Okay, here’s my first post on Alas….
As Cardinals lock themselves within the confines of the Vatican and observers watch the billowing smoke from a chimney to see if the next Pontiff has been selected, members of the Catholic Church wonder what, if anything, will this next pope have in store for its followers. Specifically–the women of the faith. The Church hasn’t exactly been up to speed on women’s social progression to equality and it certainly hasn’t recognized women’s reproductive rights. And the prospect of female priests, bishops, cardinals, and who knows–pope?! Viewing women as more than just wives and mothers or even accepting and respecting a woman’s choice to not become a wife or a mother, and still view her to be a “good Catholic?” A woman’s right to divorce? How about a woman’s right to control her own reproduction and use contraceptives, and even obtain an abortion? Women’s sexual freedom?! Will the Church and the next pope retain their Medieval view of women or as society at large has, become more progressive in regards to women’s social status?
In my opinion–they’ll stay Medieval in their views of women for a long time to come. I foresee more women feeling alienated from the Catholic Church and even abandoning it, and certainly, there will be more women rightfully demanding to have their voices heard. Faithful women flock to Sunday Mass and yet their Church can, and many times over, turn a deaf ear to them. And some women are doubtful of seeing the Church absorb more progressive, even feminist ideals in its view of women any time soon. A recent article from Women’s eNews reported on the concerns of Chilean [Catholic] women who anxiously await the announcement of the next pope and his own gender politics.
As the world waits to hear who is chosen to lead the Catholic Church, women in Chile are divided on whether a new pope is likely to bring any change to the status of women in this deeply conservative and Catholic country.
SANTIAGO, Chile (WOMENSENEWS)–Sister Maria Ines Concha, dean of the faculty of theology at the Catholic University of Chile in Valparaiso, remembers Pope John Paul II as a staunch proponent of women’s rights.
“I think it’s irrelevant who is chosen when it comes to women’s issues,” said Concha, referring to the naming of the next pope, “because no one is going to regress in terms of the progress that has been made. I don’t think you can stall those advances.”
Concha recalled how the pope allowed women to serve at the altar and said that by expanding women’s church participation John Paul may have paved the way for his successor to permit the ordination of female priests.
She recommended the following passage from his 1995 letter to women:
“As far as personal rights are concerned, there is an urgent need to achieve real equality in every area: equal pay for equal work, protection for working mothers, fairness in career advancements, equality of spouses with regard to family rights and the recognition of everything that is part of the rights and duties of citizens in a democratic state. This is a matter of justice but also of necessity.”
But while multitudes of women in Chile look back on the deceased pope with gratitude for his advocacy of women’s rights, others chafe at his opposition to divorce, female ordination, abortion and contraceptives.
Behold, the mixed legacy of John Paul II; good here and there, but over there….not so good. It’s more a schizophrenic legacy, really.
“In all international conferences on women, the Vatican has consistently been against us on issues like divorce, contraception, homosexuality, abortion,” said Loreto Ossandon, a researcher with the Foundation Institute for Women, a Santiago-based think-tank. “So where is their advocacy of women’s rights?”
I doubt there’s any advocacy for women’s rights. The Vatican’s gender politics are pretty cut and dry when it comes to its treatment of women. But that’s just my cynicism of the whole issue.
Ossandon believes that since John Paul chose the majority of the voting cardinals, his successor will likely toe his line.
Which means Catholic women might have to wait another twenty-six years before another opportunity for progression within the Catholic Church’s position on women’s rights. Or they might have to wait another millennia or so. Will there even be women within the Catholic Church if they remain so constant and backward in their view of women, a thousand years from now?
Others said that female priests in themselves would not necessarily mean a shift on issues such as reproductive rights.
“It would likely be a female wearing the same pants and professing the same ideas of the current male-dominated church,” said Veronica Diaz, a coordinator with the Valparaiso-based grassroots organization Catholic Women for the Right to Choose. “It would only make a difference if we had a feminist female priest.”
Given the scarcity of feminist Catholic organizations in Chile, Diaz shrugged off the issue as a non-starter.
And women compromising their reproductive rights in order to receive “scraps from the Vatican’s table” continues.
Divided on Legacy
In Chile–one of the most conservative countries in the most Catholic region of the world–women are divided about John Paul’s legacy on women’s rights.Divorce was only legalized last year. Abortion in all forms is illegal and prosecuted. Children of separated parents are barred from attending some Catholic schools. Last month, the long hand of the Church was widely suspected as playing a role when a health minister was fired for expressing support for free distribution of the morning-after pill.
And they say Papal interference within national governments went out with Henry VIII’s grandstanding against the Catholic Church.
[…]…”On some issues, like divorce and abortion and that stuff, the church needs to be more tolerant nowadays,” said 20-year-old Fernanda Farcuh, a student at Chile’s Catholic University in Santiago. “It’s a very conservative Church here in Chile and it has very much power over politics. It can stop things that people need. I think we need a more open-minded church.”
Best of luck convincing those Cardinals over in Vatican City.
Farcuh believes young people might stop leaving the church if leadership changes brought new policies on issues such as birth control.
Diaz, with Catholic Women for the Right to Choose, said young people are alienated by a Church removed from their day-to-day reality.
“Asking that women enter marriage as virgins, not have abortions, not get divorced,” are all examples, she said. “And I don’t think any of the papal candidates will change any of those fundamentals.”
Hence why some women are simply fed up with the Church and are leaving, or staying and working for change.
Monica Silva is a researcher at Chile’s Catholic University in Santiago and a member of the National Commission on Women in the Church, an organization created by the Episcopal Conference of Chile to advise on women’s issues.
It’s debatable what can be labeled women’s issues,” said Silva. “Take an issue like abortion. That’s not a women’s issue to me. That comes down to the most basic right of all human beings; the right to life.”
I can’t believe she said that. Well yes actually I can. If women can’t even form a consensus on what are “women’s issues and rights” (or what constitutes women’s reproductive rights) and what we feel the Church needs change, then how the hell can Catholic women, longing for change, convince the Church what are women’s rights, especially reproductive rights?! Personally it doesn’t matter to me what the Church does as I am not Catholic, and not even a believer in a supreme being or souls. However, I do sympathize with the many frustrations that the women of the Church hold. The institution constructed around the faith you follow barely holds you to a second class status, ignores your rights, and simply ignores your voices? Sure you’re noticed every once in a while, but is it merely a condescending novelty act from the Vatican?
