Ex Catholic Priest James Carroll is given a platform in the Boston Globe(Surprise!!!) to go after Pope Benedict and pretty much the Catholic Faith that came to us from the Apostles. THe OP Ed is called Pope Benedict's mistake.
The piece I think is a confused mismash that just attacks everything in sight.
Father Z has the op ed and some great comments that he interacts with the piece
I shall update you if the Boston Globe gives space to a rebuttal. I am not holding my breath. Father Z's comments and observations are much better and insightful than mine. However let me point out a little silliness. Some of this silliness is just bizarre.
Pope Benedict XVI last week issued two unexpected decrees, restoring the atavistic Mass of the Council of Trent and resuscitating an outmoded Catholic exclusivism -- the notion of a pope-centered Catholicism as the only authentic way to God.
First despite having two degrees, I had to look up the word atavistic.It means
atavism \AT-uh-viz-uhm\, noun:
1. The reappearance in an organism of characteristics of some remote ancestor after several generations of absence.
2. One that exhibits atavism; a throwback.
3. Reversion to an earlier behavior, outlook, or approach.
This is not really correct. Though the Mass is similar to one you would see in the Trent era it is actually based on the Mass as it was in 1962. Believe it or not there were some changes and reforms since Trent. THe MP as to the Mass was hardly unexpected by the way. I mean we have been talking about it for months and months and months. The Vatican Document that came down last week as to what is the "Church" was a suprise but was nothing new.
Father Z can comment on the rest , but I can't let this pass.
Pope Benedict, in last week's denigration of Christian traditions that lack the unbroken "apostolic succession" of Catholicism, for example, was seeking to protect the "deposit of faith," those core beliefs that were established by the Apostles themselves. But such literalist reading of apostolic succession goes out the window when one learns that none of the actual Apostles thought that they themselves were establishing a "church" in our sense, independent of Judaism. Similarly, the New Testament is "inspired," but what does that mean for appeals to "apostolic" authority when one learns that its 27 books were not "canonized" until three centuries after Jesus?
Goodness. So many errors so little time. How shocking. The Bible was not "canonized" until three centuries later. See Apostolic Succession is a FRAUD!!!. We have been fooled. Shockingly we learn that the Apostles did't get together or the Apostle John at least and say here it is call Ignatius Press and get these writings copywrited and put in the Library of Alexandria. Make sure the Royalty checks are sent to the Bishop of Rome. What in the World does this have to with Apostolic Succession and the deposit of faith?
The Council of Trent, whose Mass and theology (including its anti-Judaism) Benedict wants to re establish, was summoned about the time Copernicus published his "On the Revolutions of Heavenly Bodies" -- the beginning of the scientific age. The Roman Catholic Church made a terrible mistake in rejecting Copernicus, one from which it has only lately been recovering. Pope Benedict is repeating that mistake, as Dawkins and company think religious people are bound to do. But believers need not follow. Indeed, many of us, including Catholics, have moved on from such thinking, if you can call it thinking.
You know I expect such bumpersticker rethoric from anti Catholics and people that are uninformed. But it is embarrassing for a man that has a seminary degree to spout this stuff for public consumption.I find the injection of the unrelated topic of Copernicus(what does this have to do with the Mass),really typical of an anti Catholic fundamentalist. They start a topic on issue x but then include 5 or 6 unrelated issues. A question about the Pope in a matter of seconds becomes a inquistion on Mary, the Euchurist, the Crusades, and various other things. Of course the Catholic cannot respond to 10 issues all at once. A common tactic that we now see Mr. Carrol using.
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