Time to play the Mormon card?

[afleitch]

The LDS Church will become more politically moderate, just give it time.

I think LDS members will become more moderate. I have no doubt about that. But large and centralised religious institutions (and you can see this with the CofE and the RC) rarely moderate their views too much and certainly not if they are church building in parts of the world that seem to quite like the 'fire and brimstone' approach to things.

[afleitch]

quote author=angus link=topic=161026.msg3457058#msg3457058 date=1349789077]

I know all this was a little off topic, but it struck me how demonstrably false the quoted statement was.  You're a smart guy, and you know we couldn't let such a glaring inaccuracy go unnoticed.  


[/quote]

You've sort of agreed with rather than countered the point that I was trying to make Firstly differing forms of mass (and I've attended many) and languages used in mass does not necessarily qualify as moderation or temperance of Catholic faith or teaching. It's still mass. It's culturally specific, particularly in emerging Catholic groups in Africa and South America (and China and Japan for that matter) to maximise adherance and faith. Reflecting and later enveloping local tribal customs over birth, death and everything in between has always been the Church's practice since it's own founding which is why Catholicism is still essentially 'Roman'.

You are correct in pointing out that the Church has taken a hardline stance on gays partly driven by Mr Ratzinger's office in his 'Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons' communique of 1986 and a stark divergance from the Church's indifferent to neutral position that it previously held on the matter. But that is not 'moderation' of a position. If anything that's actively taking a position to set itself apart from western social changes. Indeed at the time it was a rather 'wooly' stance as it appealed to psychology and the understanding of same sex attraction as a 'disorder' less than a decade after such ideas began to get shelved in the profession. As a result the Church is boxed in by it's own inertia. While it's position hasn't changed since the statement the 'evidence' it appealed to has as the focus has moved towards genetic markers and pre-natal brain development as potential indicators. It has led many in the Church to chase after faux scientific 'evidence' that was the invention of the evangelical right to aid their position. Which is a shame as the Church has gernally made it's peace with scientific theory.