medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
> You wrote
>
> "A catholic has in such matters no personal
> theories. If my opinion
> > contradicts the opinion of the church, I have to
> give up."
>
> could you please give bibliographical reference to
> your statement?
>
Well, certainly a case could be made in broader sense,
if one replaces "the church" in the above statement
with "scriptures" -- but then -- in what I always
understood to be the best Catholic tradition -- the
floor is open for debatte --for ultimately "the letter
kills and the spirit gives life" but this seems to be
lost on all religions worldwide these days. If this
keeps up, we'll call for a world-wide boycott of the
Catholic Church. I see no reason to let them destroy
it without showing at least some resistance. This act
of relativism has blossomed into an attack on the
relevance of the Church and the reality of a Christian
spirtuality in the real world. The fundamentalism and
hypocrisy that has taken hold can only be broken, if
the self-agrandisement that has borne it is exposed --
that is if they are left standing alone with eachother
in Peter's square. The tyranny of mediocrity and
narrow mindedness will probably only get worse as the
real Vatican II generation dies off. If we are to keep
the core of that spirit alive, the laiety must get
active. The fashion of JPII, and his hordes of yes-men
and egoists, to constantly invoke Vatican II all the
while tranforming a church into a parody of its own
historical past reminds me so much of the
"conservatives" in the U.S., who couldn't be less so.
Even academia has become so self-referential that we
seem to beleagured by the same impulses -- it seems to
be a cycle -- hopefully this won't last long. But if
it is a cycle, history shows us that it usually is
only broken by an overwhelming disaster. Something to
look foward to, I guess. Is there a medieval parallel?
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|