So here you go - an early Christmas present from me to you...
From National Catholic Distorter (bold my comments)
"Shattered Expectations of Institutional Change Bring True Vision of God" by Jaime Manson [boy, talk about spin, eh? The Church hasn't done what we want, which means that God is revealing Himself to us Catholycs 'cos we're disappointed and sad and stuff. Right.]
As life-giving as it is for me to attend meetings with progressive Catholics who are committed to inviting this institutional church into greater integrity and inclusion, [translation: the hierarchy are meanies] I always come away from these gatherings with a slight heaviness in my heart.There you go - Merry Fiskmas!
What weighs on me, I believe, is the palpable hurt in this group of faithful people whose expectations have been betrayed. [Betrayed? No - their expectations were wrong] In the late 1960s and through the 1970s it was not unreasonable for Catholics to believe that major reforms were beginning to unfold. [and most of those 'reforms' constituted the hermeneutic of rupture]
So often traditional Catholics make progressive Catholics feel like they are asking the impossible, or they are imposing their own secular needs on a church that is unchangeable. [let's see...what things are the Catholycs 'asking for'?...women's ordination is impossible; gay sex is sinful; no such thing as gay marriage...gee, I wonder what could possibly give Catholycs such ideas?]
In the face of these criticisms, it helps to remember that the movement to bring a spirit of change and open-mindedness to the Catholic Church was initiated by the hierarchy. [yep, and even bishops can be wrong.] It was church authorities that sought the reforms that would allow them to understand more fully the lives of the people they were serving.
The first Call to Action conference was actually called by [American] bishops to engage lay people in dialogue through an innovative consulting process. The bishops recognized that a church that ventures to speak about justice must first be just in the eyes of those it serves. [justice without prudence - the virtue of being able to tell good from evil - is not true justice, but selfishness. True justice is independent of subjective opinion and personal feelings.] The phrase “Call to Action” was taken from Pope Paul VI’s conviction that the laity receives the primary call to action to create a more just world.More than 100 bishops attended the first Call to Action meeting in Detroit in 1976, which hosted three days of discussion and debate among 1,340 voting delegates and 1,500 observers. [and since then, many bishops had backed off their support due to CTA's uber-radical proposals] The assembly recommended that the church become a prophetic force in decrying racism, sexism, and poverty.
In the wake of such progress many Catholics felt hopeful that reforms like the ordination of married men and of women were on the horizon. [that's happening now - in some non-Catholic Christian denominations. And guess how great those particular groups are doing...answer? Badly.]
Given these auspicious beginnings, it is no wonder that there is unrest and sorrow among the lay people who worked with bishops to achieve these goals. They have stood by powerlessly, watching the hierarchy spend three decades gradually breaking their own promises. Their expectations have been shattered. [the hierarchy didn't break any promises. They realized they were being hoodwinked.]
During the third week of Advent, we heard another account of disappointed expectations.
The Gospel recounts the stunning news that Jesus had failed to meet John the Baptist’s expectations about the Messiah. [say what?] Even after Jesus has healed multitudes of blind, deaf, paralyzed, and possessed people, John -- who is in prison at this point -- sends an emissary to ask Jesus whether he was really the Messiah. The question is almost comical: “Are you the one, or should we wait for another?”
[This is where the article really goes off the rails, where she tries to equate the Catholyc experience to John the Baptist.]
John was expecting the Messiah to be a fiery judge, filled with anger and indignation at those whose lives are not upright in the eyes of God. This Jesus, however, reserved his power not for judgment, but to heal the afflicted and give good news to the poor. John was expecting a didactic, imposing figure. [does she even know what 'didactic' means? Jesus wasn't a teacher?] Instead he got a marginal and marginalized visionary.
[Really? John was expecting a firebrand? On several occasions in St John's Gospel, he called Jesus 'the Lamb of God'. He knew Isaiah's prophecies, and that's why Jesus gave him the reply that He did - to assure him that yes - He was the one sent by God.
Here's another thing to consider - John is languishing in prison. He's in a dark place, and he asks Jesus that question in order to find out if all that he had done was worth it. And don't we do that too? When times are difficult and we find ourselves seemingly abandoned, we want to know if Jesus is still with us - is He who He claims to be. John wasn't suffering from shattered expectations. Not.one.bit.
And referring to the Son of God as a 'visionary' - treading awfully close to heresy there. Visionaries don't heal the sick, make the blind see, forgive sins...visionaries are folks who see things or have impractical ideas - kinda like Catholycs!]
