Posted on 04/19/2005 8:51:13 PM PDT by Diago
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 14:15:00 -0700 From: Call To Action
Subject: CTA apprehensive at news from Rome
Call To Action To our Call To Action family: ====================================================================
The Spirit will be with us... as we move forward together. http://ctamembers.c.topica.com/maadqsZabgc2LbpdCdBeaeQyEw/
The Spirit will be with us as we move forward together We know you share our shock at the selection of Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope.
As we were listening to the news coverage we thought, "Is this really the desire of our church?"
Then we remembered the images of the cardinals sweeping into the Conclave in their matching robes and it struck us, "Those men do not look like our church."
Our faith community is full of vitality, open dialogue, Gospel peace, and WOMEN. We have faith in this community Call To Action has nurtured into being. Thank you for being church for all of us.
We will move forward together with confidence in the Spirit and one another.
Dan and Sheila Daley CTA Co-Directors
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
We encourage you to write letters to the editor of your local paper based on the CTA media release: "Progressive Catholics apprehensive of a hardliner Ratzinger Papacy." We can remind the new Pope to deal with the important issues facing the Church--priest shortage, treatment of women, accountability of the leadership. Also we urge this new Pope to adopt a style of openness that encourage dialogue and participation of the laity.
For CTA's media release and other resources, visit WWW.CTA-USA.ORG http://ctamembers.c.topica.com/maadqsZabgc2LbpdCdBeaeQyEw/
FORWARD THIS E-MAIL Call To Action invites all Catholics--laity, religious and clergy-- to become people of peace and justice in our Church, our communities and our world. National Call To Action 2135 W. Roscoe St Chicago, IL 60618 CTA's informative website is: WWW.CTA-USA.ORG http://ctamembers.c.topica.com/maadqsZabgc2LbpdCdBeaeQyEw/
WASHINGTON, DC—Catholics for a Free Choice is deeply concerned that the election of Cardinal Josef Ratzinger as pope is a strong indication of continued dissension within the church. The cardinal’s historic role as a disciplinarian means the tradition of the punitive father is maintained within the Roman Catholic church.
As we move into a new era for the church, we look to the election of a new pope as a starting point for the critical work that must be done to make this church a home for all Catholics, particularly those divided from the church during the last quarter century.
Today, Pope Benedict XVI has both an opportunity and a mandate to set a tone for the future of his papacy and to redress wrongs done in the name of the Vatican. Simultaneously, he must span the divide widened during the last papacy between clergy and laity, men and women, north and south, right and left, gay and straight. As Pope John Paul II exemplified the spirit of reconciliation and relationship when he sat face to face with the man who shot him, the new pope should extend the same courtesies, coupled with a genuine spirit of invitation, to those who have been most hurt by church policies over the last years.
To this end, Catholics for a Free Choice has laid out a schedule for the next one hundred days. We offer these recommendations and requests in the spirit of moving toward a true engagement with the realities and suffering of our times and mindful of the challenges that lay before us as we seek to heal the fractures within our church.
The two most important issues the new pontiff must address are the clergy sexual abuse crisis, the most painful error of the 20th century within the church, and the church’s need to work with civil society to stem the tide of unnecessary deaths from HIV/AIDS.
During the first one hundred days, the new pontiff should immediately meet with survivors of sexual abuse by the clergy. No child, no adult survivor and no nun who faced this most profound betrayal of faith were ever able to secure a meeting with the late pontiff. Now the Vatican should redress that wrong and sit down in a private meeting to hear the grief, the pain and the anger of those the church has most let down, including members of SNAP, nuns, young people and adult survivors who have all been abused by Catholic clergy. If the church ever needed a truth and reconciliation process, it is over the scandal of sexual abuse. The Vatican telecommunications office, with the full cooperation of the Vatican Congregation of Bishops, should schedule a televised series of encounters between bishops and victims in which the bishops will have the opportunity to tell the truth about their complicity in this scandal and apologize to the victims. The victims would have the opportunity to forgive these men and move on.
During the first one hundred days, the new pope should form a commission to study the current church policy on condoms to prevent HIV/AIDS. Under the watch of Pope John Paul II, Vatican officials and bishops spread misinformation and even staged condom burnings in AIDS-ravaged Africa. The new pope should immediately initiate an inquiry into the theological basis for permitting the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, including visits to regions particularly hard hit by the pandemic. However, people with and at risk of HIV/AIDS should not need to wait for the results of the commission to be able to protect themselves. The pope should lift the ban on condoms immediately in order to err on the side of life.
During the first one hundred days, the pope should establish the Pontifical Academy on Women's Rights in the Church. As a first step, the Academy would serve as a registry for qualified women candidates for positions that are already open to women. All Vatican officials and ambassadors will submit their resignation from office to the new pope. At least 50 percent of those resignations should be accepted and the posts filled with qualified women.
