Christian liturgy is full of Paul’s various epistles (Epistle to the Romans, Epistle to the Galatians, etc).
Herewith is Bob’s epistle to my fellow Idrisites re Benedict XVl.
As far as the Church is concerned, his papacy will prove to be either a disastrous retreat to the past, or a hopeful beginning for a better future for the Church.
If he simply confirms the past, disaster will ensue.
However, if he succeeds in convincing the “conservatives” in the Church that “liberalization” is necessary, he will lead the Church into a more hopeful future.
Think of his work as political.
Think of Menachem Begin (hardline Israeli Prime Minister) and President Nixon.
Who would have thought that those two hawks would have made peace with Egypt and normalized relations with China?
Think also of the liberalizing reforms of Pope John XX111.
His liberalizing initiatives were defeated by subsequent conservative popes who either dragged their feet on his reforms or ignored them.
Therefore, Bob’s law on Church reform is: Only Conservatives can liberalize the Church.
That said, Benedict may be facing an impossible task.
One of the giant obstacles to Church reform is the notion that the Church NEVER erred in its teaching re faith and morals.
Therefore, when it declares today that something is sinful, it is not only objectively sinful but is sinful because that is the traditional teaching of the Church.
This assumes in effect that the Church has been and remains infallible.
When the pope declared infallibly that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was born without sin, it was an unassailable declaration because there is no way to prove or disprove that assertion.
However, when the Church declares that homosexuality (for example) is sinful, it assumes that homosexuals have voluntarily adopted a life-style that the Church finds objectionable.
But, how will the Church defend its position when science confirms that homosexuality is a genetically inherited condition over which the homosexual has no control?
Homosexuals can no more control their sexual orientation than they can control the color of their skin, dammit!!!!!
One Comment
Howard, Respectfully, I cannot agree with your blustering blast of the Liberals (not left in my view) … the roots of our problems lie with misguided, simplistic, right wing thinking that generally favours the few at the expense of the many … particularly laws that favour big business and the wealthy allowing them to escape paying a fair share of taxes and that allow greed to prevail while permitting white collar thievery in the name of creating jobs.
Comments are closed.