Habakkuk's Warning

An alcoholic face.  A narcissistic smile.  And, not surprisingly, the slippery slope - the hypocrisy - coming to light.

As Pope Francis said recently, "St. Peter did not have a bank account."

How long till Dolan resigns?  Or is replaced?

How long, O Lord, how long?

Pope Francis and a Plenary Indulgence

To all those of goodwill, the new Pope, Francis, offered a "plenary indulgence" along with his first Papal Blessing.  "What in the world is that?" you may be asking.  Or maybe not.  But simply by watching, you already received one, or so the church teaches:  You received the Powerful Blessing. Of a Humble and Holy Man.  (The whole idea of an indulgence actually turns on whether or not you believe in Purgatory, a concept which has no basis, to my mind, in scripture - thereby making this statement heretical and worthy of this blog!)  

For a fun consideration of indulgences, you can read my blog on that topic from several years back.  The original blog was posted at TPM and when they closed their reader blogs, I selected about a third of them and posted the blogs - along with comments.  Some of the comments are priceless, so if you have the time, read the blog here.  Otherwise, right here where it's heretical nature belongs.

Of course, heresy is in the eye of the beholder...

Employers "in loco parentis"

Long ago there was a debate:  To what extent were colleges in a parental role vis a vis their students?  Seems to me that pretty much got settled.  Grades are no longer sent to parents, but not students.  (Now it's the reverse.)  Smoking is allowed.  Drinking is allowed.  Cutting classes is allowed.  Students are no longer required to live on campus, nor monitored for how late they stay out at night.  Students are considered adults, responsible for their own behavior. 

But here we are again:  Employers in loco parentis!  Employers, indeed, claiming to take over a religious role for employees, claiming... do you believe it? ...  to take over the role of conscience for their employees.

All because some employers cannot abide that employees exercise their own consciences.  Exercise responsibility for their own private lives.  In one area only:  contraception.  (Which means controlling women's behavior, mind you.  For I've heard no uproar over limiting drugs like Viagra.)

Now, colleges, for example, still consider themselves responsible for the safety of students.  They can't just leave patches of ice in the parking lots.  They can't just let gun-toting murderers run rampant on campus.  So, with the exception of some very conservative religious institutions which require students to agree to adhere to a strict code of conduct, most colleges today are able to draw lines between the public and the private.  (They provide safety within the college environment.  And they allow wide latitude with regard to student's private lives, so long as their behavior does not endanger the safety of others.)

But some employers, claiming consciences which speak for all, claiming a kind of infallibility, based (it would appear) on a claim to extreme holiness - now assert a right to a parental role with regard to their employees.  With regard to their female employees.  With regard to their family planning or their medical care.  In effect they want to punish women for private decisions they make with their doctor, decisions which have nothing to do with the workplace.

The mind reels!

It seems to me that today the root of so many problems in our society relates to a lack of logic, bordering on insanity.  Think about it.  How of many of our problems relate to a desire (by some) to control the private lives of others?  Or a desire to punish others for private behavior?  Or a desire to relieve themselves of any responsibility for the welfare of others?

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, disability, food stamps - no one forces us to use them.  But they certainly should be available for those of us who need them or who qualify for them.  As should contraception - as a covered medical option.  With fairness and equity for all.

We don't exempt some employers from paying taxes to social welfare programs.  We don't exempt some from laws requiring worker safety, hours worked, or the minimum wage.  So why is medical care different?

So why meddle in the medical?

Employers, is it so difficult for the professedly holy among you to understand?  Is it so difficult to accept that free will is a gift from God?

Honestly, I'm tired of the insanity!

[Cross-posted here.]

OMG!!! My checks don't weigh what they say!

Just think.  If the republicans are right, then what's to become of the checks I use to pay bills? And god forbid if you use virtual checks and pay your bills via the web!

Because after all, a platinum coin, according the R's, would have to weigh in platinum its own face value. 

So when I mint money via paying a bill with a check...  these bozos think my actual, physical check should be worth what I write it for?  Even worse, if you pay your bills over the web...  your virtual check weighs nothing!  Credit cards?  OMG!

