Pope Stabs the Church

From MSNBC.com

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy - Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches.

Benedict approved a document from his old offices at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that restates church teaching on relations with other Christians. It was the second time in a week the pope has corrected what he says are erroneous interpretations of the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 meetings that modernized the church.

On Saturday, Benedict revisited another key aspect of Vatican II by reviving the old Latin Mass. Traditional Catholics cheered the move, but more liberal ones called it a step back from Vatican II.

My two cents...

It seems the Pope, a former Nazi Youth member, has taken a page from the Gingrich Republican Playbook and decided that the 1960's reforms, known as Vatican II, are "erroneous". In other words, the "infallible" Popes made a mistake in trying to create a "big tent" that includes other sects under the banner of "Christianity". Just like Gingy and his henchment culled the wheat from the chaff and created the "neocons" from the conservatives, Benny wants to separate Catholics into "true Christians" and those who are not.

We all saw what happened to the Neocon moment of the 1990's. It rode for a while on the back of Ronald Reagan and then on George the First and finally George the Second where it fell off in 2006 and has been in a paralyzed state since those elections. It should die a quiet death in 2008.

Based on that experience, I expect Pope Benny will stir the pot for a while and perhaps make some waves but eventually most people will come to the realization that Catholicism is a religion, lead by fallible humans, and it has no valid claim to be the "true Christian church" any more than any other sect on the globe. Why? Because when it all comes down to the sizzle, Christianity is how you act, not how you believe or who founded your particular group.

That's the problem the Muslems are working through. They are so tied up with who founded their particular group that they feel entitled to kill a fellow Muslem because they are a member of a Muslem group established by someone else. They totally lost sight of the fact that they are all Muslems who should be practicing the teachings of their prophet, Mohammad, and not killing each other.

So, Benny, drives a knife into the Catholic Church in a attempt to carve out some core believers and generate some excitement in an otherwise dying institution racked with bankrupcy, both financial and moral? Yeah, that will really help! NOT!

BTW... the "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith"? It used to be called "The Inquisitor's Office". It's comforting to have that "resurrected", isn't it? Look for great things to come from this Pope. NOT.

-Devon