Women have struggled and succeeded in gaining access into once male-dominated/controlled institutions and even re-constructing those particular institutions. Progressive Catholic women happen to be struggling with the Roman Catholic Church; a male dominated/controlled institution with very little regard for women’s rights. For this feminist onlooker, it’s just another “women versus patriarchal institution and its teachings” scenario. But it’s actually occuring within the institution. There are women within the institution but they are shut out from positions of authority and ‘say’ on the institution’s teachings. I’m quite certain the struggle and women’s strong disagreements with the Church has nothing to do with the Church core belief in an all powerful deity who sired a son, who would be named Jesus Christ (duh), with a woman named Mary, and later on Christ would nailed to a cross and all that. No, the grievances of progressive Catholic women concern the Church’s stubborn and even arrogant backward position when it comes to women’s “place” within the faith. And even within society as a whole.
In a nutshell, a significant number of Catholic women don’t like their ‘just barely’ second class status within the Vatican’s teachings and views concerning divorce, contraceptives, abortion, sexuality, and “what makes a good Catholic woman.” How will this next pope treat the women of the Church? What will those Cardinals take into consideration when choosing the next pope and will the “woman question” play a roll in that at all? Will some Catholic women be left disappointed yet again by another staunchly anti-feminist pope? Yeah probably. So I’m not getting all giddy over the Conclave as I doubt the Cardinals will elect a progressive pope. I’m betting on an ultra-conservative yet anti-war, anti-excesses-of-capitalism, and pro-humanitarian pope with Medieval views on women’s role (and rights) in the Church and society at large. But once again, I’m just a cynic.
There! My first post. Chatter amongst yourselves.
Yay! Your first post!
I’m afraid I don’t really have a comment, but welcome, P-A!
I think you’re right about the likely views of the next pope. And even if they get really, really desparate for more priests, I bet that they’d rather relax the celebacy rule and allow for married male priests, than allow female priests. (Not that they’ll necessarily do either).
I’m hoping that the next pope will be someone who, while inevitably backwards-thinking on issues of gender and sexuality, will at least be a strong and loud voice against war and for active anti-poverty policymaking. As bad as the Catholic Church can be, it’s at least better than the big evangelical churches in the USA, which seem to have married themselves completely to right-wing politics, not only on social issues but also on foreign policy and economics.
The Church (or any church) really can’t change very much without causing a schism and alienating gobs of followers. The Church that gives equal rights to women tomorrow will have many fewer followers (both men and women) by Wednesday.
The Church (just like any religion) will only change when it reaches the point where it lose fewer followers by changing than it will standing pat. Therefore, I don’t see any point in lobbying the Church as an institution. I say you change the views of the followers, and the Church will naturally follow them. Trying to change the institution without first changing the followers is just a waste of resources.
Your ignorance of Catholicism & Church teaching knows no bounds.
The impotence of your position can be seen in the very quotes you choose.
The Church hasn’t exactly been up to speed on women’s social progression to equality and it certainly hasn’t recognized women’s reproductive rights. And the prospect of female priests, bishops, cardinals, and who knows”“pope?! Viewing women as more than just wives and mothers or even accepting and respecting a woman’s choice to not become a wife or a mother, and still view her to be a “good Catholic?”?
Sister Maria Ines Concha, dean of the faculty of theology at the Catholic University of Chile in Valparaiso,
As well as a good natured acceptance of women’s modern ascendancy in the laity ““ you have a positive surge in the public profile & duties given to them within the structure eas evidenced above)
One need look no further then Mother Terresa’s impact to see exactly how much “power”? a women can wield within Catholicism if she follows Christ with a true heart.
Another excellent example would be Sister Angelica ““ who’s EWTN network spreads the Gospel of Christ throughout the United States & Canada (an accomplishment to which she is single handedly given credit)
Behold, the mixed legacy of John Paul II; good here and there, but over there….not so good. It’s more a schizophrenic legacy, really.
Schizophrenic when viewed from contemporary academic feminism ““ but altogether consistent when viewed from the teachings of Christ..
Ossandon believes that since John Paul chose the majority of the voting cardinals, his successor will likely toe his line.
Its not his line, (here the imbedded ignorance displays itself) This is a line aped by the media, who think that this Pope somehow created a Church doctrine that has stood unchanged for 2000 years.
Hence why some women are simply fed up with the Church and are leaving,
A cursory glance at the protestant denominations that have embraced the Dogmas of modern leftism reveals a emaciated and dwindling congregations. When you abandon Christ ““ the sheep tend to stray.
One need look no further than Western Anglicanism to see a contemporary western Church in deep schism ““ cut off from 70 million of it 77 million member world wide body and in threat of being expunged. With the remaining 7 million in deep fracture within the west. This is what adherence to modern pieties bring
For this feminist onlooker, it’s just another “women versus patriarchal institution and its teachings”? that’s about the breadth and depth of the worldview presented here.
Its not his line, (here the imbedded ignorance displays itself) This is a line aped by the media, who think that this Pope somehow created a Church doctrine that has stood unchanged for 2000 years.
It’s not my current church, so I don’t want to interject much. Still, do you honestly believe that doctorine has remained unchanged for 2000 years? I seem to remember hearing services in English, which was not the case for in my grandparents’ day. Weird how unchanging that is. I also remember various updates to the catechism… and that within my lifetime.
And yet, there is article after article about how many followers the Catholic Church is losing in the Western world, and that they are having a crisis with not enough priests. There are several people alienated by the committment to more conservative worldviews in the Catholic Church.
Secondly, the point that there are some women who have achieved a high standing in the Catholic Church ignores the point that Church doctrine states that women are not suited to be priests, and men are. That we are not equal, and there is only so much we can achieve.
Thirdly, this is Pope John Paul II’s line. It maybe be viewed as being consistent with past Church teachings-although on the women priests issue, it certainly wasn’t for the past 2000 years, and the modern Church as such didn’t even exist for a full 2000 years- but given how much dissent there currently is in the Church on this, and that Pope John Paul II disagreed with previous Church teachings on other issues, you can’t pretend that he was somehow helpless to simply go along with previous doctrine. He had the power to change it, he made it quite clear it shouldn’t be changed. Whether you agree or disagree with that positiion, you can’t pretent that it wasn’t his viewpoint.
Scott
There is Dogma & there is Doctrine. The changes you are referring to are doctrinal changes made during Vatican II (you wont see changes on the scale for generations) & mostly concerned liturgical reforms like you discussed. The matters Pseudo-Adrienne was discussing fall under the category of Dogma ““ which remains consistent Christian teaching. As far as the “new”? Catechism you mention ““ it’s the first revision in 400 years.
