"Et Tu, Benedict? (Wrinkles in Time & Theology)"

Prefatory note:

Dionysius the Areopagite was a 1st century convert of St. Paul mentioned in the Book of Acts; but the man who wrote under his name in the late fifth or early sixth century and transposed the whole of pagan Neoplatonism from Plotinus to Proclus into a distinctively new Christian context is more aptly called "Pseudo-Dionysius."

Frank J. Sheed (1897-1982) was an Australian-born lawyer, Catholic writer, publisher and speaker who was married to Maisie Ward, who together with her lent his name to the famous English imprint Sheed & Ward and was a forceful speaker in the Catholic Evidence Guild; but the man who, under the name of "Frank J. Sheed," is the author of the contemporary blog from which the following article is taken should perhaps better be known as "Pseudo-Frank J. Sheed," since, like "Pseudo-Dionysius," he conceals his own identity behind a pseudonym taken from the name of someone he wishes to honor. -- Editor

Pseudo Frank J. Sheed, in "Et Tu, Benedict? (Wrinkles in Time & Theology)," introduces his subject as follows:

When you read Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI, it can be a faith-rewarding exercise or a head scratcher. I, for one, am very grateful for his Gospel, Catechesis, Catechism, his book on the Infancy Narratives, his Handmaid of the Lord, and Ignatius Press’ volumes of weekly teachings as pope like A School of Prayer. Not to mention his output at the CDF, which considering the possibilities he prevented seems heroic.

But then there are other scattered books, like Principles of Catholic Theology, Introduction to Christianity, In the Beginning, and Highlights of Vatican II. These often seem ambiguous on key points, and suggest a mind conditioned by the more liberal currents of the 60s and 70s. For the conservative crowd, that’s lamentable. Which all that in mind, I was both irked and intrigued by Hilary White’s column. It follows here, and as you’ll discover, she takes no prisoners.

Indeed, there is much here "irk and intrigue" most anyone.

Yes, by all means: Caveat emptor! But by the same token, know that those who neglect acquaintance with many of the dark details here related do so at their own peril of blissful ignorance. [Disclaimer: Rules ## 7-9]

"George Weigel: The Swan Song of the Catholic Neocons"

[Disclaimer: Rules ##7-9]

A Review of George Weigel’s Lessons in Hope: My Unexpected Life with St. John Paul II (Basic Books, 2017), by Dr. Jesse Russell, Fetzen Fliegen (A Remnant newspaper blog, September 7, 2017):

The notorious journalist and friend of Catholic traditionalist Patrick Buchanan, Hunter S. Thompson once wrote in his famous essay “The Hippies”: “The best year to be a hippie was 1965, but then there was not much to write about, because not much was happening in public and most of what was happening in private was illegal.”

A similar statement could be made of Catholic neoconservatives: the best year to be a Catholic neoconservative was 2001. September 11 had given the green light to the destruction of any country that stood in the way of the New World Order’s goal of global hegemony. With magazines like First Things and books such as Witness to Hope and The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, the very polite triumvirate of neoconservative leaders, Fr. Richard Neuhaus, George Weigel, and Michael Novak, had not only complete control over the American reception of John Paul II’s life and work, but increasing access to the White House of President George W. Bush.

Many bishops such as Charles Chaput, Francis George, and Timothy Dolan (whom Weigel refers to as an “old friend”) were the under the spell of Weigel, Neuhaus, and Novak. Even the lumbering, felt-banner-adorned battleship of old liberals called the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops was turning toward the shores of the “new” Catholic conservativism born from Fr. John Courtney Murray and Jacques Maritain.

But then something happened. Like a Greek tragic hero, the Catholic neocons at the apex of their power, fell from grace.

"Still a bulwark of sanity in our big and zany Church"?

Those, paraphrased, are the words of Guy Noir - Private Eye in a recent message to me via carrier pigeon, as per usual lately. He was commenting on an article by Thomas Joseph White, "Catholicism in the Modern World" (First Things, August 25, 2017), which is, indeed, reassuringly sane.

After linking to this other article and remarking, "much as I've carped over JPII’s TOB overreach or Jos. Ratzinger’s exegesis of Genesis, more than a little do I miss them," he then turned to White's article, saying about it (his actual words):

There is also this fascinatingly fusionary list, with Newman, Garrigou-Lagrange (!) and Ratzinger too. Somehow reassures me there is still a bulwark of sanity in our big and… being kind, zany… Church.

Poverty of spirit: different Papal styles

In his Vicars of Christ: A History of the Popes(Arcadia: Tumblar House, 2014), 380-90, Charles Coulombe makes the following insightful observation about the difference in 'style' between Benedict XVI and Francis:

The generation of westerners of which [Francis] is a part was marked -- in Church, State, and indeed, in every field -- by what can only be called a sort of "personalization" of authority. That is to say, that the traditional division in perception between an office and the current holder of that office -- which allowed people of wildly differing, sometimes even opposed, views to collaborate out of shared respect for the office under whose direction they functioned -- has been blurred or even obliterated. Such folk, when in authority, tend to downgrade or do away with traditional symbols of their office while emphasizing their own personalities in pursuit of some nebulous "authenticity." So it is that morning dress and uniforms disappear from presidential inauguration and legislatives openings, and royals love to appear in casual wear. The difficulty with such an approach is that it tends to weaken respect for the office in the eyes of its subjects, who in turn begin to believe that their loyalty to it is dependent purely on their personal feelings for the occupant of the moment. Seeing the problems this had created, Benedict XVI began to restore the symbolic side of the Papacy, for all that formalism and display ran extremely counter to his nature. But it is not an issue that one of Francis's generation could be expected to understand -- quite the contrary.... Despite the lack of tiara noted earlier, piece by piece [Pope Benedict] restored bits of the papal wardrobe that his immediate predecessors had discarted: the fur-lined mozzetta, the camauro, the fanon, and -- most annoying to some -- the traditional red shoes, symbolizing the fact that as Pope he walked in the footsteps of the martyrs.

