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Things like ordaining women or accepting homosexual behavior really shouldn't need a Papal proclamation as the position against them is basically clear from the Bible and the Councils. No Pre-Reformed faith does either one, nor is there any reason to think they're planning to, so those are possibly irrelevant to a debate about Papal power. (Unless one means Papal power should undermine the Bible and Councils, on a progressive or other end, but I'm pretty confident only a fringe minority of the world's Catholics really wants that)
A celibate priesthood or even contraception might be murkier. As I understand it Eastern Orthodoxy tends to say the issue of contraception is "undefined", or maybe undefinable, and is left up to the individual couples. Eastern Orthodoxy is sometimes classed as "more tolerant" as on many issues they seem to say "it's a mystery, I don't know." So I believe a couple is free to feel it's wrong or right, but possibly they are to consult with a priest or monk about it. Also I believe Russian Orthodoxy has come out against it.
I have to admit in some ways I find the Eastern Orthodox way of doing things to be erring on the side of being too vague. Still I think they mostly do hold to core doctrines pretty much all Christianity shared before 787. So things that can not be justified in Catholicism, Orthodoxy, or Oriental Orthodoxy are (to me) almost certainly illegitimate or unjustified.
Does that mean we're heading towards another Great Schism, like the one in the 15th century, up to and including antipopes?
As I mentioned in the other forum I really think it is all coming to a head, its like push coming to shove; the latest dismissle of a bishop for just mentioning that women priest would help the priest shortage situation, also a priest, Father Roy Bourgeois a champion of the poor in Latin America being dismissed from the priesthood along with condeming a book written by Catholic theologian Elizabeth Johnson without due process has angered many Catholics.
Catholic theologian Fr. Hans Küng Says Only Radical Reforms Can Save the Catholic Church.
The Pope is fundamentalist by definition. Pope John XXIII was the last relatively liberal Pope. But with the recent troubles in Catholicism, I think it will soon come to the breaking point as well. There are too many 'buffet Catholics', at least in the USA, because too much of it is simply too medieval.
John XXIII was known as "the good pope"
They say he loved people more than power.
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