Catholic Online Forum

Letters to the editor: Church puts power in the wrong hands
Benedict XVI's resignation frustrates my plan for an online petition demanding it.
[ He should put a manifesto on Facebook like Dohner. ]

Two grounds: The Vatican curia's and Paul VI's thwarting of Vatican II reform implementation procedures have allowed John Paul II's and Benedict XVI's major undoing of Second Vatican Council reforms and what hundreds of theologians have long agreed is a Vatican schism.

Where the council reaffirmed that the pope rules in concert with fellow bishops and with respect for the sense of the faithful, for John Paul II and Benedict XVI the Holy Spirit speaks only to the pope and his curia.

Council reform of the liturgy, approved almost unanimously, is steadily reversed, even to incompetent and unprayable missal translations. Ecumenism has stalled. Engaging the world's great moral challenges has shrunk to pelvic preoccupations. The nuns' Gospel witness is disobedience!

Only yes-men become bishops. Every Vatican whim is law. Indefensible Galileo postures -- on married and women priests, feminism, contraception, divorce and remarriage, and sexual identity -- are requisite. Primacy of conscience is now obedience. Pray, pay and obey or get out. Where the council called for hope, trust,and collaboration, fear rules.

Second, neither John Paul II nor Benedict XVI has declared that meeting the needs of the tens of thousands of victims of clergy and religious sex abuse must, in justice and conformity with the Gospel, take precedence over the church patriarchy's image, protection of bishops' and priests' reputations, immunity of the ordained from accountability, and hanging on to church wealth.

Benedict XVI dismissed the need for healing of 200 abused deaf Milwaukee children to honor their abuser's wish to die without judgment. This abandonment of abuse victims alone disqualifies John Paul II for canonization and disqualifies Benedict XVI to be pope. He and complicit bishops and cardinals must go -- for cause, not incapacity.

Before going, Benedict XVI must change the papal election process to minimize the power of sexist yes-men cardinals by giving a majority vote to elected priests, religious and laity. [ Yeah. The Holy Spirit has really been doing a lousy job lately. ]

William H. Slavick

Portland

got into Card. Ratzinger being the head of the Inquisition.

I know we are not supposed to post emails or stuff from other forums. Are letters to the editor OK?

Newspapers say letters to the editor become the property of the newspaper. In other words, the newspaper is free to print the letters. So the letter writer gives up copyright rights.

Which would mean, would it not, that one would have to get permission from the newspaper before publishing that letter elsewhere?

I suspect that most of us — and certainly, that would include me — violate someone's right to intellectual property more frequently than we realize.

Why are we drawing attention to this drivel?

When I was sixteen, I might have believed this drivel. After all, it must be true if it's in the newspaper. Right?

this letter is public

If someone writes a letter to the editor they expect (or hope) it will be printed thus making it public information.