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CATHOLICS AND THE HERD INSTINCT.

“If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.

(GEORGE S PATTON)

Those people who are still emotionally or religiously attached to the Roman Catholic Institution are victims of HIS – Herd Instinct Syndrome.

Any rational, thinking person can see that this institution is not of God and is not about God.

It is about money, power, sex and control.

This has been said by others for years and centuries.

But with the explosion of education for everyone, the media and the Internet the RCC, like everything else, has come under massive and intensive scrutiny.

And, has been found greatly wanting.

How can an institution that is about God:

– sexually abuse hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of children all over the world?

– imprison and torture hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of women all over the world?

– sell tens or hundreds of thousands of orphans?

– bury so many children’s bodies in secret graves or disused sewerage tanks?

– rob the poor and side with the rich?

– consign multi millions of people to lifetimes of guilt, convince them that their bodies were vile and that they were bound for eternal flames?

The answer is simple. That institution is not of God or about God.

It is a self perpetuating institution, started and continued by men and designed to mentally and morally imprison the majority and provide a minority with power, control, money and the satisfaction of their desires.

AND WHAT OF CATHOLICS THAT WANT TO PERSEVERE IN FAITH?

You will note that I used the word INSTITUTION above.

The RCC is an institution that claims to speak on God’s behalf.

But God’s Church, as Jesus reminded us is not an INSTITUTION but rather a KINGDOM – the Kingdom of God.

The late Princess Diana said she wanted to be the Queen of Hearts.

And God’s Kingdom is very much a Kingdom of the heart and hearts.

As Brother Charles de Foucauld once said: “Our religion is all about love. It’s emblem is a heart ❤️ “.

The “CHURCH” is not a building, or an institution, or about priests, bishops, cardinals and popes.

The Church is the Family of God – and every human being living and that has lived is a member of God’s Family.

Out Faith is in our hearts and minds and should direct how we live and how we treat others.

Of course, for us Christians – Followers of Christ – Scripture, especially the New Testament, is vitally important. It gives us spiritual food and guidance.

And, for those if us from the Catholic Tradition, Sacraments are also important.

One of the problems with the RCC is that the hierarchy and clergy have hijacked and usurped the Sacraments.

The will only share the Sacraments with us on certain conditions – and only if we do everything they tell us to do.

This is not right. And that is why we need a new theology of Sacraments – a theology in which a hierarchy and a clergy cannot come between God and a person seriously desiring a Sacrament.

You can most definitely be a Christian and a Catholic without the RCC institution.

I’ve done that for 36 years now and I’ve helped thousands of others to do it too.

You can be an independent Catholic.

Ok. The RCC will remove your membership card and rip it up.

But in the Kingdom of God there are no membership cards.

Your baptism gives you full membership.

And don’t forget – your granny can baptise you at the kitchen sink and that baptism is as valid- and maybe even more valid – than a baptism at a marble font – by a priest – who is God knows what in his spare time.

112 replies on “CATHOLICS AND THE HERD INSTINCT.”

The church of Rome is not the Catholic church because it doesn’t carry the four marks of the church.
People put themselves through the mental gymnastics of trying to justify its relentless corruption and crime because its told them it’s the only church and the others are fake.
It’s all a con.

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As long as the churches and cathedrals are not for God, or about God, when we all do know that it was never a Call from Above… what are doing still there Roman Catholic priests, who have some principles, morals, dignity, and values… Just to have a free flat and paid bills? Is your worth that cheap?

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+Pat. I acknowledge much of what you say about theRCC failures. But on the matter of “baptism?” Here I question what customarily is thought of as baptism, that is, the necessity for some quaint ritual pouring/sprinkling of water as an absolute requirement for admission into the selected 🤔 Such a requirement seems not only quaint, but distinctly odd.
The expression “pouring one’s heart out” perhaps captures the essence of a person’s intellectual and emotional “baptismal” change and commitment to following Christian teachings. And that requires no water pouring, from granny or A N Other, clerical or otherwise.
MMM

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Jesus’ baptism was Jewish, NOT Christian. Nevertheless, highly efficacious for all that, since the Gospel states (figuratively) that Tweetie Pie came down from Heaven and did a number on Jesus. (So to speak, like.)

