Thirtysomething

HABEMVS PAPAM

So there's a new pope. Saying "Pope Benedict the Sixteenth" makes me trip over my own tongue for some reason, so I've been thinking of calling him something else. I like "Pope Ratzinger." Ratzinger. Has a ring to it doesn't it? The Ratzinger. It sounds like he could a character in a sci-fi movie. My favorite name, though, is "God's Rottweiler," which is apparently a nickname of his (probably much to his dismay).

There's a lot of grumbling about the need for reform in the Catholic Church, particularly as it relates to women's roles and priests marrying. People all over are bitching that Pope BXVI is too conservative, that change will not come with his papacy.

Did anyone think it would? I, for one, did not. No matter who the pope was. Christianity is 2000 years old. I won't pretend that I know much about when the Catholic doctrine started. Let's just say it's been the way it is forever for the most part. Vatican II provided some reform, maybe it seems to me anyway, mainly so that we could understand Masses in our own languages. I know the scope of Vatican II was greater than that, but since it happened before I was born, all I ever think about is that Masses were said in Latin back in the day.

I'm a woman and I don't feel the least bit alienated by the fact that only men hold positions of power in the Church. I've been hearing a lot about "American Cafeteria Catholics"--a term I had never heard before. I guess I am a Cafeteria Catholic. I assumed almost everyone was. But it seems that a majority, although not all, of the calls for reform come from the U.S. Catholics. U.S. Catholics, however, do not represent a majority of Catholics. I tend to forget that. Just because we want something to be a certain way, doesn't mean it should be that way.

posted by DJ Heavy D @ 7:05 AM