A friend from California emailed me yesterday and wrote:
To understand Kasper one needs to know the German Church as it is today. Please listen to Christine Niles interview with Beverly De Soto at Forward Boldly. De Soto is editor of Regina Magazine and lives in Germany.
So here you are, folks, the intrepid Christine Niles hosting
Forward Boldly: Interview with Beverly Stevens, Regina Magazine":
Check Out Religion Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with
Forward Boldly on BlogTalkRadio
[Hat tip to Sir A.S.]
2 comments:
Neither of these ladies can be given high marks for getting to the point in short order. There is a period of giggling, some shared biographical anecdotes, and some chatty criticism of NO foibles (although Mrs Niles wastes no time emphasising that the NO is in itself a fine liturgy, just inexplicably and constantly subject to bad performance). It is almost ten minutes before the word "Germany" is even spoken.
Once the subject is broached, we learn that contemporary Germany is a very modern, very secular place indeed. Then, at the 14 minute mark, a revelation: the German (Catholic) Church receives the equivalent of 7 billion dollars FROM THE GOVERNMENT. A ridiculous stipend indeed, for which nothing is required of it. The implication here is that the German government has gone and bought itself a Church, and thereby made it rich and servile [to the wishes of the government elite] at the same time.
Everything follows from that basic revelation. A Catholic version of 1984 thirty years after the fact. Anyone who was prone to criticize the Russian Orthodox Church as a rubber stamp for Russian government policy should pause and examine what Beverly Stevens has to say about the Catholic Church in Germany. It is well worth the time spent listening. Arianism does indeed suffuse the German clergy (as it does ours to a lesser extent than this). Here you have the milieu out of which Joseph Ratzinger stepped, a somewhat disappointing Athanasius. It is also Cdl Kasper's comfort zone. The proper caption for it is FOLLOW THE MONEY.
Please listen. But may I suggest that you first pull the time bar to the right and skip the first ten minutes.
How right you are, Mr. Roister-Doister. I'm not sure what's going on with Ms. Niles' liturgical views. I was made to understand that she was a regular Tridentiner while living in South Bend. It may have something to do with her working for Michael Voris presently, who, for all his "traditionalist"-sounding Vortex episodes, is apparently no Tridentiner himself, but quite content with the Novus Ordo, especially if ad orientem. I also undersand that he (and probably she, following him), is antagonistic toward the SSPX.
In any case, the relevant point in this interview is, as you suggest, the MONEY trail. I learned several years ago that clerical salaries in Germany are paid by the state, that they are state-employees, just like legislators or judges. This cannot be healthy for the spiritual life in the German church, and may help to account for its precipitous fall from grace after Vatican II.
The practice of Germany mirrors the practice of nearly all Protestant state churches throughout northern and western europe, in some of which the bishops are even appointed by the state (in the notorious tradition of "lay investiture").
The really shocking thing is just how much money the typical bishop or even priest makes. I can't give the exact statistics off the top of my head, but it's absolutely shocking. If a rich man can no more enter the kingdom of God than a camel can pass through the eye of a needle, as our Lord suggests, beware of the German clergy. It should be more surprising that they are ever NOT wolves in sheep's clothing than vice versa.
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