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Although the term “baptism” is not used to describe the Jewish rituals, the purification rites in Halakha, Jewish law and tradition, called tvilah, have some similarity to baptism, and the two have been linked. The tvilah is the act of immersion in naturally-sourced water, called a mikva.[2]

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3.48
Er, John ‘the Baptist’?
John was Jewish, unconventionally so, but Jewish nonetheless, so your query is puzzling

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Jesus managed to get baptized without having to institute the sacrament, as he did with the Eucharist.
Honestly these Catholics™️ think they’ve trademarked everything.

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Apparently one got a priest here to baptise their children , off the books and record and even lied to complete it ,delighted…..
used it against them when things went awry and not their wAt I’m general . Who’s at fault ?

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Pat, you’re being a little cynical and disingenuous. You’ve created a comfortable, self righteous narrative for yourself. And – strangely – I accept there are some great truths and insights in what you say. However, don’t brand all clerics or faithful lay Catholics with your judgment. I agree that the Church as an institution is very flawed and sinful: it has to be simply because it’s inhabited by flawed human beings. On the other hand, many of us, out of all the crises and scandals of recent decades, have focused on the gospel meaning of being God’s people. So we work in the vineyard of the Parish to accomplish the essence of the Kingdom of God: living as Jesus asks of us. I face my day worrying about meeting bereaved families – 3/4 a week: visiting schools for sacramental preparations, visiting the sick, working out pastoral initiatives with parishioners…The last thing on my mind is the institutional “who’s who” and “who’s being promoted…or who will or may not be a bishop, monsignor or Archbishop..”. The parish, while entrusted to us, is our priority and it is here we must build the Kingdom of God among people through caring for one another and being there for all, irrespective of their situation in life. There is too much fatally flawed and corrupt leaders and activity within the big institution in so many ways that to stay alert to the Spirit of God, you choose to focus on what’s given to you to do in the parish setting. Pat, there are many, many who have chosen not to walk in faith any more with any denomination but want to be called spiritual. That’s fine with me. But for those who form our parish community of God’s people, the task of a pastor is to truly care for them, despite being a sinful pastir, or feeling exhausted and lacking in creativity at a certain age. Sometimes the bigger picture is too much to bear and you decide to build-up and make more Christ-like the little bit of a vineyard given to you. Pat, if people have no faith and walk away for all kinds of reasons, that decision must be respected. There’s no great virtue in administering sacraments to those who have no interest and whi see no value in them or in religious faith any more. You cannot rewrite the ancient rites to suit your adherents. Incidentally, how many such baptisms or weddings or confirmations have you celebrated for those who no longer beling to their parish community? There are many clerics like myself who are truly kind and caring to people and couples in different and difficult situations. It’s wrong to think you’ve a monopoly on such people. Every day I am encountering new and different situations and am requested to respond in new, Christ like ways. But, I will not be so dismissive or cynical about the theology or spirituality of the Catholic Church. We can effect meaningful grace and change without being cynically controversial. Theres a richness in the theiligy of the sacraments which I won’t forfeit but when we sit with people and listen to and share with them, we can certainly affirm them in their humanity and searching. These conversations, as Jesus had with so many, produced much fruit.

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People may have walked away from the RCC but they have not walked away from the faith of Jesus and his teachings.

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12.15
What a tediously longwinded piece of self-righteous, self-vindicating shite!
No, your church isn’t flawed because it comprises flawed members, especially such priests as you: it’s flawed principally because the institution of priesthood was obviated by Christ’s death and resurrection, but which your church restored, thereby denying the efficacy of Jesus’ accomplisments; in fact, denying his very incarnate mission. And you, priest, promised obedience to that aberration.
I noticed, too, that you couldn’t resist a sly dig at Pat’s ministry, while pretending to respect it: How many baptisms did you perform, Pat, of those who turned away from my church?

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12:15 commented very wisely and is to be commended. Any dig or criticism is merely a two way sparring. It appears to be water off a duck’s back. Some people are offended if their version of truth is questioned, others have the maturity to engage in conversation.

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So Bishop Pat if people leave the institution do they need a Bishop for an Ordination , or can the community gathered together pray the Ordination with validity ?

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4.09
I agree with you, but not for the reason I suspect you hold.
If we must (and we need not) use the word ‘ordained’, then Jesus prefigured ‘ordination’ (confirmed at Pentecost) with the words ‘do this in memory of me’.

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In the book ‘Christianity Rediscovered’ by a missionary among the Massai, he argued that the local Christian priest should be appointed by the community.

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You think you are so clever 😀

The Oratory is not a “house church”. It is an independent Catholic place of worship.

I see nothing wrong with house churches for those who feel called to that way of worship.

