Sep 12, 2009
MANY WOMEN TARGETED BY FAITH LEADERS, new study claims.
The Washington Post reports that a new study by researchers at Baylor University finds that “one in every 33 women who attend worship services regularly has been the target of sexual advances by a religious leader.” The Post continues:
The study, by Baylor University researchers, found that the problem is so pervasive that it almost certainly involves a wide range of denominations, religious traditions and leaders.
[...]
It found that more than two-thirds of the offenders were married to someone else at the time of the advance.
[...]
For its study, Baylor used the 2008 General Social Survey, a nationally representative sample of 3,559 respondents, to estimate the prevalence of clergy sexual misconduct. Women older than 18 who attended worship services at least once a month were asked in the survey whether they had received “sexual advances or propositions” from a religious leader.
The study found that close to one in 10 respondents — male and female — reported having known about clergy sexual misconduct occurring in a congregation they had attended.
Sep 11, 2009
A WAY OUT?
An old story, but new to me.
NCR Oct 12, 2007
Dutch Dominican priests are proposing a bold solution to the priest shortage in the Netherlands: Have the laity select leaders from their own faith communities and designate them as the official presiders at Mass.
Using a model based in the early church, the Dominicans propose that the communities then present their chosen local leaders to bishops and request that they be ordained.
The leaders selected may be men or women, homosexuals or heterosexuals, married or single, the Dominicans say in a 38-page booklet, Kerk en Ambt ("The Church and the Ministry"), which was widely distributed to Dutch parishes, religious orders and bishops on Aug. 31.
The Dominican authors of the booklet, subtitled "Toward a Church with a Future," maintain there is no theological barrier, but only a clerical impasse --the law of celibacy--to ordaining a lay clergy. They cite, for instance, a statement made by the fifth-century Pope Leo the Great: "He who has to lead all should be chosen by all."
Although the booklet reflects questions being raised not only by many of the 4.4 million Catholics in the Netherlands, but by the faithful in many parts of the Catholic world, the primate of the Dutch Catholic church, Cardinal Adrianus Simonis of Utrecht, quickly objected.
Dominican Fr. Jan Nieuwenhuis, one of the booklet's four authors, noted in an interview that Dominicans had anticipated official displeasure over the booklet's distribution without the cardinal's permission. "We knew if we requested it, it would be forbidden, so we went ahead," Nieuwenhuis told NCR.
taken from here
SOLUTION TO CRISIS OF MINISTRY? SCHILLEBEECKX ON EUCHARISTIC PRESIDERS
It was Schillebeeckx who contended in his 1980 book Ministry: Leadership in the Community of Jesus Christ that the church had gone awry by connecting the faithful’s right to Eucharist to some “magical power” of the hierarchy to ordain, thereby disconnecting it from the community of Christians. He noted that the Council of Chalcedon in the fifth century had declared any ordination of a priest or deacon illegal, as well as null and void, unless the person being ordained had been chosen by a particular community to be its leader.
Because the church has basically ignored that clear directive of the early church throughout the second millennium, Schillebeeckx recommended “new possibilities” for reconnecting the Eucharist to its community roots, even if such actions contradict current church law. In “Church and Ministry,” the newly released document, the Dominicans put forward such “new possibilities” as this: “Men and women can be chosen to preside at the Eucharist by the church community; that is, ‘from below,’ and can then ask a local bishop to ordain these people ‘from above.’ ”
If, however, “a bishop should refuse a confirmation or ordination” of such persons “on the basis of arguments not involving the essence of the Eucharist, such as a requirement that deacons or priests be celibate, parishes may move forward without the bishops’ participation, remaining confident “that they are able to celebrate a real and genuine Eucharist when they are together in prayer and share bread and wine."
taken from National Catholic Reporter interview, December 14, 2007
This quote has always had a powerful effect on me, as a daring solution to so many ills besetting the Catholic community in this time, the sexual scandals being at the top of the list. It would require extraordinary daring to implement, however, and culturally would be next to impossible to receive widespread acceptance. However, in those communities deprived of the services of a priest for as long as a year (1 yearly visit for confession and baptisms in some remote mountain villages in South America), the 'lay catechist' should surely be entitled to lead the community in the celebration of the Eucharist. But I've also proposed elsewhere that communities of disaffected gay Catholics, who feel bound in conscience to remain outside the formal worship of the Church, should then gather together and celebrate the Supper of the Lord.