Politics - conservative style (Gangnam Guy, where are you?)...  is now interchangeable with this blog!

It seems to me that the repubs are going to bury themselves in craziness.  They are so far round the bend....  in an effort to try and defend insane policies!  And these are the folks pushing gun ownership??? 

Ban Nonsense!  And ban those who spout nonsense - from purchasing, owning, using, even carrying a gun!

Desmond Tutu: God (she's) not a Christian.

What a wonderful, wonderful treat is in store for you!  Here.  Oh, the joy of being old and telling it like it is!  The joy of being famous and holy and old and getting away with it!

Here's a flavor:

The two elderly spiritual leaders, for one short, unforgettable moment, became kids again, horsing around and thoroughly enjoying each other’s company. 

At one gathering in Oslo, after a particularly rambunctious episode, Tutu admonished the Dalai Lama in mock seriousness, “Look here—the cameras are on you, stop behaving like a naughty schoolboy. Try to behave like a holy man.”

Now Tutu tells it like it is:

 “The glory about God is that God is a mystery. God is actually quite incredible in many ways. But God allows us to misunderstand her”—at this, the audience went wild; the applause was loud and spontaneous—“but also to understand her.”

“I’ve frequently said I’m glad I’m not God,” Tutu continued. “But I’m also glad God is God. He can watch us speak, spread hatred, in his name. Apartheid was for a long time justified by the church. We do the same when we say all those awful things we say about gays and lesbians. We speak on behalf of a God of love. The God that I worship is an omnipotent God,” Tutu intoned, opening his arms wide. He paused to let this sink in. Then he said, sotto voce, “He is also incredibly, totally impotent. The God that I worship is almighty, and also incredibly weak.
 
“He can sit there and watch me make a wrong choice. Now, if I was God,” he said as the hall burst into laughter, “and I saw, for instance, this one is going to make a choice that is going to destroy his family, I’d probably snuff him out. But the glory of God is actually mind-blowing. He can sit and not intervene because he has such an incredible, incredible reverence for my autonomy. He is prepared to let me go to hell. Freely. Rather than compel me to go to heaven. He weeps when he sees us do the things that we do to one another. But he does not send lightning bolts to destroy the ungodly. And that is fantastic. God says, ‘I can’t force you. I beg you, please for your own sake, make the right choice. I beg you.’ When you do the right thing, God forgets about God’s divine dignity and he rushes and embraces you. ‘You came back, you came back. I love you. Oh how wonderful, you came back.’”

I agree with all of it, except the concept of going to hell. 

Whatever/wherever "hell" might be, to me it's an eternity of knowing (the consequences of one's choices), but with no possibility - any longer - of making good on wrong choices.  So an eternal anguish for those who've harmed others - children and women and gay people and people of different religious faiths, colors, political views.

I, being idealistic, hope it includes some way to mourn and grieve and find ultimate compassion.

People of Conscience Should Boycott Bigotry

This blog by Bill at Bilgrimage together with these thoughts from Colleen at Enlightened Catholicism prompted the following musings:

The time is coming, perhaps it's already here, when catholics of good conscience will simply refrain from attending masses where their beloved brethren are not welcome. Where they are are instead preached against and expected to adopt the masochistic role in a sadomasochistic (church?) relationship with those who castigate them. Wherein to "attend" or "belong" means to disown themselves and be disowned by their detractors.

It's time for the baptized to claim the priesthood of that baptism and to stand up, shake the dust off their sandals, and abandon a church where its hierarchy practices apartheid. A boycott is not only called-for. It's a matter of conscience!

One of the things that drew me to my present little parish was its subtitle: A Church for all people. I rightly assumed that meant gay people too, though I'm not gay. But that was important to me. We are also one of the few churches on a Sunday where blacks and whites worship together (about 40% black, mostly Ethiopian - with the Gospel read in Ethiopian in addition to English).

Those people who oppose gay marriage are deeply in trouble. For they imagine they can hold back a tsunami (of justice) - simply by ranting and raving that tsunamis are coming! Let them take cover if they're scared! But they have no right to restrict or admonish me for delighting in Life in Abundance.

