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[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by bilmore
It's a verb now?

In other news, Andy Sullivan rejoices at the new pope:

": "How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking… The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves – thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and 'swept along by every wind of teaching', looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today's standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires." - Pope Benedict XVI, yesterday. And what is the creed of the Church? That is for the Grand Inquisitor to decide. Everything else - especially faithful attempts to question and understand the faith itself - is "human trickery." It would be hard to over-state the radicalism of this decision. It's not simply a continuation of John Paul II. It's a full-scale attack on the reformist wing of the church. The swiftness of the decision and the polarizing nature of this selection foretell a coming civil war within Catholicism. The space for dissidence, previously tiny, is now extinct. And the attack on individual political freedom is just beginning."

Ahh, to be young and Catholic and . . . totally screwed.

This depresses me, and I don't even practice anymore.

OTOH,

An e-mail from a progressive nun to her niece:

• Given the name chosen we believe that this is a short term interim pope. He has often spoken of retiring as cardinal when he reached 80. We think you may retire as pope at 85. In his earlier years he was quite progressive and became the watch dog for the faith at the request of John Paul 2.
  He may be surprising in the long haul.