Posted on 04/13/2007 6:54:57 AM PDT by Frank Sheed
Two years into his reign, Pope Benedict XVI is finally poised to make a major mark on American Catholicism with a string of key bishop appointments and important decisions about the future of U.S. seminaries and bishops' involvement in politics.
Benedict's election on April 19, 2005, shook liberals and comforted conservatives who expected a doctrinal hard-liner. So far, they have found an easier hand - and someone who has not made the United States much of a priority.
When Benedict has gained attention, it has mostly been on the world stage, focusing on the re-Christianization of Europe, Islam and mending relations with Orthodox Christians. He also has stressed universal themes of faith and reason.
``The last two years have been much quieter years as far as the papacy is concerned because you have a very different personality'' than John Paul II, said Monsignor Robert Wister, chairman of the church history department at Seton Hall University's School of Theology.
``Many Americans were surprised - some happily, some disappointed - that he did not turn into the pit bull of dogma. He is taking a very pastoral approach, and I think people resonate very positively with that.''
Yet America's turn may be coming. At the top of the list is a looming generational shift among the nation's bishops, whose decisions at the local level greatly affect Catholics in the pews and can carry national weight. For instance, church leaders recently closed parishes in Boston and New York, while the St. Louis archbishop has clashed with a heavily Polish parish over control of its assets.
Key appointments are expected in New York, Baltimore and Detroit, where cardinals have reached retirement age - 75. And retirements or appointments are likely in at least seven other archdioceses...
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Well, it is a fairly small diocese, but if I had to presume there’d be a new one, it’s not a bad guess. Dallas, a much larger diocese (oddly), is under it.
I'm trying to get the hang of editing before posting, but sometimes I just can't wait.......
Yikes!
Ours is 8 pounds, chews everything in sight (including the girls) and hasn’t caught on to potty training in three months. She was only three pounds when we got her so was spoiled by Dad from the start. She listens to me but when he gets home, she feels that anything goes.
The only blessing is that she can be picked up, if you can catch her. We are really close to calling Ceasar Milan. We really can’t wait until Monday when Divine Canine, from the Monks of New Skete starts on Animal Planet!
>>Bishop Lennon not much of an improvement over the very liberal former Bishop Pilla here in C-Town.<<
Do tell.
I would like to move home someday but won’t go to Liberal heaven.
I wouldn’t have mentioned it, if I hadn’t just been on the “pore-pour-poor” thread.
That’s cute. Most of the people commenting can type and spell. It’s remarkable. (Whereupon, I have remarked.)
What is it with this typing/grammar/spelling imperative, Mrs. Chick? Are the kids having a final exam or a spelling bee?
F
We’re just having one of those days. The Verbal Mayhem ping list is active.
Oh, here’s Bill threatening Household Mayhem unless I get off the computer and let him read “Defense News.”
Later ...
Thanks!
Apparently, but I'm so familiar with the CoC (in this part of the country) that I felt compelled to point out that one of their distinctives is that they don't have an ordained clergy or even a distinction between clergy and lay people (and they never use the term "reverend").
I think Pope Benedict has been concentrating on Europe because he is alarmed at what has happened to the Church in particular, and Christianity in general, on the Continent. That's why he's been pushing the 'faith and reason' idea. He sees Europe as trying to supplant faith with reason, and failing miserably.
Don't even get them started on the distinction between the church building and the church congregation.
BTW, My s-i-l's s-i-l actually attended college with the wife of the CofC pastor who blew her husband away in TN.
That evil fundamentalist man's crime: oppressing his wife by verbally criticizing her decision to blow all their savings on a Ponzi scheme without consulting him.
My s-i-l is from the Muscle Shoals area just south of the TN border.
"Confronted with the abuse of economic power, with the cruelty of capitalism that degrades man into merchandise," Benedict writes, "we have begun to see more clearly the dangers of wealth and we understand in a new way what Jesus intended in warning us about wealth." In a chapter on the Good Samaritan, Benedict decries how the wealthy have "plundered" Africa and other parts of the developing world through colonialism.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/13/africa/pope.php
This reads like a radical socialist tract, blaming "capitalism" and "the wealthy" for societal problems.
It didn't take in either case.
Woah!
That evil fundamentalist man's crime: oppressing his wife by verbally criticizing her decision to blow all their savings on a Ponzi scheme without consulting him.
I did not know that.
Have a pleasant weekend.
Awwww.
I’d suggest a blessing of mysterious Wednesday, but I don’t think Father Hawker is a cat person. Maybe the deacon would do it, if we invited him and his wife to supper with plenty of wine.
I think the English (at least the Liberals) were more upset by Disraeli’s curled and pomaded hair and the fact that he was a . . . < gasp > novelist . . . than they were because he was of Jewish descent (he was C of E by religion).
Mine is around 40 pounds (hasn't been weighed lately but she's growing like a weed) which is typical for a field rather than show Lab. She's definitely going to be bigger than her Chocolate big sister, who is the smallest purebred Lab I have ever seen. We went to a hunt test last November, there were about 200 dogs there, mostly Labs, and any Lab there could have given her 25 pounds.
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