IIRC, when John XXIII took office everyone thought it would be more of the same. Everyone was shocked when he opened Vatican II. I think John Paul I may have been similar but it is so hard to tell with his short papacy. The church is so conservative as a whole that it would take a relative unknown to bring it into the 20th Century let alone the 21st.
IMO, the RCC really needs to re-examine what is critical to being a Catholic re: female ordination, married priests, homosexuality, birth control, abortion, etc. I mean, women are not ordained because St. Paul told the Romans that no woman speaks for him or all 12 apostles were men? Let’s ignore that there were deaconesses in the early church my question is: is women not being ordained really a central tenant to Roman Catholic doctrine or simply a rule that is too traditional to give up?
Female ordination is not something which will be changed for a century in the RCC- there is at least solid Biblical rationale for male-only ordination. One can argue that the early Church had female deacons, elders, pastors, evangelists, even apostles, but if you believe that the early Church had clergy akin to the RCC priesthood, then there is no evidence of an early Church female priesthood.
However, a married priesthood is not as deeply rooted- eight centuries is a pretty strong tradition but certainly a more surmountable one. The RCC mandated celibacy as a practical measure against the growth of clerical dynasties & the Church maintaining its property from being passed on to priests’ children. It could make celibacy optional also for practical reasons- mainly to bring ‘normal’ family men into the priesthood to remedy shortages & to make it a bit easier to weed out problem candidates.
Homosexuality- an RCC OK on that ain’t gonna happen for a long long time. Mainline Protestant churches can’t shift on that without risking 50-50 schisms.
Artificial contraception that is not abortifacient, perhaps.
Abortion to protect a mother’s life or physical help, perhaps, but only then.
An adjustment to give already divorced Catholics the status of de facto annulment- perhaps.
One thing I am sure of- no matter how good & godly & knowledgable & qualified a candidate might be, having the name Peter or a derivation thereof is gonna disqualify you in this Conclave. Heck, if your favorite movie is ROCKY, that may be enough of a strike against you!
What is the Biblical rationale and especially anything attributed to Jesus and not St. Paul?
So if I believe that women should be ordained, why would that make me non-RC? Is it because I disagree with the Pope or would it be a heresy like believing the Father, Son & Holy Spirit are 3 separate disjoint entities?
Oh, it is just a riff on the the Malarkey that is the prophesy of the popes of Saint Malachy.
Even I dismiss it as it is even clear that Saint Malachy never wrote that.
Again, I look forward to the complete debunking of that malarkey in less than 10 years or 8 as it is the average reign of a Pope, because the most likely outcome is that there will be many more popes in the future, although I would wish that if there is no one that will show some progressive thoughts, at least it should be a pope who should be a severe judge towards the corrupt elements in the church.
Thing is, there is NO indication that liberal bishops handled the molestation scandals any better than conservative bishops did. Indeed, Roger Mahony and Rembert Weakland were, if anything, WORSE than Bernard Law. “Progressive” bishops played the same cover-your-backside games as conservatives.
Hard as it may be, both liberal and conservative Catholics HAVE to get over the common but silly notion that everything would have been fine, if only THEIR kind of bishops had been in place.
Sadly, liberal AND conservative bishops have tended to handle scandals in exactly the same way: by asking “Who do we have to pay off to make this go away?”
I’ve been saying for a long time, and still believe, that while things in the Church have gotten better, they won’t be FULLY cleaned up until some bishops do some jail time. If there is a case to be made that any bishop either obstructed justice or acted as anaccessory after the fact, I’d like to see the SOB prosecuted and sent to prison.
If the prosecutors are devout Catholics, so much the better. And given the sheer scale of the problem, I wouldn’t mind if RICO was invoked (if the Church hierarchy doesn’t want to be treated like the Mafia, they shouldn’t ACT like the Mafia).
Hence the final point that a severe judge (even tough it was called that by the fraudulent prophesy) is needed, and once again, I’m not so much a Catholic nowadays, to me even a progressive priest is too conservative.
I presume it is because all 12 of the Disciples Jesus chose were male.
Which might be simply because he wanted them to be taken seriously, so of course he would not have chosen women – there were no female rabbis, then; what Jew would’ve listened to a she-preacher?
