Learn from the past!

Last Saturday I went to the National Theatre in London to see a performance of Antigone by Sophocles, translated by Don Taylor.   I could not avoid seeing the relevance to the current situation we face in the Church today.   The whole play is a warning to those who place themselves and political power over their duty to 'love and serve God' and to "act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with God" (Micah 6).

The following line thrown at King Creon by his son, Haemon, is a warning to us all in the Catholic Church,

When the State becomes one man it ceases to be a State!

 For 'State' read 'Church', 'Community', 'Society' ...

In an article in Spiegel On Line International Fiona Ehlers, Alexander Smoltczyk and Peter Wensierski write,

A "reform of the Curia" is probably a contradiction in terms. Its hierarchical, essentially medieval organizational model is incompatible with modern management. The Vatican is an anachronistic, albeit surprisingly tenacious system, in which pecking orders and an absurd penchant for secrecy and intrigue prevail. "The only important thing is proximity to the monarch," says a member of a cardinal's staff. Rome works like an absolutist court, one in which decisions are made by people whispering things into the others' ears rather than by committees. "There are many vain people here, people in sharp competition with one another," the staff member adds.

Like Antigone it is time for men and women who love their Church and their faith to stand up for the Constitutions and Decrees of Vatican II before tragedy strikes the Body of Christ.    Get a group together in your parish to read and reflect upon them.