Well Cardinal Pell has a cousin who is not only a lesbian but an ex-nun!

Too bad he still refused to give communion to the sash-wearing homosexual activists in Sydney.


Bec
Bec | 04.17.05 - 5:26 am | #

I have always been amazed that people reject essential aspects of "their faith" and still consider themselves as part of that faith. You either embrace it or you don't. If you cannot embrace it then integrity demands that you leave for something you can embrace. Then again, integrity has not been a hallmark of the Times the last few years, nor of "cafeteria Christians"(Catholic or not).
J Rob | Homepage | 04.17.05 - 8:13 am | #

Have you ever noticed that the Nyok Times is a big newspaper? A very, very BIG newspaper. Yesiree, Bob, it takes a lot of words to fill it up every day. Lots and lots and lots of words.

Naturally, there are times when the reporters, columnists and editors, under the pressure of a deadline, simply stick in any ol' words that happen to pop into their poor little heads.

I deeply sympathize.
npetrikov | Homepage | 04.17.05 - 8:20 am | #

I have to laugh at the idea that growing up in a family with lots of sisters is going to make a man more knowledgeable about women than he otherwise would be. Several of the men I know who grew up in such families early on adopted the withdrawn-tortoise-head posture toward life in their family and to this day, have no idea what was going on with his female relatives, including one who didn't realize that a sister had gotten pregnant and given a baby up for adoption.
Emily | Homepage | 04.17.05 - 9:11 am | #

Ignore the Times and maybe they will go away or be bought by new management anyway.
Alnot | Homepage | 04.17.05 - 11:36 am | #

Could the Times get any stupider?
Paul | Homepage | 04.17.05 - 1:26 pm | #

Paul,
you know the Einstein quote about the universe and human stupidity?

All,
After the first two examples (in the first NYT article) I wasn't so sure, whether they were dealing with "cafeteria" catholics, but then: "Catholics right now are à la carte", so they are actually consciously sitting in the cafeteria.
"The breadth of priorities Catholicism embraces permits people to identify themselves as Catholic while disagreeing with doctrine".

But to be fair with the Goyas, I don't think they'd considered themselves differing "from the church on most central doctrines". Central doctrines? Ah yes, the doctrines that are central to the NYT like abortion (after all only a "personal morality issue", homosex, women priests, contraception.

That fits perfectly with Kathy's "There is a lot of emphasis on the wrong principles".

She's actually right on that. It's her principles that are wrong (probably, since she doesn't tell us which) and it's her (and the NYT and the like) that are doing all the emphasizing.

The Dr, is right in saying the church is "something ... for everyone", but from reading this article it seems to me that everyone does not agree with that analysis.
francis | 04.17.05 - 2:28 pm | #

Well don't forget that during the sex scandal in the Howell Raines era, the NY Times ran an op-ed from a self-confessed "collapsed catholic" who had left the large church long ago but still felt free to opine that the Church was the enemy of progress in the world, it was retrograde and still the Church of the Inquisition and compared Pop John Paul to the Soviet Commisars who held Poland in thrall, killed hundreds of millions and probably had John Paul shot in 1981. Kenneth Woodward of Newsweek that only an editor that was anti-catholic would let such a anti-catholic rant on that on its op-ed pages.

The writer of that op-ed piece by the way was Bill Keller, the "moderate" newsman who succeeded Raines as Managing Editor of the Times. So - that's the kind of thinking about the RCC that is at the high levels of the NY Times.
JB3 | Homepage | 04.17.05 - 2:59 pm | #

Oh, is it just me or do others think the phrase "priests should remain celibate and male" strangely funny too?
francis | 04.17.05 - 3:07 pm | #

What's so amazing about folks like the author of this Times piece is the outright falsehood they spew out about how "listening to .........." (women, homosexuals, pro-abortionists, etc.) will satisfy that group, which is, after all, "only seeking to be heard", or to "have its pain felt".

What a load of manure. You can listen *attentively* for years, engage in real dialogue, and at the end of all that, if you haven't agreed with the position of the group in question, you're still going to be branded as being small-minded, uncaring, unwilling to listen, bigoted, and a host of other such things. It all boils down to one thing. The secular left knows what the Catholic Church should be doing - in spite of the fact that the church is inspired by God and deals with faith, whereas the left is inspired by the likes of Jane Fonda and deals with "feels good-ism".

Hacing said that, I think that the world would be a much worse place in the absence of the NYT. How else are we supposed to know what good Christians should NOT be thinking/doing?
Joey W | 04.17.05 - 4:42 pm | #

the nyt should print with red ink and give all readers rose colored glasses with which to read ... then they'd make perfect sense
uncle jim | 04.17.05 - 9:49 pm | #

Quite honestly, after reviewing the NY Times piece, and reflecting generally on how this same paper deals with Catholicism in particular and Christianity in general, it is difficult to see how any thoughtful person could take it seriously. It has degenerated into a predictable and frivolous publication.

RON
RON | 04.17.05 - 10:33 pm | #

For me, the high (as in Cheech and Chong) point of the article is where the writer nods sagely at the ruminations of the hormone addled 17 year old boy. A real font of insight there.
Dale Price | Homepage | 04.17.05 - 10:45 pm | #

I stopped taking the Times seriously when Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich became columnists - before then, I was skeptical of the Times, but took it seriously.
Dan Crawford | 04.18.05 - 7:14 am | #

It occurs to me that if you drove all the snakes out of the NYT, there wouldn't be any paper left.
Nightfly | Homepage | 04.18.05 - 10:54 am | #

Um...I thought the point of that baptism story was that a _real_ Christian is willing to accept a little pain in the service of God -- that the guy being baptized may not have known much about his faith yet, but he had humbling faith in both it and its representatives.

Well, that and that the Irish kings of old were a stoic lot, not like these whiners of modern times in the late Middle Ages.
Maureen | Homepage | 04.18.05 - 1:39 pm | #

I had almost (blessedly) forgotten this story. A picture thereof made it onto the front page of the New York Daily News only days only days before John Paul II passed on.

I've seen the hard copy. Mr. Ritchie looks quite like a deer caught in the headlights, the poor sap. Madonna looks smug enough to kick in the shins.
Nightfly | Homepage | 04.18.05 - 5:27 pm | #

"...to enter into real dialogue with women in the church..."

Frankly, m'dears, the only "real dialogue" I need within the Church is that which takes place during the Mass.
SouthCoast | 04.19.05 - 3:53 pm | #

"Judge not others, lest thou be judged."
Vidiot | Homepage | 04.19.05 - 7:32 pm | #

Women can't minister in the Catholic Church? Funny but I thought Mother Teressa was one of the greatest ministers of the twenteth century if not of all time. True she wasn't Pope but that never stopped her from doing God's work.
-Rick
Richard J Stuart | Homepage | 04.19.05 - 7:59 pm | #

Lisa Fabrizio's column was, in fact, cause for regret. And I made sure she did.

If you're going to crusade as a defender of the faith, that's fine. Everyone is free to find God wherever they wish, or not at all.

But if you're going to spout RCC Catechism while simultaneously gay-bashing (which the Catechism expressly forbids), well, you'll have cause to regret that both in this life, and the next.

Cheers!
Thom | Homepage | 04.21.05 - 9:27 am | #

See Ms. Fabrizio's logic fall apart here:

http://www.livejournal.com/users...m413/ 31408.html
Thom | Homepage | 04.21.05 - 9:29 am | #