Of course, Mick, your points are well taken -- traditions are like families, you have to take them as they are, with their faults, and the batty uncle in the back room. But people do break away from their families when they become seriously dysfunctional. These are the hard choices people make -- is it more toxic within, or without? In my tradition, the treatment of women is scandalous -- do I leave? No.

I don't recall making any gratuitous statements about the Pope, they seem to me to be well earned; and of course I am asking these hard questions out of puzzlement and a spirit of debate, not personal attack. It seems to me that the institutional argument (most strongly put by Cardinal Newman) is not exactly strong: Gary Wills' book on Papal Sins pretty well demolishes the myth about the historic supremacy of the bishop of Rome; but whether one accepts it or not, I cannot for the life of me see how anyone could accept the idea that the Pope, or the church, or the people of the church, could be infallible about anything, however circumscribed. Even infused with spiritual whatever. God seems to make mistakes all the time, if the Bible is any judge, at least He changes His mind. St. Peter himself made more mistakes of judgement in a shorter period of time than most of us make in our entire lifetimes.

Deep water indeed, but alas, the Archbishop of Australia has come to town to clear up all this independence nonsense. Day two in Toronto did not go well, Archbishop Pell speaking before a massed group of Catholic youth, argued that abortion was a worse moral scandal than the sexual abuse of children by priests. Having cleared that up (!), he went on to say: "The function of the Pope is to protect the tradition. He says this belongs to Catholic tradition and this doesn't. We are not free to decide for ourselves what is right and wrong. Our conscience can be wrong." (He got a standing ovation).

yours, Peter T.