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PDF version'Sex abuse is the Catholic 9/11'
by John L Allen Jr on Mar. 01, 2011
ROME -- Massimo Franco is a veteran journalist who writes for Corriere della Sera, the most prestigious daily newspaper in Italy. Recently he published a book titled C’era Una Volta un Vaticano (“Once Upon a Time, there was a Vatican”), arguing that underneath the PR meltdowns and internal crises of the Vatican under Benedict XVI lies a radical historical shift – from the Vatican as the chaplain of the West, to the Vatican as representative of a minority subculture.
For centuries, he argues, the Vatican thought and acted like the representative of a cultural majority in the West – a mentality forged in the era of Christendom, and given new life during the Cold War, when the Vatican and the great Western powers were fundamentally on the same page. It’s no longer adequate to the changed cultural landscape of the 21st century, he says – and the inability of senior Vatican personnel to adapt to this new world is the fundamental force, he argues, beneath their apparent disorientation.
My essay on Franco’s book can be found here: Diagnosing the 'implosion' of Benedict's Vatican
Franco sat down March 1 for an interview to discuss the trials and tribulations of Benedict’s papacy.
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Your book seems stronger on diagnosis than cure. You make a convincing case that the Vatican hasn’t responded adequately to this transition from Catholicism as a majority to a minority, but you don’t really explain what a Vatican able to respond to this new cultural situation would look like.
I’m not surprised by what you say, because I’m a journalist. I’m not a pope, I’m not a cardinal, I’m not an intellectual. I have to analyze the origins of this crisis, but it’s not up to me to dictate the solutions.
You must have some thoughts.
I think the problem is one of intellectual categories. It’s a problem of language, of being in tune with the Western world. That’s not the case at the moment. The Vatican, of course, boasts of being counter-cultural, but I think sometimes that’s a form of self-consolation.
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Actually, I think the Vatican is right when it says that in the future, the West will have to come back to religion. The question is, which religion? Will the Vatican be there at the right moment, to respond to the questions people will be asking?
I don’t have the answer, but I can say that there’s a disconnection between the West and the Vatican from the point of view of language. It’s not the fact that Catholics are a minority, but they are a self-referential one, not a creative one, with no capacity of expansion. That’s what I fear. The risk is to circle in on yourself more and more, divorced from the external world.
How much of the church’s capacity to communicate with the external world actually depends on the Vatican?
Quite a lot, I think. But it’s important to say that the Vatican doesn’t just have a problem with external communication – the problem is internal as well. All the gaffes, the misunderstandings, the mistakes in recent years were not really provoked by a lack of communications skills with the outside world. That’s one dimension of it, but the real problem is that inside the Vatican, the discussion is not free and wide enough.
You think it’s not as simple as reforming the communications structures.
No, it’s reforming the machine inside the Vatican. I think the decisions are not considered carefully enough, or shared widely enough among the top people. The Holocaust-denying bishop case is a classic example, because it was not fundamentally a problem of external communication. It was not studied enough, not discussed enough, so the result was not just an external disaster, but also the demonstration that there isn’t a real professionalism in the Vatican.
Take another example: You just can’t say, as some Vatican personnel have, that pedophilia is associated with homosexuality. It’s scientifically incorrect. What it shows is that there’s a deep cultural confusion [in the Vatican], and they’re too often backwards. You have to know a subject well before you presume to talk about it – you can’t just make it up. There’s a true underestimation of what was at stake, as people were speaking out without any real preparation. It was astonishing how amateurish the reactions were, especially in the beginning.
It seems that what you’re saying is that the real challenge is to have people with cultural depth in key positions, before we talk about changing structures or systems.
That’s it. It’s a problem of culture and of language, because language reflects culture. The problem isn’t merely that you have a clear message and you can’t communicate it properly. The problem is that too often, the message itself is confusing and confused.
You say that fixing all this will probably have to await another pontificate. Why?
