UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage
William D. Lindsey
At his Christian Catholicism site, Jerry Slevin maintains that if Pope Francis represents “a ray of hope” for the Catholic church, as many Catholics wish to believe, the window of opportunity for hopeful light to enter the church will close, perhaps definitively, if Francis is not prophetic and transparent. Meanwhile, Catholics watch, and are increasingly less convinced by the convenient, shopworn arguments about hierarchical power that have been overused to thwart the open discussion and faithful dissent necessary to maintain a vital church.
And if Francis does not let the light flood through the windows,
The Vatican likely will be unable to contain much longer the cumulative and growing pressure, both internal and external, for change. Well publicized Vatican scandals continue to proliferate before a steadily skeptical world audience that is unconvinced either by the Vatican’s limited efforts so far or by its many public relations diversions. Many Catholics and others are becoming more impatient about protecting innocent victims of continuing Vatican scandals and misguided policies — including millions of poor women, children, couples, divorced persons and gay folks. The building governmental pressures indicate increasingly that the Vatican can change voluntarily or, as has already repeatedly happened in the financial area generally and in the child protection area in Australia, the Vatican will be compelled to change involuntarily.
The crisis through which the church is passing, the worst crisis since the Reformation, Jerry reminds his readers, represents hope in that it points many Catholics back to what is at the foundation of it all, Jerry argues — Jesus and the gospels:
Significantly, the Catholic majority intuitively understands that these risks generated by the present crisis, especially from building governmental pressures on the Vatican, have paradoxically also generated an unprecedented opportunity to restore the Church to an earlier condition — to a Church that Jesus’ first disciples would have recognized as completely consistent with Jesus’ Gospel message of love of God and of neighbors, even of enemies. This will be a welcoming Church again that satisfies the needs of both conservative and progressive Catholics.
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