Advice To Pope Benedict XVI

John Paul II has been dead now 18 months. His successor, Benedict XVI has made several faux pas. He is like Bush43, he really needs some new advisors.

The Catholic Church is spending altogether too much time recalling the 14th century, those “good old days!” But then is then and now is now.
I was looking forward to the new pope announcing some real changes in the Catholic Church. Here’s my short list.

1) Pope declares that indeed John Paul II was a saintly man, but the old cult of saints is out of date, so we’ll not be ‘making’ any more of them.

2) We have a shortage of priests, so beginning tomorrow, any man over 50 years of age, married or not, father of children or not, who has been a Catholic for 25 years of more, shall after appropriate instruction be ordained a priest of the Catholic Church.

3) Women are made eligible to be confirmed as deacons

4) All Mother’s-General of Catholic Religious Orders shall be invited to Rome at the next Consistory of Cardinals for the Selection of a Pope, and have equal votes in the selection process. They will be maintained in separate quarters and deliberate in their own facility.

5) All Cardinals retire at age 65.



[edit on 10/4/2006 by donwhite]

hey donwhite,

Interesting. I'm just going through a period of study on the Reformation Era thru the Second Great Awakening in America.

Calls for reform are standards of the Historical narrative...sorry, not trying to derail your thread, just interesting to see it pop up while I'm reading about it...

posted by apocalypticon

I'm just going through a period of study on the Reformation Era thru the Second Great Awakening in America. Calls for reform are standards of the Historical narrative . . sorry, not trying to derail your thread, just interesting to see it pop up while I'm reading about it. [Edited by Don W]

I find the period post 1517 very interesting from a liberal and social point of view. I’m not anti-Catholic as far as a person’s private religious belief goes, but you can’t study European history from post-Roman times to the first Vatican council without treading deeply into the machinations of the Catholic papacy. It is integral to the movement of history. The “Church” as they like to have it put, was on the wrong side of every issue. But that comes with having power and trying to preserve it. Mussolini did the Vatican a favor - but got him excommunicated - with the Lantern Treaty, which put the Church into the religions business primally. There is still a strong urge to revert to the halcyon days of pre-1929, but that will pass in 2 more generations.

My family and religious upbringing was fundamental Protestants tracing their theology back to the Campbells of the early 19th century. I fell into the Church of Christ version by birth - as most people get their religion - and found religion in general as unsatisfactory for the questions of my time. It seems to me Voltaire had it right when he said God was on the side of the largest battalions. It was especially true in WW1 that the German clergy prayed for the German soldiers and the French clergy prayed for the French soldiers as each was about to kill as many of the other side as Mauser and Maxim would allow. Or enable. Obviously, somebody had it wrong. Whatever you say, that religion hd failed. (I realize that is a contradictory allegaton, but I would need more space and time to reconcile the two which I have done in my mind.)

I found Albert Schweitzer's Th.D. dissertation made into a short book very compelling. It is still available as "The Quest of the Historical Jesus." It is also available on-line.

www.earlychristianwritings.com...



[edit on 10/5/2006 by donwhite]