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6:31 you are a total disgrace. Don’t you get it? This is a blog that Bishop Pat Buckley had to set up to help those victimised by the Roman Catholic Church. Hang your head in shame, Father & Co. We cannot even publish our real names on here because of the reprisals you have publicity executed against those who have allowed their true identities to be published on blog. The language, abuse and invasion of rights directed by anonymous clergy and members of the Roman Catholic Church on this blog and elsewhere toward those persons speaks volumes.

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At the Oratory it’s the Congregation makes all the decisions – about who is ordained etc.

We do not have or pray for any pope

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Apart from individual experiences that friends, families and neighbours are subjected to by what is essentially an authoritarian regime utilising the image of Christ to peddle its wares to the ordinary & what they hope will be the gullible or vulnerable Joe & Annie, it is clear from the well documented and publicised scandals that have emerged to date that clergy & their types possess nothing but contempt for anyone other than their wealthy and influential inner circles. As can be clearly read from their contributions on this blog and elsewhere, when any mention of their finances is made, they are violently defensive. However, when it comes to abusing and exploiting vulnerable children and adults in schools and hospitals & similar institutions by their members, some of them clearly communicate that even if not personally culpable that nevertheless they actually enjoy & find this “amusing” on a voyeuristic level at the minimum and in other deeds & actions at the maximum.

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6.23: So, Pat, a continuation of your erroneous interpretations of scripture and more of your self, man made theology to suit your independence in apostasy. Heresy and error.

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Bullies are cowards and what do bullies do, they flock together. That is the primary attraction of the church for some types.

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The truth on numbers abused by Roman Catholic members will explode even higher once all these very bright up and coming journalists in those regions truly find their feet 👣. The online sex trade between clericals and impoverished rent boys in these locations hasn’t been investigated. These individuals carry out jobs for their paying clerics including online harrassment and stalking etc.

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Boy George appeared in court for tying Auden to a radiator and threatening him with sex toys and a whip and beat him with a metal chain. George O’Dowd missed his calling, he’d have fitted in like a glove in a Roman Catholic Seminary. Hopefully Auden and his family weren’t subjected to O’Dowd prancing about in Celebrity Jungle on ITV recently.

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More of the bullshit. Why are people who hate the catholic church so obsessed with the catholic church. There way more obsessed with the church than catholics are. It would be like me, a catholic, banging on about Islam every day of the week.

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5:01 Jim, we call it obsession, they see nothing wrong with it, they call it “being faithful to their ahem, Religion”!

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No one is obsessed with the Catholic Church, but people ARE rightly concerned about, and watchful of, this filthy, depraved, Christ-UNobsessed institution, and its complicit supporters. People like you, Seanie.

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Chrysostom? That rabid, Jew-hating hypocrite?! Have you read his anti-Semitism diatribes? They are more than offensive: they are corrosively hate-filled, and criminal. The fact that the romanist Church considers this man a saint shouldn’t surprise anyone, given what we now know of Romanism’s vile history of arch-hypocrisy, and moral turpitude.

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6.21

What is present in every human heart?

No one is without sin, but not everyone clings to sin. Chyrostom did.

That the romanist Church believes this liar to be in Heaven is truly an abomination, since it belittles Heaven’s moral standards.

Paul the Apostle was clear: liars will not enter the kingdom of heaven; Chrysostom was a liar as well as a hater; he absolutely hated Jews.

Like Paul, James, too, is clear: he who says he loves God and hates his brother is a liar. Chrysostom hated his brother

Chrysostom is in Hell, and the romanist Church is NOT infallible.

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6.41

Pat, if Chrysostom didn’t repent his hatred and lies, then, yes, by his own choice, he is in Hell, not in Heaven.

We have to accept, as Christians, that the possibility of self-damnation exists under certain circumstances, and Paul, along with James implicitly, delineates some of these.

As Christians, we must take responsibility for our moral conduct and accept that some of it, if unrepented, will exclude us, forever, from the kingdom of heaven. It’s as terrible as that.

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6.41
And incredibly juvenile.
Hatred is a human emotion. Emotions are pre-morale entities.
Btw, anyone with a little perspicacity is able to identify you. When you used to post under your own name, you left enough indications of style for even a dull reader to know who you are.

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7.21
Pat, Paul was speaking in the abstract, but what holds true here must hold true in individual cases.
Can an unrepentant murderer, PROVIDED he accepts God’s mercy and forgiveness, be with God? The answer to this abstract is obvious: no, he cannot. Therefore, if we know of such a dead murderer, then we know, too, that his soul cannot be with God and IS not with God. This is not our passing judgement on the individual, but simply our drawing the obvious conclusion from knowledge of the pre-conditions for salvation set down by God himself.

