"Benedict XVI responds: 'No, I am not abandoning you!'" (Rorate Caeli, February 24, 2013):
Dear brothers and sisters, I feel that this Word of God is particularly directed at me, at this point in my life. The Lord is calling me to "climb the mountain", to devote myself even more to prayer and meditation. But this does not mean abandoning the Church, indeed, if God is asking me to do this it is so that I can continue to serve the Church with the same dedication and the same love with which I have done thus far, but in a way that is better suited to my age and my strength. Let us invoke the intercession of the Virgin Mary: may she always help us all to follow the Lord Jesus in prayer and works of charity.
I will admit, I feel extremely saddened by the resignation. It leaves feelings of unanswered questions and anxiety. It feels almost inorganic, like a loved one leaving in old age; not passing away as we expect all of our loved ones to do some day, but just leaving. It also opens up anxieties of what is to come for the Church. Beyond that it also makes me shudder to think of the outside worlds reactions in the future when every asinine talking head will call for the Popes resignation over ever little issue and site Benedict as a clear precedence.
ReplyDeleteAll I can do is shrug, say a prayer and let out a little sigh.
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ReplyDeleteWhat is your take on whether this resignation is a strategic 'chess move' or not? I'm open to the possibility that the Pope saw some advantage in this. For example, I think this resignation started up the 'conspiracy' mill and the leading theory all over the traditional Catholic blogosphere is the lavender mafia. Even Michael Voris has done a few episodes on this, and he's not done.
ReplyDeleteI think it's great that the lavender mafia is being exposed right now and a huge spotlight is turning on this. Would this have happened without the resignation? The Pope would be unable to come right out and say lavender mafia without scandalizing millions of genuine faithful Catholics, but this allows the story to go public with the average faithful Catholic remaining blissfully ignorant.
The only options on the table are that Benedict is either (a) a serious modernist bent on smearing the Papacy by making it look like any other "career" where one steps down when they want to retire, or (b) there was a deliberate strategy involved to provide some advantage to the Church.
The irony here is that the young theologian who played such a significant role in releasing V2 collegiality, ecumenism, and the grotesquerie of nouveau theology upon the Church, now finds his papacy debilitated by those same forces. His resignation is a fitting end to a hopeless effort to "inspire" acceptance of a self-contradicting notion of "reforming the reform." The miracle is that from such confusion came the gift of Summorum Pontificum, whose promise remains mostly unfulfilled. Long as the odds of it may be, we have to focus our prayers on the election of a pope with sufficient courage, consistency -- and yes, ruthlessness -- to face the enemies on both sides of the wall without delusion or half measures.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, we're not talking about choirmasters here (:D)
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
ReplyDeletePOPE: HUMAN INTELLIGENCE CAN FIND KEY TO UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD IN SACRED SCRIPTURE
Vatican City, 6 February 2013 (VIS) –
...In the first chapters of Genesis, “there are two significant images: the garden with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the serpent. The garden tells us that the reality that God has placed the human being within is not a savage forest, but a place that protects, nourishes, and sustains. Humanity must recognize the world, not as property to plunder and exploit, but as a gift from the Creator … to cultivate and care for respectfully, following its rhythms and logic, in accordance with God's plan. The serpent is a figure derived from oriental fertility cults that fascinated Israel and that were a constant temptation to forsake the mysterious covenant with God.”...
If this is Traditional Catholic exegesis; if this exegesis is in continuity with the orthodox exegesis of the Early Church Fathers; if this type of radical rupture with the past can be identified with anything said by any other Catholic Pope in history, I'd appreciate being told for I think it is the case that this sort of exegesis does incalculable damage to the Catholic Faith.
This is Our Holy Father teaching publicly!!!!
And where are all the Catholic apologists when it comes to these radical ruptures with our past?
I'll tell you where they are -They are falling all over each other in their rush to praise his abdication and predicting that Pope Benedict XVI (Verlassen the First?) will be named a Doctor of the Church.
My apologies ... Tim's second (deleted) comment above was simply a replica of his first. I should have edited it out before posting.
ReplyDeleteNick,
ReplyDeleteI have no idea as to a possible "strategic" move on the part of the retiring Holy Father. Could be. He's done some brilliantly understated things before. But it could also be coincidence.
I'll leave it to more informed minds to offer more edifying commentary.
Is there anyone who can tell me that what Pope Emeritus plans to do could not also be done by him had he remained Pope?
ReplyDeleteThis abdication is as revolutionary as it is strange.
What he has done is so similar to what Sarah Palin did when she quit as Governor of Alaska even as she promised to keep working for Alaskans.
Well, could not his prayer life as Pope - offered in conjunction with his sufferings - redound spiritually to Holy Mother Church far more powerfully than will his prayers now that he has freely chosen to abdicate, abandon his flock, and pray privately?
Oh well, presumably he can retain possession of his special cologne made for him, at his request, by a famous Italian smellmonger.
Tell me that does not have the odor of oddness; a Pope contacting a famous perfumer and asking her to create a special cologne just for him as the Church collapses all around him and as AmChurch ponies-up over a billion dollars in sex crimes fines.
Try to imagine the shock you would experience had you just been learnt that Pope Saint Pius X had contacted a smellmonger and requested that she create a cologne especially for him?
Forget it; such a thing was unimaginable back in the days when Catholic Tradition was not an abomination to be suppressed or a sneer to be expressed.
Dear Nick. Imagine if the Pope publicly addressed the Homoheresy directly rather than letting Michael Voris do it?
Talk about a Bully Pulpit with a worldwide audience.
I think that, as usual, Ralph has nailed it. This is Vatican Twoism with a vengeance and it does diminish the Papacy which - beginning with Ut unum Sint - has been eroded in pursuit of a novel, and effete, ecumenism.
Some say we have had Saints, I say we have had Sappers.
The way the post 1962 Popes have acted is rather like the way conservative activist, Howard Phillips, would have acted had he been named to the Cabinet He desired; he promised to shut it down were he nominated (Can't remember which Cabinet Post it was).
Just to illustrate how I am not all negative, I'd like to identify the fact that Verlassen The First did surrender his Twitter account; so, we've got that going for us, which is nice.
And, no, I am not at all disturbed by this revolutionary abdication, why do you ask?
Surely, all the ramifications of this revolutionary act can only be positive in this springtime of the new pentecost in the civilisation of love as we, Brick By Brick, follow the yellow (craven) road of novelty until we are, collectively, ruptured * out of this weary and woeful Catholic Traditionalism.
Well, count me out.
I confess that I am, compared to the sun who is Verlassen the First, but a flint strike in every single category I can conceive of - Holiness, Intelligence, Education, Sophistication,Manners, etc etc - but I simply can not, in good conscience,remain silent for silence signals approval of what out modern Popes have done.
Lord have Mercy on Pope Emeritus but especially may he have Mercy on me for I seem to be, as usual, out of step with my Catholic Brethren who are cake-walking in celebration of the abdication.
* Yes, I intended ruptured, not raptured.
I hope the next pope will be someone in the mold of Pius XI, who had no patience with insubordination and theological "diversity." It's about time we got straight talk from the Vatican.
ReplyDeleteI just had a dispiriting thought; IANS will soon be in objective solidarity with the queers who write such books as, Heather has two daddies, because, soon, IANS will have two Popes (Pappas).
ReplyDelete