Pope Benedict XVI warms the hearts of 200,000 pilgrims

POPE Benedict XVI warmed the hearts of over 200,000 pilgrims camping under the stars at a chilly Randwick racecourse tonight.

Bendict XVI thanked God for the "great gift" of their faith.

Attending an evening vigil on the eve of his papal mass for an expected 500,000 people, Benedict XVI urged young people to hear the "concordant voice of humanity" through the dissonance and division of their world.

"From the forlorn child in a Darfur camp, or a troubled teenager, or an anxious parent in any suburb, or perhaps even now from the depth of your own heart, there emerges the same human cry for recognition, for belonging, for unity," he said.

"Who satisfies that essential human yearning to be one, to be immersed in communion, to be built up, to be led to truth?

"The holy spirit," he told pilgrims who were given candles, water, snacks and waterproof ponchos as they swarmed around a huge stage whose massive TVs gave the occasion a rock concert atmosphere.

"Tonight, gathered under the beauty of the night sky, our hearts and minds are filled with gratitude to God for the great gift of our Trinitarian faith," he said.

The 81-year-old pontiff ended his address with a comment of special significance for the Sisters of St Joseph praying for Blessed Mary MacKillop to become Australia's first saint.

"I echo to you the words spoken by Blessed Mary MacKillop when she was just 26 years old," he said.

"'Believe in the whisperings of God to your heart.'"

The pilgrims were in high spirits but no doubt weary after the vast bulk of them - an estimated 180,000 - streamed across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in a day-long procession to the site of tomorrow's World Youth Day (WYD) mass.

"It's touching, so many people of the same age praying together, when so many other people our age are into drugs, smoking or drinking," said Shane Govender, 16, from South Africa.

"With all these people here, we won't even notice how cold it gets," said Neil Philander, 18, also from South Africa.

"We're not here to sleep, we're here to worship. We won't be sleeping," said Loma Falekaono, 36, from Hawaii.

Pope Benedict XVI knows best

Beautiful article from the Herald Sun, the highest daily circulating newspaper in Australia. How the Pope is transforming Sydney.

By Roger Franklin

July 18, 2008 12:00am

WHEN he stepped ashore yesterday at the spot Sydneysiders call Barangaroo, the man in the snow-white cassock seemed too small and far too old to tackle such a job of heavy lifting.

And tired, too.

Despite the ease with which Benedict XVI negotiated the boat's steep gangway, there was a weariness in the eyes behind the wire-rimmed glasses that he donned to read his speech of grace and greetings.

Here was an 81-year-old traveller who, just days earlier, had girdled half the world to celebrate the faith and future with 200,000 youthful members of his far-flung flock.

The decades, the residual jet lag and a hectic day's itinerary that began with Kevin Rudd and an official welcome at Kirribilli House were taking their toll.

You could deduce as much from the slow, deliberate way the visitor lowered himself into the oversize throne of native woods atop the red-draped dais on the dock.

Twice before he became Bishop of Rome, the man who would become Benedict XVI begged close friend John Paul II for permission to retire and to spend his final years as a simple, humble priest.

The canny Pole denied him that favour, even though the then-cardinal was well past the normal retirement age of 75.

There were greater things in store, which John Paul must have recognised.

Whatever the short and tubby white-haired man had yet to offer, it was to be much more than a grey life of memories in the company of his beloved cats.

Call it a higher fate, if you like. Or better still, call it the Sydney Miracle, which is what unfolded as Benedict XVI began his address.

His delivery was fast, perhaps too fast, and the Bavarian accent obscured the sense of some of his words.

But the message of moral fortitude - of revering timeless virtues and rejecting modern temptations - that message flew like an arrow into the very heart of the vast crowd.

As he spoke, a radiant joy glowed on every face.

It was a love that wafted through the crowd like the gentle breeze rustling the hem of the Pope's robes.

And that magic wasn't confined to the hearts of the faithful.

It radiated out, borne by sightseeing pilgrims to be shared with the host city's residents, who could not help but be lifted by the spirit of the moment.