I am horrified when our gay brethren are asked to suffer due to self-righteous bigots who expect them to take on a submissive role in an S&M ritual conducted by a church! Really... that's what it is!!!

Shun all parishes that conduct such perverse rituals! This has nothing to do with Jesus - who ate with ANYONE! This has nothing to do with a feast where all are invited to partake.

We Orthodox sing a lovely hymn at communion time. And recently I understood it in a new way - which pertains to what I've said. We sing over and over: "Receive the Body of Christ." I looked around. And I understood this as a commandment: To welcome each and every person. To "receive" each one. THAT is what communion is! And THAT is what the pope (and his minions) have FAILED to learn.

If you are a person of conscience, can you simply stand by as fellow human beings, fellow Christians, fellow baptized persons are castigated, cast out, or expected to be masochists?

Consult your conscience!  Shake off the dust from your sandals!  

End Gay Apartheid in the RCC!

Dolan: Blessing but not Endorsing ... Yeah, right!

So I wake up this morning to the news that red-faced Cardinal (!) Dolan will bless a presidential candidate on the night of his acclamation as official candidate.  But that's not an endorsement...  the Cardinal's office assures us.

Look...  If Jesus had blessed a Roman emperor....  If Moses had blessed the Pharaoh...   Do I need to go on?

Did Dolan's mother never tell him:  Actions speak louder than words?

Did Dolan never consider the principle:  Lex orandi, lex credendi?

When it comes to ethics it is hugely important to make sure that one's actions do not even give a hint or a whiff of impropriety.

Ok, what's gonna be the result of this blessing genuflection?

I seriously doubt it will sway any worldly votes.  Though it may energize some Romney supporters.  On the other hand...  it is just one more nail in the lengthening list that should be nailed to the Vatican wall or hammered onto the Vatican's rusty coffin of misbehavior.

Are there no good men left?  Men, who are humble.  Men who avoid the limelight.  Men, who, upon being asked to bless a candidate - at a national convention - likely with TV cameras running... would say, without hesitation:  It would be inappropriate for me to give the appearance of endorsing... 

But no...  the good men are never asked!  Or if they are, they refrain so quietly we never even know about it.

So what's gonna be the result of this blessing?  A serious backfire.  More folks heading for the church doors.  A sense of something gone terribly wrong.

RCC to the faithful:  No pastoral care for thee.  Alliance with worldly power for me. 

God Bless you, SISTERS!

The Sisters have voted to continue their mission - to stand with the Laity and follow God's leading in their religious life.  We can do no less.  It behooves us all to seek - in our deepest depths - the call of God and its meaning for our lives. 

The sisters have concluded that their discussions with the bishops will not start with doctrine but with their understanding of religious life.  This, to me, means that their identities (hidden in God) are on the line.  And that their responses will be in line with their vows to God and their ongoing discerning of the "signs of the times" with regard to God's call.

I can do no more than to suggest for all of us what I suggested when I first learned of the Vatican's crackdown on the LCWR:  Where they go, we should go.

I urge all who read here to search your consciences and lend every possible support to the sisters.  They need our prayers.  They need a continuing groundswell of encouragement:  verbal; written; and financial.

In my view their response to the Vatican is prophetic.  It includes a concern for the laity and particularly for the role of women in the church.  I thank God for their witness and their leadership!

Glory to God!!!

Vatican vs LCWR: A Trinitarian Controversy?

I've been praying for the nuns.  And as I pray, I've been pondering how this current crisis is a clash of differing assumptive worlds.  Differing ways of living.  Of praying. 

We are led to question:   What is church?   How does one lead (or exercise authority)?  And at an even more basic level:  How does this relate to - even spring from - the Trinity?  Who is this God of Mystery whose Divine Life we are invited to share?  In whose image we are made.

It seems to me that the Vatican and the LCWR are literally working from different theologies.  And I think it boils down to the very basics of the Creed.  The nuns are working from one play-book.  The hierarchs from another.  In how decisions are made.  In how relationships are structured.   

