the new pope.

I haven't said anything yet about the new pope, so I guess it is about time to do so. So just in case you were hiding out in your bomb shelter and hadn't heard the news...we have a new pope (Habemus Papam)! It is Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, now known as Benedict XVI. I have to admit that I am a little scared of what could happen to the Catholic church with a new pope in place. JP2 has been around longer than I have been alive, and he did many great things for the church. I defiantly don't think that the church become any less conservative with this guy. He seems to be the most conservative of them all. That said, I am sure they still are not going to be open to homosexuality, woman priests, or birth control. That is fine with me. I don't have a problem at all with them keeping those standards in place. Actually, I think that it is a good thing not to lessen your standards. What I am worried about is this: Pope Benedict XVI said that a main goal for him will be to help bring about Christian unity. That spikes my interest. I am all over this Christian unity thing. Ephesians 4:1-5 is great. My question is how is he going to go about that? Is his idea of Christian unity going to be to convert all Christians to Catholicism? Because he is so conservative, it seems to me that his mindset would be like this. I know that in past years, there has been some progression towards ecumenical things. Still, there are things that are ecumenical and things that are exclusively Catholic. It will be hard to bring about Christian unity when you are unwilling to accept people of other faiths. Maybe he will be very accepting. I highly doubt it because it may send half of the Catholic church into a tizzy. We will see. I would love to see a movement towards unity. I am scared that we will go in the other direction though. I know that there are more Catholics than any other Christian denomination in the world. I guess from their standpoint they think they have the fullness of the truth and the other denominations should come to them. I wonder how they go about trying to bring around unity when Catholics think they are completely right and Baptists think they are completely right and Lutherans think they are exactly right...we will see.

This is what I think: I think that the way to bring about Christian unity is not to necessarily have to agree on every single doctrine but to understand that we are all Christians and all part of the church. We need to understand that although our thought processes may be a little different, there is still much good that can be done by working together. We need to look past those differences. When we look at other Christians we need to see Christ, not petty differences. I know to some, the differences are a big deal, but still we should be working together to bring other people to Christ, not to our specific denomination.

That said, I pray for the new pope and I hope that he can bring much good to the Catholic church, but more importantly, I hope he can bring much good to the catholic church.

Disclaimer: Almost every one of my posts are done with little research, so if you have something to add or something to correct me on, please do so. Most of these are just my random thoughts flowing from my head.

Have a great day!