What does “develop” church teaching mean? What part of the just war doctrine needs to be developed? What does that development consist of? Should church teaching conform to our politics or should our politics conform to church teaching?
It’s safe to say that we live in a time when the historic message of Christianity is being drowned out and watered down. Hyper individualism has many believing they can reinvent and reorient their lives however they wish. Belief in fixed moral realities and religious truths are increasingly difficult to swallow and are more likely to be seen as naïve sentiments held by children and those who grew up in a simpler time.
Alaska’s Orthodox Christian leaders praised Pope Francis and applauded a series of recent high profile meetings between him and Orthodox Patriarch on Constantinople Bartholomew, but they also expressed guarded enthusiasm about whether the encounters constitute significant progress toward uniting the long-divided churches.