Liberal Catholics are running out of time, though. Show me a priest under 40 and I’ll show you a priest who is probably not down with teh geh; show me one under thirty and I’ll bet the car he’s not down with it.

Witness the first fissures of an evangelical cave in. The lack of a proper ecclesiology empowers individuals to step up and say this is my interpretation and I going with it, damn scripture, damn the rest of you. If the youth are going for it we can’t disappoint them. This is why I am now Catholic. It ain’t perfect, but this showboating individualism won’t be tolerated.

Liberal Catholics already tried that. They had most of the last 50 years to close the sale. They couldn’t.

The next 50 years won’t be gentle on their memory or their inchoate labors.

The barque is a leaky, listing, mess. But she’s anchored between the two pillars and has a proper shepherd at the helm. We’ll get through the coming storm.

I’ve said for years that we’re not witnessing the death of the the West so much as the death of the post-Christendom West. And it was doomed from the moment of its birth.

“Let’s say that a fair number of Catholic bishops from the US, Canada and Europe got together to kick this issue around”

Which is why we have a pope, Christopher. Thank God – and I mean that. It’s not just a clerical office; it’s a guarantee that whatever else happens, the Church will not go totally off the rails. It doesn’t mean every pope is a holy, reverent, or even nice guy, and it doesn’t mean we won’t have some narrow squeaks when the ‘trend’ or ‘sense of the times’ gets an airing. That’s what infallibility means, if it is to mean anything.

There’s already at least one priest here in Ireland crying over how the mean ol’ Vatican is oppressing and silencing him (having his story is all over the papers is being silenced?) but know what? He’s not the Pope. A bunch of bishops can go noodly (Netherlands, I’m looking at you) but hey – they’re not the Pope either. St Thomas Aquinas, God bless him, isn’t even the Pope so if anyone wants to disagree with his theology, full steam ahead! I am not the Pope (and be very glad about that).

That old German guy in Rome? He’s the Pope. He gets the last say. And if the entire Catholic church in the West goes crazy and demands *pick your choice of cause* in the morning and he’s the only one saying “This is not the Gospel”, then where Peter is, the Church is also.

As to the rest of it – if it were only a matter of state civil partnerships, I’d be inclined to go “Eh.” Not turning cartwheels over it, but since straights are also shacking up, having kids out of wedlock, getting quickie marriages and even quicker quickie divorces all without benefit of clergy, why not let the gays get a piece of paper from a registry office as well?

But when it comes to saying “This is marriage just as much as everyone else is married and no different from how marriage has ever been”, then no. And when it comes to “Well, why not have a re-think of what the teaching of the Church is on these kinds of committed relationships which St. Paul and the Holy Spirit never knew about existing?”, then hell no.

The Catholics have a Magisterium which the Ptotedstants in their various manifestations lack. Thus dissidents can be pulled into line, have their teaching authority withdrawn and ultimately kicked out. Where are the “famous” post Vatican II dissident theologians (Hans Kung at alia)? They are only kept in the public eye by the media interested in belabouring the Catholic Church and the Catholic faithful reaction is along the lines of “same old, same old!!!!”.

Christian Principles and mortality are not up for a popularity contest on the basis of currently popular social mores. Were they to become so then they will need to be revised as each new fad rises and falls and in each type of culture. Where the various erstwhile “Christian” organizations have sought to make such accommodations ironically they actually lost their appeal among society at large since “the challenge of the message” disappeared. Many have disappeared altogether and we are actually seeing this happening now before our own eyes starting with the Scandinavians, the TEO and the Anglicans and the Uniting Churches.

Let those who have eyes see and those with ears hear! This is no more than another example of the principle that “Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible”, the Soren Kierkegaard warning put to us daily on this blog.

So much for the Achilles heal of the protestant church,
Sola Scriptura. A ship with no rudder or keel.

Fuinseoig did bring up the of the Dutch bishops, who did get very wacky, but nobody has been listening to them. That’s a meaningful point.

