by David Timbs

Read paper HERE

Abstract: It is becoming more and more obvious that one of the most significant obstacles to the systemic reform of the culture and legal system of the Catholic Church is clericalism. The leadership of the Church has become increasingly more estranged from the prophetic roots of its mission to animate and to serve. As the Church became more institutionalised, its bishops became increasingly socialised into a patriarchal and autocratic mentality and praxis with little transparency and no provision for accountability, the essential safeguards of good governance. Ultimately a massive social, psychological and spiritual chasm was created which lead to dangerous disconnection between bishops and their people.

Reprinted with permission from The Swag, Autumn 2016

Underlying the proceedings at the 2^nd Vatican Council were two major principles: ressourcement, calling for a return to the sources, and aggiornamento, calling for a genuine update of the Church to increase its relevancy to the modern world.

For two millennia the ecclesia, founded on the leadership of the Apostles, had held firm to the essence of its faith, worship and governance, but with the passage of time and the vicissitudes of history had also acquired much peripheral baggage of beliefs, customs and practices far removed from the apostolic tradition. Many were also anachronistic, with little or no meaning for the Church and world of the 20^th century, and they were hindering, not helping evangelization.