Word: churches
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...impact of the encyclical? Almost certainly, schism is out of the question unless a strong effort is made by Rome to silence dissent. Said California's irreverent Episcopal James A. Pike: "Nobody cares enough about religion these days to want a schism." In some areas of the church with an extremely conservative priesthood and hierarchy, such as Los Angeles or much of Great Britain, it is probable that there will be countless quiet, unannounced defections from the church. At the same time, there is evidence that many Catholics will simply ignore the encyclical, without considering themselves any the worse...
...member Los Angeles Association of Laymen issued a manifesto declaring: "We simply reject Pope Paul's ban on birth control and ask all mature Catholics to do the same. We will not 'leave the church.' We will not be thrown out. We are Catholics because of our faith and our hope and our love, together in community. And nothing except our own conscious decision can change that...
Pyramid of Wisdom. The likelihood that Humanae Vitae would prove to be a dead letter within months after its publication raised a far more fundamental ecclesiastical question, the role of papal authority in the church. Many theologians contend that there has been an unhealthy overemphasis on the teaching voice of Rome since the definition of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council in 1870. In effect, the church has been a pyramid, with all wisdom flowing downward from the top. Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council suggested the possibility of a more democratic, decentralized concept of Catholicism. Paul...
Jesuit Biblical Scholar John McKenzie of Notre Dame believes that "with this pronouncement on birth control, the papacy is going to lose its leadership, which will take 200 years to recover-if ever." Although the downgrading of papal authority would unquestionably lead to a period of confusion within the church, some progressive Catholics contend that dissolution of the papacy as an absolute monarchy would lead to a new and healthier concept of what authority is. The church of the Bible, they argue, was not an authoritarian state but a community of shared decisions, which were not made by the hierarchy...
...rather as if Dostoevsky had written Notes from Underground in the style of Pascal's Pensees. Although his gloom has affinities, with existentialism, Cioran is hard to pigeon hole; his eclectic thought contains echoes of all philosophic history, from the pre-Socratics to the mystics of the Eastern church...