The AP has taken a couple of stabs at the Catholic Church due to it's conservative stance on social issues. Adaption of Church should be limited to it's proceedures, but not it's doctrine. Doctrine isn't supposed to be flexible, bending with the prevailing pop culture.
If the Church caves to the wants of liberal socialists, it would be marginalized. Although the convential wisdom may be that the Church would become instantly popular if they liberalized their views, they really would stop being respected in the long run. People would no longer look to it for moral guidance. Look at the Church of England. No one goes. It isn't respected by the youth because they've been quiet on the decline of social standards. People have lost respect for it.
People also seek structure and authority in their lives. If we don't have the Church to go to for moral guidance, that we are lost and alone. If we don't have the Church harping on our conscious as to what is right, then who will do it?
Giudicessi, who attended Roman Catholic schools before going to college, hopes the next pope will set a more accepting tone on issues such as homosexuality and on women taking leadership roles in the church.
"The church is going to have to adapt to survive," he says. "A lot of us feel that
the Catholic church is a little bit behind the times." Margaret Lero, a student at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, agrees. She calls John Paul "a major figure in my life." But she also wonders whether his more traditional stances on such issues as birth control and women's leadership roles were more suited to her parents' generation. AP
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