UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
Pope Francis, and surely the “German Shepherd ex-Pope”, likely are very worried about the Five Hundredth Anniversary in three years of Luther’s Theses that started the Reformation. Will Francis’ current “three year Synod plan” succeed in time?
German Catholicism is already in decline. German government tax subsidies to German Catholic Bishops, recently over $6 billion annually, now provide the Catholic hierarchy with its largest dependable source of income worldwide. And the Vatican has repeatedly hurt its German position with, among other miscues, mainly unchecked clerical child sexual abuse, disrespect for German divorced and gay Catholics, the Bishop of Bling’s financial excesses, the Vatican’s gratuitous exploitation of anti-Muslim propaganda and even Pope Francis’ “welcome celebration” for Russia’s Putin.
Luther, of course, helped eliminate an earlier papal revenue stream from the sale of indulgences. One of Luther’s theses was: “Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus {an extremely wealthy ancient Roman}, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers, rather than with his own money?” The unending revelations about the Vatican’s current financial scandals suggest Luther would still find much to reform at present.
Luther also advocated for a priesthood of all believers and for real lay oversight of Church leaders. He also married and fathered six children. His message and example have dogged the Vatican for a half a millennium.
Given the big bucks at stake with the German subsidy, it is then not surprising that Pope Francis’ Family Synod is focusing so much on appealing to divorced ex-Catholics, especially German ones, while the “womenless” Family Synod mostly (1) stonewalls on addressing the curtailment of children being raped by clerics, including German ones, and (2) tries to underplay the continuation of the Ban on the Pill..
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