All the Baptists and Methodists and Mormons and Lutherans and so forth have been unchurched by fiat — the pope has declared their buildings non-churches and that they aren’t true followers of Jesus. This is good news! Now we can tell all the protestants, “Nyaa, nyaa, you’re going to Hell with us atheists!” I’m also going to relish telling the Jehovah’s Witnesses that knock on my door and invite me to church that the only church in town is a couple of blocks down 3rd Avenue, and Father Caskey runs the show.
The bad news, though, is that we’re going to have to resume the Thirty Years’ War. Those Germans will tremble in fear when the Vatican Guard marches northward, swinging those halberds.
I don’t read the paper much these days, but back when I WORKED for a newspaper, I got a bad feeling every time I saw the local ecumenical events, where the rabbis and imams and pastors and priests would cozy up to each other, one big smiling religious rainbow. “It doesn’t matter what you believe,” they’d chorus, “as long as you believe. We’re all God’s children.”
Ha, and now this: “If you ain’t Catholic, burn in Hell, heathen bitch.”
I wonder … Will Pope Palpatine order the Catholic priests to have nothing to do with these other religious shepherds? After all, if they’re not teaching people the Catholic faith, and are thus leading innocents away from God, they’re essentially in league with Satan.
I’m trembling already.
You are already involved in a Thirty Year’s War – in Iraq.
Just this morning I went to a funeral at a Catholic church. I guess the priest didn’t get the memo because he made a big point of welcoming those of other faiths. But he left out those of no faith, which seemed mighty churlish to me. But I sat there quietly and politely. I did engage in what my older son used to call internal heckling:
What do you mean death is not an exit but the entrance to another life! You’re wrong, pal! He’s gone! And those are just crackers, man!
I must admit I kind of like the idea of a job where you get to drink wine before noon.
And in other news, today a bear shat in the woods.
My reaction was identical to CJColucci’s. This might have been news in the 4th c. But at this point, the Catholic Church has about a sixteen century history of declaring itself the “one holy catholic and apostolic Church.”
What will the headlines be tomorrow? “Moon orbits earth”?
Oh gods, does this mean the Swedes will get restless too, and start walking all over Poland again?
Bob
If they aren’t churches anymore, we can tax them. This means raises for all the teachers. Yay!
If they aren’t churches anymore, we can tax them. This means raises for all the teachers. Yay!
Ah, but the bad thing is now all you can do in the US to separate church and state is make sure (like in the UK) the catholics don’t get any political power. That leaves the door wide open for all the other wacko flavours of xians…mind you, they don’t take the pope’s word for anything do they? Must be conflicting for them. I say let them all fight it out among themselves and leave the rest of us in peace.
Isn’t that Vatican Guard just like 2 Swedish guys or something?
Well, that’s settled then. It isn’t possible that he could be wrong about all the other denominations not being real Christians, because he gets all of his information directly from God.
A 16-page document, prepared by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Pope Benedict used to head, described Christian Orthodox churches as true churches, but suffering from a “wound” since they do not recognize the primacy of the Pope.
To which His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople replied; “Bite me.”
This sort of thing always reminds me of the following exchange from Star Trek Deep Space Nine:
Fictions all.
‘What will the headlines be tomorrow? “Moon orbits earth”?’
If the Pope has his way it’ll be “Sun orbits earth.”
You might be thinking of the Varangian Guard. There were more than two, and it was Byzantine, not Roman. And in the Thirty Years’ War, the Swedes were against the Pope.
So will the next papal bull condemn Galileo?
Funny funny stuff – Pope Sturbanfuhrer Benedict is the George W Bush of the Catholic Church!
Ah yes, nothing like a little light-hearted religious war, and just wait till he decides to do some funny cartoons of Allah!
Then, he has the Protestant’s against him on one side, and the Moslems against him on the other – a true two-fron war.
Yo Pope! How did that two-front war thing work out for Adolf?
actually i was thinking about these guys
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Guard
They serve as the pope’s body guards or something. As of 2005 there were 134 of them. Nothing to worry about. And their stupid uniforms should make them fairly easy targets.
Ah, but the bad thing is now all you can do in the US to separate church and state is make sure (like in the UK) the catholics don’t get any political power. That leaves the door wide open for all the other wacko flavours of xians…
Where you been? Look who’s sitting in the big chair right now!