Fitz
Your examples of women religious in the Catholic Church only go to prove the point of how disrespected women are in our church. Nuns are the backbone, the hands, the heart of Catholicism. They teach in schools, minister to the sick, care for orphans and get second class treatment from Church leaders as a reward. They do Christs work, and are barred from full participation in the Church leadership. You may see it as tradition, gender roles, or nature, but treating God’s daughters like they are second rate is a sin, and I will die believing this.
I’ve heard it argued that John Paul II’s career has largely been an effort to dismantle the progressive trends implicit in Vatican II.
the point that there are some women who have achieved a high standing in the Catholic Church ignores the point that Church doctrine states that women are not suited to be priests, and men are. That we are not equal, and there is only so much we can achieve.
And men are not suited to be nuns. The inability to cow to post 60’s feminist androgyny is a strength in our tradition ““ Why change Doctrine & Dogma when societal attitudes are much more likely to change first (and intellectual fashion even faster)
Men and women are considered equal (made in the image and likeness of God) But have different natures and deserve different roles (just like a mother & father in rearing children) This is FOR their dignity, not against it.. As for acheivment – well i already pointed out how much they can and have achieved.
there is article after article about how many followers the Catholic Church is losing in the Western world, and that they are having a crisis with not enough priests. There are several people alienated by the committment to more conservative worldviews in the Catholic Church.
The drain of followers in the west is largely a phenomena of Europe. It crosses denominational lines and is most acute in the liberal , old line protestant denomination.
This is due largely to secularization but has effected the Catholic Church the least.
As far as the U.S. goes, the Church is growing rapidly with 65 million members, a dramatic increase over the last 20 years. The real growth boom has occurred in what is called the global south and is an unprecedented evangelical moment in Church history.
As for the priest shortage, its not yet at crises proportions, is abetted by the increase in the deaconate and educated laity, and sublimated by the increasing orthodoxy of young seminarians.
As to the “alienated”? ..well, they have always been with us and always will.
(I kinda like em)
this is Pope John Paul II’s line. It maybe be viewed as being consistent with past Church teachings-although on the women priests issue, it certainly wasn’t for the past 2000 years, and the modern Church as such didn’t even exist for a full 2000 years- but given how much dissent there currently is in the Church on this, and that Pope John Paul II disagreed with previous Church teachings on other issues, you can’t pretend that he was somehow helpless to simply go along with previous doctrine. He had the power to change it, he made it quite clear it shouldn’t be changed. Whether you agree or disagree with that positiion, you can’t pretent that it wasn’t his viewpoint.
I don’t pretend it wasn’t his viewpoint. Once again you must accept that there are teachings that even the Pope cannot change (Dogma)
As to the rest of your charges – you’ll have to be more specific.
That which doesn’t change, dies. Eventually. How many people would still be Catholic if the church were as hardline as it was in the Middle Ages? If a person’s spiritual needs are not satisfied by their faith, they will often search for one that will satisfy them. If the Catholic church keeps ignoring women, denying them what they need or deserve, many of them will migrate to faiths which do.
I was talking with a friend on this issue a few weeks ago, and obviously this is unlikely, but we were saying how wonderful it would be if there was a branch of Catholicism that was truly and totally equal: one in which God either didn’t have a gender or did have a female counterpart (perhaps Asherah, who some argue was Yaweh’s wife or counterpart before monotheism and patriarchy came into fashion), and Jesus was married to Mary Magdalen, and all sexual roles based on patriarchal authority were rejected (i.e. no restrictions on birth control, no demonizing of sex, and no male-only priesthood). Unlikely to happen, but damn, that would be wonderful.
I really hope, however, that there is a resurgence of dialogue that JP II supressed, regarding feminism and liberation theory and sexuality and other controversial things. This would be good for the church as well as women and dissenters. As Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, said, “The enemy of faith is apathy.” When people are arguing over some facet of their beliefs, they have strong feelings, they BELIEVE more strongly. And that is good for any religion.
Regarding the (insert something rude here) who said abortion was a right-to-life issue and not a women’s issue:
I am firmly of the oppinion that NO being has an inherent right to survive SOLELY at the expense of another being. If it can breathe and process nourishment by itself, than let it do so. If not, its continued survival is a PRIVILEGE, not a right, and depends on the willingness of another to support it.
And it most certainly is a women’s issue. They are the ones whose bodies are being hijacked by idiots like this.
So, Fitz, is that because men are not capable of doing the things nuns do? Or because it would be undignified for a man to do the things that are considered women’s work?
Why, in your opinion , should women take a secondary role in church leadership? Are women less capable of leading? Are they in some way unable to understand, interpret, or teach doctrine?
Fitz, men may not be suited to be nuns but there are male organizations that are comparable to women’s orders. In fact, there are lay orders (as in, non-priestly orders) of both men and women, and both frequently serve in teaching, missionary and healing jobs. But it’s not as if they are suffering from an excess number of applicants so even if they defined the church in the past, they most likely won’t in the future. No, if you want to understand how women’s alienation affects the future of the church, just ask yourself how many women actively encourage their sons to become priests. Or how many women are willing to adhere to church doctrine on contraception to churn out bevies of new believers. There is your answer: women withhold a great deal of themselves from the Church in ways that will have a devastating impact on its future.
The worst harm (IMHO) inflicted on the church by JPII was the degree to which, through policy, doctrine, action, and probably simple circumstance, many people have come to see the church as the equivalent of the Pope. Such a church will not last long because eventually we will have a Pope who is not charismatic, who clearly slips up (indeed, we had such Pope who slipped up but he had enough built-up capital to withstand the deadening effect of the sex abuse scandals, at least in the U.S.) and who is, plainly stated, not worthy of being Peter’s heir, let alone Christ’s. I find current media attention paid to the appointment of the next Pope to be a sickening symptom of this phenomenon.
A cursory glance at the protestant denominations that have embraced the Dogmas of modern leftism reveals a emaciated and dwindling congregations. When you abandon Christ ““ the sheep tend to stray.
Ha, yeah, because Jesus was such a right wing pro-war pro-establishment figure, nothing in common with anything any left or liberal party anywhere ever expressed, nah.
