Tag Archives: Roman Catholic Church

Canadian Primate, Linda Nicholls, instructs Pope on how to do synods

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I was unaware that the Roman Catholic church has a death wish, but it has. The Pope is seeking advice from the leader of the denomination that, by its own admission, will cease to exist by 2040.

In fairness to the Pope, he only wants advice on how to run synods – and that’s really easy if you do it the Anglican way: he could have asked me. Take the last Anglican Church of Canada General synod, for example. The same-sex marriage motion failed to pass. Within a few days, most of the dioceses represented at the synod announced their defiance and declare they would perform them anyway.

So what could be easier? Assemble a list of motions, discuss them, vote on them and – ignore the result. The beauty of this is that it doesn’t matter what the motions are because no one has to pay any attention to the outcome: they are all meaningless. In fact, the whole thing is meaningless. Best not to hold a synod at all. Think of the money it will save.

Read more about it here:

Anglicans have an indispensable role to play as Roman Catholics start a two-year conversation on how to become a more “synodal” church, Pope Francis said at his first meeting with Archbishop Linda Nicholls, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.

Nicholls met the pope at the latest meeting of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), which took place in May at the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace in Rome. Due to the absence of Philip Freier, archbishop of Melbourne and Anglican co-chair of ARCIC who was attending the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia, the primate spoke on behalf of the Anglican side of the dialogue. Nicholls presented a formal statement on ARCIC from the Anglican perspective. ARCIC’s other co-chair, Bernard Longley, Archbishop of Birmingham, England, spoke on behalf of Roman Catholics.

Roman Catholics and Anglicans continue their ecumenical dance

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Justin Welby met with Pope Francis for more ecumenical dialogue recently. The conclusion was that the denominations are still divided.

A great deal of expense and carbon emissions could have been avoided by a close inspection of the invitation list. It included Fred Hiltz from Canada who, not only has no influence over healing divisions between Catholics and Anglicans, but has spent most of the time during his tenure in his own denomination promoting division in it. Justin Welby, seemingly eager to learn from the colonies, is about to follow suit.

What a waste of time, energy and resources.

From here:

While the decision by some provinces in the Anglican Communion to accept the ordination of women and same-sex marriage have posed new obstacles to formal unity between Anglicans and Roman Catholics, a common declaration issued by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Pope Francis October 5 reaffirmed their commitment to ecumenical work.

“While…we ourselves do not see solutions to the obstacles before us, we are undeterred,” the declaration says. “We are confident that dialogue and engagement with one another will deepen our understanding and help us to discern the mind of Christ for his church.”

[….]

Representing Canada were Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, and Bishop Dennis Drainville, of the diocese of Quebec.

Why Michael Coren is no longer a Roman Catholic

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It’s all here, although the nub of it seems to be:

I could not remain in a church that effectively excluded gay people. That’s only one of the reasons, but for someone who had taken the Catholic position on same-sex marriage for so long, I’d never been comfortable with that even though I suppose I was regarded as being a stalwart in that position. But I’d moved on, and I felt a hypocrite. I felt a hypocrite being part of a church that described homosexual relations as being disordered and sinful. I just couldn’t be part of it anymore. I could not do that. I couldn’t look people in the eye and make the argument that is still so central to the Catholic Church, that same-sex attraction is acceptable but to act on it is sinful. I felt that the circle of love had to be broadened, not reduced.

I have a strong suspicion that he won’t be particularly comfortable being an Anglican either; luckily there are about 21,000 other Christian denominations still to try.

Canterbury and Vatican to play cricket

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From here:

The head of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has accepted a challenge from the Vatican to play their first ever cricket match.

I am anticipating the Archbishop of Canterbury suggesting that, rather than play an actual match where someone has to lose, both sides should participate in a continuing Indaba, find a middle ground – known in cricketing parlance as a silly mid-wicket – thereby indefinitely postponing pointless confrontation while projecting the illusion of useful activity – without any of the risk. Besides, to take part in a real match, you need real balls.

Mommy for Pope

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I’ve watched this three times. The first time I was 3/4 of the way through before I realised that it isn’t a parody.

Then I doubted myself and watched again while telling myself: it has to be a parody. Until the 1/2 way mark this time – when the gnawing realisation gripped me once more: these people are serious.

So after a stiff drink, I cleaned my glasses, girded my loins, recalibrated my NEC Multisync 3090WQXi monitor with an X-Rite MDSVSensor wide-gamut display calibrator and – it still looks like a parody.

See what you think about this definitive argument in favour of lady priests in the Roman Catholic Church:

Archbishop Robert Duncan stands with Catholics against abortion

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The Obama administration has mandated that Catholic institutions, as employers, fund the prescribing of abortifacient contraceptive drugs to their employees. Unsurprisingly, Catholics are somewhat upset about this.

Archbishop Robert Duncan has made this statement in support of the Catholic Church:

Archbishop Robert Duncan released the following statement in support of the Catholic Church’s fight to maintain freedom of conscience in the midst of the U.S. federal government issuing a preventive care mandate in violation of its teaching.