Key here, I think, is the role of the Holy Spirit.  How the Spirit's procession is conceptualized.  How the Spirit's guidance is sought and implemented.

The Vatican uses a top-down process.  Guided by the assertion of infallibility.  And apparently by a view of God as someone who demands unquestioning submission to his agents in Rome.  Think back to the Roman Empire and it's dictatorial oppression of dissent.  Think back to Saul as a complicit bystander of the stoning of Steven, a disciple who saw heaven open as he was martyred.  Recall too how Jesus later asked Saul:  Why are you persecuting me? 

Somewhere along the way the Vatican took Imperial Rome as its Icon.  Rather than the We-Community of Triune Holy Mystery. 

The LCWR, on the other hand, uses a communal process of leadership and decision-making. Following the edicts of Vatican II, a council which took the Spirit as it's guide and model, the LCWR views each of its members as integral to communally discerning the Spirit's guidance.

So which group better images the We-Community of the Trinity?

This question leads us back centuries and centuries into the distant past.  To 325.  To conflicts over the Creed.  Conflicts, which, I now believe, have bearing on the nun crackdown of our day. 

As you may recall, the Council of Nicaea painstakingly hammered out a creed.  And one of the tenets of this Creed, a tenet still recited by the Eastern Church, relates to the procession of the Holy Spirit "from the Father."  Some time later, in the Iberian Peninsula, there arose a change in the creed, which later made its way to Rome - where it stands to this day.  The Roman version has the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son.

Now this may seem like a small thing.  But consider the image of the Trinity as described by Irenaeus (late second, early third century):  the Son and the Spirit as "the two hands of God."  That's a pretty understandable image.  Unless you recite the Roman version of the creed.  When the image of the "two hands of God" turns into an image of one hand... and then what?  I don't know about you but it's pretty hard for me to wrap my mind around an image of the Spirit (hand) as proceeding from both the Father and the Son (hand).  While it is so easy to take Irenaeus at his word, envisioning the Trinune God as Our Father extending to us his two hands. Directly!

Our Baptismal Calling is to participate in the Divine Life.  To be immersed in Holy Mystery.  Once christened other Christs, we are members of a Holy Priesthood - guided by the Holy Spirit.  It is our task to transfigure the world.

This is what the sisters are doing!  And what the Vatican seeks to undo!

And if you ponder the Mystery, it makes me wonder if the Holy Spirit is doing way more than animating the nuns to do good works.  Something much larger - which bears on our understanding of the Trinity may be at stake here.

I've merely sketched this out.  But you can do your own research.  And ponder this for yourself.   I hope you will!

Mitt-in-a-box

Unlike Mitt's taxes - This is in the Public Domain

Mitt's box is closed.

   Mitt has a LOCK on the box.

   Is the box off-shore?

   Why won't Mitt turn the handle?

   What is in the Box?

   Inquiring Minds want to know.

   **Cross posted with more Mitt humor here.**

House of Cards

Wish I knew Hebrew.

I know that Bethlehem means House of Bread.  And isn't it interesting that Jesus, born in Bethlehem, later announced:  "I am the Bread - of Life."

But how would you say House of Cards?  I wonder if the Hebrew would sound something like Vatican.  Or an equivalent term:  Vat-I-can.

For those who were young during the Vietnam War, there was a theory called the Domino Theory:  why we had to stay in Vietnam.  It was similar to the theory for why we had to stay in Iraq.  To fight them over there so we wouldn't have to fight them here.  "Them" was communists during Vietnam and the theory was that if that country fell (to the communists), it would set off a chain reaction...  like a bunch of dominoes falling.  Never happened!  Theory didn't work this time either (although no one dared mention dominoes).  All we did was create terrorists, where none existed...

The Vatican must have some theory going.  For why they're fighting nuns here.  Do they think if the nuns fall, it will set off a chain reaction.... with dominoes falling?  Somehow increasing church attendance?  Or decreasing contraceptive use?

I don't think it's gonna work...

Instead... like a House of Cards ... something like the house built on sand (instead of rock), I think there's gonna be a fall.  