Commenting on this passage, Prof. Peter A. Kwasniewski writes about Benedict:

This humble Bavarian who shied away from the limelight saw that it was necessary to elevate and accentuate the sacramental iconicity of the pontiff in order to move beyond the cult of personality inadvertently started by John XXIII and vastly augmented in the charismatic athlete, actor, poet, and playwright of John Paul II. With Pope Francis, we see a return both of the cult of personality and of the false conception of poverty, this time applied not only to liturgy but also to doctrine itself.

By "poverty of doctrine," Kwasniewski explains, "I refer to the superficiality, messiness, ambiguities, contradictions, and unclarity of this pope's teaching, in contrast to the rich truthfulness of those of his predecessors who take seriously the Lord's command to 'let what you say be simply 'yes' or 'no' (Mt 5:37); cf. 2 Cor. 1:17-19, Jas. 5:12. (Peter A. Kwasniewski, "True Poverty of Spirit in the Splendor of Worship," The Latin Mass: The Journal of Catholic Culture and Tradition, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Summer 2017), p. 14.

The Marcello Pera interview: a political interpretation of Pope Francis

President of the Italian Senate Marcello Pera is a classical liberal Catholic and friend of the former Pope Benedict XVI, with whom he co-authored a book: Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam. Here he is interviewed by Corrado Ocone (Il Mattino, July 9, 2017), translated by Rorate Caeli in "THE ULTIMATE INTERVIEW to Understand all About Pope Francis: Marcello Pera, Italian politician and close Ratzinger friend" (Rorate Caeli, July 14, 2017).

What one traditionalist is saying about Benedict XVI's theology

Msgr. Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, "Faith imperilled by reason: Benedict XVI's hermeneutics" (from La Sel de Terre, Issue 69, Summer 2009, via Biblia y Tradicion, translated by C. Wilson.

"After reading this fascinating essay," writes Peter Chojnowski in his Preface, "anyone who thought that 'reconciliation' between Catholic Tradition and Vatican II theology is right around the corner will have to think again!"

[Hat tip to Sir A.S.]

Is the CDF's former Cardinal Ratzinger raining on Papa Francis's Assisi party?

Sandro Magister seems to think so. He writes: "With Bergoglio the 'Spirit of Assisi' Triumphs. But Ratzinger is Ruining the Party" (www.chiesa, September 18, 2016): "Francis reruns teh encounter with men of all religions inaugurated by John Paul II thirty years ago. But the objections of the cardinal prefect of doctrine back then are still alive. And even more radical."

[Hat tip to JM]

The problem with having an 'emeritus' pope? Cardinal Brandmüller and Bishop Sciacca: he won't keep quiet

Sandro Magister, "Double Friendly Fire Against the 'Pope Emeritus'" (www.chiesa, August 29, 2016):

ROME, August 29, 2016 – In his retreat on the Vatican hill, Joseph Ratzinger just won’t keep quiet. Neither in the written nor in the spoken word.

In the anticipation of the early autumn release of his book-length interview with Peter Seewald, a new monumental biography will arrive in bookstores tomorrow, written by his friend the theologian Elio Guerriero, introduced with a preface by Pope Francis and ending with an interview of the ex-pope conducted by the author, previewed on August 25 by the newspaper "la Repubblica": Ratzinger confessa: "Troppo stanco, così ho lasciato il ministero petrino"

In the interview, Ratzinger once again explains that the only reason for his resignation of the papacy was his loss of energy. Thereby contradicting his successor Francis, who in an interview last July 3 with “La Nación” asserted that the abdication of Benedict XVI “had nothing to do with anything personal.”

But there is one point, among others, one which the two latest successors of Peter agree. Both of them give credence to the figure of the “pope emeritus,” a figure that however has no precedent, whether historical, theological, or juridical.

Francis writes in this regard, in the preface to the book previewed on August 24 by the newspaper “Avvenire”:

“For the Church, the presence of a pope emeritus in addition to the one in office is an innovation. [. . .] It expresses in a particularly evident manner the continuity of the Petrine ministry, without interruption, like the links of a selfsame chain joined together by love.”

Not only that. It is known that the prefect of the pontifical household, Georg Gänswein - who as Ratzinger’s personal secretary before, during, and after his pontificate is certainly the person closest to him - has pressed much further in setting forth this contemporaneous presence of the two popes, according to him almost “an expanded ministry,” “in common,” with “a collegial and synodal dimension’: Not One Pope But Two, One “Active” and One “Contemplative” (17.6.2016)

But it is not known to what extent Ratzinger may share the reckless ideas asserted in public by his secretary. What is ever more certain, however, is that some of the most competent and authoritative figures of the circle closest to the ex-pope are absolutely opposed to them.

One of these is Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, an illustrious Church historian, who last July spoke out in tough critical terms not only against the figure of the “pope emeritus,” but also against the goodness of Ratzinger’s abdication itself: Brandmüller: “The Resignation of the Pope Is Possible, But May It Never Happen Again” (18.7.2016)

Another is Bishop Giuseppe Sciacca, a luminary of canon law and secretary of the supreme tribunal of the apostolic signatura, who in an interview with Andrea Tornielli for “Vatican Insider” on August 25 ripped to pieces the juridical and theological sustainability of the title “pope emeritus” being applied to one who has abdicated the papacy: Sciacca: "Non può esistere un papato condiviso"

Read more >>

[Hat tip to JM]

"A Brief Study of an Infallibly Politically Correct Pontificate"

[Advisory: Rules 7-9] For the record, here is a withering critical assessment of Pope Francis's four-year pontificate by Christopher A. Ferrara, a critic whom mainstream Catholics inclined to dismiss "traditionalists" out-of-hand would do well not to dismiss as unworthy of their time. However much they may chafe at the blistering attacks of Ferrara, he presents a litany of public acts and statements by the Holy Father that are a matter of record and cannot be simply swept under the rug but present an ineluctable conundrum for the faithful and informed Catholic. How should we then live as Catholics in a time such as this?¹ [To be able to read the footnote, you must be in full-text mode, which can be achieved by clicking on the "Read more »" link below.]