This pontificate has been a very difficult one, because you had to reconcile the heritage of John Paul II and the end of the Cold War with the need for change. That’s very difficult. Benedict XVI inherited not just the glory, but also the burden, of John Paul’s pontificate. For instance, he had to take a different approach to the sexual abuse crisis. This pope has been forced to look forward and backward at the same time.
In a way, Benedict is the scapegoat of a different historical situation. John Paul II was the last pope of the Cold War, and he was profoundly a man of the Cold War. This pope was the intellectual architect of John Paul’s papacy, but he’s forced to act in a post-Cold War world. It’s a time of transition, and I think he’s paying for something for which he was not responsible. He’s been overwhelmed by unresolved problems of the past.
Your book also seems to suggest that he’s surrounded by a regime that’s sometimes dysfunctional.
That’s a result of the fact that this is a time of transition. You must not forget that this pope was already old when he was elected, and he’s surrounded himself with people he trusts, but without a clear strategy for governance. The result is that some choices were not happy ones.
Here’s the big picture: The problem is that the Vatican is still dominated by a culture shaped by the Cold War, but the world has changed. What the Twin Towers attacks were for the United States, the sex abuse scandals are for the church. The Twin Towers meant that American unilateralism and military hegemony were over, and the sex abuse scandals meant that the ethical uni-polarism of the Catholic church was over. The West is in crisis, from a military, technological, economic and moral point of view. Both of the two parallel empires today are learning more inward, they’re weaker, and they don’t collaborate with each other.
A few years ago, you wrote a book on U.S./Vatican relations. How do you see that relationship today?
First of all, the relationship has been delegated to the U.S. bishops more than being managed by the Vatican. Secondly, I have the impression that the Obama administration is not very well informed about what’s going on in the Vatican. Third, I think there isn’t much sympathy, or coincidence of views, on values. What I always hear from Vatican circles is that Obama doesn’t have a religious worldview.
There are fewer points of convergence than in the past. Both Communism and Islamic fundamentalism once brought the U.S. and the Vatican together, but today Communism is over, and since the Vatican silently accuses the United States of having lost ground and credibility in the Islamic world, it feels it has to keep its distance. As a result, the basic building blocks of the relationship aren’t there anymore.
At the outset, there was great talk of a Vatican/Obama partnership in turning a page with the Islamic world. People pointed out, for instance, that Benedict’s speeches in the Holy Land in 2009 and Obama’s speech in Cairo were remarkably similar.
They were similar, but the reality is that Obama is overwhelmed by American problems and Benedict is overwhelmed by Catholic problems in the West. They each have internal crises they’re trying to resolve.
You have a chapter on the struggles of Christianity in the Middle East. Is there anything realistically the Vatican could do about that?
It’s very difficult, because the Vatican’s grip on those realities isn’t so strong. They should have had a strategy lone ago, because I think the decline was already very clear before the war in Iraq, and the war just accelerated it. I know they tell people to stay, but my impression is that they’re saying it almost pro forma, because they know that the decision to stay today is almost heroic. There aren’t any real prospects for them anymore.
Why do you think Christians in the West are so much less likely to react when other Christians are attacked than, say, Jews are when other Jews are threatened, or Muslims are when other Muslims are in trouble?
Paradoxically, there’s a very deep ignorance of the Christian presence outside the West. Secondly, they tend to consider them Arabs, or Pakistanis, or Indians first, and Christians only second. Nationality, culture and race often tends to be stronger than religion.
Is it also another example of your point that Christians have not adapted to being a minority? In the West, Christians tend to take their religious identity for granted, in a way that Jews and Muslims don’t. Hence the welfare of Christians in other parts of the world doesn’t stir our souls in the same way.
