DAVID CRARY, "Papal Visit Provokes Array of Protests." NEW YORK (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI may not see them or hear them, but aggrieved Roman Catholic activists hope his U.S. visit this week will help them draw attention to issues ranging from the ordination of women and gay rights to sex abuse by priests and the Vatican ban on contraception.
The groups have planned vigils, demonstrations and news conferences to press their causes as the pope visits Washington and New York. On Monday evening, the eve of his arrival, supporters of women's ordination will host what they are calling "an inclusive Mass" at a Methodist church in Washington, presided over by Catholic women — including two who were recently excommunicated.
"We cannot welcome this pope until he begins to do away with the church's continuing violence of sexism," said Sister Donna Quinn, coordinator of the National Coalition of American Nuns.
Participants in the service will include Rose Marie Hudson and Elsie McGrath, who were excommunicated last month by Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis because they were ordained as part of a women-priest movement condemned by the Vatican.
[....]
Gay Catholic activists, who plan to demonstrate Tuesday along the papal motorcade route in Washington, have compiled a list of statements by Benedict during his career which they consider hostile to gays and lesbians. These include forceful denunciations of gay marriage and of adoption rights for same-sex couples.
"He has issued some of the most hurtful and extreme rhetoric against our community of any religious leader in history, and we want to call him into account for the damage that he's done," said Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA....
http://ap.google.com/articleI see that these folks above feel about the Church pretty much as I do. If it won't conform to my personal wants, then it should or the Church leadership should go away and let me run the institution properly. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out; so why are they still staying and pissing me off? I mean, don't they care if I'm a Catholic? Don't they get the obvious right of Dagmatism? What a bunch of losers they are.
21 comments:
When he visits Ground Zero, the Pope will be greeted by a protest vigil honoring Father Mychal Judge, the FDNY chaplain and first official casualty of the 9/11 attacks. Ironically, Fr. Mychal was openly gay, though celibate.
Considered a living saint by many even prior to his heroic death, Mychal often asked, “Is there so much love in the world that we can afford to discriminate against any kind of love ?!”
We have no illusions that this pope is going to change. Rather, we are bearing witness to two truths -- that God created and loves gay people, and that the pope does not speak for the whole Church, the Ecclesia, on these matters.
These truths are being increasingly embraced by Catholics in-the-pews. Fully two-thirds of U.S. Catholics reject the pope’s views and support either civil unions or full marriage rights, according to numerous surveys.
In other words, most North American Catholics practice their faith while simply ignoring the pope and the Roman hierachy.
As Fr. Mychal also said, "Don't let the (institutional) church get in the way of your relationship with God."
To read more of Fr.Mychal Judge, the "Saint of 9/11",visit --
http://SaintMychalJudge.blogspot.com
It's almost as if they haven't gotten the message that the Church today exists in civil society; it's not the sole or privileged authority on anything, but just one church contesting and defending truths in civil society.
It's almost as if those protesting Benedict are clinging to the Dagmatic protestant view of the authoritarian Catholic Church. By coming out for gay women clergy, etc., they are actually upholding a vision of the medieval Church, as the only real game in town, a theatre with which they cannot part, whatever is on stage. Gay marriage for everyone, sayeth the Mope.
Or am I just letting my imagination run wild?
Well, does that say it all!
If people don't like the game, why do they insist on a seat at the table? Go away. It's not that people don't know what the Church is, has been, and likely will be once all of us are gone. Go somewhere else. It's not that the Church has changed into something American Catholics by and large don't like: the people have changed to the point they no longer fit in to the game as the rules are. Go somewhere else. If people don't like the rules of the game, don't blame the game. Quit playing and go somewhere else.
The Pope isn't going to change. Go somewhere else.
“The Church” belongs to all its members, not just to one man or a small clique who presume to own it. When great numbers of its members disagree with its leaders’ on numerous issues, they have the right and duty to change the rules of the game. This pope may not change, but the Church is changing significantly at parish, pastoral, and grassroots levels.
Your “go someone else” rationale is like saying that if citizens don’t like a government’s policies, they should leave the country rather than change those policies. It’s OUR church; we’re not going anywhere.
And you find me in strong disagreement with that line of reasoning. If the majority of the parishioners of a Catholic church decide to become devil worshipers and call themselves Catholic, it won't wash. It is not Catholicism, and therefore it doesn't belong, regardless of whether there is only one Catholic left against the many. The problems of identity are many and deep, but the plain sense is that a qualitative change makes the original not the same quality as the new, in which case it is not the same.
This is a problem not only for Christians who find themselves turfed from generations-long affiliation with their churches but for the West facing Islam. To be swarmed by a majority of Muslims implementing Sharia is not democracy, it's invasion. It's an act of war. That's my problem with "reform" Catholics who are not Catholic but pre-Nicene Gnostics.
The Church doesn't "belong" to Catholics.
The best predictor of future results is past results. Has a heretical revolt ever succeeded in getting the Church to change a doctrine that has been solemnly taught?
The answer is: no. Once the Church makes up her mind, she doesn't change it.
The orthodox Catholics do not want it to change, and that includes the pope. Without the pope, you can do nothing. The pope is not going to change Church doctrine. Even from a strictly human point of view, the hierarchy is set up so that doctrinal change does not come. The pope appoints his orthodox bishops, and from those bishops, he chooses orthodox cardinals, who in turn choose an orthodox pope.
