[madprof98]

The leaders confidently expected that the laity would do what they were told. They could not have been more wrong, nor their strategy more counterproductive. The laity and the lower clergy for the most part simply ignored them and went about creating new structures in which Catholics would affiliate with the church on their own terms.

What "Father" Greeley and his ilk (the dying leftovers of '60s dissent) fail to realize is that the laity have indeed become more outspoken and organized since Vatican II, and what they are promoting is doctrinal orthodoxy and moral clarity. The dissident laity are the ones who have basically abandoned the Church; they trot out their Catholicism at election time, to explain what marvelously independent thinkers they are. But the ones who are still in the pews are the future of the Catholic Church, and it is a bright future, looking nothing whatever like the favorite of the Greeley-ites, the ECUSA. For one thing, it is much, much younger.

[sinkspur]

But the ones who are still in the pews are the future of the Catholic Church, and it is a bright future, looking nothing whatever like the favorite of the Greeley-ites, the ECUSA. For one thing, it is much, much younger.

And none of those younger families follow Humanae Vitae, they're OK with married priests, and even with women priests. They are NOT promoting "moral clarity," or "doctrinal orthodoxy," at least not of the Vatican variety.

You need to get out more. Weekly Mass Catholics couldn't care less who the Pope is, or what he says. They look to their pastor and bishop for leadership and direction.

[BlackElk]

It is not too late for Greeley to move to Massachusetts and "marry" an Episcopalian bishop. His porno novels might disqualify him as not consistent with a life of watercress sandwiches with his husband. Of course, Greeley may be straight in which case, he might troll for a spouse in the Wiccan-American community.

One think we may thank God for is that Greeley is much more obsessed with profiting from soft-core porno novels than he is with instructing us benighted Catholics who still stick to the Teaching Magisterium and recognize the outer enthusiasms and enthusiasts for "the spirit of Vatican II" for the frauds that they clearly are.

Conservatives in the actual Catholic (and not schismatic) pews defend papal authority so that it may be used vigorously to run dissidents of all stripes and all ranks out of Holy Mother the Church.