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606 points saikatsg | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.643s | source
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nathell ◴[] No.43928925[source]
From [0]:

> Rev. Robert Prevost bears responsibility for allowing former Providence Catholic H.S. President and priest Richard McGrath to stay at the high school amidst sex abuse allegations that dated back to the 1990s.

> That's according to Eduardo Lopez de Casas, a clergy abuse survivor and national vice president of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

[0]: https://willcountygazette.com/stories/671124585-if-he-saw-an...

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matthewmacleod ◴[] No.43928967[source]
Yes, but find a catholic priest who doesn’t share that responsibility.
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Boogie_Man ◴[] No.43929023[source]
There are several important American bishops who have made serious strides to protect children. This is an ignorant statement.
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Henchman21[dead post] ◴[] No.43930254[source]
[flagged]
hajile ◴[] No.43930460[source]
The Bible agrees with your musing as it says bishops are to be be married with kids. Peter (who the Catholics claim as the first Pope) was married as the Bible says Jesus healed his mother-in-law.

1 Timothy 3:1-7

[1] This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.

[2] A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;

[3] Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;

[4] One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;

[5] (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)

[6] Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.

[7] Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

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pclmulqdq ◴[] No.43930826[source]
I would suggest you read the original Greek if you want to hang your textual arguments on specific words, and then also realize that the Latin translation which is canonical for Catholics is also a translation. A lot is lost in both directions.
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hajile ◴[] No.43931560[source]
That’s an appeal to ignorance. You can look up the Greek yourself (I’ll link a basic translation below). There’s just not much room to mistranslate “one wife”, or “husband”.

The official Catholic translation agrees with KJV as does Thomas Aquinas in his commentary. In fact, I don’t know that there’s ANY disagreement about this translation anywhere.

The clear issue is that the Catholic Church believes (and states) that their ecclesiastical authority supersedes even the Bible on not only this minor topic, but more important ones too.

https://biblehub.com/text/1_timothy/3-2.htm

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pclmulqdq ◴[] No.43931800[source]
"Episkopos" literally translates to "overseer" ("epi" = "on/over"; "skopo" = "watch/behold/contemplate"). "Guardian" is also in LSJ, as is the translation you give of "bishop." It's likely this is the unambiguous word for "bishop" in this text, which is pretty funny.
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hajile ◴[] No.43931951[source]
https://www.etymonline.com/word/bishop

> Late Latin episcopus in Spanish became obispo, in Italian vescovo, in Welsh esgob. The Germanic forms include Old Saxon biscop, Old High German biscof.

Episkopos literally changed over time into the English transliteration of Bishop.

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dragonwriter ◴[] No.43932025[source]
You are misusing transliteration and, more importantly, making the error of assuming that because something is the etymological root of a term that it can have had no other meaning when it was written than that term for which it is the root.

Yes. Episkopos is where we get “bishop" and presbuteros is where we get “priest”, but their use for distinct positions in the heirarchy of orders are newer than the NT itself, in which they are used more loosely and apparently, at least in some cases interchangeably.

Confusing knowing etymology (either forward or backward) for knowing meaning in context is a common, but potentially very serious, error.

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hajile ◴[] No.43933111[source]
You argued that I was mistranslating. I showed that the etymology and transliteration made a mistranslation effectively impossible. You then completely ignore the evidence to make up an assertion about changing semantics with ZERO proof (even though the burden of proof is on you).

The only reason the word bishop exists in English is because we needed a loan word for episkopos. It has served that purpose and in the religious context has had no significant change in semantics.

As to your assertion that bishop and priest are different, you are wrong even from the Catholic framework (and completely wrong from a Protestant framework). Here's a quote from Thomas Aquinas about 1 Tim 3:1

> But since Dionysius declares that there are three orders, namely, bishops who rule, priests who enlighten, and deacons who cleanse, why does the Apostle make no mention of priests?

> The answer is that priests are included under the term, bishop, not as though the two orders are not really distinct, but only nominally. For priest is the same as elder, and bishop the same as overseer. Hence priests and bishops are indiscriminately called both bishops and priests.

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1. pclmulqdq ◴[] No.43933214[source]
I am the one who argued you might be mistranslating (not the person you just replied to), and I am now somewhat convinced that you are, and that the intent of 1 Tim was to discuss church leaders in a more general sense than the modern term of "bishop." The etymology bears very little weight on the actual meaning of the translation. Lots of words change meaning over time.

Your quote of Aquinas also appears to disagree with you, and takes "episkopos" more generally than the modern usage of "bishop." It actually seems that the catholic bishops may have adopted a word that was in common use for an overseer of a parish.

More recent translations and scholarly commentaries all turn away from the "episkopos" = "bishop" idea. Again, the literal translation of "episkopos" is "overseer."

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2. hajile ◴[] No.43938086[source]
Aquinas takes it in the only sense that would make sense if you could. These verses discuss the overseer of a church and the rest of the chapter discusses the requirements to be a deacon of a church. The two are completely linked by the context.

Because it is discussing churches, it would be saying that priests must be married. As all bishops are priests, it would apply to them as well.

Even if you took the broader position that it must apply elsewhere, the Catholic Church has only three orders -- deacon, priest, and bishop. These verses MUST be discussing either priest or bishop meaning at least one of those two is not following what Paul wrote.

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3. dragonwriter ◴[] No.43938133[source]
> the Catholic Church has only three orders

Kind of, but that's only true in the Latin Rite and not the Eastern Rites, and only since 1972, when the other orders were renamed “ministries”.