Thursday, September 07, 2006

Totally Outside their Real-Life Experience

This report from an African Bishop (a Cathlic Bishop, at least formally) visiting a parish in Albany:
For millions of sub-Saharan Africans, the whole concept of pre-marital abstinence and being faithful to one's mate, as prescribed by the church, is totally outside their real-life experience, Dowling said. Dowling compared the church's stance on condoms to the impossible rules Pharisees imposed on people during Christ's day.
Naturally, one doesn't want to address the fundamental issue here and strive to make Christian morality part of the average African Catholic's "real-life experience," now does one?

Of course not. Instead, let's make infidelity and impurity part of the Africans' "spiritual experience," too. It's called "inculturation," isn't it?

These days it is hardly shocking to hear such an idea from a cleric, however wrong it might be, but note that Bp. Dowling has picked one of the more hospitable places in the United States to spread his heretical message, hasn't he? I wonder what his tour itenerary is like? Next stop Springfield, Illinois? Winding up in Los Angeles and Orange?

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