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How to save the Church in twenty-five words or less.

Purge the priesthood and the seminaries of homosexuals/ pedofiles simultaneously.

Voila! Problem solved.

To cite one horrific example, through a quirk in current Church law, you can murder your spouse, go to confession, remarry, and continue as a communicant; but you cannot divorce your spouse, go to confession, remarry, and continue as a communicant. I am no moral theologian, but that strikes me as messed up.

I am not Catholic, nor do I agree with the Church's position on this issue.

However, it seems to me that the divorced Catholic who remarries indicates his intention to continue to praqctice the sin. Thus his "confession" would be equivalent to that of the murderer who confesses that he intends to walk out of the confessional and immediately kill again. I doubt such a "confession" would qualify for absolution.

Well this article is on target as regards the bishops and cardinals but at the expense of glossing the problem of HOMOSEXUAL priests which I suspect is by design

Sounds like the Catholic Church is still selling indulgences. Martin Luther, go boy!

CLICK FOR DIRECT LINK TO DESCRIPTION WITH VIDEO FEED LINK

CRISIS IN THE CHURCH (60:00)
Join Raymond Arroyo and guests Colin Donovan, Fr. Benedict Groeschel, and Michael Novak for a spiritual analysis of the genesis as well as the outlook for resolution of Catholicism's current crisis. The round-table discussion will include your live call-in questions and comments on the response of U.S. cardinals to their recent meeting with the Holy Father in Rome, and what impact the resulting papal directives may have on the Catholic Church in America.

Monday April 29- 8:00 pm ET LIVE
Tuesday April 30 1:00 pm ET Encore

One of the best editorials I've read so far about this subject.

I have been dismayed by the Catholic bashing that sometimes goes on here, (I was a Catholic during my childhood, but no longer. I left that faith for different reasons).

To blame the flock for the bad behavior of SOME of the shepherds is as wrong as blaming me for my fathers sins....JMHO

FMCDH

The New Republic is not the Catholic Church's friend. This advice is hypocritical, much on a par with those occasional editorials in which the NY Times or the Washington Post pretends to give helpful advice to Republicans.

Very little of what is said in this article should be accepted on trust or at face value, because it all has an ideological purpose: bash the Catholic Church, subvert it, and turn it into a toothless, politically correct organization that will no longer offer any impediment to the agenda of the Culture of Death: abortion, perversion, assisted suicide, euthanasia, cloning, and whatever comes down the pike next.

"Here is a reason the Church hierarchy fears honest discussion: It fears it will expose a crisis of belief. There is a pervasive sense within the Church that no one really believes its teachings on sexuality anymore--not the laity, not even the clergy. In a strict hierarchy, no one wants to say the emperor has no clothes."

Well, yes, but one has to clarify what one means by "believe." Some may accept these teachings as true in some ideal sense, but not be willing to live by them.

There is a potential for schism if the Church moves too quickly to change. I seem to recall that one of Walker Percy's books featured a conflict between a liberal official Catholic Church and American conservative schismatics. An international organization has to keep time by a multitude of clocks which give different indications about what people are ready for. What seems to work in some parts of the world is manifestly a failure in others.

I have to wonder if the Church can be "saved" for many in the areas affected by the scandal. Maybe the predictions of Jefferson and Adams will come true after all and New England will become the Unitarian bastion they envisioned.