Ok, it might take years.  Vietnam did.  Iraq did.  But when you get your theory wrong, and you put a lot of time and money and propaganda into something, and it doesn't yield results...  you get troop withdrawal.   A parade.  Victory is declared.  And a lot of folks suffer PTSD.  

Jesus preached Good News.  He suggested his disciples learn to read the signs of the times.

When the House of Cards falls... remember:  You heard it here first!

Addendum:  Now this...  "loyalty oaths" for religious ed teachers... who are resigning.  Hmm... seems Vat-I-can has spawned:  Vat-I-can't.  Troop withdrawal...

Chief Justice tips over conservative tables!

Did Chief Justice, John Roberts, suddenly find Jesus?  Or at long last discover his balls?  No matter, this is a day for rejoicing!

For sure he is now headed for a confrontation with the virtue (and the suffering) of the Eighth Beatitude.  And as someone wrote, his "apostasy" will plunge the conservative movement into deep gloom.

I had no idea this news would move me to tears...

Praise for God’s Surpassing Greatness

[Psalm 150]

        Praise the Lord!
Praise God in his sanctuary;
   praise him in his mighty firmament!
Praise him for his mighty deeds;
   praise him according to his surpassing greatness!

Praise him with trumpet sound;
   praise him with lute and harp!
Praise him with tambourine and dance;
   praise him with strings and pipe!
Praise him with clanging cymbals;
   praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord!

God has a Sense of Humor (Psalm 2)

Psalm 2 underscores this blog's basic premise (see sidebar).  Well, actually Psalms 1 and 2 together.  I dealt with them previously as "gate posts" to the Psalm Garden here.

But I'd like to point out now that Psalm 2 specifically tells us that God has a sense of humor.  Which I always suspected.  But one never tires of finding little scriptural signposts indicating that one's suspicions are actually supported and even extended.  It's that second aspect that prompts this post.

Psalm 1 opens with a blessing on the One who (courageously) ignores:  the path of the wicked; the siren call of the wicked; or the (unceasing) attempts of the wicked to mock them.  And Psalm 2 picks up this theme of mockery as it pertains to worldly rulers contending for control of what, this psalm makes clear, is not theirs to control or contend over.  For:

 ⁴ He who sits in the heavens laughs;
 the LORD derides and mocks them.

Humor is very powerful.  Psalm 1 sees the wicked as using it against the just one.  There a single self is depicted, contending against the wicked many, but nevertheless planted beside the waters of Life, flourishing (in spite of evil efforts to lure or mock).  Psalm 2 turns the tables.  Telling us that God himself mocks evil.  That God laughs at the wealthy and the powerful.  Just before venting fury upon those who would devour and plunder the good earth and the people created in his image.

Yes, we should not judge.  Ultimate judgment belongs only to God.  But we are nevertheless required to discern.  And point out.  And sometimes...  God help me, I do that with humor.

Before signing off, I'd like to make a plug for the first two psalms.  And their overall importance in a very serious sense (which relates to discernment).  So I'll quote just a paragraph from that post I linked at the beginning:

Just as Genesis begins with separating light from darkness, Psalms 1 and 2 also remind us of “separation” – in terms of good from evil. As in Genesis morality enters along with the awareness of being a single self – in the company of other selves. We emerge into a world where choices have been made long before us. Choices we must contend with, whether we like it or not. Choices we ourselves must make. Consequences we must face. We are given advice. We can choose which advice to follow, which company to keep. Psalms 1 and 2 deal with the separation of good and evil – the discernment that morality requires: individually; socially; the anguish of one’s need to choose; the question of one’s relationship with Ultimate Mystery, with one’s inner self, with the mysteries of evil and suffering.

Vatican Concession

Now the word "concession" above has two connotations.  It means the Vatican has "conceded" - that it lacks the mojo of "authoritative communication" it has previously asserted.  A line going directly back to Christ.  Or so they claim.  Concession also means a form of purveyance, to coin a term.  Like a little kiosk - hawking wares.  It's an Opus Dei kiosk.  As it turns out.  So the "keys" to the Kingdom have been turned over to a secretive group with fingers in so many pies it gives me heartburn.

