Danger: Hard Hat Area

A common knock against the Protestant faith is that we don't have readymade answers to some important ethical questions. And that's true, although that's only a failing if we're supposed to have readymade answers to every important ethical question that comes down the pike.

We have revelation and reason. Reason applied to revelation, and reason to supplement revelation where revelation is silent. It's not a failsafe system, but we have to go with what we've got. 

Regarding the recent Synod in Rome…ironically, some things are so big and obvious that they get overlooked. This is a sect that claims to be the One True Church®, directly founded by Christ 2000 ago. A church that enjoys unique divine guidance. 

Now, for a second year in a row, the Synod debated two issues, the status of homosexuals, and whether divorced and remarried Catholics should be allowed to take communion.

Excuse me, but if your denomination is what it claims to be, why, after 2000 years, don't you have that nailed down by now? Communion has been around since the Last Supper. Divorce and remarriage antedate communion by millennia. Likewise, homosexuality has been around since long before the papacy. 

This isn't like bioethics, where advances in medical science raise new moral issues. Rather, this is old, old stuff. If you are what you claim to be, the first few "popes" should have given definitive answers to those question.

Indeed, what is unsettling to many conservative Catholics is they thought their church did have a settled answers on that. But now, Francis reopens the question.  

During the course of his long pontificate, John-Paul II wove his theology of the body, only to have Francis tug on the yarn until it starts to unravel. Then Francis begins to weave his own version. 

To change metaphors, the church of Rome is like a highway project that's constantly under construction. If you drive too far, you will run out of pavement. Rome hasn't gotten that far. Moreover, Rome tears up stretches that used to be paved.