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.
I guess Mr. Cuomo doesn't realize how lucky he is on the noninfallible issues, Benedict XVI is more liberal than not.
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 never changed on any of these points. He's merely repeating the talking points of pseudo-Catholic liberals. He also claims that there have been no recent infallible pronouncements (also a liberal talking point--that only two dogmas have been proclaimed infalliblity in the last 2 centuries) which ignores the 1994 statement on non-ordination of women and the 1995 statements in Evangelium Vitae about abortion and euthanasia, in both cases crystal clear examples of invoking infallibility and irreformability. This piece by Cuomo is laughable.
Mario the Pious speaks. Too bad he has nothing to say that will add anything meaningful to the discussion.
He wants the Catholic Church to preach 'let's all be nice to each other', but not put any demands on anyone regarding their personal behavior. All I know is that if everyone lived the way the Church teaches, no one would ever feel bad about themselves, or have to defend their 'lifestyle' to anyone else.
Fiddle faddle. Total codswallop.
Precisely the reverse is true, Mario, you two-faced prevaricator.
Rather than "cling desperately", you in fact "float peripherally" around the Church, approaching closer and assuming the guise of "sincere Catholic", only when some temporal advantage to you is likely to accrue.
Rather than humbly accepting the Church's "instruction", you in fact, want to proudly instruct the Church-this article being Exhibit "A" in this regard. The Church has already instructed you- and you've rejected it, you abortion-facilitating CINO. As for "inspiration", that will come when you obey the Church's instruction.
It will take more than pious rhetoric and faux Catholic theology to convince anyone with more than 2 neurons that you have any gravitas on this issue, Mario.
You go, 'mallow!
That organization is a lost cause.
The lefties seem in decline.
To deny these eternal and unchangeable truths of Christ is to renounce the Catholic Church.
The second challenge is to reassess the alterable rules ...... among other things, reconsidering celibacy, women's role in the church and other contentious man-made church policies."
I find it interesting that he did not list 'abortion' by name. Of the things listed, abortion-rights is the most important issue to liberals, yet he fails to list it by name preferring to let it fall under the category of "other contentious man-made church policies".
Coward!
Sorry for another post. I searched and nothing came up.
Incorrect. Celibacy is a discipline, not a tradition, finding its origins in the Levitical Priesthood of Melchisedech and in the Catholic Priesthood with Jesus Christ. Quite Scriptural. Incidentally, Melchisedech is first mentioned in the Book of Genesis.
It's funny how all you self proclaimed Scripture scholars just don't know what you're talking about, isn't it.
I'll deleted and will ignore the gratuitous invective. Hopefully, you will not repeat it. I know of no scripture that requires teachers to be celibate. Thus, I regard it as an optional tradition that the Catholic Church adopted. Call it a 'discipline,' if you will. That is semantics and I will not quibble. Characterized that way, it is not a mandatory discipline for the priesthood.
That is the point I made in my original post , and which you elided from the quoted material. That Melchisedech is mentioned in Genesis and that Christ was celibate does not get you to mandatory celibacy in the priesthood.
Or an Unitarian.
Want more Scriptural evidence or are you going to continue to try to dodge and weave.
True, although the Church permitted priests to marry in the past, and it does now in some special cases.
He's merely repeating the talking points of pseudo-Catholic liberals. He also claims that there have been no recent infallible pronouncements (also a liberal talking point--that only two dogmas have been proclaimed infalliblity in the last 2 centuries) which ignores the 1994 statement on non-ordination of women and the 1995 statements in Evangelium Vitae about abortion and euthanasia, in both cases crystal clear examples of invoking infallibility and irreformability. This piece by Cuomo is laughable.
Yep.
As I understand it, popes were among the first to speak against slavery -- I think against its spread to the New World; I never heard that any came out in support of it. In fact, I would venture to guess that, in many times and places, demanding an end to slavery would be something like demanding an end to employment today (surely you saw the buttons a few years back: "At least they can't fire me. Slaves have to be sold!") -- given the conditions, where would the slaves go?
Usury is still condemned AFAIK -- it used to mean charging any interest at all; it has been redefined to mean exorbitant interest, as economic theory evolved.
Continence was expected within marriage, so even there, even on this matter of discipline, not doctrine, there has been development (forbidding marriage in the 1100s) overlaid on top of consistency (continence). The same is true of usury, slavery etc. --development to respond to new questions raised by changing culture but development consistent with original principles.
Ummmnnhhh...a slight technical correction to your well-informed post.
Documents forbidding marriage to priests emerged around 300-400AD. The "1100" document you mention was simply a repetition, perforce, of earlier teaching.
Documents forbidding marriage to priests emerged around 300-400AD. The "1100" document you mention was simply a repetition, perforce, of earlier teaching.
Discouraging marriage in the 300s, yes, forbidding, not quite. Carthage (395) recognizes married priests but sternly insists on continence within marriage. We are not at odds with each other, just fine-tuning the matter.
I replied: "I . . . will ignore the gratuitous invective. Hopefully, you will not repeat it."
You replied: Your feeble attempt at tap dancing notwithstanding.
Never been any good at tap-dancing or at wanting to exchange ideas with folks who, like liberals, turn everything into an ad-hominen attack.
Our exchange is over.
Not a Bible scholar and more ignorance than a liberal has a right too.
Gen 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Gen 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the hosts of them."
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