I guess old Clay isnt so far off base anyway is he? Maybe God wants Rome left out of this major church. I dont know why He wouldnt. It can be like the Methodist Church. There are bishops but other than God I believe that is as far as it goes. The Methodist Church also is one having the at least two adults with minors at all times rule.

Clay - What is this fixation you have with Rome. The physical location of the leaders of the church is irrelevant. If the bishops need to push for changes whenever they feel they are needed.

It seems that the fixation lies with the church. Leadership above the local level isnt necessary (other than God).

Clay The Catholic Church isn't the only church with leadership beyond the local level. Anglican, Orthodox and many others also utilize some form of it. Leadership beyond the local in the church was a means of stopping the spread of heresy in the early church. The Bible is also a result of that leadership.

With this church, it seems to be causing more problems than it is solving. It seems that there wouldnt be so much of a hangup on tradition if the local churches had more decision making power.

Clay - You seem to be the one hung up on tradition. The local diocese and churches have a lot more decision making power than you may realize. I fear you give too much credibility too much to people who do not know that much about the church or your own limited experiences.

Something for you to reflect on.

"Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle." 2 Thes 2:15. Keep in mind at the time Paul wrote this the Bible in it's current form did not exist.

Yes we have traditions to uphold, but the bible also says "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." John 3:3. When traditions encourage us to believe that we are saved because we have been baptized into a church, then the traditions conflict God's word. Thanks.

I have been thinking about this posting on and off for days. Part of the reason is because my grandmother in Duesseldorf Germany, Dr. Erna Fuchs-Bierig, a distinguished author an ahead-of-its-time study of female characters in fiction, was quite a fan of Hans Kung's works. I recall one summer when I was there she methodically plowed through all of the very thick book by Kung, Existiert Gott? But she was also a very devoted Catholic and I often went to Mass or rosary with her to the cloistered convent which was only a few blocks away from their in -town apartment. This specific example in a well-educated German city, only highlights what has happened in the Church, even amongst devout Catholics. The sense of dynamism that this speaks to is now really a thing of the past. Intellectuals in and around the Church, who are acceptable to the devout, seem to be more like simple hacks, when seen from without the Church by any objective standard.

Take the propaganda that one David Gibson is seeking to put forth. I thought of this guy because he in fact, a while ago invoked another German theologian, Karl Rahner in a New York Times piece. I'll get to that in a moment. But first I want to note Gibson's truly awful piece of hackwork in the Washington Post today. Look, the central issue which a lot of "damn statistics" can try to finagle is this. The percentage of abusers may not be that different compared with other organizations or segments of society. But because the Church moved the creeps around, and had the ability to do so, the amount of abuse is in fact unprecendented. These creeps mangaed to destroy the lives of more people than other comparable creeps could have done elsewhere. The reasons are, again, simple. And for supposed experts in Catholicism to pretend they don't know why is just proof that that are not to be trusted as operating in good faith. Other faiths or denominations do not have have anything remotely resembling the world-wide bureaucratic network that the Roman Church does. It is because of this huge network, operating at the local level in concert with the fiefdoms of parishes and dioceses, that allowed it to continue. Also, logic tells us that there are likely many more cases than have come to light. Many victims are possibly dead and never shared their story with anyone, and others still alive just want their privacy. But Mr. Gibson in his blithe talk of "myths" apparently wants to ignore this salient characteristic. He is sleazy in trying to fudge issues by setting up de facto straw- men as "myths" in saying that people are claiming that Pope Benedict is the "primary culprit" of the scandal. Actually, I have heard very little of this exactly. The primary culprit is the parish system, and institutional self-protection and hyper-vigilance per se of the international organization . And until that is changed nothing substantive will be altered. Gibson is trying to ignore the more basic issue of people's simple and reasonable outrage that such a powerful person was embroiled in any was he was embroiled. By any normal standard of decency this should mean he would be out, even if he is not the "primary" anything.

But clearly David Gibson is tremendously blowzy thinker and and pretty easy-going with the intrinsic meaning of words. As I said earlier, when I Googled him I came up with a piece in the Times that mentioned Rahner. Gibson is endeavoring to use the words of that famous theological avatar of a more liberal era in the Church as proof that everything is basically OK. He says, according to Rahner that Popes are not necessarily "wonderful Christians" but that if it happens to be so , it is by "happy accident". The implication is that central bit of Catholic hubris which historically only began with the Council of Constance: that the actual virtue of the participants in Church hierarchy is not essential for the goodness of the Church. I immediately knew that Mr. Gibson had to quoting Rahner falsely out of context, because Rahner was a lot more profound than that. Here is the actual quote, and notice that when he says"wonderful Christian" he is referring to the type of a particular person:

"If a Pope does all this as well or perhaps even better than, for example, John XXIII, well, then he is not only a Pope but a wonderful Christian, then it happens that, if I may say so, the president of the chess club is for once also himself a great chess player. But this would be a happy coincidence which God is not bound to bring about and which he has not guaranteed."

What Gibson omitted is that the "wonderful Christian" was specifically similar to John XXIII which changes the meaning utterly. It means that being a wonderful Christian in the Catholic context meant being radically more open and liberal minded and life- affirming that the types to today. Apparently Gibson thinks that a profound thinker like Rahner is defending the right of the Roman Church to have a modern Julius II. (!) But types like Gibson, apparently simple hacks, and not even clever or careful ones at that, want to operate in a mode of historical fantasy. Pretty typical of Catholic intellectuals today, and what a shame for a Church with such an intellectual tradition.

Father Hans Küng, Swiss priest, theologian and major player at Vatican II, had his authority to teach Catholic theology revoked by Pope John Paul II because his writings on papal authority had deviated from Catholic orthodoxy.
Ironically, Küng and Joseph Ratzinger were close friends during the 1960s and maintain a cordial relationship—also they disagree in many areas. Hans Küng never has rejected the office of the papacy but believes the Church is still suffering from the authoritarian (& unaccountable) structure achieved by it during the Middle Ages. Küng endorses more bottom-up rather than top-down initiatives and safeguards for the Church. Many ultra-traditionalists are quick to label Fr. Küng a “heretic”, but history shows that such a label is as often a badge of honor as a burden. Time will tell.
If you want a taste of the depth and breath of Küng’s scholarship, try a sample of his works. My favorites are: “Does God Exist?”, “On Being a Christian’, “The Catholic Church”, and “The Beginning of All Things.”