Brian,

Thank for your thoughtful response. You've covered a lot of ground.

These people that we're discussing here, it seems to me, are people who did take it seriously. And it's precisely because they took it seriously — whether you're talking biblical scholarship, theology or philosophy — you do have to reach a point where "it doesn't all add up". That's where the exit doors begin to beckon.

No, and it doesn't add up, but then lots of things don't add up anyway, no matter how you look at it. I've just come home from farewelling a good friend and neighbour of 40 years, who for the last 3 has been rapidly deteriorating with Parkinsons. She is a hugely intelligent woman with a doctorate in mathematics, still as bright as a button intellectually, but locked in a body that won't respond. When her speech became largely unintelligible, she told the doctors to stop the drugs that were keeping her alive, and sedate her. She is sleeping soundly now and it won't be long before it's all over. There is not much sense in her being slowly tortured for 3 years. You can look as hard as you like in any religion for a sensible explanation for this sort of thing, and the explanations "do not add up". But what happened to my friend doesn't add up anyway. The food chain doesn't add up. It makes sense from the point of view of the predator, but absolutely none from the point of view of the prey.

A lot of the leaders of the Church (i.e. bishops) are not particularly intellectual....These sort of discussions probably fly over their heads by a few thousand feet. Others are basically in it for the power, the dress-ups and so on and again, they're playing a different tune and "don't take any of this seriously".

But I think there are people in the Church who "take it seriously" and who are intellectual in the sense you are talking about. But things are made very difficult for them. Ted Kennedy was a classic case. And yes, I recognize some of your latter category, the clerical politicians and business men who get their kicks out of property and markets, and the institution's bottom line, with which they identify, and who mouth out the shibboleths.

I honestly think the institution is cactus. It'll just become another of the many cults or denominations in Christianity.

One of the interesting observations by Robert Crotty in his book is his descriptions of his days in the Passionist novitiate and seminary,

"In many ways, as I look back, we newcomers were slowly being indoctrinated into a Christian sect. Deprivation of sleep, deprivation of senses, long periods of silence, and long periods of meditation ensured that we were efficiently inducted into the sect."

And this is what happens when you "take it seriously". It's one of the reasons I have some difficulty in avoiding an ironical smile, whenever I hear the Rev. Milliken, the local "cult expert", bemoan someone else falling into the hands of a cult or a sect. The difference, for me, between a religion and a cult is the degree with which you take it seriously.

The interesting question today is what those who have departed eventually do — the 90%? I sense that the vast majority have not become atheists. The drift is more towards agnosticism or even a less formal acknowledgement of "I simply do not know" without wanting to categorise themselves with some label. There still is an appreciation that there is a "spiritual" side to life, and to being, however difficult it might be "to nail it down".

I think the drift is towards agnosticism, but then agnosticism in one sense has some deep Christian roots. God is, after all, the "unknowable". I have mentioned before that there were times when listening to or reading Christopher Hitchens that he was really taking about agnosticism rather than atheism to describe himself. Proving the non existence of God assumes that our puny brains, as marvellous as they are, are capable of understanding everything. Clearly they don't.

The formal survey results show time and again that Church liturgies bore people out of their minds today. A lot of people simply give up attendance because they find it boring. That's probably one of the biggest factors for the exit of the majority of young people.

I think that is right, and the explanations of Christian dogma don't make a lot of sense to them. That is not to say they also reject the Christian ethic. But the Christian ethic boils down to the humanist ethic if you leave out the God part. And it is the only way that humanity can survive.

Many in our generation got out because of anger over things like Humanae Vitae. HV is largely a non-issue for young people in my experience. The driver is not anger it is simply a sense of feeling bored mindless.

Absolutely, and when you read Bishop Anthony Fisher's justification for not being able to use condoms to prevent HIV infection, the boredom turns into derision.