Here, then, for the record, is Christopher A. Farrara's article, "The Undertaker Pope: A Brief Study of an Infallibly Politically Correct Pontificate" (Fetzen Fliegen, June 6, 2016): 

In the fourth year of his pontificate, Francis continues to deliver regular payloads of explosive off-the-cuff remarks that delight the media and shock the Catholic faithful. It would be easy at this point simply to ignore these spectacles, but then one would be ignoring a key element of the manner in which Francis is attempting to realize his “vision” of the Church. As Francis himself has insisted, his “magisterium” includes an endless stream of informal speech in various venues: “I’m constantly making statements, giving homilies. That’s magisterium. That’s what I think, not what the media say that I think. Check it out; it’s very clear.”

For Francis, “magisterium” and “what I think” are one and the same thing. What Francis thinks—and speaks incessantly—generally serves the ends of political liberalism and state power while confirming the Church’s post-Vatican II demotion to a mere religious constituency under the secular sovereign. In this regard witness, for example:

·         Francis’s warm relations with socialist dictators;

·         his lauding of pro-abortion and pro-“gay” politicians;

·         his abuse of the papal office as a platform for globalist enviornmentalism (thus advantaging the same transnational corporations he professes to deplore);

·         his refusal to intervene in opposition to the legalization of “gay marriage” because “the Pope belongs to everybody, he cannot enter the concrete, domestic politics of a country. This is not the Pope's role”;

·         his demand—flatly contradicting his professed abstention from domestic politics—for universal abolition of the death penalty (while declining to demand the abolition of abortion), open borders in Europe and America, and policies of environmental regulation and wealth redistribution;

·         his conspicuous failure to identify government policy, particularly in socialist countries, as a primary cause of the poverty he attributes entirely to the greed of the wealthy.

As a mere social constituency alongside other religions and organizations, the Church cannot have any pretension to moral authority over the State, much less a divine mandate to make disciples of all nations. The Church is reduced to pleading for the State’s toleration of her existence.

Of papal memoirs and gay lobbies

Commenting on Philip Pullella's report from the Vatican, "In memoirs, ex Pope Benedict says Vatican 'gay lobby' tried to wield power: report" (Reuters: Breaking News, July 1, 2016), our underground correspondent, Guy Noir - Private Eye, declares:

So much for remaining hidden. For some reason, I have little more interest in reading this than I do Hillary's "Living History." Popes should not write memoirs, any more, I increasingly think, than they ought to be granting serial interviews. In a crass conflating of categories, it "cheapens the brand." Weren't Ganswein's observations enough already? Our leaders might actually all serve us best by a season of silence.

Food for thought.

Guest editorial: Fiat continuity and the case of Papa Ratzinger

[Advisory: Rules ##7-9]: 
Guest editorial by Joseph Martin:

The man behind Catholicam is hitting nails squarely on the head [here]. And in the process diminishing the bling generated by some venerated church figures. He clarifies even as he depresses. Can Catholics be Catholics without cult-colored glasses? A rude and impenitent comment, or a troubling question?

First there was this, diagnosing all of Postconciliarism in one paragraph:

You can't create continuity just by saying it exists. You can't tell us the traditional teaching is untouched when the context of the words seems to suggest otherwise - and if we are wrong, then please explain how. Please explain how things are not in discontinuity. You cannot create continuity by fiat decree. You cannot substitute a phantasm for substance.

Now there is his newer item on Ganswein's presentation. Extremely helpful, as it underscores what James Larson has been saying: Benedict XVI may be a 'friend' of Tradition, but he is not actually a consistent exponent of it. I recall visiting a small, growing Catholic college that prides itself on its orthodoxy: all the theology guys had all the Ignatius Press Ratzinger books lining their shelves. Using an analogy I've invoked elsewhere, I felt sort of like I was in Salt Lake City listening the LDS hype the Mormon prophet. "Truth and Tolerance" or "Teachings of Thomas S. Monsoon" ... Take your pick: both are written by "general authorities" that followers refer back to with a lavish-sort of deference. Even the wanting-to-sound-sane Fr. Z goes out of his way to fall back on lengthy quotes of from the newest "living prophets" JPII, Benedict, and of course now Francis.

Catholicism has become a pope or pope-as-prophet movement, with the unique problem of having popes that  hardly seem too keen on Catholicism. Ganswein always was appealing as a masculine priest who seemed no nonsense. Now we have this turn which seems more George Clooney, and makes him seem like some power politics sell-out or Stockholm Syndrome victim, simply because what he is saying is such obvious, transparently novel and forced two-headed bunk. He and Benedict both are contributing to a legacy's epic fail. That sounds extreme, but Francis is the purposeful fruit of Benedict XVI's exit strategy, for heaven's sake!

In a highly out-of-character move, George Weigel just weighed in over at Catholic World Report with a sweeping verdict that the Archbishop and Ratzinger-right-hand-man is plain wrong. "There aren't 'two popes' in any way, shape, or form," he declares authoritatively.

But of course Ganswein is a papal insider, and Weigel cites no sources, so he becomes a man of the Council sawing off the branch he has been sitting on. "It's a Ford or Toyota. You're either baptized or you're not," he analogies. But what about the salvation of pagans, baptism of desire, and blah blah blah? Suddenly postconciliar theologies aren't self-justifying? You mean Garrigou-Lagrange might not have been quite the stuff he was later painted to be, and DeLubac might have been as fanciful as certain Georges?

Still, most conservatives line up behind Ratzinger like he is the noble equivalent of the liberals' Obama. Um, no, he's not. I like Benedict XVI too, like I liked Mark Hatfield or Norman Vincent Peale. Nice, well-intentioned man, godly, and sympathetic to conservatives. But consistently conservative at the flash points? Not necessarily so. Again quoting Catholicam [brackets and bolding added]:

This is one issue Traditionalists need to get over: Benedict XVI is not the 'traditional' pope as opposed to Bergoglio the progressive pope. [I add: just read his Principles of Theology or Introduction to Christianity!! The fact these are never, ever addressed with an questioning is a huge indictment of the 'sheeple cloak' that remains cast over conservative Catholic theology]. Benedict had a certain nostalgia for the traditional liturgy (and in my opinion it was nothing more than nostalgia), but he was a theological progressive in many ways. And with his abdication the "traditional" Pope Benedict perpetrated the greatest novelty of the modern papacy.

