I must have missed the announcement when the RC church became a democracy ... the RC church is not controlled by North American catholics. It never will be. If you want a more liberal church you'll have to have a schism and set up an American Pope :)
Fairly recent history shows that members of the church certainly can have an influence on the organization as a whole. Take the Vatican II council, as the biggest example.
From http://nov55.com/rel/vat.html
From these results, it is clear that the primary reason why V-II occurred
was because the Catholic principle that only Catholics get saved was not
credible and needed to be changed. Prior to V-II, kids were incredulous
when told in catechism that their Protestant friends were not going to
get saved. They didn't believe it; they just assumed that Catholic theology
was really messed up. So the Bishops needed to reestablish their credibility,
and V-II was an attempt to do so.
(This is from a site, by the way, with is not at all favorably disposed to some
of the changes made because of Vatican II.)
In other words, the members of the Roman Catholic Church said "this doesn't
make sense," and the church responded with sweeping, breathtaking reforms.
(This is a pretty drastic oversimplification of the reasons behind Vatican II, but
a full discussion of the reasons can -- and has -- filled many books and would
be far beyond the scope of this email.)
Here are some of the reforms:
Altars were moved out from the wall, and the priest went to the other
side facing the people. He spoke in English (vernacular) instead of Latin.
Guitars were brought in to replace organs. People sang folk songs...
Nowdays, the emphasis is on redesigning the buildings, so people sit in a
circle, were they can see each other. They participate in every way possible
reducing the visibility of the priest. The purpose is said to have changed from
representing the crucifixion to representing the resurrection.
Now I'm not going to try to tell you that the results of Vatican II have been
overwhelmingly positive; in fact this has been the cause of much discussion
within the RC church, as further reforms or adjustment of reforms are
considered. The fact that this kind of activity is happening even at the
level of each diocese or even each parish shows that an individual within
a parish has a say as to what happens within the church.
So clearly the Roman Catholic Church is capable of responding to critics with
meaningful change, and has done so in the past, and will likely continue to
do so in the future.
Reggie Bautista
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