Sep 9, 2009
QUOTE FOR THE DAY/THE CRUCIFIED WOMAN
In the spirit of Luther, I propose that resistance to idolizing Jesus' male identity be presented in the strategic reassertion of the image of the crucified woman as the location of Christ today. Because the imaging of Christ has become dangerously synonymous with male identity, the image of the crucified woman has potential to critique the "inherent" link between maleness and divinity. Once it serves that critical, negative function, the crucified woman, in the spirit of a theology of the Cross, can then open up, especially for women, new existential pathways and insights into the concrete reality of God becoming enfleshed and embodied in particular human form.
Sep 7, 2009
MEMORIES OF MERTON
I am the utter poverty of God. I am his emptiness, littleness, nothingness, lostness. When this is understood, my life in his freedom, the self-emptying God of me is the fullness of grace. Love for all, hatred of none, is the fruit and manifestation of love of God.
Thomas Merton (31 January 1915 – 10 December 1968, Bangkok, Thailand)
A STUDY IN CONTRASTS: DOROTHY DAY & MOTHER TERESA
DOROTHY DAY, a leader whose ideas were so advanced that they were not able to be recognized at the moment as perhaps divinely inspired (from the video).
LUCIANI: A WISE AND ACCEPTING COUNSELLOR
This lovely anecdote was posted by Jeremiah at Queering the Church on 09/07/09.
I’ll never forget the story told to me by a religious, now deceased. He was stationed for a while at the English College for late vocations in Rome, and went to Venice on holiday with a couple of seminarians. In that enchanting city, he and one of his companions became lovers. Feeling guilty, my friend went to confession in San Marco – and told his story to a Monsignor who was on duty in one of those open Baroque confessionals (he knew he was a Monsignor by the violet piping on his cassock). Here is what the anonymous prelate told him: ‘We must always respect the teaching of the Church, which represents the wisdom of the centuries. But you must also listen to what God is telling you, in this experience.’ At this point, my friend was in tears, and the Monsignor came over to his side of the confessional and embraced him. Years later, on the election of John Paul I, my friend recognized him as that wise and accepting counsellor.–Jeremiah
A lovely anecdote. How many stories of Luciani exist of this nature. If true (and I have no wish to doubt it), then the ‘Monsignor’ would have been Archbishop Luciani (moved to Venice as Patriarch in 1969) who was known to take ordinary confessional duties in the Basilica. This quote from New Advent may illuminate the issue: “Instead of addressing patriarchs as “Vostra Beatitudine”, archbishops as “Your Grace”, bishops as “My Lord”, abbots as “Gracious Lord” one may without any breach of etiquette salute all equally as Monsignor. …The most venerable patriarch bears the title Monsignor as well as the simplest honorary chaplain.” The Archbishop’s casual dress would have been indistinguishable from an ordinary Monsignor.
Sep 5, 2009
QUOTE FOR THE DAY
EMBRACING OURSELVES AS EXILES
We must be prepared to accept our exile state both within society and within the Church. We must grieve and gradually let go of the desire to "belong" to all the institutions of this world. We must deepen our spiritual roots and our realisation that, in direct proportion to our exile state in this world, we belong in a deeper and more cosmic level to a community bound together by God's Love and God's Mercy. John J. McNeill
Sep 4, 2009
The Holy Trinity
Painting above is Botticelli's Trinity, painting below is...well, words fail me.
GAY EUCHARIST
The most famous icon in the world, Andrei Rublev's The Hospitality of Abraham. It has been used to illustrate the Trinity as well as the gathering after the Resurrection on the road to Emmaus. I prefer the latter story (though clearly not Rublev's original intention), because I feel the image beautifully expresses the phrase, "Where two or three of you are gathered together in my name, I am there among you." And I want to suggest that where two or three disaffectChristian people gather to break bread together, the Risen Lord is as present among them and within the elements of bread and wine as in any formal Church gathering with priest, bishop or pope. A heterodox suggestion (with hints of Congregationalism and which opens up a Pandora's box of issues about sacerdotal ministry), but I wouldn't wish anyone to be deprived of the nourishment of the Eucharist because of the sinful rejection of Holy Mother Church. If you feel yourself bound in conscience to remain outside the walls until such time as a truly holy, inclusive, fair, and just church of the future has arrived, then gather together in prayer and reverence and celebrate the supper of the Lord. He is with us in Spirit as we wait, crying out מרנא תא, marana tha, O Lord come!
