The Catholic Church is traditionally not seen as a progressive institution, but when it comes to global warming, Vatican City is aiming to become the
worlds first fully carbon-neutral state, and the Pope is expected to use his first address to the United Nations next April to
deliver a powerful warning over climate change in a move to adopt protection of the environment as a "moral" cause for the Catholic Church and its billion-strong following.
posted by stbalbach
on Sep 22, 2007 -
81 comments
Is Catholic-Anglican Reconciliation the only way forward? The
Anglicans aren't
Protestant, they're
Catholics!
In 1920 the Church of England - Anglicans - called for its reconciliation with the Catholic Church, and in 1925 the
Catholic Ecumenical movement sought to make the Anglicans an autonomous Catholic church with the Archbishop of Canterbury as its patriarch. It would have been similar to the Coptic and
Syro-Malabarese churches. The move was quashed by
Pope Pius XI, who ended the ecumenical movement there and then.
If conservative Anglicans chose this third way, instead of infighting over sexuality and gender issues or establishing a new model for membership, it could keep its married priests, its land, its churches, it's membership, and the Archbishop of Canterbury would still have a job.
posted by parmanparman
on Jul 7, 2006 -
27 comments
What the co-inventor of the Pill didn't know about menstruation can endanger women's health: "The passion and urgency that animated the birth-control debates of the sixties are now a memory. John Rock still matters, though, for the simple reason that in the course of reconciling his church and his work he made an error. It was not a deliberate error. It became manifest only after his death, and through scientific advances he could not have anticipated. But because that mistake shaped the way he thought about the Pill--about what it was, and how it worked, and most of all what it meant--and because John Rock was one of those responsible for the way the Pill came into the world, his error has colored the way people have thought about contraception ever since."
posted by heatherann
on Sep 20, 2005 -
54 comments
Catholic rebels with a cause Two days ago, on a boat on the St. Lawrence River, nine Catholic rebels did something in direct defiance of the Vatican and now face the real prospect of
excommunication by the
Inquisitor Cardinal Formerly Known as Ratzinger. What crime did they commit, you might ask? Were they participant in something blackhearted, vile and fully deserving of society's wrath, like,
say child abuse or pedophilia? Heck no. The white-haired guys at HQ in Rome
will look the other way on that business. They might even
reward duplicitous attempts to
cover up that sort of thing. These malcontents did something much, much worse in the eyes of the Holy See, among
others.
These are Catholic women, you see. And they had themselves
ordained, some as priests and some as deacons.
If you've followed Ratzinger's career, you'll recall his
response the
last time this issue surfaced, so the conclusion to this saga is all-but-foregone.
At least he's consistent in what he thinks ought to be the
correct response of an individual in the face of a rigid, autocratic institution bent on order.
posted by runningdogofcapitalism
on Jul 26, 2005 -
93 comments
Oriana Fallaci back in the soup. She's being sued in Italy for defaming Islam in her last book,
The Rage and the Pride, and faces up to two years in prison.
The suit was brought by President of the Italian Muslim Union,
Sig. Adel Smith, a fellow who's activism even other Muslims sometimes
profess to find a bit much.)
And now, as if this makes things right, he's
gone to jail for defaming Catholicism.
Ms Fallaci's most recent book,
The Force of Reason, as radioactive as her last, is due out in America later this year.
The free speech in Europe thing is interesting, if crazy making, but does it distract us from the issues that dare not speak their names? Is she right, can East and West survive together? Or are we really best advised to
go our separate ways?
posted by IndigoJones
on Jun 24, 2005 -
15 comments
"In those days, there wasn't a lot of talk about gay priests. People didn't want to believe it." On Dec. 4, 1982, a deeply suntanned man, about 40 years old, walked into the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Boise, Idaho, and readied himself for confession. As he waited, the man swallowed a cyanide capsule. A few minutes later, he was dead. He had no identification, and a note in his pocket said only that the $1,900 he carried should be used for his burial, with any remainder donated to the church. The note was signed with what turned out to be a false name. To this day, no one has been able to identify the man, nor to determine why he had come to the church to absolve himself of his sins. On the answers to that mystery may hang the fate of
a small, quiet, meticulous man who now lives in South Austin, and who
spent 20 years in a Texas prison for a murder he says he did not commit, but which investigators believe may be connected to the dead man at the Boise Sacred Heart Catholic Church. More inside.
posted by matteo
on Jun 22, 2005 -
25 comments
Articles of Faith "By inviting articles that covered different sides of disputed issues,
Father Reese helped make
America Magazine a forum for intelligent discussion of questions facing the Catholic Church and the country today."
Thomas J.
Reese's policy -- to present both sides of the discussion -- apparentlly "did not sit well with Vatican authorities".
Reese, a Jesuit and a political scientist, had made a point of publishing both sides of the debate on a range of subjects, some of them quite delicate for a Catholic magazine -- gay priests, stem-cell research, the responsibility of Catholic politicians confronting laws on abortion and same-sex unions and a Vatican document (the
Dominus Iesus declaration) which outlined the idea that divine truth is most fully revealed in Christianity and the Catholic Church in particular.
