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Posts under ‘Papacy’

Küng & Ratzinger vs Benedict XVI !

At the age of 82, my good friend Hans Küng is still at it.  He launched a new book on March 10 (the same day his former university colleague, Joseph Ratzinger — a.k.a. Benedict XVI — launched Part II of his book on Jesus). The title of Küng’s book  in English, Can the Church Still [...]

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A “Spiritual Reaganomics” in the Catholic Church?

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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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. [...]

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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, [...]

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