MORE FROM THE MYSTIC BOURGEOISIE
Taken from the irreverent blogsite mysticbourgeoisie
don't let mystical bullshit creep up on you!
learn the early warning signs of total horse pucky!
question paranormal claims for "the present"!
Remember: these people are laughing at you as they rake in your hard earned cash for their flagrant jabberwocky. Do yourself a favor and save it up for something practical, like say a dirtbike or a new toaster oven. And if you so much as glimpse a reference to quantum physics, realize that you are dealing with spiritual psychopaths whose connection to reality is tenuous at best. Follow these simple steps and protect yourself. You'll be glad you did when you see all your friends in psychic bondage at some rural ashram, or worse, at some precious little wine and cheese gathering in Boulder, Colorado! Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. Don't learn the hard way like I did.
(from the Mystic Bourgeoisie blogsite
whose views I do not share but whose 'attitude' I love)
whose views I do not share but whose 'attitude' I love)
THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE
the making of an image
This has nothing to do with anything, (except death squads in El Salvador, the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the Jesuit massacre in 1989 and the Contras in Nicaragua) I just couldn't resist ( CHESTERFIELD ad stolen from mysticbgourgeoisie blogspot).
Sep 2, 2009
MOTHER TERESA AND THE DARK NIGHT
The Dalai Lama
The model of a true, spiritual, holy leader. What Papa Luciani would have become had Providence allowed him a 'normal' life span of twenty years or so as the collegial leader of the Catholic tradition. How radically things would have changed is beyond imagining (think not so much of birth control, homosexuality or women priests, but of Opus Dei and the Legionaries of Christ). To have been deprived of such balanced, saintly, wholesome leadership is a cause of almost unbearable heartache. To be fair, however, the Dalai Lama's views on homosexuality remain very traditional, though he maintains that he is trying to listen.
Mother Oprah and the New Consciousness
This photo, of Oprah Winfrey and German spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle, always makes me smile. I want to say, "Oprah, dear, remove the eye shadow!" Whatever one may think of Oprah Winfrey, the queen of day time talk shows in the US (and I must confess to a condescending thought or two), she has performed an invaluable service by making the teachings of this gentle German spiritual master available to a wide audience in the US. I have friends who refuse to read any book that is recommended by Oprah's book club because they don't wish to be seduced by pop culture. I would suggest that this is precisely Oprah's great strength in this case. She has posted ten on-line lessons with Eckhart Tolle (here) that are a marvel of economy and grace (once Mother Oprah stops hogging the limelight and actually allows {Meister} Eckhart to speak!). Essentially, Oprah is doing what the mainline Christian churches have failed to do, pardon my generalization, and that is to provide genuine spiritual nourishment to the millions of hungry spiritual seekers among her viewers, people yearning for some genuine access to their own spiritual nature, a sustenance they are not finding in the mainline Churches who are too busy ranting about the evils of abortion and homosexuals. And she is doing this service as a devout, committed Christian. We are all given our small roles to play in life and in the church, and all of us who strive to witness to the Gospels are wounded healers in one way or another. Oprah, God bless her, has been situated right in the heart of bible belt, fundamentalist Christian America, with the clout and the character capable of delivering some knock out blows. In a heated interchange on her program with a very angry fundamentalist Christian woman in the audience, who kept shouting, "Jesus is the only Way! ," Oprah stood her ground and argued quite persuasively, with strength of conviction, that "Jesus can't be the only way. He may be your way, he may be my way, but he can't be everybody's way." It was a master class in pop theology, and I take my hat off to her for this stance and for her vital work of opening up her audiences to the spiritual teachings of this remarkably ecumenical spiritual master.QUOTE OF THE DAY
Medard Boss, the influential Swiss existential psychotherapist, who was analyzed by Sigmund Freud and had trained with such prominent psychoanalysts as Bleuler, Ernest Jones, Karen Horney, Otto Fenichel, Hans Sachs and Wilhelm Reich, had this to say about the holy men he met on his lecture-visit to India:
There were the exalted figures of the sages and holy men themselves, each one of them a living example of the possibility of human growth and maturity and of the attainment of an imperturbable inner peace, a joyous freedom from guilt, and a purified, selfless goodness and calmness.... No matter how carefully I observe the waking lives of the holy men, no matter how ready they were to tell me about their dreams, I could not detect in the best of them a trace of a selfish action or any kind of a repressed or consciously concealed shadow life.
