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.
Mario Cuomo, another one that just doesn't adhere to the curtain call and keeps running on stage over and over after the performance is long over.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Mario is a maggot. Why does ANYONE pay ANY attention to what he has to say?
He ain't Catholic. He's a Catholic in name only. Period.
I guess Cuomo did not hear the Holy Father's sermon on moral relativism. Crawl back into your hole Cuomo.
Why doesn't Cuomo just become an Episcopalian?
LOL. Excellent observation.
I wonder if Mario the Pious includes a change of heart about the death penalty by the church as readjusting the rules?
Yes, I hear the episcopalians are in need of new members.
Marion studiously avoids abortion because he knows his appointment with St Peter at the gate grows near.
It's a good thing Mr. Cuomo decided to pen this op-ed piece in the NY Daily News. He's become so irrelevant these days that I was starting to wonder if he had passed away without any mention in the media.
According to Cardinal Ratzinger, Mario Cuomo is out of communion in the Catholic Church and should be denied receiving Holy Communion because of his stance on abortion and other anti-Catholic positions.
Thowing out Mario, Ted and other evil doers would be a great start in restoring the Church to its health and mission to Christ.
I like that idea!
I love how he opens with this line and then lays out exactly how he doesn't accept the Church's instruction, inspiration, and support.
Personally, I hope that Pope Benedict XVI pushes liberal Catholics in the US to the point where they run off to the Episcopal Church. It is EXACTLY that for which they are looking - an organization that runs according to beliefs that tickle their modern ears, without any of this nonsense about immutable doctrinal Truths laid out by a Divine Founder.
They'd be so much happier.
well said
I guess Mario decided it wasn't worth trying to "flip" the College of Cardinals as he tried to do with Electors after the 2000 election.
Cuomo is pond scum.
My sister joined the Episcopal Church when she got married. She calls it "Catholic Lite".
I would love to see the Pope start excommunicating Cuomo, sKerry, Tubby and a few more of their heretical leftist pals.
In case the egomaniacal Mario doesn't know it he is preaching heresy when he claims "we are asked to collaborate on improving the world God created but did not complete."
Hey Mario - go back under your rock!
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