A very tough mustard seed

This article feels like the final nail in the coffin of any illusion Pope Benedict should preside over Roman Catholicism.

It's the day before Easter, and as someone who practiced Catholicism intentionally for the first 30 or so years of his life before changing course, it's a reflective time: Even though I love and honor Christ (in my own way) as much as I did for all those years, I hesitate before calling myself a "Christian." Does that mean I believe in Christ? Does it mean I believe all the teachings *about* him? Does it mean I'm part of the community of believers who identify themselves as Christians? Yes (sort of), no, and no. None of these answers came easy to me and yet I still struggle with them sometimes. My truth is that I have experienced much more of God outside of my Catholic/Christian experience in recent years, which in no way diminishes what I did experience of God in those years past. But I love the church as I love my family: It's where I come from. And now this...

I never liked Cardinal Josef Ratzinger. He was the enemy of liberal thinking within the church. As head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, he was the theology police and he wielded quite a ideological truncheon. He censured liberal theologians who challenged the way the church thought about women, sexuality, and even social justice. He was sort of a Karl Rove figure in the church—an insider, a mover-shaker, and a tremendous influence even on John Paul II.

When he was elected pope, it was the absolute worst thing that could happen for the Catholic church, and I knew it immediately. Now it's showing up in ways I never imagined—shameful not just for the pedophilia and the cover-ups, but the way the Vatican is pushing back. However, these kinds of situations are like quicksand: The harder you try to swim out of it, the faster you sink. Watch while that happens. If Ratzinger doesn't leave office early (which would be a rather unprecedented move in the church), he will take the floundering church down with him.

Pedophilia is an obvious outcome when a church idealizes celibacy and prohibits its priests from marrying. (The dysfunctional/toxic masculine is now preying on itself and will destroy itself.) However, the church deflects this criticism by saying the vast majority of pedophiles are married people. What a distortion of statistics, proving the maxim, "There's lies, damn lies, and then there's statistics." A small portion of the married population has pedophilia issues. A significant portion (certainly not a majority, but a telling percentage) of the priesthood does, and many more have problems with alcohol and tobacco. And add to that the job/mission of a priest is to heal souls, not to damage them. And let's not forget healing one's own soul, which mandates a dynamic relationship with the Divine Feminine (sorry guys, there Is No Other Way).

When Jesus put Peter in charge of the community that would become the Roman Catholic church, did he intend any of this? NO. There's enough evidence in the canonical bible to suggest that Jesus valued the company and counsel of women far more than was "appropriate" for his time, and there's good reason to believe he was married to Mary Magdalene. Of course, these ideas will be suppressed as long as there's a celibate conservative theologian presiding over Rome.

I think that Christ's work is being faithfully carried out both inside the church, but especially outside of it, all over the world, by people who understand the message of the gospel whether they espouse any Christian theology or not. Christ wasn't about the process or the belief system; he was about results, or as the gospel puts it, the fruits of one's labor. Christians and non-Christians both understand the work that is to be done, but increasingly, this bureaucracy called the church is becoming irrelevant. What a pity, and how sad for Christ's legacy.

But one of the principles of true leadership, which I'm sure Christ understood, is that a truly successful leader starts something and lets it take root and grow until no one's quite sure where the original idea came from or what role that leader played in the process.

Thanks be to God—at least that mustard seed has grown and infiltrated the world, beyond the walls of the church.

On Easter, I can be thankful for that. May your Easter be blessed, may your life be renewed, and your mind and heart opened.