During the first one hundred days, the Vatican should open a dialogue on opening the priesthood to married men. Under Pope John Paul II, married priests who longed to be both priests and husbands were sent the message that their desires for human relationships and love were not only unworthy of the priesthood, but also unworthy of even dispensation from the priesthood, rendering them to an ecclesiastical limbo—neither fully priest nor fully husbands. The future pope should commission a group to discuss the future and role of married priests with an eye toward returning them to ministry. Pension rights should be immediately restored to married priests.
These acts of justice within the church should be matched by an expansion of Pope John Paul II’s commitment to peace and his clarion call for debt forgiveness. It is time for a complete renunciation of capital punishment and a clear and binding opposition to the war in Iraq. Let us go one step further than the former pope and be clear that there is no possibility of a just war by a superpower.
None of these steps would change church teaching; all of them are consistent with current theological and disciplinary norms. None is radical.
The first one hundred days should culminate with a reconciliation mass in St. Peter’s Square. After undertaking the above activities and others, the new pope should warmly welcome back Catholics to the church, with special recognition of and an specific invitation to the women, the gays and lesbians, the theologians and bishops punished and marginalized, the sexually abused and others who have felt excluded.
At the end of the first one hundred days, this pope should articulate a vision for the 21st century church that is inclusive, understanding, compassionate and just.
-end-
Also available at: http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/lowbandwidth/whatsnew.htm
Catholics for Free Choice (CFFC) shapes and advances sexual and reproductive ethics that are based on justice, reflect a commitment to women’s well being, and respect and affirm the moral capacity of women and men to make sound decisions about their lives. Through discourse, education, and advocacy, CFFC works in the US and internationally to infuse these values into public policy, community life, feminist analysis, and Catholic social thinking and teaching.
I bet they don't! =D
Bravo.
Maybe not your church, but they sure look like mine.
If you want to have a real role in guiding the church, members of CTA, there is a seminary which you can apply to. If you think that God's work happens on an editorial page, you're wrong. All you are doing is turning people away from the church.
I've seen what "their" church looks like: wymynchurch, futurechurch, wearechurch etc. ad nauseaum.
Mahoney was in that group ... he's part of "their" church.
But Pope Benedict XVI is not part of "their" church.
Deo Gratias
This group is just hawking for Soros funds and spots on 60 Minutes.
Montanism went out of style so early that Councils weren't even being formed to anathematize them yet.
Trust these good folks to bring back an oldie that nobody considered a goodie.
In Christ,
Deacon Paul+
One of those organizations who have a big institutional mouth but a tiny institutional body.
What they want really doesn't matter, what God wants really does.
Catholics for a Free Choice and Call to Action are dissedent groups who are CINOs. (Catholics in Name Only)
| A Call to Action | The most visible dissenting group which is a movement of laity and religious seeking to reform the "sinful structure" of the "patriarchal" Church. One could call them the "mother of all dissenting groups" - feminist pun intended. CTA is infamous since its 1994 conference coverage on the CBS news program 60 Minutes. CTA promotes dissent against Church teachings on a broad front, including women's ordination, homosexuality, creation spirituality, married priesthood, and liturgical reforms, while incorporating new age and Wiccan spirituality. Bishop Bruskewitz excommunicated those that belong to this group in his Diocese. Many members belong to local groups called "small faith communities." Renew 2000 also promotes small faith communities. Membership draws heavily from former clergy, feminist nuns, and homosexuals. Members staff COR. CTA serves on the national task force for the We Are Church referendum. Get a more complete understanding of their position from their own information. For a list of their speakers at the 2004 conference, click here. |
| Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC) | Promotes artificial contraceptive "rights," including abortion. Their focus is the "intersection of Catholic teaching and public policy." Bishop Bruskewitz excommunicated those that belong to this group in his Diocese. Member of Catholic Organizations for Renewal. They have been condemned by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB). |
Yep, and I doubt they have God on their membership rolls.
"Then we remembered the images of the cardinals sweeping into the Conclave in their matching robes and it struck us, "Those men do not look like our church." "
Thank God! The church to which CTA & CFFC owe allegiance is the baby-murdering church of satan. They are part of the "filth" in the Church which Benedict XVI spoke of on Good Friday - time to sweep the filth out!
LOL!
The only problem is that they have a big well-funded institutional mouth.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
If people adhered more closely to church teachings, AIDS would be contained. The liberals want the Church to be schizophrenic and say - "Don't have sex before marriage, but if you do, condoms are OK".
That's just silly.
Regards, Ivan
well they do have one good idea in the middle of all that garbage - addressing the sex abuse scandal. The Vatican should stand with the victims of abuse and come down hard on the priests and bishops that committed or enabled it. I like the idea of the "panzerpope" meeting personally with victims, apologizing, and then doing everything he can to purge the church of perverts and their enablers. Of course part of that would involve cracking down on gays in seminaries - something I doubt these CINO's would like.
Agreed. CTA is outside the Catholic Church, I just wish they'd figure that out.
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