Love was the flavour of the day, and it blessed the crowds that lined the route of Benedict's meandering motorcade through the CBD.

The spectators stood 10 deep in spots, many having lingered in the city after the working day was done to catch a glimpse of the man in the glass-walled box of the popemobile.

There was no pushing, no shoving, no catcalls or abusive shouts. Just joy to have seen the man and tasted the moment.

As the crowd drifted to trains, buses and the journey home, those smiles refused to fade.

Yes, there had been a few protesters handing out condoms or taping anti-Catholic signs to the odd lamppost, but those incidents worried no one - least of all the pilgrims, who were joyfully remaking Sydney in their own image.

Consider Randwick Racecourse, where Sunday's big mass will take place.

For the past week it has been renamed Southern Cross Precinct, with not a bookie or a punter's broken heart in sight.

By the Alamein Fountain in Kings Cross, a favourite rendezvous for rent boys and their clients, the usual trade was absent on Wednesday, replaced by an impromptu choir of Chinese youths belting out a hymn in Mandarin.

And in Goulbourn St in the CBD, another bizarre spectacle. Rolling out of Chinatown came a human train of African pilgrims chanting prayers as they advanced like a marching army.

Three abreast and a good 10 rows deep, their tramping column ploughed straight into another pilgrim posse, this crew from Spain.

Two more groups smashed into the knot of multicultural confusion before everyone resumed their separate ways with bows and laughter, apologies and hugs, blessings and high fives.

Around them, that display of confusion and infectious goodwill painted broad grins on the faces of man-in-the-street Sydneysiders, many of whom may not have been inside a church since Adam was a boy.

It is just such a mood that now holds Sydney in its spell, and the catalyst for the eruption of goodwill is the city's honoured visitor.

Yes, he is old, a little tubby and his English is far from perfect. But when it comes to the human heart, he can lift an entire city's worth with ease.

More than a crisis of faith, a crisis of reason

More than a crisis of faith, what we have is a crisis of reason, an Italian intellectual, Vittorio Messori, once said.

That is the same point Ratzinger stresses when he said: "beyond all particular questions, the real problem lies in the question of truth."

Of course, if we cannot know the truth, then we cannot know God: we can all become agnostics, and be comfortably righteous. We cannot know that God loves us: it would make no sense to preach Christianity. It won't make a dent!

Remember also that we should not even make an act of faith, if our reason tells us not to do so. It would be immoral to believe if our conscience, no matter how absurdly, tells us not to, said Thomas Aquinas.

Thus, Benedict XVI goes through lengths to disentangle the root of this crisis and show its pernicious effects on our lives. This he does with great analytical skill in his book Truth and Tolerance:

Any thinking that tries to look at reason in itself or to see it as preceding the present world, is contrary to the discipline of the scientific method and is therefore utterly rejected as being prescientific... Within the specific path followed by natural science, this limitation is necessary and right.

If, however, it is declared to be the absolute and unsurpassable form of human thought, then the basis of science itself becomes contradictory; for it is both proclaiming and denying the power of reason.

But above all, a self-limiting reason of that kind is an amputated reason. If man cannot use his reason to ask about the essential things in his life, where he comes from and where he is going... but has to leave these decisive questions to feelings, divorced from reason, then he is not elevating reason but dishonoring it.

The disintegration of man, thus brought about, results equally in a pathological form of religion and a pathological form of science. It is obvious today that with the detachment of religion from its responsibility to reason, pathological forms of religion are constantly increasing.

But when we think of scientific projects that set no real value on man, such as cloning... or ...produce ever more frightful means for the destruction of men and of the world, then it is obvious that there is such a thing as science that has taken a pathological form.

Unlikely centre of attraction

Pope Benedict XVI has a mysterious but very genuine appeal for Gen Y. A woman who is one of Australia's leading theologians explains why in MercatorNet

MercatorNet: I noticed that Benedict's first encyclical contained a joke – not a great joke, to my mind, but it must have been a Papal first. You get the sense that Benedict wants to present Christianity as a joyful way of life. How is he doing that?

