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Last Sunday I watched a distinguished American journalist being interviewed on camera.She claimed to be in good standing with the Catholic Church though she happily calls herself a cafeteria Catholic.
While cherishing Catholic social teaching, she doesn't try to square her daily life with the institutional Church. "I pick and choose," she says.
She doesn't believe divorcees or homosexuals should be barred from Communion or that women should not be priests.
How does she get away with this? Could her name have something to do with it?
She is Maria Shriver, wife of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California, and niece of President Kennedy.
Could it also be that if the Church excommunicates everyone with such views, few would be left?
But there might be another reason. Any historian will tell you that Popes John Paul and Benedict are themselves pick and choose Catholics. They blithely contradict many Catholic teachings.
They say capital punishment is always morally wrong whereas almost all their predecessors were its sternest advocates. Pope after pope demanded the execution of heretics and witches.
JP II and Benedict XVI recommend the safe period for controlling birth. This method was condemned as evil all through Church history.
They teach that the soul is infused at conception when, for a millennium, popes put it much later. They conclude that all abortions are murder whereas their predecessors said this was not the case.
It raises an interesting question: are modern popes also cafeteria Catholics?
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Sotto Voce
(Source: EH)
(Posting 7,000 of 2008)