The response to Pope Benedict's announcing his resignation is not surprising at all. Among the faithful Catholics the responses are prayer and thanks, along with the typical human questions and thoughts on who his successor might be. While the non-Catholic and dissenting Catholic responses fall primarily into two groups. One group is seizing the moment to dwell on priesthood scandals from 30-50 years past. The other group is publicly hoping that finally the Church will change, let go of its outdated morality and join the 21st Century, because it is doomed if it doesn't embrace modern values.
For the moment, I'm not interested in discussing the priesthood scandal and Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger's, role in the matter.
Suffice to say, what took place 30+ years ago was WRONG, but those that let their hatred of the Church cause them to focus so much on the evil that happened that they fail to see the good that has come of it, and fail to hold the public institutions that they actually support, use, and participate in to the standard they hold an institution they want no part of and do not participate is the epitome of intolerance.
What I want to discuss right now is the notion that the Church must change. The people spouting these ideas seem to think that it is their superior, modern, intellectual, educated worldview that causes them to see something that centuries of unthinking, uneducated, subspecies human beings were incapable of seeing. They think they are embracing some new and original idea that the Church is outdated, out of touch, and must adapt to the culture of the world. Sadly, they are the ones that are poorly educated and blind. John the Baptist was beheaded because he opposed the world culture. Christ was crucified for teaching contrary to a relativistic morality. The Apostles and Christ's disciples for centuries have been consistently teaching a way of life that contradicts the "modern" culture of the era.
Adultery, prostitution, fornication, murder, stealing, lying, every form of sin we see today has existed in every single century before and after Christ's resurrection. And human history is little more than a continuing saga of people exercising violence for the sake of gaining power and wealth, for pursuing selfish pleasure at the expense of others. 21st century man is not embracing a new philosophy. They're embracing the same philosophy that led to the fall of Greece, the fall of Rome, the fall of so many other cultures and societies. And while those societies focused on selfish pleasure, denying higher truths of love, sacrifice, true tolerance, and that there is objective truth, while those societies told Popes and priests the exact same things these people are saying today, that they are out of touch. Well, those societies fell but the Church has clung to objective truth and has never failed.
