What actually is 'salvation'? (Main Forum)

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Thursday, February 04, 2010, 23:48 (1199 days ago) @ herbie

Herbie, and all,

What would be very interesting to see — or watch or hear — would be for all the bishops of Australia to give a homily on the question "What is salvation?" and for them to be recorded and broadcast on YouTube. If you could steel some of them away from the usual caution of not saying anything to upset Benedict's "little people", my gut sense is that you'd probably find as much diversity and questioning on an issue like this as goes on in the minds of the wider Catholic population. Of course, it's not going to happen. If they ever give homilies on the question "What is salvation?" my bet is most of them would be cliched, motherhood statements re-iterating the sort of stuff we were taught about salvation at primary school in the 1940s, 50s or 60s.

JPII had a moment of madness or bravery in 1998 and came out with a radically new interpretation of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory but it seems it is only a Pope who is able to do something like that and not frighten the "little people".

'Tis a fascinating subject though: when all is 'boiled down', what actually is "Salvation"? What proportion of people still believe in it these days in terms of the image created by Michaelangelo's Last Judgement?

How many have 'junked that' into the category of fairytales similar to Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy? How many have taken on new understandings similar to the sort of stuff you've written, or which is found in the sort of writing PeterR exposed us to today? Where does Benedict sit with all of this? Where do most of the bishops sit with all of this — both privately and what they say publicly?

Fascinating questions ... but who is brave enough in the institution itself to come out and attempt to provide answers? I'll tell you the answer: your former colleague, John George!!! LOL LOL LOL And the institutional leadership stand by and do nothing — encouraging this sort of 'communication strategy' by their total silence.*

*I'm sure you understand what I mean. I'm not actually singling out John George but referring to a particular class of individuals like that who think that opening their gobs is 'communicating' no matter what lack of wisdom they have to offer humanity.

Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]