Rowland: Yes, this is true. When he was a young priest he was astonished to run across so many people who thought of Christianity as a set of rules and regulations which had to be followed in order to avoid eternal damnation. The word he uses for this is ‘moralism’. He often reminds people that Christianity is not primarily an ethical system, it is participation in the life of the Trinity, and in particular, an encounter with the Person of Christ. It is meant to be enriching and joyful. He doesn’t deny the possibility that some people might end up in hell, but he thinks it is rather neurotic to think of Christianity as an insurance policy against eternal damnation. He regards the various prohibitions in Jewish and Christian teaching as merely the flipside of the actualisation of a great 'yes’.

He therefore tries to focus on the positives, on what an authentic Christian spirituality can be. He often appeals to beautiful works of art and music as epiphanies of God’s glory and illustrations of what can be created by those who have faith. He wants people to fall in love with the beauty and truth and goodness of Christian Revelation, rather than living in fear of it. It’s as though proponents of moralism have confused Aslan with the White Witch. His focus on the works of Christian art and the beauty of the lives of Christian saints is his antidote to the moralist mentality.

MercatorNet: "The dictatorship of relativism" is a phrase coined by Benedict which has been widely repeated. But if you unpack it, it's not that clear. Relativism sounds anarchic, not tyrannical. What does he mean?

Rowland: When people hear the word ‘relativism’ they often think that it is a synonym for tolerance. They think that there is no dominant paradigm of anything and that it is a good thing that people tend to disagree about the truth and believe many different things. Contemporary cultural diversity, and in particular the diversity of moral frameworks, is regarded as a post-modern virtue.

However Benedict tries to demonstrate that when Christianity is rejected, social practices and the cultures which they foster are not theologically neutral. They carry within them an atheistic logic. The more pervasive this logic becomes the more our social life resembles a jungle with its survival of the fittest principles. In such cultures the weak and the poor are systematically hurt. Adolf Hitler understood this. He described Christianity and Judaism as religions designed to protect the weak from the strong. He thought this was a bad thing. Benedict thinks it is a really great thing. He is interested in the relationships between truth and love and what happens when truth is replaced by ideology and love is reduced to emotional drives.

Pope Benedict XVI, Theologian of Joy

An Interview with Monsignor Joseph Murphy, author of Christ Our Joy: The Theological Vision of Pope Benedict XVI by Carl E. Olson

Ignatius Insight: What are some other essential qualities of Benedict's thought that are interrelated with joy?

Monsignor Murphy: Joy is of course a central Biblical theme, and so Christianity and joy must be closely associated. For example, in the intimacy of the Last Supper, Christ says to his disciples: "These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full" (Jn 15:11). Christianity is not about imposing heavy burdens on people, nor is it an oppressive system of do's and don'ts. Rather, it is the path to freedom and to true joy. Hence, the Holy Father's emphasis on joy is simply in keeping with his desire to communicate what is essential to Christianity, what it is really all about.

In this regard, there are some aspects of Pope Benedict's thought that readers may find new or at least thought-provoking. For example, many people, when they hear about the Church, automatically think of her institutional aspects, structures and personnel. However, the Pope places the emphasis elsewhere; for him, the Church is, among other things, what I referred to in the book as the servant, guardian and teacher of joy. He alludes to this idea, for example, in Introduction to Christianity, where he says: "Only someone who has experienced how, regardless of changes in her ministers and forms, the Church raises men up, gives them a home and a hope, a home that is hope—the path to eternal life—only someone who has experienced this knows what the Church is, both in days gone by and now." (2nd ed., Ignatius Press, 2004, p. 344).

What are we in the Catholic Church for?

Or what does being in the Church mean?

Ratzinger: We are not in the Church in order to exercise power as if we were in some kind of association.

If belonging to the Church has any meaning at all, then the meaning can only be that it gives us eternal life, hence, real life, true life as such. Everything else is secondary. -- Salt of the Earth

Why the face of the Shroud of Turin?

