The "elephant in the room" 

ncronline.org/news/women/lcwr-elephant-r...

May 23, 2012 -- 12:41PM, mokantx wrote:

May 23, 2012 -- 11:17AM, cove52 wrote:

The "elephant in the room" 

ncronline.org/news/women/lcwr-elephant-r...

Cove

Thanks for the link.  I particularly liked this part:

In his homily, Levada paid appropriate tribute to the archbishop's years as a seminary teacher, spiritual director and rector. In that understandable context, he quoted from the first epistle of Peter, where the writer speaks to the presbyters and says, "Tend the flock of God in your midst ... do not lord it over those assigned to you, but be examples to the flock." As a priest and bishop, Niederauer has clearly followed that admonition. But as I sat there, I wondered if Levada recognized the irony of those words coming from his own lips, the lips of the man leading the charge against the majority of American Catholic nuns and inadvertently moving Catholic bishops further down the road toward ridicule, irrelevance and obsolescence.

And as I looked at the altar and saw Archbishop John R. Quinn, another former archbishop of San Francisco (1977-1995), I recalled his prescient article in America magazine a few years ago, articulating the public duties of bishops. He described the pitfalls of bishops functioning as partisan political actors, revving up the culture wars and exclusively focusing on abortion and gay marriage. He wrote, "The church has to be on speaking terms with the human society in which it lives." He urged bishops "to make an approach to people, seeking and promoting dialogue with them." In the spirit of truth and charity, "they should present their positions in clear language, unaggressively and diplomatically."

Quinn speaks from a tradition well exemplified by Cardinal Joseph Bernadin and other bishops of that era, who understood that part of being an effective shepherd and moral leader includes a willingness and capacity to manage the tension between church teaching and how the church must function in a pluralistic society.

This is one of the major tensions, at least in the church in the US, and I gather in Catholicism elsewhere.  At a time when that pluralistic society is reviewing just about EVERYTHING, including religion, spirituality, law, culture, work, relationships, etc., the American bishops have chosen to draw lines in the sand, and have adopted an "in your face" kind of attitude, both in terms of what they do say, and what they don't.  This isn't the time for that in the pluralistic society.  Society will go through periods like this from time to time.  It's a general reassessment of ourselves, who we are, and where we're going, perhaps much akin to what an election year offers us from time to time.

I've said here before quite often: by taking this position, the bishops have squandered several of the best teaching moments in generations, and have so undermined not only their own personal voices, but the voice of the church, as to fall back into the noise as society goes through this periodic review of itself.  And that saddens me, even if I am no longer "in the fold" so to speak.  The simple truth is that the RCC is about more than it's stance on hot-button issues, as alluded to by Templar earlier today. 

I think the author of the article did a good job.

mo

Exactly how I felt about the article!  Of course, your much better at articulating my feelings. ;)   The RCC is about so much more than these hot button issues why this one who is still "in the fold" finds the actions of the bishops and a certain Cardinal all the more confusing and discouraging. 

I have resently adopted a new saying I think the hierarchy could learn from, "It is better to be kind than to be right".

Uh huh.

May 23, 2012 -- 2:30PM, headhuntersix wrote:

May 23, 2012 -- 1:31PM, cove52 wrote:

I have resently adopted a new saying I think the hierarchy could learn from, "It is better to be kind than to be right".

They can't do that.  When your mandate is to be the moral authority on Earth, you can't sacrifice truth for good vibes.

There's an old saying that it's easier to catch flies with honey, than vinegar.  My take on the current dive to the hard right in the church, is that there is not only little interest in attracting new people to the faith (unless of course, they have money), but that there is now an almost gleeful effort to drive people away. 

I equate kind with compassion, and I see no reason you can't have both truth and compassion.  But in today's world, it's gonna take even more.  Until the church decides to start dialoging with both society in general, and individuals, the bleeding will continue.