Taken from:
http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/s_rv/s_rv_bhatt_kali_frameset.htm
Sep 1, 2009
GURUS, ABORTION AND THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM
As a contrast or antidote to my recent musings on Indian gurus, here is a very witty, irreverent blog site that seeks to inject a bit of 'reality-check' into the situation. It goes by the delightful name, Guruphiliac, and contains enough salacious gossip (pop stars and gurus) as one could possibly hope for, together with some sharply critical views, very wise cautions and some equally fair comments about genuine spiritual seekers. Ammachi's organization does come under scrutiny for cult like characteristics (see postings on her below). Some of it may be a bit too cynical and unsubstantiated, but it is worth perusing for some healthy skepticism. Another very entertaining blog site on the subject, which provides a real service, is Salo's Guru Rating Service. Here you will find ratings for literally hundreds of self-proclaimed spiritual teachers, with links to both positive and negative evaluations. I'm happy to report that the site gives Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Eckhart Tolle and Ammachi (though only after some doubts) it's highest ratings (among many low ratings for an astonishing range of teachers), though how these ratings are arrived at is not clear.
Andrew Harvey has written very eloquently about the dangers of the Indian guru system, after his disastrous experience with Mother Mera, another prominent woman teacher from India, whose devotees also use the language of 'divine incarnation' to describe her. This should strike a note of caution in anyone. Andrew has now moved to the strong position of 'no gurus whatsoever,' which is perhaps a bit too extreme. The primary lesson to be learned is not to worship another human being, however spiritually advanced she or he may seem to be. There are some genuine masters out there (amidst a depressing sea of fakery) and some few individuals will feel the call to closely associate themselves with these rare teachers. No doubt motives will be mixed and we will encounter elements of the 'crazy cultists' among them, so careful discernment is necessary.
To illuminate this reflection, here are two anecdotes, the first about Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, who I offer as the paradigmatic example of the genuinely enlightened Guru:
It is 1947. Fifty years have passed at Tiruvannamalai...at five o'clock the doors open and early morning devotees enter quietly, prostrate themselves before him and sit down on the black stone floor.... Why did Sri Bhagavan, who was so modest, who insisted on equal treatment with the humblest, allow this prostration before him? Although humanly he refused all privileges, he recognized that adoration of the outwardly manifested Guru was helpful to sadhana, to spiritual progress. Not that outward forms of submission were sufficient. He once said explicitly, "Men prostrate themselves before me but I know who is submitted in his heart." (taken from Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-Knowledge, by Arthur Osborne, pg. 126)
The second anecdote comes from a friend of mine who attended one of Ammachi's darshan sessions. The time was the late 1980's and 'Charlotte' was both a friend and teacher of mine at San Francisco State University where I was completing a MA in English. Charlotte's mother had recently died and feeling in need of some comfort she decided to attend Ammachi's darshan along with several thousand others at the Civic Center in San Francisco. After waiting for several hours, Charlotte received her turn with the Indian teacher. Ammachi drew her into her arms and pressed her against her bosom. At that moment, Charlotte felt a shudder pass through Ammachi's body. With her hands on Charlotte's shoulders, Ammachi pushed her some distance away, looked at her with great compassion and then pulled her back in and said in her ear, "Oh my dear, dear daughter. I am so sorry." Charlotte said she felt an energy of warmth and peace flow through her own body that left her deeply consoled. And that was the end of her blessing. However, the point of this anecdote lies with Charlotte's final comment to me. "No, I did not go home, quit my job, pack my bags and become a groupie and follow Ammachi all around the world or join her ashram in New Delhi. This 'little moment' was enough." To which I say 'Amen.'
