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Quote from: Ladislaus

While you might characterize something like perceived dishonesty as a "moral problem", for all people know, due to the intentional vagueness of the charge, there could be something going on involving farm animals on the Pfeiffer complex.  There could easily therefore be an indirect (and yet very real) detraction going on just by the unsubstantiated whispering of some non-specific "moral problems".

Actually, if people were led to guess worse things about the individuals in question, wouldn't it be indirect calumny rather than detraction, since those charges wouldn't be true?

Indeed.  I used detraction under the assumption that the conclusions people jumped to might happen to be correct and true, so thus the lowest common denominator.

I've long had issues with priests who race through the actual Mass in 20 minutes while delivering 90-minute sermons.  That's the height of narcissim.  I'm there primarily for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and these priests are trying to upstage Our Lord and make the Consecration anti-climactic after their sermon.

See, this is why it's only fair to go into details.

Everyone should be able to judge for themselves if the charges are serious enough to avoid that group.

For example, I was browsing for church equipment yesterday (Monday -- not on Sunday! hahaha) and I caught something that made me laugh and shake my head.

This was on eBay. At the bottom of the product's page, there was a notice "We are closed on Sunday and Holy Days. Please do not buy or pay for any of our items on Sunday."

...yeah, because computers need a break from mundane affairs to allow more time to worship God and think about spiritual matters on Sunday.  :rolleyes:

Sad to say, that is not even close to the first time I've seen that kind of scrupulosity from Trads.

For some of them, if you steered the conversation (and their thinking) the right way, I'm sure you could convince them, alongside certain Jews, that "making a fire" on Sunday is servile work, and that you can't make your oven do it either. So you would create special ovens with "Sunday mode" where the oven would stay at a very low temperature all day, and you just turn up the heat as needed, but you wouldn't be actually kindling any "fire".

I could have some fun with them, if I wanted to. I would offer that creating more electricity demand than "necessary" -- for example, by running your oven, causes more people to have to work at the power plant, causing a certain % more people to have to miss Mass.

By the way, our oven actually has that "Sabbath Mode", so it's a true story. Some modern-day Jews actually are that Pharisaical.

But I bet you could get some Trads to line up right alongside them, when it comes to scrupulosity about their observance of Sunday.

They won't write books on Sunday, browse any kind of e-commerce website, etc. and they're left with "watching old movies" which are objectively full of errors from a Catholic standpoint, even if they are from the "good old days".

I know this isn't the subject of the post but you happened to use this example and it happens to be something we've taken special interest in lately so I am interested in why you think this is so extreme. Not shopping on Sunday is extreme? Is that your position? Or is it just online shopping? I am not sure what part of this is laughable. I always thought refraining from (unnecessary) shopping and commerce on Sunday was part of keeping it holy. For us that includes online shopping. I am not worried about the computers needing rest, that's silly. It's my own action of making a purchase that is of concern; be it in person or online, be it fulfilled today or tomorrow, it makes no difference to the act of my will happening on Sunday. I don't know if I would consider it a sin but I believe that is because our formations regarding keeping Sunday dedicated to God and the proper understanding of leisure are very weak. Like in every other subject the priests have to lower the standards and cater to our lowest common denominators. At best our society, including most Catholics, are very lax and nonchalant about it. If a shop owner wants to try and remind his customers to keep their shopping for weekdays, I actually see that as commendable rather than extreme.

(I guess that proves your point about each person needing to know the details and judge for themselves.)