But even there, as John Burnheim pointed out in To Reason Why, there was not much point in his attacking the Church when he left, because "the Church didn't matter any more". And it doesn't, except when it tries to impose its own Sharia Law on the rest of us.

Will it eventually coalesce into some institutional form or, as we seem to be seeing in the Scandinavian countries, something that is almost formless?

There was a very interesting program on the ABC's Encounter program on suicide, where David Webb has written a book on suicide, from the point of view of someone who tried it twice. He says,

I was raised an atheist and I’m still an atheist today. Religion is something I don’t understand, but spirituality is critically important to me these days. It’s the source of my well-being, as I enjoy it these days, and for me I guess spirituality is about my deepest sense of self, my deepest sense of who I am. And what I found eventually was at the very core of my being in a very silent, empty kind of space, there was this peace, and it was a bottomless, boundless, timeless peace. I also realised that it had been there all along, so I felt like a compete dope, that I’d spent 45 years looking for something that was already there, so after 4 years of struggling with persistent suicidal feelings, which included all sorts of other difficult issues like the drug abuse that I used to self-medicate and so on, there was this initial feeling, just for a few months, where it was, it was quite exhilarating.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/encounter/suicide/3915540

It was yoga that gave Webb this insight, but there are undoubtedly many ways of getting to the same spot - and indeed I am sure that there are Catholics who find the same sense through the liturgy, and others who simply do it by bushwalking. The problem with all religions is when, like Catholicism, they end up being dogmatized and then its adherents are encouraged to "take it seriously" without seeing that it just one amongst many means of getting to "know yourself" as the Oracle of Delphi put it. If that means that some "formless" form of spirituality, then so be it.

"Spirituality" is one of those slippery words that can mean different things to different people. I have for many years on Holy Thursday or Good Friday listened to the plainsong Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi segundum Joannemwhich for me is still a stunning piece of music and theatre. It's a great story and only confirms what Christopher Hitchens often said - that the Bible is compulsory reading for anyone interested in human culture. And, if I were bought up to the chants of the Koran or the Bhagavad Gita, I would probably think the same thing on their "feast" days.

I also like your other observation that you've made in previous posts about some people not taking it that seriously. These people that we're discussing here, it seems to me, are people who did take it seriously. And it's precisely because they took it seriously — whether you're talking biblical scholarship, theology or philosophy — you do have to reach a point where "it doesn't all add up". That's where the exit doors begin to beckon.

A lot of the leaders of the Church (i.e. bishops) are not particularly intellectual. They get to where they are because they're good administrators, or adept politicians, not because of great intellectual capacities. Probably a lot of them never pick up another book on theology or biblical research after they leave seminary. These sort of discussions probably fly over their heads by a few thousand feet. Others are basically in it for the power, the dress-ups and so on and again, they're playing a different tune and "don't take any of this seriously". Some might be very bright in one sense but be scientifically naive. I tend to put Benedict in that category and there are others I can think of. That's where I have this picture of someone speaking in Chinese to a person who only understands English. They can "hear" the words in the sense of hearing sounds coming out of the Chinese speaker's mouth but the words mean absolutely nothing because the English speaker is simply operating out of a different paradigm. When scientists say that there is simply no evidence from all our observations of "interventions" from some supernatural force to flick planets, stars or galaxies into different orbits, or molecules and atoms, to the person who sincerely does believe that the sun started dancing over Fatima it's like the Chinese speaker trying to converse with the exclusively English speaker. No intelligible communication is ultimately possible.

I honestly think the institution is cactus. Even if Benedict exited the scene tomorrow all the "best and brightest" left decades ago. The odds on bet is that the next pope will be a clone of JPII or BXVI. The gene pool at the top is now depleted. The future literally is a "smaller, purer Church" that's increasingly irrelevant to the mainstream of society. It'll just become another of the many cults or denominations in Christianity. Those still participating sincerely believing that they have some exclusive insight into God's laws over all the rest of them — and they all thinking the same in reverse. It's naive in the extreme to believe there is ever going to be a Third Vatican Council or that the institution we've known is going to return and "pick up the threads" of what the progressive bishops discerned at the time of Vatican II. If there is ever another Council it's purpose will be to dogmatically undo everything about Vatican II and to dogmatise further the dogmas of the Council of Trent.

