A couple of weeks back (Thursday, October 29, 2009), The Dominion Post regurgitated a Washington Post article by David Gibson, keeping the original title, Is Pope Benedict a closet liberal?I just about choked on my breakfast when I saw that The Dominion Post had grabbed the offending piece, as I had read it online a couple of days prior, and had dismissed it as the rabid rantings of a Catholic who saw the Church only in political shades. Clearly, someone at The Dominion Post is in the category of extremely clueless when it comes to working out which articles are rubbish and which articles are worth republishing.
However, I will give The Dominion Post a little credit for realising that the outreach to Anglicans is big news and worthy of more than a passing mention soon after it happened. But rather than putting up drivel by Gibson, why not ask to publish an article such as This offer was 400 years in the making by The (British) Catholic Herald?
Years before Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I, and absolved the people of England from their allegiance to her (at a stroke turning Catholics into traitors), years before the threat of a Catholic invasion and plots to unseat her, Pope Pius IV had invited the Queen to send Anglican bishops to the Council of Trent, and, it was rumoured, was willing to approve the use of the Book of Common Prayer in the English Church.And so it goes on, listing more attempts at unification through the centuries. Far more interesting than David Gibson declaring:
The next initiative came not from Rome but from King James I, who wrote to Pope Pius V offering to recognise his spiritual supremacy and reunite the English Church to Rome, if only the Pope would disclaim political sovereignty over kings. The offer was rejected. Too late would a new pope, Urban III, succeed to the papacy two years before James died, and declare: "We know that we may declare Protestants excommunicated, as Pius V declared Queen Elizabeth of England, and before him Clement VII the King of England, Henry VIII... But with what success? The whole world can tell. We yet bewail it in terms of blood. Wisdom does not teach us to imitate Pius V or Clement VII."
More important, with the latest accommodation to Anglicans, Benedict has signaled that the standards for what it means to be Catholic -- such as the belief in the real presence of Christ in the Mass as celebrated by a validly ordained priest -- are changing or, some might argue, falling. The Vatican is in effect saying that disagreements over gay priests and female bishops are the main issues dividing Catholics and Anglicans, rather than, say, the sacraments and the papacy and infallible dogmas on the Virgin Mary, to name just a few past points of contention.No, no, no, no.
I think the fact that Gibson wrote a book titled The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World should really give a clue as to the lack of insight this man has.
Related Link: Is Pope Benedict a closet liberal ~ Washington Post
Is Richard Dawkins a closet christian fundamentalist?
ReplyDeleteSorry, Lucia, I thought we were playing some sort of bizarre "silly rhetorical question" game.
On the subject of Anglican reunion, it appears the reunion is to be on Roman terms.
ReplyDeleteUnlike the efforts reported in the Catholic Herald, the Apostolic Constitution envisions little revision of Roman practice or doctrine at all, retracting the noises made in Ut Unum Sint.
Anglicanorum Coetibus is a step to be welcomed, to be sure, but it ain't a magic bullet to Christian reunion--if only because the Pope is only talking to those who substantively agree with him already. Fair enough.
The idea of Papa Benedict as a liberal is risable--and reductive.
Gibson tries hard, but vainly, to make the facts fit his fancy.
ReplyDeleteAttributing the reinstatemnt of the Latin Mass as a "liberal" action was a bridge too far for me. It might work on the stand up circuit, but not as a serious piece of journalism.
Swift, I was thinking about what you said last night, about those Anglicans coming in will mostly agree with the Pope. I'm not sure I would agree, though you may be correct. Take my experience, for instance. I came back into the Church 3 years ago because I realized that She, more than anything else on this earth pointed directly to Truth, to God. Once I had accepted that point, what I had to believe after that was relatively minor. It took me about a month to go through my problematic beliefs and reorient them, so to speak. Once that was done, all my obstacles were removed and I was ready to believe whatever the Church told me to believe.
ReplyDeleteThe Anglicans that are coming back could easily have gone through the same process, ie conversion by the truth that the Church is what she claims. If She is what she claims, then who should be doing the compromising?
Benedict is a totally conservative Pope.
ReplyDeleteHe is agains Euthanasia and same sex marriage...
John Paul II was much better and human pope
I guess writing for the Washington Post makes Gibson a closet moonie?
ReplyDelete