Anyone who has really studied the writings of Joseph Ratzinger knows that much of his theology is severely problematic. In fact, it is easier to find objectively heretical statements in the writings of Ratzinger than it is in John Paul II.

Ed. - Yet discussions continue to abound suggesting the theme of continued 'renewal' in the Church: The Franciscan Institute for Ecclesial Renewal and The Henkel's Family Foundation are sponsoring a "Symposium on Pope Francis's Vision for the Renewal of the Church" at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Nov. 10-12, 2016.

Benedict's Compendium, the CCC, and YouCat compared

An erudite reader sent me this yesterday:

In my usual scavenging I came up with a copy of YouCat. It is truly awful. When I compared it with Benedict's 2006 Compendium of the Catechism, I immediately recognized how good Benedict's work is. It is theological throughout and hangs together as an integrated text. Its language is clearer than YouCat. When you compare "transubstantiation" or "passions" Benedict wins.

Recently Robert Hickson released a damning indictment of the CCC which Fr. John Hardon did not want published while he was still alive. Hardon claimed that the final text was not Catholic. The French firebrand Abbe Georges de Nantes published a book damning the 1992 catechism listing 12 heresies he found therein. When Benedict's Compendium appeared in 2006, his newsletter the Catholic Counter Reform declared that Benedict's work corrected all of the errors in the 1992 catechism.

There is an excellent doctrinal critique of YouCat at Faithful Answers website. It is regrettabble that the Compendium was published by the USCCB as an official document and has never received the circulation it deserves. Ignatius Press should publish it in a more popular format and remove YouCat from circulation. YouCat panders to youth trying to be hip and dumbs down its theology. It is a true horror.

[Hat tip to Sir A.S.]

Two Easter Vigils, two popes, two visions of Europe, one rooted in Christianity, the other deracinated by multiculturalism and obsequity toward Isalm

Monsieur l'Abbé, "Guest Op-Ed: Fighting for the soul of Europe" (Rorate Caeli, March 29, 2016 [Advisory: Rules 7-9]). Excerpts:

[In 2008] I had the good fortune ... to attend all of the liturgies of the Sacred Triduum and I was in Saint Peter’s Basilica on the evening of the Easter Vigil when Pope Benedict XVI baptized Magdi Allam, an Egyptian-born Italian journalist. Allam was raised a Muslim but from an early age was educated in Catholic schools. At the age of twenty he moved to Italy and became increasingly critical of Islam.

The baptism of Allam was a reminder of the expectations that Europe should have for those who are privileged to call Europe their home. Living in Europe means an acceptance and respect for her Christian origins and history. Living in Europe means throwing off the backward cultural thinking of a religious sect forged in a seventh-century desert. To be European is to accept that which is ever ancient and ever new. All of these considerations were implicit that Easter when Allam publically rejected his former beliefs and recognized Christ and His Church as the true and only vehicle for salvation.

The New Mandatum

Contrast the Triduum in 2008 with the one that took place just last week. This year, the Holy Thursday foot washing ceremony (known also as the Mandatum) consisted of Pope Francis washing the feet of a group of Catholic and non-Catholic refugees. In fact, with impeccable timing, the pope washed the feet of three Muslim refugees only two days after more than thirty people were killed and three hundred were injured in suicide bombings in Brussels, a municipal region whose most popular name for newborn boys is Mohammed.[1]

Before Lent this year, the pope issued a decree changing the Holy Thursday practice which had previously only admitted men for the Mandatum. Now, the decree explained that pastors may “choose a small group of persons who are representative of the entire people of God.”[2] ...

While this new decree concerning the Mandatum allows the pope, in good conscience, to continue washing the feet of women, he still manages to disobey his own decree by washing the feet of those who do not even believe in Christ....

For Francis however, these considerations are no more than semantics. “All of us together: Muslims, Hindus, Catholics, Copts, Evangelical. But [we are] brothers, children of the same God” he said on Holy Thursday.[4] ...

A Radical Juxtaposition

At the heart of the juxtaposition of the Easter Vigil of 2008 and this year’s Holy Thursday is the radical difference between the two possible approaches to the problem of Islam in Europe. In 2008, Benedict XVI personified a Church that was confident in her identity. For him, the Church is the only force that can offer transcendence to a secular Europe: “[The Church] must first do decisively what is her very own, she must fulfill the task in which her identity is based: to make God known and to proclaim his Kingdom.”[7] She is also the only force strong and confident enough to enlighten the irrationality of Islam ....

In order for her to survive, Ratzinger has argued, Europe must acknowledge and appreciate her Christian origins. It is only in Christ and His Church that Europe can find her identity, and if this identity is lost, Europe remains vulnerable to the onslaught of any number of extremist ideologies. Europe can only be Europe when she embraces the history of her art, history, music, and culture: “The banishment of Christian roots does not reveal itself as the expression of a higher tolerance . . . but rather as the absolutizing of a pattern of thought and of life that are radically opposed, among other things, to the other historical cultures of humanity.”[9] ...

By contrast ... [s]ince his election in 2013, [Pope Francis'] preference for ministry to the “peripheries” and the marginalized has left Europe as an undefended afterthought....

Each time that Francis ventures out to the peripheries he leaves the door to the Western world open and vulnerable to attack....

