The above is one of the top five reasons I am no longer Catholic.
Too many in the Catholic leadership break the First Commandment by worshiping communism rather than God. And...There is absolutely no way for the ordinary layman to influence reform.
Is anybody quoted in L'Osservatore Romano considered a member of the heirarchy now? Give me a break.
While I strongly maintain that LO should be reined in (for this and other reasons), I must say you are off target here because "L'Osservatore Romano" ain't "the Vatican." It's a daily newspaper which, while it does publish approved translations of official Church texts, otherwise operates as an independent newspaper whose masthead motto is Unicuique suum ("To each his own").
True, "the Vatican" (by which I mean the clerical bureaucracy which runs the church government) has been characterized by "Good Doctrine; Bad Discipline" for years, and if you can't think of a dozen pathetic examples right off the top of your head, I can do so myself.
But the "teaching Church" (meaning the Ecumenical Councils, the Pope and the bishops who are in union with him, the Catechisms which faithfully convey their teachings) draw a bright and unmistakable line against Communism.
Why must you reinforce the toxic impression (as the EneMedia always does) that any Marxist renegade or modernist wackadoo they can put into the headlines is "speaking for the Church"?
Why add to the Enemy's incessant and insididous "divide and conquer" strategy?
Unfaithful Catholics should not force faithful Catholics out of Catholicism. Just like Olympia Snowe and Michael Dukakis (to take just two US examples) or Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky shouldn't force faithful Orthodox out of Orthodoxy.
It is sad that this social activism is driving people away. I've left during homilies and even changed parishes over it.
Are the other four reasons as groundless and pathetic as this one?