'If you’d take the time to listen to the best Christian philosophers and scholars you’d soon realize it’s not as absurd as you obviously think.'

I have listened and read Trav - for the last 30 years or so.

But, which ever way you carve it, the Bible and Koran are so chock full of hypocrisy and wild contradictions you couldn't possibly use them to teach meaningful ethics to anyone, let alone to school children. The point is, Jehovah/Allah is just another god in the pantheon of horrible spiteful jealous dieties. Admitedly, Christianity has tried to redeem him with the personage of Jesus Christ. But really, the rescue mission is too difficult. The monotheistic God is beyond redemption and should be spared from young minds.

Glorfindel,

I wouldn’t expect an ‘outsider’ to express the essence of Catholicism; rather it is a ‘good’ Catholic who reveres and is bound by certain agreement to hierarchical authority. This, however, need not necessarily be ‘Christian’.

If the term “thy kingdom come” is to have any relevance then one must consider the challenge Liberation theology provides to how a religious order responds to a changing political and social landscape – it is a useful lens, far from alien to the gospel story. The aspiration for 'liberation', as the term itself suggests, repeats a theme which is fundamental to the Old and New Testaments. In itself, the expression "theology of liberation" is a thoroughly valid term: it designates a theological reflection centered on the biblical theme of liberation and freedom, and on its practical realisation.

Ratzinger, in his rebuttal of liberation theology said, "Jesus was not Spartacus, he was not engaged in a fight for political liberation” In the 1980s, he blasted it as a "fundamental threat" to the church. Kennedy is obviously a threat to this magisterium , therefore, for the sake of the institution, he is silenced and thus sacked. I cannot see Kennedy as “Spartacus” fighting for “political liberation”, he appears to have little desire in the overthrow of a secular state, but appears concerned more for the reform of a church whose business should be essentially removed from the power-play of politics.

Fernando Segovia, professor of New Testament and early Christianity at Vanderbilt University in the U.S. says Ratzinger took measures to disarticulate the liberation theology movement: silencing theologians, closing seminaries and appointing traditional bishops and auxiliary bishops.

Craig Nessan, professor of contextual theology and academic dean at Wartburg Theological Seminary says liberation theology has been incorporated more as a dimension of mainstream theology, advocating justice for the poor, women, oppressed racial groups and other minorities.

Daniel Bell, assistant professor of theological ethics at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Columbia, S.C., has written about Latin American theology - he says that Latin American liberation theology has moved from advocating a socialist revolution.

its both sad and funny that the question needs be asked..[to begin im against any money going to any private run school]..but back to my explanation

US President Barack Obama is visited Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Weimar, Germany...Obama wass joined at Buchenwald by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Buchenwald survivor Elie Weisel.

Buchenwald held over 250,000 prisoners from 1937 to 1945,..when it was liberated by the US Army...Prisoners included Jews, resistance fighters, POWs, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and convicts..."Buchenwald" means "beech wood" in German.

Over 56,000 people died at Buchenwald,due to medical experiments, malnutrition,and abuse by guards;..the article continues but lets end the quote here..[im sure many of you would have heard the report on the news...what you possably didnt hear is 11,000 of those that died were clasified as jewish

so here is the deal..[why isnt my addendum spoken of in all the news reporting..[for the same reason,mosques arnt allowed to be built]the media is quick to count the 6 million jews that were hollow costed in this work camp...but 45,ooo wernt jews...at this one work camp[there were reportedly thousands

so the logic is..as one fifth of those who died were non jews...what of the 30 million..[pro rata]..non jews that died in the same hollow cost?..of www2..that seem to have simply disapeared in all the kerfuffle of 6 million jews dying..[as trajic as any death is]...

find that answer and you answer this question...seems some know how to get their due and others dont..[clearly all semites arnt equal..]

[one need only look at the hollow-cost of the recent west-bank genocide's/eugenics..with phospher and cluster bombs..[near 2000 dead in what 30 days?...an ongoing siege ever since..yet..[media silence]...one wonder how that death rate goes..if the war on the prison camp..[gulag]..of west bank hadnt ended?

