http://tinyurl.com/af8axgx
Among educated, intelligent people, the Catholic Church means less and
less. Only among uneducated, uninformed people, such as in South
America, can the Catholic Church continue infect the people with its
sickness and degeneracy.
This article is important enough to quote as follows:
"February 18, 2013
The Pope’s Muffled Voice
By FRANK BRUNI
There were reports over the weekend that cardinals might tweak the rules
and begin the conclave to choose Pope Benedict XVI’s successor sooner
than March 15, which had been the earliest date mentioned. That would be
a blessing. Already in the American news media it’s all pope all the
time, a tsunami of papal coverage, and until a new pope is named, the
tide won’t quit. You’d be forgiven for concluding that he’ll actually
have significant sway over Catholics in this country.
He won’t, not over the majority of them, not in any immediate sense. And
it’s worth pausing, amid this hoopla, to remember that. In large parts
of the Roman Catholic world, certainly in North America and Western
Europe, most Catholics don’t feel any particular debt or duty to the
self-appointed caretakers of their church. They don’t feel bound by the
pope’s interpretation of doctrine or moral commands. And many regard him
and other Vatican officials as totems, a royal family of dubious
relevance, partly because these officials have often shown greater
concern for the church’s reputation than for the needs, and wounds, of
the people in the pews.
The blanket coverage of matters papal is deceptive, a function to some
degree of habit and convenience. We in the media love the clear-cut
drama of transitions. They’re easy to grasp and frame. And in the case
of the Vatican, they come with majestic visual backdrops, colorfully
costumed characters: a pageant extraordinaire. It looks splendid on the
front page and even better on the nightly news.
We traffic in celebrities, and the pope qualifies as one. We also relish
the narrative of any winner-take-all contest in which there are multiple
hopefuls, murky dynamics and a familiar brand of suspense. This informs
the way we approach presidential elections, focusing on the horse race.
It explains all the cook-offs, the sing-offs, the analyses of the face-
off between “Argo” and “Lincoln” for Best Picture. The papal selection
process is in one sense “Top Chef” without the cooking. It’s the
ecclesiastical Oscars. It fits a mold, regardless of import.
There’s import, certainly. The Roman Catholic Church is a worldwide
organization with enormous financial resources; with a network of
charities and agencies that provide crucial help to the downtrodden; and
with parishes in which the prayerful nurture their relationship with
God. And the pope is its C.E.O., ultimately responsible for where the
money flows and for the placement and policing of its staff. The
policing part matters, as the child sexual abuse crisis made agonizingly
clear.
But the trend over the last half century has been for the prayerful in
this country to feel less invested in that organization, less attached
to its traditions. Polls chart a decline in churchgoing among American
Catholics and a robust disobedience.
A 2011 survey published in the National Catholic Reporter showed that
while 73 percent of American Catholics described their belief in Jesus’
resurrection as “very important” to them, only 30 percent described the
teaching authority of the Vatican that way, and only 21 percent
characterized an all-male, celibate priesthood in those terms. More than
60 percent supported the ordination of women as priests.
When it comes to divorce, premarital sex, abortion and more, Catholics
routinely break with the church’s edicts. Pew polling last year found
that more than half of American Catholics support same-sex marriage,
which church leaders vociferously oppose. This particular renunciation
of church teaching travels beyond the United States. Spain, Portugal and
Argentina have legalized same-sex marriage; all have populations that
are more than 75 percent Catholic, at least nominally.
A Gallup poll last year showed that 82 percent of American Catholics had
no qualms about birth control. Church leaders do, and during the
presidential campaign they railed against President Obama’s health care
reform for mandating insurance coverage of contraception. He won the
Catholic vote anyway.
Andrew Cuomo certainly doesn’t sweat the church’s ire the way his father
did. Three decades ago Mario Cuomo felt the need for a major address at
the University of Notre Dame to explain the discrepancy between his
support for abortion rights and the church’s antiabortion position.
Without any such handwringing, his son is plotting to shore up abortion
rights in New York. Andrew Cuomo also lobbied for, and signed, New
York’s gay marriage law. Divorced, he lives outside of wedlock with
Sandra Lee. There’s been no Notre Dame soul-baring about any of this.
Does the pope fully appreciate this drift? Every Sunday, he looks from
his window onto St. Peter’s Square and sees adoring, rapt masses.
Everywhere he goes, traffic parts and cameras follow him. But here in
America, the Catholics watching closely are fewer and fewer. They’re
Christian. They’re caring. They’re moral. But they have minds and wills
of their own, and no conclave will change that."