Thinking Outside the Box

Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger: 'Defying the Pope? It's like not paying a parking fine'

She served in church as a child, has been excommunicated, is married to a divorced man, and has been consecrated a bishop. How much further can a Catholic woman challenge the Vatican? .

Are strong declarations of doctrine the right answer to contemporary culture?

In the end, he said, the tragedy is that such questions and issues don’t have to become confrontations and power struggles. “This is not a question of authority or no authority. This is a question of how you appropriately exercise authority and exercise it effectively in a postmodern world.” Aspects of the deregulation or “detraditionalization” of religion are troubling, he said, “and bishops should rightly be addressing the issues, but not by simply shouting louder or drawing arbitrary lines in the sand.” What’s needed, he said, is “a different vision for exercising episcopal leadership in the church today, and we’re not seeing that being played out.”

Our new war president. By John Dear SJ.

Last week at West Point, President Obama cited his reasons for sending more troops to Afghanistan. Obama spoke eloquently. He insisted our cause is just. It is necessary, it is crucial. Killing Afghanis is the way to peace. The oxymorons rolled off his tongue. Apparently, it does not matter that wars are bankrupting us. Or sending our young to die. Or leaving them psychologically impaired. Or degrading the environment. Or, bitterest of ironies, breeding a new generation of terrorists.

What If We Said, 'Wait'? By Rev. Michael G. Ryan.

Father Michael G. Ryan, pastor of St. James Cathedral in Seattle, makes a lot of sense in an article in the current issue of /America/ magazine. It's about the horrible, stilted translations of the Latin Missal that are being forced on us by the Vatican. He writes: "Why not let the priests who are on the front lines and the laypeople who pay the bills (including the salaries of priests and bishops) have some say in how they are to pray?"

Robert B Kaiser at Humbert School, Ireland

Seems the Vatican heard how Catholics are incensed over its inquisition of U.S. women religious. Some say Pope Benedict personally asked Archbishop Joseph Tobin, the new Secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, to undo the mess caused by his Congregation’s Apostolic Visitation of U.S. women’s institutes.