Eyewitness
A sideways look at the Quaker world
Dissident voices All churches have their rebels, and Quaker hearts must go out to them. We have been hearing of Catholics for a Changing Church, which started out as a protest against pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical banning artificial contraception. Known earlier as the Catholic Renewal Movement, these faithful had their eyes set on the more liberal reforms of Vatican II just a few years before. You could say they were the friends of Vatican II, and they became a refuge for the like minded. But although they feel that they, and others, have won the arguments over Humanae Vitae, they have had no impact on running the church. ‘We can be but a voice crying in the wilderness – a valid prophetic stand’, writes John Challoner on the CCC website. ‘We point towards the vision of Vatican II and the example of John XXIII, who by being a conciliar pope offered reconciliation in place of the tug-of-war between conciliarists and papalists which has distracted the church since at least as far back as the Council of Constance in the fifteenth century.’
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