Sometimes with bad parents all the kids can do is tolerate them. But as adults, I think we should require proof that respect has indeed been earned I would agree that there are nationalities who accord respect just because of office/religious position etc; sometimes it's almost part of the myth and magic of the culture, and it certainly seems anachronistic..
I fear I am becoming a one-man-Cardinal-defending-machine here! :cheeky:
Trust me, this is far from the most important issue for me. However, I cant resist sounding a note of diversity in this thread.
You use the analogy of children respecting parents.
Note: I used *siblings* and *love*, not respect. The differences are small, but I chose them very carefully.
Since the reformation Catholics have been accused of being simpletons, people whose faith is in "magic and myth", and whose deference to authority is unhealthy and immature.
Because American (western?) culture is so dominant, I can understand where this comes from. The philosophical underpinnings of this culture celebrate "independence", individualism, do-it-yourself-ism, populism, de-throning popes and kings, scientism, etc. "Prove it to me!" we shout. "Why should I trust you?" If it is not independently verifiable in a lab, by my own eyes, it is not true.
I humbly suggest that, while this worldview has its merits, it is not universal. It has its own history, from Martin Luther through John Locke, etc.
Im not trying to convert *anyone*. But if youre at all curious, many millions of Catholics don't view their love for their priests and Cardinals as "requiring proof", or based on magic and myth. They, instead, are part of a tradition whose history includes people like Aquinas and Ignatius of Loyola, and in our own times Teilhard de Chardin and Charles Taylor. Authority is not something about which they approach with immediate skepticism. The very fact of holding an "office" CAN indeed inspire great love and reverence. An obvious example of this, of course, is the late JPII. When people kissed his hand, it wasnt because he wasn't a sinner or a flawed man. (Nor was it because they were childish or awed by magic). It was out of profound love, and a reverence that these hands were blessed by the hands blessed by the hands blessed by.... etc.
Does this sound strange and foreign and ridiculous to some people? Probably.