The Vatican Guards are Swiss…. it’s considered a primo posting, and only the best are selected (no applicants).
My buddy almost made it when he was serving out his draft – but was eliminated (from the selection!) when they discovered he was athiest (and him half italian, too!)
Sorry, guys. The pope did not say that all non-Catholics are going to hell. Stick with me for a moment on this, understanding that we are merely discussing whether we have correctly understood the intent of a recently published fiction. Okay?
The Roman Catholic Church holds (and has held for a very long time) that it is the Christian church established by Christ. I doubt that this surprises anyone very much. As Christ’s own church, the Catholic Church considers that it is the institution established by the Savior as the salvation gateway for all who came after the time of Christ. Although a person’s salvation is optimally mediated by the Church and its sacraments (e.g., grace provided by the eucharist [communion] and penance [forgiveness of sins]), made available to the believer by Christ’s institution, imperfect faith (all those other religions) is still a source of grace and potential salvation.
None of this is new in any way. The Church spends most of its time slightly restating stuff it’s said over and over and over, all variations on the “We’re Number One” theme. The nice thing about this much ado about nothing is that it might offend the Church’s right-wing Protestant allies, who think they’ve been dissed anew. No, it’s the same old oneupsmanship.
So there’s no need to argue over who gets the imaginary prizes in the imaginary afterlife, although Catholic Heaven is well known to be superior to the boring preppiness of Protestant Heaven.
Just another case of “if you don’t do what I tell you (me, THE pope that is), you’re going straight to hell”. Substitue prez of the SBC, head of the LDS, the Mullahs in Iran or Imams in Mecca, same stuff. God these people are so predictable. After a couple of Millennia you’d think these clowns could come up with a new schtick or something.
Whenever the Catholic Church would publish some pronouncement in the form of a papal bull I would chuckle because it’s just that…bull.
To be of catholic faith is besides being Swiss, being in good repute and having done the military service in Switzerland (bad luck for me anyway as a conscientious objector) is one of the prerequisites to join the guard. Most of them are farmers from one (very devout catholic) corner of this country. There are probably better places to have an intelligent conversation than in this papal service anyway.
While I welcome any increase in (religious) infidel population, I won’t believe any of that until I hear it from the Queen Spider.
The religious leaders used to get along so well, and now things are changing. I wonder if Joey Rats is stealing ideas from Karl Rove.
I don’t understand how this mitigates what the Pope claimed — at best all it does is soften “if your not Catholic you will definitely go to hell” to something like “if you’re not Catholic you’re much more likely to go to hell”. That doesn’t sound like a great improvement or a strong foundation for ecumenicalism to me.
That said, one thing this ex-Catholic has always respected about the Church is its sense of certainty. Unlike some of the more namby-pamby touchy-feely religions, it is determined to make truth claims about the world and God. Generally the former are false and the latter are incoherent, but at least it actually sees them as a matter of truth, and not just relativist “it feels that way to me”. I’ll take the Jesuits over New Agers any day.
Charlie:
I suspect it doesn’t much matter, given that it seems to have been obviated by more recent law, but I always wondered whether the “Protestants” to whom the the British Bill of Rights guarantees the right to bear arms included the faithless, or required signing on to a church. It wouldn’t seem fair to lump Bertrand Russell in with Guy Fawkes. But that might be the legal consequence of dividing the world into Catholic and Protestant.
I think “mitigate” is exactly the right word, Tulse. That’s all I’m pointing out. It is not a dogmatic statement that non-Catholics go to hell and it is not new. Since reporters don’t bother to do much fact-checking these days, a trivial restatement of Church dogma erupts into a big fuss. It leaves most of us thinking there was a big development, when in fact it’s a big nothing.
Don’t mess with the Swiss Guard. They have Ogres.
http://panpacalliance.tripod.com/435eec80.jpg
“The pope did not say that all non-Catholics are going to hell…….Although a person’s salvation is optimally mediated by the Church and its sacraments (e.g., grace provided by the eucharist [communion] and penance [forgiveness of sins]), made available to the believer by Christ’s institution, imperfect faith (all those other religions) is still a source of grace and potential salvation.”