Am I making sense?  Well, after all the Vatican has now conceded that it cannot make sense!  By appointing a spokesman.  Someone to shape and mold the message.  (Yes, those exact words were used!)  Which, if you consider what Jesus said about this very topic, is a little like shaping and molding fruit.  (As in: "You will recognize them by their fruits...")  Which is a rather like finding moldy fruit (at the  PR kiosk) actually.  (I hope you're finding this humorous...)

So the long and the short of it is this:  Vatican hires U.S. journalist to help media relations. 

The journalist, to my mind, is doubly experienced in the purveying of propaganda.  Being Opus, for one thing.  And former Fox for another.  A perfect choice for a tiny piece of real estate that claims to be a State and a Religion - a type of religious Dicktatorship, which means it's male and authoritarian and merges spiritual with temporal, especially temporal power and money.  Part of an effort to "restore a climate of serenity and trust" ...

So you have a Vatican concession.  A little kiosk of PR.  Totally different from a voice crying in the wilderness who came as a witness to the WORD.

What does "shocks the conscience" mean?

Yesterday I read that the pope is mystified by the fact that priests (and on up) have sexually abused little children (and on up).  Actually he said it is a "mystery" how someone could participate in the sacraments (he mentioned specifically Eucharist and Confession) at the same time as they were engaging in such horrific crimes.  Well, he did not use the words "horrific" or "crimes" - instead he used euphemisms, a bland manner of speech, which led some people to humorously describe his words as enunciating a "new Mystery" for the faith.

Now today I happened to reread an old blog of mine, related to torture, which addressed the question:  What does "shocks the conscience" mean? (A question related to the constitution's protections against cruel and unusual punishment.)   My words at the time were an attempt to try and get folks to SEE something many prefer to rationalize away.  But if you read them now, in light of things going on in the RCC, it illuminates, I think, a tone deafness at the top of the Vatican, in its recent vendettas, that drives many of us crazy.  Not just an inability, perhaps, to really get the degree of egregiousness and the horror evoked in us at the thought of a priest damaging the soul of child through rape.  But equating that to the ordination of a woman to the priesthood?

What does shocks the conscience mean?  Certainly rape of a child!

But ordination of a woman?  That is cause for REJOICING!

And that, I hasten to add, is one more reason for these thoughts from a post below:

Somewhere along the line [the pope] has entered an alternate universe...

[or is] yearning for an alternate universe.  Of abstractions.  I can imagine Euclidian Geometry would really please him.  Those neat proofs.  No sex.  Triangles and Squares being their different "genders" so to speak, each with their different "roles" so neatly laid out, nothing amiss.

Apparently, something is deeply amiss.


And it all seems to turn, I now see, on what shocks the conscience.  Or not....  What undermines the faith.  Or not.

Could the nation bear to watch?  That question is very important.

In our case:  Could a church congregation bear to watch?  (Rape of a Child vs Ordination of a Woman - to name just one example)
 

I hope that settles the question!

The Numbers Game

In the Middle Ages it was:  How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Today, it's a numbers contest - as if a religious order's average age or total number of members or number of habits worn is a PROOF of something. 

Jesus never did speak much about angels.  Though we hear that angels were instrumental at certain points in his life, death, resurrection and ascension.

But Jesus did in fact speak about PROOF.  And his words said nothing about numbers proving anything.  He taught us instead:

You will know them by their fruits.

So let's have a little humility and assume God knows whom he's calling and for what purpose.

Could it be that right now God is calling so many conservatives to contemplative life so that their prayers may assist the sisters under scrutiny?  Or maybe such prayers are needed for those women whom God has called as priests.  Or perhaps for those who have suffered for righteousness sake due to loving someone of their own sex.  Or any number of reasons that:  Only God knows.  

Pope's Pet Peeves Proclaimed ~ in Abstract Drivel

This post is a rejoinder to a speech given by the current pope in 1989, posted at Enlightened Catholicism.  (Read it, please, if you can.)