The interesting question today is what those who have departed eventually do — the 90%? I sense that the vast majority have not become atheists. The drift is more towards agnosticism or even a less formal acknowledgement of "I simply do not know" without wanting to categorise themselves with some label. There still is an appreciation that there is a "spiritual" side to life, and to being, however difficult it might be "to nail it down". I sense there is still a great yearning in society for liturgy — this sense of seeking to grasp these ephemeral things around our human hopes and aspirations and a sense of nostalgia and respect for where we have collectively come from — the sort of stuff that really comes out at the opening and closing ceremonies at things like the Olympic Games. Catholicism (and possibly the other religions) have tended to deify their liturgies. The liturgy itself, the form and rules of the liturgy, are worshipped more than what they are meant to point to. The formal survey results show time and again that Church liturgies bore people out of their minds today. A lot of people simply give up attendance because they find it boring. That's probably one of the biggest factors for the exit of the majority of young people. Many in our generation got out because of anger over things like Humanae Vitae. HV is largely a non-issue for young people in my experience. The driver is not anger it is simply a sense of feeling bored mindless.

Will it eventually coalesce into some institutional form or, as we seem to be seeing in the Scandinavian countries, something that is almost formless?

Within the institution though you can't even have an open conversation about any of these things because of the thought police and the temple guards.

That address by +Geoff Robinson I published yesterday I find even more astonishing today than when I first heard him deliver it 16 months ago. It might be argued that Robinson is like some of these ex-priests. He had to hand in his resignation in order to be able to say the sort of things he aired in that address. Geoffrey Robinson is another who "does take it seriously" but, in the end, if you do take it seriously ultimately you have to find the exit door, or sit in the side aisles and become a commentator rather than an active participant.

Paul Crittenden's talk should be interesting. I'll be away when it is on, so will have to be satisfied with a transcript when it is available.

I've only read a quarter of Crotty's book, but, yes, there is a common theme running through the books of Crittenden, Burnheim, and the biography of Roger Pryke. In the first two cases, neither of them seem to have had the hounding that Pryke had, for alleged doctrinal impurities. Burnheim and Crittenden speak of their own private doubts, and as they did not appear to be preaching anything controversial to others, there was no hounding. The impression I got from both books was that both of them simply thought there way out of the sacristy.

Crotty was more in the Pryke mould because he wasn't only thinking things that some thought were heretical. He was teaching them as well. And the Temple Police were in his classes. But they were also different because Pryke was essentially the pastoral type, concerned with good liturgy, the role of the laity, and the need for religious to be well educated in theology, as it was then developing.

Crotty, on the other hand, seems to have been more the academic, but unlike Burnheim and Crittenden who were philosophers, his journey out of the priesthood occurred through his study of the Bible, rather than through philosophy.

I had a vague idea of the ructions that went on within the Vatican over biblical studies, but I am finding his chapter on this quite fascinating with Popes and Curia trying to put brakes on scholarship because they were concerned about where it was leading, and then doing somersaults and contradicting each other.

It reminded me a bit of the Governor of an American State who decided to put an end to DNA testing of prisoners on death row, because too many of them were being freed! The same mind set appears to have taken over the Vatican. Biblical research was undermining dogma, so it had to be restricted.

But the other thing about Crotty is that the Temple Police finally did get him charged with heresy. He was acquitted, although he thinks now that he probably shouldn't have been.

Crotty is not the only priest to have left the Church through the study of its Holy Book. It also happened in Protestantism as well. Bart D. Ehrmann was a Protestant biblical scholar whose research on the Book of Job led him out of the manse.

