Is the Watchtower Society following in the footsteps of the Catholic Church?

by Esse quam videri 7 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Esse quam videri

  Many members of this forum speculate that the lawsuits faced by the Watchtower Society are leading to its demise or at least putting incredible pressure on its ability to function as it has in the past. The reports from WT and Awake articles regarding the Catholic Church give credence to these members arguments.

  Note: Comments by the Society often have them taking the moral 'high ground'. Examination of the Australian Royal Commission testimony and findings would leave any 'thinking person' shaking their head in disbelief. ['Thinking person' is a term the Society used to like using a lot]
  

  
  

  Watchtower - July 15 - 2001
  

  'terrible damage is done when religious authorities tolerate abusive priests who persistently molest boys and girls. “Treating the children as occasions of sin,” commented one reporter in Ireland, “the church authorities merely moved on the offending priest [to another location].”

  Is just transferring such a man an example of proper tolerance? Hardly! Suppose a medical body allowed an irresponsible surgeon to continue operating, transferring him from one hospital to another, even though he was killing or maiming his patients. A mistaken sense of professional loyalty might produce such “tolerance.” But what about the victims whose lives were lost or adversely affected because of negligent or even criminal practices?

  
  

  Awake 2004 Nov 22

  Studies on Sex Abuse by Priests

  “Two long-awaited studies have found that the [U.S.] Roman Catholic Church suffered an epidemic of child sexual abuse that involved at least 4 percent of priests over 52 years and peaked with the ordination class of 1970, in which one of every 10 priests was eventually accused of abuse,” reports The New York Times. “The human toll amounted to 10,667 children allegedly victimized by 4,392 priests from 1950 to 2002, but the studies caution that even these numbers represent an undercount,” as many cases have not been reported. One study, conducted at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, disclosed that “priests were accused of abuse in more than 95 percent of dioceses and about 60 percent of religious orders.” The other study, by a Catholic national review board, pointed to a culture in Catholic seminaries that “tolerated moral laxity.”

  
  

  Awake Dec8, 2005 Watching the World

  Catholic Dioceses Bankrupt

  '...By the end of 2004, three Catholic dioceses in the United States had filed for bankruptcy. All three were forced to take this step because of the financial costs of clergy sexual abuse scandals. A number of dioceses have talked about the possibility of having to file for bankruptcy, but the first to do so was the Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, in July 2004. That action halted two lawsuits in which plaintiffs were seeking a total of $155 million in compensation for molestation. According to the National Catholic Reporter, “the archdiocese and its insurers already have paid more than $53 million to settle more than 130 claims by people who say they were abused by priests.” In September 2004, the diocese of Tucson, Arizona, became the second diocese to seek bankruptcy protection from multimillion dollar claims being brought against it. The diocese of Spokane, Washington, became the third, in December 2004...'

  Awake Jan 8 - 2005 Watching the World
  

  Church Doors Closing

  The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, U.S.A., has announced that it will close 65 of its 357 parishes—almost one fifth of the total. Some 60 churches and 120 related buildings will be sold. According to The New York Times, this restructuring is “caused partly by declining attendance and increased financial problems that were worsened by the sexual abuse crisis among clergy members.” The newspaper quotes R. Scott Appleby, director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at Notre Dame University, as saying that “the scandal has put a drain on the financial resources of the archdiocese” to such an extent that it cannot “keep parishes afloat.”

  
  

  Awake March - 2011 Watching the World

  The “credibility gap” caused by the Catholic Church’s “mismanagement of the clergy sex abuse crisis” has resulted in its “largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in church history.”—NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER, U.S.A.

  
  
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  Vidiot

  Esse quam videri - "Is the Watchtower Society following in the footsteps of the Catholic Church?"

  From where I'm sitting, the RCC is shaping up to be one of the most liberal religions on the planet.

  If the WTS implemented the kinds of progressive reforms that are taking place in the RCC, they wouldn't survive.
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  jhine

  I don't think that there is any other faith group that publishes negative articles about different denominations like the WT . l presume it is all part of a clever plan to keep the focus of it's members away from it's own glaring inconsistencies , flip flops and failed predictions . Will they publish the findings from the ARC ? Jan
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  steve2

  All your quotations are at least from 4 years ago - before the proverbial sh*t hit the fan with lawsuits against the organization.

  I bet you will find no Watchtower publication from the past two to three years reporting on sexual abuse in the Catholic church. Too close for comfort.

  That is one definite change that has already occurred.
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  Esse quam videri

  steve2 4 minutes ago

  All your quotations are at least from 4 years ago - before the proverbial sh*t hit the fan with lawsuits against the organization.

  I am surprised that they printed such quotes as late as 2011. Very little has been printed in the last 10 years and of course we know that a 'fogging the members memory' campaign has been in full swing for many years. Hence the inability to access printed literature before 2000. Who would have thought that the internet would be used as a tool to reduce a groups knowledge of the past? Every detail of history should be recorded accurately and made available to everyone. Let the 'chips fall where they may'.The Watchtower Society has taken the opposite position. We see two forces working at odds with each other. The Watchtower trying to obscure history and others, of whom this forums' members constitute a part, trying to expose and reveal history. Really amazing to watch it unfold daily.
  
