Peggy Noonan has an article today in the Wall Street Journal, entitled How to Save the Catholic Church.
There is only one Person Who can save the Church - the Holy Spirit. If the Church is not guided and protected by the Holy Spirit, then she won't and shouldn't survive, for she is a fraud. If she is guided by the Holy Spirit, then why doesn't Ms. Noonan mention Him? Her article bears no reference at all to the transcendent. The sort of worldly thinking it embodies is nothing but a temptation.
It is naive to think that shuffling personnel and bringing in "new blood" will "fix" the problem in the Church that led to the scandals. Is the younger generation somehow protected from sin in a way that the older generation was not? The only thing bringing in new blood will do is bring in new sins. Ironically, it's worldly thinking that got the Church in trouble in the first place. Bishops treated grievous sins against nature as matters for therapy or, as Noonan mentions, "quirks." The answer isn't to work better to get the worldly thinking right, as though the problem is purely one of organization, but to recognize once again the truly horrible power and reach of sin, and that only through the power of the Spirit can we ever face it.
2 comments:
Amen, Amen
What a hoot!
An essay on saving religion in the journal that is the principal mouth-piece for the "culture" of mammon in the USA.
A "culture" which has, by its very nature, systematically destroyed all forms of traditional religion and culture.
A "culture" which has effectively "created" a dying world. As portrayed in the recent Avatar film.
At a very basic level this film was about the "culture" of death versus the culture of life.
It was therefore interesting to witness the entirely predictable right-wing groupthink response to this film--including right-wing "conservative" religionists.
They all came out on the side of the "culture" of death.
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