Elizabeth Scalia, "
Pope Benedict: Faith and the Future" (The Anchoress, February 16, 2012), writes:
In 2009 Ignatius press released this prophetic little volume,written by our pope over 1969-1970 — while the world was in the first throes of the social revolution. I thought I’d share a few of Joseph Ratzinger’s prescient thoughts. They seem timely:“The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes . . . she will lose many of her social privileges. . . As a small society, [the Church] will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members.”
He goes on, saying: [of the church]"It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek . . . The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution – when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain . . . But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.
"And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already with Gobel, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.”
7 comments:
Prescient. Seems to me the Church is entering a period of public penance, and Francis is the humble strong leader to take us there.
In more ways than one, perhaps, Mr. Mink. In more ways than one.
Um, yes; yes we will have a new church and it will be small and poor and crummy and it will be the direct result of the new theologians who intentionally have been, brick by brick, dismantling The Catholic Church; that is, it ain't prophesy, it is the plan.
Principles of Catholic Theology Joseph Ratzinger:
Does this mean that the Council should be revoked? Certainly not. It means only that the real reception of the Council has not yet even begun. What devastated the Church in the decade after the Council was not the Council but the refusal to accept it. This becomes clear precisely in the history of the influence of Gaudium et spes. What was identified with the Council was, for the most part, the expression of an attitude that did not coincide with the statements to be found in the text itself, although it is recognizable as a tendency in its development and in some of its individual formulations. The task is not, therefore, to suppress the Council but to discover the real Council and to deepen its true intention in the light of the present experience. That means that there can be no return to the Syllabus, which may have marked the first stage in the confrontation with liberalism and a newly conceived Marxism but cannot be the last stage. In the long run, neither embrace nor ghetto can solve for Christians the problem of the modern world. The fact is, as Hans Urs von Balthasar pointed out as early as 1952, that the "demolition of the bastions" is a long-overdue task.
That is what the Brick By Brick Bund, and other communicants in the conservative catholic coterie, studiously ignore so as to maintain the illusion of the vain conceit that Catholic continuity exists.
Well, let's read what this Pope (who was in grave health and in constant pain but didn't abdicate)...
http://tinyurl.com/cattsk7
has to teach about those intent on razing the bastions:
...Although God may console Us with you, We are nonetheless sad. This is due to the numberless errors and the teachings of perverse doctrines which, no longer secretly and clandestinely but openly and vigorously, attack the Catholic faith. You know how evil men have raised the standard of revolt against religion through philosophy (of which they proclaim themselves doctors) and through empty fallacies devised according to natural reason. In the first place, the Roman See is assailed and the bonds of unity are, every day, being severed. The authority of the Church is weakened and the protectors of things sacred are snatched away and held in contempt. The holy precepts are despised, the celebration of divine offices is ridiculed, and the worship of God is cursed by the sinner. All things which concern religion are relegated to the fables of old women and the superstitions of priests. Truly lions have roared in Israel. With tears We say: "Truly they have conspired against the Lord and against His Christ." Truly the impious have said: "Raze it, raze it down to its foundations."
http://tinyurl.com/bvqj925
Put that in your New Theology Pipe and smoke it...
Invisible as yet are signs of the force of Tradition that'll act upon our inertia into indifferentism
In our immediate future?
The smiley face of Totalitarian humility that'll result in the jettisoning of symbols and actions associated with a healthy Catholic Triumphalism and anything hinting at a Supreme Pontiff who reigns and rules.
What to do about this situation?
Well, there is this advice to consider
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uepFO4psgKE
Snippet from the Sermon of Pope Francis at The Mass Inaugurating his Petrine Ministry::
Today, together with the feast of Saint Joseph, we are celebrating the beginning of the ministry of the new Bishop of Rome, the Successor of Peter, which also involves a certain power. Certainly, Jesus Christ conferred power upon Peter, but what sort of power was it?
A Bishop has the Duties to Teach, Rule, and Sanctify.
Pope Francis repeatedly refers to his own self as, Bishop, and, although true in a specific and limited sense, such self-identification carries with it a confusing message for he is, above all else, the Supreme Roman Pontiff and High Priest on Earth and he must Reign and Rule as a Monarch but by his actions and his words he seems to be clearly communicating that Reign and Rule is headed for Rack and Ruin.
It was interesting to hear him refer (not in this sermon) to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI as Bishop Emeritus Benedict XVI and so those who have eyes that see and those who have ears that hear clearly saw and heard the Primus inter Pares plan of this Pontificate.
IANS,
I remember really enjoying that movie when I first saw it. I'd probably enjoy it even more now, as mature as I've become. Har! Some great scenes.
Some good questions about primus inter pares, etc. Food for thought. I hear ya.
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