We don’t have to be enemies; we can turn a benign eye on any institution.
The Roman Catholic Church is highly varied internally for the simple reason that it covers the whole world. The central identity is the institution and hierarchy, and teaching is frankly secondary. The hierarchy permits a surprising variation in theology so long as you don’t challenge the authority of the system itself. Thus, a number of Catholics subscribe to my teaching and find it fits in well with their membership. Just because I am personally not a good fit is no reason for my fellow Christian Mystics to leave any church organization.
There are plenty of commendable overlapping ideas. As always, keep in mind that I believe all theology is merely an intellectual adaptation to the ineffable divine Presence. It is our best human response to a moral imperative, and our response itself cannot be sacred in that sense. So while some members of the Catholic hierarchy take their creeds and teachings very seriously, we need not let that be a source of conflict.
I note in passing the Church as a whole assumes the human intellect is not fallen. Naturally this difference leads to different answers to the various questions religion recognizes. Still, there are a lot of times I have to applaud something that comes so close to what I would say myself. An example: 6 Reasons (+2) to NOT Send Your Daughter to College. I recommend reading it.
If you understand much of what I have written about backgrounds and influences on human thought, you recognize this teaching stands in the middle between my ancient Hebrew positions and that of common American social mythology. It’s a very strong mixture of Roman with the more conservative German influences of yesteryear. In other words, it clings tightly to the foundation of early church thinking while recognizing where we are in the world today. The practical application is hardly different from my own answers to the same questions, though some of the underlying assumptions are different. Thus, the author is a very wise conservative, while I am a radical on the typical scale of American thinking.
If you chase down to the bottom of the page and read some comments, you’ll see the complete failure to understand the whole point of the article. Most of comments are the very typical orthodox feminist assumptions that have invaded all churches of late. You have to be amazed at the patience of the church leadership, because some of these feminazis are Catholics themselves. There is something to be said for institutional resilience, and I find it an endearing trait of the RC Church, not for the mere fact itself, but how they manage to pull it off. It reflects a more ancient shepherd’s ethic of tolerating a lot of noise and answering only when it can be instructive. Let them rant and rave; only those who show restraint and wisdom will advance to greater authority in the system. Notice the high degree of social stability it promotes without oppression.
We stand to learn a great deal from that system.
