“Ressourcement” or “Aggiornamento”? A final note on condoms
March 27, 2009, 10:00 am
Posted by David Gibson
Well, let’s hope it’s final. Just as a bit of housekeeping, it seems that after changing some of Pope Benedict’s comments on condoms when he was in Africa–and prompting an uproar about the uproar–the official text is back to what the pope originally said on the plane to reporters. Why? Perhaps Fr. Lombardi told them to set it aright. Perhaps they are more confident that they can argue their case. Either way, here it is…
Numi, pietà del mio soffrir! Parigi, o cara noi lasceremo. Io tremo! Non voglio morir! O mio babbino caro, Mi piace è bello, bello! O patria mia, mai piu ti rivedro! Ah! non credea mirarti si presto estinto, O fiore.* Whiskey per tutti! “Teneste la promessa la disfida ebbe luogo! il barone fu ferito, però migliora Alfredo è in stranio suolo; il vostro sacrifizio io stesso gli ho svelato; egli a voi tornerà pel suo perdono; io pur verrò curatevi meritate un avvenir migliore – Giorgio Germont.” È tardi!
Kung says Obama should be pope. How do you like that.
“To get right to the point, Kung in his article on February 3, wished Barack Obama were Pope. “The mood in the church is oppressive, reforms are paralyzed, and the church in crisis,” he says. “Benedict is unteachable in matters of birth control and abortion, arrogant and without transparency and restrictive of freedom and human rights.”
For Kung, Benedict should act as Obama has done, declaring a crisis, identifying the problems, proclaiming a vision of hope, revitalizing ecumenism, gathering competent colleagues of either gender, and using the power of his executive office to issue decrees (unhindered by such institutions as a democratically-elected Congress or a Supreme Court.)
But no, “the Pope is reorienting himself backward, inspired by the ideal of the medieval church, looking toward the Council of 1870, not the one of 1965.”
Can the Roman Church, he asks, give birth to an episcopacy which does not conceal its manifest problems, theologians not afraid to speak out and a climate to encourage women leaders? Kung is playful: “Yes, we can,” he writes.”
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/religionandtheology/1085/
Final note? Not very likely. This blog seems endlessly fascinated with the topic, almost as much as with abortion.
And also Obama at notre Dame.
Basta.
Okay. Then how about Catholics Come Home? According to this thousands of Catholics are coming home.
http://www.osvdailytake.com/2009/03/inactive-catholics-flock-to-phoenix.html
So who is going to translate the Eyetalyan for us hicks?
HM the C never gives us the numbers of those who have simply walked away. I have always questioned the accuracy of annual “body count.”
What terrifies me is the way the Pope’s message is being megaphoned by his defenders, insuring it will have maximum impact in discouraging responsibility among Africans and others (and I note that the African bishops have been to the fore in this).
Bill Mazzella, did you notice that Hans Kung accuses both John Paul II and Benedict XVI of mass murder because of their patronage of anti-condom campaigns?
Miserabili dictu!!!
Great Catholic country keeps up the hierarchy’s tradition of abuse of women.
Finally, the Vatican’s top bioethics official, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, also criticized the initial stance, saying the “credibility of our teaching took a blow as it appeared, in the eyes of many, to be insensitive, incomprehensible and lacking mercy.”
If Rino knew his history he would not be surprised.
We know Obama cares about them.
“A part of Brazilian society still doesn’t want to stop treating women like they are property,” said Jefferson Drezett, a gynecologist and coordinator of the sexual-abuse victims service at the hospital. “This has to change.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/world/americas/28brazil.html?hp
Maybe we should invite the Brazilian children to the Notre Dame Commencement.
Pope Benedict missed an opportunity. He could have implored men to stop having sex outside of marriage and to stop having sex when they have HIV/AIDS. While that may not have much effect on rates of HIV infection, irresponsible sex by men is the proximate cause of spreading HIV and AIDS. Women often don’t have much choice about sex in male-dominated societies.
Yes, many of these men may not listen, but now they will use Pope Benedict’s statement about condoms as a selfish justification for not using condoms, thus spreading the disease. Not that they care what the Pope says, practicing very selective listening on their part, but also let’s recognize selective speaking on the part of Pope Benedict.
We could have started the conversation about men and abstinence instead of looking like the Church is only interested when contraceptives are involved. And we look like we don’t care about women by not pointing out the role of male responsibility in sexuality.
Where is the life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
T. S. Eliot, “The Rock”
Remember Cardinal Egan’s remarks on clerical celibacy to Fred Dicker? They got a fair amount of attention in the press, and thanks to David Gibson, here as well. The latest interesting twist on the matter is that “Catholic New York” the house organ of the NY Archdiocese, has produced a somewhat revised account of the matter:
“Cardinal Egan was interviewed for a half-hour each on two morning radio shows that are heard in the Albany area. Ninety seconds before one of them concluded, he was asked about priestly celibacy and whether it is a subject that Catholics are free to discuss.
The Cardinal replied that it is not a matter of dogma, but rather a matter of Church law or, as the canon lawyers put it, ‘Church discipline.’ He added that some Catholic priests of Eastern Rites do indeed get married but in no way intended that to imply that he would be in favor of such ‘a discipline’ for priests of the Latin Rite, who are the vast majority of priests serving in the Catholic parishes and institutions in New York.
‘Celibacy is one of the Church’s greatest blessings,’ Cardinal Egan told Catholic New York. ‘I will have to be more careful about trying to explain a somewhat complicated matter in 90 seconds.’” ( Catholic NY, March 26, 2009, p. 4)
Now I guess we’ll have to wait and see if they bother to “spin” the correction as well.
To wrap this up in a very LARGE nutshell:
http://josephsoleary.typepad.com/my_weblog/