[T]oday the Episcopal Church looks roughly how Roman Catholicism would look if Pope Benedict XVI suddenly adopted every reform ever urged on the Vatican by liberal pundits and theologians. It still has priests and bishops, altars and stained-glass windows. But it is flexible to the point of indifference on dogma, friendly to sexual liberation in almost every form, willing to blend Christianity with other faiths, and eager to downplay theology entirely in favor of secular political causes.
Yet instead of attracting a younger, more open-minded demographic with these changes, the Episcopal Church’s dying has proceeded apace.
...
[I]f conservative Christianity has often been compromised, liberal Christianity has simply collapsed. Practically every denomination—Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian—that has tried to adapt itself to contemporary liberal values has seen an Episcopal-style plunge in church attendance. Within the Catholic church, too, the most progressive-minded religious orders have often failed to generate the vocations necessary to sustain themselves.
In his conclusion, Ross Duthat had this to say, quoted in part [2]:
[T]he leaders of the Episcopal Church and similar bodies don't seem to be offering anything you can't already get from a purely liberal secularism. Which suggests that perhaps they should pause, amid their frantic renovations, and consider not just what they would change about historic Christianity, but what they would defend and offer uncompromisingly to the world.
Absent such a reconsideration, their fate is nearly certain: they will change, and change, and die.
These are powerful prescient words, and in this blogger's opinion, they represent the truth. Perhaps Bergolio and his obsequious underlings including Cardinals and archbishops, bishops and priests ought to read Ross Duthat's article in its entirety and reassess their current trajectory toward the Catholic Church's burial ground which is secularism.
One thing the Bergolio papacy has continued to forbid are gays in the seminary. In the document entitled Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis, there is the following paragraph [3]:
"The Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture’. Such persons, in fact, find themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women. One must in no way overlook the negative consequences that can derive from the ordination of persons with deep-seated homosexual tendencies."
While this blogger agrees that anyone who practices homosexuality or who supports the gay culture ought not to be a seminarian, he disagrees that a seminarian cannot have "present deep-seated homosexual tendencies." If that were the case, then seminarians who have "present deep-seated heterosexual tendencies" ought not to be admitted to the seminary as well since there has never been a wall built that cannot be scaled to give those on inside access to what beckons on the outside.
One does not have to look far to find telltale signs that Bergolio has present deep-seated heterosexual tendencies: washing feet of women on Holy Thursday [4], asking women to breastfeed their infants in church (probably preferably in front of him) [5] and holding a woman close to him [6], [7].
It makes no difference whether such "present deep-seated sexual tendencies" are heterosexual or homosexual. What is important for seminarians and priests is to keep such tendencies at bay and adhere to celibacy even if the vow of celibacy has not yet been taken, and to keep their bodies, minds and spirits pure and holy.
The uncompromising position the Catholic Church holds against having seminarians with "present deep-seated homosexual tendencies" does not in and of itself save it from being hastened toward secularism for there are many other changes Bergolio wants to make and has made that will force the Church to die a secular death.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/opinion/sunday/douthat-can-liberal-christianity-be-saved.html
[2] Ibid.
[3] http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2016/12/08/vatican_issues_new_guidelines_for_priestly_formation/1277681
[4] http://www.americamagazine.org/content/dispatches/pope-francis-washes-feet-refugees-different-religions-and-countries
[5] http://www.uscatholic.org/news/201501/pope-francis-moms-it-ok-breastfeed-church-29687
[6] http://lemomentdepaix.blogspot.com/2016/08/a-photograph-of-woman-with-pope.html
[7] It is interesting to note that such a supposedly qualified creature such as Bergolio who has the requisite present deep-seated heterosexual tendencies has found himself in "a situation that gravely [hindered him] from relating correctly to men and women" whom he does not like. On one such occassion, he said that "scandal-mongering media risked falling prey to coprophilia, or arousal from excrement, and consumers of these media risked coprophagia, or eating excrement." See http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-media-idUSKBN13W1TU Is that a "correct" way to relate to men and women regardless of one's present deep-seated sexual inclination and tendencies? Will Bergolio please enlighten?
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