When we "seek the face of Christ," why should we emphasize the particular face of Christ in the Shroud of Turin, and not just an all-embracing way of seeking out Jesus' face-- his personality, his expressions, his look, Jesus' self shining out through his words?

The answer lies in the reply to the question on why three of the universal sacraments have a symbolic force limited to a specific region in the world, the Mediterranean region: olive oil, bread, wine.

Ratzinger answers the question in his book, Spirit of the Liturgy: God's incarnation binds us to the history of a particular place. It does not mean doing as we please, a typical tendency of those who want to invent a new liturgy, or new sacraments. No. "The elements become sacraments through connection with the unique history of God in relation to man in Jesus Christ."

And Ratzinger concludes:

It is with this particular face, with this particular human form, that Christ comes to us, and precisely thus does he make us brethren beyond all boundaries. Precisely thus do we recognize him: "It is the Lord" (Jn 21:7).

Benedict XVI - Renewal of the world depends to a great extent on rediscovering confession!

Benedict XVI said in Washington D.C. last May:

To a great extent, the renewal of the Church in America and throughout the world depends on the renewal of the practice of Penance and the growth in holiness which that sacrament both inspires and accomplishes.

Here is the paragraph:

Through the surpassing power of Christ's grace, entrusted to frail human ministers, the Church is constantly reborn and each of us is given the hope of a new beginning. Let us trust in the Spirit's power to inspire conversion, to heal every wound, to overcome every division, and to inspire new life and freedom. How much we need these gifts! And how close at hand they are, particularly in the sacrament of Penance! The liberating power of this sacrament, in which our honest confession of sin is met by God's merciful word of pardon and peace, needs to be rediscovered and reappropriated by every Catholic. To a great extent, the renewal of the Church in America and throughout the world depends on the renewal of the practice of Penance and the growth in holiness which that sacrament both inspires and accomplishes.

NOTE: "Reappropriated" means to make one's own once again

What have we done with this gift?

Benedict XVI on Good Friday, 2008

Through the sorrowful way of the cross, the men of all ages, reconciled and redeemed by the blood of Christ, have become friends of God, sons of the heavenly Father. "Friend," is what Jesus calls Judas and he offers him the last and dramatic call to conversion. "Friend," he calls each of us, because he is the authentic friend of everyone. Unfortunately, we do not always manage to perceive the depth of this limitless love that God has for us. For him, there is no distinction of race or culture. Jesus Christ died to liberate the humanity of old of their ignorance of God, of the circle of hate and violence, of the slavery to sin. The cross makes us brothers and sisters.

But let us ask ourselves, in this moment, what have we done with this gift, what have we done with the revelation of the face of God in Christ, with the revelation of the love of God that conquers hate. Many, in our age as well, do not know God and cannot encounter him in Christ crucified. Many are in search of a love or a liberty that excludes God. Many believe they have no need of God.

Dear friends: After having lived together the passion of Jesus, let us this night allow his sacrifice on the cross to question us. Let us permit him to challenge our human certainties. Let us open our hearts. Jesus is the truth that makes us free to love. Let us not be afraid: upon dying, the Lord destroyed sin and saved sinners, that is, all of us. The Apostle Peter writes: "He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross, so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness" (1 Peter 2:24). This is the truth of Good Friday: On the cross, the Redeemer has made us adoptive sons of God who he created in his image and likeness. Let us remain, then, in adoration before the cross.

Agnosticism: Question of God is a question of that which is above us

I posted this at Wikipedia:

According to Ratzinger, if the question of the knowability of God is not addressed, then “agnosticisim would in fact be the only correct attitude for man,” an “honest and devout” acknowledgement of that which eludes our field of vision. Ratzinger (later elected as Pope Benedict XVI) also cautions against a premature objection to agnosticism, one that is merely based on affirming man's “thirst for the infinite.” He says that the best critique lies in the practical realm.