Ah, but the implication is there. Potential salvation??? My Baptist upbringing taught me it was by faith in Jesus and faith alone. Period. End of story. Those people were and still are firmly convinced that the sacraments, eucharist and penance practiced and proclaimed by the Roman Catholic church ain’t gonna get your feet one inch off the ground. You might as well be sipping grape juice and eating crackers, watching a football game at the local sports pub for all the good it will do you. In short, practicing Catholics are on that one-way, super-highway straight to heck and their aren’t any “potential salvation” off ramps.
Seriously, of course he didn’t explicitly state the obvious. He didn’t have to. The true path to salvation has been the rub between the two main Christian sects for centuries and that hasn’t really changed a bit. In this case, Pope Rat merely pulled one out of the “Well Duh” file and turned it into some papal declaration. The implied “You Apostates!!” is still there loud and clear.
I do not see where he says that all Protestants are going to hell. All he is basically saying is that all non-Catholic denominations are not Catholic. Which may be a truism, but the point is that he is rejecting the “modern” concept of “seperate but equal”, that all these other denominations are “just different” but equal in the eyes of God. He is saying that, no, there is only one “true” Church and all the others are not equal to the Catholic church. But I do not see that this is the equivalent of damning them to hell.
Actually, “watching a football game at the local sports pub” is pretty close to my idea of hell.
Nazi Pope.
It’s indeed not the substance that’s novel, it’s the unprovoked, characteristically Ratzingerian tactlessness and tone-deafness, whence the offense taken in other corners of the Christian madhouse.
What else could it mean? If the Catholic Church is not equal but somehow “better”, what other metric of “better” would there be but salvation? How can only one church be “true” if that truth doesn’t actually matter?
Count Popula.
Tulse,
The point is, isn’t that what every church says? Isn’t that what makes it a “church”? How is what the Pope saying today in any way new?
why is it he looks like emperor pallpatine from star wars?
possible other metric
– the chance of salvation
– time spent in the purgatory
ah, Pope Ratsinger. i think he should do the dance that goes along with these kinds of announcements – you know, the one the biggest bully used to do in the playground, when he’d managed to get (somehow) better grades than his lieutenants? the one with the hands on the hips and the butt-swinging?
“I am the grea-test! I am the grea-test!”
Lepht
> the pope has declared their buildings non-churches
ROCK ON!
Does that mean that they’ll finally start paying taxes????
Not the Unitarians. Not the United Church in Canada. Not most of the more “liberal” Christian churches, at least as far as I know. Lots of churches talk about “many paths to God”.
It’s not really new in substance at all (especially if you go back to, say, the Inquisition). What is new, compared to most recent popes, is the overt and public and “aggressive” nature of the claim — along with his comments on Islam, the revival of the Latin mass (which itself has some unpleasant things to say about Jews), and the threat to excommunicate pro-choice politicians, it seems clear this pope is determined to forge a much more hard-line, almost fundamentalist direction for Catholicism. That’s the bit that seems worrisome, at least to those are used to seeing the pope as being like a European Dalai Lama.
This was the part that always struck me as being stupid about religion; the viewpoint many of them have, that if you don’t pray “our way”, you’re not a Christian.
I heard an interview with a Baptist woman the other day on NPR who said, when talking about Romney, that she didn’t consider Mormons and Catholics to be Christians. Talk about judgmental. She had that goin’ for her. Uptight Baptist, er, Witch.
The great thing about this, though, is this will just push Catholics away. It attracts zero people (many Baptists and Pentecostals already think Catholics aren’t Christians), and pushes away many who just needed a final straw. Just dumb. This was an opportunity for the Pope to reach out, and instead, he merely pushed away. Good job.
I personally think this is a win for us, by the way. Pope is doing his best to walk in the winning run.
I really don’t think God gives style points, Mr. Pope.
Is there any other kind? I’m not talking about what your neighbor practices but rather what the church actually professes.
Here’s what the document said, in part:
“Despite the fact that this teaching has created no little distress … it is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of ‘Church’ could possibly be attributed to them,” it said.
If that ain’t saying Protestant churches are not churches, then what IS it saying?
So, Zeno, I agree to disagree with you on this one. I don’t want any more postings with 480 responses cluttering this blog.
God’s all about the style MikeM: Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together.–Deuteronomy 22:11
I think the bible also says something about not wearing white after Labour Day, but I couldn’t find the verse.
OK, gotten out the old match-lock, and am ready to fight for my un-believe! Bring it on, all you Roman-Catholic un-un-believers.
