Posts by Jeffro

88

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

Jeffro

The original article said she was a “cousin” of the pope, it didn’t say “first cousin”, to be accurate.

88

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

Back to the original question, the Catholic Church’s official position organisationally is one of respectful dialog even with denominations such as JWs which they view as doctrinally heretical. (However, members of the Catholic Church are not encouraged to engage with JWs to avoid doctrinal confusion.) So the Catholic view of JWs is considerably better than the view JWs have of the Catholic Church.

88

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

Jeffro

Note some other telling elements of the story.

Another interview was reported by Andrea Tornielli in Il Giornale of July 17, 2008.

Actually, very little of the article was ‘another interview’. Most of the quotes are copied from the Canberra Times article or practiced responses identical to that article. All of it repeats an unverified anecdote.

Steffie is a second cousin of Benedict XVI

The original article claimed she was a first cousin.

It is not easy to convince her to talk about her famous cousin … she almost seems to have regretted it. "Yes," she confirms, a little hesitant and surprised to have been contacted by Il Giornale. … It is not easy to get a few more details about that phone call. "What we talked about - is a private matter, it concerns me and him, it concerns two cousins who had not spoken for fifty years... “.

This smacks of someone who made up a story that has now spun out of control.

We ask her if a face-to-face meeting with Benedict XVI is planned in these days. "So far no, no one has called me, no one has invited me. I was supposed to come to Sydney, to meet him, but I can't move from Cooma, I'm not able to drive, I'm old."

So which is it? You weren’t invited or contacted, or you were supposed to go to Sydney to meet him but you can’t? It’s a contradictory panic response.

May I ask you what Benedict XVI was like as a child? "He was always where he shouldn't be... If I think about it today, it is a miracle that we are still alive," she adds

Her responses are lifted from the original story, or a rehearsed response, and remain as vague as the first time.

alluding to the liveliness of little Joseph, who one day, in Aschau am Inn, the town where the Ratzingers had moved in 1932 after leaving Tittmoning, one day fell into the pond where large carp were swimming. An episode that the pontiff himself recalls in his autobiography, published in 1997: "Once, while I was playing, I was there to drown."

These details are speculation added by Il Giornale rather than quoting Brzokovic, but could be known by anyone with access to his 1997 biography.

"At first I thought it was a joke. He told me he was 'Ratzinger-Pepi', using the nickname they called him as a child." Finally Steffie realizes that it is not a joke and that she is talking on the phone with him. "I said to him: 'Are you the Pope?' And he replied: 'Yes, but for you I am still Ratzinger-Pepi'".

More quotes lifted or rehearsed from the original story.

as the woman had already revealed to the Canberra Times three years ago

Direct confirmation from Il Giornale that the article is quoting material from the original Canberra Times piece.

"He told me: 'You are doing the work we should do'", referring to the missionary activity of Jehovah's Witnesses, who go from house to house to meet people. "He also told me: 'You have halls that are not so big, but they are full, we have cathedrals, churches and chapels, but they are often empty.'"

More comments lifted or rehearsed from the original article, and completely consistent with how a JW might embellish a story to give the appearance of interest.

PS… I see someone really doesn’t like rational analysis of unverified anecdotes. 😂 I hope I can cope with the ‘dislike’.

88

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

Jeffro

I am aware of the renewed interest in the Canberra Times' (Brzakovic's local regional newspaper) story that arose when Ratzinger visited Australia in 2008, which elicited some interest from a few regional European newspapers. The story still all hinges on the claimed conversation reported only by the lady, without any independent verification, and with the relationship changing from ‘first cousin’ to ‘second cousin’, an even more tenuous connection. The story was never verified by the Vatican or by Ratzinger.

(It is amusing, though, watching people 'finding' these other sources that I already found on my initial verification.)

88

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

Jeffro

People’s standards of evidence are truly abysmal, I’m sorry that some people can’t make the distinction between the existence of a story and whether the story is actually true (though it’s not surprising to find a higher proportion of such people on a forum related to religion). There’s no evidence that the lady’s story is actually true. There is no verified record of the phone call, no transcript of the conversation, no established relationship between the two people, it’s just a story a lady told. And even if she really was his cousin and that he phoned her (tracking her down to a small town on the other side of the planet after decades without contact), it only means Ratzinger thought about his cousin, not that he thought much about JWs..

As the initial GPT response correctly indicated, there is no indication that this anecdote was widely reported, and the story that was reported contains no verifiable details.

88

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

Jeffro

We can't be certain the photo in the newspaper was real

This is irrelevant misdirection. the fact that a lady exists is entirely mundane. It adds nothing to the veracity of her tenuous story about the pope ringing a ‘cousin’ he hadn’t seen in decades to talk to her about JWs. 🤨

whether the Catholic church thinks much about JWs

Even if we assume the lady’s story is true, without any verifiable evidence, it only establishes that Ratzinger thought about his ‘cousin’, not that he thought a lot specifically of JWs (shifting the goal posts) or that his alleged understanding of JWs (based only on the lady’s version of an alleged private conversation) meant anything about the Catholic Church’s position on JWs (a false equivalence). It also wouldn’t be without precedent for a JW to embellish a story to make someone sound more interested in their religion than was actually the case.

88

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

Jeffro

Oh no… someone… disliked my comments. How will I go on.

88

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

Jeffro

The lady might have made it up but if you think that's more likely than the pope having a JW cousin (an entirely everyday and somewhat mundane circumstance) I think you have poor judgment.

It’s entirely more likely that a lady made up a story for attention. The source of the story is entirely based on the claims of one lady with no verification. My judgement is just fine.

Again all of which is beside the point considering you/ChatGPT originally claimed there was no media report

No, it didn’t say there was ‘no media coverage’, it said there wasn’t widely available documentation or media coverage. You just can’t parse a clause properly.

Earlier you quoted "significant coverage" whereas what I wrote was "some media interest".

No, I didn’t. You may like to learn the difference between double and single quotes. Single quotes indicate a paraphrase rather than an exact quote, as distinct from the double quotes you used when you lied about me saying “extensive coverage”.

The actual statement was “There is no widely available documentation or media coverage to verify this story.” The original story contains only unverified claims from the lady. No verification has been provided whatsoever.

88

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

Jeffro

As for being widely available I found it on multiple sites in seconds, as.did you apparently, the second time of looking.

Congratulations, you can use Google too. The quality of the sites you ‘found it on’ speaks volumes about the supposed veracity of the tale that some lady made up. None are reliable sources and the puff piece in the paper is just some lady’s story. The paper makes no claim of verifying any part of the story. The story isn’t available from the newspaper’s website.

88

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

Jeffro

You really are tedious.

There is no widely available documentation or media coverage to verify this story.