Replies

The answer, they say, is not to fall more deeply into that culture but to firmly reject it.

False dichotomy. It is the Church's business not to react to culture but to create it.

To this end, the Church must re-discover what tradition means: not rote habit but living in communion. The Church must re-discover that the best way to engage the world is through understanding how it's not of this world. Catholics in a consumer age will not accept 19th century apologetics, based on an appeal to authority, without an understanding that authority is nothing more or less than reality and truth, and that submission to such authority is not self-denial but discovery of the truth that life (and therefore all hope of self-affirmation) are to be found only in being conformed, reconciled, and transfigured.

What the Church needs most now is mystics.

McCloskey was on SPECIAL EDITION on FOXNEWS tonight. He was less than convincing.

As long as the Western Church is willing to take in the Lutherans and Episcopalians who desire to convert and be ordained Catholic priests and remain married, the celibacy argument is undercut.

Father Richard Neuhaus, who writes for NATIONAL REVIEW, is a married Catholic priest; I daresay no one would accuse him of not being a Gospel witness.

The only way to truly rid the seminaries of the "Gay mafia" is to flood the Church with worthy candidates who are not gay.

IOW, married heterosexuals.

(From the article):

Janice Leary, a pastoral counselor and activist Catholic in Natick, Mass., said the church's first step should be to invite back into active ministry most of the several thousand men who have left the priesthood to marry in the past 20 years.

"I'm absolutely convinced that in my lifetime -- and I'm past the 50-year mark already -- I'm going to see married priests and women priests," she said.

Leary...must be related to Timothy Leary. That's the only way I can explain her thinking she's going to see women priests in her lifetime (or anyone else's lifetime)...And if she's past 50, she's more likely to see monkeys fly out of my butt than a revocation of the normal priesthood celibacy requirement.

Why lay down a requirement for the priesthood, which Our Lord Jesus, and his apostles never laid down? You will find no requirement for celibacy for Church leaders in the New Testament (although of course chastity is a requirement, along with leaving homosexual behavior behind(for all Christians)). To the Corinthian church the Apostle Paul makes it sound preferable to marriage--and that may have had to do with the particular circumstances in Corinth at that time (persecution and a famine)(I Cr. 7). It's clear the St. Peter himself was married--as the gospels speak of his mother-in-law (Mt. 8:14), and St. Paul talks about Peter taking his wife along on his travels--as did other apostles ("Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas?" (I Cr. 9:5) (Oh, I guess that passage also shows Mary must not have continued as a virgin AFTER Christ was born, seeing as He had brothers...but that's beside the point)

Since all Christians know the Bible is God's revealed will to us, I'll never understand the Romanist reliance on things of tradition not commanded by God in His word, over and above scripture itself.

I think I'm in my own "Camp."
I'm decidedly a "traditionalist;" but, want to see a more active laity.
Don't misunderstand me, the idea of "radical change," (allowing priests to marry, ordaining women, or substantially elevating the role of women in the church) is pure liberal nonsense... It would be like electing Michael Eisner pope.

I'm don't believe the "Church is out-of-control;" But I can attest to the fact that certain sub-organizations recognized by the Church are out-of-control. (Personal example: The local "Pastoral Council" at my parish.)