And as for the wool and linen stuff, that’s actually the best combination (no joking here), when its hot it actually keeps you nice and comfy (once you have soaked the linen shirt in sweat, it stays at a nice cool temp, because the wool overcoat lets the linen ‘breathe’, albeit not too quickly—years of re-enacting French Infantry ;)). So, you see again, the bible just wants to keep you totaly uncomfy. Evil book that.
What I actually said was pretty simple, MikeM: The pope is restating old dogma. Non-Catholics can go to heaven according to traditional Catholic doctrine, but it’s more difficult for them because their “churches” are defective. Heard it all before. Not new.
Steve LaBonne (#35) made the good point that the significant factor is the pope’s tactlessness in unnecessarily reiterating basic Church doctrine and offending members of other sects by rubbing their noses in Catholic triumphalism. That, of course, is most likely a plus for secularists.
Jesus: My father’s house has many mansions.
Benny Hex: And Protestants live in the servants’ quarters.
Eh, eh, eh — not so fast. Was it an ex cathedra statement, and therefore supposedly infallible, or not? Had it been the former, the media would certainly have told us; and since the matter is not a dogma of faith, I’d be surprised if it was ex cathedra anyway.
In any case, though, there’s got to be some difference between “not real Christians” and “not real churches”. The actual document, in lots of languages, has to be up somewhere at http://www.vatican.va. I haven’t bothered looking it up.
Oh yes. I’ve read some documents from the 2nd Vatican Council.
Eh, eh, eh — not so fast. Was it an ex cathedra statement, and therefore supposedly infallible, or not? Had it been the former, the media would certainly have told us; and since the matter is not a dogma of faith, I’d be surprised if it was ex cathedra anyway.
In any case, though, there’s got to be some difference between “not real Christians” and “not real churches”. The actual document, in lots of languages, has to be up somewhere at http://www.vatican.va. I haven’t bothered looking it up.
Oh yes. I’ve read some documents from the 2nd Vatican Council.
All Catholics who:
1) Believe in god,
2) Look to the Pope for guidance,
Need to wake up and smell the science!
What is all this talk of Swedes and Vatican Guards? Are the Vikings going to invade Kiev again? Wake me if they do.
This is one of the reasons I left the Catholic Church.
Benedict, in the latest photo I saw on wikipedia yesterday, looks like he is possessed by the Devil rather than full of the Holy Spirit, and I have to say that he’s acting like it too.
I wonder if he ever really left his Hitler Youth past behind him. Certainly the jackboot-wearing fascist “I control all” tendencies are there, even if he hasn’t graduated to murderous anti-semitism
Yet.
No pope has issued a statement ex cathedra since Pius XII over fifty years ago.
Folks who are curious enough to want to read the actual documents (in their official English translations) can use the links in my post or just go directly here to the Vatican’s on-line document library. Great bedtime reading for insomniacs or amateur theologians.
If we’re going to repeat the 30 Years War the first thing the non-Catholics need to do is figure out who to defenestrate. Nominations anyone?
And please, let’s do it better this time than they did at Prague. The guys they threw out the window landed in a pile of shit, which broke their fall.
I got this from a (Jewish) friend the other day. Links.
Anyone else notice that Ratzinger looks quite a bit like Hannibal Lecter?
George Orwell might have written:
Where is Gustavus Adolphus when we need him?
Well, I think the pope is merely being honest in the expression of his opinion of other denominations. It’s very similar to the opinion I used to hold of Catholicism during my teen years – that it was a version of Christianity but a defective one. I’m not at all surprised to hear from Catholics that Protestantism is the lesser or defective version in their eyes. Opinions diverged long ago and the different churches aren’t likely to ever merge again. As long as they can agree to tolerate each other’s existence, I don’t see a problem.
Re Rulings of the Catholic Church . They can declare you dead ,when your not , and declare you a bastard even when the state and law says the opposite … My short story ….
My parents Catholic marriage was annulled { they would have a court setting and have to call witnesses but only those in the faith , and it used to cost a lot of money } when my rather wealthy father wanted to marry wife number 3 , also from a wealthy catholic family … She being niece of one of the Vatican mob ..
