Friday, January 25, 2013
God talk
Why does the church fail to persuade people to God? We can say it is because people are selfish, unlearned, relativistic. Maybe so in some cases, many cases. If we stay with this answer then the church does not have to face the reality that it fails to engage the person in their particular situation. The modern person starts with experience, their own personal experience. The church stars with an answer, a closed argument. The argument is dispassionate about the feelings, the personal suffering in one's life. Can male celibates really engage sexually active women about"sex?" Can a clergy that seeks power and privilege, and runs from personal suffering, really engage the poor, the non-European Third World? I believe that there are Catholics who can be quite articulate on those subjects, but they are the wrong sex and don't have much power in hierarchical circles.
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Is the church the only path to God? How can it change to be more relevant to the present day? It must be God's plan that we struggle with the current state of distress, growing pains? Is God wanting us to grow into his love?
ReplyDeleteI used to be annoyed when a Priest talked about the problems of marriage and how to reconcile them. Now I realize that the priests have probably seen a lot of good and bad marriages through their years and can recognize the good and bad qualities of them. Sexual issues? Well that seems more personal and I'm less prone to talk about them. Thank you Fr Terry for even bringing this up .. it helps.
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