Remember even the Inquisition never burned anyone at the stake.... they had the civil authorities do it for them ... a la Pontius Pilate and the Sanhedrin

Even today in the U S of A the Bishops never raise a finger to prevent an abortion - they rail against it and demand the government make it illegal so that the state police can do the dirty work of enforcing it. Ahhh the lovely ivory tower when one can contemplate the sins of others!!!!

Meanwhile enjoy the warmth of the fire!! LOL

Thanks Dolores for sharing your aspirations etc.
Catholica serves many well to be able to share.
georgeh

Dolores

I am off this morning to see a new Psychologist I walked into the Salvos the other day needed so to talk to someone about "ME" i seam to have lost some part of myself and have not been sleeping at all. when my boy gets violent towards me at night it kills me, to think the men that hurt me are dead and now i have this child saying thing to me that a child should not say to their Grandmother who loves them so deeply,who is going to protect them no matter what. he is very much like my father who died only weeks before he was born and he dad has seemd to have come back into my life. I know for sure my life robbed me of many things being an abuse child then adult when i made up my mind that nobody was going to treat me like that again it was a great feeling and now i have this child sounding like an adult man it is terrible. My friend was saying while he was here last night while i was putting up my post that could i ever imagaine tens years ago that i would be doing what i am doing on Catholica, could i see myself back in Bondi standing in the pub with no life, i just said i did not want to talk about that life because that was then and this is now. the salvos were so beautiful to me and can see the lady that helps people for only 30 dollars instaed of the huge amountof money others charge up to 250 dollars for the hour so wish me luck and thanks for that great post.

macbee

I understand what Tom is referring to. Life's choices have unexpected consequences – things they hadn’t warned you about or prepared you for.

I thought about my life.
How elements in it were also trying to steal my personhood.
How situations occur that are unexpected and unprepared for.
How they drain the life out of me.

I am glad for Tom that he has his grandchildren and loving family around him.

What of those whose loved ones decide to leave?
Whose plans for life are shattered and they are set adrift in the storm of life.
People who have no one else close by to hold them, no shoulder to lean on, no one to turn to. Ordinary people shouldering the tragedies of life as best they can.

And then there are the bosses expecting you to work harder robbing you of your life. And the corporations indoctrinating you with all the things you absolutely must have or else you cannot be happy. Making you fight for your personhood when you have no strength.

It is very hard being all alone. I know that.
At least a priest has chosen this solitude though I doubt they understood the depths when they first make the choice.

But does anyone know all the ramifications of their actions?
How do we find people who love us for who we are now and tomorrow?

I am happy for Tom that he found his way to his personhood.
I am continually fighting to hold on to mine. Some days I lose the battle.

Go with Love, Go with God

Clammer,

I am honored to be considered in the company of great heretics in history with my line of thinking.

Your historical insights are awesome. Thank you.

Had to look up John XXII (Bladassare Cossa) the Antipope; and the term Consubstantiation, being from Lutheran theology. I learn great things from every conversation on Catholica.

As to the possibility of being burned at the stake, I have at the ready, a bag of marshmallows, Hershey chocolate bars, and a box of Graham cracker to make "Somores" while the fire burns. I can just see the Monty Python Spanish Inquisition team when they burst through my front door. How could they not resist having a few "Somores" with me?

Joe

Be careful Journeyman because my train of thought came from Jan Hus a Roman Catholic priest who taught at Charles University in Bohemia and was eventually burned at the stake.

