Close on the heels of the pope’s rehabilitation of a group of schismatic bishops, including one who denied the Holocaust, a second scandal has compounded a debate within the church over whether Pope Benedict XVI’s focus on doctrine and his perceived insensitivity to political tone are alienating mainstream Catholics and undermining the church’s moral authority.
On Sunday, a priest known for such provocative statements as blaming the sins of New Orleanians for Hurricane Katrina asked the pope to rescind his appointment as an auxiliary bishop in Austria.
The affairs have engendered a storm of criticism of the church hierarchy and led to frantic efforts to mollify angry and confused parishioners around the globe, while the latest controversy has raised concerns that the actions could be part of a disturbing pattern.
The Vatican expert George Weigel, in a recent essay in First Things, an American religion journal, criticized the Vatican for its “chaos, confusion and incompetence.”
[blockquote]debate within the church over whether Pope Benedict XVI’s focus on doctrine and his perceived insensitivity to political tone are alienating [b]mainstream[/b] Catholics and undermining the church’s moral authority.[/blockquote]
Reading the article, it seems their definition of mainstream Catholics are Catholics who don’t actually believe what Catholics are supposed to believe. We like to call them “Cultural Catholics”, “Cafeteria Catholics”, or “CINOs” (Catholics In Name Only).
As for the ‘Catholics’ who inundated the phone lines about leaving the Church because they disagreed with what some Bishop somewhere said: “WHO CARES?”. If you’re so lukewarm that you’ll leave the Church over THAT, then what’s to be said about your faith in the first place? These people expect the Church to bend over backward to accommodate their often heretical views and then whine and cry when the Church repeats the same thing it’s taught for 2000 years. Guess what? The Church is NOT a democracy. Never was. Never will be. It’s not going to “change with the times”. That’s not how it works. Deal with it.
Amen, Chris. God bless Pope Benedict and grant him steadfastness as he works to undo some of the damage done by the “progressives” within the hierarchy of the RCC.
I agree with #1, and suggest this reveals the heart of the problem:
[blockquote] She said she would probably leave the church, though for personal reasons not directly related to the controversies of recent weeks. [/blockquote]
It’s not about the Vatican, it’s about the Faith of the people. I can testify that looking back on times I struggled, the issues in the Church, some quite real, were secondary matters of my own heart, aka sin.
I will add this caveat: when George Weigel speaks, it’s wise to listen. Other things aside, he’s probably right about the need for the curia to clean up it’s act.
George Weigel is worth listening to. But in this case, he speaks too loudly. Soon critics will say Benedict is senile. He is courageous, instead, and unafraid to work for the good of the Church. Chris is speaking the truth. And when Benedict said the Church might have to be smaller before it grows bigger, it well could be because of the cultural catholics who are simply not interested in following the teaching of Christ and the Church.
Colmcille, I read the article by George Weigel (BTW it is on the First Things website) and it is important to point out that he is not attacking the Pope but the incompetency of some of his staff. When assessing the recent imbroglios we ought, perhaps, also to weigh in the balance the astonishing fact that the Vatican recognised its errors and said sorry and changed the decisions that had been made. Even this curious appointment of an Austrian bishop shows the possibility of admitting error. What’s not to love in a global 2000-yeaer-old institution that can still find the humility to say, Guys, we got it wrong.
Terry,
I think Benedict got it wright with the appointment of the Austrian bishop. I’m sorry the bishop felt it necessary to withdraw in the face of the liberal outcry.
If you don’t like what he says, use his age to attack him. If you read his books however, it is evident that he is a believer and a spiritual man who had some pretty good insights about the Gospel of John. He has not just kept the RC church on course, his leadership continues to be one of the important contemporary benchmarks for Christianity. If the ABC weren’t so myopic, he could profit from some of the Pope’s wisdom. The Pope did a little scolding of TEC when he was here in the U.S. but the Presiding Bishop was to busy to stop by.