Less than a week after the Inauguration of Pope Francis on March 19, 2013, Magdi Allam announced that he was leaving the Church in order “to protest its soft stance against Islam.”[11] It was not by chance that this act coincided with the election of Francis. “The ‘papolatry’ that has inflamed the euphoria for Francis I and has quickly archived [not 'achieved', but 'ARCHIVed'] Benedict XVI was the last straw in an overall framework of uncertainty and doubts about the Church,” he wrote.[12] .... Read more >>

[1] http://www.yenisafak.com/en/life/mohammad-most-popular-name-for-babies-in-london-for-fourth-time-2229871
[2]http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/rc_con_ccdds_doc_20160106_commento-decreto-lavanda-piedi_en.html
[4] http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/03/24/world/europe/ap-eu-rel-vatican-holy-thursday.html?_r=0
[7] Ratzinger, Joseph. A Turning Point for Europe?: The Church in the Modern World: Assessment and Forecast. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2010), 178.
[9] http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/catholic-contributions/cardinal-ratzinger-on-europe-s-crisis-of-culture.html
[11] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/25/magdi-allam-muslim-convert-leaves-catholic-church_n_2950937.html
[12] Ibid.

"The one thing, the first thing, the only thing that matters for the Church is to save souls!"

Bishop Fellay in a recently released 45-minute frank interview on the status of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X under the pontificates of Benedict and Francis (in French with English subtitles), via Adfero at Rorate, March 21, 2016:

Pope Emeritus Benedict breaks silence, speaks of 'deep crisis' facing post-Vatican II Church

I was surprised to suddenly see this everywhere -- reports of Pope Emeritus breaking his silence in an interview, originally given in German last October and now reported by an Italian journal, "Cos’è la fede? Ecco le parole di Benedetto XVI" (Avvenire, March 16, 2016).

Here's what Maike Hickson reported at LifeSiteNews yesterday:

March 16, 2016 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- On March 16, speaking publicly on a rare occasion, Pope Benedict XVI gave an interview to Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference, in which he spoke of a “two-sided deep crisis” the Church is facing in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. The report has already hit Germany courtesy of Vaticanist Guiseppe Nardi, of the German Catholic news website Katholisches.info.

Pope Benedict reminds us of the formerly indispensable Catholic conviction of the possibility of the loss of eternal salvation, or that people go to hell:

The missionaries of the 16th century were convinced that the unbaptized person is lost forever. After the [Second Vatican] Council, this conviction was definitely abandoned. The result was a two-sided, deep crisis. Without this attentiveness to the salvation, the Faith loses its foundation.

He also speaks of a “profound evolution of Dogma” with respect to the Dogma that there is no salvation outside the Church. This purported change of dogma has led, in the pope's eyes, to a loss of the missionary zeal in the Church – “any motivation for a future missionary commitment was removed.”

Pope Benedict asks the piercing question that arose after this palpable change of attitude of the Church: “Why should you try to convince the people to accept the Christian faith when they can be saved even without it?”

As to the other consequences of this new attitude in the Church, Catholics themselves, in Benedict's eyes, are less attached to their Faith: If there are those who can save their souls with other means, “why should the Christian be bound to the necessity of the Christian Faith and its morality?” asked the pope. And he concludes: “But if Faith and Salvation are not any more interdependent, even Faith becomes less motivating.”

Pope Benedict also refutes both the idea of the “anonymous Christian” as developed by Karl Rahner, as well as the indifferentist idea that all religions are equally valuable and helpful to attain eternal life.

“Even less acceptable is the solution proposed by the pluralistic theories of religion, for which all religions, each in its own way, would be ways of salvation and, in this sense, must be considered equivalent in their effects,” he said. In this context, he also touches upon the exploratory ideas of the now-deceased Jesuit Cardinal, Henri de Lubac, about Christ's putatively “vicarious substitutions” which have to be now again “further reflected upon.”

With regard to man's relation to technology and to love, Pope Benedict reminds us of the importance of human affection, saying that man still yearns in his heart “that the Good Samaritan come to his aid.”

He continues: “In the harshness of the world of technology – in which feelings do not count anymore – the hope for a saving love grows, a love which would be given freely and generously.”

Benedict also reminds his audience that: “The Church is not self-made, it was created by God and is continuously formed by Him. This finds expression in the Sacraments, above all in that of Baptism: I enter into the Church not by a bureaucratic act, but with the help of this Sacrament.” Benedict also insists that, always, “we need Grace and forgiveness.” [emphasis added]

Also reported in

• Maike Hickson, "Benedict XVI Gives Rare Interview ... Says The Church Has Lost Missionary Zeal" (The Wanderer, March 16, 2016)
• Steve Skojec, "Pope Benedict Breaks His Silence On 'Deep Crisis'" (One Peter Five, March 16, 2016)
• Louie Verrecchio, "Benedict's Avvenire interview: A man of the Council speaks" (aka Catholic, March 17, 2016), who raises some questions about the translation presented at LifeSiteNews.
• Christopher A. Ferrara, "Benedict Breaks His silence ... with Another Leaky Lifeboat" (Remnant, March 17, 2017), knowing Italian, offers his own translations of the text and concludes that the upshot of the interview is more devastating than Benedict's own damning diagnosis of the problem -- a continued lack of clear rationale or incentive for the missionary mandate.
• Father Z, "New interview with Benedict XVI in Avvenire" (Fr. Z's Blog, March 16, 2016), who offers an interesting liturgical inference.
• Robert Royal, "Benedict Breaks Silence" (The Catholic Thing, March 17, 2017)

SEE FULL TEXT HERE: Elizabeth Scalia, "The Christian Faith Is Not An Idea But A Life" (Aleteia, March 17, 2017); and AND HERE: "Full text of Benedict XVI's recent, rare, and lengthy interview" (Catholic World Report, March 17, 2016).