Tony, one question, is your god so stupid that he didn’t understand homosexuality before he created the earth?

Of course it could be that Tony is only creating his god in Tony’s own image.

Blame it on the Protestantism if you must, but the basic fact is ol’ Tone would make a great CJ:AI villain. He’s about the same age (77) as Joan Chittister (76), Roger Mahony (76) and Frank Griswold (75), just to pick a couple of names out of the air. His book about “Red Letter Christians” had a chapter on abortion the upshot of which was that we should all get beyond the whole “baby killing is wrong” thing and learn to respect pro-choice folk as long as they talk some good smack about the seamless garment of life and prenatal medical care and infant nutrition and all the rest of the predictably dreary lib-Prot / lib-Cat line. See also the 2008 Democratic Party platform, which ol’ Tone was on the drafting committee for.

It’s probably a bit of a stretch to call him the Baptist Frank Griswold, but let’s just say it doesn’t surprise me that he’s continuing the habit of half a century and mouthing the Democratic Party line.

I need a “like” button for Fuinseoig’s posts.

Has anyone counted heads in the College of Cardinals eligible to vote for the next Pope? Is a proper successor to Benedict a sure thing? (I hope so, but I’m just asking.)

What worries me about American Catholic leaders is that even with the changing of the guard Ed mentions, the bishops, like Tony Campolo, still tend to mouth the Democratic Party line. They’re standing tough on the Obamacare HHS mandate so far, but it’s got to be painful for them, since much of the rest of the Obama agenda is just their cup of tea.

Speaking of Roger Mahoney, check out the latest in the LA Times (GetReligion has a take on it). I’m grateful for infallibility WRT false teaching; I’m ready for administrative competence to go with it.

In my previous post I wrote:

“Christian Principles and mortality are not up for a popularity contest ……”. Ahem: that would be “morality” of course.

The term “Ptotedstants” in the opening line is not some brilliant inspiration on my part to describe the emerging “Evangelical Accommodators”. It is rather the result of errant two-finger typing and dyslexic proof reading. .

Katherine,

A proper pope is never a sure thing. We have been blessed with a century of good popes, but it’s never a sure thing.

Mahoney’s been a disaster on a number of fronts. FW Ken, I keep the issue in prayer, as I hope you keep the Anglican remnant in prayer. What’s distressing for people like our kind host, who leans Protestant evangelical, is to see this trend knowing that with those folks it’s a congregation-by-congregation and pastor-by-pastor process.

Many evangelicals have already capitulated on contraception and some on fornication. Once sex is separated from its biological and familial foundations, opposition to any other depravity doesn’t last long.

I’ve got to disagree with your criticism of Campolo’s text in one area, Chris: he disagrees with Chalke’s rewriting of the Scripture. Though he goes out of his way to avoid condemning it as he should have, he does make it plain that he “[does] not necessarily agree with [Chalke's] theology or biblical hermeneutic”.

Katherine -

You folks are in my prayers.

It’s a fair point that as an evangelical leaning protestant, Christopher is legitimately concerned with folks calling themselves evangelicals, as I am concerned with miscreant Catholic bishops and priests.

Right now, I am REALLY ticked off about Cardinal Mahoney and his vicar. I truly hope they face legal consequences.

Katherine and FW Ken,

Infallibility belongs to the office, not to the man. We could get another Alexander VI or Leo X, an administrative and PR disaster, but he would still uphold Catholic teaching.

Katherine: the bishop’s babble on the democratic stuff is not dogma so we can drop kick it…we are in good standing as Catholics when we accept dogma alone.

Indeed, Bob.

Its always worth remembering that large portions of the Church fell to Arianism, and it was touch and go with the bishop of Rome for awhile. Arian churches persisted until the 10th century, but Nicene Christianity continues today.

“Has anyone counted heads in the College of Cardinals eligible to vote for the next Pope? Is a proper successor to Benedict a sure thing? (I hope so, but I’m just asking.)”

