Tabled:
From Global News: Polish [R.C.] bishops divided over right-wing head of Radio Maryja
Some Catholic bishops in Poland reportedly want the controversial priest Tadeusz Rydzyk removed as head of the country’s influential right-wing ‘Radio Maryja’ station. However, a meeting of bishops in Czestochowa this weekend failed to take a decision on the matter according to a report in the ‘Rzeczpospolita’ newspaper. Archbishop Jozef Michalik, the head of the Polish Episcopalian Conference, said that —it was not possible to judge a man because of an inconsiderate statement.—
The Redemptorist priest Rydzyk has become one of Poland’s most controversial clergymen, following a number of anti-Semitic comments. Cultivating an audience of predominantly poor and elderly rural listeners, Radio Maryja has become a platform for right-wing politicians seeking voters. Rydzyk was most recently embroiled in a controversy over having apparently called Poland’s first lady Maria Kaczynska a ‘witch’.
Power and influence or repentance and discipline? Oh the hard choices we must make. Let’s table that one bishop…
This certainly points out the dichotomy evident in Church leadership. The bishops that were courageous witnesses under the communists remain courageous. The compromisers remain as such…
What has been wrought:
From the National Catholic Reporter: Liberal Catholicism endures in pastoral church
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (National Catholic Reporter) —“ Evangelical Catholicism may be running the table in terms of official policy, but most experts say that rumors of the death of liberal Catholicism have been greatly exaggerated.
Just as the evangelical impulse is one way of responding to modernity, so too is liberalism, and most sociologists say that complex religious institutions are likely to contain both and many others —“ only sects, they argue, have the luxury of rigid consistency. Further, terms such as —evangelical— and —liberal— are ideal types rather than airtight ways of categorizing real people, and many Catholics reflect elements of both in their own thinking.
At least in the United States, many observers believe that a broad liberal instinct is firmly entrenched at the grass roots.
—I think the genie has been let out of the bottle, and there is no putting it back in,— said Richard Gaillardetz, a prominent lay theologian at the University of Toledo, Ohio, even though he conceded that —liberal Catholicism … no longer enjoys the ecclesiastical support to which many had become accustomed in the ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s.—
Gaillardetz argued that in the United States, liberal Catholicism is less an ideology than a —pastoral phenomenon … alive in parishes that have a flourishing catechumenate, vibrant liturgies, thoughtful and relevant preaching, and multiple lay ministerial opportunities,— as well as —in a growing number of intentional Christian communities that are determined to keep alive a vision of the church that they associate with Vatican II.—
Looking around, observers such as Gaillardetz say that the moderate-to-liberal camp probably represents a disproportionate share of the church’s ministerial workforce, meaning priests, deacons, religious, and laity, as well as the theological guild.
Nor are these attitudes confined to a class of church professionals.
In fact, the evangelical camp seems a distinct minority within the overall Catholic population. In 2005, sociologist Dean Hoge published a survey about how American Catholics define what it means to be Catholic. At the top of their list was belief in the resurrection of Jesus, the Eucharist and the other sacraments, and helping the poor.
Other traditional markers of identity were sidelined —“ only 29 percent said a celibate male clergy was important, and just 42 percent said that about the teaching authority of the Vatican. Seventy-six percent said one could be a good Catholic without going to Mass on Sunday, and 75 percent said the same about following church teaching on birth control…
And, Roman Catholic liberals are proud of their accomplishment? Pastors are proud of their pastoring?
For sure…
Now if they had only focused their energies on bring people to God through Jesus Christ, rather than focusing on the ascent of man absent God.
As they Young Fogey would probably point out, NCR drops the f-bomb (rotten fundamentalists, them against us) to describe the resident “”evil”” in their midst.
Catholic liberals in the U.S. are not different in many respects from the left-liberalism he describes and links to here.
Sadly, they missed Jeremiah week in their OT class.
Thus says the Lord of hosts: Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you; they are deluding you. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to all who stubbornly follow their own stubborn hearts, they say, ‘No calamity shall come upon you.’