My own point in referencing these spiritual teachers outside the Christian/Catholic tradition (whom I consider to be genuine) is simply to inject a dose of healthy relativism into the stultifying one-note orthodoxy of official Catholicism. The position that affirms the absolute uniqueness of Jesus as the world's 'only savior' is linked psychologically with the absolute prohibition against abortion, followed by equally one-note prohibitions against same sex unions and women priests (all tied to the defense of the sacred masculine). We see here an entrenchment of the ego, identified with its own absolute positions as a primitive defense mechanism, and feeding it's own sense of power and uniqueness by abolishing all ambiguity. As William Lindsey at Bilgrimage has noted in some recent very vivid posts, official Catholicism - in the US in particular - has been reduced to the very loud banging of one very large drum: no abortion! Of course, there are reverberations and echoes to this single-note banging, among them - no more queers, Jesus is the only Way, and get them women off the altar! (As an aside, given the priest-pedophile crisis and some recent revelations at Queering the Church, which suggest girls may make up more than two thirds of all victims of abuse, perhaps it was not so wise to allow young girls onto the altar as servers, a sad comment one is forced to make (even in jest) in these very sad times!)
As Eckhart Tolle has stated very eloquently:
We are witnessing not only an unprecedented influx of consciousness at this time but also an entrenchment and intensification of the ego. Some religious institutions will be open to the new consciousness; others will harden their doctrinal positions and become part of all those other man-made structures through which the collective ego will defend itself and "fight back." Some churches, sects, cults, or religious movements are basically collective egoic entities, as rigidly identified with their mental positions as the followers of any political ideology that is closed to any alternative interpretation of reality.
Does this not sound like a perfect description of the present day official face of Roman Catholicism, and even more so of those disturbing organizations which now wield such an unhealthy influence in the Church, Opus Dei and the Legionaries of Christ? 'We are unique and superior because of our absolute, purist positions with which we identify'. To take abortion only as one example, to admit that the fetus, while surely human, does not develop the potential for full human personhood until roughly the 12th week of term and that, therefore, termination of the pregnancy might in some cases by justified, is to admit a degree of moral ambiguity and uncertainty that can be threatening to the insecure ego. It is not a position of absolute moral purity (the sacredness of the fetus is inviolable) with which the ego can totally identify. It requires a large measure of acceptance of moral ambiguity, tentativeness, a cautious refusal to rush to judgement, and an acceptance of one's own inner moral ambiguity as well, an ability to face one's own inner darkness, and see beyond the darkness to the light of G-d's loving acceptance. It requires the ability to live with uncertainty in a spirit of trust and to refuse the temptation to cling to false idols for security and prestige. 'We are unique because we are the followers of the world's only savior and we are unique because we are the vigilant protectors of the innocent and the unborn. Their innocence is ours!' In the grip of such an obsession, one may not compromise. What a powerful drug this has become.
But the walls will not hold. For all of the ferocity of the present attacks by those who are shoring up the defenses, the walls will come crumbling down. I'm living in a country, The Czech Republic, which is getting ready to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the collapse of Communism, an entrenched collective egoic identity system if ever there was one. The system always had to be right, it's leaders infallible, its doctrinal positions pure so that those who identified so fiercely with the system could feel invulnerable by association with absolute power. This system collapsed not simply through the force of its own contradictions, but through the heroic efforts of many quiet resisters, who refused to give up over the years, until finally the walls came tumbling down.
To illuminate this reflection, here are two anecdotes, the first about Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, who I offer as the paradigmatic example of the genuinely enlightened Guru:
It is 1947. Fifty years have passed at Tiruvannamalai...at five o'clock the doors open and early morning devotees enter quietly, prostrate themselves before him and sit down on the black stone floor.... Why did Sri Bhagavan, who was so modest, who insisted on equal treatment with the humblest, allow this prostration before him? Although humanly he refused all privileges, he recognized that adoration of the outwardly manifested Guru was helpful to sadhana, to spiritual progress. Not that outward forms of submission were sufficient. He once said explicitly, "Men prostrate themselves before me but I know who is submitted in his heart." (taken from Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-Knowledge, by Arthur Osborne, pg. 126)
The second anecdote comes from a friend of mine who attended one of Ammachi's darshan sessions. The time was the late 1980's and 'Charlotte' was both a friend and teacher of mine at San Francisco State University where I was completing a MA in English. Charlotte's mother had recently died and feeling in need of some comfort she decided to attend Ammachi's darshan along with several thousand others at the Civic Center in San Francisco. After waiting for several hours, Charlotte received her turn with the Indian teacher. Ammachi drew her into her arms and pressed her against her bosom. At that moment, Charlotte felt a shudder pass through Ammachi's body. With her hands on Charlotte's shoulders, Ammachi pushed her some distance away, looked at her with great compassion and then pulled her back in and said in her ear, "Oh my dear, dear daughter. I am so sorry." Charlotte said she felt an energy of warmth and peace flow through her own body that left her deeply consoled. And that was the end of her blessing. However, the point of this anecdote lies with Charlotte's final comment to me. "No, I did not go home, quit my job, pack my bags and become a groupie and follow Ammachi all around the world or join her ashram in New Delhi. This 'little moment' was enough." To which I say 'Amen.'