Katherine: I’m no authority on the College of Cardinals, but I believe that most if not all of the ones now eligible to elect the next Pope were appointed by either John Paul II or Benedict XVI, with Benedict’s numbers increasing as JPII’s appointees age out and Benedict creates more of them. So, though on the human level there is no sure thing, this situation with the Cardinals sounds pretty good to me. At the level of faith: “On this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

P.S. Fuinseoig rocks!! (No pun intended …)

I don’t know the exact numbers, but I believe that Benedict XVI has now appointed just over half the current number of Cardinals who are eligible to vote in the next conclave. So, his influence on the men who choose his successor grows every month that another Cardinal turns 80 (and thus becomes ineligible to vote).

To echo Fuinseoig, “Thank God!”.

Steve’s statement has also received significant attention from the UK’s mainstream press and media.

So glad to know that Tony and Steve are such good buds. But I must ask, what difference does it make if the UK’s mainstream media spurts all sorts of ink over this? Since when did Jesus need media approval for any of his pronouncements?

… as well as those who oppose such developments will look upon Steve’s declaration as a watershed.

Count me as one who opposes such developments. However, I just see it as another declaration of cowardice by someone who once knew better.

BTW, Tony, old boy, I read Chalke’s statement, thanks to our kind host’s posting it a few days ago. His arguments are still just codswallop. However, I fail to see what is so earth-shatteringly arresting about it now as it was back then. Since when did the Church of Jesus Christ worry about being able to “afford” things in a public relations sense?

… the time has come for many of us to change our attitudes towards gay people, and show something of the love and grace of God in the name of His Son Jesus.

Oh, we are supposed to show our love towards teh ghey by affirming them in their sins? This is now a loving attitude? Shades of Joesph Fletcher! When did leaving people dead in their trespasses become a loving, Christlike act?

When Billy Graham endorses this sort of foolishness, I will become worried. Until then, I stand with 2000 years worth of Christian exegesis on the subject. St. Paul and the other Christian writers were aware of everything they needed to be aware of. Saying they were not is a damnable lie and is the sin of Chronological Snobbery at its worst!

>This “conservative” evangelical supports us. So does that one. And that one over there. The Chalke-Campolo perspective will be seen as as a legitimately Christian one while the other will be seen as not Christian at all, worthy only to be shunned.

>Or worse.

Yes.

I predicted this ages ago. Christianity is being divided into two camps. The first group are the liberals who are identified by TWO criteria only. They accept utterly materialistic evolution and they accept homosexual practice and celebrate it. Hey, when you’ve got those two under your best the rest is gone anyway.

The remainder who refuse to bend the knee will be declared mentally ill and dangerous to society.

The latter will be placed in a WORSE category than terrorists and, at first, legally denied work (already happening,) then their children taken from them for re-education (veeeeryyyy close now,) then imprisoned (WAY closer than you think) and finally shot and buried in mass graves.

If you think I am exaggerating, look at the history of every single atheistic society. No matter how religious the state once was, how Christian it once was, when it embraced atheism as the state religion the Christians were lined up and shot LITERALLY. That’s ten years away for the UK at most. No, I’m serious. Things are accelerating now and the economic meltdown of the West is going to require scapegoats and the media and Government have the necessary goats in their sights right now.

The former ‘Christians’ will be allowed to escape, and eat by dint of bending the knee to Baal. But expect most of them to eventually go all the way and join up with Richard Dawkins in the purge anyway.

Now, I’m not saying that the likes of Chalke exactly realise what’s coming. Not many people can see the army in the UK turning guns on Christians. It seems unbelievable. But I as I said before I left, things that were UNIMAGINABLE thirty years ago are now orthodoxy.

But I do think a lot of ‘Christians’ are realising that if they are going to eat in the future they have to declare their credentials now. A job, food, electricity, seeing your family, are going to depend which side you choose. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the endless court ruling only going one way to realise that if you don’t surrender you are not going to eat.

