As an outsider to the church, I find her position rather confounding. As another non-believer libertarian talk host said yesterday, why WOULDN'T a Catholic want someone who is a "hammer"? Don't you want the head of the church to be the uber-believer? It's pretty funny to me, hearing these talking heads talking about a "uniter" which to me says "appeaser of people who don't believe what we do".
Dear Darkwolf,
There are a lot of cradle Catholics who still cling to the myth of the Spirit of Vatican II, that the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council would usher in an era of democracy, modernity, and new and wild things like contraception for all! women priests! married priests! inter-communion with non-Catholics!
Interestingly, cardinals 80 and over aren't permitted to vote. I believe that may have been done to promote a "progressive" agenda in the Church. Ironically, the "progressivism" associated with the myth of the Spirit of Vatican II is a relic of a dying generation.
I wonder if a Ratzinger papacy was assured because some older cardinals could no longer vote.
Younger Catholics who are reasonably devout often just don't want to hear this cr*p. It is older devout Catholics still running around looking for their lost Catholic mojo.
Here's an example. My sons took swimming lessons with a swimming teacher who belongs to our parish. He's a little older than my wife and I (he's in his 60s, we're in our 40s). This week and last week, he's been talking to my wife how after 26 years of oppression, it would be great to get a progressive new pope who would re-open the questions of contraception, married priests, etc.!
He was horrified that my wife wasn't hoping for same.
This is a devout man, a regular, involved church-going Catholic. But he is a man obtained of a delusion - the delusion of the myth of the Spirit of Vatican II.
Conversely, when my wife related this tale to the younger moms of our homeschool (mostly Catholic) chess club, they were at once bemused and horrified by the older man's thoughts, and all thought a Ratzinger papacy would be just dandy.
Older devout, church-going Catholics are often more desirous of a "progressive" agenda. Younger devout, church-going Catholics are often hopeful for greater orthodoxy.
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