"Of all the post-conciliar popes, Benedict was the one who finally blinked"

Fr. Karl Rahner with Fr. Joseph Ratzinger during Vatican II
~ Breakin' the law! Breakin' the law! Look, mom, no clerics! ~
A provocative response to those rejecting a favorable comparison of Benedict with Pope Francis. By traditionalist journalist, Michael Matt, "Benedict & Francis: Two Peas in a Papal Pod?" (Remnant, January 26, 2016). Matt offers an educated guess as to why Benedict abdicated, or had to abdicate, suggesting that packs of liberal wolves hounded him out of office. (What pressures they brought to bear, God only knows.) He compares Benedict, whose Summorum Pontificum and lifting of the SSPX excommunications outraged many, with the direction Francis has taken things, asking: "What would life be like right now without the powerful spiritual bulwarks (and human consolation!) provided by hundreds of traditional Mass centers around the world, established as a direct result of [Summorum Pontificum]?" Could anyone in his right mind contend that the escalating crisis in the Church today would not have been exponentially worse, he asks, were it not for those bulwarks thrown up by Benedict? "They got rid of [Benedict] for a reason, which the St. Gallen Group now brazenly admits," writes Matt. "Of all the post-conciliar popes, Benedict was the one who finally blinked. And history may well reveal that the reign of Pope Benedict helped undermine the very Modernist revolution which, ironically enough, Benedict himself had had a hand in a half century earlier," he adds. (Remember, back when Fr. Joseph Ratzinger worked along side Karl Rahner, and was a peritus at Vatican II under Cardinal Frings?) There's much more to it than this bit here, but check it out. Food for thought.

[Hat tip to JM]

Another terrific discussion in Download: "Tradition under fire"

Yes indeed: another excellent Download, a half-hour panel discussion this time of the Anglican Ordinariate, Summorum Pontificum, and the "blowback" and fallout the Church has witnessed -- partricularly for Summorum Pontificum -- from both clerics and laity who identify the post-Vatican II regnum as a rejection of pre-Vatican II tradition: "Tradition Under Fire" (Church Militant, January 29, 2016). A bit of Anglican history about the Book of Common Prayer, a bit of Catholic history about the liturgical changes spanning the last five decades, and a fine discussion of what is at stake.

A Benedict XVI retrospective

Peter Kwasniewski, "10th Anniversary of the Hermeneutic of Continuity Speech" (RC, December 22, 2015):

Has it already been a decade since Pope Benedict XVI gave one of the most important addresses of his pontificate (and, we may say without fear of contradiction, of the past fifty years)? On December 22, 2005, not long after his election to the Chair of St. Peter, Pope Benedict set forth the fundamental principle of his pontificate: reform in continuity, rather than discontinuity and rupture. 

[New Catholic: for Rorate, the Hermeneutic of Continuity address was a major game-changer. The blog, as you may recall, had been founded just two days earlier, and the Pope stunned the Catholic world with this address. We were the first venue to provide English translations of the main excerpts of the address for over a week (at that time, the Vatican seriously neglected the language, and the Curia always boycotted Pope Benedict).] 

We saw this in the sphere of the liturgy: Gregorian chant and polyphony suddenly reemerged at the Vatican; beautiful classic vestments and vessels were brought forth from the sacristy; holy communion was given to the faithful kneeling and on the tongue; the entire ceremonial became more solemn, formal, and Roman. It was noticed in papal preaching and Vatican documents. The long season of pitting the modern or post-conciliar Church against the pre-modern or pre-conciliar Church began to look foolish, short-sighted, shallow, tendentious, incoherent, and untenable. We knew it would be a long climb back to sanity and normalcy, but the Christmas address in 2005 undeniably afforded grounds for hope. 

At the same time, the past ten years have exposed some of the weaknesses, logical and practical, that are contained in the hermeneutic of continuity approach. The new edition of The Great Façade, with 250 new pages by Christopher Ferrara on Popes Benedict and Francis, has probed the issues with great insight, as has Henry Sire's Phoenix from the Ashes. What exactly counts as continuity or rupture? Where do we look for either of them? How do we know when we have found it? If there has been rupture, how should it be repaired -- do we discard the novelty and return to the preceding phase, or attempt to incorporate a reinterpreted novelty into the next phase? Is continuity something to be assumed or something to be demonstrated? How easy is it to postulate (as Pope Benedict did) different "levels" of continuity and discontinuity in magisterial teaching or church discipline, such that apparent contradictions or tensions can be resolved? So numerous and weighty are such questions that one may safely say the proposal generated as many questions as it resolved. 

Still, it was an historic, groundbreaking, provocative, and fruitful address that made it seem possible, for the first time, to begin to ask difficult questions that so many had refused to ask, and to seek real solutions that did not involve jettisoning centuries of doctrine and practice.

Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia 

Thursday, 22 December 2005

Your Eminences,
Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Presbyterate,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,

“‘Expergiscere, homo: quia pro te Deus factus est homo’—Wake up, O man! For your sake God became man” (St. Augustine, Sermo, 185). With the Christmas celebrations now at hand, I am opening my Meeting with you, dear collaborators of the Roman Curia, with St. Augustine’s invitation to understand the true meaning of Christ’s birth. I address to each one my most cordial greeting and I thank you for the sentiments of devotion and affection, effectively conveyed to me by your Cardinal Dean, to whom I address my gratitude.  

God became man for our sake: This is the message which, every year, from the silent grotto of Bethlehem spreads even to the most out-of-the-way corners of the earth. Christmas is a feast of light and peace, it is a day of inner wonder and joy that expands throughout the universe, because “God became man.” From the humble grotto of Bethlehem, the eternal Son of God, who became a tiny Child, addresses each one of us: He calls us, invites us to be reborn in him so that, with him, we may live eternally in communion with the Most Holy Trinity. 

Our hearts brimming with the joy that comes from this knowledge, let us think back to the events of the year that is coming to an end. We have behind us great events which have left a deep mark on the life of the Church. I am thinking first and foremost of the departure of our beloved Holy Father John Paul II, preceded by a long period of suffering and the gradual loss of speech. No Pope has left us such a quantity of texts as he has bequeathed to us; no previous Pope was able to visit the whole world like him and speak directly to people from all the continents. In the end, however, his lot was a journey of suffering and silence. Unforgettable for us are the images of Palm Sunday when, holding an olive branch and marked by pain, he came to the window and imparted the Lord’s Blessing as he himself was about to walk toward the Cross. Next was the scene in his Private Chapel when, holding the Crucifix, he took part in the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum, where he had so often led the procession carrying the Cross himself. Lastly came his silent Blessing on Easter Sunday, in which we saw the promise of the Resurrection, of eternal life, shine out through all his suffering. With his words and actions, the Holy Father gave us great things; equally important is the lesson he imparted to us from the chair of suffering and silence. 