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7.48
Juvenile? How? Incredibly, you held back from saying. Or perhaps you don’t know how. Maybe you just love putting words ‘out there’ in the hope that everyone else will be too lazy to challenge you.
Hatred is a human emotion? Amazing! How does this startling fact impinge on anything I’ve said so far? Again, putting words ‘out there’ in the hope of not being challenged.

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4.02: Magna coward: you’ve something un common with St. John Chrystom: in your own words – a rabid hating piece of uselessnes, except I give credence and recognition to ; to you, the salute of a pig grunt!! Stay in your pig sty.

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Pat, MC, supreme hater and dysfunctional specimen has posted anonymously today. Spineless psycho. Be aware. This poisonous rat is a horrid thing.

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‘Dysfunctional specimen’? ‘Spineless psycho’? ‘Poisonous rat’? I mean seriously, 8.22?
And YOU call that poster the ‘supreme hater’?????

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Fr Derek Ryan is furious that his fellow Redemptorists have sold him down the river on this blog, guess they are not loyal at all.

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Well Derek had need to learn who he opens up to, because he shouldn’t tell any ONE person anything at all – that he does not want everyONE to know about

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Indefensible exploitation of God is their starting point leading to all known deviancy to date & more to be revealed.says:

11:57 the real point of public interest and concern here is where does this begin and end. It is totally immoral and unacceptable. Indefensible exploitation of God himself. No one is safe from these types.

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‘That the Church is catholic means that like the Gospel, the Church exists for the entire world.’
It is his church. If you were Catholic you would know that.

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My paternal grandfathers brother, my uncle John from Jamaica. He use to ring us everyday, trying to get us on holiday. He baptised all his own children and grandchildren and was an independent catholic and all his ones have done really well for themselves.
Pat your analysis is so correct, and as you are an independent Catholic, you will know more than anyone.
I applaud you for being independent and showing the world that difference should be recognised and celebrated, you are no sheep and my uncle John was not either.

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What on planet earth is the world coming to? Cost of living crisis and the President candidate for 2024 – trump – wants to send a rocket to Uranus as part of his manifesto? Get rid of him!

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RIP Des Wilson. I visited his grave today in Miltown and it is a fine tribute to him. He was the peoples priest.

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The church can all stick together but legally the country is moving on, gone are the days when I would have been shunned as a single mother or having back street abortions. Us women can have as many children as we like to how many men we want or have as many abortions as we want, at least the law recognises that as the Catholics don’t. Independence all the way.

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2:46 Has there been any update on the allegation via Abbot General Eamon Fitzgerald that Bishop Phonsie Cullinan, Waterford and Bishop Monahan in Killaloe were involved in the consultations to protect student income streams at the private school at Roscrea Cistercians so opted to move Abbot Richard Purcell to Mount Mellary after the sex in the kitchen episode in Roscrea College? What exactly is happening with Purcell since he left Mount Mellary?

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Given that hundreds of thousands of priests appear to have been let off Scot-Free for committing crimes against humanity, preying on children, is a plausible remedy to bring back Crucifixion so that punishment fits the crime?

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2:51 most of these priests are wrapped in cotton wool, no choice, we all know what happens when thieves fall out…..

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Pat as part of your training did you get elocution lessons? Did you have to learn and master Italian or Latin?

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2.58: Pat probably got elocution in Clonliffe College. Don’t think Latin was taught then. In my time after Pat departed for Waterford, we learned to read the Latin texts which I found easy as I studied Latin for leaving cert. Latin is a beautiful language when read properly. The De La Salle Brother who taught me was a brilliant Latin scholar and a fluent speaker of the language as well as being a fluent Italian, french and Irish speaker. His classes were super. Pity we’ve lost the Latin texts!!

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Yes in Clonliffe my elocution teacher was Mrs Cranny O’Donnell.

Did some Latin in secondary school.

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I have a few tickets to the Vengaboys if you and Ed would like them? Or if anyone on the blog would like them, get in touch.

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Oh boy, you wait until the journalists get brave enough to tell you what really goes on in places like Nigeria with clergy. You ain’t seen nothing yet. Straight up front shagging of women by priests is only the tip of the iceberg. It is not going to be pretty. On the back of it will also come more about the white missionaries and what they got up to when out of sight and out of mind in Africa. The indigenous clergy learned well from them.

