Tag: catholic church

Anglican Schism and the Future of Christian Communities

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At the end of a brief post yesterday about failure of bishops to solve the potential schism that ordination of women may cause in the Anglican communion, Joanna Brooks asks this question: “Will diverging perspectives on gender and sexuality determine the shape of the 21st-century Christian world?”

It’s a question that only begs more:  Does sweeping change cause schism or does incremental change cause it as well?  Why would the divide last the next 90 years?  How would a shift of Anglican-Catholics to Vatican loyalty change the Catholic Church?  The Anglican Church?  What will all this church resistance to cultural change mean for equality in the future?

For more on the issue, read “The Church of England’s War Within Over Women Bishops” by ; “Vatican to Equate Women’s Ordination with Priest’s Pedophilia” by Mary E. Hunt; “Jeffrey John and the Global Anglican Schism: A Potted History”. Continue Reading →

Pontifigate: Flanders Ignites!

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Mary Valle: It was a holy card from the bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, to the niece of his nephew with a message inside “on the importance of a healthy childhood” that so enraged his abuse-victim nephew; a close friend of his threatened to “email messages to all of Belgium’s bishops” spilling the beans. Vangheluwe, who resigned abruptly in April, is the first European to resign for abusing a child. He tersely acknowledged his molesting a “boy in my close entourage.” Maybe this is a translation problem, but suggesting that a prelate has an “entourage” which includes young boys is gamy at best. Also, the nephew had tried to bring attention to his abuse for nearly 25 years, enlisting the help of retired priest Rik Deville, who was “berated” by Belgium’s cardinal for bringing it up 14 years ago. De affaire Vangheluwe has kicked off a firestorm of “almost 500 people” complaining of abuse at the hands of priests; The bishop has retreated to a Trappist monastery, where awkward moments are most certainly now the norm. Continue Reading →

Smear the Pope

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Diane Winston, Knight Chair in Media and Religion at USC and friend of The Revealer, writes at her blog, The Scoop, about criticism The New York Times has received for it’s recent story about Pope Benedict‘s role in covering up sexual abuse in the church:

Critics complain that the Times is out to get the Church and Pope Benedict, in particular. They cite theological inaccuracies, historical misunderstandings and editorial intimations to justify their stance. But they miss the forest for the trees. The intricacies of priestly ordination, Vatican law and institutional preservation are important to the story, but they’re not the point. The point is the church’s choice: opting to safeguard the institution, its priests and reputation at the expense of children and families. The Times is, as any news outlet should be, interested in making sense of this decision and, of course, grabbing readers’ attention.

Continue Reading →

Stuff to Do, Updated

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Mary Valle: We here at The Revealer were wondering just who was the “American who taught that Catholics could dissent from church teachings about abortion, birth control and homosexuality” in the Goodstein/Halbfinger article? Who was cited as a special target of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith? Laurie Goodstein edified us: good ol’ Charles Curran, who was booted from his tenured post at Catholic University by the micro-managing (when they saw fit) CDF.

Read more about Curran here, here and here. Continue Reading →

A Threat to Catholic Unity

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In the June 18th issue of the Catholic publication Commonweal, the magazine’s editors address a recent “remarkably defensive” letter from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), “Setting the Record Straight,” in which the directors of three of the conference’s initiatives, Pro-Life Activities, Immigration, and Justice, Peace and Human Development, chastise those who vocally dissented from the USCCB’s stand against the health care bill.

Those who broke from the USCCB included Women Religious and the Catholic Health Association, as well as a host of individual Catholic bishops and lay people and, ultimately, Representative Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Senator Robert Casey Jr. (D-PA); those who disagreed with the USCCB interpreted the new bill as not expanding government funding for abortion. Continue Reading →

The Church Is A Lady

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Mary Valle: Paul Vitello reports in the New York Times about the new, invasive screening of prospective priests, which is aimed at sorting out the pedophiles and those who identify as homosexual people. The reason for rejection of possible mature, celibate (but homosexual) candidates? The church’s view of marriage. While sisters become Brides of Christ (their silver wedding rings were always an object of great fascination to Catholic schoolchildren), priests on the other hand, marry the church. The church is a lady. Therefore, all celibate priests must be heterosexual, or at least good at pretending that they are. The would-be priests are also quizzed on their fondness for “cold showers” and “long runs.” Vitello notes that one of the most successful vocation directors in the country has only three to five seminarians a year, a number that will surely decline with the new guidelines. If numbers of the faithful decline accordingly, perhaps this story could be used as a litmus test to identify possible new members of the Mystical Body. “Does this article turn you on?” Continue Reading →

The Vatican's Moral Authority

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Tony Crosthwaite writes us with an interesting observation and some history:

One wonders if Rome’s ongoing invitation for Anglicans to join it is like being welcomed aboard a sinking ship. Everyone can see the Vatican reeling as the scandal of child abuse and cover-up play out on the world stage. That this has weakened the moral authority of the Roman Church there can be no doubt.

Therefore it is intriguing that currently there are moves to canonize Pope Pius XII, for this will ensure continued debate on the Vatican’s relations with Fascism and Nazism in the World War II era, and the facts of this period make the Vatican extremely vulnerable to further attacks on its moral authority. Those interested in the Vatican’s conduct in this period would find the following article informative: “The Vatican and Fascism: Remembering the 1929 Lateran Accords.” Continue Reading →

The Vatican’s Moral Authority

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Tony Crosthwaite writes us with an interesting observation and some history:

One wonders if Rome’s ongoing invitation for Anglicans to join it is like being welcomed aboard a sinking ship. Everyone can see the Vatican reeling as the scandal of child abuse and cover-up play out on the world stage. That this has weakened the moral authority of the Roman Church there can be no doubt.

Therefore it is intriguing that currently there are moves to canonize Pope Pius XII, for this will ensure continued debate on the Vatican’s relations with Fascism and Nazism in the World War II era, and the facts of this period make the Vatican extremely vulnerable to further attacks on its moral authority. Those interested in the Vatican’s conduct in this period would find the following article informative: “The Vatican and Fascism: Remembering the 1929 Lateran Accords.” Continue Reading →

Pontifigate: The Flaccid Sword of Priestly Justice

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Mary Valle: Rapist priests! Good news! You can rape, abuse and lie all you want in the great lag time when your case is sent for review, investigation, further inquiry, empanelation and cooling on a desk in Rome somewhere. You may even be shuttled from parish to parish, which is convenient if you are a predator. New victims come to you! However: If you’re a nun and you authorize an abortion of an 11-week-old fetus to save a woman’s life, when the stated outcome of not performing the abortion would be death for all? Automatic excommunication for you, little missy. Maybe we should just start calling children “ambulatory fetuses?” Continue Reading →