If you’re a Catholic, you can’t be left wing, not even center-left — well, as any Pope will know that argument doesn’t even register on the reality radar in Rome, Brazil, or Poland for that matter. But it does wonders in the US of A…
And of course, what makes a church more appealing and valuable is numbers alone, not what it actually teaches. Well then clearly, in that market-driven competitive consumerist view of religion, Catholicism has to reform by… becoming ultra-orthodox Islam. It’s the natural next step. They don’t even make those figures yet. Time to do some more global marketing. Power by numbers, yup, that’s what religion is all about. And we wonder why they’re opposed to contraception?
Also, what Adrienne and Amp said. Nice post. I enjoyed the quotes from Chile. Here’s to hoping the next pope is from Latin America, they definitely deserve that. (Not to mention they seem to have some more relatively liberal representatives there, among the candidates).
(I would say, here’s to hoping no church and no religion ever again retains that kind of political and social power in the next 50 years, but I can only dream…)
As others have touched on, the sense of alienation is not as widespread as one might assume. Globally, Catholics tend to be far more conservative than they are in North America and Europe. Since North America only comprises 7% of the Catholic population, and Europe 27%, it’s easy to see how the Vatican sees little incentive to reform at all.
Although I disagree with Fitz’s take on women’s rights, he’s representative of the Catholic majority. And he’s right about the most vital religions and denominations being those that have shifted rightward. What is dying off are the liberal-to-moderate factions.
BTW, some believe this is a direct response to modernization/secularization. The more relativistic the culture at large becomes, the theory goes, the more people will seek out a clearly defined system to help explain it.
Doctrine and dogma, by definition, cannot change.
It is not doctrine, nor is it dogma, that women cannot become priests. It is Church teaching- at this time. That teaching can change. I doubt it will anytime soon, but it is not immutable.
There’s a lot that has changed over 2000 years. Priests were allowed to marry until 1179. Popes were not picked by conclave until 12something or other, if I heard the radio correctly this afternoon. Heck, it was a sin to eat meat on a Friday, or at all during Lent!
If you want a quick-and-easy summary of the doctrine and dogma of the Catholic Church, it is generally covered in the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed.
I’m certainly not knowledgeable enough about the details of Catholicism to argue about the finer points of doctrine and dogma, although I will say it was my understanding that doctrine could change…
However, the ‘men aren’t suited to be nuns’ statement doesn’t work because there are similar orders that men can take, and they can be monks. However, there is no parallel path for women to be priests, cardinals, archbishops, or to become Pope.
As to the Pope’s decision that it was not proper to ordain women, there was an Apostolic Letter where he stated that it was not proper before, where he referenced Church Doctrine. As to my statement that the Church has changed over the past 2000 years, women were ordained and served as deacons during the first few centuries of the Church’s existence.
As to Catholicism in America, the amount of priests may not be in crisis, but it has fallen in the states. I’m curious as to how much of the fact that the Church has continuted to grow, though, is due to the fact that a lot of Catholics (I’m not saying most since I honestly don’t know) just don’t adhere to much of Church doctrine. I’m living with my Catholic boyfriend, his Catholic mother is divorced, all the Catholic girls I know are on the pill, that sort of thing.
Since North America only comprises 7% of the Catholic population, and Europe 27%, it’s easy to see how the Vatican sees little incentive to reform at all.
A third of the world’s Catholics–but the source of perhaps 80% of the Church’s annual revenue. Perhaps decentralization with regards to sexual issues is the answer–but if so, how can the Church truly be considered Catholic in the sense of “universal”?
A third of the world’s Catholics”“but the source of perhaps 80% of the Church’s annual revenue.
Also the source of most of its theologians, Catholic affiliated politicians, Catholic aid agencies…
But I’d include Latin America in there too, there is a similar disconnect between the social attitudes of many Catholics and even local church representatives and the top church hierarchy.
In Spain, the disconnect has been clearer and faster than anywhere else. In Italy, the biggest Catholic-affiliated parties are on the left, and even those in the center-right may be about to join the opposition… In recent regional elections, in the southern region of Puglia which is one of the most traditionally Catholic (and the seat of one of the most popular pilgrimage sites), a gay and gay activist Catholic left-wing politician, Nichi Vendola, won elections, defeating the previous center-right governor. One of his earliest mentors was a late local bishop, he’s been supported by well-known priests who are active in aid organisations, he’s a devout Catholic, and a modern-day communist, and active in the main Italian gay rights organisation (there’s another few members of parliament who are also members of that organisation, but they are not religious).
Like in Spain, the Vatican can and will likely continue to close up like an ostrich, but they cannot pretend the disconnect is not a problem for them, especially for their local churches, and not just in terms of attendance but in more tangible ways. So I don’t know for how long the reactionary trend will go on, especially seen as there are different factions within the Vatican too.
Ooops, this was the Spain link, sorry.
I was surprised to read that Sister Maria Ines Concha thinks that John Paul II paved the way for his successor to permit the ordination of women. Surely he did his best to make it a good deal more difficult for women to be ordained. In ‘Ordinatio Sacerdotalis’ he stated not only that the Church is not authorised to ordain women, as Paul VI had said, but also that ‘this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.’ This was followed by a statement by Cardinal Ratzinger, which was issued with the Pope’s approval, that the teaching that women cannot be priests is infallible ‘by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.’ The Vatican may, at last, have allowed girls to be altar servers but they have forbidden women to be deacons, let alone priests.
All this does not mean that the teaching cannot be changed. Any teaching can be changed. But John Paul has done what he can to make sure that a lot of very hard work must be done by theologians before this teaching can be changed.
Pseudo-Adrienne, you suggest that women will abandon the Church if they continue to be ignored. Since women do a lot of work in the Church at the parish level, make up most of the congregation at Mass and are usually the people who make sure that the children go to church a mass abandonment of the Church by women would certainly put pressure on the Vatican so I wish I could think that you are right. I am afraid, however, that there is little evidence to back you up. Certainly attendance at Mass is declining, in Europe at least, and I believe also in North America, but I am not sure that women are leaving the Church in greater numbers than men or that there are fewer female converts than male. Do you know of any studies that show that?
Ok, you can safely ignore any hint of tenuous hope in any comments reported or posted here: the new Pope is… Ratzinger, the uber-conservative German cardinal behind all the most reactionary statements of recent years. The message couldn’t be any clearer. Oh well, how could anyone expect any better.
Time to file my aposthasy forms. Always kept them handy, in case I reached the “ok, now, this is really too much” level. Fully reached now. I won’t bothered to get near any religion and/or church for the next fifty years. At the very least. Good luck to the Chilean nuns!