You’re right. I agree with that totally. Many delusions of Catholics, and in the Vatican, depends on this fact. They think as if they’re a majority. When Benedict says we must behave as a creative minority – which in practice often means we must behave as the Jews do – it may seem paradoxical, but it’s a valid intuition of what’s going on.
| John Allen is in Rome for the next week. Check back to NCRonline.org frequently for more reports and exclusive coverage. |
The single biggest blow to
The single biggest blow to the RCC's credibility in the West was Humanae Vitae. Even the pedophile crisis, as bad as it is, pales before the effect of that encyclical upon the western RCC. That encyclical has been manipulated to the point where if the Vatican had its way, doctors and nurses would be required to just stand at the bedside and pray instead of acting to save the life of a mother of 4 in Phoenix. What was once billed as a Church of Reason is now a Church of Blind Dogma, Reason be damned.
Amen to that. Dogma is to
Amen to that.
Dogma is to the Catholic Magisterium what the Sabbath was Pharisees in Mark's Gospel. To such one can truly imagine that Jesus today might say, "Traditions and moral rules are properly ordered to serve the good of human beings; human beings were not created by God to serve your laws and traditions."
A true pastor, it must be known, would not need to be told.
I often wonder if any in the
I often wonder if any in the hierarchy have ever read the Gospels - the passages that have to do with Pharisees, and if they have then how can they possibly overlook the astonishing propensity that they themselves have to be modern day pharisees.
"I often wonder if any in the
"I often wonder if any in the hierarchy have ever read the Gospels..."
If you are intending to say or imply that all priests, bishops, cardinals, etc. are modern day pharisees, you are seriously overstating the problem. It's wrong to use such a broad brush to condemn the many for the failures of some.
Well said. How about the
Well said. How about the Catechism of the Catholic Church?: Well written and beautiful most of the way through. Nonetheless, it tries to caste in stone the mindset of the pre-Vatican II Church, especially in its primitive sexual ethics. We need to revive and intensify the sensus fidelium. Who has the courage to take on that ministry.
JR
JR Look into the American
JR
Look into the American Catholic Council for fostering a "sensus fidelium.
Bill
I fully agree. the
I fully agree. the prohibition of the Pill was a theological and administrative madness of Paul VI.
But in France, the Bishops always emphasized that we Catholics must choose butween the least and the worst deficiency. If Christian life becomes more deficient without the pill, the faithful must take thePill. so in france the pill was practically laid to rest. There was not much discussion and NO impact of the pill.
In Belgium thechurch DID NOT AGREE WITH PAUL VI and the pill continued to be considered a positive thing. this was in part because the Beligan theologian on paul VI's committe (Pierre DeLocht) disagreed with the pope and agreed with the majority of the theologians. My wife, was working on a Catholic social center for years from 1980 to 2000, which abundantly distributed FREE pills.
The problem is that most American RCs are American RCs and not World Catholic.
you are correct. the rcc has
you are correct. the rcc has to leave yhe middle ages behind and marry the rcc to the future because the genie is out of the bottle.
God bless Benedict as he
God bless Benedict as he steers and guides Christ's Church. He is a good shepherd and and a brilliant guide.
Could you provide an example
Could you provide an example or two of Benedict's "good shepherdness"? Tens of thousands of victims of sexual abuse might not agree that he has done anything at all to be a "good shepherd. The only bishop who has done anything at all is Diarmuid Martin of Dublin - at least he has spoken out. At least he cooperated with the civil authorities investigation in Ireland. Benedict has done nothing at all to help. He keeps telling the people in the pews that they must repent but nothing at all about the bishops who enabled tens of thousands of crimes. How his "brilliant' guidance helped either the church in general or the world? As far as most can see, his papacy has been close to disastrous for the church's role in the world. With almost no credibility left, how is the church to influence the world for good? A survey of Australian priests that was just published also present a grim fact - few of them have any faith in Rome's leadership either. It's an almost total meltdown of respect for the church, both among the church's own and in the world. If this is what "brilliance" produces, maybe a bit less ivory-tower "brilliance" and a bit of human common sense is what is needed.
Have you met him?
Have you met him?
After all, so few of us will
After all, so few of us will ever meet Pope Benedict. This is precisely why it is imperative that the messages he sends are clear. And that they make Gospel sense for those listening. And isn't that-to some degree-the entire world?
Into the Fog! A Brilliant
Into the Fog!
