208 and counting

There's a post at U.S. Catholic by M Scherer-Emunds, whose brother, a Jesuit, is one of the signatories of the statement by German-speaking theologians calling for changes in the church. Here's just a bit of the post ....

German theologians kickstart a broad "dialogue without taboos"

[...] About a year after the first revelations of widespread clergy sexual abuse and its cover-up in the German Catholic Church—and some seven months before another papal visit by Benedict XVI to his home country—the theologians are marking a “year that threw the Catholic Church in Germany into an unprecedented crisis.” But speaking out on a broad range of needed church reforms, the group wants to encourage an open “dialogue without taboos … about structures of power and communication, about the reform of church ministry and the participation of the faithful in church responsibilities, about morality and sexuality.” The alternative to this open dialogue, the theologians say, is “the silence of the graveyard, because people’s last hope was extinguished.” .....

When I e-mailed my brother congratulating his group and noting how unusual the courage and openness was with which they had addressed the many hot-button issues in today’s church, he replied: “By the way, the text doesn’t necessarily demand women’s ordination. Perhaps the authors and we signers were not that courageous after all. ‘The church also needs married priests and women in church office’ leaves open the question what office is meant.”

I’m tempted to say, it’s not for nothing that my brother works for the Jesuits! ....

You can read a translation of the letter at Pray Tell ...A “Year of Departure”: German-speaking theologians call for reform – UPDATE 2/8/11