In his last book Memory and Identity, he has left us an interpretation of suffering that is not a theological or philosophical theory but a fruit that matured on his personal path of suffering which he walked, sustained by faith in the Crucified Lord. This interpretation, which he worked out in faith and which gave meaning to his suffering lived in communion with that of the Lord, spoke through his silent pain, transforming it into an important message. Both at the beginning and once again at the end of the book mentioned, the Pope shows that he is deeply touched by the spectacle of the power of evil, which we dramatically experienced in the century that has just ended. He says in his text: “The evil ... was not a small-scale evil. ... It was an evil of gigantic proportions, an evil which availed itself of state structures in order to accomplish its wicked work, an evil built up into a system.” Might evil be invincible? Is it the ultimate power of history? Because of the experience of evil, for Pope Wojtyla the question of redemption became the essential and central question of his life and thought as a Christian. Is there a limit against which the power of evil shatters? “Yes, there is,” the Pope replies in this book of his, as well as in his encyclical on redemption. The power that imposes a limit on evil is Divine Mercy. Violence, the display of evil, is opposed in history—as “the totally other” of God, God’s own power—by Divine Mercy. The Lamb is stronger than the dragon, we could say together with the Book of Revelation. 

At the end of the book, in a retrospective review of the attack of 13 May 1981 and on the basis of the experience of his journey with God and with the world, John Paul II further deepened this answer. What limits the force of evil, the power, in brief, which overcomes it—this is how he says it—is God’s suffering, the suffering of the Son of God on the Cross: “The suffering of the Crucified God is not just one form of suffering alongside others. ... In sacrificing himself for us all, Christ gave a new meaning to suffering, opening up a new dimension, a new order: the order of love. ... The passion of Christ on the Cross gave a radically new meaning to suffering, transforming it from within. ... It is this suffering which burns and consumes evil with the flame of love. ... All human suffering, all pain, all infirmity contains within itself a promise of salvation; ... evil is present in the world partly so as to awaken our love, our self-gift in generous and disinterested service to those visited by suffering. ... Christ has redeemed the world: “By his wounds we are healed’ (Isaiah 53:5).” 

All this is not merely learned theology, but the expression of a faith lived and matured through suffering. Of course, we must do all we can to alleviate suffering and prevent the injustice that causes the suffering of the innocent. However, we must also do the utmost to ensure that people can discover the meaning of suffering and are thus able to accept their own suffering and to unite it with the suffering of Christ. In this way, it is merged with redemptive love and consequently becomes a force against the evil in the world.

The response across the world to the Pope’s death was an overwhelming demonstration of gratitude for the fact that in his ministry he offered himself totally to God for the world; a thanksgiving for the fact that in a world full of hatred and violence he taught anew love and suffering in the service of others; he showed us, so to speak, in the flesh, the Redeemer, redemption, and gave us the certainty that indeed, evil does not have the last word in the world.

I would now like to mention, if briefly, another two events also initiated by Pope John Paul II: They are the World Youth Day celebrated in Cologne and the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, which also ended the Year of the Eucharist inaugurated by Pope John Paul II. The World Youth Day has lived on as a great gift in the memory of those present. More than a million young people gathered in the city of Cologne on the Rhine River and in the neighboring towns to listen together to the Word of God, to pray together, to receive the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist, to sing and to celebrate together, to rejoice in life and to worship and receive the Lord in the Eucharist during the great meetings on Saturday evening and Sunday. Joy simply reigned throughout those days. Apart from keeping order, the police had nothing to do—the Lord had gathered his family, tangibly overcoming every frontier and barrier, and in the great communion between us, he made us experience his presence. 

The motto chosen for those days—“We have come to worship him!”—contained two great images which encouraged the right approach from the outset. First there was the image of the pilgrimage, the image of the person who, looking beyond his own affairs and daily life, sets out in search of his essential destination, the truth, the right life, God.This image of the person on his way toward the goal of life contained another two clear indications. First of all, there was the invitation not to see the world that surrounds us solely as raw material with which we can do something, but to try to discover in it “the Creator’s handwriting,” the creative reason and the love from which the world was born and of which the universe speaks to us, if we pay attention, if our inner senses awaken and acquire perception of the deepest dimensions of reality. As a second element there is a further invitation: to listen to the historical revelation which alone can offer us the key to the interpretation of the silent mystery of creation, pointing out to us the practical way toward the true Lord of the world and of history, who conceals himself in the poverty of the stable in Bethlehem.

The other image contained in the World Youth Day motto was the person worshipping: “We have come to worship him.”Before any activity, before the world can change there must be worship. Worship alone sets us truly free; worship alone gives us the criteria for our action. Precisely in a world in which guiding criteria are absent and the threat exists that each person will be a law unto himself, it is fundamentally necessary to stress worship.

Tridentine Community News - Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on Purgatory; TLM Mass times

"I will go in unto the Altar of God
To God, Who giveth joy to my youth"
Tridentine Community News by Alex Begin (November 15, 2015):

November 15, 2015 – Sixth Resumed Sunday After Epiphany

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on Purgatory

Fr. Dennis Brown, OMV, Spiritual Director for the Permanent Diaconate program at Denver’s St. John Vianney Theological Seminary, recently posted the following excerpt from Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical on hope, Spe Salvi. He intriguingly called it “Perhaps the most beautiful thing ever written on purgatory. It makes purgatory something to look forward to.”

45. This early Jewish idea of an intermediate state includes the view that these souls are not simply in a sort of temporary custody but, as the parable of the rich man illustrates, are already being punished or are experiencing a provisional form of bliss. There is also the idea that this state can involve purification and healing which mature the soul for communion with God. The early Church took up these concepts, and in the Western Church they gradually developed into the doctrine of Purgatory. We do not need to examine here the complex historical paths of this development; it is enough to ask what it actually means. With death, our life-choice becomes definitive—our life stands before the judge. Our choice, which in the course of an entire life takes on a certain shape, can have a variety of forms. There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lie, people who have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within themselves. This is a terrifying thought, but alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history. In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word Hell[37]. On the other hand there can be people who are utterly pure, completely permeated by God, and thus fully open to their neighbours—people for whom communion with God even now gives direction to their entire being and whose journey towards God only brings to fulfilment what they already are[38].