I chose to leave. I;m not sure if it’s a Captain Kirk way or a Coward’s way but I did it under spiritual direction (and God REALLY stopped me going back so I guess I am meant to be where I am as I prevented returning in WEIRD ways!) Personally, given the way it’s going I figure the UK Government should say, “Look, you Christians. We don’t want you and we don’t want your Jesus or your Bible and not your damn homophobia. So we’re not going to let you have a job, or access to healthcare or even the right to live here. But we’ll set up an agency for emmigration so that if you convert to *shudder* Christ we can arrange to get you job and a visa in a country that will take you and your family.”

I mean, that is the ONLY Christians are going to physically survive what is coming. But, such thinking and such an agency would require:

a) Admitting what the agenda which, while it is BARELY hidden, is still enough to fool those that aren’t really looking
and
b) A degree of remaining mercy. Now, you remember the French Revolution, Mao Se Tung? Stalin, Hilter, Pol Pot, etc, etc?

Thank you all for the kind words. The swollenness of my head approaches epic proportions.

Katherine, after the most recent consistory in November of last year, the number of cardinals appointed by Benedict stands at “The six new cardinals are all under age 80. Their nominations bring the number of voting-age cardinals to 120, 67 of whom were named by Benedict, all but ensuring that his successor will be chosen from a group of like-minded prelates.”

To elect a pope, there is a maximum of 120 cardinals under the age of 80 (cardinals over 80 don’t get a vote). There have been various adjustments to the procedure, but currently to validly elect a pope, the candidate must receive two-thirds of the votes. This means 80 out of the 120 have to vote for the same candidate, and since Benedict has elevated 67 cardinals, this goes a long way to ensuring a bloc of like-minded votes.

Or not. It’s always hard to forecast who will be elected (you could have made good money for the last conclave betting Cardinal Ratzinger would not have been chosen as he was viewed as too strict, too rigid, and not charismatic enough for the job). The Holy Spirit chooses whom It will! But we can cautiously say we probably won’t get a next Pope who decides the Roman Catholic WomenPriests were right all along and he’s going to hand over the triregnum to whomever their head “bishop” is.

In re Mahoney, jail him for the coverup or for that cathedral, I don’t care which.

It probably doesn’t need to be said, but people who make bad choices about their lives do not need to be the objects of our wrath. Gay people and gay-rights advocates are not the same group. “Gay”, in this case, means those people who choose to live their lives sinfully. It’s not like they are the only ones, or the worst. Christians, out seems to me, would do will to take the attitude.that “there but for the grace of God go I. Advocates, however, many of whom are not personally afflicted with same-sex attractions, tend to be obsessed bullies.

Which is not actually why I ask commenting. I ran across this essay that pots our “persecution” into .

into context.

http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/the-persecuted-church-2012.html

For my own part, I remain conservative on the issue, but I agree with Steve that the attitudes of many churches are homophobic and cruel. Whether or not we change our positions on accepting same-sex relationships or even gay marriage, we Evangelicals have to face the reality that the time has come for many of us to change our attitudes towards gay people, and show something of the love and grace of God in the name of His Son Jesus.

Translation: I’m in favor of new doctrines on homosexuality. I’m just not ready to say so yet.

[...] Johnson reports another evangelical drinking the rainbow poison: Those of us who will have to deal with what Steve Chalke has said need not necessarily agree with [...]

I had not read about the LA Times piece on Mahony (sorry for my misspelling, above). Thanks, FW Ken, for the mention. I wonder why this is not major national news? It may be that reporters now consider Catholic episcopal malfeasance routine and not news, just as another ECUSA bishop authorizing gay marriage is not news.

In any case, I am glad to read you Catholics here telling me that the old cadre of radical bishops are aging and retiring. That’s a very good thing. In many dioceses which were led for decades by these men the damage continues, with priests who trained under their guidance still not properly teaching the faith and still resisting the liturgical reforms. A proper shepherd has been sent to San Francisco, I think, but I don’t know how that’s going. I imagine LA is similarly damaged.

