UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
Two significant recent UK developments have just come to my attention that bears considerably on “who rules”. Please note that no less than Pope Francis’ main UK competitor, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, whom the Vatican does not “rule”, has just been reported as having had the courage to call, in effect, as evil, the priest child abuse cover-up, etc., instead of trying so far mainly to just bury it in a “go slow” captive advisory abuse commission, as Pope Francis appears to have done, no?
Canterbury also has, so far, an 84 year “jump” on Rome on approving of contraception. Same New Testament, but different “reads”, apparently. No big deal for celibate Catholic bishops, unlike Archbishop Welby, who is married and has fathered six children. He understands the precious value of each child. See:
And please also note that an influential Oxford University journalism professor, John Lloyd, has captured the “Synod moment” well at Reuters recently. Lloyd is Director of Journalism at Oxford’s prestigious Reuters Institute, where coincidentally Pope Francis’s new media adviser, Lord Patten, is on the Advisory Board.
Lloyd stated so perceptively and succinctly, in pertinent part, as follows: “This month, Pope Francis had to come clean. Time’s Man of the Year for 2013 {‘s}… honeymoon as the Amiable Argentinian is over.”
Lloyd added: “… the largest problem for the Church is twofold: first, as it recognizes, many Catholics in the West simply ignore the more severe teachings, or where they are applied, prefer to leave the church than submit.”
“Second, and more seriously, the modern eye, and the eye of most media see in the synod a gathering of ageing men with no experience of active sexuality (presumably) or marriage, attempting to enforce prohibitions on those who have, and who have developed ways of integrating these troublesome matters into their lives. At the same time, these ageing men did — and still do — have a serious sex scandal within their ranks – one which they have, in the main, dealt with badly. …” See:
[Reuters]
And yet the sexual and democratic revolutions, that swept the UK a long time ago, are still steadily advancing over the Vatican’s barricades. In response, Pope Francis, so far in a reactionary mode, has created a “holy mess” with his two-step, top down and coercive Synod strategy. It appears evident, after the first Synod step recently, that (1) there are at present no attainable satisfactory solutions, even in sight, to the sexual and structural challenges under review, and (2) a couple of hundred celibate “sons of the Church” in medieval costumes, as the only voting participants, cannot possibly find and agree on real solutions merely by means of a media “staged” Synod.
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