I am not sure that women are leaving the Church in greater numbers than men or that there are fewer female converts than male.
I don’t know either, I guess the rate is pretty much similar. Keep in mind though that “leaving the church” is a vague concept – figures for church attendance are necessarily an estimate, and no one has ever bothered to file the forms for official renounciation of any affiliation with the church (I read an article about it a while ago, it takes a long time and it’s a pretty annoying burocratic procedure). The article I linked has figures about the drop in tax contributions to the Vatican in Spain. But as far as I know, there are no fireproof statistics that can really give an exact figure of how many people are “leaving”. In traditionally Catholic countries, besides, or families, or communities, most people still baptize children, even if they don’t go to church. And once you’re registered as baptized, you get counted in those billion-whatever.
Nobody (in my experience) abandons the church outright or officially. They go to mass less frequently, they contribute less (in my case much less) than they used to, volunteer less or not at all, don’t send their children to catholic schools, stop adhering to church practices (Lenten sacrifice, abstinence from contraception, whatever). In short, they are less committed and over time they and their children are so much less committed that whether you call it abandonment or not, the church loses. For instance, I keep doing volunteer work because I have a nice personal relationship with the priest. If he leaves, I will no doubt feel free to do even less. In short, over time, the bond loosens.
Well, Monica, I kind of agree with you with two caveats: At 78 he’s much older than JPII, and he doesn’t have the sunny inclusive face that JPII turned to the world. Ratzinger is JPII’s dark side, and our celebrity uberconscious society can’t stand the dark side of anyone or anything. But yes, in some ways it’s the choice of a church that clearly was beholden to JPII. Continuity in the worst sense of the word.
As stated by many above the problem is not a lack of female participation in the Church. If their is a problem (and their is) on the congregational level, the problem is a lack of participation by men. Religion, with its emphasis on love, forgiveness, charity and so forth ““ is often considered effeminate or weak. Feminism drive to exclude men from positions of honor in the family has led the traditional good faithful family man to be less inclined to feel his role as spiritual head of the family to be honored.
On a doctrinal & dogmatic level, well Christ was a man, his twelve apostles were men. Since the very beginning priest were men, and the Vicar of Christ, Peter was chosen as a man. God chose Christ as a man to come and die for or sins (the ultimate source of sacrifice) gendered roles and understanding are replete in Scripture & Tradition. There is no good reason I can think to change this and further alienate men from the Church.
You know Fitz, that is the crux of the issue. It’s not immutable that women could not serve priestly functions, it’s that, somehow, the church’s “inspirational and timeless truth” just isn’t timeless or inspirational or self-confident or self-evident or saving enough for men to flock to it if, you know, it is mediated through a female voice. Kind of calls into question the claims of the whole enterprise.
I have often thought that Paul’s role was to reclaim Jesus so that his church and message (however bowdlerized) would bec acceptable to the male dominated power structure of the time, and I would say that is still more or less my view.
That may be your ‘crux” Barbara – but you must admit that this crux is eerily similar to contemporary thought. (it maybe true, but its certainly not original)
Lines like Male power structure don’t tend to reinforce a case made against a theology that positively reveals in the distinctions and complementary aspects of the divinely ordered male & female. “and male & female he created them”?
Ponder this: Without Mary, our sacred feminine- Christ could never have entered the world and delivered into his saving grace. As a perfect vestal she was created immaculately without sin- and ascended into Heaven body & sole (so perfect she was) and upon arrival was crowed Queen of Heaven.
Power is not all temporal, nor is it always official or require overt trappings. The women of the Catholic faith have always, will always, and continue to be the vestals through which we enter the Church- both literally & spiritually.
That may be true for you Fitz, but many women are mighty tired of being viewed as “vessels” by men who have not the slightest clue about any other female relationship besides motherhood. Women are not sacraments. They are flesh and blood persons like yourself. I stand by my previous statement: a truth that is not perceived as such unless it is told by people who already hold power has scant claim to being accepted without reservation as truth.
Is anyone else having a really, really hard time refraining from comments on Fitz’s less-than-immaculate spelling and grammar?
No one is arguing that women aren’t utilized by the Church, or that they don’t contribute to the spiritual lives of other Catholics. We’re arguing the exact opposite. None of the Catholics in the discussion are arguing that devout women won’t eventually be rewarded. The complaint is about this idea of women as spiritual Mason jars, and the fact that Mary’s example–heck, the example of both Marys–doesn’t work out to a more active role in the Church.
Secular InHumanist Dogma
#1236 – “All Dynamics are Power Dynamics”
#1237- ” Their is no Human Nature”
#1238- ” All Human distinctions are the result of Social Constructs”
#1239 – “men & women are the same, Gender is a Social Construct”
Why so rigidly dogmatic!
Yeah? Well, Catholics eat babies. How can you be pro-woman if you eat babies?
monica: There are forms I can fill out to get declared apostate? How do I get my hands on a copy? I’ve been meaning to get excommunicated for a few years now. Not because I think it makes any spiritual difference (I’m a hard core philosophical naturalist), but I want to make sure they don’t count me in as a Roman Catholic.
Fitz, you can clearly see how present societal debates and ideologies can leak into Church debates. Isn’t it the least bit possible that the position of the Church could be influenced on societal debates and ideologies on the position of women in the past, rather than based on a totally objective interpretation of the Bible?
Ab_Normal: I didn’t even know about that myself (I just thought, you don’t got to church, or join another religion, and that’s it) until I read in an Italian newspaper the account of a man who took that step, took him three years, he had to speak to his parish priest, because the procedure requires the church makes all efforts to convince the aspiring apostate to stay, and had to go through a lot of explanation of his reasons (he was an atheist, if you join another religion it’s easier) and there was a lot of paperwork and back-and-forth involved, so he described it as a very frustrating process. You don’t get “unbaptized”, by the way, that’s not possible, but they do remove you from their official count.
You don’t lose the sacraments though, so they do it with the insistence they’ll keep an open door should you want to come back.
Please note I’m talking of Italy – laws may be different in other countries, because they are established in terms of agreement between that country and the Vatican (as church and as foreign state). In Italy, ruling to require the church to comply to requests of renounciation is very recent, and was obtained, on grounds of Italian privacy laws, after a legal suit by an association of secularists, agnostics and atheists. They started a campaign in the eighties against that practice of the church to use baptism as a “statistical” tool for their annual reports, to count in their numbers of followers every single person who’d been baptized after birth. This means, in Italy, they counted 56 million people (98% of the population) as part of that billion+ they claim as followers all over the world.
