UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
American Cardinals and others want to keep the worldwide Catholic faithful, the guys who pay the bills, up to speed through media briefings. They also want to digest fully, if not read, the secret dossier on Vatican Cardinals’ scandals. The German Cardinals and others want a transparent and horizontal leadership structure (collegiality), regardless of the dossier’s revelations. The Vatican Cardinals want maximum secrecy and continued Curial domination with the present hierarchical structure. Who is right?
The Gospels have the answers. The Apostles talked freely and openly as equals to and with the first baptised Christians, the original People of God. The Truth made them free. No secrecy and no hierarchy. Case closed! The Gospels trump the Vatican clique’s orders every day of the week. Cardinals are under a clear evangelical mandate to disobey the corrupt Vatican clique’s gag order.
The Conclave must reject unnecessary secrecy and end the Conclave’s domination by the Vatican clique. How? On matters of truth telling, individual Cardinals’ consciences must be the last word. God demand’s no less. All Cardinals, Catholics are told, are successors to the Apostles. More Cardinals must now show some Christian fortitude as the original Apostles did when it mattered most. It matters most now.
On restoring the consensual and horizontal structure that Jesus and his early followers left behind, Cardinals must abide by the majority decision of voting Cardinals. This has usually been the traditional rule for 2,000 years for Church decisions at councils and synods that had been undermined and stymied by successive Vatican bureaucratic cliques for a half century since Vatican II. All voting Cardinals are now equal and the Pope has exited and has no further authority. All voting Cardinals wear red dresses. None are redder than the other. Pretty simple!
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