I’m still surprised at your persisting reaction to the WikiVatican of which I spoke a few webs ago. Particularly, you keep mentioning the “peering” principle, that is making authority horizontal instead of vertical, shared rather than imposed. No end of emails on the point. It seems to be a sensitive issue that has touched many.

There is no question of changing one thing for the other, vertical for horizontal, but of the desire to have one attitude to authority tempered by the other. The Church is not a democracy, but the People of God is the repository of the Word of God (vox populi, vox Dei: the voice of the People is the voice of God), or the expression sensus fidelium (the feeling of the faithful) as a locus theologicus (theological principle) which it truly is.

I already told you that I was highly elated by the pope’s decision to suppress limbo. Much theological courage is needed to withdraw a doctrine, which was never a dogma of faith, to be sure, but it certainly was permanent teaching of the whole magisterium of all times from St Augustin till this year. This shows the openness of the Church and its readiness to change. Faith dogmas are very few, and everything else, as we have seen in the case of limbo, can be changed. Let us keep our hopes high.