UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
by Eugene Cullen Kennedy | Nov. 29, 2012
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has forced Maryknoll to expel Fr. Roy Bourgeois from the society because of his public advocacy of women priests.
You may not be surprised to learn that it was only after Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, that the doctrinal congregation’s title of “Sacred” was removed from its coat of arms. That grandiose term was really a misprint for “Scared,” the word that captures its centuries-old dynamic of acting out of fear, or generalized ambition-anxiety, rather than out of the love that supposedly motivates the church’s actions at all levels.
It is what they are scared of that they condemn, and it is those persons they condemn that give us a reading of what triggers their fearful reactions. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith may be the only organization that suffers from a pre-stress anxiety syndrome.
Its officials get all worked up about the possibility of something or someone who may expand scientific (Galileo) or theological (a list too long to print) knowledge, or about someone who may plea for a better understanding of the human condition, like Sr. Jeannine Gramick and her pastoral work with homosexuals.
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