PAPA RATZINGER RETIRES -- A new day for Catholics?

I suspect in time the Roman Catholic Church will dwindle into insignificance, as it has largely in Europe, if it persists in adherence to outmoded dogma born in a different time and rendered obsolete by subsequent changes in the human condition. The mistake religious organizations make is to assume the principles upon which they were founded are divinely dictated, universal and immutable, failing to recognize their origins as a response to the times in which they were founded.

Christianity, for example, was founded during the Roman occupation of the Levant in primitive agricultural times. Consequently, two of Christianity’s primary principles represented a logical adaptation to the times, namely a) pacifist acquiescence (“turn the other cheek,” “love thine enemies”) rather than the “eye for an eye” zealotry of Leviticus, which would prove to be the undoing of the Jews at the hands of the Romans four decades later, and b) an unrestrained birth ethic to encourage fecundity at a time when children were assets rather than liabilities.

 It didn’t take long for the Christianized Romans, and later ostensible Christian kingdoms to give up the pretext of pacifist acquiescence as a guiding principle (since they were doing the slapping of cheeks), but the Church’s continued opposition to birth control at a time of overpopulation, damnification of homosexuals and lesbians at a time when such orientation is recognized as a biological imperative rather than a choice, insistence on clerical celibacy in an unnatural denial of human sexuality (leading to the abuse of minors and covert promiscuity), and discrimination against women as clergy at a time when the valuable resources of women have become widely acknowledged  and incorporated into the fabric of society, renders the Church hopelessly out of touch. Such intransigence causes its members to either become hypocrites or abandon the Church. 

These trends will not end until the Church recognizes the temporal nature of these principles and the necessity to embrace a higher, overriding divine principle, namely promoting the welfare of its flock by adapting its principles to the times. If it does not, I think the fate of the Church is sealed. Papa Ratzinger embodies intransigence; Roman Catholics can only hope that his highly unusual resignation may portend a change of direction for the Church. The forthcoming enclave will be crucial to the Church’s very survival. Interesting times.