His death warrant was issued by the Council of Constance. That Council was interesting in and of itself. At that time there were 3 Popes all claiming legitimacy. John XXIII called the conference and thereafter all 3 resigned. In the 8th or 9th century the Roman Empire had its eastern capital in Byzantium (later Constantinople) and western capital in Rome. The Pope was having trouble with the Patriarch in the East as well as with the subjects in Italy. Pope Leo made a pact with the King of the Franks (now Germany) and crowned him Charlemagne Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The Emperor in the East was merely the Emperor of the Roman Empire. Thereafter the Holy Roman Emperor had a great deal to do in selecting the Pope until the Council of Constance when the process was changed to an election by the cardinals exclusively. The Council also declared Hus a heretic because he taught there was no scriptural basis for purgatory, it being invented and its root cause simony; he taught that Jesus said you must eat His Body and drink His Blood but Rome ruled the cup is for the priest. I have already stated his view on consubstantiation. The Council had given him a writ of safe passage to attend and defend but as soon as he appeared they threw him in prison. All this was a century before Luther.

My thoughts on being called Father is simply that it is wrong and violates Jesus command. If the clerics were stripped of that appellation, stripped of the cassock, baretta, roman collar and other vestiges of office the power structure would either be destroyed or at least severely diminished.

History they say is written by the victors. We know little about the early days of the church except by what is released by those in power. There are several books written about the Gnostic Gospels found in an earthen jar in Egypt in the 1940s. It is claimed that besides the 4 Gospels with which we are familiar there were others which were suppressed by those in power such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary (Magdalene). These contain vastly different ideas. It is also suggested that in the early days the Gnostics (those seeking gnosis or truth in greek) would gather and draw straws to see who would read, who would preach and who would distribute the bread and wine. Thus the office of lector, priest and bishop were randomly chosen and never became permanent. Small wonder those ideas were suppressed, Perhaps we can never go back to those simple early years but I dare say we can achieve the radical end envisioned by Vatican II. The question is how the hell do we do it?

As a side note, Thomas the apostle followed the traders and eventually wound up in India where he made many converts. About a thousand years later Vasco Da Gama "discovered" India and the chaplains accompanying him were surprised to discover christians. They were appalled that these christians were worshiping in structures which resembled synagogues. The power structure intervened and declared that these christians must under the umbrella of Rome. The nearest to them was the Syrian Catholic Church. Of course there eventually developed a schism. Even today there are there are those christians who follow the lineage of the church established by Thomas and those under the umbrella of the Syrian Roman catholic church. I am still wondering which one is apostolic!!! and of course the corollary why is that important. LOL

Clammer,

I like your train of thinking very much. The more this conversation moves forwards, more and more ideas are revealed. How can the RCC make a article of faith that all revelations from God stopped with the 12 apostles?

As I said in another topic string on this forum, it is the laity that need to become excited by the works of modern biblical scholarship. We need to read and study the works of theologians that have been silenced by the hierarchy over the past 50+ years. The hierarchy understands that what is spoken by these prophets will totally undermine their power structure and prestige if the "simple folk" take hold of their knowledge.

I do not believe that Jesus envisioned a "clergy." The passover meal he celebrated with his followers truly included women and children, not just a select set of 12 men. I would also think there were more men attending, then just 12. Jesus being a devout Jew, with radical ideas that disturbed many, celebrated the Passover Seder in the Jewish tradition, not as a "male only bachelor party" as written in the gospels. It's just impossible.

Jesus said when two or more gather in my name I will be present. That is true presence not some words mumbled by a shaman. Consubstantiation occurs when received by the communicant and it is the faith and belief of the communicant that is the catalyst.

You are right on target. The bread and wine do not become truly changed until received, consumed and proclaimed that "We are the Body of Jesus." Just saying Amen, means nothing. It is not what should be said upon receiving the bread, the wine. Our answer each time should be: "We are the Body of Jesus." "We are the Blood of Jesus."

The bread and wine can never get up on its own from the altar and go out into the world and be "The Christ" until we can fully acknowledge that we are called to become "The Christ" for one another, for everyone we come in contact with. At times, that may not be an easy task to perform. But we try our very best to become more than who we are individually.

I have to go back to Diarmuid O'Murchu's brilliant thinking, the Companionship of Empowerment. This is what Eucharistic is about, empowering one another to become more, in our individual lives, and even more for others in the world.

