12/5/04
"..when I conceive of the good news only as self-affirmation, in the final analysis it is meaningless; there is an anesthetization going on somewhere." --Cardinal Josef Ratzinger
While most of the Catholic heirarchy--the American bishops to be sure--whip up politically correct pink cotton candy about human rights and other non-issues and yawn-issues, Josef Cardinal Ratzinger* plops down huge meat-and-potatoes platters of advanced and substantive thinking.
It was JR who suggested that the Church not get bogged down in debating with dissenters, "fixed on a couple of subjects, thereby ignoring the major challenges of our time."* It is JR who has admitted that there is a breakdown in religious instruction caused by the attempt to make everybody think like Ph.Ds. It is he who said that the Church, "The People of God" also includes its dead members, something that those who second-guess the saints and yearn for popular governance don't even conceive.
Late last year, Cardinal Joe heaped some more delicacies on a Catechists'*** junket**** to the Vatican. He warned them against the "temptations of impatience" of wanting the Church to become bigger and more influential.
"Mass movements are always fleeting," he said. In fact, his prognosis for the Church is that it will shrink to a size much smaller than it is now.
This low-point in Church history in which we are living will be remembered as a time when human pride was gorged by a church telling everybody how great they are and how God loves them and forgives them. This means that there is no need to improve oneself. Why bother? Everybody's wonderful!
As an editor of a religious periodical, I am constantly spotting proclamations of God's forgiveness--unqualified by the need to be sorry, apologize, confess and repent--and waving red flags to the higher-ups. Usually, I am pleased to say, some qualification, if often a weak one, is inserted.
Cardinal Joe told that audience of bums that their catechesis must "also include the announcement of judgment, of our responsibility.
"Man cannot do or not do whatever he wants. He will be judged. He must give an accounting."
No wonder the Father Feel-goods who leave out the bits about judgement and sorrow hate Ratzinger's kraut-eating guts.
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*Ratzinger is Prefect of the Congregation for The Doctrine of the Faith which the media ever delights in pointing out used to be called "The Inquisition"
** "Salt of The Earth", Ignatius Press, p. 160
***Catechists are people who know what percentage of Catholics don't go to Mass every Sunday, but don't know what the Corporal Works of Mercy are.
****Church job-holders get their ways paid to conferences which always seem to be in exotic places, at the very least, near a King's Dominion, never in say, Altoona.
Copyright 2004, 2008 by Neal J. Conway