Benedict the great reformer?

[rug]

Dick Gross
November 7, 2011

I know we godless are supposed to be papal bashers who lampoon the Pope at every turn. And isn't Pope Benedict XVI supposed to be the arch conservative we atheists love to loathe? The man attracts our ire and our scorn for his apparent change resistant ways. We scoff with schadenfreude as he staggers under the weight of the sexual abuse scandal. We mock his adoption of archaic bright red footwear. We snigger with knowing looks when he continues to exclude gay and lesbians from an active role in the church. We tease him as the ''beatifier for hire'' who fast tracks sainthood of Catholic celebrities.

But ay there's the rub for the man is changing some fundamental beliefs of his Church. He is subtly changing the nature of God. He is taking some of the magic out of heaven and God so that his successors over time can recalibrate heaven and God so that it is far more palatable to the critical thinker. Specifically he is taking the magic out of limbo and heaven. So don't be fooled. The Pontiff is more strategic than he is given credit for. If he can take the unbelievable out of some concepts, he will set up the Church to survive in the post industrial west and make the Church more acceptable to those of a sceptical and scientific disposition.

In Catholic belief, the afterlife is divided into three areas – hell, where the soul is disengaged from God, heaven and the half-way houses purgatory and limbo. The first is a place where the innocent, but not redeemed, are consigned to cool their heels in anticipation of a promotion to heaven. Limbo mostly contains the souls of innocent children who died before baptism and, therefore, without the prerequisite needed for the good place. This was particularly relevant in the abortion debate. It must have seemed harsh to both condemn abortion and then argue that the foetuses without the sacrament of baptism are not saved. So something had to be done.

In 2007, the International Theological Commission with Benedict's approval said that the theory of limbo was less than convincing. The commission was quite frank in admitting that it didn't actually know and that limbo was only a theory that had not been fully revealed by God. So one cannot argue that Benedict killed off limbo for it was merely a theory. But it was a widely taught and accepted theory so he was certainly brave and reforming to ice the concept once and for all. It must have been disconcerting for rusted on adherents and indeed some refuse to take it lying down. There is a website co-ordinating the resistance movement.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/blogs/godless-gross/benedict-the-great-reformer-20111104-1mzjo.html

[MarkCharles]

1. Re-arranging the size and shape of the angels on the pin, this is?

"REFORMATION" ?

The theory of Limbo, a mythology with no factual underpinnings, Benedict acted as a referee in this debate, so he's a "reformer"?

"Has Pope Benedict saved Catholicism by diluting the magic of God, the making fuzzy the benefits of heaven and dumping the theory of limbo?"

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/blogs/godless-gross/benedict-the-great-reformer-20111104-1mzjo.html#ixzz1ddXeuc6j

[rug]

3. I think the author has a point. This is quite sly.

[skepticscott]

10. You don't have to very sly

when hundreds of millions of the people you lead are uncritical sheep who will accept any pronouncements you make, and when you can simply change things on a whim in any event, and bugger-all what the minions think.

[rug]

14. I'm sure that;s just how it works.

[Angry Dragon]

2. I wonder what else of their religion is just a theory??

[rug]

4. There are only a handful of core beliefs.

The rest is superstructure and convention.

[MarkCharles]

5. Can the "handful" of core beliefs be stated in a few hundred words?

I'd like to see the "handful", the hand of a seven year-old, or that of a full grown man?

Do those "core beliefs" insist upon the celibacy of men and women in service to the institution, or would married men and women be able to do as good a job as those pledged to celibacy? Do women always take a back seat to men in the driver's seat? Or is that just "superstructure and convention"?

Do Catholic women have the right to control their bodies, take pills to do so, undergo abortion or even morning-after-pills after rape, or is that a part of the handful of "core beliefs"?

Do gay people, LBGT folks, all have no rights but confession and absolution for their "sins" against a god? Or will people who are not celibate heterosexuals always find themselves unacknowledged, always lower on the totem pole? The only master over all of these human beings, worldwide, is a celibate man in his 60's to 90's who is supposed to "know" more about virtue and rules and "superstructure and convention" than anyone else on the planet?


Debaating the concept of Libido; that is not one of those "core beliefs" so what kind of "reformer" is someone who changed the "superstructure and convention"?

An interior decorator does less, but an architect (or a simple carpenter) does a bit more.

Which is Benedi

[rug]

7. Less.

But given your first sentence i don't want to interupt your reverie.

[MarkCharles]

11. I think 99.9% of people who post and read here would like to

see those handfuls of "core beliefs" or whatever you call them, together with a list of the junk in Catholoicism.

If you cannot supply us with that, and want to dance and insult other posters, we get your point. You simply cannot justify the Catholic Christian religion, nor give any rational basis for belief in same.

The floor is yours. Start a thread, give those "handfuls" of basic concepts. We all should know them to be good debaters from this point forward, you agree?

[rug]

13. Oh you want to see "a list of the junk in Catholoicism"?

Try The Google. I'll wait for you.