A Brilliant Guide into the Fog.
BenXVI has smashed the moral compass, Darkened the windows - closed the blinds and has hit the RCC Titanics' throttle full speed into the Fog. It's only a matter of Time before the INEVITABLE.
And they want to hoist JP2 to Sainthood?
History has an Ash Heap !
And I can see John Allen smoking the ashes of the RCC Institution, hoping for enlightenment.
Kings comments on Franco are
Kings comments on Franco are good. The Vatican and the College of the Cardinals just do not listen and they do not give a damn about their not listening because they are always right and those who disagree or do not listen to them with rapt attention and conviction are morally wrong ab initio and will go to hell while the Boys in Red will be vindicated and glorified on the Last Day. We are led in the best case by idiots or, as more probably is the case, those who are so twisted out of the real world by their "vocation" that they have come to firmly believe that only THEY can be correct and the laity, especially women, are prone to be sinfully wrong. The Pew polls and other studies have shown that American Catholics, who pretty much alone keep the Vatican afloat, profoundly disagree with the Boys in Red on a number of moral issues. I have advocated denying these jokers financial support to get their attention, but I have weakened and have been more generous than usual--but I give selectively to such alternate Catholic charities as St. Jude Children's Hospital. We need to find a way to get the attention of the Boys in Red and to engage them in a reality check with the parishioners who pay their salaries and for their declared eleemosynary activities. They, the priesthood--and especially the bishops on up, have zero interest in any dialog about anything, it seems to me. All they want is money, money, and money. Did I forget to say "money"??? Frankly, my respect for any priest above the parish level is pretty low. Does it show??
Re 'Money.' I have recently
Re 'Money.'
I have recently decided to take the time and prepare a cover letter to any contribution I make to a 'Catholic' organization/institution.
I invite them to cash my check if they are actually Pro-Life rather than simplistically anti-abortion. Some ways they may demonstate this:
1. Pay all employees a living family wage so that no woman even need face the terrible choice of feeding and providing heath care to her current children or ending the life of one that (is and) is to be. A choice that I, as a man, have no ability to comprehend but respect.
2. Speak out concerning Pope JP II’s very strong, direct and clear teaching concerning just wars and how the US's (then) proposed unilateral attack against the sovereign nation of Iraq did not meet that criteria. A war that resulted in the death, injury and displacement of more than 1.5 million innocent women and children. Guidance that was echoed by then Cardinal Ratzinger.
3. Clearly and unequivocally speak out that there is no justification in a death penalty in the US because every state and federal judiciary/prison system has the ability to safely secure death penalty eligible persons for life so that they are in no way a possible danger to society.
I just started this program so I have no idea of how it will work. I know my own diocese would not qualify.
Why is it that 'they' will not pay a living family wage or let employees form unions? What part of Rerum Novarum do they 'just don't get?'
"we must behave as the Jews
"we must behave as the Jews do" - you mean kick the italians out of the vatican?
seriously though, by the headline i was sure this was going to be one of those articles where the vatican (like the US) is blaming outsiders for a disaster. very misleading. the interview is in fact quite enlightening.
Thanks, this is well
Thanks, this is well done
“…there isn’t a real professionalism in the Vatican”
“It was astonishing how amateurish the reactions were”
He hit the nail on the head. With the advent of the internet, this is painful for all to see. It is not so much a matter of “culture”, but simple due diligence, hard work and plain humble honesty, that is completely lacking. It seems to have gotten worse in the last 3 decades. How to explain the removal of promoter of faith, other than to promote self serving “holy shamelessness”? Such pervasive self serving dishonesty and intellectual sloth is now increasingly sanctioned by “new spiritualities”. The problem of language is primary that of double speak, the results from all this. It is not clear that things are getting any better. In the last 6 months we saw the approval of a 14 volume “secret catechism” (that they tried to ram down the throats of Japanese Bishops), and the ok to teach without citing some one the Pope declared to be a “false prophet” (just read any of the communiqués about the Maciel scandal, try to make heads or tails). What is going on? Things will not get better until a new generation of honest, prayerful, humble, truth seeking and hard working people take charge, that live the Gospels with the Sacraments (that applies to all of us).
