Well, it's better than the FBI.

(I hope they aren't reading that.)

:)

Dave, as far as I can tell, the Catholic Church is made up of some heroes, some politicians, some time-servers, and some knaves.

In that respect it is no better - and no worse - than the Rotary Club, the FBI, the B'nai B'rith, or the Republican Party.

Thanks for your comments. No offense taken.

If that is the judgment of your conscience (and I don't mean to imply any doubt about that), then I respect that and I think God does, too.

I think it is right for you to demand that God reveal himself in a way sufficient for you to accept his revelation.

I would expect a real god who really wants us to be saved, or whatever project Catholics believe, to talk to me. To answer when I honestly ask, are you there? Is there a god? To show himself not through small coincidences and vague buzzing feelings. Show me the kind of respect he showed Paul and Thomas. If nothing like this happens I will place him in the same category as all other supernatural claims.

Don't get me wrong the movement begun by Jesus is an awesome feat for a human, it is just a poor showing for a god and laughably poor for an omnipotent god. 900 years after he made the pitch, it hadn't even made it to all of Europe. 1400 plus years after he broadcast it, no one in the Americas, most of sub-Saharan Africa, Australia. For goodness sake the Jews still haven't accepted that their Messiah happened and he was one of them!

Rob, re: fourth option, "a man who did not make all of the statements that have been attributed to him." It sounds like you're suggesting that the Liar-Lunatic-Lord argument is based on no more than, say, a couple quotes from Jesus. And that it falls apart if those few quotes are erroneous or fabrications. But I don't think that argument holds up to scrutiny. The parts of the Gospels relevant to the the L-L-L argument -- wherein Jesus clearly attributes to himself the authority of God -- were made *repeatedly and clearly* in many different instances, and varied ways. In other words, your 4th option would require that all four Gospels -- practically in their entirety -- are mistaken and/or fabrications. That's a much higher standard than, "maybe he didn't make all of the statements attributed to him." And it's a standard that, I think, nearly all serious biblical scholars reject - believers and non-believers alike. I suspect that's why C.S. Lewis left out your fourth option.

BGA, you raise some interesting questions. Re: "The point is that he hasn't gotten his message across to most of humanity." But let's look at it from a different angle. Can you name a religious figure, or philosopher, or thinker who has been *more* successful at getting their message to humanity? I'm perplexed that history's most successful case of evangelizing is the one that you think isn't successful enough.

Danny, I see you desperately want your gotcha moment with the Catholic Church.

Of course it doesn't exonerate the Batista regime.

You've already invalidated your own position unless you think Bishop Von Galen wasn't motivated by his discipleship. Or maybe you think he's the only example? Read up on Fr. Popieluszko. Or just go spend a day with a priest. With luck, you'll see what many of us already know: priests can be real fighters.

From your posts I see you have made yourself immune to evidence. If a priest acted heroically, well, then he wasn't backed by Rome. If the Church rose up against a tyrant, well, that's just because it was self-defense. I certainly wish you well, but you appear close-minded.

Marriage is (or even *becomes*) a Sacrament because of valid marital
consent exchanged and lived by two baptized persons. . . . I hope this helps illustrate why
there really has been no major shift in the understanding of the nature
of marriage from the "early Church onward."

If you check out Doors to the Sacred: A Historical Introduction to Sacraments in the Catholic Church by John Martos (pp. 430ff), you will see that it was not until the 12th century that the theory you are describing was worked out. There is too much to type, but I will give a taste of what it says:

It seemed to the schoolmen, therefore, that the Christian marriage ritual should be open to the same kind of analysis that they gave to the other sacraments, namely that in marriage there was a sacramentum, a sacred sign, a sacramentum et res, a sacramental reality, and a res, a real grace that was conferred in the rite. It took most of the twelfth century for the scholastics to satisfactorily fit marriage into this scheme, but by the time they did it the Catholic concept of sacramental marriage had become the theological basis for the canonical prohibition against divorce.

But what was the sacramentum, the sacramental sign in marriage? At the beginning it seemed to many of the schoolmen that it should be the priest's blessing since in the wedding ritual it corresponded to the part that was played by the priest in other sacramental rites. Later, others suggested that it should be the physical act of intercourse between the spouses since this physical union could be taken as a sign of the spiritual union between the incarnate Christ and his spouse, the church. Still others felt it should be the spiritual unity of the married couple since this union of wills was closer to the actual way that Christ and the church were united to each other. However, each of these suggestions was met with difficulties and had to be abandoned . . . .

Not only did it take until the 12th century for this theory of sacramental marriage to be worked out, but as is alluded to in the excerpt above, there had been no universal prohibition against divorce and remarriage in the Catholic Church. How divorce and remarriage was handled varied from place to place. Here's a bit on the matter of divorce:

For a while, divorce regulations in norther Europe became more stringent under the impetus of ecclesiastical reform. As early as 829 a council of bishops at Paris decreed that divorced persons of both sexes could not remarry even if the divorce had been granted for adultery. By the end of the century a number of other councils in France and Germany passed similar prohibitions, and the penetential books were revised accordingly. But at the same time in Italy, popes and local councils continued to allow divorce and remarriage in certain circumstances, especially adultery and entering the religious life. Then in the next two centuries the trend in northern Europe reversed itself, and councils at Bourges, Worms, and Tours again allowed remarriages in cases of adultery and desertion.

I'd be surprised if they didn't interfere with the third right: trying to transform society according to the image of Christ.

This is why commonly the Church is accused of being reactionary in leftist countries and liberal in rightist ones.