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  Esse quam videri

  jhine 16 minutes ago

  I don't think that there is any other faith group that publishes negative articles about different denominations like the WT

  Rutherford, of course, was the absolute zenith of ripping into other religious organizations. Fred Franz was a poor second, but it did continue for many decades after Rutherford.

  Continue, diminish and then, in 2016, disappear.
  
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  David_Jay

  What the Watchtower does not publish and what Jehovah's Witnesses apparently are being very selective about reading are all the reports of how the problems with sexual child abuse came to the fore in the Catholic Church, how the Church has been handling it since, and why this isn't causing the Catholic Church to fall. It's numbers are growing now.

  While we are all aware that if it were not for outside sources like brave news media reporters and law officials, much would not have changed, but what the Witnesses don't talk about are the Catholic parishioners, priests, nuns, bishops and others associated with the Church who have been pressing the issue and succeeding at changing things. There are people in that Church fighting as well.

  The stubborn members of Catholic clergy who sat on the problem are no different from the elders and Governing Body members who are in denial and who even persecute victims and their families. One can find very common earmarks in cases where there was an organizational attempt of "sweeping things under the rug." This may be because predators seem to have certain traits in common, including the way they hide things from the public. Evil is the same, regardless of what religion it joins.

  What is vastly different is how the two religions deal with things. Jehovah's Witnesses smother their members and threaten them with disfellowshipping if they don't remain quiet. Catholics, on the other hand, refused to remain quiet, saw the problem as something ruining their Church that they had to root out, and members themselves were the ones doing the threatening to clergy.

  There was a film (based on an award-winning play) entitled "Doubt" about a strict, no-nonsense nun who confronted a priest who was obviously a child predator. It is more than fiction. The story is more of a mirror. It has been very difficult for faithful Catholics to fight with clergy to set things right. It has taken decades, in fact, to get as far as they have come. Many, like the nun in the film played artfully by Meryl Streep) have had their strength, stamina, and very faith in God pushed to horrible limits in order to get justice. Like the protagonist in this story, there are many unsung heroes who have said: "Not in my Church you don't! Get the hell out!" But we often don't hear about these, especially not in Watchtower articles.

  Witnesses who want to be "good" often won't push the issue and will believe whatever the elders and Governing Body tells them, and they become persecutors of victims too by their silence and failure to do anything but demonize those who have truly suffered. Whereas the authorities in the Catholic Church should have done more, done it faster, and still have a long way to go, Catholic parishioners and faithful priests and other religious won't be silent. As they see things, this is their Church, there are more of them than there are unfaithful predatory priests in the midst, and they'll be damned if they let anyone get away with things. These Catholics fight for the victims, the victim's families, and their Church. They are not going to let their religion get ruined by faithless priests.

  The Church is also powerless to excommunicate them, unlike the JWs. Standing up for justice is not an offense in the Catholic Church. The Church has already admitted to a dark history where it learned its lesson due to persecuting its own members in the past for speaking up, like they did with St. Joan of Arc. They don't do that these days. They readily admit that they can be subject to unspeakable evil if left unchecked.

  The push from the inside and the response from outside the Church has moved it to make drastic changes. The election of Pope Francis is one example of how the Church is not merely run by the hierarchy. He was chosen partially to satisfy the demand for change in the Church from members. The problems Francis faces are with stale, old clergy who still want their Church to remain in the Dark Ages and exercise the type of power the Governing Body does over the Witnesses. But, as Francis has explained, those days are past. There are no metaphoric "moth balls" to preserve the old ways. Shape up or ship out. And, this new Pope has made it very clear, the Church will now go after its own in addition to alleged predators facing criminal charges from secular sources.

  I'm not advocating becoming a member of the Catholic Church or here claim that it is doing the best that can be expected. There is no excuse for what happened. There's a long way to go to set things right (can they ever?), and more needs to happen sooner, more quickly and efficiently.

  But what I am saying is that the Jehovah's Witnesses are not a brave lot. There are no St. Joan's of Arc who face the pale as she did, no "nuns" willing to undergo shipwreck of their faith into doubt to see justice done for other Witnesses, no one smart enough to say: "Wait a minute! There are more of us then there are them! They have to do what we. the membership say, not the other way around!" Most are too selfish to rock the Organizational boat because they want to survive the ever-imminent Armageddon. They can't do this if elders find them problematic or are considering disfellowshipping them for refusing to shut up, and for calling the news media and police on them. I am sure there are a few, but for the most part the membership proudly wear blinders. They are proverbial chickens compared to Catholics, and this is something the Watchtower never tells you in its columns that are oh-so-ready to judge the Roman Catholic Church.

  People in glass houses should not throw stones. But the Governing Body and those who follow them by blinding themselves to the problem are too stupid and unjust and cowardly to notice that they have shattered all their windows, walls, and ceiling. Real change can't come merely from without. There has to be some force from within as well.

  But heroes are a commodity the Jehovah's Witnesses don't produce. A religion without saints is a religion without bravery.
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  TTWSYF

  Fair question. The WTS does send people door to door with a catholic book [the bible].

  And they are promoting the name which was coined by a catholic monk an eon ago {Jehovah}

  And say that they are the true heirs of these things.

  I guess that's what must be done when your history spans 1/10 of the catholic church.

  just saying,,,cause it's true