On Bilingual Candidates
Candidates who are religious—that is, whose religion is a matter of faith and not just habit—and who enter into public discourse must learn to be bilingual.
Religion & Leadership Archives
January 30, 2007 9:10 AM
Comments (16)March 14, 2007 10:26 AM
Unfair Discrimination & Fair Criticism
I do not know whether there is any discrimination against Catholics in the classic venues for discrimination such a hiring or firing, where to live, how to borrow, which houses or businesses to visit, stay, or buy, etc., etc. BUT ...
May 11, 2007 9:33 AM
Accuracy and Inadequacy
Yes, of course, Jesus was “a social revolutionary” but that description is as accurate as it is inadequate—like saying Mozart played the violin.
June 21, 2007 10:51 AM
Deport our Troops
When the problem is our presence, the solution is our departure.
July 16, 2007 9:07 AM
Back to Greek or, Better, Aramaic?
If a religion changes, it may go wrong; if it does not, it must go wrong.
The reason is that change is an inevitable feature of life and conscious or deliberate change is a necessary feature of human life. Any living religion will change as it continues through history but, of course, a dead religion does not change. And, one of the ways you know a religion is dead or dying, is its refusal to change and/or its attempt to return were once it was.
Roman Catholic tradition is not exempt from change as the law of creation and creation’s God. But any religious tradition is carried by its religious community which make and remake each other in reciprocal interaction. Leaders may assist or resist that process but they cannot do it by will alone. The most serious delusion of leaders is to think that they alone are in sole charge of a community’s past, present, or future. It is ultimately the community—which is simply the incarnate and living tradition—that will determine what stays and what goes, what changes and what develops. And, for community, tradition, or hierarchy, it is ultimately impossible to hold back the inevitable future by returning to the abandoned past.
February 6, 2008 9:51 AM
Why Not Confront Putin, Jesus?
I have read all the materials and watched the video and, to be honest, I am not very interested in the subject--although I envy Kevin Sullivan that trip to Siberia.
The only thing that is very obvious is that the messianic strategy of Jesus Christ on his first visit in ancient Israel seems quite different from the one he now uses in his present return in modern Siberia.
Not only has this reincarnate Jesus Christ no memories of that first incarnation, he seems quite different in this second one.
April 22, 2008 6:31 AM
Time for Third Vatican Council
The Question: What can Pope Benedict XVI say and do to repair the growing rifts between the Vatican, the clergy and the laity in America?
The Pope should convene the Third Vatican Council so that the hierarchy can solemnly return the gift of infallibility, and beg instead for the gift of accuracy, and maybe also for the gifts of transparency, honesty, and integrity.
The Roman Catholic Church is a hierarchy, a tradition, and a community -- these three but the greatest of these is community. And that is the root of the problem. The hierarchy has first separated itself from and then equated itself with not only the tradition in its ongoing development but even the community in its living reality. That is why one often hears that “the Church teaches” something when it only means that “the hierarchy teaches” it.
April 27, 2008 2:13 PM
Pope Looked Outward, but Not Inward
The Question: In his speech to U.S. bishops last week, Pope Benedict XVI said: "Any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted . . . To the extent that religion becomes a purely private affair, it loses its very soul." Do you agree or disagree? Why?
Is the Roman Catholic hierarchy structurally and systemically flawed by an abuse of authoritative power of which clerical pederasty and episcopal complicity are but one terrible manifestation?