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So often on this Blog everyone talks about the Church, the institution, but rarely about God or Jesus or spirituality.
The Blog also romanticises the early church – even a cursory look at the NT show they had the whole gamut of human weakness, sexual immmorality and a caste system (the apostles didn’t want to wait in tables) and even Paul and Barnabus split up and went their separate ways.
Of course you’ll find with professional clerics – they never talk about God or Jesus or the Bible or faith – they bitch and gossip all day long about the institution- mainly their own comfort, money, retirement and which sexual scandal they know about.
But where is God? People want to learn about God and are thirsty and hungry for the divine.
Jesus was crucified by religious professionals and so is peoples faith in God.

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The institution can crumble. Of that there is no doubt. The Catholic Faith will carry on.
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
The RCC. The structure. The foundation. A conduit for the faith that cannot easily fall away however.

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That’s because it’s a blog about the Catholic™️ church, so it won’t be about God. If that institution struck you with its holiness nobody could help but say it.

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Another very good point.

It is only organised religion which wants that pastoral image (of shepherd and sheep) to have universal and definitive currency, because such religion is largely about episcopal control of others.

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5.57
It’s metaphorical language which, when God is in question is often more eloquent than literal language.

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‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures’. I guess that has lost its currency because we have lost the mystical, theological and poetic use of metaphor. Perhaps we should exclude the Wisdom books from the canon of Sacred Scripture because we are too sophisticated to appreciate metaphor.

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No, wait. I thought the cardinals prayed before the election.
You mean, a cardinal thinks it’s guided by the media and not God? Gulp.

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Pat, I think the Jewish Mikva is only for Jewish women, of course the men don’t need it, their pure enough already…..I DON’T THINK!
It would appear the Israelite have their own problems not dissimilar to Roman Catholics
1)Prosecutor says DC Rabbi filmed 152 women in mikvah
US attorney raises possibility of plea deal with Rabbi Barry Freundel for voyeurism in ritual bath
By JUDAH ARI GROSS
13 February 2015, 12:57 am

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Your right.
1)Corpse uncleanness (How it was)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Purification (How it was)
The impurity that is caused by the dead is considered the ultimate impurity, one which cannot be purified through the waters of an ablution alone (mikvah). Human corpse uncleanness requires an interlude of seven days, accompanied by purification through sprinkling of the ashes of the Parah Adumah, the red heifer.[20] However, the law is inactive, since neither the Temple in Jerusalem nor the red heifer are currently in existence, though without the latter, a Jew is forbidden to ascend to the site of the former. All are currently assumed to possess the impurity caused by touching a corpse.[21]

Purification was required in the nation of Israel during Biblical times for the ceremonially unclean so that they would not defile God’s tabernacle and put themselves in a position where they would become liable to extirpation (the act of being cut-off from Israel). An Israelite could become unclean by handling a dead body. In this situation, the uncleanness would last for at least seven days, until he could be purified again. Part of the cleansing process would be washing the body and clothes, and the unclean person would need to be sprinkled with the water of purification,[22] without which he remains in a state of uncleanness and passes on defilement by touch to other persons.[23]

2)(How it is today)
Today, we do not have a temple or the necessary tools to purify ourselves. Therefore all Jews (except for Kohanim) may and should care for the dead and do not need any purification ritual afterward other than ritually washing their hands.
Staying Pure While Caring for the Dead
By Menachem Posner
Rabbi Menachem Posner serves as staff editor at Chabad.org, the world’s largest Jewish informational website.

3)Current practice
Occasions on which full-body immersion is currently practiced include:

After a woman’s niddah period concludes following menstruation or other uterine bleeding, she must immerse and only then is permitted to resume sexual relations with her husband.[5] This practice remains the principal use of contemporary mikvehs. It is fully observed in Orthodox Judaism, and normative in Conservative Judaism.
Some Orthodox men immerse after having a seminal discharge (keri).[6]
In Orthodox Judaism, there is a widespread minhag for men, to immerse themselves on the day prior to Yom Kippur, and many do so before the three pilgrimage festivals and before Rosh Hashanah. Many also immerse themselves before the Shabbat, and many (primarily Hasidic Jews) do so daily before morning prayers.
A convert to Judaism must immerse.[7]
Taharah, (“Purification”), the ritual washing and cleansing, and immersion in a mikveh according to many customs, of a Jew’s body prior to burial
Prior to ascending the Temple Mount (by those Orthodox or Masorti authorities who permit ascending the Temple Mount)

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