With all due respect to an elderly bishop and theologian, to me his musings on the dynamics of the psyche, his diagnosis of modern man's psychopathology, and his proposal of a cure via philosophical evangelization - all presented in abstract language void of any concrete basis in Scripture or the Fathers - leave the reader awash in a sea of airy abstractions, punctuated by fanciful conceptual leaps.

Driven by the same pet peeves we see today - an agenda with no discernible resemblance to the Gospel - the pope is clearly on a mission laid out 23 long years ago.   And to this clinical psychologist, the speech reads as little more than abstract drivel - missing a human touch - but tinged, I hate to say this, with something akin to nuttiness.  As Shakespeare might have opined:  "Sound and Fury.  Signifying nothing."

Sorry to assign reading, but I beg you, if you haven't already done so, to go and read the speech.  As I want to be fair and allow you to form your own opinion, despite my opening remarks.  But folks...  I am aghast!

Here are some initial parts of the speech (all I could bear to closely analyze), which set the scene for my remarks below (but feel free to skip over 1-19, a tedious necessity, to ensure a careful analysis):

1. General Pet Peeve:  People in the pews are questioning papal authority.  He calls the laity's concerns "difficulties with the faith" = "a litany of objections to the practice and teaching of the Church"  (However, you will notice below that the difficulties have nothing to do with basics defined in the creed!)
   
2. Specific Burrs under pope's saddle:   "principal elements of this litany" = pelvic/gender issues (birth control, same-sex attraction) and "sacramental order" (divorce/remarriage & admission to Eucharist, women's ordination) - in other words, our "faith" somehow stands (or falls) on these crucial (Gospel?) gender/sex/marital issues! 
3. Bottom Line Pet Peeve:  People should not think for themselves, since "individual conscience"or "freedom" (of "conscience") = bad, bad, bad ... (This in spite of Vatican II pronouncements to the contrary, not to speak of our God-given free will.)
4. Concluding Diagnosis:  "They [laity's concerns - #2 above] spring from one and the same vision of humanity within which there operates a particular notion of human freedom."[#3 above]  (How right he is, except most people do not view this as a pathology.  Here we enter different worlds.)
5. Stop and Notice:  Nothing about the Gospel.  No scripture.  No Patristics.  (Pet Peeves of a pope.)
6. Broad generalization:  "modern man would find it difficult to relate to the Church’s traditional sexual morality" = lumping everything together as if people are endorsing prostitution, child abuse, bestiality, polygamy, adultery, promiscuity, etc.  (Sexuality and Authority = the Gospel?)
7. Broad assumption: "the Church’s traditional sexual morality" is being critiqued "no matter how meaningful [it] may have been under past historical conditions." (No history cited and history might offer a very different view here...  Plus, how dare we question?)
8. Reformulated Diagnosis: "we are no longer prepared to subordinate [our conscience] to some external authority" = let your fingers do the walking and we'll do the talking.  (There's that dreaded God-given freedom.)
9. Prescribed Treatment = We will think for you!  (Conscience as a sort of robotic method issued from on high = Rome.)
10. Stop and Notice:  The proposed robotic method has nothing to do with the Gospel. 
11. Reformulated Diagnosis:  "aura of morality" [our choices] = "surrender of moral integrity, the simplifications of a lax conscience."  (Laity's failure to bow to Rome's sexual fixations has led us to a point of total depravity across the board.)
12. Prescribed Treatment = "conscience understood as that knowledge which derives from a higher form of knowing."  (Conscience trickles down from on high:  We will think for you!)
13. Broad strange assumption:  One's relationship to one's body "changes" if we think for ourselves, if we don't follow these norms from on high "as the ultimate arbiter of one’s obligation." (Termed an "assumption" as this appears to be an important part of his "argument" - but no evidence or reasoning is mustered to support the claim.)
14. Strange logic:  Body now being discussed as if it were an appendage - instead of us!  (Is he delicately referring to the male sexual organ??  Or perhaps due to "robotic" view of how people should or do make choices?)
15. Strange logic:  "No longer does man expect to receive a message from his bodiliness as to who he is and what he should do..." (You got me, folks!  Where this comes from ...  I cannot fathom.)
16. Stop and Notice:  Nothing about the Gospel!  No scripture at all.  No Patristics.  (In this supposed anthropology or psychology which bears no resemblance to Jesus!)
17. Reformulated Diagnosis (phrased in strange logic):  So perverse [my word] have we become, apparently, that "the body no longer expresses being at all, on the contrary, it has become a piece of property." (Dualism.  At best!)
18. Strange logic and assumptive leap:  "this way of thinking first became an actual possibility through the fundamental separation—not a theoretical but a practical and constantly practiced separation—of sexuality and procreation."  (Translation:  Birth control has deranged humanity.)
19. Strange logic leading to Weird Bottom-line Diagnosis and Plan to Assess for Treatment:  

