Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Change the World

News | canada.com network: "'If there needs to be change, it needs to be in the world, not in the doctrine,' said Marc Cardinal Ouellet, archbishop of Quebec."

OK, sure, that shouldn't be too tough. What do they need 6 or 7 weeks?
This must be some incredible Pope if they think they're going to change the minds of all the free-thinking extremist Catholics that aren't toeing the line. Their views and beliefs have been changing for how many decades now? And they think they're going to turn it around. They're more out of touch than I thought.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Yahoo! News - Canadian Catholics react with dismay, joy, on choice of new conservative pope

Yahoo! News - Canadian Catholics react with dismay, joy, on choice of new conservative pope: "'He's saying, no no no, we have to be upfront and in love with the whole world and at the same time hold the truth that the church teaches and knows to be true,' he said."

This has got to be the ultimate paradox for the Catholic Church, and one in which they seem to have managed to alienate a significant percentage of it's followers.
How can you be "in love with the whole world" and yet refuse to condone condoms in AID's ravaged Africa? How can you be "in love with the world" if you reward a man who hid the molestations of hundreds of children in and around Boston? And how can you be "in love with the whole world" and not provide all of the choices available to a teenage girl who has been raped and is pregnant with a child she didn't want?
The doctrine of the Catholic Church is out-of-step with the real world and the 115 Cardinals who chose a conservative as their new Pope have just furthered the distance from reality. He talks of the extremist views of the revisionists. Aren't the extremists really those who refuse to change just because tradition dictates they shouldn't?
When we look at other extremist groups, they are usually those most out of touch with reality. Extremist Muslims who don't believe in the rights of women in society. Extremist racists who don't believe that Jews, African American's, and others are equal to whites. Extremist Jews and Palistinians who refuse to see the validity of the other's beliefs.
To the leaders of the Catholic Church however, extremists are people who have compassion for others who may not be the same as them, for changing rules to help others in less forunate circumstances, for refusing to believe in something just because someone with more "authority" says they should.
If Pope Benedict XVI rules for a number of years, will we see the slow decline of the Catholic Church into a fringe sect devoted to holding onto tradition at all costs? Or are there enough conservative Catholics to keep the machine rolling along?