Here's Daisy's formulation at the wonderful Fur-licity blog of a point I tried to make yesterday, in my critique of what journalist John Allen mistakenly labels "evangelical" Catholicism:
And I listened and heard - attempts to maintain a religious structure built on the Papal Monarchy. My heart yearned for Good News of God's Kingdom. The one where every created thing is treated with respect and love.
Daisy is talking about the ceremonies welcoming Pope Benedict to World Youth Day in Madrid: a group of boys dressed as mini-Swiss Guards accompanying the Spanish king, a gala welcome and spectacle in the city itself . . . . In all of these, she finds it difficult to see the face of Jesus the carpenter and preacher from Nazareth. Rather, she sees the face of the Emperor Constantine and the powerful with whom he surrounded himself.
And so where's the good news, the evangelism, in all of this? When the face of the One we're trying to proclaim to the world is occluded by the monarchial trappings of the structure of authority by which John Allen determines what is or is not evangelical, we're in trouble.
That is, we're in trouble if we want Catholicism to be truly evangelical at this point in history.
That is, we're in trouble if we want Catholicism to be truly evangelical at this point in history.
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