RedBedHead: US Catholic Church Opposes Healthcare Reform

RedBedHead: US Catholic Church Opposes Healthcare Reform
Well this is dissapointing, I would hope that improving health and life span would override their other concerns about abortions. Surely everyone realizes that there is no way there will be a 'good' healthcare reform that actually makes a difference but just leaves out the possibility of covering abortions. The Catholic church may be turning into a one issue institution (well maybe three issue, don't forget anti-gay, anti-woman) but that is not how society functions and not how the government should work.

Free to Repress the Freedom of Others, How Nice...

Further reaction to the Catholic Church's annoucement about accepting Anglican priests into the church. Form a former Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism 13 years ago:

But after the CoE ordained woman priests, he felt those traditions had finally been abandoned and says converting to Catholicism was liberating.

"For me there has always been a tremendous sense of relief. Living as an Anglican - honestly trying to live as a Catholic priest within Anglicanism - involved for me all kinds of compromises," he said.

"Becoming a Catholic.. .it's a very freeing experience."

I find this so offensive, how can they not see what they are saying?  How can they not see that they are complaining about equality and freedom being some kind of burden that they have to 'free' themselves from?  Its unbelievable.

How could a Catholic who already has reservations about their Church's repressive policies embrace a new priest who came over to your Church because it was so freeing to be able to properly repress people? I'm stunned.

Rome Opens a Door for Traditional Anglicans, So What About Liberal Catholics?

A few days ago the Vatican released a bombshell by announcing a new Apostolic Constitution that promises to set up a system for a mass defection of Anglicans to the Catholic Church without giving up most of their Anglicanism.  Technically, the Pope has issued a decree to establish Personal Ordinariates which are non-geographical dioceses in the church such as are used for those in military service and the Opus Dei.  This means they have a bishop and parishes but need not all reside in one region or country.

Here are some facts about the new Catholic rules, and some more from a progressive Catholic news source (yes there are some!)

For a flurry of anglican opinion the best place to check out is as always thinkinganglicans.org.uk. Some discuss provocatively that this will be the end of the Anglican church. Others reach a more hopeful conclusion that the Anglican Communion can be the forward looking 21st century church the world needs.

My first response to this news is "What about us?" by which I mean, progressive Catholics who look longingly at the progressive Anglican Church in the US and Canada that has somehow managed to create a modern church that accepts priests and bishops who can be married, women or gay (or all three perhaps?) without dissolving in flames.  It does this while maintaining a fairly ornate church order that hardly seems Protestant at all.  My wife often asks me why I don't just become an Anglican since I disagree with so much of what Rome says on political and social issues.  I'm not sure why, I just can't, I am a Catholic.  I call myself a Bayesian Catholic or a Progressive Catholic but to me it seems like an ethnicity you can't rub off by choice.  Also, I want to see the Church, the largest religious body in the world and one with enormous influence over the happiness of so many millions to enter the 21st century and open its eyes.

So when I found out that conservative Anglicans were going to have the option to pretend to be Catholic, I thought, hey Canterbury, can we have a little quid pro quo?  There are many, many progressive Catholics in the world who would like to remain part of the Church while attending a more progressive congregation that actually realizes that God sees all human beings as equal in all things, with no exceptions for the priesthood and marriage.

I don't know how this would work though. In my ideal world, the Anglican Communion becomes a kind of progressive arm of the Catholic Church, the Pope agrees to not interfere with with its running and Anglicans aren't forced to accept the infallibility of the Pope and all that.  This of course is impossible unless the UK undergoes complete historical amnesia and various other reasons.

Another, more plausible effect of all this will be that the Catholic Church will contain more married priests coming over from the Anglican church.  It already contains a few that have been accepted from other churches on a case-by-case basis. But if there is a large influx of married, Anglican priests the impact on the optics of a celibate priesthood would be interesting.  Even stranger, Catholic bishops will need to be celibate even if they originally came from the Anglican communion, that's sure to be an interesting discussion around the dinner table: "Dear, I think I might get promoted to bishop this year, so we best take advantage of the time we have left, if you know what I mean...".

(oops, lost some readers, oh well)

But seriously, the issue of married priests is a big one in the Catholic church in the US (personally I don't understand why this seems more important than removing the ban on women priests). So, it may cause more reform push in the church from some quarters which is clearly not what Rome is after.  I believe what they are really after is a way to increase the number of adherents and especially priests coming into the Church and to gather together traditionalist religious Christians under the One, Holy and Apostolic Church.

Where does that leave more progressive people who happen to be Catholic, I'm not sure. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Dr. Williams, we're waiting for your rebuttal offer. Stay tuned.