Catholic reformation

The most obvious for me is in the role of the priest as father. I remember as a young child watching the father figures in the black robes and seeing members of the flock kneel and accept the wafer, as if fed by a parent.

As I grew up it seemed to me that Catholics, like children, were never that involved in making decisions for themselves. There were a lot of rules. Many people of faith were fine with this structure; it gave them a constant in their otherwise chaotic lives.

Decisions on how all things were run in the Church emanated from the man in Rome and some of the power trickled down, but only to the bishops. Talk about your authority figures. It didn’t seem to me like a frank and open discussion about theological issues or parish problems was in their nature. It was the epitome of the top-down management scheme.

My family members thought long and hard about confronting the aspects of the Catholic Church they couldn’t live with. They didn’t agree on the ban on birth control and the condemnation of those weak in regard to the sins of the flesh (like their hedonistic son). But my family knew fighting against the paternal leadership was useless and so left the Church.

But here in Sacramento, the powerful church authority structure has run into an equally strong group of people who are not willing to go away quietly and hide their problems with church leadership (see “Our Lady of Infinite Division,”). This story details the turmoil that still lingers.

Catholicism needs to respond to its current crisis, possibly one church at a time.