It would be interesting to follow in detail this revolutionary vision about man which has appeared behind our rather haphazardly concocted litany of objections to the Church’s teaching. Without a doubt this will be one of the principal challenges for anthropological reflection in coming years. This reflection will have to sort out meticulously where quite meaningful corrections to traditional notions appear and where there begins a truly fundamental opposition to faith’s vision of man, an opposition that admits no possibility of compromise but places squarely before us the alternative of believing or not.

Holy Spirit has Hierarchy on the Ropes!

Things keep backfiring for the Vatican.  Bishops sue the govt and the faithful see politics at work.  Papal commissions go after nuns and the faithful rise up - in favor of the nuns.  Vatican bans a book; it soars on Amazon!  Vatican tries to herd cats... er catholics; and the sensus fidelium takes over instead.

The Baptized are seizing their Spiritual Priesthood as never before and the prelates simply can't figure out what to do... what to do.

It's comical really.  It's like the hierarchy has entered a ring for a prize fight.  A fight chosen by them alone.  With all the swagger of one of those comic wrestlers, they throw a powerful punch!  Into thin air!  Without anyone else really punching back, without anyone else even in the ring, the crowd begins to jeer, and another hierarch topples over - onto the ropes!  Then they all get busy telling the referee press how unfair it all is....

So picture them... They choose the fight.  They throw a punch into the air... The crowd jeers.  And they are so stunned by this, that they flop over onto the ropes!

Or maybe they're just getting into the Spirit.

Because apparently this is just a warm-up.  For this Fall's Evangelization Extravaganza!

Who am I? Who are you? Who is God?

Catholic identity.  This whole idea gives me problems.  As the Vatican appears to be promoting a kind of uniformity.  A type of robotic thought and behavior.  Controlled from Rome!  (Even the unearthed Chinese army of clay soldiers has each one manifesting uniqueness!)

I think we have to start with the assumption, amply validated in scripture, that our identities are hidden with Christ in God.  That the Holy Spirit dwells within each of us, immersed in constant prayer (whether we know it or not).  That our task is to gradually live out the Image of God, allowing the Spirit to form us in God's VERY Likeness.

Uniformity has no part in this!  And the Gospel is a call within the heart of each person.  It calls us to a unique "identity" - yes, formed in God's likeness - but God reaches out to each of us in a unique relationship.

Catholic identity?  Honestly, I'm not sure what that means.  Unless it means a humility which few, if any of us, ever achieves.

To manifest the Presence of God, this is our calling.  And God's presence, I submit, is so personally overwhelming, it could NEVER be uniform.

To me the question should never be:  Who are you as a Catholic?  (Recall that many Christians recite the Creed!  Not just Roman catholics.)

The question, it seems to me, is:  Who are you in your deepest heart?  Who are you in the eyes of God?  Who is any of us when most present to the Holy Trinity flowing/dwelling within?  Or to the Trinity met in every person?  In every aspect of nature?

See this wonderful interview posted at Blue Eyed Ennis during her blogging break - which leads exactly in the direction I'm discussing:

Catholic identity?  This Abbot has got it!!!

Rest

This blog is taking a Rest.

May the Author of Rest guide and protect the persecuted sisters.

Peace be with you.