Pope Benedict says that other Christian denominations are not true churches

The moment someone brings up the "The Pope was a Nazi" thing, that's a flag that clearly says that this person either doesn't know what they are talking about, or are deliberately choosing to distort facts to make their point.

It wipes them out of a fair discussion.

That fact that Benedict grew up in those dark times, and came out the other end as a priest doing good deeds is a point in his favour.

The pope is just staying true to the doctrine that appointed him and that he must adhere to as the leader of his orginization. I beleive that they are christian social groups anyways. The concept of a group being a church is to strict of a notion for institutions of worship that have little to no guide lines on the interpretation of thair sacred texts...i.e the bible.
In reality social orginizations with moral rules of conduct and sanctioned unacceptable forms of conduct are products of society. In contrast churches are better associated with "open" places of worship regardless of social standing. They may have rules as well but those rules are usually more for the filtering of those willing to follow doctrine and those who are not. This is an issue of stability and infostructure more than an issue of validity. If the pope gave any form of validity to these groups the already fractured catholic church would have ...yet again ...a divide within itself. Dealing the final blow as the american catholic church splits from the vatican and joins the protistants, whose mass -the core of their fath- is already identical to the catholic novus ordu mass. but thats another issue all together..

Churches definitely are as much about social grouping as religious faith.
I know a fair number of staunch Catholics who aren't the slightest bit religious.

They go to church, are part of all the social stuff that surrounds it, but don't really show alot of interest in the god stuff. And that's okay. The church is part of the structure of their lives. It enriches them, but just not in a purely spiritual way.

People who call for the End of Religion don't seem to grasp that particular positive value that a church provides.

I also can see that a fair chunk of Catholics don't blindly follow the strict laws of the church. They are Catholics, but they use contraception, the accept abortion in some cases, they eat meat of Fridays, they miss the odd Sunday Mass if it's too awkward to get there. They are Catholics, but still make up their own rules. Part of the Catholic Society.


[edit on 3-8-2007 by emjoi]

Pope bennedict has the charge of liberating the catholic church from its freemason ties. Almost all of its infostructure has been compromised by many of its clergy joining free masonry as well as other social groups as a result of newly accepted changes in the church after vatican 2. while most social groups would benefit the church this, one freemasonry, in particular has a bad history with the catholics. It is beleived that many clergy men were the victims of a wave of recruting that in the mid 50's took its toll on the catholics by the underming of its sacred institution of holy mass. The reason for this is that many changes made were done so without the approval from the vatican, in particular by the american catholics. The creation of the missal, dividing the psalms and hyms into to separate parts. This as well as the omission of entire sections of prayers, untoched for hundreds of years, has had a detramental effect on the church. Inconsistancies as well as satanic influences from its own ministers have made fruitful the plan devised in the late 1800's by the masons calling for just that. The spread off christian denominations in america is evedence of the american catholics working against themselves purposely to this exact effect. Those that would be catholics because of a predisposition of their families to catholisism are spoon fed truths made true by the active efforts of its ministers playing the part of the inconsistant week church. This has made a decentralized church whose leaders dont speak out against its "enemies" and whose main figure head, until recently, lived in fear of his own advisers. Ask your self why europe hasnt had the need to make countless christian "social groups" like the US has.

Thats just it....with such a loose life style beeing accepted here by the priests who swear oaths to not let that sort of thing happen, the church here will not need to be unified to the roman cathiolic church that DOES NOT ALLOW THOSE THINGS. In due time the church will be stifled out. without traditions and rules there is chaos, while that may be ok for certain things as part of the unavoidable, for an institution like the church, it is suicide. Then all of its good goes with it...leaving room anything...even what would previously be considered evil....just so long as it fills the void...and thats the plan.