Fraternity

"As advocate of Jesus Christ, the Church can never have a patriarchal authority structure as its government. Here only one is the holy Father, God himself; all members of the Church are his adult sons and daughters and they must not be reduced to the status of minors. In this society men may set up only truly fraternal and not paternalistic authority. Only one is lord and master, Jesus Christ himself; all members of the Church are brothers and sisters. In this community the supreme norm is therefore not the patriarch, but the will of God, which, according to the message of Jesus Christ, is directed to men's welfare—indeed, the welfare of all men...No one in the Church has the right to substitute for this brotherhood a clerical system's paternalism and cult of persons and thus continue strenghthening the rule of men over men."—Why Priests, pages 32-33.
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Would that this were the way the church actually functioned! Lord, make it so!
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