Death of Our Traditional Western Religions

Admirers of Fallen 9/11 Hero Disdain the Vatican's Likely
Plan to Bar Gays as Priests
By ANDY NEWMAN
The Rev. Mychal F. Judge, the Fire Department chaplain who
died in the rubble of 9/11, was one of the most widely
loved Roman Catholic priests in New York City.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/nyregion/25judge.html?th&emc=th

..................

I cite the article above as an illustration of the atrophication of one of our modern Western religions. One could see mid last century that the best religious minds were either departing their institutions or being silenced by them. So far as the Catholic Church was concerned, John Courtney Murray, SJ, a thinker on the forefront of reform of traditional Catholic natural law theory was silenced. Hans Kung, another leading mind who actually introduced the current Pope to his first academic job, was similarly shunted aside as a reformer. A host of theologians who recommended such things as the Church halting its ban on contraception, its blind adherence to celibacy, etc. were dismissed from their positions in Catholic institutions and re-employed elsewhere by sane secular ones. As decent a man as he was, John Paul II nevertheless promoted to the hierarchy mainly the reactionaries who would maintain long out of date orthodoxies. A bishop appointed to Brooklyn promptly shut down access of Catholic gays to the church programs that had been introduced for them by his predecessor. The cover-ups of abuses of children by priests were only the tip of the iceberg of a church in decline. Now it is hard pressed to find any replacements for an aging population of priests from an earlier era. Lest any assume that I am anti-Catholic, one of my dearest and most respected friends was Tim Healy, SJ, successively ex. vice president of Fordham, vice chancellor of CUNY, President of Georgetown (where I used to send him copies of my letters of recommendation for students to law school to which he would personally reply) and finally head of our NY Public Library. He was but one of many priests and nuns (many of those who had quietly departed the Church in disgust with its policies and cover-ups of which they were all too well aware) who were my contemporaries and dear friends who shared their concerns about our religious instiutiions in decline

Yes, traditional religion is dying out much as did the Olympiad equivalent in ancient Greece to be replaced by newer and more humane approaches to human welfare and the human spirit. We need stories to guide and inspire us, but too many of the ancient texts are out of synch with modern reality and terribly dangerous to innocent women, children and other creatures vulnerable to their horrendous biases.

There are, of course, good people still working within the framework of religious institutions, but as those I cited above, they are in the minority and all too often are being silenced and being expelled by the knaves and opportunists on power trips who exploit the unwary.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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