“Actually, I think the Vatican is right when it says that in the future, the West will have to come back to religion.” … lets pray, sooner than later….
Training in theology and
Training in theology and philosophy have left Pope Benedict and the hierarchy holding inadequate weapons to deal with the world today. They might as well publish their manuals and textbooks for insertion into fortune cookies.
These guys have lived in ecclesiastical cocoons, as do most clergy. They're neither temperamentally , nor educationally prepared to deal with the idea "authority" isn't a divinely led teacher expounding truths to save the universe.
The world neither cares, nor does it want to care what religious leaders know or believe. The new golden calf to be worshiped is in "Facebook", the internet, and the celebration of Oneself. Marked by a self-possessed disinterestedness in history, the past beyond yesterday's events, and the celebration of the here and the now.
Truth is not "relative", ever
Truth is not "relative", ever changing with each “historical context”, as some thinkers over the last 2 centuries would like us to think. The idea of virtues, for example, has stood the test of time over millennia, and is universal (contrary to more modern ideas that lead to 20th century disasters). The Pope, if you read him, is not some disconnected person. He knows history and human nature well. He was/is a teacher with real students. The internet can be very superficial, in fact most of it is. People rarely take the time to dig deep into matters. So the Church, the True Church, has her work cut out (that means all of us). But at the minimum, her leaders need to come back to basic humility, honesty, and start above all to lead by example, it seems to me. You can’t expect “obedience” for the sake of “obedience”, as Cardinal Rode seems to have implied on his way out (it is as if he learned absolutely nothing from the Charity=Obedience 4th vow in Legionnaires debacle).
"Truth is not "relative",
"Truth is not "relative", ever changing with each “historical context”, as some thinkers over the last 2 centuries would like us to think."
************************************************************************
Just 2 centuries? Did it not take the Vatican almost 400 years to finally admit that Galileo was speaking the truth? Could it be that truth is relative to society's understanding of physics, biology, psychology, neurobiology, and other sciences? Will it take the RCC another 400 years to admit that individuals with same sex attraction were made by God that way and that God never meant for them to live a life of sexual frustration?
Hum, I was talking about
Hum, I was talking about virtues, not about the orbit of Jupiter, which has nothing to do with marriage (a term used to mean marriage between opposite genders for ever, for reproduction and taking care of loved ones meant simple survival).
But I guess new disconnected line of thinking is now deemed “scientific” by self defined blogosphere “scientists”, with their one sentence “dogmas”. Sigh…
For the record, I am an M.D.
For the record, I am an M.D. pathologist and will plead guilty to being a scientist with a lot of knowledge of the disciplines I listed above. BTW, I married a beautiful bride who I knew was infertile from endometriosis. Our marriage had nothing to do with reproduction from the get go and we knew it. For that reason, I can sympathize with gay people and take umbrage when folks claim that marriage must always be about reproduction.
I would also point out to you that civil marriage and sacramental marriage are not the same thing. Civil marriage at least grants rights of survivorship and other rights that are not otherwise available without a civil marriage. Because 2 gay people could marry civilly does not in any way change how the Church defines marriage.
Thank you for sharing,
Thank you for sharing, sharing some light with honest self-disclosure. Civil unions can provide for the rights of survivorship and the 'Church' can dispense it's norms as it sees fit. Mind you I'm left wondering if the deeper agenda on the part of many is the destruction of the Roman catholic church in toto. The depth of rage and outrage present in the culture at large when ignited and focused may tear the institution to shreds. No more Roman catholic school boards would be a start...it's on it's way...soon.
So the truth is not relative,
So the truth is not relative, based upon a changing history of time? So that means in 1955, 1965, 1975, 1985, 1995, 2005, and now 2011, clergy who molested children were guilty of criminal behavior and not a pychiatric sickness? And, the truth didn't change with time? And Benedict can't claim relativity, but instead must admit to an absolute truth, namely child rape has been a serious crime since Jesus uttered the words two thousand years ago, "Whoever harms one of these little ones...."
