Saturday, April 23, 2005

An answer to my daughter's question

Yesterday at lunch I was defending the new pope and my daughter asked me if you think he is a good guy and you thought the same of JPII and you changed your thinking about capital punishment because of a discussion with a priest and you are fundamentally unhappy with the episcopalians at this point - how come you do not become a catholic?

I told her a couple of things. First, as readers of rambles would no doubt be unsurprised to learn, I am skeptical of authority structures of any kind. I think religious belief comes from the individual rather than the organization. Obviously, religious belief does not grow without some social nurturing - but if I am distrustful of organizations in general why would a religious one be exempt?

Second, I am not sure about a couple of the doctrines - that does not make catholic doctrine special - but two - the Infallibility of the pope and the role of women in the church does not make entire sense to me.

It was an interesting question nonetheless.

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