Could Pope Benedict's Conservative Agenda Blow Up?

HopeTracker| The Rev. Richard P. McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, and the author of The Church: The Evolution of Catholicism writes for Newsweek that Pope Benedict’s conservative moral agenda may ‘stall or fail altogether.’

Rev. McBrien’s Newsweek essay Pope Benedict’s Conservative Agenda Could Fail is illuminating for readers who don’t understand just how committed Pape Benedict is to returning the Catholic Church to its pre-reform identity, as it existed before the Second Vatican Council.

Literally, not symbolically, the pope wants to turn his back on the laity and return to a Latin mass. The desire to turn the priest around, so that he doesn’t face the laity as he does now, reinforces the proclamations today that our asking questions of the Pope is ‘petty gossip’.

My concern is the influence of the Catholic Church on American law. If large numbers of American Catholics have been comparatively disengaged from Rome and the current Vatican agenda, the American bishops are not disengaged with Washington.  Read on: For American Catholics, the $64,000 Question Is: Who Comes First?