But for a priest to remove someone mentally handicapped, who is self-evidently being integrated into society, who is being brought to church to pray, who is in a place of Christian worship, for praying too loudly?
That's just fucking wrong.
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So you seem to have conflicting goals: either we talk about these types of incidents or we talk about this particular indicent--but not use one's opinion of a particular incident to chastise them over an entire group of incidents, in general.
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My original intent, repeated a couple of times, was to talk about the trend. However, the thread has evolved into a back-lash against perceived PC sensibilities when the incident is no such thing. I have simply responded to what I believe are incompassionate (dare I say unChristian) comments.
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For myself, I too think priests are acting appropriately if they feel the need to remove a disturbance from the pews to protect their congregation.
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But obviously this priest acted inappropriately. I never said they shouldn't allowed to remove someone, but not in this manner and most importantly, not in this circumstance.
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I don't see christianity as inclusively as some others do. I think a church protects its congregation--nothing more. If those people were part of the congregation, then I would agree that the priest doesn't have any rationale for removing someone. If some bums wander in off the street and hover around for communion wine and start making a commotion while being "guests", I think the priest has to make a similar decision between the needs/safety of his congregation and those of visitors to the church.
The statements above could have widely divergent meaning. While some members of the congregation were livid, we don't know which incident they were livid about. That is, were they livid at the disturbance or were they livid at the removal.
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You're being flippant. Of course they were livid about the removal. Reread the story and the context in which the
unreserved apology was given.
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We don't know, and possibly even the person who supplied that information to the newspaper doesn't know. But it really doesn't matter to me, either.
I'm capable of reserving outrage toward an incident I wasn't a party to. If I happen to be in a situation where someone is disrespected, I will make my views known if I feel the desire to do so. But I don't feel I need to voice disapproval of a particular incident that doesn't involve me and that I don't know the details of, and has already occurred regardless in order to feel like a decent human being on an anonymous internet forum.
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We are all
capable of reserving our opinions and emotions. But that doesn't mean you don't express them when, and if, you feel it's appropriate. I have seen you comment negatively about other topics.
Mr Mephisto