Common Sense II: A Resource for Catholic Church Reform

By Charles McMahon

This very short book is meant to evoke Tom Paine's original pamphlet called Common Sense that got the American Revolution started in 1776. It calls for changes in Church policy with regard to bishops, priests, and women. If Catholics are to be able to confront Church authorities to argue for these changes effectively, they will have to possess sufficient knowledge about the Church's origins and history. Accordingly, the book starts with the beginnings and history of ancient Israel and proceeds through the mission of Jesus of Nazareth and the development of the early Church. From there it reviews Church history through the middle ages and the subsequent times up to the present. It finishes with a description of the needed reforms and how the current practices are not supported by any valid historical, theological, or scientific bases.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles McMahon
• Release date: Oct 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301191703

Charles McMahon

Charles McMahon is an emeritus professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania, where he has taught and carried out research since 1963, Prior to that he had received his undergraduate degree in the same department in 1955, served three years as a line officer in the U.S. Navy, and had received his ScD at MIT in 1963. His general research interests have been in the field of deformation and fracture of metals and alloys.

Book preview

Common Sense II

A Resource for Catholic Church Reform

Charles J. McMahon, Jr.

Copyright 2013 Charles McMahon

Smashwords Edition

This pamphlet may be reproduced, copied, and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided it remains in its complete form.

The cover illustration The Spirit of ‘76 by Archibald Willard is used courtesy of the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 – The Origin of Israel

Chapter 2 – From Israel to Judaism

2.1 The Kingdoms

2.2 The Torah

2.3 The Prophets

2.4 The Second-Temple Period

Chapter 3 – Jesus of Nazareth

3.1 The Historical Jesus

3.2 Jesus as the Son of God

3.3 The Ministry of Jesus

Chapter 4 – Early Christianity

4.1 Getting Started

4.2 The Eucharist

4.3 The Status of Women

Chapter 5 – From Antiquity Through the Early Middle Ages

5.1 Christianity as a New Religion

5.2 The Papacy in Disorder

Chapter 6 – The Gregorian Reform and the Western Schism

6.1 The Papacy Becomes a Monarchy

6.2 The Western Schism

Chapter 7 – The Renaissance and the Reformation

7.1 The Renaissance Popes

7.2 The Church Breaks Apart

7.3 Trent and the Counter Reformation

7.4 Christians at War With Each Other

Chapter 8 – The Enlightenment and the Industrial Age

8.1 A Time of Relative Peace

8.2 The Napoleonic Wars

8.3 The Return of Papal Monarchy

Chapter 9 – Modern Times

9.1 Modernism and WW I

9.2 Fascism and WW II

9.3 Aggiornamento: Vatican II

9.4 Advances and Retreats

Chapter 10 – The Essential Reforms

10.1 The State of the Church Today

10.2 Compulsory Celibacy

10.3 The Election of Bishops

10.4 The Role of Women

10.5 Church Teaching

Bibliography

Introduction

The hierarchical governance of the Roman Catholic Church is under attack all over the world. Revelations about the cover-up of child molesters by bishops in country after country have exposed a universal policy of image-protection at the expense of child welfare. In the U. S., a third of baptized Catholics have already walked out the door. Those who remain have some serious questions to ask themselves. To be able to answer these questions intelligently, they need to reach a level of understanding greater that of the catechism they learned in school. This will be necessary if the errors of the past are to be avoided in the future. The infallibility syndrome in the present institution gets in the way of this. Past errors cannot be corrected, because in some minds they do not exist. The freedom to be wrong has been abrogated. It must be recovered if progress is to be made.

There are three major defects in the church in the U.S. that need to be corrected without delay if the vast good work of the church is to be preserved. Otherwise, the institution could continue to shrink and perhaps wind up as an ultra-conservative fundamentalist cult. These defects are:

The lack of accountability of bishops to the people in their dioceses.

The irrational suppression of the role of women in the church.

The compulsory celibacy imposed on most, but not all, Catholic priests.

All three are in fundamental conflict with the principles of a modern democratic country and are thus antithetical to the structure of our society.

The issue of selection of bishops has taken on crisis proportions in recent decades because of the behavior of the majority of U. S. bishops in covering up child abuse by their priests and their enabling it to continue by transferring the clerical molesters to unsuspecting parishes, one after another. This cannot help but continue until bishops become accountable to the people in their dioceses. This can only happen when the people refuse to accept any bishop not elected with their participation, and for a defined term. This will obviously require some organization on the part of the laity, but that’s how God Save the King got replaced by The Star Spangled Banner.

The suppression of the role of women in church leadership becomes increasingly ludicrous as more and more women assume leadership roles in government, business, academia, the professions, etc. The contrasts between the quality of leadership of such women and that of some male Catholic hierarchy are too obvious to continue to ignore. The latest outrage is the attempted take-over of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious – the LCWR – by the Vatican. They are accused of radical feminism. Apparently, their work in hospitals, schools, orphanages, missionary outposts, soup kitchens, and homes for the indigent somehow falls short. This hierarchical behavior is a denial of the importance of women in the early church and is often justified by the statement that Jesus appointed only men as the twelve apostles. It displays ignorance of the fact that The Twelve were only meant to be symbolic of the patriarchs of the twelve tribes of Israel; there is no conceivable connection between them and the present Roman Catholic priesthood.

Compulsory celibacy for priests was not formally decreed until the First Lateran Council in 1123. It has endured since then, with the recent exception that married Protestant ministers who want to cross over may become Catholic priests. Dozens of them have done so and with their wives and families are pastors of Catholic parishes today. This exception proves that there is no religious principle involved; compulsory celibacy is just an administrative rule. As with the two other defects, this is actually mainly about the power to control people. Obviously, bishops would lose their absolute control over the lives of priests if priests had wives. Apparently, the system is thought to be able to tolerate a few dozen crossover Protestant clergy without falling apart.

It is highly unlikely that these defects will be corrected anytime soon by action of the hierarchy, because such corrections would be in conflict with their own self-interests. In order for the corrections to be forced by the citizens of