Monday, March 10, 2008
A sad old man
While I applaud B16 for making his positions crystal clear, one has to wonder just how a man could become so out of touch with the people he supposedly serves. With each new proclamation, he becomes less a leader and more a Punch-and-Judy puppet in a two dimensional theater in a public park, ignored even by children who are used to more sophisticated entertainment. If only he were benevolent, he'd be revered as a quaint old man full of love, and he would be allowed his failing vision, but he is not that. He seems bitter and bent on vengeance and retaliation personally engineered from a very comfortable sedia. Naturally, surrounded by yes-men, he is convinced of the merits of his actions. Millions turn away. His voice is barely audible. How many years of this will we have?
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12 comments:
I comment as an outsider of the Catholic Church, but I'm hoping for enlightenment should it be necessary.
When I read this new list of sins, it strikes me that they are not clear at all. Every one of them requires definition and clarification; and as such guarantees the jobs of countless church officials and scholars as they huddle over the minutiae like modern-day Pharisees.
Aren't they missing the point? Where is the grace? We burden ourselves already with the struggle to connect with God; I don't need someone burying me under new ways to look at sin. Give me new ways to find my way to God.
We see what we have eyes to see.
In contrast to what you have written, there are millions listening to this Pope and being renewed and invigorated by what he has to say. I know that in my own life but if you want objective proof, check out the sales of his books/writings, and the numbers that come to his audiences. Might it be that you have tunnel vision?
Oh please, Thomas Tucker, since when has popular subscription ever been an indication of the integrity of something? Consider television. Surely, you've a better argument. And regarding his audiences, I attended a great number of them. The cheering and weeping of the crowd often demonstrated a love of the Church and the office of the Pope while tolerating the incumbent.
Father Tony, you are the one who said that he is being ignored. Nothing could be further from the truth. Moreover, his audiences are even better attended than the ones of the charismatic JPII. I think you will have to show some evidence to substantiate your opinion that millions are turning away and few are listening. That may be what you hope for because it would validate your own beliefs and actions, but there is no objective evidence for it.
Dear Thomas Tucker, I should think that the numbers/stats in this country alone provide stark evidence that there is a great turning away from the Pope. You are closing/combining churches and schools. Vocations to the priesthood dribble and sputter. The band plays on, doesn't it?
Of more interest to me is the way you assume I have some anti-Catholic or anti-Papist and nefarious intent. Not so. I love the Church and hate seeing what it has become. What it has sunk to. It will need to be pruned down to its roots before it can grow healthily once again. You would do better to speed this process by following what is in your heart - what is "of the Spirit". No amount of patching the cracks in the palace will keep that wind from getting in. Don't rail against it. Go with it. It's going to be a "renewal" in the real sense of the word.
No, Father T, I have to disagree. First of all, your view may be limited both geographically and chronologically. Vocations are on the way up from their recent lows in this country and are bursting the seams in Africa and other places.
Second, closing/combining churches is true in some older parts of this country, particularly the Snowbelt, but the Church is growing steadily in the Southwest and Southeast.
I don't assume that you are anti-Church or anti-Papist at all although you have made it clear that you are anti-Benedict.
Obviously, your vision of the Church and mine are very different. Following what is "in your heart" frequently becomes just following where your own desires lead you, under the guise of course of following the Spirit. It takes discernment to follow the Holy Spirit, rather than the many other Spirits that are out there. I prefer to conform myself to the teaching of the Church, rather try to conform the Church to my own teachings.
But there you have it- we pretty much disagree, but I enjoy reading you none the less.
Dear Thomas Tucker,
The growing African church and the growing South American church (including the growing numbers of Latino Catholics in this country) will bring about exactly the reforms I hope to see. A Church full of "dappled things" (a phrase you'll appreciate) will be vastly different from the one currently strangled by recalcitrant old white guys, don't you think?
Glad for your eyes on my words. Keeps me on my toes. Writing for the lapsed is so much easier.
I really thought, after John Paul died, that the RC church had a chance to become relevant. There were a couple of guys that looked and sounded like they had a clue as to what was going on in the world. Then they hired Ratzo, the former head of the Inquisition.
He's been stirring up trouble ever since.
Oh, is it Be near me, the O'Hagan book? I love the way he writes dialog.
I keep running into saint Gerard these days. I like your use of the quote in applying it to the denizens of the non-European world.
I should have read through the comments column before posting my own.
The whole passage about following ones desires versus following the spirit(which to Mr. Tucker seems to be synonymous with following the church) intrigues me. Aside from silliness about the desires of the flesh being different from the desires of the spirit, it falls apart very quickly when one realizes that one has to have a desire to follow the ways of the spirit. It doesn't work to say that the spirit inculcates that very desire, because the response itself is an indication of like responding to like, or if one prefers the biblical wording, deep calling unto deep. The mimetic response is one of the deepest functions of the human psyche.
Oh well, I see I'm starting to foam at the mouth a little.
I'm not catholic; in fact, I'm an agnostic boardering on antheists, and I'm a feminists. There, now my comment. I hate to see the church go back to the days when women were forbidden to use birthcontrol. All of that sexual guilt. Plus, when a woman has like ten kids and doesn't want any more, then she has to refrain from sex and her hubby either has to do the other sin of whacking off or find a prostitute or non church girlfriend who does take the pill and then the family is courrupted the church is courruputed and all that's left is all around sadness. So, why let this man make these rules. Can't you guys like vote?
I was a catholic...now I'm not..I'm a pagan..and a better person for it..the church lost me many years ago..
A former resident/citizen of Spain, I can assure you that Pope Benedict XVI will someday be Canonised. For proof, I offer the following two miracles:
While alive and as Pope, he turned a bunch of dead Falangist Reactionary murders into saints. Senctifying them was truly a miracle
His second miracle was also performed in Spain: Despite the widespread beatifications of Falangists and televised speeches to mass rallies, the Conservatives that he supported lost to the Socialists....another miracle!
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