I'm an atheist but I have a lot of respect for the Church and its traditions. It saddens me to see all the degeneracy in the Church today; not that it's new, pope Leo X in the 16th century was probably an active homosexual.
The next pope should be a hardline conservative like Benedict. There's much internal pressure for reform, but the Church will lose its moral authority if it doesn't crack down on things like gay clergy. This is especially true, as Hussar points out, in Africa and probably Latin America where churchgoers are more conservative than the average European churchgoer.
It's a trade-off between losing moral authority with a more inclusive church, or restoring moral authority at the cost of alienating liberal Catholics.
Look at what's happened to the Episcopal Church - a lot of the stuff that goes on there like the ordination of women, gay marriage, support for abortion even today gets Catholics excommunicated. Incidentally there's a widening rift in the Episcopal Church between conservative third world bishops and and more liberal Anglo clergy.
The Catholic Church is not scared of asserting doctrine and stamping out heresy even in the face of changing social mores. That's a big component of its longevity and cohesion. There's a consistent, logical and clear set of rules there based not only on religious faith but grounded in the thinking of the great natural law philosophers of the Western tradition. Catholic laws are nearly independent of religious faith and the product of more than a millenium of refining and debate.
Catholics understand that you can't pick and choose which rules you want to follow, like other churches are doing. That undermines moral authority; Catholic conservatives understand that the short-term trade-off of being more inclusive in the short run leads to decline. That should be respected. And that's why the worst thing that could happen for the Church right now is the election of an aggressively liberal pope.
The next pope should be a hardline conservative like Benedict. There's much internal pressure for reform, but the Church will lose its moral authority if it doesn't crack down on things like gay clergy. This is especially true, as Hussar points out, in Africa and probably Latin America where churchgoers are more conservative than the average European churchgoer.
It's a trade-off between losing moral authority with a more inclusive church, or restoring moral authority at the cost of alienating liberal Catholics.
Look at what's happened to the Episcopal Church - a lot of the stuff that goes on there like the ordination of women, gay marriage, support for abortion even today gets Catholics excommunicated. Incidentally there's a widening rift in the Episcopal Church between conservative third world bishops and and more liberal Anglo clergy.
The Catholic Church is not scared of asserting doctrine and stamping out heresy even in the face of changing social mores. That's a big component of its longevity and cohesion. There's a consistent, logical and clear set of rules there based not only on religious faith but grounded in the thinking of the great natural law philosophers of the Western tradition. Catholic laws are nearly independent of religious faith and the product of more than a millenium of refining and debate.
Catholics understand that you can't pick and choose which rules you want to follow, like other churches are doing. That undermines moral authority; Catholic conservatives understand that the short-term trade-off of being more inclusive in the short run leads to decline. That should be respected. And that's why the worst thing that could happen for the Church right now is the election of an aggressively liberal pope.
"A flower can not remain in bloom for years, but a garden can be cultivated to bloom throughout seasons and years." - xsplat