Posted on 12/01/2006 5:45:36 AM PST by Sybeck1
You are a little sad jumping to conclusions.
Yes and no. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops technically has no real authority in a spiritual sense. Technically there's the Pope, assisted by the many individual bishops bringing the sacraments and dogmas to the world.
The USCCB is a national "club" which the American bishops belong to, which hires a bunch of mostly lefty bureaucrats and "experts" to act not on behalf of individual bishops, but on behalf of the conglomerate of American bishops for solely national purposes.
National bishops' associations have NO official standing in the eyes of the Vatican. Only individual bishops have teaching and liturgical authority, when acting in union with the Pope. If and when a national association says or does something that agrees with the Vatican, then "by coincidence" it speaks "for the Catholic Church."
The modern world being what it is, many bishops are happy to abrogate authority to the bureaucrats at the USCCB and allow the "experts" to make decisions for them and act on their behalf.
Well, until people notice and protest, as happened in the "Brokeback" case.
Why don't you read the Bible and see how well it complies? ;-)
I know what Bible says, thank you.
I haven't seen the movie and wanted to see a Catholic review of the movie BEFORE I see the movie.
Your snideness isn't helpful.
I don't mean to offend. I just keep hoping that more Christians would place the Logos of God above all else and become skeptial of what the one with that title in His lament calls "traditions taught by men."
I was up late at that point. Should be "happy to delegate authority."
National bishops' associations have NO official standing in the eyes of the Vatican.
If true, it's pretty bold of the USCCB to publish a Vatican Top 45 movies list. As you indicate, this group seem to operate in a grey area in terms of church authority.
The "Top 45" list was done by the Vatican. The film descriptions and comments are done by the USCCB bureaucrats.
http://www.ourcatholicfaith.org/moviereviews.html
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of cinema in 1995, the Vatican compiled this list of "great films." The 45 movies are divided into three categories: "Religion," "Values" and "Art." The USCC classification for each film follows its description
And, of course, the Vatican has its own army of bureaucrats. This list was not done by the Pope himself, but would have been drawn up by some Vatican "experts" on the "Pontifical Commission for Social Communications" and then approved by the Pope somewhere down the line.
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