Thanks Journeyman and Clammer, the Leveson Inquiry has just finished for the week in London with a superb appearance by Sir Harold Evans and in a funny way it was a massive lesson in ethics and morality. If I was a teacher I'd make a copy of the interview and make it the basis for a few RE lessons as it is applied morality and ethics — a highly educational lesson in how a working person (in this case editor or journalist but the lessons could be applied to bankers, used car salesmen, priests, parents with children ... virtually any walk of life). After that little "high" it was a pleasure to find both of your posts in this place.

I think one possibility for the future form or structure of religion is that it might be very de-institutionalised — totally unlike anything that has been the human experience to date from right back in history when a person mentions the word "religion". It is NOT about creeds and dogmas and some kindergarten-level game of trying to prove "my Dad (or religion) is bigger or better than your Dad (or religion)" but a recognition human society wide that "we're all in this together". It will also be far more ecumenical (funnily enough in the sort of direction pointed to by Vatican II) and also unstructured — a huge "conversation" where we become far more open to listening to the perspectives of people of other traditions and cultures.

That said I do sense there is a yearning also in society for some structure even if it is principally symbolic in the sense of something or somewhere we can look to and have a sense "I belong to this community" or "I share a common set of values with all these people". (As opposed to the sense of some dictatorial place of unity or identification because there is some Creed or set of Dogmas or some great "Dada figure" who is telling all the little children what to believe — or some sense of trying to prove our superiority to other groups of people in society.)

I also sense there is a deep yearning in the human spirit for liturgy and ritual that help us access our deepest human hopes and yearnings and those things that we find difficult to express other than through music, allegory, art, theatre, symbol and ritual. We might not need it every single week but we certainly need it regularly adn probably in big doses at least once a year. I think it a fascinating phenomenon that as the Church has been fading as the institution in society which the vast majority look to as the place for spiritual fulfilment through liturgy that there has been this quite phenomenal growth in what I have labelled as "secular liturgies" over our own lifetimes. It's almost as though other institutions in society have "stepped in" to "fill the liturgical vacuum" as it were as institutional religion has increasingly marginalised itself from the lives of the great majorities in society.

The final comment I'd make — and this is more in response to Joe's post — is that with the benefit of hindsight I think if I had my time over again I'd take a radically different approach today in the religious and spiritual formation of my own children. My wife and I more or less obediently followed the pathway our parents had followed — which was essentially the "official parenting policies" offered by the Catholic Church and the bishops. I really have no complaints about how my children have turned out even if it might be a long way from what the Catholic education system, and ourselves, thought it was going to turn out. It's going to be very interesting to see the parental and educational styles that the coming generations adopt in the raising of their offspring — and I suspect what I might adopt with the benefit of the hindsight I now have might be pretty close to the styles they end up adopting if I had my time over again. I'm too tired to write much more right now but I think I might explore this further in coming days and perhaps try and strike up a conversation on what changes any of us might adopt in our parenting styles in the light of our life experiences and if we were to have our time over again.

Enough for now before I fall off my chair. It's been a long day again and I finally got to do some work on the documentary I'm preparing with Fr Eugene Stockton.

I agree that the withholding of money from the collection plate is ineffective. In the first place habits are difficult to break and the communal pressure to put something in the basket is great. In actuality, the "church" has investments and cash reserves to sustain it for many years if not decades. Reduction of the total amount is the only achievable goal and that would only harm the needy for the life style of the hierarchs would not be diminished one bit.

I understand that some of the modern biblical scholars have had radical viewpoints and translations in recent years. However, my point relating to Jesus' command was directed to the viewpoint and belief of the many and not the few. We have to start someplace or we will have never ending concentric argument. Assume that the overwhelming majority believe in God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Gospels. It is a historical fact that the clerics, in order to preserve control over the pray, pay and obey people, forbid the reading of scripture. It was forbidden under penalty of death at one time and then softened to a claim that it must be interpreted by those learned in scripture. Wycliffe translated the Bible into English and had died before the Council of Constance was called but that did not prevent the Council from condemning him and directing that his bones be dug up and burned. Fortunately we have progressed slightly from that high point.

