Pope Tells It Like It Is to American Mainliners

This hasn’t gotten a lot of publicity. But at the meeting that TEC Presiding “Bishop” Schori conveniently missed, Pope Benedict had some strong words that just have to have been aimed at the apostates mainline denomination leaders in the audience:

Fundamental Christian beliefs and practices are sometimes changed within communities by so-called "prophetic actions" that are based on a hermeneutic not always consonant with the datum of Scripture and Tradition. Communities consequently give up the attempt to act as a unified body, choosing instead to function according to the idea of "local options". Somewhere in this process the need for diachronic koinonia - communion with the Church in every age - is lost, just at the time when the world is losing its bearings and needs a persuasive common witness to the saving power of the Gospel (cf. Rom 1:18-23).

Wow. That is not only absolutely right; it’s about as “in your face” as you’ll ever see a modern pope get. Pope John Paul II’s trip to Nicaragua in 1983, in which he began lecturing Sandinista priests as soon as he got off the plane, is the only instance I can think of that exceeds what Benedict just did.

I like this pope.