Pope laments West's `dying' church

[emad]

Pope laments West's `dying' church
He also notes plight of divorced Catholics

By Nicole Winfield
Associated Press
Published July 29, 2005


VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI lamented the seemingly "dying" church in Europe and the United States and raised questions about the soaring number of priests in Asia and Africa in a lengthy, off-the-cuff speech to Italian priests.

He also expressed sadness at the plight of divorced Roman Catholics who remarry without getting an annulment, reaffirming that they cannot receive Communion but emphasizing that they should feel they still belong to the church.

The pope made the remarks to priests from the northern Aosta Valley region in a two-hour closed meeting Monday in Introd, near where he has been vacationing. The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano published a transcript of the remarks Wednesday.

The pope began his remarks, which touched on Marx, the upheavals in Europe of 1968 and other topics, by emphasizing that a pope isn't an "oracle" and "is infallible only in rare situations." He previously has stressed that he intends to listen to others and not do only his will.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0507290146jul29,1,5193409.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

ONLY got themselves to blame.

[crikkett]

1. I would, too.

If I cared.

[Not Me]

2. I left the RC church in the mid 90's and haven't looked back...

pretty much the same for my whole family.

[oneighty]

3. Well Mr. Pope

With you and yours interfering in the internal affairs of my country (USofA) by threatening our Catholic politicians to obey your church law over our laws (And constitution) I then hope your Church declines in power a lot faster than you are lamenting.

I guess.

180

[PATRICK]

4. Actually

the Africans are actually dying in greater numbers or the Islamic and fundamentalist churches are growing even more rapidly. A little study into the plight of the new African Catholics is hardly a moral lesson for the Euros except for the fact they brought more than a lighted path to a swifter after life to these new vital converts.

It seems to me that this is asserting an outdated pro old world authority against atheistic socialism as a foray into a culture war that has turned into a fascist revanche guaranteeing horrendous suffering- something that will undoubtedly be lamented and studied after the fact. If he sees the youthful revolts of 1968 which extended into demanding more from the cautious Vatican II revitalization as alarming it is fairly hopeless to expect much from his world view. Kids against the oppressor's tanks and social repression as THE threat? Closer to Nixon and Brezhnev than Jesus. I think this reflected the panic of the older generation that the revolt against their current world threatens everything they themselves fought for and built. Pure panic of the old. Read Yeats' play "Purgatory".

Reading some of the speeches of Benedict XV confirms this thrust even more than any anti-war sentiments. First and last that Pope came down on the side of world order after the horrors of war showed it abominably callous, incompetent and monstrous. Because chaos and the bitter rising of the slaughtered starving masses was so much more anathema to the magisterial stance of the pre-Vatican papacy. Both this Pope and the last suffered temporarily under the Nazis but much longer against the more thoughtful and powerful rule of communists who fought faith in its very essence, not just persecuting the same old virtuous dissenters. They have been much less intellectually capable of seeing or through life experience of feeling the greater overruling effect of the other side that is more surely destroying faith and culture than any idealistic atheistic would ever want to. And killing and enslaving more people in gilded lies too.

[AndyTiedye]

5. Maybe Pedophilia and Your Coverup Thereof Really Is a Big Deal

Pope Maledict seems to think that pedophilia amongst his priests is no big deal.
Much of of the flock does not agree.

Rat Zinger longs for the days when the RCC had such power that they could bugger the parishoners' kids with impunity, and nobody dared
to say a word about it.

[CatholicEdHead]

6. Now if he can walk the walk

"
The pope began his remarks, which touched on Marx, the upheavals in Europe of 1968 and other topics, by emphasizing that a pope isn't an "oracle" and "is infallible only in rare situations." He previously has stressed that he intends to listen to others and not do only his will."

While he disregards the infallibility rule, many of his followers in the church still take that as the standard rule.