If they do that for every single baptized child in every country of the world, you can easily see how they can claim those huge numbers even while polls, simple direct observation, testimony from local priests and churches closing prove that the numbers of actual followers have been constantly decreasing in past decades. Those numbers are based on two factors: baptisms, and funerals.
In Germany, from what I read, the apostasy process is a lot easier – you just stop paying taxes to the Church (or rather, devoting a portion of one’s taxes as a contribution), and you’re no longer counted. In France, there were similar campaigns and they also managed to get legal recognition of the right to demand proof of the cancellation from the official registers.
I have no information on how it’s done in other parts of the world, obviously the Church doesn’t like to give a lot of details about this. They need to claim high numbers for a series of reasons that also include very tangible benefits (like state funding, depending on agreements in various countries).
We eat babies???
Where’s the buffet table???
I’ve been struggling with my Roman Catholicism for 2 years now, since I married an Episcopalian/converted from Roman Catholicism. I go to church with him, (I also go to mass with my dad to our family RC church,) listen to Estelle, his priest, give beautiful sermons, take communion. I can see no difference between the masses.
Estelle has had the hands on at her ordination, passed down from Jesus to Peter and down through the centuries. And she celebrates mass. And for the life of me I can not see what problem God could have with this. I’m linking here to what the rector of that church said in a homily a few Sundays ago, which deals with Jesus at the well with the Samaritin woman, and what Jesus called Living Water. “Living Water”
Third Sunday in Lent (Year A) – John 4:5-42
February 27, 2005
Sermon given by
The Rev. Andrew E. Fiddler, Rector
Trinity on the Green, New Haven, CT
But the Spirit of God is living water, always moving, always breaking down the man-made barriers that have kept us apart too long.
By the grace of God, in every generation another man-made barrier will fall, because Christ’s living water cannot be stopped from flowing.
And what about us? What barriers have we built?
To answer that each one of us has to look deep inside ourselves. It’s far easier to point out bigotry or pig-headedness in someone else than it is to discover our own flaws of narrow-mindedness.
That is where Jesus can help us. As he came to the woman at the well, Christ comes to each one of us with his surprising gift of living water. He asks nothing more of us than what he asked of her.
He asks us to welcome him. He asks us to listen to him. He asks us to serve him.
Amen.
Amp, if I’m doing this wrong, please tell me, I’ll do better next time.
Seems to me that the RC church is cutting off it’s nose to spite it’s face.
[Kim – I’d prefer that people not quote very, very long passages from material that’s available on the, instead quoting just a short passage and linking to the whole thing. I’ve edited your post to reflect that, hope you don’t mind. -Amp]
Thanks, Amp!
The point I, and Andy, am trying to make is that Jesus didn’t just call on the apostles to spread his message, he also called on the Samaritan woman, knowing she would be an apostle to her people. So for men of the Roman Church to say Jesus didn’t want women to be priests (presbyters- “teacher” ) is just historically wrong.
Barbara, “the dark side” seems a pretty apt description! He’s been nicknamed “God’s rottweiler” and “the panzer cardinal”. He makes me think of Michael Howard and Richard Perle, only less charming. That’s saying a lot. I don’t want to be shallow here but you know, I don’t feel inspired by godly sentiments when I see that face.
Of course that would be easy to overlook if his positions weren’t even scarier. And not just on social and sexual matters and women in the church – also on theological matters of doctrine, relations with other religions, relations with modernity in general, the fact that among the “perils” of secular thought that he listed (under “moral relativism”, the favourite straw man of every True Conservative), he didn’t even mention nazism and fascism (marxism of course gets the first mention, equated with “secularism”), the fact he airbrushed the history of the church colonization of Africa and Latin America (the only bad colonization is – you guessed it – by “secularists”), and other such dodgy readings of history. Nothing new, they just chose the most overt spokesman for this kind of self-serving hardline.
Kim, the point isn’t that women can’t spread the Gospel or fully live out its vision, it’s that men (like Fitz, apparently) can’t stomach truths that come out of the mouths of women. Nothing that is said by a woman is worthy of respect by men, who would rather not go to or otherwise participate in a Church that gives any semblance of authority to women. Reduced to its essence and avoiding the clericalese that is what Fitz is saying.
Barbara,
Gotcha. I just re-read his post, scary. It reminds me of the Promise-Keepers from a few years ago.
I don’t see how the church will ever change. It’s “my ball, and my rules”, and if we don’t like it, we’ll have to play a different game. For now, I have to go home, catch up with this tomorrow..
Good night all.
Interestingly enough for me at least, is that their are plenty of indications that Jesus had a 13th apostle and that this was covered up by early male religious leaders (not going to point fingers at the Vatican as I can’t recall exactly if it was Rome). Why would they do this? Well it wouldn’t be very good for any patriarchy if Jesus was known to have a woman Apostle – Aka: Mary Magdalene, ex-whore.
I also find it interesting that references to the womb of God have been omitted over time – studies/linguists have shown that the ancient aramaic texts speak of God in both paternal and maternal form, including in several instances discussing God’s womb.
Eh, not that it matters to me anyways, I’m not RC, nor would I ever be, and quite frankly find myself bored with people that attempt to portray an enlightened spiritual being as something that would allow for such hatred and bigotry among all people. That’s not a ‘God’ I would personally feel any pride in following.
Please tell me you’re not referring to the DaVinci Code.
Btw, when you get a chance, let me know where the Bible it’s stated that Magdelene was an ex-prostitute. (Hint: there’s no evidence for it.)
Thanks, monica.
There was probably historical confusion about her name, which she shared with so many other women in Christ’s life.
The apocryphal Gospel of Mary Magdalene is a real document, just not a verified one. And she did travel with him, and witnessed his crucifixion and burial, and was the first person to see him risen; she was definitely more than a vessel. That part definitely isn’t a whole-cloth DVC fabrication. Just the sex-with-the-Savior part.
Given the guy who was just elected pope, lo these two millennia after Christ’s birth, the idea that a woman was an apostle or virtual apostle and that her contributions were then obscured isn’t at all ridiculous. It just isn’t the stuff of suspense novels.
Hell, if I were to do that, I’d be more creative and at least use something fun like Harry Potter.
Hadn’t even been aware that the DaVinci code touched upon the Magdalene questions.
Well with Rattie as pope, women can now enjoy 20 more years as second class citizens of the RC.
