Archbishop Nienstedt Promotes "A Smaller Church"/Roman Catholic Womenpriests Offer Inclusive Church that Welcomes All

Enthusiastic Catholics pray at
Roman Catholic Womenpriests'Ordination Liturgy
on Feb. 6, 2010 in Sarsota, Florida

http://anothervoice-greenleaf.org/

John GreenLeaf's Blog/Another Voice
(Special thanks for this excellent article)

"Catholicism has lost more people to other religions or to no religion at all than any other single religious group in the United States.

More than 10% of the adult population in the United States now consists of people who have left the Roman Catholic Church for another religion or for no religion at all. To put it another way, one out of every 10 people in the United States (or 22,725,000) is a former-Catholic.

These are individuals who were baptized and raised Catholic but who now no longer identify themselves as Catholic. Furthermore, if one excludes immigrants and converts from the calculations, the Catholic Church has lost to other religions or to no religion at all, 35.4% or more than one-third of the 64,131,750 of its native born members. This amounts to almost 7 out of every 20 adults who were baptized as Catholics."

"Archbishop John Nienstedt has the answer! SMALLER IS BETTER……A couple days ago, in an interview with The Associated Press, Archbishop John Nienstedt (Archbishop of St. Paul / Minneapolis) talked about plans to close 21 churches in the archdiocese. “A smaller church isn’t a bad thing if the people in it are more strongly committed to Catholic principles” the Archbishop stressed, because “a shrinking church can still be influential on cultural issues.” This is what we call the “holy remnant” idea that is also very popular with Pope Benedict."Archbishop Nienstedt recently refused to give Communion to a group of college students from St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict because they were wearing rainbow-colored buttons in support of gay rights.

Bridget Mary's Reflection

I think it is deplorable to refuse communion to anyone. Ask yourself, what would Jesus do? I hope that Catholics who have had it with such heavy-handed behavior by the hierarchy will claim their power. If your parish is being closed or merged, you can join with other members of the community and CONTINUE as a Catholic Community. Find your own priest, celibate, married, or call forth a womanpriest to serve in a people-empowered, vibrant grassroots community. Think early church/house church. Hey, that's how it all began. Read Romans 16 for inspiration! Contact: www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org