Catholic exodus spurs call for change

[rug]

One out of every three people raised Roman Catholic in the United States no longer identifies himself or herself as Catholic. Why?



WHY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH MUST CHANGE: A NECESSARY CONVERSATION
By Margaret Nutting Ralph
Published by Rowman & Littlefield, $34

by Diane Scharper | Oct. 23, 2013

According to Professor Margaret Nutting Ralph, some do not find the worship nourishing. Some disagree with the church's teachings. Others feel they have been marginalized. Others have been hurt by the church's lack of pastoral concern. Still others do not do find the teaching voice of the church credible. What should the Catholic church do -- if anything?

At the very least, the church should attempt an honest dialogue with fallen-away Catholics and try to understand their concerns, Ralph says in her new book Why the Catholic Church Must Change: A Necessary Conversation. Despite the book's title, Ralph uses the word change cautiously.

She prefers instead to equate change with growing in knowledge. She doesn't call on the church to change its teaching -- exactly. The book's bottom line is that the church's core truths need to remain the same. But the applications can be modified in light of scientific and biblical scholarship.

A teacher with 40-plus years' experience, Ralph directs the master's program for Catholics in pastoral studies at Lexington Theological Seminary in Kentucky and teaches in the permanent deacon program for St. Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in Indiana.

http://ncronline.org/books/2013/10/catholic-exodus-spurs-call-change

[rug]

2. Nobody's leaving today because of the Renaissance Popes.

[rug]

4. Of course it can. It already has for centuries.

Do you mean to discuss fuel and little boys in this Group?

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

5. From the article

Writing as a faithful Catholic -- but not a happy one -- Ralph contends that the exodus from the church didn't just happen because a secular society has run amuck. It was also caused by a hierarchy too rigid in its views and by modern-day Catholics who, like Ralph, are fed up.

Exactly. I am fed up too. For example, the Vatican document on the ordination of women, Inter Insigniores, the author uses an argument, that women are inferior to men, that he admits is bogus. He is either unwilling to admit that he is using it, or else he is unable to see that he used it. I suspect the latter, given that there is plenty of other sloppy reasoning to be found in it. Had it been written by a student of mine, I would have given it a failing grade -- and not because I believe that women should be ordained. I am prepared to accept that views which differ from mine might be valid, if they are well argued. (Some of my former students might dispute this.)

Elsewhere on DU, I have stated my dissatisfaction with various Vatican documents: Sloppy reasoning, cherry-picked evidence, selective quotations from earlier documents, contrary evidence ignored, dubious history, unstated a priori assumptions, and shutting down discussion by fiat. If the Vatican wants me to accept their arguments, they had better give me good arguments.

[rug]

6. Agree wholeheartedly.

If the hierarchy would stick with its core purpose and stop issuing these overreaching documents, we'd all be a lot better off.