CATHOLICISM
Thus
far two drafts of chapters have been written on the topic of Catholicism, which
for our classification purposes concern the Church as an organization. The first chapter entitled Alienated Catholics discusses individuals
who, for one reason or another, have become estranged from the Church at some
time in the past. Many of them would
like to be accepted back as members, but they have unfortunate situations in
their lives which hinder this. Several
aspects of these problems are examined.
Catholicism,
like most of the large religious groups in this country, has some members
holding what are considered as conservative opinions on various issues, and
others have mainly liberal views. The
corresponding chapter listed with a link on the sidebar discusses various
aspects of these cases.
A
third chapter entitled Vatican II Before and After is in preparation. It will discusses how well the Council
achieved its two seemingly contradictory goals, namely: a) bringing the Church
closer to its roots in the distant past (resourcement),
and b) making it face up to the problems of the modern world (aggiornamento). The Council accomplished these two ambitions
about as well as one could have optimistically expected it to. The documents promulgated by the Council
itself, and those issued after it, attest to this.