46. Yet we know from experience that neither case is normal in human life. For the great majority of people—we may suppose—there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil—much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul. What happens to such individuals when they appear before the Judge? Will all the impurity they have amassed through life suddenly cease to matter? What else might occur? Saint Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, gives us an idea of the differing impact of God’s judgement according to each person’s particular circumstances. He does this using images which in some way try to express the invisible, without it being possible for us to conceptualize these images—simply because we can neither see into the world beyond death nor do we have any experience of it. Paul begins by saying that Christian life is built upon a common foundation: Jesus Christ. This foundation endures. If we have stood firm on this foundation and built our life upon it, we know that it cannot be taken away from us even in death. Then Paul continues: “Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Cor 3:12-15). In this text, it is in any case evident that our salvation can take different forms, that some of what is built may be burned down, that in order to be saved we personally have to pass through “fire” so as to become fully open to receiving God and able to take our place at the table of the eternal marriage-feast.

47. Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God. In this way the inter-relation between justice and grace also becomes clear: the way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us for ever if we have at least continued to reach out towards Christ, towards truth and towards love. Indeed, it has already been burned away through Christ’s Passion. At the moment of judgement we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves. The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy. It is clear that we cannot calculate the “duration” of this transforming burning in terms of the chronological measurements of this world. The transforming “moment” of this encounter eludes earthly time-reckoning—it is the heart’s time, it is the time of “passage” to communion with God in the Body of Christ[39]. The judgement of God is hope, both because it is justice and because it is grace. If it were merely grace, making all earthly things cease to matter, God would still owe us an answer to the question about justice—the crucial question that we ask of history and of God. If it were merely justice, in the end it could bring only fear to us all. The incarnation of God in Christ has so closely linked the two together—judgement and grace—that justice is firmly established: we all work out our salvation “with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). Nevertheless grace allows us all to hope, and to go trustfully to meet the Judge whom we know as our “advocate”, or parakletos (cf. 1 Jn 2:1).

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

• Mon. 11/16 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (St. Gertrude the Great, Virgin)
• Tue. 11/17 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Holy Name of Mary (St. Gregory the Wonderworker, Bishop & Confessor)

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Albertus (Detroit), Academy of the Sacred Heart (Bloomfield Hills), and St. Alphonsus and Holy Name of Mary Churches (Windsor) bulletin inserts for November 15, 2015. Hat tip to Alex Begin, author of the column.]

The long trajectory from the Synodal crisis back to its roots

[Disclaimer: Rules 7-9]

Faithful Catholics are rightly uncomfortable with attacks on any pope, even if popes can make some pretty imprudent if not stupid decisions.

Michael Voris is an example of one who is unwilling to criticize Pope Francis, even though he has no problem criticizing many bishops who appear in one way or other to have betrayed the Faith or to have been negligent in their duties.

In today's "Vortex," Voris's daily 5-10 minute reflection, discussion, or fusillade aimed at trapping and exposing the latest falsehoods and lies about what concerns Holy Mother Church, he appears to have turned a corner. By way of reacting against the pervasive criticism of Pope Francis for mismanaging the Synod, Voris overtly shifts the blame away from Francis and back to Benedict XVI for having appointed so many of the cardinals and bishops who have turned out to be major disappointments and even saboteurs of the Faith in the present crisis. He also blames Benedict for resigning and abandoning the Church amidst the present confusion, effectively leaving a vacuum in theological leadership. Ironically, perhaps, in bending over backwards to avoid attacking Pope Francis, Voris attacks former Pope Benedict.

(And the attack on Benedict, be forewarned, is pointed and unrelenting -- See his "Vortex - Benedict's Fingerprints" [video with transcript] for the details.)

As painful as this attack on Benedict may be, especially for some among the more conservative Catholics and even some traditionalists, Voris is right about one thing: the roots of the present crisis are not to be found in the pontificate of Pope Francis and his two Synods on the Family, any more than these roots are ultimately to be found in Pope John XXIII and Paul VI and their Second Vatican Council, even if the latter was more seminal and decisive influence.

In that respect, Benedict cannot be justly cited as more than a very indirect instrumental cause (like John Paul II) in having made some unfortunate appointments as well as perhaps imprudent decisions during their pontificates. We are not privy to the personal rationales behind these appointments or decisions, or even to the full reasons or causes behind Benedict's resignation, as unfortunate as that has been. The more substantial and distant causes of the present crisis must be traced back through the aftermath of Vatican II, and through the Council itself to anterior causes in modernist movements of thought simmering beneath the surface of pre-conciliar pontificates. The long trajectory back to the ultimate roots of the present crisis lie far back, as a number of good studies on the rise of Modernism and Neo-Modernism attest (see for example, the book by H.J.A. Sire mentioned in my previous post).

For an example of traditionalists who have no hesitation whatsoever about laying the blame for this Synod at the feet of Francis, or for that matter tracing it back through Vatican II to even earlier movements, see this video interview of John Rao by Michael Matt, in what they self-identify as a prolonged "rant," with the over-the-top title of "Synod Send Off: It's the End of the Church as We Know It."

(Advisory: it will offend, but watch and learn. There are things you can pick up from these guys, precisely because of their hyper-sensitivity to the merest whiff of historical revisionism, that you won't find from the "Everything-is-Awesome-Because-The-Gates-Of-Hell-Will-Not-Prevail" crowd. The promises of Christ are not in question; but the recent performances by some of the princes of the Church are very much in question. The promises of Christ are no excuse either for blissful ignorance of what is happening today or for willful ignorance of the realities before us. We -- you and I -- are the generation now responsible for transmitting the Faith to our children, to our families, to our friends, and through our parishes so that it will not die. We are responsible, not just our priests and bishops and popes.)