It's good that the new Pope is all about openess and acceptance of others.

Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation. ... The new document restates key sections of a 2000 text the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, "Dominus Iesus," which riled Protestant and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the "means of salvation." ... The other communities "cannot be called 'churches' in the proper sense" because they do not have apostolic succession -- the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ's original apostles -- and therefore their priestly ordinations are not valid, it said.

The document said Orthodox churches were indeed "churches" because they have apostolic succession and enjoyed "many elements of sanctification and of truth." But it said they do not recognize the primacy of the pope, a defect, or a "wound" that harmed them, it said.

Link

He's also reinstated Latin masses which certainly makes it all much more ceremonial, but much less comprehensible. Although, i don't know how many people actually are awake during mass anyway.

From 1962-1965, the Roman Catholic Church held a Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) commonly held to be a big step towards building bridges between the Christian religions. Ratzinger was present at the time as a theological consultant. Why in a council full of religious heads you need a theological consultant is beyond me, but there it is.

Now the Pope is saying that people have been completely misinterpreting what Vatican II was really saying. That's completely possible. Most of the speeches were in Latin, ferchrissakes. Who the hell knows what they decided. This is what happens when you don't have a summary of the bulletpoints at the end of every meeting. Everybody starts interpreting the results in their own way.

This has totally peeved off....well, every Christian who isn't Catholic, basically. He's saying they're not real churches and can't really offer anyone salvation. Besides all the religious stuff they're doing "wrong," they don't recognize the power of the Pope. It's lines like that that make me wonder if he and Cheney are related.

I'm sure as far as Catholic law goes, he's completely right. But they're not Catholic. So bugger off.

On the other hand (as pointed out by fnord12), there's all this hoopla by the Protestants over the Pope taking a step backwards from Christian unity, but are they equally outspoken against Pat Robertson and the 700 Club which contantly talks about Catholicism not being a true Christian religion?

I think this is actually a good thing. Lord knows how much trouble the non-Christian world suffers under a united Christian one. Keep them fighting amongst themselves.

This has nothing to do with Chinese people eating cardboard.

How did you know we were talking about this?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/07/12/cardboard.food.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch

I have the psychicosity.

yr just a racist.

No, I can't really run anymore. I have a bad back.

ugh.

How do you live without me?!