All of the recent criticism and complaint seems to boil down to the issue of control. Control depends on the viewpoint of those being controlled. Either one respects a superior force or a better armed force or a larger force OR a morally righteous force. One does not rob people in the street because it is morally wrong for most and for others the presence of the police and resulting punishment is a sufficient deterrent.

The clergy as envisioned by Jesus were to be servants however the tables have been turned. If the vast majority can be shown that all clerics violate the command of Jesus presumably the respect and honor and awe would be diminished and control dissipated. Fundamental change cannot be accomplished until the stranglehold of control is destroyed.

Your thoughts on the recruitment of candidates for the priesthood are interesting and logical. However, I would abolish the priesthood as such. There is a need for scholars, for contemplatives and for servants to assist us in worshiping our God. However I do not think it necessary that in this age of educated laity that we have a dedicated class of servants. If one wishes to assist it could be part time or voluntary. On the other hand as a practical matter there needs to be some administrative structure to prevent chaos or perhaps that is what the Spirit wants. In chaos one would be forced to worship in one's own fashion.

Jesus said when two or more gather in my name I will be present. That is true presence not some words mumbled by a shaman. Consubstantiation occurs when received by the communicant and it is the faith and belief of the communicant that is the catalyst. What a different world ;it would be if these thoughts controlled. Certainly the cleric class would be marginalized.

Brian,

I was intrigued by several of your comments, to which I am in agreement with your thinking.

I honestly don't think withholding money from the collection plate is capable of achieving anything and more than likely is counterproductive. I should imagine without any money flowing to the Sunday collection plate and other charitable appeals the corporate institution could last for possibly another 200 years before the receivers and administrators had to be called in.

All I can think of to pray is: Come Holy Spirit! Come SOON!

What concerns me much more, or what I place far more emphasis on, are the words reputed to have been passed from God to Moses in the first and second commandments of the decalogue – especially the tendency of us human beings to engage in idolatry and the elevation of "false gods".

After reading the article you linked about the 24 year old priest, I was amazed at his age. In the US the earliest age to be ordain I believe is 26. Even that I consider to be to young to be a viable minister. This child-priest is living in an ego bubble, given "special magical powers" and the ability to dress-up in special clothing. He will probably become a bishop before he is 30.

How can a person his age have developed any sense of having a personal spirituality, and then be able to assist others in their development? All that I can see is that he will simply be a parrot referring to the printed answers in the catechism, which will please some, but not all. He is working out of a bag of total indoctrination, which is his only reality of life in the world.

Reminds me of what P.T. Barnum supposedly said:

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

The same statement applies well to the RCC magisterium.

I must remember to ask a friend of mine, a laicised Jesuit priest, if immediately after he was ordained, was he given a looseleaf binder owner's manual on how to function as a priest? Update pages would follow when difficulties were experienced.

On the other side, the members of the Broken Hill parish cluster around him as the "new magician on the block." The kid is already placed on the "Father" idol pedestal as soon as his feet hit the ground in Broken Hill. His head had to be at the bursting point the first time he "danced down the aisle to perform as a priest."

From the linked article:

One little girl spoke up and said, “Mum, he’s young!”

The girl's comments resonate in another way, "The young new emperor isn't wearing any clothes."

Your last paragraph:

Increasingly I'm coming to the view that for everyone the real spiritual journey doesn't begin until the latter part of life after one has experienced all the traumas of raising families and walked a few calvaries.

How true your thoughts are.

The "wisdom of the elders" which you speak of is so needed today to be sought out and listened to. That wisdom of which you speak is not exclusive domain of the hierarchical magisterium. It is the wisdom of the laity, the true "People of God," that need to be heard.

Fast approaching the age of 69 myself; and still very young and healthy; with so much to yet to experience and learn. My thanks to all the people on Catholica, who have helped to broadened my own vision, and to search more dilligently into my own faith journey. It is exciting, for I believe it is the Spirit who is guiding us, and luring us all to ever-receding horizons.

