This afternoon, for the second time in 20 years, I tried to send an email to the man who taught me about computers, Paul Seliga. Seliga taught me that 'originality is the art of concealing your sources'. We can all assume that he didn't invent the aphorism. What occasioned the email was my presence here in Philadelphia and a query about St. Joseph's University over in the ritzy part of town. It's Jesuit, as was Paul.
I say was, because I cannot tell whether or not he is. You see he never responded to my email and after reading this blogpost about the silence of bishops, I'm not sure that he will.
For so long, I fumed, futilely, at The Stalemate of Silence, the title imposed on the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church for its stalwart refusal to be human beings like us and just talk. No bishop called to say ‘Hello.” I did, though, in several letters to His Excellent Eminence above Eminences of Excellencies, without reply. I forget the pecking order for the show of reverence, being just one buried deep within the common herd of souls on their way to hell.
I know a Bishop, and I've never found her reluctant to talk to me. She's a personal friend and mentor, although I only speak to her every 4 years or so. In fact, now that I'm on the East Coast, I imagine that I am closer to her than I have been in some time. I'll look her up.
I've not had the expectation, although it is growing, of the Catholic hierarchy to speak through major media on matters of morality. And while I certainly hope that the State doesn't tell the Church what to do, it would be awfully nice to have a troop of clerics speaking out instead of the usual suspects. I wonder if their silence is one of complicity or embarrassment. Why bother removing doubt by speaking out? The Catholic Church may be silent because it is bluffing and any announcement may be a tell.
The great bluff of the Catholic Church may very well be that like the author of the blog I referenced, many of its ex-initiates may feel profoundly liberated by secular life. The Catholic hierarchy may be so full of...inconsistency.. that it is unable to be reformed by anything short of a top down purge. It would be a striking admission, of course. But the Church must be able to communicate to humans, and we humans are changing the way we communicate daily through technology. Church is getting left behind.
As an amateur philosopher and theologian, such matters are of pressing concern to me, but they are not articles of faith. I am not fundamentally disappointed with what the Church is because I think I understand what the Church is supposed to be, and that's a tall order by any measure. So there's nothing I'm so concerned about other than which way reform is going to push the leadership and what it's going to take to distribute change. This is especially true of the Roman Catholic Church.
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