So, you can sort of understand Benedict's wanting to protect people from "intellectuals". If you keep them dumb, you keep them in.

It is fascinating that more and more former priests seem to becoming more publicly vocal about their life and spiritual journeys. This year the Australian Catholic Historical Society has a Program of Colloquia looking back at the Second Vatican Council and the developments since. I notice that Emeritus Professor Paul Crittenden, formerly Professor of Philosophy and Dean, Faculty of Arts, University of Sydney, will be speaking on 17 June. He I think is another that you've mentioned, James, who has written an interesting memoir and I should imagine that talk on 17th June would be a particularly interesting one to hear.

The full program for the Colloquia can be downloaded at:
http://www.australiancatholichistoricalsociety.com.au/pdfs/2012-Program.pdf

As you pointed out earlier, James, Humanae Vitae seems to be a common theme in many of the stories. Another, it seems to me, is this question of a "personal" and/or "interventionist" God. We literally did believe the stories from scripture as "historical fact" in the mindframe in which we were brought up — and the stories of Jesus performing all sort of miracles. The theology — understanding of this Mystery we try to compress into terms like "God" and "the Divine" or "the Creator" — is changing for educated people. It is both a combination of education and life experience. We can patently see that these men are not "ontologically different" from our dealings with them, or by watching their behaviours in such things as their response to the clerical abuse or financial scandals. We learn from our own experiences with prayer. I remember back to my experience when I was living in Melbourne and my family was on the other side of the country in Perth and I sincerely used to say the rosary every night for my family to be protected because we had been told that was the "sure fire" formula for protection. There was absolute "divine silence" in response to those constant pleadings and my affairs ended up in the biggest pile of dung that anyone could imagine. My conclusion in the end is that the formula we had been given was "bullshit for the naive and gullible". I've not become a complete agnostic though. The search continues. What comes across to me in some of these memoirs I've read, or programs like this one with Robert Crotty, or the Einstein program on PBS that I listened to again a few days ago, is that these thinking people do not seem to go completely atheistic.

For those of a scientific bent like say Einstein or Paul Davies there is complete disbelief in a theology that describes a God who intervenes via some "great hairy arm" to knock planets, or atoms, or quarks into new orbits at some kind of "Divine whim". Science reveals to us that Creation is highly ordered — even in chaos theory describing for instance how clouds form, or waves on a beach, or the chaotic flow of water out of a tap — there are still laws that create the randomness and can explain the disorder. We can see it is by natural agency how these things happen not because of some "unseen God" up in the clouds "stirring things up". Yet, at another level, there is this awe at the majesty, connectedness and relationality of it all. There is a sense of "reverence" for whoever or whatever "thought the whole shebang called life and creation up". It is not random and whimsical but there is this superb order and reason why everything behaves in the ways that it does — from galaxies in far distant parts of the universe down to the dna that we can't see that orders how each one of us develops, grows and repairs itself. So often the "laws" describing the behaviours of far distant galaxies we find are precisely the same laws describing parts of the behaviours in how our little finger moves, or exists.

My sense is that we're simply "growing up". Like a snake shedding its skin, we're discarding the simplistic explanations that were fed to the uneducated generations who were our forebears and we're searching to grow a new "intellectual skin" or framework or paradigm (or theology) that helps us explain the complexities of life.

One of the big mysteries is why the institution does not encourage this maturation? Why do the people need to be "protected from the intellectuals" to borrow Joseph Ratzinger's term? Why does it (the institution) have this need to constantly try and treat its people like children — including its priests and bishops? (Witness again what has just been done to Bill Morris.) Honestly, I think the most revealing thing to me listening to Geoff Robinson's 2010 talk again yesterday, was the question I found myself asking of trying to imagine any other bishop being as candid and honest as that in a public presentation. It simply would never happen for the vast, vast majority of them. Why do the institutional leaders seem to constantly believe their chief role in life is to appease and placate this tiny remnant element in society? Why do they not interpret their role as one of trying to lift people out of ignorance and superstition? Is it purely a power thing? Or do they literally actually themselves live from within the thinking paradigm of this tiny remnant element of the population who do want all the stories of the bible to be literally true?