Joe

The bulk of the people who furnish financial support must be brought into the opposition.

Clammer, I am simply not convinced by the arguments various people and groups put forward for people to withhold money from the collection plate. It might be different in the third world but in the first world the income from the collection plate is miniscule compared to the other sources of revenue the institution has access today. In a country like Australia the vast bulk of the money comes indirectly from the people via the taxpayer into Catholic education, health care, aged care and social welfare services. "The people" cannot stop that flow. In addition the Church has built up massive property and investment portfolios over centuries and that must generate substantial income albeit a lot, but not all of the property is not income producing. It's in la-la land for anyone to seriously believe that withholding money from the collection plate is going to influence the mega institution. Just look for example at the massive exit out the door over the last four or five decades. That's the equivalent of people "withholding money from the collection plate". Ask yourself if it has made the slightest difference to those at the head of the ecclesial feeding trough? If another two thirds of the 13 or 14 percent still putting money in the collection plate withdraw that support it's not going to make much difference. The likelihood is that if it hurts anybody it hurts the local priests and initiatives they might be trying to organise at the local parish level.

I honestly don't think withholding money from the collection plate is capable of achieving anything and more than likely is counterproductive. I should imagine without any money flowing to the Sunday collection plate and other charitable appeals the corporate institution could last for possibly another 200 years before the receivers and administrators had to be called in.

On the other hand the use of the word Father is universal and is absolutely forbidden. You cannot get more fundamental than that but no one seems to care. Does anyone think perhaps it is satanic?

I'm also not wildly excited about placing too much emphasis on what Jesus may or may not have meant by his words about the use of the term "father". What concerns me much more, or what I place far more emphasis on, are the words reputed to have been passed from God to Moses in the first and second commandments of the decalogue – especially the tendency of us human beings to engage in idolatry and the elevation of "false gods". The argument you raise is an interesting one and may well be part of a broader range of arguments about how the entire notion or understanding of priesthood or priestly ministry and service needs to be interpreted given the changing knowledge human society has access to today. I can't see it as a "stand alone" argument being that persuasive. Many words in Jesus parables and the record of his ministry are capable of multiple interpretations and as the Jesus Seminar has demonstrated we can't even be sure that the words attributed to Jesus are all verbatim. The words you cite may well be worthy of incorporation into a much wider study of what views Jesus might have had on the understandings we have of priesthood that have evolved today.

An older priest has just drawn my attention to the front page of the Sydney Archdiocesan paper, The Catholic Weekly. It contains the views of a younger priest (24 years of age) who is giving his views on the nature of priesthood today [LINK]. I end up wondering: I wonder what Jesus would make of all that? No doubt it makes the Cardinal happy and the traddies in the lay church who want to take us back to the ecclesiology and theologies in vogue at the time of Pius IX or Pius X. You don't need to be a clairvoyant today to appreciate that a lot of older priests who have been around a long time have moved a long, long way from their very rose-coloured glasses' view of what their role in the world was when they were first ordained.

I'm in two minds as to whether the institution ought to be even trying to recruit candidates for the priesthood in their late teens or even in their twenties and thirties. The institution has effectively given up trying to recruit 12 and 14 year olds because it belatedly came to the wisdom that was deeply flawed. Some people talk about having to be "born again". I'm not overly persuaded by that as often it seems it is primarily some emotional (rather than spiritual) experience. The best spiritual guides I have found are the men and women who have met some real calvaries in their lives — men and women who have lived in the real world for a lengthy period. They are what we call "elders" — and many other religions and cultures look to "the wisdom of the elders". You don't gain wisdom out of books and seminaries but through being forced to climb a few calvaries in one's life. I think there is a lot of truth in the observation that some of the very best spiritual guides are what the institution classes as "ex-priests" or "laicised priests" — it was the very trauma of being forced to leave that became their "calvary" that helped "round them out" as really effective pastors and guides.

