Well, SOME people in the Catholic Church are trying to get back on track.

Church in worst credibility crisis since Reformation, theologian tells bishops - The Irish Times

"Pope Benedict has made worse just about everything that is wrong with the Roman Catholic Church and is directly responsible for engineering the global cover-up of child rape perpetrated by priests, according to this open letter to all Catholic bishops."

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0416/1224268443283.html

I believe Fr. Küng is on the right path and I applaud his attempt to bring the church back into resonance with reality. In addition to the six reform proposals he outlines, I encourage consideration of the following:

1. Telling the truth - about our origins as a species and relations with extraterrestrial and universal life, our innate and ruthlessly suppressed spiritual and healing abilities, and the organized, relentless programs of oppression, subjugation, and ritual abuse inflicted on the people and planet by cabals of self-styled "elite" individuals and institutions.

2. Ending the programs of guilt and shame - that have been used as cruel tools to break down the mind and spirit of humanity. We are not born from original sin in debt to God, but rather we manifest from divine love with the intention of experiencing life and expanding our infinite potential. Promote and nourish this reality rather than deny and degrade it.

3. Returning to joy, bliss, and love - and away from the bread and circus spectacles for the glory of Rome combined with rote daily living and weekly services of the parish. These do nothing to tap into and enhance the joy, bliss, love, and wonder that is the birthright and gift of humanity. A return to joy is a return to relevance - today and in the future.

4. Return to the mission of service - for all humanity and the living planet that supports our lives and civilization. The message of Christ could not be more clear in terms of service, yet the church has routinely chosen to follow a program of service-to-self over service-to-others.

The increasingly undeniable fact of the matter is that we are moving through an epic and historic phase of evolution for humanity. Ways of being that manifest love, harmony, bliss, joy, truth, freedom, health, peace, service, responsibility, abundance and prosperity are all in alignment with the future of life on this planet. Ways of being that attempt to impose fear, dissonance, despair, lies, tyranny, disease, war, greed, abdication, scarcity, and lack are doomed to crumble to dust and be forgotten.

We as individuals along with our collective institutions must choose the upward spiral or the downward spiral. It is my fond wish that the church chooses the high road at long last.