Ross Douthat Still Superficial

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-ratzinger-legacy.html?ref=opinion&_r=0 I appreciate the way Ross outlines his essay. He gives us a lot to consider citing meaningful sources while his interpretations indicate that he has hardly read them. But the biggest mistake Douthat makes is equating Spong with Ratzinger’s Catholic critics. These Catholic critics are people with strong moral values who want to see a gospel Catholicism as opposed to an inquisitional one. Such people as Elizabeth Johnson, John O Malley, Thomas Reese, Hans Kung, Bernard Haring, Charles Curran, Tissa Balasuriva, Paul Collins, Joan Chittister, and a host of others, are hardly people who are laissez faire Catholics. Douthat further shows his certified ignorance with the following statement. “This doesn’t mean there isn’t some further version of reform, some unexpected synthesis of tradition and innovation, that would serve Catholicism well.” If he had seriously read the above authors (and other Catholic scholars) he would have found solid avenues for renewal. While he is clever and outlines the problems of the church he continues to show a stubborness for superficial analysis. As far as Ratzinger is concerned it seems to me that he has come full circle and even like a man without a country, as it were. The young progressive theologian bolted to the right when radical students took over his podium which made him choose a different path. That fifty year turn to the right has had the same result with his own traditionalists making him irrelevant where he could not even control them.