I'm glad that I finally got around to listening to the Richard Fidler interview, it really was excellent.

Although I didn't have the 'ordained' background, I found that much of his experiences and study mirrored my own journe of discovery (albeit somewhat later in life!.

I certainly have come to the same conclusions and arrived at the same place as Robert Crotty.

I must now get his book.

After hearing Richard Fidler's interview with Robert Crotty, I thought it might be worthwhile getting his book. A quick download for $10 on the Kindle had it in my hands.

I've only read the first few chapters, but I'm finding it fascinating reading. His descriptions of his Catholic childhood is one which is familiar to most of us wrinklies, particularly those who entered seminaries or religious orders. His description of pre-Vatican II Catholicism is pretty accurate.

But of particular interest to me was the struggle backwards and forwards between various Popes, Biblical Commissions and scholars about the "right" way to interpret the Bible.

That's as it should be, Mosley. When we are looking at the development of Christian ideas and practice, however, it is helpful to know to which generation a particular writing is directed. If in later documents we find a change of direction in practice, we can learn things about change in the church that may be of value to us today.

In the change that occasioned my previous comment, namely, the role of women in the community, it is comforting to me to realise that the restriction later put upon women was something the church itself took responsibility for. Perhaps today, in its own particular sociocultural circumstances, greatly different from anything preceding them in any other age, the church should take upon itself the responsibility to change things back again.

If women did once fill ministerial roles of teaching, silencing them does not remove their inherent giftedness to teach again.

Yes, thanks for this James — and also the expanded comments on a similar theme you wrote in the response to Aragon HERE. I think Humanae Vitae was a huge turning point for Catholicism — possibly even rivalling Vatican II itself as a turning point but in an almost diametrically opposite direction. It might be said in fact that Vatican II and Humanae Vitae stand as the two icons or symbols of the confused identity of what the two main camps in Catholicism think Catholicism is meant to be — what the two camps think the ultimate objective in being Catholic is all about?

You and I have had this discussion before: I think there is a legitimate and substantial strand in Catholic thought that primarily saw Catholicism as "a quest for ultimate truth". Despite all its failings down through history, all the bad popes and things like the crusades, the inquisition, even the modern day sexual abuse scandal (which has probably always been a problem but only different in this present age because it is now 'out in the open'), I think it can be argued that there has always been a significant strand in Catholic thought and endeavour that saw the institution as an aid, or encourager, of the human quest for ultimate truth. Endeavours such as the encouragement of education were not simply some sophisticated and largely pragmatic exercise in recruiting a good management elite so that the institution could perpetuate itself, a strong strand of thought did actually believe that the encouragement of education was an important endeavour in its own right for the well being, and greater knowledge of humankind.

Against all that, this institution has also had plenty of "men on the make" or "main chancers" (although why people would do that in the Church and not in some property development company, or selling used cars, has always struck me as a bit odd but, in the end, I've put that down to the fact that all of us have within us a great streak of irrationality also) who couldn't give a fig for any lofty intellectual or spiritual objectives. To them "Church" was simply another pathway in life to "getting ahead" of the rest of the human flock.