The truth from teachings of
The truth from teachings of the Bible, the Sacraments, virtues defined by the Doctors of the Church, is not relative. The problem is that many in church leadership (as well as us lay) are just not following the Churches own teaching and are now trying to impose our own new versions of casuistry, both from the "left" and "right", to advance our little agendas. The abuse scandal is one of the many messes resulting from this, imo.
It is perhaps worth pointing
It is perhaps worth pointing out that Catholicism exists beyond the West and that next to Sunni Islam, Roman Catholicism right now is the second largest religious group in the world. This could contribute to the Vatican not realizing that the church is now in the "minority"--because it isn't, much as those of us in the West hate to admit it. I am no great admirer of this papacy, or any other, but the Vatican has more on its mind than the issues that preoccupy us. It is, for example, providing significant leadership on climate change, which the United States certainly isn't. The sex abuse crisis has got nothing on the flooding of huge sections of the planet over the next fifty years; a planetary 9/11 that one.
Roman Catholicism may be the
Roman Catholicism may be the second largest faith on the planet, but it is rapidly becoming, like Sunni Islam, a religion hopelessly tied to it's past with large numbers of uneducated people as it's mainstay. With inadequate weapons for dealing with the challenges of indiffererntism.
The Church has always been able to deal with the disagreeable and those who hate it. Now it must come to grips with a universal dismissal and indifference. What's worse, that indifference is coming from within the Church as much as it is coming from outside the Church.
The Vatican should start getting "real" and cease looking at it's statistics of Church's world membership more critically. An awful lot of those 1.3 billion Catholics should have been dropped from the rolls centuries ago. Demographers and statisticians have been doing just that for a long time now.
If the Church is seen as some tiny boat of believers with diminishing numbers as Pope Benedict once called it, then it may have been a more truthful statement than he ever once thought it was.
One of the gifts that America
One of the gifts that America can give to the Vatican is the understanding that there must be a balance of powers. The journalist refers to internal communication problems. If there were a balance of powers, rather than all the power being so centralized, communication would not only improve, communication would be coming from several different points of view. Just as America has the judicial, legislative, and executive branches, so the Vatican must allow theologians to make some decisions as a 'second branch,' reserving the 'first branch' for itself as executive. then they need to encourage the development a third branch, also with authority making power. You don't have to have a Phd in Church History to know that the church has been run in different ways at different times, and how its been run has been influenced very strongly by culture. Let's allow the best of 21st century culture to influence it.
""Third, I think there isn’t
""Third, I think there isn’t much sympathy, or coincidence of views, on values. What I always hear from Vatican circles is that Obama doesn’t have a religious worldview.""
Maybe something has been lost in the translation, if Franco spoke in Italian. I think that Obama views the world from a perspective consonant with the message of the Gospels. He very likely does not view the world from the point of view of organized religion in general or the RC Church in particular. If Obama does not have much sympathy for the views or values emphasized by the Vatican, perhaps the Vatican might be out of step with the values of the Gospels. That just might be.
A VOICE FROM THE GRAVE When I
A VOICE FROM THE GRAVE
When I listen to the requiems of many modern intellectual pygmies — with no sense of history beyond that of an ant — on the demise of the Catholic Church, from his grave I hear the words of the noted English historian, Thomas Bebington, Lord Macaulay, (1800–1859)— himself not a Catholic:
"There is not, and there never was on the earth, a work of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilization.
“No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavia Amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series from the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth century and far beyond the time of Pepin the August dynasty extended till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The Republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the Republic of Venice was modern when compared with the papacy; the Republic of Venice is gone; the papacy remains not in decay, not as a mere antique, but full of life and youthful vigor. The Catholic Church is still sending forth to the farthest ends of the world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with Augustine, and is still confronting hostile Kings with the same spirit with which it confronted Attila ...
