Word: pope
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Apple Pie and the Pope Thanks for the lovely article on Pope Benedict XVI [April 14]. I appreciated your bringing out his appreciation for America, its unique and diverse faith history and his current efforts to balance science with morality as well as his efforts to balance faith with reason. I disagree, however, with the suggestion that Catholics have the prerogative to "legitimately balance church teaching against the demands of their conscience." There is a Vatican II that existed only in the imaginations of a generation into sex, love and rock 'n' roll. When one attends to the actual written...
...Your reporters bent over backward to create some religious Americana that has a special place in the Pope's heart. We're plain talkers, not afraid to wade into deeply divisive theological and moral questions and yet always cognizant of our spiritual grounding harking back to this country's origins. The truth is that the previous Pope and the handpicked bishops that rule the dioceses have driven out any plain talkers. That was all done with the iron hand of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger behind the scenes as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He wants...
...cradle Catholic, I have waited 72 years for an American Pope. I do not consider a person born in Germany to be "The American Pope." In America we elect our leaders. Catholics do not elect the priests who will become bishops or bishops who become Cardinals or Cardinals who become Popes. I doubt the Catholic Church, in spite of the priest shortage, will ever have women as priests or as Pope. Nancy Cox, Mapleton Depot, Pennsylvania...
...blindness to the needs of the members of the church that this Pope will not put into place the changes needed to make the church available to all who seek it - namely, married priests and women priests. I have left the church because of the priest abuse scandals and the lack of outrage by previous Popes over this moral hide - and - seek game that the church has played for many years. The Pope's statement on this scandal will be too little too late. Carol M. Fleming, Suttons Bay, Michigan...
...dropping of this other shoe makes the Pope seem more consistent, since there is much he clearly dislikes about American materialism and pop culture. Today he explained that "perhaps," after all, America's brand of secularism "poses a particular problem: it allows for professing belief in God... but at the same time it can subtly reduce religious belief to a lowest common denominator. Faith can become a passive acceptance... without practical relevance for everyday life. The result is a growing separation of faith from life." Combined with what he called our "individualistic and eclectic approach to faith," he said this...