A third important strand has been the one that has seen religion primarily as a "place of refuge and certitude". It is primarily perceived as a place of psychological comfort. That comes through in that quote I'm always trying to throw back at Benedict: "The Christian believer is a simple person: bishops should protect the faith of these little people against the power of intellectuals." Benedict is partly correct in his observation: for many of his "simple people" Catholicism is primarily seen as a place of emotional comfort and they are not at all concerned with any lofty intellectual ideals or some "pursuit of truth". What they want is certitude — and authority figures who will give them certitude — the Jo Belke Petersen and George Pell type leaders who will say to them "now don't you worry your pretty little heads about that, we leaders will look after all those matters that concern you. Just trust us." (That's what essentially resides at the heart of Pell's desire to ditch the thinking, and teaching, on Primacy of Conscience.) These people ultimately couldn't give a rats if what their leaders are telling them are porkies or not. The chief thing in the minds of this class of listeners is whether it sounds authoritative or not. Logic and rational analysis simply doesn't come into the equation. "Give us the rosaries, the novenas, and the 'dancing suns' at Fatima or Lourdes, so that we have the 'warm fuzzies' in our tum-tums" is the version of religion and Catholicism being served up in this cafeteria.

I think it could be argued that Vatican II was the place in history where these competing strands all came into collision. And Humanae Vitae was the first great symbolic test after Vatican II where the neanderthal element started throwing their weight around — and in fact won. It's all essentially been "downhill from there" as illustrated so graphically in this set of statistics...

And perhaps even more graphically in the exit of the "educated management elite" in the institution, its priestly class, who would be the leaders of the future.

The publication date of Humanae Vitae is effectively the "turning point" on the graph where the "great exit" began from seminaries. Around the time I was leaving school in 1965 the elite schools in the Catholic education system were still the prime recruiting grounds where the institution channeled the "best and brightest" minds into its seminary system and ultimately into the highest management ranks of the institution. Today it is almost a standing joke that the recruiters for the seminaries have to patrol around looking for society's social misfits — and the young people in the most elite schools have their sights firmly set on careers in the elite professions, as property developers or in the "white shoe brigades" of secular society.

Catholicism, I submit, needs to work out what is its essential or ultimate objective? If it continues down the present course it is on it will end up no different to any of the thirty thousand or other cults and denominations there are within Christianity. It's essentially no longer an endeavour searching for, or encouraging the wider societal search for, ultimate truth, but it has turned itself into some kind of "comfort station" for the emotionally insecure mothered by bullies, main chancers and mummy's boys. Essentially it becomes an organisation still playing the kindergarten-level game that little children play of trying to argue "my Dad's bigger 'n your Dad and he'll come and rip ya bloody arms off". (To mix metaphors with Aunty Jack.)

While it is nice to study these issues, the authority of a given epistle or other book is not dependant upon who wrote it, but upon its acceptance by the Church as canonical.

I am untroubled as to the authorship of the various epistles at least to the extent that I accept them all as sacred scripture

What's more, Mary, the passage against women at 1 Cor 14:33b-36 is not by Paul. It is an interpolation (a later insert) in the interests of those who wrote 1 Timothy.

This is not special pleading. In your NRSV the words are in brackets to indicate (1) they are out of place in the context; (2) their place in the text is not secure; (3) they contradict what Paul says in 1 Cor 11 about women prophesying (=teaching); (4) they contradict what elsewhere says about his women 'co-workers' (Romans 16; Philippians 4:2-3). etc...

There seems to be one common thread that runs through these books from former priests - Humanae Vitae. It is there in Francis Harvey's biography of Roger Pryke, in Paul Crittenden's and John Burnheim's memoirs.

But I think it was more the straw that broke the camel's back in many cases. It was just one more confirmation of what an objective look at Church history was saying anyway.

It has been said that Timothy (not Paul)

wrote the letters that were derogative to women.

It doesn't make sense that Paul treats women as

equals one week and reverses his opionion the

next.

MaryNym

Thanks herbie, an interesting perspective and one I think is quite credible, except for one thing. Given Paul's teaching about women, how would you propose to get a feminine voice of historical record into the conversation?

Yes, fascinating speculation, herbie. How much of the credit for the Christianity that we inherited is owed to Paul, and how much do we owe to Jesus and the Twelve? Paul, in a sense "re-interpreted" Jesus and the Twelve. We might have ended up with a very different Christianity had Paul not been a significant figure in the landscape — or the Jesus movement might have disappeared like so many of the other Jewish movement of the time if it had not been for the influence of Paul and the new take he brought to the significance of Jesus.

