Sunday 29 May 2011

Catholic Instincts

One of the most worrying aspects about the Liverpool Cathedral/Methodist 'ordinations' fiasco is this. As soon as I read about it, my instinct was that this was wrong. The Archbishop of Liverpool's instinct was clearly the opposite.

That would worry me, in terms of my own response, were it not that on this (as on so many issues) my instinct coincides with what previous generations of Catholics would have felt, and also with the official teaching and praxis of the Church as demonstrated and taught by Peter.

I claim no credit for this - I'm just an ordinary Catholic in the pews. Blame my parents. They insisted on educating me in the Faith, despite the protestations of the Benedictines who ran the school I attended (one had the temerity to write to my father suggesting he leave my religious education to the school, as I was getting confused: that drew a frosty response... My father was a convert, as was my Mother: they had worked hard for their Faith).

So the worrying question is: why do we have bishops in this country whose instincts are contrary to those of the Catholic faithful of the past, (and indeed many of the present generations too) and contrary to Rome? And what can be done about it?

As usual, prayer and sacrifice are a large part of the remedy. But what else?

5 comments:

Stuart James said...

Slightly off topic.

Just discovered your blog via the Catholic Herald piece, which noted your original piece on the Liverpool Cathedral debacle.

Had a look around and really glad I've found you. Superb blog.

I've linked to you in my recent post.

This is me saying 'Hi'.

Ben Trovato said...

Thanks for dropping by Stuart - will explore your blog...

Ttony said...

"Why do we have bishops in this country whose instincts are contrary to those of the Catholic faithful of the past?"

This is a really important question, second only to "How do we retrain their instincts?"

You can't imagine a musician without a sense for pitch, or a comedian with no sense of timing; a vet who doesn't empathise with animals is unthinkable; so why do we get Bishops who are so out of sync?

Left-footer said...

Ben - But what else? We should stop being afraid of dishonest labels, like Catholic Taliban, from the liberal establishment, and continue to speak out as you and Ttony so superbly and tirelessly.

Thank you, and God bless.

Elizabeth said...

For a while there in the 60's and 70's (I don't live in Britain, not saying where I live!)I was getting really mixed up, and I thought to heck with this, this is not what the nuns taught me, or what the Church that I grew up in believed, and I started reading Papal Encyclicals and other documents.
It was like getting a tune up for the brain, (not to mention the soul).
Pope John Paul the Great.....indeed! Amen and Amen