A new book, “Receiving the Council”, shows how the landmark church reforms of the Second Vatican Council have since been undermined.
Monthly Archives: March 2010
John McNeill on Conscience: Part II
Yesterday, I placed Part I of John McNeill’s series on “Freedom of Conscience”, taken from his blog “Spiritual Transformartion.” Moral life, then, is evolutionary. It is a dynamic dialectic of fact and possibility, of the actual and the ideal. We…
World’s Worst Logo
(This was originally posted a year ago, but is even more appropriate now) Yes, I know that sexual abuse is serious; that clerical misdemeanours are scandalous, and not a laughing matter; and that 1973 was a long time ago, in…
Beyond Celibacy, A Doctrinal Problem.
The original sin here is doctrinal. The problem isn’t celibacy – or only celibacy – it’s the Church’s cramped and careless view of nature, and specifically sexual nature. The Church trumpets the notion that God has ordained sex only for…
Peter Toscano on Defection From the Catholic Church
In discussion last year about Fr James Martin’s “America” blog post last year on the question, “What is a Gay Catholic to Do””, one of the responses I described that is often taken is simply to leave (“shaking the dust…
Beyond Dualism in Politics: The Value of a Third Party.
I wrote a few weeks ago about James L’Empereur’s argument that we as gay and lesbian Christians have special spiritual gifts which we need to share with the wider church, but did not elaborate then on quite what they were.…
A Countdown to Vatican III?
Possibly the most remarkable feature of the explosion of news and commentary on clerical sexual abuse around the world, has been how swiftly and fundamentally the nature of church reaction has changed. For decades, there was virtually no response beyond…
Freedom of Conscience
In Washington DC, here in the UK and in Ireland, Catholic church authorities have resisted moves toward gay equality and civil rights by insiting on religious freedom of conscience for themselves. This, of course, completely overlooks the equally important teaching…
Gay Marriage – In the Army, in Parliament
UK hosts its first military gay “marriage”, and also the first civil partnership conducted in the Houses of Parliament.
Abuse: State Inquiries For Northern Ireland, Switzerland.
The governenment of Northern Ireland is to mountan inquiry into the history of child abuse in the province. This will investigate both the perpetrators of abuse, and those who shielded them. It will cover the Catholic Church, but also other institutions. Meanwhile, the Swiss government has announced it will maintain a register of pedophile priests.