Ab_Normal: you’re welcome. I and a few friends were joking about starting a consulting service for wannabe apostates, we’d have a lot of business now ;-)
Wow! I’ve never had 46 commentors respond to a post of mine. Thanks people!
How is it that a former Nazi can rise to become pope, but women are not considered capabale of leading the church? How?
That alone tells me women are going to have to work upwards just to become *second* class, much less rise above it.
This makes me really sick.
Q Grrl, you have to take his nazi time in context. All boys, (he was 14 when he got into it, think about it, what were we doing when we were 14?) were made to be in it, whether or not he wanted to be. he was pressed into working for them, released to go to seminary, pressed into work for the soviets, put into a us pow camp for several weeks, and was released. He’s been talking about his past for 20 years, openly, not trying to hide it.
It is beside the point of how conservative or not he will be as pope.
I for one am thinking about fleeing to the Episcopal church as soon as his first Encyclical comes out.
I think you miss my point. The church has decided that his past is relatively harmless and meaningless while at the same time they do not hold this view towards the lives of women (and the worth of those lives). Somehow, I find this insulting. Maybe it’s because I find the fact of my birth sex to be far more “cumpolsury” than the Hitler Youth.
And, if I am to put his past into context, I want to be able to define that context… say perhaps to compare him to Dietrich Bonhoeffer rather than some modern day version of youthful innocence.
On another blog, I think someone made Qgrrl’s point more subtly, which I would expand on. Ratzinger’s idea of supreme evil appears to emanate from his notion of “relativism,” which is (so far as I understand it — it’s not like it’s well defined) the notion that circumstances or personal situation are morally relevant in guiding ethical choices in addition to or even rather than timeless or enduring principles of right and wrong. Now, I will be the first to admit that a 14 year old probably has no well-developed view on issues of conscience such as this, but nonetheless, having been put into a position where one was asked to cooperate with evil, perhaps the pinnacle of evil in our time, even if it is understood to be compulsory, one might realize that it is not such a simple matter to ignore one’s own personal circumstances in determining one’s moral choices.
Although I never anticipate agreement on abortion, I think this might be highly relevant to one’s views on the use of contraception, particularly of condoms by married women trying to avoid life threatening diseases, but really, in any circumstance. And the coup de grace, perhaps, is that the Church (I don’t know about Ratzinger personally) has made all kinds of situationally based excuses for abusive priests. In other words, the priestly class has shown a marked lack of empathy for other people’s situations and and almost exquisite sensibility to the situations of its own peers.
It is extremely troubling and does not bode well.
“Now, I will be the first to admit that a 14 year old probably has no well-developed view on issues of conscience such as this,”
It was 1944 with a full blown war and extermination of Jews. I seriously doubt he was as naive and babified as a 14-year-old in 2005. Besides, he was in seminary at this age too.
My real point though is the decision by the body of the church that it is far worse to be female. They seem to be saying “boys will be boys”; that the wars and the results of wars that men instigate, fight, and win are somehow necessary (and therefore good) and that there are rules of ethics therewith which don’t extend to the realities and lives of women. Women are judged on their birth. Men, on the other hand, may or may not be judged for what they *do* in their life times.
My vagina, in the eyes of the Catholic church, constrains my ability to lead or to form an intimate or organic relationship with God. Ratzinger’s youth and the apparent cumpolsory nature of the Hitler Youth get him off the ethics/spiritual hook in a way my female body can’t.
I too could talk about my past for 20 years and the Catholic Church would still only see my vagina.
I don’t know what Ratzinger has stated about relativism, but the problem with it is that it adds up to “anything goes.” Your truth is not my truth, relativism goes, so there are no absolutes. In other words, murder is not objectively immoral; it is immoral only for those people who consider it to be so.
Ratzinger wasn’t JUST a Hitler youth, though, he also was in the German army during the war and manned an antiaircraft gun guarding a factory where Jews were being enslaved and forced to work. He was already in seminary when he was drafted and he chose to go along with the devil rather than resist. I think Q Grrl is right to point out Bonhoeffer and other Christians who put their lives on the line or even died in the name of not submitting to the nazis evil agenda. Ratzinger saved his own skin by picking up a gun for satan, is that would Jesus would have wanted from a leader of 1 billion Christians?
I am all for honest, thoughtful discussion, but name calling will not change anyone’s minds. Here is a link, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1572667,00.html
that lays out what happened to him during ww2. I am not making excuses for him.
but reads to me like he did try to get out of it.
If we’re going to not like him, let’s not like him for what he’s going to do to us now, not for what he was 64 years ago.
daffodil, the problem with using terms such as relativism, which I always use in quotes, is that it can be interpreted in the manner that you have said, which is, basically, there is no right or wrong except what I deem to be right or wrong for myself. But it is also a way of attacking other people whose moral code is in fact principled but not reflective of your own principles. Or for that matter, a way of ascribing blameworthiness to people who advocate for tolerance of different views. The latter, I believe, is how Ratzinger uses it with reference to his views and statements on gays, other religious denominations or faiths, etc. You go straight to issues like murder, when no one is advocating to make murder illegal. Your argument is really a straw man in that sense. Take it down a notch to where it’s actually being fought: abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and religious toleration and tell me what you think of Ratzinger’s arguments.
If what he did 64 years ago was participate in a genocide, no matter how tiny his participation, I damn well AM going to hold it against him now that he is an extremely powerful and influential “spiritual leader” for over a billion people. Considering the track record the Catholic Church has as far as other faiths, especially Judaism, I’d say it is MORE than relevant.
NO one on this thread has expressed even a cursory understanding of Christian thought much less Catholicism, much less Church Doctrine.
Even the History of our latest Pope has been horribly twisted as has his statements.
I cant even begin to answer all the false understandings presented here.
I don’t say any of this out of pride (I hope)
When you here the phrase “prejudice is based in ignorance”
think of these rantings.
But I’m reading this, marveling, not knowing were to begin.
You know Fitz, it is a conceit of many believers that non-believers or critics of the Church or of any religion are simply ignorant. Many are in fact knowledgeable, many went to Catholic schools and so on. Their criticism is considered and educated. Not all, but many. So if you can’t even “begin” to address that criticism, well then, perhaps it is you not they that are lacking in understanding.
>> “Their criticism is considered and educated. Not all, but many.”
The criticisms of the new Pope, in this thread?
For a shining example of “moral relativism” in its worst sense, including justifying murder, wars, torture* and covering up abuses, no need to look further than the history of the Vatican. They’re very good at preaching, very bad at reaping.
