Lincoln Nebraska -Heartland of Orthodoxy

LINCOLN, Neb. -- Many liberal Catholics hope the new pope will make changes in the centuries-old teachings of the Roman Catholic Church to fit the modern world, but not the faithful here in one of the most conservative dioceses in the country.

"The church shouldn't adapt to society changing; the church should stay as a rock," said Richard Danek, 51, a real estate appraiser who lives near Lincoln, an hour's drive southwest of Omaha. "If the church adapts, then at what point do we stop adapting?"

Some people fail to understand that Truth is immutable - it is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. What is Truth? Jesus is the Truth. Some think that Vatican II changed all of this, however, Pope John XXIII called the Council for the purposes of preserving the Sacred Deposit of Faith and for better presenting it to the world.

"The church is eternal, and it has given us these teachings for 2,000 years," said Sandra Danek, a former Southern Baptist who converted to Catholicism after she married Richard. "It's the teachings from Christ himself."

Amen, sister!

Such lock-step orthodoxy is not the norm in the United States. Polls suggest most American Catholics disagree with the Vatican on several core issues. In a World Values Survey conducted between 1999 and 2001 for international researchers based in Sweden, 37 percent of American Catholics agreed with the church that abortion was "never justifiable," compared with 46 percent of Catholics worldwide. In that survey, 20 percent of American Catholics said homosexuality was never justified, compared with 51 percent worldwide.

"Lock-step" orthodoxy? Rather, it's true name is "Faith", the theological virtue "by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself" (CCC 1814).

May God continue to bless Bishop Bruskewitz, a faithful servant and defender of the Faith. The people of the Diocese of Lincoln are blessed to have him as Bishop.

More on this article here.