Did the WaPo set up this mismatch? Not so much a mismatch, really, as the classic Catholic conversation across the divide: liberals and conservatives talking past each other.
Ashley McGuire zeroes in on the “fun stuff.”
Let’s face it: there are Catholic politicos out there who want change on the basic level, including ordination. (Ordaining women is neither a matter of faith or morals, but it does highlight the fallibility of human metaphor to cover every contingency.) Ms McGuire:
What the church’s critics, especially those now giddily wondering if Pope Benedict’s successor will shake things up, just don’t seem to understand, is that church teachings on these issues are unchangeable.
The issues I’m much more concerned about are these:
- Administration on the level of bishops: how they treat and have treated sexual predators and how they deal with their own on mismanagement that directly impacts the effectiveness of the Gospel of Christ.
- The overreaching of a very non-biblical tradition: the curia.
- Financial mismanagement on parish and diocesan levels. Probably Rome too.
- The Keystone Theological Cops routine with investigations that can’t shoot straight.
I’m less interested in Ms McGuire’s “fun stuff.” I just want some real leadership on the serious matters that seem to have escaped the last two popes and their bureaucracy.
Next time the WaPo offers up a he-said/she-said, the least they could do is avoid an ideological mismatch.
