American Catholic Council -- Our Response?

The notice of the first call for an American Catholic Council charged up some friends of mine, now speaking out a bit more ardently about the future of the Church. A few are trying to stop the buzz, arguing that it is useless, frivolous, and Rome has just too much power to bother paying attention to us.

I wish to say this to those who want an American Catholic Council. Keep it up, friends. We need you in such exchanges. Go to: http://www.americancatholiccouncil.org/

When Jesus said, "Upon this rock I will build my church," he saw Peter as the future of the Catholic Church. The first Catholics didn't hang around, waiting for Peter to tell them what to do and how to do it. They pitched in and were Church, because they were assembled.  The successors of Peter were in their own times the Bishops of Rome. Some were rocks. Others just pebbles. They knew, like Peter, they had a past and a present looking towards and building for the Church's future. Somewhere along the line, we the people lost interest, got pushed aside, took the easy out and let George do it. History shows us what those Georges did, but every once in a while a Peter rose up and gathered us together again. The last one called himself John, and he called a Council.

Now that John XXIII's Ecumenical Council has made it clear that We are Church, it is difficult to avoid the obvious and pretend it isn't there. Vatican 2 is still telling us that our past is too clinging, holding us fast in lethargy, and that the Georges of our time may not even be Georges.

Vatican 2 has taken Jesus' place in speaking to us, as if we, too, are rocks in whom it sees the future of the Church. We can respond, as are those calling for an American Catholic Council, with the experience and insights with which we are gifted and blessed. We can rightly pride ourselves for having such a holy tradition, realize easily that we are in a very troubled present, and believe that we, too, like Peter, an ordinary fisherman, are the hope of the future of our Church.

Or like others of Peter's time and so many later times, we can turn away and go back home to the old ways of doing things.

If, indeed, we are not Church, forget it .