* no I’m not talking of the good old inquisition (one never expects the Spanish Inquisition!) but much more recent events in Latin America. Where the Catholic nuns and priests, including one bishop, who was actually a conservative, who, along with many other lay dissenters, were tortured and killed by the death squads of right wing regimes that the Vatican supported as a bulwark against communism, have not only failed to be included in the list of recently beatified exponents of the faith, despite their being perfect candidates for the definition of martyrs, but have not even been awarded as much as a mention from the Vatican officialdom. It’s one of those things best shoved under the carpet.
Ratzinger is one of the strongest representatives of this ultra-apologist approach, he also opposed those public apologies that Wojtyla made for the past sins of the Church during the Jubilee (including the apology to Galileo – Giordano Bruno is still waiting…); he always opposed inter-religious meetings that Wojtyla promoted, like that of a couple of years ago in Assisi, for fear they might spread the terrible idea that there is a possibility of inter-religious dialogue even with churches that are not officially considered sisters of the Catholic church.
Of course, all these statements, because of their lack of 100% acritical worship of a religious, political and financial institution with a very mixed history, are to be easily dismissed as “ignorant” by the Ratzinger wannabes. There is only one truth, and it is that which covers up hundreds of cynical strategies and crimes committed in the name of “fighting relativism”.
Not just any old relativism, Monica, but the dictatorship of relativism. If Chairm or Fitz or someone else would like to explain what that means in concrete terms I would be pleased to listen. From where I sit it sounds a lot like a way of attacking freedom of conscience without ‘fessing up that that’s what one is about.
Here is the quote that contains the “dictatorship of relativism” phrase
This brave prayer was offered to the conclave before they proceeded to elect a the new pope.
CARDINAL JOSEPH RATZINGER
HOMILY AT THE MASS FOR THE ELECTION OF THE ROMAN PONTIFF
(partial insert)
How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking… The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves – thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and “swept along by every wind of teaching,” looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today’s standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.
However, we have a different goal: the Son of God, true man. He is the measure of true humanism. Being an “Adult” means having a faith which does not follow the waves of today’s fashions or the latest novelties. A faith which is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ is adult and mature. It is this friendship which opens us up to all that is good and gives us the knowledge to judge true from false, and deceit from truth. We must become mature in this adult faith; we must guide the flock of Christ to this faith. And it is this faith – only faith – which creates unity and takes form in love. On this theme, Saint Paul offers us some beautiful words – in contrast to the continual ups and downs of those were are like infants, tossed about by the waves: (he says) make truth in love, as the basic formula of Christian existence. In Christ, truth and love coincide. To the extent that we draw near to Christ, in our own life, truth and love merge. Love without truth would be blind; truth without love would be like “a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal” (1 Cor 13,1).
the entire homily can be read here
(scroll down) http://www.hughhewitt.com/index.htm#postdid1557
A list of some of his works are here.
http://www.ratzingerfanclub.com/Ratzinger_In_Print.html
We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.
I interpret Ratzinger to be saying that faith in Christ and Christian orthodoxy (by his interpretation) is the highest and best human achievement, even necessary for a person to be fully human. I certainly can understand why he thinks that. I would be shocked if he didn’t.
But it turns reason on its head to think that there is a dictatorship of relativism because (a) there is a great deal of ferment of religious and spiritual thought, and even adherence to atheism, or out and out selfi-interest and epicureanism and (b) individuals are permitted to and do err from Ratzinger’s doctrinal pronouncement of the greatest good.
There is no such thing as a dictatorship of relativism. By his own reckoning, relativism is chaotic, non-uniform, and ultimately personal. Ratzinger appears to be saying that any political or spiritual direction that does not result in uniform adoption of his brand of orthodox Christianity is dictatorial. In other words, he is being oppressed because the dictates (sometimes known as principles) of a liberal state prevent him from dictating the personal conscience of others.
You give people the right to choose. Sometimes they choose wrongly. This is not an argument for taking away freedom of conscience. The alternative is to permit no conscience.
There is no such thing as a dictatorship of relativism. By his own reckoning, relativism is chaotic, non-uniform, and ultimately personal.
Indeed, it’s a bit of an oxymoron, “dictatorship of relativism”, isn’t it?
You’re absolutely right, Barbara. It’s obvious “relativism” is used here only as a substitute for “evil”, as anything not conforming to an authoritarian view of religion as the only absolute source and validation of all ethics, outside of it, no ethics, hence, all relativistically evil…
(Marxism definitely isn’t “relativist” by any other sense of the word! it’s the least likely candidate for the definition of “relativist”)
A “dictatorship of relativism” strictly speaking would have to be, something like, living under a dictatorship led by Aleister Crowley and the marquis de Sade, where everyone is encouraged, no, forced to do unspeakable things to their neighbours if it so pleases them, or even if it doesn’t. (I don’t know how that’d work).
If we had that, we’d all be dead already. We’d all have killed each other off. There’d be no police force because there’d be no law. There’d be no prisons because there’d be no crime – everything would be permissible and ok, any morals would be abolished and repressed, any social control abolished (not getting into the nature/nurture debate here, just positing a surreal scenario where all humans would be forced to abandon any kind of moral structure). So… how could that dictatorship even be in place? It would be the most absolute radical anarchy, of the kind never even theorised, nevermind existed.
But hey, it’s a powerful image, “dictatorship of relativism”. Scare people into thinking that if they think with their heads, they’re doomed. It always works.
I read yesterday that in Brazil, the Catholic church loses about 1 million followers a year to fundamentalist evangelical Christians and the like. The phenomenon is present also across the rest of Latin America, and Africa, too. The Vatican doesn’t appreciate this, obviously. Solution? become more like the strongest competitors, and screw the social and political consequences of pouring more water on that kind of fire.
Um, I may have gotten mistaken about whether doctrince can change….. just so you all know. I’m pretty sure dogma can’t. Sorry about that.
I think that the real reason that Latin countries are losing membership is that there are not enough priests to support individual parishioners. The lack of priests leads to a sense of remoteness from the religious institution. It also does not help that in central American countries in particular, the church has, to one extent or another, cast its support in favor of maintaining political and social status quo even as JPII professed his love of the masses. I’ve heard all the arguments about the difficulty and risks of not suppressing liberation theology, but if you are a poor peasant, particularly a mestizo, and your life is hard and you are being cheated out of land, money, or voting rights, you might not view a church that orders your main advocate to cease and desist as your best friend.