Pope Benedict XVI tempered his praise for American religious tolerance on Wednesday with a warning that U.S. society can quietly undermine Catholicism by reducing all faiths to a lowest common denominator.
Addressing the nation's Catholic bishops, the German-born pope said the U.S. Church could not drop its guard against relativism just because faith plays a larger part in public life in the United States than it does in more secularized Europe.
A strong individualist streak in American culture leads some Catholics "to pick and choose," following Church doctrines they like and ignoring others, he said during a long speech on challenges facing Roman Catholicism in the United States.
"Picking and choosing" being less forgivable than the more or less constant state of revision the Church itself has been going under since the 1950s, I suppose.
"Faith becomes a passive acceptance that certain things 'out there' are true, but without practical relevance for everyday life," he said. "The result is a growing separation of faith from life, living 'as if God did not exist."'
"We have seen this emerge in an acute way in the scandal given by Catholics who promote an alleged right to abortion."
All evidence to the contrary, we're not a religious state a la The Vatican. So I'd thank his pontifness to respect the fact that there is still an actual right to choose in this country.
But while he's bringing up scandals:
Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday addressed issues ranging from the sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church to the easy availability of pornography to the "alarming decrease" in Catholic marriages in the United States.
[...]
Benedict said the sexual abuse of children by priests has caused a "deep shame" and called it "gravely immoral behavior.""Many of you have spoken to me of the enormous pain that your communities have suffered when clerics have betrayed ... their obligations," he told the bishops.
Responding to the situation has not been easy and was sometimes very badly handled, the pope admitted.
"Sometimes." Because hush money and relocation weren't indicative of a focused strategy by the Church itself. Got it.
The pope then turned his attention to a different concern involving kids.
"What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?" he asked.
Benedict urged the media and entertainment industry to take part in a "moral renewal."
Way to pass the buck: "Sure, we had still untold numbers of clergy molesting children, but what about you people with the HBO/Showtime packages from DirecTV? Isn't the fact that 13-year olds can sneak out of bed and watch Shannon Tweed take a shower the moral equivalent of institutionally supported abuse?"
I kid. Obviously some good has come from Catholicism.