Increasingly I'm coming to the view that for everyone the real spiritual journey doesn't begin until the latter part of life after one has experienced all the traumas of raising families and walked a few calvaries.

It is not the intelligentia who need convincing. The hair splitting theologians like one at the head coupled with the silencing of critics will continue to have a field day. Look at the three page letter to the German Bishops explaining how we must say many even though we mean all but we can't say all. The nuances of argument only generate more argument and frustration.

The bulk of the people who furnish financial support must be brought into the opposition. The simplistic argument I propose is indefensible and the church leaders are not following Jesus' command despite the claim of apostolic. For the most part the theological arguments against the death penalty and "just" war fall on deaf ears and are of interest to those of a more esoteric bent. To gain traction with the masses you must have something fundamental and inexplicablel such as the sex scandal. It could not be explained away and was so inappropriate that the pedestals of all priests, guilty and innocent, were destroyed.

We know that there ae cults and cabals but no one is appalled. It is dismissed with the suggestion that no one is perfect and it is only involves a few. On the other hand the use of the word Father is universal and is absolutely forbidden. You cannot get more fundamental than that but no one seems to care. Does anyone think perhaps it is satanic?

Thanks, clammer. I remain totally pessimistic about the institution. The latest information I've just posted about this supposed "divide & conquer" strategy with the SSPX only increases my pessimism. It's more "shuffling of the deckchairs" on the Titanic as the institution is claimed by the waves of history.

I remain totally optimistic though of where humanity is heading spiritually. I am impressed by the vast majority of young people I intersect with today, or observe through the internet and on the news. I don't have a sense that society is becoming less moral and we're all heading back to some jungle. The Leveson Inquiry going on in the UK demonstrates that the powerful in society are still being called to account. There are many other similar developments going on around the world. The new generations of leaders amongst the younger generations emerging are not going to lead society into anarchy and mayhem but are continuing to build a fairer, better society along the lines of what Jesus Christ was all on about in his ideas about "building the kingdom" — and what all the other great religions of the world have also been trying to build on "the golden rule". Our world is not going to pot in some handbasket.

I do think huge questions remain unknown at the moment — for example is institutional religion going the same way as feudalism, the old monarchies, the Holy Roman Empire, the collapse of Nazism and Communism? Or what will the religio-spiritual landscape of the future look like?

I doubt anyone has answers to a question like the last one just yet. The most valuable contribution we can make is simply to "encourage the conversation" that might help shape the future and place our trust in the Spirit that has guided the development of humankind thus far that we do not end up getting bushwacked by too many side tracks, blind alleys and dead ends in this great maze and mystery we call Life.

Thanks for that Journeyman.
Indeed we need to challenge each other in love and include the hierarchy, especially our priests in that?!
One example is "indulgences" which some of our imported priests need to explain in modern day terms etc?!
Of course there would be many more articles of faith that are more important to individuals?!
georgeh

Thank you Brian.

A frontal attack and even an ambush would be unsuccessful. And as you say a withdrawal is just not in the cards. The difficulty with confrontation is that B16 and his cohorts sincerely believe that they are right and that God is on their side. Truly an insurmountable combination. If a vast majority could be convinced that the present group are flat out wrong, then we might be able to change for the better.

I keep carping about this and my friends think I am nuts and too simplistic. However, the real heart of the problem is that the clerics and hierarchs think and act as if they were God. The sex scandal took care of a lot of that posturing but the core belief that they are right remains. Every priest is called "Father" in every language under the sun and the Pope (Papa) is called the Holy Father. In 23 Matthew Jesus commanded us to call no one on earth father - Jesus taught that the word father meant God and in ;the prayer He taught us the first thing we do is tell the Father that the name Father is blessed or hallowed.

