In 2006, the American Catholic Bishops overwhelmingly approved new documents yesterday, exhorting Catholics to refrain from using artificial birth control, describing gay sex as immoral, and saying that anyone who disagrees with key church teachings should not take Communion. I read these documents and promptly left the Church. They were demanding that taking communion ratified their bigoted and indefensible views.
Their authoritarian mindset repelled me. Before I thought I could be a dissenting Catholic. No more.
Today, they have resurrected their views and injected them into American electoral politics. Pope Francis preached this month that communion “is not the reward of saints, but the bread of sinners.” His top doctrinal official, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, wrote a letter to the American bishops, warning them that the vote could “become a source of discord rather than unity within the episcopate and the larger church in the United States.” Even if the Bishops had a clue about doctrine, their approach to communion exposes that they lack empathy, love, and savvy.
Indeed, I am reminded of a statement I heard by a noted feminist. She said that if it were not a tenet of many religions, the doctrine of hell would be regarded as child abuse. Do not get me wrong, I am not anti-religious. I have always thought that William James, Hans Kung, and Charles Taylor are right. Whether God exists cannot be proven or disproven. Reasonable people have a choice to make. Do you want to believe that the universe has no meaning or would you rather live your life on the assumption that a loving God exists?
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