"And all ya gotta to do to join -- "

[pameladean]

This entire article is interesting. And it's a serious matter.

But when I got to this paragraph, I cracked up completely.

"'I've always said that if one priest in a diocese is roused, that counts for nothing. Five will create a stir. Fifty are pretty much invincible. In Austria the figure is well over 300, possibly up to 400 priests; in Switzerland it's about 150 who have stood up and it will increase.'"

If one priest is roused, they'll think he's just crazy and nobody will listen to him. If two priests are roused, they'll think they're both crazy and nobody will listen to either of 'em. But if fifty priests, fifty priests a day --

I hope it's a movement.

Pamela

Comments

[maiac.livejournal.com]

If one priest is roused, they'll think he's just crazy and nobody will listen to him. If two priests are roused, they'll think they're both crazy and nobody will listen to either of 'em. But if fifty priests, fifty priests a day --

This makes me laugh.

I heartily agree with Küng, but I'm also annoyed that he only refers to priests creating the foundation of a revolution against papal authority. In the U.S., it's the nuns who've been standing up against authoritarianism, and the Catholic Church needs a revolution against the sexist power structure as much as it needs a revolution against centralist authoritarianism.

[pameladean]

I completely agree with you, and the nuns have been awe-inspiring.

P.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[fgherman.livejournal.com]

" You can get anything you want..."

[pameladean]

"(Excepting Alice.)"

Much pleasanter than nailing 95 theses to a door.

P.

[markgritter.livejournal.com]

Did you by any chance see the letter to the editor in the Strib decrying modern-day "Martin Luthers" who weren't respecting the church's authority (on the election issues this year.)

I was sort of boggled that you'd want to argue your opponents were on the right side of history to that extent. Much better to use one of the pre-reformation heretics. Except nobody knows who they are. :)

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a Western Civ prof, can you give me that link? A quick googling failed to find it. Was it today?

[kaustin.livejournal.com]

This is the page. Most of the way down.

[pameladean]

I think the only person of that sort lots of people have reliably heard of is Martin Luther.

It is very weird to think of somebody writing that letter in Minnesota.

P.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Could you expand on that second sentence? My thought is that Catholics have long been a major force in Minnesota, and surrounded as they are by Lutherans, Luther is the one who would spring to mind in this context.

[pameladean]

It's not that I think Minnesota Catholics would not have heard of Luther; of course they would. But the comment seems rude and insular coming from somebody who has Lutherans all around. "Hey! Don't make us like our neighbors that we've probably worked with a lot!" Then again, I basically don't understand religion, so who knows.

P.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

OK, I see. I didn't take it as a bad thing, but just as referring to those who protest from (initially, in Luther's case) within the Church.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

You gotta sing loud if you want to stop the war and stuff ...

[pameladean]

Just waiting for it to come around on the guitar.

P.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not proud. Or tired.

[chakolate.livejournal.com]

I'm not proud. Or tired.

[pameladean]

Great minds.

P.

[aedifica]

You gotta sing real loud if you want to end war and stuff.

[pameladean]

You and lollardfish are apparently attuned!

P.

[aedifica]

Indeed! (And it shows I should have refreshed the page before I checked to see if anyone had used that line yet!)

[pameladean]

Well, I enjoyed the echo! It's fun to see what lines people choose to signal their recognition. We got a duplication of "I'm not proud. Or tired" as well.

P.

[aedifica]

It is! I was trying to think of what line I referenced the other day in conversation with my mom, but I haven't been able to think of it. It wasn't "Having all that room downstairs where the pews used to be, on account of having taken out all the pews," but it might have been from around that part of the song...

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Thanks for pointing this out!

[pameladean]

You are very welcome. I find it it quite cheering, though of course Maia is right that the contribution of the nuns should be recognized.

P.

[lcohen]

thanks for the earworm!!!

[pameladean]

Whoops... .

P.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

I don't get it. Isn't the pope (and centralized authority) pretty much the point of the Catholic church? If you don't like that, join another church that doesn't have a pope. It's not like there aren't a lot to choose from.

[pameladean]

I don't get much about religion, but working from within an organization one is a part of and attached to, rather than leaving, doesn't seem strange to me. It has always looked to me as if the Catholic hierarchy was pretty full of itself. But regular Catholics whom I know make a distinction between the hierarchy and the Church. And frankly, the Church as directed by the hierarchy is so large, powerful, and potentially dangerous that I would much prefer that dissidents mine from within and change it into a more benign form.

P.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

But a church isn't just an organization with a bunch of bylaws that you might or might not agree with - it's a belief system. There can be areas of debate at the edges, but every denomination presumably has a set of core beliefs that are shared by all the members and define that particular church as what it is.

It seems like the characteristics that make the Catholic church unique are exactly the ones these folks are objecting to. If you believe all the stuff that Catholics believe except that you don't recognize the central authority of the pope... doesn't that make you an Anglican?

And since there clearly are a lot of Catholics that like having a central authority who talks directly to God and tells them what to believe, it seems a little mean-spirited to try to destroy that and turn it into another Anglican church.

[pameladean]

I imagine the dissidents think it's pretty mean-spirited of the current Pope to be doing all these seemingly un-Christian things. The hierarchy doesn't get to just do whatever it likes simply because it is the hierarchy, and I think things are much more complicated in the Catholic Church than just having a central authority who talks to God and tells people what to believe. The Pope is not uniformly infallible, but only on certain announced items.

And if the Church does change radically, which I find unlikely, hey, the people who don't like it any more can also go somewhere else. As a non-believer who has to live with this hulking enormous interfering entity, I will continue to cheer for the dissidents.

P.

[3rdragon]

There can be areas of debate at the edges, but every denomination presumably has a set of core beliefs that are shared by all the members and define that particular church as what it is.

Does it?

And what happens when you belong to a denomination -- when your beliefs are deeply rooted in a denomination -- with whom you disagree on a very few specific points that are important to you? It's not just that there's a baby in there with the bathwater; that's YOUR baby, and while there are lots of other babies in the world, you don't want just any baby.

I'm not particularly knowledgeable about Anglicanism per se, but skimming the wikipedia article suggests to me that (based on my rather scanty knowledge of Catholocism) there are a number of points that would not feel comfortable -- would not feel home to someone who identifies as Catholic but has certain issues with the Catholic Church. And that disconnect may be sufficiently strong that it's easier/more comfortable/better/the only possible choice to remain in the Catholic Church and try to change it.

I could attend a UCC church, and would find fewer points of disagreement than I do between my own personal beliefs and those of many churches in my broader denomination. But there would also be less emphasis on certain theological points that are very important to me. And right now, those are important enough that I remain in my home tradition and live with discomfort. But I might choose differently if I did not have a local church that also goes counter to the denominational norm.

What do you do when something you love is flawed? Perhaps deeply flawed? (Have you ever considered moving to a different country because you did not like what was happening at home politically? Why or why not?)

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

Hans Küng is appealing to priests and churchgoers to confront the Catholic hierarchy, which he says is corrupt, lacking credibility and apathetic to the real concerns of the church's members.
So what else isn't new?
I was reading about Alexander VI (http://exurbe.com/?p=1640) just the other day.