Catholic church at the annulment declared my mother dead …they suggested that name was not on the Australian electoral role … Australia at the bottom of the world demands all adults voting age to be on this role , many aren’t , many don’t want to be , you are fined if you choose not to vote at election …. They { church ] didn’t search births deaths and marriages , she was listed there as alive and re married . The annulment declared me a bastard child , even though I had been baptized and my parents were married and married for several years after my birth , 2. second wife was in civil marriage so that one didn’t count .. { in the catholic church }This also is wealthy woman who owned a international travel agency and my step mum for 10 years ..
There were no records of me be confirmed , they were destroyed after annulment .. years later as a young mum I took my baby to the local church to ask re baptism as the nuns at school had said if we didn’t do this we would be struck down ..{ still traumatized many years later from that education }
Priest could not find me listed at all in the church … didn’t exist seems my father with all his money and the church can just erase what they want , plus there is no freedom of information act to ask questions … So my child would not be looked at , I was 19 years old and my 1st child had a hole in his heart …Needless to say , the catholic church have a lot to answer from this poster .. PS Catholic church also good for ex cerise and fitness can’t remember any obese kids at my school , I did learn to run fast being educated from the catholic priests they like little girls , but I managed to put a new meaning to fast girl ….. Many years later I am still fast and run miles each day and not one of my 5 kids will ever see the inside of any church … Thank You for the post ….
His Assholiness is always a good laugh…
C. Hames,
Say goodbye to the church and never look back. It’s a worthless institution.
I’m very sorry that C. Hames was traumatized by the annulment of her parents’ marriage. It’s an institution managed by humans, with all their human frailties, so I’m sure the processes of the annulment tribunals are subject to favoritism and the occasional wink-wink nudge-nudge, for all that they claim otherwise. However, the Church does not declare the children of an annulled marriage to be bastards. An annulment declares that the requirements for a sacramental Christian marriage were not met. It does not wipe out the civil marital bond, for which a divorce must also be obtained. If you were born while your parents were married to each other, you are certainly not a bastard or illegitmate. (Frankly, both those terms should be retired as empty pejoratives.) Church canon law specifically recognizes the legitimacy of children born in wedlock even if the sacramental aspect of that marriage is later deemed null. No children should have to suffer additional hurt from the dissolution of their parents’ marriage by thinking the Church brands them as bastards.
[Link]
Zeno with all due respect that is simply ridiculous. The church can use whatever pathetic double speak it needs to use but if they annull a marriage it is as if it never existed and the kids where born out of wedlock.
Now in the world of the real it doesn’t matter two shits what they think as your married when the state says you areand the kids are not illegitimate.
The church doesn’t get a remote free pass on their irrationality and stupidity. They causemuch pain and suffering and it’s often idiocy like this that does it.
What is funny about this is that his church really is creaking and appears to be dying a slow death. It simply cannot compete with Protestants in the USA and abroad. There is no triumphalism for him to trumpet. They are getting their ass beat just about everywhere except parts of South America and Africa.
The 30 Years War is not something to laugh about. One of the notorious events was the Catholic sack of the town of Magdeburg.
“Here commenced a scene of horrors for which history has no language – poetry no pencil. Neither innocent childhood, nor helpless old age; neither youth, sex, rank, nor beauty, could disarm the fury of the conquerors. Wives were abused in the arms of their husbands, daughters at the feet of their parents; and the defenseless sex exposed to the double sacrifice of virtue and life. No situation, however obscure, or however sacred, escaped the rapacity of the enemy. In a single church fifty-three women were found beheaded. The Croats amused themselves with throwing children into the flames; Pappenheim’s Walloons with stabbing infants at the mother’s breast. Some officers of the League, horror-struck at this dreadful scene, ventured to remind Tilly that he had it in his power to stop the carnage. “Return in an hour,” was his answer; “I will see what I can do; the soldier must have some reward for his danger and toils.” These horrors lasted with unabated fury, till at last the smoke and flames proved a check to the plunderers.”
http://www.strategypage.com/cic/docs/cic66c.asp
“Horrible and revolting to humanity was the scene that presented itself. The living crawling from under the dead, children wandering about with heart-rending cries, calling for their parents; and infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers. More than 6,000 bodies were thrown into the Elbe to clear the streets; a much greater number had been consumed by the flames. The whole number of the slain was reckoned at not less than 30,000.”
