Sacked Toowoomba bishop discovers Rome’s word still law
Read this article here
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/sacked-toowoomba-bishop-discovers-romes-word-still-law/story-e6frg6zo-1226059618972
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26/05/2011 at 10:43 pm Permalink
There are many things I would take issue with in this article
1.The third Rite of Reconciliation was not introduced because priests resented time spent in the confessional. What evidence is there of that? Certainly the numbers lining up in the churches for confession had grown much smaller -because people had begun to find it rather unhelpful in their spiritual life.
2.It was always made clear that serious sin needed to be confessed privately.
3.For many of us confession or reconciliation had become the telling of minor failings that we found ourselves repeating time after time. Certainly it was rarely spiritual direction that helped us improve our relationship with our God or others.
4.Has the cessation of this prayerful practice meant a return to weekly or monthly confession for most people? I doubt it.
5.I found it was a wonderful way of coming together and addressing our communal sinfulness. I could hardly say “Bless me Father for I have sinned in the treatment of our indigenous people, that I am sorry for my failure to nurture the earth, that we have not looked after our homeless, the disabled or the unemployed as we should. But these “sins” all need to be addressed.
6.The numbers who turned up for the ceremonies gave witness to the fact that the people in the pews found it well worth their coming to the church for the rite.
“Despite his ordination oaths of fidelity and obedience to the Holy See, Morris decided he wasn’t going quietly.” When Morris was ordained a bishop he was given charge over the people of God in the diocese. Surely this is the paramount duty of a bishop to lead his people in their search for a sincere relationship with their God. Which should come first – listening to God and what he wants of you or mindlessly following orders from people who have no idea of what your people are needing in the here and now of everyday life.
He is certainly not the only prelate who is worried about leadership of his people in the future, What is your solution? I would not encourage any of my children to give unquestioning obedience to any human being. In God only can we trust.
I am afraid today we should remember Martin Neimðller’s experience of the Nazi regime
First they came for the Jews but I did not speak out as I was not a Jew
Then they came for the communists but I did not speak out as I was not a communist.
Then they came for the Unionists but I did not speak out as I was not a unionist
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
I am afraid that the institutional church is following the same path as Germany in the 1940s. Any ;one who dares to think for himself seems to be regarded as an apostate. God gave us as humans the wonderful gift of reason and to refuse to let us use it appears to me like throwing this great gift of our human faculty back in the face of our God. Yes we must listen to other views with an open mind but we have to listen to God first.
30/05/2011 at 11:28 am Permalink
What people who take the time to express an opinion about the catholic church and its rules forget is that any resemblance its practises now bear to the simple message of Jesus is long lost . It is an organization caught up in its own politics for its own importance and an embarassment to the man and surely a God it would claim to worship and serve.Like all empires which have come before it , it will crumble unless it gets back to the basics of the message .
31/05/2011 at 7:18 am Permalink
Any attack on the sacrament of reconcilliation is a direct attack on Jesus Himself who is working thriugh the priest in concert with The Holy Spirit.Of course kneeling before the Lord and confessing your sins is not fashionable among “progressive catholics”,but that does not matter a pinch in the long run and I am sure this wonderful gift frm Jesus will forever remain part of the core beliefs of our wonderful catholic faith,
31/05/2011 at 2:18 pm Permalink
I was not aware that the Australian was a mouthpeice for the Catholic right.
This article has disillusione me.
31/05/2011 at 3:58 pm Permalink
hi wonderful, open minded community. I grew up in the bosom of “Holy Mother Church” in a small town in western Victoria in the 1960s. Eventually I resolved to become a priest and studied to be a Columban Missionary priest in the early 1970s. Although I did not continue on this course, a couple of years later I was called to a spiritual path which, in similar fashion to what you are doing, recognises the need for independant search for truth, and recognises that religious truth is relative and pregressively unfolding over time. I have found it able to encompass both the simple, traditional mindset as well as the most progressive views expressed by such as Eckart Tolle. This expansive spiritual worldview has also been combined with a system for community decision making which is both inclusive, and removes ego from the process. I commend your efforts to build community in such a diverse group. Respecfully, Steve.