27 March 2010

Standing Up For The Pope

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Fr Hunwicke, here, is absolutely spot on.

I do wish he'd become a Catholic and stop protestantly deciding for himself what he should do from day to day. But I shall refrain from saying anything negative about him for some time after reading this incisive post!

If he takes advantage of the Ordinariate provisions, I wonder which Catholic Bishop will find himself with Fr H ministering in his territorial diocese.

Can we get a petition up?
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4 comments:

Antonio said...

I fear the niceities of Anglo-Catholicism makes it hard for one to leave it for something they know to be objectively true.

Anagnostis said...

Ttony

At what point did Catholicism begin to mean the Pope deciding what one "should do from day to day".

Before, or after, the Reformation? Before or after the 19th Century? Within the past fifty years?

I'd be amazed if, even in Dante's time, the vast majority of non-Italian Catholics could even name the reigning Pope with any confidence.

Ttony said...

My guess would be that the two earth-shattering events which turned Catholicsm ultramontane were the French Revolution and the loss of the Papal States.

Leaving aside the effect of the politics of either event, the ecclesiastical consequences were; of the former, the fact that the Pope began to nominate Bishops rather than the monarchs of the different countries; of the latter, that the Pope (or maybe the Pope and the Curia) had nothing left to govern other than the Church. The former is a major mess still, while as far as the latter is concerned, I think JP2 to a certain extent, and BXVI completely, have sorted out what they are for. (The refusal by the Pope to have the tiara on his coat of arms is massively significant.)

E&OE - this is a quick reply.

Every time I try to get my head around Orthodoxy I realise how radically the Roman Church has changed in the last two hundred or so years. The Reformation, or more exactly the Counter-Reformation, was a blip in comparison.

I'll be in touch over the holidays with something a bit more considered.

Anagnostis said...

I look forward to it Ttony. Have a blessed Triduum.