[MarkCharles]

16. No! I asked you to back up your statement which stated THIS:

rug (1000+ posts) Sun Nov-13-11 08:00 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. There are only a handful of core beliefs.

The rest is superstructure and convention.'



Just give us the "handful" the rest is totally irrational and we don't really care.

Stick to the " There are only a handful of core beliefs."

State them! OKAY>

[rug]

18. You can look up the"junk" yourself.

Watching an old dog gnawing on an old bone is not a discussion.

[MarkCharles]

20. I did NOT ask you to supply the junk.

you failed to supply the "handful" of whatever it was you asserted.

Sometime it's nice to supply specifically what is asked for,

but sometimes, it's easier for people who want to run away from facts, to just run away.

Your behavior proves it.

[trotsky]

22. What do you, personally, think the "junk" is, rug? n/t

[rug]

23. Personally, I loathe novenas.

[trotsky]

24. So all the rest makes up the core beliefs, then? n/t

[rug]

25. Why yes, trotsky, that's precisely what I said.

[trotsky]

26. I asked you what the "junk" was.

You gave one item.

Are you now saying there is more junk? Are you going to say what it is?

[rug]

27. Ask DavidSky. It's his term.

[trotsky]

28. Let's use your terms then.

Clarify them. Identify your church's "core beliefs," then list some things that fall under "superstructure and convention."

[trotsky]

9. Great questions.

No wonder someone didn't want to answer them.

[MarkCharles]

17. All those books of the Bible, all those proverbs, all those books recounting ..

the live of Jesus, a man no author ever met,

Strange, if it all can be boiled down to a "handful" of ideas.

Why keep all the other stuff and make up even more?

Saints, angels, Friday fish, then no deal on Friday fish, then no pills, or some pills, or some other stuff, but not THIS stuff........then children should go to seminary, then children can become leaders only if male.....no wonder so much worship of the young male body got up-ended only in the last century! Think of the thousands of young men worldwide who submitted to a Father of the cloth, and didn't get justice in the last 2000 years.

The most disgusting, sexist, sexual abusing institution of the last 2000 years, the Roman Catholic Church.

[TexasProgresive]

6. In the 60s I was taught that limbo was a theological construct.

The theologians did not know what to do with unbaptized babies and so they consigned them to limbo. Limbo was already in limbo for years before Ratzinger gave the coup de grâce. It never fails to amaze me how people think that something is new when it is really old news (not that's an oxymoron).

From Wikipedia:

Limbo of Infants

The Limbo of Infants (Latin limbus infantium or limbus puerorum) is a hypothesis about the permanent status of the unbaptized who die in infancy, too young to have committed personal sins, but not having been freed from original sin. Since at least the time of Augustine, theologians, considering baptism to be necessary for the salvation of those to whom it can be administered, have debated the fate of unbaptized innocents, and the theory of the Limbo of Infants is one of the hypotheses that have been formulated as a proposed solution. Some who hold this theory regard the Limbo of Infants as a state of maximum natural happiness, others as one of "mildest punishment" consisting at least of privation of the beatific vision and of any hope of obtaining it. This theory, in any of its forms, has never been dogmatically defined by the Church, but it is permissible to hold it. Recent Catholic theological speculation tends to stress the hope that these infants may attain heaven instead of the supposed state of Limbo.

While the Catholic Church has a defined doctrine on original sin, it has none on the eternal fate of unbaptized infants, leaving theologians free to propose different theories, which Catholics are free to accept or reject.

The fundamental importance, in Roman Catholic theology, of the sacrament of water baptism gives rise to the argument that, because original sin excludes from the beatific vision enjoyed by the souls in heaven, those who have not been freed from it either by the sacrament or by baptism of desire or baptism of blood are not eligible for entry into heaven.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo

[rug]

8. That sounds about what I learned.

It's an interesting theological question. Apparently, the consensus is answering the question by focusing on the nature of God rather than formalism.

[skepticscott]

12. That's basically all that theologians do

Try to make religion sound less ridiculous and less harsh, so that people can still look themselves in the mirror after they get home from church. In this case, they tried to soften the plain language of the Bible, so people won't have to think that the souls of all the unborn and unbaptized embryos that god aborted are suffering eternal torment in hell.

[NMMNG]

15. Ratzi had decided limbo wasn't all that

Great reformer? Hardly. Mormons change their dogma every time a prophet has a convenient "divine revelation". It's not like Ratzi is on to something new.

[MarkCharles]

19. Benedict, is NOT the great reformer, no one knows that better than

Catholic nuns, who always seem to be left out of these discussions......after all........women are inferior, and always have been in the history since the supposed life of Jesus.

[CatholicEdHead]

21. Yet he has a yearning for a Medevial style of mass

Part of his reform is to move the daily mass style towards those who want pure Latin back (SSPX). Only clergy can be leaders and laity have to be followers and there is massive disempowerment going on all over.