That’s one of the statements that echoed in my mind and feelings as I flew home from the annual meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America, in Cleveland, June 10-13. This image of a “spiritual Reaganomics” operating within the Catholic Church was offered in the Plenary Address by Catherine Clifford and Richard Gaillardetz to [...]
Posts under ‘Catholic’
Pope Benedict, May I quote Josef Ratzinger?
In a recent article in the New York Review of Books on the morass of pedophilia crimes and cover-ups facing Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church, Anthony Grafton offers these words of encouragement and hope for bewildered Catholics: “Again and again, Catholics have proved astonishingly resilient and inventive, and have come forward to offer what [...]
Can This Be the Will of God?
For the past week, I’ve not been able to shake from my imagination the image that Maureen Dowd described in her op-ed column in the New York Times on April 11. She contrasted “educated and sophisticated young professional women” in Saudi Arabia who put up with “an inbred and autocratic state more like an archaic [...]
Where’s the “dictatorship of relativism”?
In a March 28 article on the present plight of the Pope and priestly pedophilia (wow, I didn’t intend that alliteration!), the NEW YORK TIMES wrote: “As archbishop, Benedict expended more energy pursuing theological dissidents than sexual predators.” They’re referring to the early 80s, when Pope Benedict was Cardinal Ratzinger presiding over the diocese of Munich. [...]
YOUR HOLINESS, LET’S MAKE A DEAL
Your Holiness, I hope this letter somehow reaches you. I think it might help you find a way out of the mess you are in. I’m referring to the accusations being made that you allowed a priest, Fr. Peter Hullermann, who had been identified as a pedophile in the diocese of Essen back in 1980, [...]
For the Vatican: “Poor Me” = Poor Response
A major part of the Vatican response to investigations into sexual abuse of minors by priests in Germany and more specifically into a sacerdotal abuser in the Munich archdiocese when Pope Benedict XVI was Archbishop Ratzinger, in charge of that diocese, has been “poor me.” The NEW YORK TIMES titled its article of March 13 [...]
Steal a Priest
“Estimates are that one in six Catholic priests currently serving in the States comes from abroad, and roughly 300 new international priests arrive every year.” (John Allen, http://ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/foreign-priests-and-risk-plunder) I have a definitely biased reaction to that statement. I’m a former priest, who had to leave the clerical club because I wanted to also find God [...]