pope benedict xvi

Vatican pulls its ambassador.

An interesting theological question, but not a Catholic problem, probably.

This week in religion.

This week’s U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops summer meeting in Seattle will be dominated by the ongoing sexual abuse scandal. At this point apologies aren’t sufficient—it’s time for action.

Many of these weather events actually are a kind of “punishment”—not in the conservative-theological sense of tit-for-tat justice meted out by an Abusive Father on High, but in the more progressive-theological sense of unforeseen consequences of reckless human actions. Climate scientists have said for years that global climate change will lead to increased severe weather events, and now they appear to be here; along with droughts and poor harvests caused by shifting climatic belts. On a planetary basis, we are reaping what we have sown for two hundred years.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, while he was a senior official for Pope John Paul II, envisioned a leaner, meaner church, one with conservative doctrine and compliant faithful. Now that he is Pope Benedict XVI, his dream is coming true.

At a moment when the pope is cracking down on apparitions and limiting Marian devotion why this apparition, and not other literally countless reports that pop up in the news every year?

Beyond a growing distaste for the rancor around hot-button issues like human sexuality, gender equity, and reproductive choice, people seem to be put off church because they are able to do the kind of work—tending the sick, advocating for the oppressed, caring for the earth, comforting those in trouble or need—that was long the stock in trade of local churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples, but which, through the modern corporatizing of mainstream religions, was largely outsourced to separate agencies. This is why you’ll probably find more people volunteering in any given week at Martha’s Kitchen food pantry in downtown San Jose, California than at Sunday services at the church across the street. If Facebook is killing the church, that is, it’s probably more accurate to call it an assisted suicide.

About twenty miles outside of Green Bay and over a mile from even the smallest town, a tiny sign at a remote intersection points visitors toward Chapel Drive, site of the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, site of the only approved site of a Marian apparition in the U.S.

In his new book the pope rejects violence… but what of his statements on gays and lesbians?