And what kind of cruel behavior am I displaying that this Campolo has observed? His bar of “cruelty” is set very low indeed. I treat the ones I’m aware of around me with the same words and actions I treat their neighbors. Maybe I don’t invite to my prayer group, and maybe, if they’re irritating and flamboyant, I stay away from them at coffee.

But that’s the avoidance of the irritating, not the lashings of meanness against those who play on the wrong team. Heavens.

I remember serving a blind man when I was a library clerk in college. He would wander into the library, never having the layout clear in his mind, walk up to the copier, pound on it and demand service (young guy too). I eventually realized he was a jerk and a loon, and his blindness had nothing to do with it, and I stopped scorching a mark in the carpet to get over to him and pacify him beyond the norm.

The irony is that Mahony’s attitude was very prevalent in the late 70s, when the notion of “sin” had been more or less junked on grounds of compassion, and the attitude was that sexual sin (and many others, but sex was the big one) wasn’t so much a matter of being wicked or evil, it was psychological trauma and a course of therapy would fix you right up.

The cover-up is another matter; I can see not wanting to cause scandal and even that the confidentiality was meant to protect the victims as well (after all, if the story that Father X had molested little Joey Y or Pete Z got out, the gossip about Joey and Pete would follow them all their lives). But when you have credible accusations that it’s not just a matter of a priest crossing a line with a young adult parishioner (and I mean aged 18/19/20, old enough to give consent technically, though nobody in a position of authority or responsibility should ever cross those lines regardless of age), but it’s a matter of a man preying on young boys including violence – then, no matter how painful it is, you call in the cops.

Katherine, what you ask about why this isn’t national news – I’m cynical enough to think that maybe it’s because Cardinal Mahony was always one of the more progressive/liberal members of the hierarchy, so the media (which likes progressive clergy) aren’t as invested in covering a scandal like that.

Of course, it could also be – alas! – that another sex scandal involving the Catholic Church is seen as stale news and not worth a big story.

Fuinseoig, I think you are probably at least partly right about the progressive media. Mahony has been one of their “good guys” among Catholics and so they may be loathe to make big news of his transgressions.

And you’re right, too, about the therapeutic religion with which most Western Christian bodies have been afflicted for several decades. People are not taught that evil is evil, but that it’s a mental malfunction which can be repaired. In some (proportionally few) cases, a mental disorder may be the cause of evil actions, but in the vast majority of cases the perpetrators choose, step by step, to descend into evil.

Aye, Fuinseoig,
The Pope is serving the RC church well these days. As a long-term solution, of course, it is risky because there might be a corrupt Pope some day and then there will be big trouble. The Reformation is a case in point.

In the end this battle is not just about redefining marriage it is about redefining Who God is.

Oops, I pressed submit too soon.

It is not only Scripture which often can not be reconciled to the Spirit of the Age but God Himself who reveals Himself through Scripture. So debates about homosexual behavior, the definition of marriage, abortion and other moral matters are not about interpretation of Scripture alone. They are debates about the very nature and person of God.

The goal of the Enemy is to fix in people’s mind the idea that God is just one god amongst many. No more worthy of worship than sexuality, political systems and other worldly concerns. Indeed the true wish of the Enemy is that we give our selves to the World in faith and practice, leaving God to be a anachronistic totem.

Jedinovice is right, we who reject that future will be seen as an enemy. We will be the new Atheists for failure to bow down to Eros and other gods of the seven deadly sins.

I have made the arguments about mitigating factors for the bishops. It really was thought to be bad for the victims at one time. Psychology was thought to be a cure-all. Blah, blah, blah.

HE TIED THE BOY UP AND RAPED HIM. IT’S A FIRST DEGREE FELONY!

The cardinal archbishop of Los Angeles knew better, as evidenced by his words. He exploited undocumented immigrants, ironic since he’s a liberal hero on immigration. He hid a violent rapist. Not a nice, but nasty old man. Not a pathetic weakling grooming a child.

HE TIED A BOY UP AND RAPED HIM.

Confused about which one “he” is? It doesn’t matter. They are all guilty.