Tenebrae comes from the Latin work for darkness or shadows.? And there are plenty of shadows here.
There were 2 different women who stepped to the podium, one to do a reading and one to chant a response.? The choir included many glorious women’s voices, one soaring soprano in particular.? Yet in the Catholic Church of today, they will always be second class citizens in an organization that denies the early history of women in the church, and looks right past the fact that celibacy was not declared in the entire Roman church until about 1200 a d.
Most of the persons in the Cathedral last night were, of course, women.? Welcomed as long as they do not claim ministerial privileges, even those well-qualified to do so.? Welcomed to volunteer, to clean, to arrange the altar, but not to lead people closer to the deity.
And most of the persons in the Cathedral probably do not conform to current Catholic teaching.? For instance, Catholic women in their child-birth years are using birth control at the 98% level, and obtaining abortions when the situation calls for it.? The priest in the confessional will often tell women not to mention those fact to them – and some counsel women toward contraception.? Many people in the church now believe women should be ordained.
Parish priests, as well as women and men in the congregation, remain horrified at the church’s criminal behavior in ignoring the damage of pedophilia to mostly young boys, while it spent lots of money to protect law-breaking priests.
Very few of the persons remaining in those pews are there because they honor the pope or the church.? They are there for the heart feelings of talking directly to their God.
This is a church out of touch – and not interested in getting back into touch.? God’s Rottweiler, Ratzinger, now pope, instead rails at priests who are trying to make the church relevant to people.? He believes that a smaller church with more devoted members is just fine.
Or, as I might see it and say it – he wants folk whose radical obedience, which he called for today, leads them to turn off their brains and swallow everything the corporation is feeding them.? Not much chance of that working for very much longer.