Posted on 04/28/2005 6:54:05 AM PDT by pissant
Many of us who cling desperately to our Catholic Church for instruction, inspiration and support prayed that a new Pope would help heal the church's serious wounds and reconnect it more surely to modern realities. Instead, the cardinals have chosen a good and holy man who, we are told, rather than reform the status quo will reaffirm it more insistently than before.
The current challenge of the church is twofold.
First, it must continue proclaiming the unalterable and unchallengeable truths of Christ, instructing us to love one another as we love ourselves and to collaborate in improving the world that God created but did not complete.
That includes the obligation to be generous to those in need, and to avoid unjust and unnecessary wars that kill innocent people.
To deny these eternal and unchangeable truths of Christ is to renounce the Catholic Church.
The second challenge is to reassess the alterable rules made for us by the male descendants of Peter who were and are humanly frail, as he was, and to readjust those rules to better serve the purpose of helping modern Catholics to live fuller and holier lives in this ever-changing world. This would include, among other things, reconsidering celibacy, women's role in the church and other contentious man-made church policies.
The church can do this without abandoning its fundamental commitment to the Gospel of Jesus, and has in fact done it in the past in changing its position on slavery, usury, salvation outside the church and divorce.
The church is extremely hesitant about using or even defining the idea that it is "infallible" in its teaching. None of the currently contentious issues has been so designated. In fact, the church asserts its infallibility only under strictly defined limits, and it has happened very few times in church history. The only formal exercise of papal infallibility in modern times was by Pope Pius XII and dealt with Mary, the mother of Christ.
Despite this history, our new Pope's record and the opinion among Vatican watchers offer little hope for meaningful changes or even for a clear admission that its man-made rules are indeed alterable by the church that made and enforces them.
But then, ours is a church that continues to entertain the possibility of miracles, big and small and is capable of startling and invigorating changes of course like the ascendance of John XXIII, who gave us the Second Vatican Council that brought Catholicism a bright new enlightenment in the 1960s.
Hope springs eternal.
Time out, TIME OUT! Is this Mario Cuomo, the former governor of the state of NY, telling Christ's Church what it should and shouldn't do? It can't be...
The second challenge is to reassess the alterable rules made for us by the male descendants of Peter who were and are humanly frail, as he was, and to readjust those rules to better serve the purpose of helping modern Catholics to live fuller and holier lives in this ever-changing world. This would include, among other things, reconsidering celibacy, women's role in the church and other contentious man-made church policies.
I guess it is...
The church can do this without abandoning its fundamental commitment to the Gospel of Jesus, and has in fact done it in the past in changing its position on slavery, usury, salvation outside the church and divorce.
It definitely is. Sheesh.
Mario sounds like a lesbian, feminist nun from the 1970s.
Mario's son, Andrew, was a climber in Willie's sewer squad and was going to run for Congress. He got involved in some nasty, nasty but typical scandals and didn't run. He's out there willing to spread filth and corruption as a dem again but he is carrying baggage. A new Pope with dem-like integrity, would have absolved nasty Andrew; this one won't. Thus, Mario's grump at Benedict.
Those who believe in a constantly changing constitution cannot comprehend that God's word doesn't change.
ABSOLUTELY!!!
Cuomo wants a "Catholic Church" which supports the Democrat party's agenda of transforming America into a European-style, secular socialist society. What a creep.
Cuomo is absolutely wrong in this statement about papal infallibility. He should go back and read the formal declaration on this subject in the documents of the first Vatican Council in the 19th Century.
Wasn't this guys "performance" a single, over-rated speech he gave at some rat convention back in the '80s?
The Catholics have lost the equivalent of about 10 Episcopal churches. Don't make yourself feel better by sniping at us, son, we either hang together or we hang separately.
My hope is if the RC Church can hang tough we remaining holdouts can still drag the ECUSA back from the brink, or at least see the schism through to full concordance with Rome, which would not bother me in the least.
Cuomo presents himself as an infallible source of what the Church can change or not change.
The only problem is that the Church has already ruled on Mario's "pet issues"
They are no longer up for discussion. There is no more debate.
Cuomo is only revealing his ignorance of catholic teaching and expecting those who HAVE the duty to uphold unchangeable teaching....to bend to the will of...Cuomo.
There is always the episcopalean church...the unitarian church. My goodness Mario, pick any church you want - but don't expect a 2,000 yr. old church to bend to your spoiled brat wishes.
And, his repeated Hamlet performances in front of the media.....should I run for President or should I not, that is the question.
Yep, that about sums it up.
Mario,
the caffeteria is Closed!!! DEAL WITH IT!!!
"Cuomo wants a "Catholic Church" which supports the Democrat party's agenda of transforming America into a European-style, secular socialist society. What a creep".
________________________________________________
And Benedict has every intention of leading europe back to its Christian roots. Kinda the opposite direction from what Cuomo pines for!
So, is the Catholic Church infallible or not? Or is it only infallible when it officialy asserts its infallibility? What about the "infallible" popes who were condemned as heretics? What about the "infallible" decrees of popes and councils that were later overturned?
I've never understood this concept. Perhaps someone would be kind enough to explain it to me.
Sorry if I offended you. But the Catholic church may have lost 10 times what the Episcopals did, but only due to its mammoth size. The RCC grew by 25% during the reign of JPII.
And it's mostly liberals who are leaving and conservatives coming in.
I too pray that the Episcopalian and other protestant denominations get re-invigorated as well. Cheers
'Tis a long story, but I will try to address that later today, unless someone has the readers digest version readily available.
ALERT! Popemeter currently holding steady at Level Purple
clever!
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