I'm not a Catholic partisan here. my objection to fashionable heterodoxy comes from a common-sense vision of reality and ontology: that if one makes qualitative changes, one is left with something new. Homosexual marriage and female priests goes beyond the attribute to the quality. if, as the Church is, it's not to ones liking, then qualitative change is not legitimate but destructive of what is for those who value the norm and tradition and legitimacy. If the Church is big and round and blue, then one can change those attributes to small, square and green; but one cannot change it to Gnostic or, more likely, Pelegian. If that's what the communion of people want, then they should leave the Church and start up a new Church all of their own, one that is qualitatively not the same.
The same is true of America and of Islam. The same is true of the Rolling Stones. Take away the two old guys and replace them with rap stars, and you have something not the Rolling Stones.
You are naive to think the issue of homosexuality is defined by any single religion.
Faith is about making the right choices.
In British Columbia there are homosexual lobby groups that have been given special access to change elementary school curriculum to teach students that homosexuality is a valid lifestyle choice.
Good parents want the best for their children and would fight to the death against anyone who would steer their children toward a path of unhappiness and ruin.
Homosexuality is not equal to heterosexuality as defined by reproduction, the result of sex, the act which defines them.
Anyone who teaches our children to be less than equal will always be persecuted.
Michals, Where does it stop?
Fully two-thirds of U.S. Catholics reject the pope’s views...
What if nine-tenths of US Catholics grew disenchanted with the admonition to love your enemies? What if they decide to stop praying for those who persecute them, that others are no longer the children of the Heavenly Father, that He does not make His sun rise on the bad as the good, and only causes rain to fall on the unjust?
Nine-tenths would constitute a rather large majority... but does it make them right?
Where do you draw the line... can the Gospels really be open to democratic tinkering, like your Constitution? Is it the word of God, or not?
The world is awash in evil. Always has been. If mere numbers were sufficient to sanctify personal opinions, how would there ever have been a Church in the first place..?
I'm afraid I just don't understand your rationale. If you protest the papacy's interpretation of Church doctrine, why doesn't that make you...
a Protestant?
Personally, I prefer to pray through my actions.
As God is truth, in my quest for truth I will never stray far from God. I do not need to further question that which cannot be answered.
I pray to know the truth, and have discerned that it can be found in many religious texts, when interpreted from that perspective.
I will however value no human creation above the truth. I have also discerned that through pride and lies humans create an advantage for evil. People rarely admit when they're wrong.
As I value, learn and share the truth, my prayers are answered.
Your “go someone else” rationale is like saying that if citizens don’t like a government’s policies, they should leave the country rather than change those policies.
Redtown, I don't think you are using a functional analogy.
You can't choose your parents; you can't choose where on earth you are given birth to by your parents.
Wouldn't it be a better comparison to say that choosing our Church is more like choosing our university? We are placing faith in an institution's promises to be of service to us, to help us come closer towards achieving our personal goals in our preferred field of study.
There is free will associated with that kind of choice.
If the Church's function is to bring us closer to God, then it's duty is to promote the best path towards that objective.
There's a reason Catholics tend to describe themselves as "struggling Catholics"... it's because this path is not an easy one.
As I've gotten older, I begin to see the Church's teachings through different eyes than in my younger, rebellious, days.
Seems to me that the teachings of the Church help preserve the traditional building block of Family. That the tradition of one man marrying one woman, staying faithful to each other, promises the strongest foundation, the most solid rock, upon which to bring new life into the world and shepherd them towards God.
The Church's teachings, to the eyes of this struggling Catholic, exist to help raise children so that they may lead holy lives.
Boys, by watching their fathers' interaction with their mothers, can learn how to behave in their turn. Girls watch how their mother interacts with their father and learn their version of the same lesson.
Doesn't true progress happen through trying to live up to previously established high standards? Doesn't stability lead to progress?
There is struggle involved in all improvement; this we know simply by how we build our body's muscles. The muscular tissue is stretched through effort, not through the abandonment of effort.
Aren't those who would rewrite the teachings of the Church, trying to lessen the struggle involved in following these teachings? Is that really the better path?
I basically agree with your analogy Charles, but I would add that the benefit and the struggle are not constantly directly proportional.
The struggle becomes counterproductive when the truth is no longer the attainable objective.
As another never-ever-papist, that admires the current pope's pluck to actually be what he claims to be, I agree entirelly with Dag. People give themselves too many names, seldom realizing that what you are called, and will answer to, is more your name than any carefully chosen paradox. Excommunicated? Protestant of the Pope's visit? Do I see a pattern?
Knowing quite well the various places that I don't fit, perhaps I should start a Fundamentalist Universalist Church of Knowledge, Objectivity, and Faith Freedom. (A universal inquisition)
That would be another example of counterproductive effort.
You're correct. It would be a quality control effort rather than production.
I keep checking the comments to see if anyone has actually thought of nominating me to be Pope. Nothing yet but I think it's because you all are shy. Thanks for the unstated vote of confidence though. It really means a lot to me.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Will "primus inter scinderes" (first among spliters) of Fundamentalist Universalists, suffice?
Just spell "dag" backwards. Think about it....
Should that have been "primus inter scindo?"
My spelling!
I've been called Secundo sic hic forever, so Primus inter Scindo is just the ticket for me.
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