I read a description of the Soviet Union before the fall.

[hedgehog]

The structure looked rock solid and unchangeable. The reality was that top level bureaucrats were trying to keep the lid on while the middle level and lower bureaucrats knew that the system had to change. Substitute Church and hierarchy in the appropriate places and it sounded like a description of the current situation in the Catholic Church. Is change coming? If so, will it come like the collapse of the Soviet Union? In other words, what do you see happening and when? I'm not looking to the collapse of the Church but the renewal. It seems to me we've been putting new wine into some pretty old wine skins that are about ready to burst.

[Matilda]

1. Hedgehog, I'm inclined to agree with you.

I think John Paul did the Church a great disservice by appointing
not only cardinals who shared his views, but also bishops. It was
virtually unknown for the pope to personally oversee the appointment
of bishops, but JP did, and only the most conservative were
appointed. To my mind, this means that not only do we have a like-
minded successor in Jozef Ratzinger, but the next pope, who will
be elected from either the current crop of cardinals or those who
may be elevated by Benedict from the current crop of bishops
will also most likely be of a similar mindset.

The world has changed more rapidly than anyone could have imagined
since the election of John Paul in 1978, and it will continue to do
so - but we look like having a Church run by someone who will be
marching to the beat of JP's outmoded drum. We'll be facing huge
problems of climate change, over-population and most likely more
countries with nuclear capability and rulers prepared to use them.
We will need a 21st century pope with a broad agenda, prepared to
allow bishops far greater autonomy over their own churches, not a
mid-20th century pope desperately trying to claw back the lost
authority of the pre-Vatican II Church.

If the Church can't make the jump from authority to humanity as the
centrepiece of its agenda, I think it will come tumbling down - if
not in this pope's lifetime, then the next, unless some very smart
survival-oriented cardinals see the light.

[hedgehog]

2. Check out the thread asking about denunciations of gays

Clearly the Church (as in Body of Christ) is on a different path than the hierarchy. I really think change is barreling down on us. The question is how soon and in what form.

[Matilda]

3. I don't have any doubt

that the laity and the average parish priest aren't travelling on
the same train as the hierarchy. That's why I remain in the Church,
although I'm very critical of many of the decisions that have been
made at the top over the last forty years.