This is really pretty crazy when you think about it...talk about getting something off your shoulders before you kick.

-spence

ROME (Reuters) - The former archbishop of Milan and papal candidate Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini said the Catholic Church was "200 years out of date" in his final interview before his death, published on Saturday.

Martini, once favored by Vatican progressives to succeed Pope John Paul II and a prominent voice in the church until his death at the age of 85 on Friday, gave a scathing portrayal of a pompous and bureaucratic church failing to move with the times.

"Our culture has aged, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our rituals and our cassocks are pompous," Martini said in the interview published in Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

"The Church must admit its mistakes and begin a radical change, starting from the pope and the bishops. The pedophilia scandals oblige us to take a journey of transformation," he said in the interview.

Dying Cardinal: Church '200 years out of date' - World news - Europe - NBCNews.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48876172/ns/world_news-europe/#.UEPOXJFv5kQ)

if you reads his bio Spence this was not a death bed revelation...he'd been beating this drum for a long time

this is shocking...:uhuh:

a "liberal voice"...."favored by progressives".... called for "radical change" of an institution and it's principles ???....


a bit odd...a liberal/progressive member of the clergy calling for radical change for a closed/narrow minded, pompous, bureaucratic and behind the times Church...somehow rose to Cardinal and Papal Candidate amongst all that narrow/closed minded rigidity and pomposity......what happened/changed 200 years ago? is that when they started wearing cassocks?