"She saw the commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments (churches) that now exist in the world, and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished in Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the Temple of Mecea. And she may still exist in undiminished vigor when some traveler from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on the broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's."
Macaulay would be pleased
Macaulay would be pleased with the choice of venue for the mass on the eve of John Paul II's Triumph/Apotheosis/Beatification: The Circus Maximus.
The Vatican behaves as if it
The Vatican behaves as if it was on the higher end of the Autism Spectrum. Time will heal this discrepancy along with the power of the Holy Spirit, aiding us in our responses to the Catholic Magisterium.
My son is on the higher end
My son is on the higher end of the autism spectrum. I am offended by this comment, although I suspect I am not completely out of sympathy with the author's intent.
But those unfamiliar with real world autism, its joys and frustrations, should refrain from using it as a cute insult.
Young readers around the
Young readers around the world got a taste of how ill-informed the new Pope Benedict XVI was when his criticism of the Harry Potter books as likely to "corrupt the Christian faith in souls" surfaced. He hadn't read them, mind you, but felt qualified to brand them as corrupting. The blind leading the seeing.
Later pronouncements only reinforced the image, as during his trip to Africa, he said condoms only made worse the crisis of HIV/AIDS.
Where do these men get the idea that their job is to NOT listen, NOT be informed, NOT show compassion?
SIMPLE LISTENING/SIMPLE
SIMPLE LISTENING/SIMPLE READING ONLINE--FINGER ON THE PULSE
There is no excuse for the Vatican to be out of touch with the world, Catholic world, or entire world.
With the plethora of communication on the Internet (Hey even these NCR articles!) the experience of the human family is apparent--and struggling by the way.
Jesus'MO was BEING WITH THE POOR PEOPLE. Jesus visited people in their homes, or He sat out on a bare hilltop and was WITH THEM.
So what in the heck are the Pope and other mighty Catholic hierarchs doing walled up in the glorious Roman museum piece?
The Pope, and even many US Bishops, are choosing to NOT KNOW THE LIVES OF THE POOR PEOPLE.
It's so un-Jesus-like!
PS The Legionaries of Christ do love the Roman Catholic heirarch system, and that's why they are heavily entrenched in glorious Rome. It's nasty.
Once a guy gets into purple
Once a guy gets into purple or red he seems to lose any bit of human decency that he may have had before. The truth becomes a casualty as he lies his way up the hierarch ladder. Lower clerics and laity, as well as the truth and decency, get walked on. The lust for clerical advancement is disgraceful. And, like our public office holders, their main goal in life becomes (not the gospel or the poor)but staying "in the red." I've seen it from the inside. And it ain't pretty....
Please please do yourselves a
Please please do yourselves a favour and go to Michael Voris S.T.B. on U Tube and listen to his wonderful 1hour long talk on "Rebellion in the Church". He is so correct and if more folk would try to understand what they are doing to undermine the Church's authority and what they are doing to the world at large, the Church would be so much stronger and able to fight modernism that is sweeping the world today.. I do believe if all these dissidents left the church it would be a better for the Church and we can once again see the Church as Christ founded it with all its truths and doctrines.
Ms. Power, I'm sorry that
Ms. Power,
I'm sorry that Democracy and the Principle of Subsidiarity so offend you. Perhaps you would be happier if you moved to Jordan and lived under a king....
One minor factor missing.
One minor factor missing. Forget the Polish/German experiment and get back to an Italian Pope who will stay at home and mind the store.