“The Anglican Church in North America stands by our Catholic brothers and sisters as followers of Christ in a nation whose Constitution guarantees ‘the free exercise’ of religion.  As Christians, our faith and doctrine are at the very heart of our service to others in our community.  Therefore, it is extremely troubling to see our government mandate services contrary to Catholic Church teaching.  I call on all members of the Anglican Church to stand by our Catholic brothers and sisters, and pray for our elected officials to have the courage to stand up for religious freedom and overturn this mandate,” said Archbishop Duncan.

As Archbishop Duncan has called “on all members of the Anglican Church” to add their support, I’m expecting a flood of agreement from Anglican bishops all over North America, starting with Katharine Jefferts-Schori and Fred Hiltz.

Or not.

The pathetic truth is that, for all their trumpeting about social justice, both TEC and the ACoC are completely indifferent to the injustice that will define the callous barbarity of Western civilisation for ages to come: murdering their unborn.

Vatican to evangelise atheists – some atheists

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From The Independent:

The Vatican is planning a new initiative to reach out to atheists and agnostics in an attempt to improve the church’s relationship with non-believers. Pope Benedict XVI has ordered officials to create a new foundation where atheists will be encouraged to meet and debate with some of the Catholic Church’s top theologians.

The Vatican hopes to stage a series of debates in Paris next year. But militant non-believers hoping for a chance to set senior church figures straight about the existence of God are set to be disappointed: the church has warned that atheists with high public profiles such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens will not be invited.

As a Christian I believe that no-one is beyond redemption: Christ died for all sinners. It is interesting, then, that the Catholic Church – which presumably believes the same thing – is planning on excluding some atheists from their evangelistic endeavours. The only sentient creatures whom we would normally view as excluded from Christ’s offer of salvation are the demons of hell led by Lucifer himself – in whose company the Catholic church seems to have placed Dawkins and Hitchens. A satisfying thought, but perhaps a tad harsh.

What’s the difference between Toyota and the Catholic Church?

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Toyota realises that covering up their blunders could put them out of business:

Toyota exec pleaded: ‘We need to come clean’

VP fretted accelerator issues might ‘put us out of business,’ emails reveal…..

“We better just hope that they can get NHTSA [National Highway Traffic Safety Administration] to work with us in coming [up] with a workable solution that does not put us out of business,” Miller wrote.

The Catholic Church doesn’t …..

Bishop Bishop Noël Treanor delivered a powerful homily in Belfast yesterday, Maundy Thursday, in the cathedral church of his diocese of Down and Connor. He spelled out his anger at the ‘inept management and cover-up by some bishops’ and his ‘bewilderment at seemingly inadequate communications systems in the Church.’…….

Irish Catholic Primate Cardinal Sean Brady’s authority is seriously damaged by the crisis. He has said he will announce at Pentecost his decision about his future. Sources indicated last night that he had made up his mind to go, but is more recently considering asking the Pope if he can cling on for another two years, with a co-adjutor Archbishop appointed to run the Roman Catholic Church alongside him, as he was appointed to assist Cardinal Cahal Daly in 1994.

Clearly, even now, he still just does not get it.

….. realise that at all:

A senior cardinal has said the Roman Catholic faithful will not be swayed by “petty gossip” about child sex-abuse allegations…..

Meanwhile, the Pope’s personal preacher has apologised for comparing criticism of the Catholic Church over child abuse to “collective violence suffered by the Jews” in a Good Friday sermon.

The Roman Catholic Church in disarray

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The Roman Catholic Church likes to think of itself as the one true church, a notion that does not sit particularly well with most non Roman Catholics, including me. Understandably, people expect an institution that makes such an audacious claim to hold itself to high standards; when, instead, they find child abuse, systematic cover-ups and hypocrisy, it does little for any of the RC Church’s claims, let alone the pretension that it is the one true church.

Ruth Gledhill reports the imminent implosion of the RC church:

Catholic Church ‘imploding’ over child sex abuse.

That is the view of a senior journalist in Rome over the latest round of revelations of the extent of paedophilia among Catholic clergy.

Unsurprisingly, no-one is more smugly satisfied over the troubles in the RC church than Christopher Hitchens:

The Great Catholic Cover-Up

The pope’s entire career has the stench of evil about it.

On March 10, the chief exorcist of the Vatican, the Rev. Gabriele Amorth (who has held this demanding post for 25 years), was quoted as saying that “the Devil is at work inside the Vatican,” and that “when one speaks of ‘the smoke of Satan’ in the holy rooms, it is all true—including these latest stories of violence and pedophilia.” This can perhaps be taken as confirmation that something horrible has indeed been going on in the holy precincts, though most inquiries show it to have a perfectly good material explanation.

Hitchens, as an atheist, likes to indulge in play-morality, and, so, is eminently unqualified to give an opinion on what is evil; for an atheist, such categories are merely preferences induced by the occasional stray spasm of a neuro-mechanism. The fact that Hitchens has said something about a church that is not all wrong, in itself means that there must be something really rotten afoot.

At the moment, the storm for the RC Church has just begun; for the institution to survive, it will need a long-overdue pruning – a pruning that would have to remove and bar homosexuals from the priesthood (60% of the cases involved priests who were sexually attracted to male adolescents). If it happens, there will be great wailing and gnashing of teeth among liberals.