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Already in most parishes, religious education and sacramental preparation have been handed over to the laity. What spiritual direction and pastoral counseling there is will soon be done by the laity. Baptisms and marriages will be turned over to deacons, which means that they will not be celebrated within a Eucharistic context. Your chances of dying with a priest at your bedside are almost nil. You will be lucky to be anointed if you are in the hospital when the priest makes one of his rare visits. The sacraments -- an essential aspect of the Catholic Church -- will become rarer.

Even the Vatican appears to have thrown in the towel. The Pontifical Council for the Family issued in February a vade mecum for confessors, entitled "Concerning Some Aspects of the Morality of Conjugal Life," that repeats the ban on artificial contraception but cautions against asking too many questions about birth control [text in Origins, 3/13; see Am., 4/12, p. 3]. It states that "in general, it is not necessary for the confessor to investigate concerning sins committed in invincible ignorance of their evil or due to an inculpable error of judgment...It is preferable to let penitents remain in good faith in cases of error due to subjectively invincible ignorance...even in matters of conjugal chastity."

When the overwhelming percentage of the faithful are "invincibly ignorant," the church had to come up with a pastoral solution that fit reality. What the church has done is to adopt the equivalent of the "Don't ask, don't tell" rule. The priests have been told not to ask, and the laity have decided not to tell.

Published in 1997, most of this has already been "answered" by Pope John Paul II.

Abstinence remains the method of contraception.

The priesthood, as instituted by Jesus Christ, was and will remain all male.

Dissenters may lobby for change but the church will hold its ground.

Those wishing for the above-mentioned change(s), will have to wait for a new pope who, as has been traditional within the church, will maintain the church's stance. The only bastion of hope remaining to those seeking significant change is to call for Vatican III. That cry went out in 2000. So far, there has not been a response.

Meanwhile, the hierarchy is ignoring its own self-interest by refusing to ordain married men.

When I see statements like that made by a Catholic priest, a red flag of suspicion goes up for me.

Fr. Reese is a Georgetown liberal Jesuit. Look at him using race as an excuse for the D'Rats losses in '94 and '96. Catholics Come Home to the Democratic Party

Besides that, he is deliberately trying to unfairly present Church teaching in the worst possible dark light. I'm not a "kool-aid Catholic" and I recognize that there is much reform needed in the Church today in many areas. However, this man has misrepresented Catholic teaching. Ask yourself, why? Just because someone seems to be on our side doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have their own agenda.

Here’s the rest of that quote regarding confession :

Nonetheless, in these cases, the confessor must try to bring such penitents ever closer to accepting God's plan in their own lives, even in these demands, by means of prayer, admonition and exhorting them to form their consciences, and by the teaching of the Church.

PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR THE FAMILY

That the church has not had a clear, convincing and pastoral message to help people through the sexual revolution is tragic for both the church and the world. On sex, however, the battle is over; and there are no winners.

The battle is hardly over. The Church just needs to find the courage to state its truth. The tragedy is in the Church's cowardice on sexual issues.

Alternative vision:

In the year 2025 we see a Church that has moved:

FROM hierarchical leadership — TO participative leadership

FROM clericalism— TO a priesthood of all

FROM Western/Roman centre — TO East/South inculturation

FROM big mouth — TO big ears

FROM Catholic Monopoly — TO common search

FROM male domination — TO the inclusion of a feminine face

FROM authoritative — TO democratic

FROM static Church — TO itinerant pilgrim Church

FROM religiosity — TO faith based on Gospel

FROM a position of privilege — TO giving a privileged place to

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Well,if anyone is interested in Truth,they need to read this article and reverse everything. I have never read so much misinformation or misinterpretation or misunderstanding of information jampacked into one piece.

Imagine citing that fraud du Chardin as a scientist/theologion.I have never understood how one could possibly consider him anything but a liar and a duplicitous little "piece of work",do they think we are brain dead?

The only thing that resembled a truthful,factual statement was that Mother Teresa and Dorothy Day were great witnesses for Christianity and in that he left out the most important thing,they were,orthodox,holy and totally Catholic.

He is right when the answers on "sex" has been answered. But it was answered by the early church.

One only has to see the disasters from the so called 'sexual revolution' to see the fruits of what he proposes: Abortion, broken families, promiscuity, older women deserted for young bimbos, fatherless kids neglected because mom has to work or prefers to work.

The church was "counter cultural" in the days of early Rome because of it's strong stress on purity; it would be stronger now if it again stressed purity and holiness instead of being an institution of "I'm okay you're okay".

Anyone reading the old testament knows about Balaam: When asked how to stop the Hebrews, he advised to get their women to work in the Hebrew men, and that when they joined the promiscuity of the local villages, they'd forget their god.

And one only has to point out the letters in Revealation says the same.

But, of course, the liberal wing of the Jesuits who run this magazine are not known for being Christian, so probably don't read the bible.