UNITED STATES
Huffington Post
Michelle Somerville
“God’s Rottweiler” seized an opportunity during Holy Week to growl, whimper and call upon Roman Catholic dissidents to choose “radical obedience” to the Magisterium over fidelity to such causes as women’s ordination, compulsory celibacy for priests and divorce. Two years ago Joseph Ratzinger declared the discussion of women’s ordination over. Is the pontiff changing his tune? According to the The New York Times the group at whom Ratzinger’s snapping is aimed is an Austrian group called Preachers’ Initiative.
The initiative was started in 2006 by the Rev. Helmut Schüller, the former director of a Catholic aid agency, Caritas Austria, to combat a shortage of priests. Since then, more than 400 Austrian priests have endorsed him, according to news media reports, as well as priests in the United States and across Europe.
The Vatican fears that the initiative could cause a schism in the church. Father Schüller has called the Vatican an “absolutist monarchy” and said that the church’s resistance to change might lead to rupture anyway.
Does Ratzinger really fear a schism? It is hard to know. An old man fighting a losing battle, Don Quixote-style, Ratzinger may be too out of touch to genuinely fear a schism. Even so, he must be quaking even if just a little in those scarlet shoes because when it comes to selling “radical obedience” (to the Magisterium) to most Roman Catholics, Ratzinger hasn’t a prayer! “Radical disobedience” is fast becoming the norm in the church Ratzinger is said to lead. Whole religious orders and individual priests are thumbing their noses at this pontificate in increasing numbers.
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