I like Franco's vision of the
I like Franco's vision of the Catholic Church, and I like your comments in your first piece about the book and your questions here. But the problem is this: Neither of you get around to reporting on the solutions to these Vatican problems. Yeah, your just reporters. But why don't you report on number of priests in Europe and the America's who get silenced by their bishops when they publicly demand that priests be allowed to marry and that Humanae Vitae's condemnation of birth control be rescinded? There is no reason why the Northern Hemisphere's last absolute monarchical dictator--currently named Benedict XVI--cannot do what two or three absolute dictators have just done in the Middle
East: allow democracy to slowly turn it into a real Constitutional Monarch. After all, St. Peter, the first bishop of Rome did that. For Christians there is only one Absolute Monarch: Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
I like Franco's vision of the
I like Franco's vision of the Catholic Church, and I like your comments in your first piece about the book and your questions here. But the problem is this: Neither of you get around to reporting on the solutions to these Vatican problems. Yeah, your just reporters. But why don't you report on number of priests in Europe and the America's who get silenced by their bishops when they publicly demand that priests be allowed to marry and that Humanae Vitae's condemnation of birth control be rescinded? There is no reason why the Northern Hemisphere's last absolute monarchical dictator--currently named Benedict XVI--cannot do what two or three absolute dictators have just done in the Middle
East: allow democracy to slowly turn it into a real Constitutional Monarch. After all, St. Peter, the first bishop of Rome did that. For Christians there is only one Absolute Monarch: Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Franco does a great job of
Franco does a great job of objectively observing what is really going on in the Vatican and the wider scope of the issues. There is so much work to be done and nothing will be accomplished as long as the Vatican maintains such a limited view of Catholicism. A wider vision that pierces through the perceived veil of separation is what is needed....both as an internal exploration and in moving out into the world. I believe that this is what Vatican II began....too bad the Institution got scared before they could bring forth the fullness of the Vatican II fathers' vision. I also trust that the pendulum will swing back the other way...just not under this pope.
Lauri Lumby
Authentic Freedom Ministries
http://yourspiritualtruth.com
After reading all the above
After reading all the above commentaries, I fall on my knees and thank God that John L. Allen, Jr. is not the Pope. The Holy Spirit was the guiding force in the election of Cardinal Ratzsinger as Pope Benedict XVI. If Allen's message were of God he would try to build up the church in a positive approach and not try to serve as the devil's right hand in trying to reduce its influence in bringing souls to their final destiny. I promise to keep all of the leaders of the church and all of its judgmental criticizers in my prayers. We need the Holy Spirit now more than ever, and also the loving hand of Our Lady, Queen of the Universe! Please join me NOW!
I could stand for the loving
I could stand for the loving hand of Our Lady to grab Cardinal Law by his collar and drag him across the Atlantic Ocean back to Boston to stand trial for his crimes against the children of Boston.
In Rome (and some dioceses)
In Rome (and some dioceses) we find the old Peter Principle, Catholic Style - the St Peter Principle - where one rises to their level of incompetency. Thank God we still have some competent ones like Fr Richard McBrien and many others to help us find the truth.
I would venture to say that,
I would venture to say that, rather than the sex abuse crisis, the freedom of women beginning in the 60's is the Catholic 9/11. And it will also be the Muslim 9/11. But not the Jewish 9/11 oddly enough.
Not only the Vatican has a
Not only the Vatican has a problem with communication in the 21. century.
Last Sunday in all churches in the archdiocese Berlin a letter by our diocesan administrator (the auxiliary bishop) was read explaining to us the minutae of finding a successor for the seriously ill bishop.
Of course no mention was made about the participation of the People of God in this process. His last sentence was the quotation of CIC Canon 430, §1: „The function of a diocesan administrator ceases when the new bishop has taken possession of the diocese.“
The respective German word „Besitzergreifung“ for possession in this context sounds very archaic to me and my friends. We assume it shows the way they understand the church: it is their prey. But we do not want to be a bishop´s possesion.
I wrote a letter to the administrator. I told him that we in East Germany and Eastern Europe had demonstrated some twenty years ago for the right to vote and that this has repeatedly been praised by the bishops as a great achievement. I told him that their refusal to concede the peoeple of god any participation in this process would gravely undermine the bishop´s credibility ….
Will I ever get an answer?
Werner
You can still sign the memorandum of the professors of theology:
The text
http://www.memorandum-freiheit.de/?page_id=518
sign here
http://www.kirche2011.de
I love the comments you
I love the comments you publish for they reveal the depths of the ignorance of Catholics.
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