Pope speaks on the crisis, and on women theologians

Amen, Holy Father!

And how will penance and conversion happen? And how will the Vatican police its clergy in the meanwhile? And what are concrete goals by which to measure progress? We need "decisive action carried out with complete honesty and transparency" (Pope's letter to the Catholics of Ireland, March 2010).

Pope Benedict does not seem capable of handling the sexual abuse crisis in Catholicism. This is beyond him.

another interpretation of Benedict's oracular remarks would be that those calling for structural overhaul should expect to share the fate of the Cathars.

At one time, I actually would have bought this fairy tale.

And what did the Church do to the Cathars?

It murdered them.

Wow. No change in structures. I wonder why Ratzinger like Hldegard of Bingen so much.

I look forward with guilty fascination to reading the Comments in NCR whenever John Allen writes a perfectly objective account of the Pope's remarks. You can just feel the bile leaping off the page! I simply can't imagine why anybody remains in an institution that makes them go so nuts every time the head of the institution speaks. It's OK to leave folks. You'll feel a whole lot better. Really you will. The seminaries and convents are starting to fill up with those who love the Pope and all he stands for. Your day is over. As Dylan put it: "Your old road is rapidly aging. Please get out of the new one if you can't lend a hand, cause the times they are a changin'."

Newman College in Kerala, India, a Catholic institution, recently suspended Prof T.J. JOseph - who had his hand chopped off in July by Muslim fanatics for preparing a question-paper with a 'percieved' insult to Islam. It seems that Catholic compassion is only reserved for those in the clergy who're involved in abuse and what-not...For they go on shielding those priests for ages, and are quick to punish those in the laity who might have sinned - even if they are suffering tremendously already. This is truly outrageous.

In saying “a true renewal of the ecclesial community isn’t obtained so much with change in structures”, I would put the emphasis on “so much.” We have patiently tried a continuation of those structures for eight centuries more. Finding them still too limiting to the Spirit and increasingly incongruous with the gospels, it is time for reform.

See the good work occurring in the UK!
http://www.cv4r.org.uk/faith/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&i...
http://www.cv4r.org.uk/faith/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&...

John Allen, thank you for your great service to the worldwide church and especially to those of us in the U.S. with your absolutely indispensible reporting.

But as the Holy Father is well aware from his own studies in medieval theology (see his Habilitionsschrift on Bonaventure and the Theology of History), Hildegard explicitly prophesied a future renewal of the church, a "return to the first dawn of justice" of apostolic charism, that would see the demise of the papacy itself as a central power. The Bishop of Rome, she said, would fall from grace and become "like any other bishop", not even, necessarily, primus inter pares. (See Liber Divinorum Operum, Part III, Vision 5, esp. ch. 25.) Her reform program was indeed a call for conversion and penitence; but that call would realize itself, she believed, in the renunciation of power and authority, the humble submission to holiness that would knock the See of Peter from its vaunted, indeed vain, heights.

Indeed, it is a vision of the future church not entirely unlike that sketched by Joseph Ratzinger himself in the fifth essay ("What will the Church look like in 2009") of his 1971 book "Faith and the Future". As Ratzinger then said, the future Church "will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. It will no longer be able to inhabit many of edifices it built in its palmy days. As the number of its adherents diminishes so will it lose many of its social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. (...) Undoubtedly it will discover new forms of ministry, and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. (...) The Church will be a more spiritualized Church, not presuming upon a political mandate (...) [i]t will make it poor and cause it to become the Church of the meek." (pp. 103-105 in the edition published by Franciscan Herald Press in 1971).

The "structure" of the Church was changed by Vatican II and all the liberal idealogies that followed. I certainly pray that the Holy Father is referring to this and not to staying the course with the liberal heretics present in our churches today. If this Blessed Church does not become "pure" again then we are lost as a church and will suffer the way protestant churches have...no face, no faith, no reason to exist. We must stay a course that follows our real teachings and not the silliness that is all over us now.

@ Demetrius of Corfu
''And what did the Church do to the Cathars?

It murdered them.''

So the wonderful peace loving, wholesome,reluctantly embodied spirits,euthanasia pioneers, sex hating ,body loathing Cathars are now your heros in their battle against the sex hating and body loathing Catholic Church...Wait a minute I'm confused....Or else someone is falling for the tourist blurb put out by the..wait for it...the South Eastern French provinces,Provence etc searching for a unique tourism drawing card who have reinvented the Cathars and brave medieval freedom fighters.
ray
Ireland,
near France,
two hours from ''Cathar country'' via Ryanair for $50 return..
Europe,

Oh, and I thought the Cathars Murdered the Papal legate and the State put an end to their insurrection, good on you Pope Benedict.

My Church,Obey,show good example love it.be humble.

Hmmm. Ugh. Just ugh.
I think that before I give any weight to the pope's words I'd like him to clearly outline a goal and a plan of action. Words are lovely, by words are not as mighty as actions. I admit feeling rather ambivalent towards pope Benedict on account of the part he played in the clergy sex abuse cover ups, and until he does something to actually tend to this crisis in the church I think a lot of people will just continue to think of him the way I do: as a felon who should be prosecuted.
The church has caused so much pain to so many innocent people. I think that the institution, the Vatican, owes it to their faithful followers to take a proactive approach to preventing any more hurt. I don't expect that all the problems will disappear, but I do have an expectation that an institution that demands so much loyalty from its followers will work hard to do right by them.
As for women bringing a special intelligence to religious discussions: no kidding. There are tons of women I can think of that are better suited for office within the church than half the bishops and cardinals.

Here we are! Yet another man stroking the egos of countless women. Okay, Holy Father! Thank you for your time. Who's next, now? Please, someone else tell us how great women are!

Really, I think that the Holy Father, in a laudatory and not-at-all overstated gesture of adulation for the sacred feminine, should infallibly declare that women never fell from grace. This, at least, would be consistent with the way men all over the world treat women. At least we know one half of the world never commits an act of injustice. Fortunately for us men, never an act of treachery or betrayal has ever come from the female quarter. Thank God!

But, but, what about all our wonderful feminist nuns? Why can't they just do what they want - they are so enlightened and modern!

I agree with the Pope on his encouraging words to women theologians and I also agree that not in all situations will the church take to the structure of the church in other to be renewed. There are some renewals to be taken by the individuals. Each person need to get closer to God including the priest, it is not just enough to celebrate mass. The Priest must be a man of prayer, one who is humble and committed to serve the people of God. The mystery they celebrate each day calls for radical conversion. They themselves must be convinced in the mystery they celebrate otherwise it becomes a daily routine. Of course the women are there to add their feminine nature into the life of the Church. Just like the Blessed Virgin, who in all generations calls us to the side of her son, so also all faithful women should stand with the church in every circumstances of her life.