Rainbow Sash Movement

My last column was devoted to the Vatican bullying Moral Theologians. No sooner had the dust settled on the Fr. Jon Sobrina, S.J case, another incident erupted. This time it involved Dr. Daniel Maguire's works. Dr. Maguire teaches at Marquette University.

This time the U.S. Episcopal conference's Committee on Doctrine beat the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) to the punch. It is unusual for a Episcopal conference to preempt the CDF in these matters. They condemned Dr Magurie.

The cause of this course of action was power and authority. Fr. Maguire published 2 pamphlets. The way the Bishops reacted you would have thought it was akin to Martin Luther’s 95 thesis being nailed to the church door in 1517.

The two pamphlets dealt with abortion, contraception and same-sex marriage. Fr. Maguire proclaims in these pamphlets "there is no authentic Church teaching that is binding on all members of the Catholic Church," and says that within the Church there is both a pro-choice and pro-life tradition, and that "neither is more Catholic than the other."

The views presented in Daniel Maguire's two pamphlets on abortion, contraception and same-sex marriage "cross the legitimate lines of theological reflection and simply enter into the area of false teaching," the bishops' stated. It would be great to see the bishops put as much energy into cleaning up the massive financial irresponsibility of various Archdioceses’ and Dioceses’ across the nation.

In my opinion the response was a little over kill. The bishops really need to develop a two way path of communication with our theologians. Public autocratic pontifications only alienate the Bishops from the theologians and reasonable people.

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