My own point in referencing these spiritual teachers outside the Christian/Catholic tradition (whom I consider to be genuine) is simply to inject a dose of healthy relativism into the stultifying one-note orthodoxy of official Catholicism. The position that affirms the absolute uniqueness of Jesus as the world's 'only savior' is linked psychologically with the absolute prohibition against abortion, followed by equally one-note prohibitions against same sex unions and women priests (all tied to the defense of the sacred masculine). We see here an entrenchment of the ego, identified with its own absolute positions as a primitive defense mechanism, and feeding it's own sense of power and uniqueness by abolishing all ambiguity. As William Lindsey at Bilgrimage has noted in some recent very vivid posts, official Catholicism - in the US in particular - has been reduced to the very loud banging of one very large drum: no abortion! Of course, there are reverberations and echoes to this single-note banging, among them - no more queers, Jesus is the only Way, and get them women off the altar! (As an aside, given the priest-pedophile crisis and some recent revelations at Queering the Church, which suggest girls may make up more than two thirds of all victims of abuse, perhaps it was not so wise to allow young girls onto the altar as servers, a sad comment one is forced to make (even in jest) in these very sad times!)
As Eckhart Tolle has stated very eloquently:
We are witnessing not only an unprecedented influx of consciousness at this time but also an entrenchment and intensification of the ego. Some religious institutions will be open to the new consciousness; others will harden their doctrinal positions and become part of all those other man-made structures through which the collective ego will defend itself and "fight back." Some churches, sects, cults, or religious movements are basically collective egoic entities, as rigidly identified with their mental positions as the followers of any political ideology that is closed to any alternative interpretation of reality.
Does this not sound like a perfect description of the present day official face of Roman Catholicism, and even more so of those disturbing organizations which now wield such an unhealthy influence in the Church, Opus Dei and the Legionaries of Christ? 'We are unique and superior because of our absolute, purist positions with which we identify'. To take abortion only as one example, to admit that the fetus, while surely human, does not develop the potential for full human personhood until roughly the 12th week of term and that, therefore, termination of the pregnancy might in some cases by justified, is to admit a degree of moral ambiguity and uncertainty that can be threatening to the insecure ego. It is not a position of absolute moral purity (the sacredness of the fetus is inviolable) with which the ego can totally identify. It requires a large measure of acceptance of moral ambiguity, tentativeness, a cautious refusal to rush to judgement, and an acceptance of one's own inner moral ambiguity as well, an ability to face one's own inner darkness, and see beyond the darkness to the light of G-d's loving acceptance. It requires the ability to live with uncertainty in a spirit of trust and to refuse the temptation to cling to false idols for security and prestige. 'We are unique because we are the followers of the world's only savior and we are unique because we are the vigilant protectors of the innocent and the unborn. Their innocence is ours!' In the grip of such an obsession, one may not compromise. What a powerful drug this has become.
But the walls will not hold. For all of the ferocity of the present attacks by those who are shoring up the defenses, the walls will come crumbling down. I'm living in a country, The Czech Republic, which is getting ready to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the collapse of Communism, an entrenched collective egoic identity system if ever there was one. The system always had to be right, it's leaders infallible, its doctrinal positions pure so that those who identified so fiercely with the system could feel invulnerable by association with absolute power. This system collapsed not simply through the force of its own contradictions, but through the heroic efforts of many quiet resisters, who refused to give up over the years, until finally the walls came tumbling down.
QUOTE OF THE DAY/JOHN J. MCNEILL
I had been clear from the beginning ... that I thought no serious advance in moral thought concerning homosexuality could occur without dialogue with those who are living out that orientation and experiencing what the Holy Spirit says to them through their experience. To this day, it seems to me that the essential difference between the Vatican and me has to do with their distrust in the ability of the Holy Spirit to guide human conscience from within.
John J. McNeill from Both Feet Firmly Planted in Midair
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