Thank you the true, infallible Catholic Church of Christ. The Catholics did a similar thing in the French town of Beziers, but that was a different Holy War, against the Cathars who,
“The Cathars who lived in the Languedoc in the 11th and 12th centuries called themselves ‘true Christians’, ‘bons hommes’ and ‘bonnes femmes’. Like Jesus himself (who they regarded as God’s messenger) they did not set up a church or religious institution or formulate any set of prescribed dogmas or beliefs.”
That was too much for the Vatican, which would teach them a lesson.
“The Pope convinced the king of France (the Languedoc was not then part of France), Philippe le Bel, to join forces in a crusade against the Cathars. The king would gain territory, annexing the Languedoc and making it part of France, and the Pope would get rid of the heretics and restore the authority of the Roman Church. Mercenaries were recruited by means of the ‘quarantaine’ – if they served in the army for 40 days they would receive the Pope’s indulgence and their sins would be absolved – not just past sins but any they might commit in the future.
The first big battle of the crusade was the sack of Beziers in 1209. ‘How do we know who are the heretics?’ one Catholic knight reportedly asked. The abbot of Citeaux replied, ‘Kill them all, God will know His own.’ The soldiers proceeded to do exactly that. It is reported that every man, woman and child was slaughtered, a total of thirty thousand – six or seven thousand of them in the church of St Madeleine, where they had taken refuge.”
http://www.textualities.net/writers/features-n-z/smithm02.php
Oh yes, catholicism is the religion of peace too.
In the traditionally Catholic parts of Europe, it can. That just doesn’t matter because more and more people simply lose interest in religion.
That’s also an important part of why the French, at that time quite Catholic, fought on the Protestant side in the 30-years war, and why the 30-years war eventually came to an end without the extermination of one of the parties and has not been repeated.
In the traditionally Catholic parts of Europe, it can. That just doesn’t matter because more and more people simply lose interest in religion.
That’s also an important part of why the French, at that time quite Catholic, fought on the Protestant side in the 30-years war, and why the 30-years war eventually came to an end without the extermination of one of the parties and has not been repeated.
Yeah, they still talk about the Cathar crusade in SW France. It may have something to do with why the French are very leery of public religion. Personally, I welcome Pope Ratz’s pronouncements. He must be turning people away from the church in absolute droves.
Uber, with all due respect right back at you, please consider that you can get married in any church that you like and you still will not be considered married unless you also have a marriage license from the civil authorities. The Roman Catholic Church exercises no control over the civil law aspect of marriage and does not claim any. Its annulments are based only on the supposed sacramental aspect. You can say that’s imaginary (and I’d agree with you), but it’s the civil law marriage that determines legitimacy or illegitimacy of the offspring. If someone says, “The Church calls me a bastard because they annulled my parents’ marriage,” it’s not true. The Church does not. If someone says, “The Church made me feel like a bastard because they annulled my parents’ marriage,” then that’s a different matter, and an understandable source of resentment, but it is neither what the Church says nor what it intends. There are more significant transgressions to lay at its door than imaginary grievances.
Now I almost feel sorry for the Catholics here in Mississippi. The Southern Baptists already hate them, and this isn’t going to help. Then again, they’ll always be able to say, “Hey, at least we aren’t atheists.”
Re: children labeled “bastards” by the RC Church. The RC doublespeak becomes clear when a child is born of parents, one of whom a RC and one a non-RC, who were married “outside” of the RC Church. I was such and in my youth applied to join a RC religious order. I was notified by the order (and my RC pastor), that since I was “illegitimate”, I was not acceptable for the religious life. There are also documented cases of children being refused admittance to RC schools because they were considered “illegitimate” because their legally married parents (at least one being RC)were not married in a RC Church. RC Canon Law is clear that an annulment declares that “a marriage has never taken place” and that any children from that “non-existent marriage” are illegitimate. The RC Church soft-pedals this fact of Church law because it would be bad PR and would have legal difficulties in secular society. My experience set my path on a trajectory away from Catholicism and from the narrowness of organized religion.
Not so, millsm. Read the actual canon law for yourself. Canons 1137 and 1061 are the pertinent items. Your RC pastor was wrong to so label you, but I can well believe that this negative attitude was held by many narrow-minded prelates.
Once again those who have faith in a farce are able to bring suffering to others.
Isn’t this like commenting over the inconsistencies in canon between Star Trek and Star Trek: the Next Generation?
Check this link to see what can actually be expected from Benedict XVI and why we shouldn’t be so surprised about the recen developments.