Listen to the laity.The May issue is great! The Sounding Board ("Let's pray, pay, and have our say") by Richard R. Gaillardetz was especially revealing. The laity do have plenty to say of value to the life and future of the church. The cross section of opinions and insights reinvigorate hope for a revitalized future. This hope is tempered by the realities of the current church: How and when will the papacy and hierarchy open themselves up to a healthy critique when the last 20-plus years have been a one-dimensional derailment derailment /de·rail·ment/ (de-ral´ment) disordered thought or speech characteristic of schizophrenia and marked by constant jumping from one topic to another before the first is fully realized. of Vatican II Noun 1. Vatican II - the Vatican Council in 1962-1965 that abandoned the universal Latin liturgy and acknowledged ecumenism and made other reforms Second Vatican Council Vatican Council - each of two councils of the Roman Catholic Church decrees, renewal, and reform? The papacy and the Roman curia Roman Curia Group of Vatican bureaus that assist the pope in exercising his jurisdiction over the Roman Catholic Church. The work of the Curia is traditionally associated with the College of Cardinals. set this reversal in motion with a hastily imposed new canon law canon law, in the Roman Catholic Church, the body of law based on the legislation of the councils (both ecumenical and local) and the popes, as well as the bishops (for diocesan matters). and the pope's decision to name bishops universally, each committing himself to total acceptance of the orthodoxy and orthopraxy that Rome would dictate. The result was a steady selection of micromanager types who accepted the norms of restoring centralized cen·tral·ize v. cen·tral·ized, cen·tral·iz·ing, cen·tral·iz·es v.tr. 1. To draw into or toward a center; consolidate. 2. authority and reducing lay involvement and influence in church life. Father Mark Franceschini, O.S.M. Denver, Colo. |
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