{"id":3682,"date":"2011-02-04T11:57:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-04T11:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2011\/02\/ive-learned-not-to-be-surprised-by-catholic-theologians.html"},"modified":"2011-02-04T11:57:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-04T11:57:00","slug":"ive-learned-not-to-be-surprised-by-catholic-theologians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2011\/02\/ive-learned-not-to-be-surprised-by-catholic-theologians.html","title":{"rendered":"I’ve learned not to be surprised by Catholic theologians"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The web has been abuzz here lately about why the Catholic Church is essentially floundering numbers-wise.\u00a0 Sure, there are parts of the world where Catholicism is growing \u2013 but no more than other religious devotions are growing.\u00a0 And in many parts traditionally held in Catholic practice \u2013 Europe, United States, S. America in general \u2013\u00a0the numbers are not pleasant.\u00a0 People are leaving the Church, and new converts are dwindling.\u00a0 I know, things can change, and they probably will.\u00a0 But still, as of now, things could look better.\u00a0 So why? Why? Why?\u00a0 That was the question.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m no expert, though I have some ideas.\u00a0 But at the risk of being to forward, let me suggest at least one reason: This story.<\/a>\u00a0 Another version is here<\/a>. So around a third of German Catholic theologians have come out and said it\u2019s time for the Church to soften\u00a0its stance on homosexual relations, women\u2019s ordinations, and priestly celibacy. And the reason:<\/p>\n

The professors said that they no longer wanted to stay quiet in the face of child sex abuse scandals that came to light last year and plunged the Catholic Church into an unprecedented crisis. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So,\u00a0things that had absolutely nothing to do with the sex abuse crisis are addressed.\u00a0 Nobody with more than a kindergarten education has tried to link celibacy or the absence of women priests with the sex abuse scandal. It\u2019s just not relevant.\u00a0 The overwhelming evidence is that the vast majority of abuse happens by men who are in relationships, happens despite sexual orientation, and is capable of happening by women (though most male journalists seem more turned on by the later stories than appalled by them).\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Therefore, we should change all of these things.\u00a0\u00a0Why not solve the Church\u2019s problems by taking entirely irrelevant subjects and changing them because of a scandal that was not connected to any of them, since most Protestant denominations that have embraced those suggested changes are all but dying away.\u00a0 There you go.\u00a0 When you want a winning basketball team, who better to learn from than the Cleveland Cavaliers?<\/a> <\/p>\n

Of course remember, Germany was the birthplace of Theological Liberalism, and a primary mover and shaker in the secular philosophies and academic theories of the 19th and 20th century.\u00a0 It does our secularized, post-religious society good to make us think that Germany was a hotbed of religious fanaticism.\u00a0 But fact is, by the dawn of the 20th century, Germany had embraced just about every post-Christian, post-religious, liberal theological secular philosophical viewpoint on the planet.\u00a0 So these fellows may just being following in the footsteps of those intellectual geniuses who brought such a paradise on earth to Germany and its environs that last time around.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The web has been abuzz here lately about why the Catholic Church is essentially floundering numbers-wise.\u00a0 Sure, there are parts of the world where Catholicism is growing \u2013 but no more than other religious devotions are growing.\u00a0 And in many parts traditionally held in Catholic practice \u2013 Europe, United States, S. America in general \u2013\u00a0the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nI've learned not to be surprised by Catholic theologians<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The web has been abuzz here lately about why the Catholic Church is essentially floundering numbers-wise.  Sure, there are parts of the world where\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2011\/02\/ive-learned-not-to-be-surprised-by-catholic-theologians.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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