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Posted on 02/20/2012 9:40:43 AM PST by Pope Pius XII
Dictators, who tend not to die peacefully in their beds, are among the few on this planet who can claim a job for life.
And then there’s the pope.
No challenge to his authority, no Catholic Spring, no curia putsch allowed there; can’t be dislodged for reasons of poor health, psychological trauma or colossally bad judgment in ministering to the world’s nearly 2 billion faithful.
Pontiffs are sitting pretty once elected by conclave. The last pope to resign was Gregory XII in 1415, a strategic maneuver to end the battle for the papacy (three vying) that was known as the Western schism. The Code of Canon Law contains no apparatus for yanking a Bishop of Rome who’s botched it.
While popes are not technically “infallible’’ — a misconception of nuance; they’re only “error-free’’ when performing in their official capacity to promulgate dogma on faith and morals — they can’t be given the sack for getting it spectacularly wrong because, in those matters that most directly affect us, they’re unimpeachably right. Got it?
Understanding arcane intricacies of canon law is as challenging as that whole Father-Son-Holy Ghost trinity thing, which is why most Catholics simply take it on faith. Faith, however, has never in modern memory been so fragile, so at risk, as under Benedict XVI, with alarming numbers abandoning the Church, at least in the West.
(Excerpt) Read more at thestar.com ...
Third article I read this morning stating that the pope should either be removed, or all the Catholics locked up.
Seems we are heading to the next phase. Keep your powder dry, and expect a move of some sort over Lent.
And no, I don’t know anything. But the trends are there.
Like your signature there. Very nice.
The Liberals are showing their Marxist true self. They hate the church—the Roman Catholic Church because its so powerful but in truth, all churches, all faiths. They believe all the ills of the world come from the church—it is a scapegoat for them. I am glad this is happening as it shows their true nature to the world. A war on Christ is a war you can not win. The Soviets tried it and fell, so did the Mexican Socialist PRN Party. The church was born out prosecution and hate. Maybe the time has come for believers to stand up for what they hold dear even if it means pain and maybe death.
Jesus told us it would never be easy. As for her claim that Catholics are leaving the Church in droves, makes me wonder how our Saturday Vigil Mass was so packed that we nearly ran out of Holy Communion wafers. At least in Southern California the Catholic Churches are full. Plus, we have 9 Bible study sessions going in our parish.
Because the liberals KNOW they are in a LOSING BATTLE, so they will try to pile it on.
Expect the Catholic Churches are going to be packed come Wednesday.
If a conservative wrote similar words about a Democratic politician, it would be cited as a call for assassination.
Liberals would absolutely demand termination of the writer, and would openly call for prosecution.
But it's OK for her. She's a liberal, so she wrote it for the children or baby seals or something.
Oh please. This is worse than stupid, it is subversive and just another attack on the Church.
Oh but isn’t she brave? /sarc
I wonder if she has a problem with the Supreme Court’s lifetime job security?
After all, the Church is a voluntary association, but the citizens of America are forcibly bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court.
No Catholic has a gun to his head. Any one is free to leave . . . or remain and follow the Magisterium . . . or not.
I stopped reading and started laughing, right there.
To give an example which is currently relevant due to the HHS contraception mandate, how many Catholics have submitted themselves to the "authority" of the Pope regarding Humanae Vitae over the past half century? That's what I thought......
And the consequences were?
A knock on the door in the middle of the night? A threatening letter? Legal action?
The point here is that the Pope has no real authority in the secular sense of the word. In fact, he has none. He can no more stop people contracepting than he can stop homosexuals living together. All he has is his teaching authority and his position as the successor of Peter and that is where the real problem lies.
It's not enough for people like the author to simply ignore the Pope and go their own way. It's his voice which gnaws at their conscience and infuriates them. Like Herod, who became infuriated at the remonstrations of John the Baptist and Henry II who became incensed at Thomas Becket, they want him silenced and gone. Curiously, for all their protestations about the irrelevance of the Church and its doctrine, they just can't ignore it.
Hardly. In fact, I found it to be remarkably well written and to the point. Especially the following:
To be fair, most of the tawdry abuse that has come to light in recent years occurred during the papacy of Pope John Paul II. For all his charisma and political courage, John Paul never confronted the pedophilia rot among his clergy, the Church more concerned with protecting its reputation than protecting children. But, in his quarter-century as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — disciplinarian-in-chief — Benedict, or Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as he then was — was directly responsible for dealing with priests who violated their oaths. Instead, known perpetrators were quietly moved around parishes and, on too many occasions, continued to commit sordid crimes.
IMO, anyone who would seek to minimize or dismiss this catastrophe is just as evil as its perpetrators.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
If you’re going to blame the entire Church for sex abuse scandal that’s a back handed compliment to those who actually fought to reform the seminaries and so on. Farthermore, Cardinal Ratzinger was not involved in the discipline of priest in terms of sexual abuse. Btw, sex abuse is a responsibility that belongs to the bishops not the CDF nor the Pope. Nice try though.
Madame DiManno is full of hogwash, half-truths, and liberal-speak cant. The scribblings are beginning to strongly resemble those castigating the Church in Germany and Austria in the 1930’s. And when the progs start winding up, we’ll probably see very similar treatment to then. For now, though, this is drivel.
By the way, I do like your freepname. Very cool.
Thank you.
You consider that to be well written?
She makes two points, both of which are inaccurate.
1) Most of the abuse which has come to the surface in recent years did not occur during the papacy of John Paul II. It occurred in the '60s and '70s. John Paul II became Pope in 1978.
2)Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, as head of the Congregation for the Faith was not directly responsible for dealing with priests who had been accused of sex abuse during his "quarter century" as head of the CDF. The CDF did not assume jurisdiction of sex abuse cases until 2001. Card. Ratzinger was elected Pope in 2005.
The primary responsibility for dealing with those accused of abuse fell with the bishop of the diocese in which the accused ministered. The epic fail on this issue was theirs.
The writer is either stupid or willfully ignorant.
You assume he was personally aware of it. I mean the extent of it. I mean that even Father Greeley, who is no naif, was stunned when he found out how widespread it was.
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