Pope Francis' First Year: The Reaction | National Catholic Reporter

Pope Francis' First Year: The Reaction | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: This sounds stream of conciousness.  I hope it is not - rather it is a running commentary of the article, which you should read first and then read the comments.



Secularization is not anything new.  It has also been called anticlericalism and it is mostly earned by the bishops and the loudest of priests.  As for modernity - every generation thinks it is modern.  What the Church really minds is discordant scholarship - which is inevitable as the CDF refuses to accept new learning - even as scholars find that there is much in the past that previous scholarship had been ignoring (including in theology).  As for spiritual but not religious, Oprah did not make that up.  That is something people say in 12 step programs - most especially by people raised Roman Catholic.  None of this has to do with the Holy Father and all of it will continue well into his papacy.  People find transcendence very well without him, although they like the sentimental Catholicism one finds on Christmas and Easter (and only then).  If Francis attracts some of these back on a regular basis, that would be a good thing, as long as the priests and bishops don't send them away again and there is the rub, because the clergy does not see itself as the problem - especially the right wings.  Only basic structural change putting the laity in charge of the assets and money will every civilize some of these self important clerics who don't need mercy or to be taught mercy, they need to be stripped of secular power and some need to simply be allowed to retire. As for Christianity not being an ideology - in the area of poverty it not only is, it must be - rather than something left to the prudential judgement of rich Catholics.  It is the Argentine Archbishop of the poor who likely will eventually do that - whether modernity and secularization linger or not.