Fr. Z's Blog

What sort of people work for National Catholic Fishwrap?

The sort of people who think that Pope Benedict should resign and that the Church’s teachings on sexual morality can simply be changed… and should be changed.

My emphases and comments.

Richard Sipe suggests Pope Benedict should resign

by Thomas C. Fox on Mar. 22, 2011

In an article entitled “What can Benedict do to resolve the sexual crisis of Catholicism?” author Richard Sipe and Joe Rigert, write on the Australian Catholica website:

What can Benedict do to resolve the sexual crisis of Catholicism? At the very least he could open up for discussion and study [code for “change”] the antiquated sexual teachings on such common practices as birth control, use of condoms and sex outside of marriage. Further, he could lead the way to making celibacy optional for priests and allow women in the ministry. (Would women have taken part in, or allowed, the sex abuse scandal?) [I think they should ask SNAP that.  SNAP has been going after the LCWR to get them to cooperate concerning many cases of women religious abusing kids.] And he might call for a representative church council to consider all of these basic reforms. [That means that someone other than bishops should have the care of the Church’s teaching authority.  They want a “Magisterium of Nuns” for example.  I wonder if they would be the same nuns SNAP wants to talk to.]

But it is unlikely that any of these reforms will happen as long the aging pope and the old men of the Vatican [You would think that a journalist would know how to avoid a cliché.] persist on retaining their power and control. They must be willing to share their authority and then undertake a Sexual Copernican Shift in their basic assumptions about sexual teaching and discipline, a shift recognizing that [watch this…] our core sexual nature is a bio-diverse reality, not a theological construct. [I think that means they think the shared authority Copernicanly shift in assumptions will lead to an okay on sex with farm animals.] Only then will the pope and his men begin to address the crisis now inundating the church.  [These people are obsessed with sex.]

And now we get to the hard part,  [The hard part is coming up?  We were just at the impossible part.  The insane part.  What is harder than that?] the need for a courageous act. The pope could initiate this change by resigning from the papacy and calling for the resignation of all the other bishops, like him, who were complicit in the abuse scandal. [Watch this.] (In Ireland, the archbishop of Dublin proposed such action, and five bishops offered to resign.) [First, they are saying that the Pope is complicit.  Second, they are placing themselves in the position of authority.  In their analogy, the Primate of Ireland makes a suggestion and some bishops offer to resign.  Here the dissidents, probably also heretics too given their view of the Magisterium, make the suggestion and the Vicar of Christ and bishops are supposed to offer to resign. Third, I thought liberals thought the bishops in their dioceses were the problem?] Other popes have quit. In centuries past nine [?] of the 265 Roman Catholic popes have resigned or been forced out of office for the good of the church. [And after Celestine we got Boniface VIII.  These heretics should be careful what they wish for.] The most recent was Gregory XII who abdicated in 1417 to help settle the claims of three competitors for the papacy.

Perhaps they were high when they wrote this.  More probably they want additional conference engagements.

And I wonder how the sexually liberal religious groups are doing.  Flourishing, are they?