Weird Religious Attitudes

The LA Times published a story on Sunday that just strikes me as the most absurd situation. Some time ago, the pope decided that it was not necessary to kneel at the point in the mass where the priest consecrates the wine and the wafers. Instead, the choice would be left to the local bishop. Well, in several US churches, the bishop decided parishioners should NOT kneel. And some of them are disobeying that order, and sticking with their traditional act of what they consider to be adoration. And the bishop has told them it is a MORTAL SIN to disobey his order! They must stop, or they must leave the congragation. Now it's not clear that anyone will actually BAR them from attending services. But this just seems to me like an exercise in RAW POWER - "I have made a decision, and you MUST OBEY, at the risk to your MORTAL SOUL."

Never mind that the bishop in the next diocese may have made a decision that it was OK to kneel. And its not the kneeling that is the sin - it's disobeying the bishop! This just seems like an exercise in RAW POWER. Or maybe it's simply an attempt by bishops to exercise control in a place that they can - in church - when they find that have so little ability to exercise control over congregants in other, more important areas - birth control, abortion, etc.