It's a fabulous are of speculation you propose.

Having preceded Robert by four or five years on the journey into the biblical unknown (alumnus of the two same institutions and, I daresay, the same professors), I would be interested to hear his thoughts on Paul of Tarsus. Richard Fidler did not get around to putting that question, which is understandable in the time available. Whether Robert’s book visits that area someone may be able to inform me. But it seems to me that Fidler had a personal preference for the historical issues that appear to have lain beneath Robert’s ‘revolutions’.

Here we have often had historicism aired in its relationship to Jesus, church and to personal faith today. I won’t be revisiting that now except to make the observation that, since gospels of their nature are not doors opening upon history (and saying this is not to be dismissive of the gospels: they are simply confessional resources written within their own literary genre ), l am surprised that rarely do we have Paul of Tarsus brought into the conversation.

After all, his surviving writings from around 50 CE (only Thessalonians, Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon – Colossians ? Ephesians??!) are genuine historical documents: quite striking evidence of the religious experiences of groups of people and, more significantly, of Paul himself. So much so that there have been scholars who say that Paul invented Christianity, but that’s a take that is to be taken with a little discernment. It certainly does not mean that he invented Jesus of Nazareth.

The fact remains that his theologising (christologising?) occasions many insights into actual religious experiences of Paul himself and into the religious processes he was encouraging his clientele to reflect upon. This is history at its roots.

It was the faith dimension of people in such groups which led them on in the next twenty years to contribute to the production of gospels. These documents sought to give the religious relevance to Jesus of Galilee that had come to transform their own lives ‘in Christ’ (to use one of Paul’s preferred expressions) or ‘in the spirit’.

Robert Crotty is one of the many former priests and religious who after becoming highly educated in theology, scripture etc have left the Church entirely. This program is worth listening to.

Yes, I agree Enda, this program IS worth listening to.

Again I think it all ultimately comes back to what the ultimate purpose of Catholicism is all about? Is it as Joseph Ratzinger seems to imply in this quotation — "The Christian believer is a simple person: bishops should protect the faith of these little people against the power of intellectuals" — some "game" about keeping the 'simple people' and the 'little people' naive and ignorant in their insecurities and superstitions, or is it some quest to encourage all people in the search for ultimate truth; how to make morally intelligent choices in their lives; how to correctly utilize their minds and emotions to reason intelligently rather than to only live life through the lizard level behaviour of the mind and the emotions?

I couldn't help thinking again as I listened to Robert Crotty's conversation with Richard Fidler that some of the best "priests" in the world are ex-priests. They do take the words seriously and endeavour to discover what they mean.

Robert Crotty is one of the many former priests and religious who after becoming highly educated in theology, scripture etc have left the Church entirely. This program is worth listening to.

One of our readers rang me to suggest I mention a conversation Richard Fidler conducted with Robert Crotty last week that will more than probably be of high interest to Catholica readers. Click the image below or the link to go and hear it...

Robert Crotty joined a monastic order when he was 17, but left the priesthood after a stint in Jerusalem changed his mind about the Bible.

Professor Robert Crotty was brought up in the Catholic church and his imagination was inflamed by the stories of miracles and visions in the Bible.

But as he began to look back into where the books of the Bible actually came from, Robert questioned what was true, and what was a beautiful fiction.

He was charged with heresy by the Catholic Church, and although he was acquitted he decided to leave the priesthood.

Robert is now the Director of the South Australian Ethics Centre.

Three Revolutions: Three Drastic Changes in Interpreting the Bible published ATF Press.

The book is available on Kindle (click the image at right or HERE) and the paperback edition will be released on 30th April 2012 and can be pre-ordered via Amazon or Fishpond in our marketplace.