If there were a movement to enforce Jesus' commandment and everyone was shown the command in 23 Matthew and it was proven that "they" are not right and "they" have ursurped God's name as well as place, it would mark the beginning of the crumbling of the present structure. I have asked every priest and bishop that I have met to explain this obvious violation of Jesus' command and so far no one can explain it. Maybe if there was a movement eyes would finally be opened and the non-persons would bercome persons just like us.

Thanks. Brian and Joe. I know there is no hope of change from the top of the Church, but there is a groundswell of desire for change in many of us and this is reaching critical mass, so we will see change, though maybe not in our lifetimes.

Judith,

I understand the disheartening situation you are experiencing.

This following may not be the entire answer to the problems and issues you face, but perhaps a staring point for dialogue. It is from my previous post on another string:

#102834

It is we the People of God who need to continually make this statement each time a Catholic/Christian group gathers. We need to stand up and speak clearly, without fear, but with great sincerity

We as Catholic/Christians need to rethink what we believe in. Learn from where the concepts actually came from and how it was formed as belief! We will no longer accept everything blindly and without question!

God gave each one of us a brain. We are called by God to use it, with all the gifts we have been given, to become fully human as God envisions.

God gave us the ability to ask questions. To get truth filled answers. Not just a lot of religious mumbo-jumbo contrived by ordained male celibate hierarchs, who do not live in the real world, but a fantasy world all their own.

We need to stop allowing the hierarchy to tell us, the laity what to do. We have a right to demand that they be the servant priests they were called to be for the larger community. They have not been given "magical powers" to hold sway over people. They must listen to the People of God and not just the Purple Culture they swagger about with in their Roman garb. They need to be followers of Jesus, and not the mighty land owners they view themselves as, being dispenser's of God's graces at their leisure and pleasure.

Joe

Thanks, Judith. I honestly can't get the least excited about the Year of Grace or the so-called new evangelization via the Year of Faith that Benedict is organising. There have been so many of these initiatives over my adult lifetime many of which I put in a massive amount of energy to try and make successful. The overall participation statistics and discussions with our own children have been the greater educators. I honestly think we have a man at the very top today who could be a member of the Cooees from the Cloister and totally unopen to any other viewpoints other than his own. He literally does believe he represents "the silent minority" and that if he just keeps feeding us "more of the same" that we've been fed for the past 40 years that eventually it is going to "break through" and be successful. Even the majority of the bishops of the world cannot communicate with him the problems in their dioceses. He is simply not open to any alternative viewpoints to the ones he has. The reality is that the possibilities of another John XXIII emerging from a future conclave are less than the chances or you or I selecting the winning numbers in Lotto this Saturday. To prove any of the above just go to any of these FttM websites and try and communicate with the people who populate them. It IS impossible! Benedict honestly does believe he can re-evangelize the Church with that cohort of the population. No amount of statistical evidence, or any other sort of evidence, will dissuade him from that view.

I suspect there are a lot of priests, and even bishops, around the world who are as frustrated as all the rest of us are. People just feel totally powerless to affect any sort of change in the institution.

Something has to eventually "give" with all this. As I have argued I don't sense there will be any "revolution". The people who today are disaffected are simply not temperamentally inclined to fighting wars and violence of any kind. Because of this the future is simply more of what we've seen — a continued drift out the door until the only people left are the remnant/true believer element that the likes of Benedict sincerely do believe will eventually re-evangelize the world. Pigs might fly also.

The interesting, indeed fascinating, question to me is what happens to this growing cohort of those who are leaving, or have left, who do still place high value on the spiritual dimension of their lives? Within the "Catholic" fold it seems many of them today do not want to go off and call themselves "Anglicans" or anything else. Even though they have deep disagreements with the neanderthal element in the lay church, and the hierarchs who are totally focused on the needs of the remnant element, they still think of themselves very much as "Catholic". They are not interested in forming, or joining other churches or religions. The older ones who have a memory of Vatican II want a "Catholicism" that articulates the kind of theology, ecclesiology and Christology that the progressive, forward-oriented view of Vatican II pointed towards. At present they don't have a structure in which to explore their spirituality but rather a plethora of smallish initiatives springing up all over the world providing a forum in which to explore their perspectives.