Relda,
I'm an 'outsider' to Catholicism. I feel revulsion at its past sins (without ignoring those of Protestantism and Orthodoxy) but I deeply respect the erudition and moral clarity of Pope Benedict. I admired his sermons to World Youth Day, and his Regensburg address.

Liberation theology as opposed by Ratzinger in the 1980s was extreme-Leftist in Latin America but now, as you quote, is "a dimension of mainstream theology, advocating justice for the poor, women, oppressed racial groups and other minorities". Within Protestantism, the Uniting Church fits in well here.

Islam certainly does not. Its supposed concern for the Umma (body of all Muslims) has been strikingly uncompassionate - what has it done to resettle or otherwise pratically help the Palestinians? How much did Saudi Arabia give to the victims of the Aceh tsunami? How much are racism, inequality of power and the mentality of slavery still endemic in Saudi Arabia – look at how it treats immigrant workers, even Muslims!

The Koran is full of oppression of women, violent intolerance and discrimination against religious minorities, murderous hostility toward gays. As a culture, Islam is suffused with violence. At the first disagreement over any issue, Muslims turn to violence. Even mosques are not safe. Islam seems to have no sense of the sacred, only of fear. "Fear Allah" is a dreadful opposite to "God is love". In practice, it means fear other Muslims!

There was a cerebral strand to Islam back in Cordoba a thousand years ago. No more. Since 'higher criticism' began a century ago, Christianity has been looking at its "handful of sand" and watching while, under rationalist scrutiny, one by one the grains trickle between the fingers leaving, for some people, nothing; but for more thoughtful people, posing the question asked by Spong, for example: What does Jesus mean for us today?

Islam today lives on a different planet. "Certainty" merchants like Abu Bakar Bashir are charlatans and killers. At least Christian preachers of "certainty" generally aren't homocidal maniacs.

Where are the Spongs and Richard Holloways and Rowan Williamses within contemporary Islam?

Glofindel,

It is interesting you note Spong who, interestingly, describes himself as a “believer in exile” – one can therefore quite easily place him in the Father Kennedy camp. He (Spong) describes himself as a man who is strolling along the path of quest, seeking the truth. All believers, he says, irrespective of their faith, are fellow seekers. Seeking is a process with no foreseeable end. I gather this metaphysical ‘process’ is the ‘certainty’ to which you refer.

As I wrote back in 2006, “Radicalising all Muslims only serves to force many to react forceably or some to retreat, mariginalised and ostracised - thus destabilising society further. This can only serve well for the purpose Bin Laden and his cohorts are striving.” Certain extremes within Islam certainly cannot be reasoned with but the moderates must be appealed to , such organisations as listed here: http://muslimvillage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12448

I too have some respect for the intellectual ability of Benedict but the argument runs far deeper than you have surmised (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4995&page=0#57605). As with all of us, his arguments are prone to the fallible.

Spong’s following statement can equally apply as a critique to any religion (including Islam), viz, “Institutional Christianity seems fearful of inquiry, fearful of freedom, fearful of knowledge—indeed, fearful of anything except its own repetitious propaganda, which has its own origins in a world that none of us any longer inhabits.” I would also say that this "New View of Christianity" Bishop Spong presents is not likely to change the metaphysical stance of Humanists or atheists, but if successful, it would demolish the destructive influence of fundamentalism on Christianity that exists even within mainstream denominations.

On the contrary,to be a Christian accepts hierarchical authority which comes from Christ THROUGH the APOSTLES who in turn handed down authority to their successors to this present day. This is fact, not opinion. The contrary view is opinion and in matters of true religion one must follow truth not one's feelings/opinions.

So-called 'liberation theology' was already contained well within Catholic social doctrine years ago and is still true teaching. It is just that Marxists and liberals joined forces to create a bogus theology which has been qualified by the Magisterium.
Kennedy is not and never has been a threat to the Church and her Magisterium. Poor old Fr Kennedy jumped aboard many bandwagons of which liberation theology, invalid baptisms, lay homilies and other departures from the Sacred occured . All Catholics who go to different parishes for Mass expect and desrve and have a right to authentic Catholic liturgy and NOT to have to put up with Fr Kennedy and co's opinions.