Reese, who had described last month the Vatican as behaving like the cranky owner of a good restaurant, resigned yesterday as editor of the magazine. More inside.
posted by matteo
on May 9, 2005 -
17 comments
Did the new Pope swing the Presidential election last year? After brown-nosing the Vatican on the grounds of being pro-life President Bush convinced then-Cardinal Ratzinger to work on the American Catholic Church on his behalf. Ratzinger's response?
This memo where Ratzi claimed that anyone (especially a Catholic politician - like Kerry) who campaigned and voted pro-choice was not only on the side of
evil but was unworthy of receiving Communion and Americans probably shouldn't vote for him. According to Salon, this was perhaps what was behind Bush's 6 point increase in Catholic support from 2000, and the difference in the 2004 election.
posted by tsarfan
on Apr 21, 2005 -
48 comments
BenedictXVI.com registered a few weeks ago by our very own
rcade. He hedged his bets by registering six domains in all, and now is being called out for popesquatting.
posted by riffola
on Apr 19, 2005 -
64 comments
Pope John Paul II has had a
heart attack. Soon, the
College
of
Cardinals will
assemble
to
choose
his successor. Even in death, however, this pontiff will exert extraordinary control over
the process, having
elevated an
unprecedented number of clerics to this body.
The choice of
Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino,
archbishop of Havana, would
continue
John Paul II's
legacy of opposition to communism and totalitarianism. Another frontrunner is the socially conservative Nigerian Cardinal
Francis Arinze.
Arinze would continue John Paul II's cultural legacy while
recognizing the
demographic reality
of modern global Catholicism. Also mentioned as a frontrunner is
Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga
of Honduras, a strong
proponent of third world debt relief. Progressives would welcome the elevation of German Cardinal
Walter Kasper,
an
advocate
for religious tolerance and pluralism, or the moderate Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re,
a frequent
stand-in
during the Holy Week ceremonies. Conservatives favor Columbian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos. Hoyos shares the Pope's
traditionalist vision
of a
church
at odds with modernity.
But the smart
money,
is on
Dionigi Tettamanzi.
posted by felix betachat
on Apr 1, 2005 -
228 comments
No Communion for Pro-Choice Politicians
Apparently they have some issue with women having control over their own bodies so they'll deny communion to pro-choice politicians.
Hey, isn't John Kerry a pro-choice Catholic? This couldn't have anything to do with him could it?
Isn't a divisive move like this more likely to result in more people leaving the "faith"?
posted by fenriq
on Apr 23, 2004 -
70 comments
The value of disobedience. [note: nytimes] "Ignoring the reactionary policies of the Vatican, some local priests and nuns quietly do what they can to save parishioners from AIDS." So: when and why do people choose to quietly disobey, rather than leave and promote change from outside their social institutions...or vice versa? Should dissenters just leave, or stay and fight? Anecdotes from Republicans and NRA members are especially welcome ;-)
posted by stonerose
on Nov 26, 2003 -
15 comments
Hey, It's Not Enough We Die Of Obesity without having to go to Hell too? Some enlightened Frenchmen are bending the Pope's ear, trying to spring Gluttony from the
Deadly Sins blacklist. Well, even clever old
Thomas Aquinas did his damnedest to narrow the seven buggers down. So: which sins would
you excuse today's poor sufferers from and which ones would you
insist on keeping, if any? [
Something tells me MetaFilter is ideally suited to put in a good word for Sloth. I wonder why? Speaking of which, NYT reg. is required but you can read about it here instead. Via Arts and Letters Daily.]
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Mar 12, 2003 -
19 comments
Shawn Fanning - Patron Saint of the Internet? Fed up with hackers, a flood of spam and lousy connections, a group of Roman Catholics have launched a search to determine the Patron Saint of the Internet. Actually, I vote for Danni Ashe. I can't wait to see what her miracles are like...
posted by mathis23
on Jan 31, 2003 -
17 comments
Christians become aquainted with the Almighty. "When the Wheat Ridge man got laid off from his computer-programming job in June, his friends and family asked what they could do to help. He asked them to pray for him and offered a daily reminder: an automated text message on cellphones and pagers.
Now, Wostenberg, a devout Catholic, is offering that same technology to anyone who wants a psalm sent to him each day at 3 p.m. He's selling the service online at
PsalmWeaver.com
He charges $19.95 a year, plus a $4 setup fee."
posted by crasspastor
on Dec 16, 2002 -
16 comments
Mother Teresa fingered This is actually a rather shocking story because the criteria for a miracle at Lourdes, for example, are very strict. That's why there are so few of them.
posted by alloneword
on Oct 15, 2002 -
48 comments
Hail Mary, full of.... um.... what was that, again? The only Pope many of us have known, John Paul II, has decided that a millenium is long enough to change a prayer. Odd that two millenia are not enough to revisit female and married priests.
posted by dwivian
on Oct 14, 2002 -
39 comments