Brian, like so many of us here, I have no faith in the survival of the institutional church, nor do I believe it has the right to survive, given its history.

I have just returned from a meeting to discuss the Year of Grace across our 3 parishes, inspiring in theory but thoroughly dispiriting to try to implement at least in one parish.

The theme "Starting Afresh From Christ" is inspiring, as are two statements from the planning"

"We have to ask God to break down divisions between us and ask forgiveness"

and

"How do we engage with issues facing the Church today,and work through these towards reconnection?"

If we can really enter into these, perhaps there is a slim chance that the Holy Spirit will be able to move among the People of God and begin true renewal.

But where do we start, in an area where the people only want to go to Mass on Sunday and let God alone for the rest of the week, unless they happen to be dying, wanting to be married or "have the kids christened to shut Nana up"? The Holy Spirit has His work cut out but I trust that He is still interested, even after the rebuffs of the "reform the reform" people.

Tom's commentary serendipitously intersects with another conversation that is buried down the board about the way forward. Here's the text of a post I've just added to that string that intersects, I think, with some of the things Tom McMahon touches on today...

The original string can be found at:
www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?mode=thread&id=102699#p102807

Thanks, Joe, yes that's very much along the lines of my thinking. The question that exercises my mind — not necessarily from any practical point of view of helping facilitate it but simply from the curiosity pov of how a large society handles such a transition — is: how do we get from the present state we are in to the sort of one you outline, or which was outlined by the Second Vatican Council?

I do have a confidence that human society will eventually embrace what we might call "the Vatican II vision" but by the time it occurs it may well be that the people who give it life have no memory of Vatican II and an expression like "Vatican II vision" would have no meaning to them — the on-the-ground reality though is that that is what they would be implementing or have implemented. I also envisage that it will be a "mass phenomenon" rather that some "cult or sect phenomenon". In other words it will be generally embraced by the masses of humanity rather than just some small sector. (I do have questions as to whether it might be "mass" though in the sense of being "institutional". It may well be something embraced by the masses but in a non-institutionalised way. For example most people embrace concepts like "love" or "peace" but they don't necessarily embrace those ideas within an institutional paradigm of thinking. They are concepts "universally embraced" but people do not necessarily need some institution to belong to that furthers the concepts of "love" and "peace" in their world.)

My own increasing view — formed, I must say, by many of the conversations on Catholica over the past 5 or 6 years — is that it is not going to grow out of the existing Catholic institutional structure. That I now view as an effective impossibility. The existing structure has to collapse or become a truly "irrelevant remnant" before we can begin to visibly see the "new shoots" of the sort of picture you paint. To use another metaphor, I liken much of what is occurring at the moment in religious society, as something similar to what must happen below the ground before we see the first "green shoots" of some seed poke through the surface layer of soil to embrace the sunlight.

After reading Tom McMahon's commentary today [LINK], and many of the things we discuss here on Catholica, I often wonder why we spend so much time worrying about the neanderthal element or what Benedict or any of the bishops think when, at the same time, we believe they are essentially irrelevant to the future of where humanity is heading? Yet, the reality is that we do. Is it that necessarily as part of the baggage we want to carry forward with us we have to separate it out from the redundant baggage we also carry with us? Might it be likened to a train or plane journey where at the end of the journey, before we embark on the next stage of wherever we are going we have to sort out which are our bags from the big pile of bags the porters and baggage handlers have thrown higgeldy-piggeldy onto some trolley or baggage carousel? The process we're engaged in at the moment is one of sorting what truly belong to us – what we truly believe – from what is the property, or beliefs, of others? What are the "essentials" that we take forward with us for the next part of our journey and what is the waste paper and other rubbish we have accumulated in the previous part of our journey and we need to discard in some trash can before we move to the next phase?

The introduction to Tom McMahon's commentary today...