Jesus invites John to see a different face of God: the God who is at one with the weak, the impoverished, and those living on the edge of society. [you know, not like the God who rescued the Israelites from Egypt, or lifted up prophets, or saved Noah...]Perhaps it’s because only the vulnerable are willing to make themselves vulnerable to the power of God. Perhaps God likes to go to the places where God is most welcome.
Jesus shows John that those places of powerlessness and brokenness can also be places of strength and holiness. They are the places where God has chosen to dwell. [notice the dichotomy - because the hierarchy has the 'power', God isn't dwelling there.] John’s disappointed expectations turn out to be good news for all of us. [Again, John wasn't disappointed. She's projecting onto John her own disappointment, that the ideals she has in mind for the Church won't ever happen.]
What else could we expect of a God who comes into the world as an imperiled infant, born in a barn -- and exits the world as a humiliated, common criminal? [ummm...actually, Jesus exited the world as a triumphant King who conquered death and sin, when He ascended into heaven. That's our hope and promise if we stay true to His Church, too.]
Advent may be an occasion for us to reflect on the ways in which our own unfulfilled expectations might also be good news. [I agree - her 'unfilled expectations' is good news...for faithful Catholics.]
Yes, it is painful to be alienated by the institutional church, and the hierarchy’s disempowering actions are spirit-breaking. [sniff sniff] But in these fragments of our shattered expectations we may find an opportunity to see God in the faces of the rejected believers, of the powerless ministers, of the isolated prophets. [question: can one really see God in the face of those who reject Christ's teachings and His Church? Who reflects Christ more closely - Fr Barron or Fr Bourgeios? Mother Teresa or Sister Carol Keehan?]
Being free of the trappings of church authority has a way of illuminating the path of integrity, of true wholeness. [Yeah sure - ignoring Church teaching on homosexuality, for instance - there's none of that icky guilt stuff getting in the way...] Working on the margins of religious institutions can allow us insight into where God is fully alive. [But...but God is everywhere, isn't He? Isn't that what these Catholycs preach? So isn't He fully alive in the center of religious institutions, as well as at the margins? Remember that dichotomy earlier? Hypocritical] There is so much holiness brimming like living water on the margins of the parched desert of the institutional church. [translation: feeeeeeelllinnggss! whoa whoa feeeeeellllinnnnnggs! Many people confuse emotions of holiness with actual holiness.]
In the Gospel, Jesus asked those in the desert what they were expecting to see. It is a question that we should ask ourselves about our own expectations. [Good idea - but Catholycs only want God to affirm them in their crushed expectations, instead of enlightening them that their expectations are wrong.]
We know that it is imperative that we continue the work of calling church leaders to accountability for the harm they have created and the promises they have broken. But we must continually ask ourselves how the church we are hoping for can be realized in such a structure of power. [IOW, current Church = bad; CTA Church = good. Except....it won't be good for faithful Catholics. Kinda like the desolation of the 70's and 80's here in America. If Catholycs made the Church in the image they desire - it would be bad for everyone, ultimately.]
What is this church we are expecting to see? What is it that keeps us fighting for our vision? [delusion, maybe? The Catholyc vision of the Church is as real as unicorn farts.]
Is it a desire to have a place at the center of religious authority? [you betcha!] Is it to claim a seat on the bench of ecclesial judges? [That would mean no Burke...heck yeah!] Or is it a longing to develop a church that immerses itself, fearlessly, into those ailing, broken, and abandoned places in our lives and our world? [which is what the Church does today, everyday, all over the world, more than any other institution around, religious or secular. Go to China, or Saudi Arabia, or Baghdad and preach this tripe to the faithful persecuted Catholics. I doubt they would care much for her complaints. Those places are rather ailing, broken and abandoned. She's projecting her own condition - whether it's real or contrived, doesn't matter - and is mad that the Church won't accommodate her ailments, brokenness and feelings of abandonment.]
Advent is a season of joyful expectation, but it is also a season that reminds us that God reaches God’s fullness of life on the margins. [That's part of Advent? I thought we were supposed to prepare ourselves for Christ's first coming, and for His second coming too. This 'life on the margins' paradigm is meaningless.]
Even if the hierarchy does one day decide to renew its Vatican II promises, we must not let our expectations cloud our vision of the God who has continually emerged from the unexpected places. [what Vatican II "promises"? There's nothing in the documents about ordaining women, approving gay marriage, or contraception, or divorce and remarriage, or abortion, or....you get the idea.]
