Nedan ett par utdrag ur en artikel om den pensionerade australiensiske biskopen Geoffrey Robinson som för närvarande är på besök i USA, och som har blivit hindrad från att tala i en del katolska kyrkor - men som fått andra lokaler öppnade för sig. Hans bok om kyrka - sex och makt har sålts slut och många kommer för att lyssna på honom.
Det rör försiktigt på sig i de snörräta leden....
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"If we are ever to look to the future with a clear conscience there must first be profound change within the church," Robinson told a rapt audience in Dedham at the start of a 60-minute talk, in which he questioned the extent of papal infallibility and the rationale for mandatory priestly celibacy. Perhaps most daringly, given the adulation directed toward Pope John Paul II since his death, Robinson repeatedly criticized the late pontiff for not taking enough action against clergy sexual abuse.
To those who despair of change within the church, he said, "Communism changed. Apartheid changed. It just may be the church might, too."
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Liturgical Press, the Catholic publishing house that is printing Robinson's book, "Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church," said it sold out its first run, of 3,000 copies, and is rushing a second run into print.
"What's significant here is that you've got a bishop who, once retired, decided he'd speak his own mind for a change - that rather than being part of the orchestra, he decided he wanted to do a solo," said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. "It's clear there's a real thirst among the laity and some priests for a more open discussion of issues in the church, and this is the kind of thing he's trying to stimulate. But it's not the kind of thing the Vatican or the majority of bishops want to see happen."
The sympathetic crowds coming to hear Robinson are clearly heartened by his outspokenness. In Dedham, he was given two standing ovations.
"He understands that the crux of the Roman Catholic problem lies squarely with the Stalinist-style power structure of the institutional church," said Peter Hartzel, a parishioner who lives in Dedham. "He honestly broached the 'hot' sexual issues with which the bureaucracy is unable to broach in a realistic manner."
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"He is living proof that bishops are not as united as they might be thought to be," said Paul Lakeland, a professor of Catholic Studies at Fairfield. "They try to paint him as a lone dissenter, a good man who has gone slightly off the rails, but I think there are lots of other bishops quietly cheering him on from the sidelines."
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