Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Anti-semitism, anti-Catholicism and repentance: a Lenten reflection

Michael Liccione, writing in "Sacramental Contradiction" (Sacramentum Vitae< offers a searching meditation on the meaning of repentance taking as his subject London Times religion correspondent Ruth Glendhill's recent astonishing commentary on the recent flap over SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson. She is angry that the Pope has lifted the excommunication on the holocaust-denying bishop, but that the Vatican continues to officially ban from communion unjustly abandoned spouses who proceed to divorce and remarry. She sees this -- surprise, surprise -- as unfair. Luccione writes:
It's just assumed that the Catholic Church's teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, which is the key premise of her policy about divorce and remarriage, is false—and not only false, but wicked to believe and act on. That assumption is religious prejudice. But Williamson's religious prejudice is deemed wicked because it's—what? Religious prejudice? Maybe that's the reason, maybe not; but I do see that the question why the prejudice is held doesn't matter to the Ruth Gledhills of the world.

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