OK. So here’s a story about a 70 year old former nun who took part in a ceremony in which she pretends to become a Catholic priest.
Maybe I’ve been blogging too long but these kinds of things happen with enough frequency that I’ve become bored with the story. But what did jump out at me was this lede from MSN News:
In an emotional ceremony filled with tears and applause, a 70-year-old Kentucky woman was ordained a priest on Saturday as part of a dissident group operating outside of official Roman Catholic Church authority.
Rosemarie Smead is one of about 150 women around the world who have decided not to wait for the Roman Catholic Church to lift its ban on women priests, but to be ordained and start their own congregations.
That lede doesn’t really tell you an awful lot about the Church but it tells you plenty about how the media views the Church. Look how it says that these women “have decided not to wait” for the Church to ordain women and they’ll just go ahead and do it themselves. As if it were a certitude that it was just a matter of time before the Catholic Church starts synching up with the Episcopalians.
We can laugh this off as media bias but this kind of thinking is contagious and can be very damaging to people’s souls.
Instead of viewing the Church’s countercultural statements and stands as a prophetic gift to the culture many people completely miss it because they believe it’s just a matter of time before the Catholic Church simply accepts passing fads as truth. Instead of being intrigued by the difference between the Church and the culture, people accept that the Church will eventually become a weathervane.
People have become used to those whom the media targets buckling under the intense pressure, issuing apologies, and swearing fealty to liberal clichés. Perhaps the fact that the Church does not, will not may seem interesting to those who believe surrender is imminent.
