This message doesn't just apply to the Catholic Church. A church must confront the needs and fears of it's community ranging from the young to the old. Our own protestants churches in the US have abandoned their duties in many cases to play in politics. While is nothing wrong with a church confronting politicians who have lost themselves to the temptations of their powers and appetites and clearly calling them out for going to far... That is not what the churches in question have done.The former archbishop of Milan and papal candidate Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini said the Catholic Church was "200 years out of date" in his final interview before his death, published on Saturday.
Martini, once favoured by Vatican progressives to succeed Pope John Paul II and a prominent voice in the church until his death at the age of 85 on Friday, gave a scathing portrayal of a pompous and bureaucratic church failing to move with the times.
"Our culture has aged, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our rituals and our cassocks are pompous," Martini said in the interview published in Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
"The Church must admit its mistakes and begin a radical change, starting from the pope and the bishops. The paedophilia scandals oblige us to take a journey of transformation," he said in the interview.
In the last decade the Church has been accused of failing to fully address a series of child abuse scandals which have undermined its status as a moral arbiter, though it has paid many millions in compensation settlements worldwide.
Martini, famous for comments that the use of condoms could be acceptable in some cases, told interviewers the Church should open up to new kinds of families or risk losing its flock.
"A woman is abandoned by her husband and finds a new companion to look after her and her children. A second love succeeds. If this family is discriminated against, not just the mother will be cut off but also her children."
In this way "the Church loses the future generation", Martini said in the interview, made a fortnight before he died. The Vatican opposes divorce and forbids contraception in favour of fidelity within marriage and abstinence without.
A liberal voice in the church, Martini's chances of becoming pope were damaged when he revealed he was suffering from a rare form of Parkinson's disease and he retired in 2002.
Pope John Paul II was instead succeeded in 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI, a hero of Catholic conservatives who is known by such critical epithets as "God's rottweiler" because of his stern stand on theological issues.
Martini's final message to Pope Benedict was to begin a shake up of the Catholic church without delay.
"The church is 200 years out of date. Why don't we rouse ourselves? Are we afraid?"
Martini was much loved and thousands paid their respects at his coffin in Milan cathedral on Saturday.
Instead the churches have repeatedly allied themselves with power hungry and venal men who do nothing but mouth the correct formulas. A man like Gingrich for example had no business being a standard bearer for family values or a symbol for Christian morality! One sees no evidence of Christ's teachings in his personal conduct, no examples of higher moral or ethical concerns only a base rooting for power and an eternal quest to satisfy personal physical appetites. This is a man who has lied, cheated, exercised hypocrisy of the highest form in the quest for personal glorification and damn little else and I am sad to say that in today's environment he is the perfect match for the church leaders who embraced him. There we saw an example of the age old saying like calls to like.
I will go further still. Not that long ago a conference of American Churches declared the mainstream acceptance of homosexuality the great moral crisis of our time. Leaving aside the question of whether or not homosexuality is a sin... This is still utter babbling nonsense fit myopic morons with the moral stature of pygmies (my apologizes to pygmies, I mean solely to use their height as analogy)! In a world where we have men with the capabilities to buy entire nations, while legions of children lay in the dust starving, where good men and women who try to do nothing but improve the world around are tore apart and ground under by the very machinery of the world's systems, where young men and women out of emotional duress turn to filling themselves with entertaining poisons because there are no other options open to them... To claim the public debate in the United States over the rights and standing of those who identify themselves as homosexuals is the most urgent and dangerous issue to our moral health is an act of lunacy or disgusting self service!
There are places in the world where your brothers and sisters in Christ are in danger of torment and death, but you rather worry about homosexuals. The very economic system of the world grounds down armies of people into phyiscal decay and moral despair, but you rather worry about homosexuals. Millions literally kill themselves with chemical mixtures that you wouldn't inject into your car, but you rather worry about homosexuals. The media of the world preaches a relentless message of materialism, objectification and turning the very human mind and body into a commodity to be bought and sold, but you rather worry about homosexuals. Hundreds of millions if not billions of men and women grapple with problems of right and wrong that can have literally life ending consequences or worse... BUT YOU RATHER WORRY ABOUT HOMOSEXUALS!
As long as the churches of both the US and the world turn their eyes and minds from the problems that threaten to literally choke the life and soul out of their younger generations... They deserve to have shrinking congregations. They will have shrinking congregations. They are not capable of dealing with anything but shrinking congregations. They do not have the moral authority to deal with anything but shrinking congregations. If they refuse to turn to their rightful duties and confront the actual true problems threatening their people then both the world and God will be well rid of them!
Let those who refuse to heed be reminded of our Lord's own words "for I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones." Matthew 3:9