The true way to call agnosticism into question is to ask whether its program can be realized. Is it possible for us, as human beings, purely and simply to lay aside the question of our origin, of our final destiny, and of the measure of our existence? Can we be content to live under the hypothetical formula “as if God did not exist” while it is possible that he does in fact exist? (...) I am forced in practice to choose between two alternatives: either to live as if God did not exist or else to live as if God did exist and was the decisive reality of my existence. What is at stake [in agnosticism] is the praxis of one’s life.

Ratzinger thinks that human reason has the power to know reality, and attain the truth. For this, he alludes to the achievements of the natural sciences. He believes that agnosticism is a self-limitation of reason rooted in Kant: reason imposes limits on itself which can lead to dangerous pathologies of religion, such as terrorism and pathologies of science, such as ecological disasters. He thinks that this self-limitation dishonors reason and is contradictory to the modern acclamation of science, whose basis is the power of reason.

When people argue that God is unknowable because he cannot be experienced and tested scientifically, Ratzinger differentiates God from other knowable objects:

This question regards not that which is below us, but that which is above us. It regards, not something we could dominate, but that which exercises its lordship over us and over the whole of reality.

[To] impose our laboratory conditions upon God...implies that we deny God as God by placing ourselves above him, by discarding the dimension of love... [To think thus] would make God our servant.

There are many things that we do not see but they exist and are essential...We do not see our intelligence and we have it: we do not see our soul and yet it exists and we see its effects, because we can speak, think and make decisions.

Ratzinger thinks that there is a natural knowledge of God "through the things he has made," and agrees with Paul of Tarsus that “agnosticism that is lived out as atheism” is not “an innocent position.”

Agnosticism is always the fruit of a refusal of that knowledge which is in fact offered to man… Man is not condemned to remain in uncertainty about God. He can “see” him, if he listens to the voice of God’s Being and to the voice of his creation and lets himself be guided by this. The history of religions is coextensive with the history of humanity. As far as we know, there has never been an epoch in which the question of the One who is totally other, the Divine, has been alien to man. The knowledge of God has always existed.

See Wikipedia on Agnosticism

Ratzinger on Truth

I have just posted this in Wikipedia:

Philosopher and theologian Joseph Ratzinger, before his election as Benedict XVI, explored the relationship of truth with tolerance, conscience, freedom, and religion. For him, "beyond all particular questions, the real problem lies in the question of truth."

In consonance with Aristotle and Aquinas, Ratzinger affirms that human reason has the power to know reality and arrive at the truth, and for this he alludes to the achievement of the natural sciences. He sees that "the modern self-limitation of reason" rooted in Kant which views itself incapable of knowing religion and the human sciences such as ethics leads to dangerous pathologies of religion (terrorism) and pathologies of science (ecological disasters and destruction of humans). He thinks that this self-limitation, which "amputates" the mind's capacity to answer fundamental questions such as man's origin and purpose, dishonors reason and is contradictory to the modern acclamation of science, whose basis is the power of reason.

While he states that relativism is acceptable in political options, he warned of a relativism without limits, a "dictatorship of relativism," and he traced the past century's violent ideologies to a totalitarianism which "absolutizes what is not absolute but relative," converting partial points of view into absolute guides.

For Ratzinger, truth and love are identical. And if well understood, according to him, this is "the surest guarantee of tolerance."

See: Wikipedia on Truth

Evangelical Leader Returns To Catholicism

Move Reflects Narrowing Gap Between Denominations

By Alan Cooperman, Washington Post Staff Writer, Saturday, May 12, 2007

The president of the Evangelical Theological Society, an association of 4,300 Protestant theologians, resigned this month because he has joined the Roman Catholic Church.

The May 5 announcement by Francis J. Beckwith, a tenured associate professor at Baptist-affiliated Baylor University in Waco, Tex., has left colleagues gasping for breath and commentators grasping for analogies.

One blogger likened it to Hulk Hogan's defection from the World Wrestling Federation to the rival World Championship Wrestling league.

"This is a sad day for all true sons and daughters of the Protestant Reformation, for all who lived and died for its truths," Douglas Groothuis, a professor at the evangelical Denver Seminary, said in a posting on Beckwith's own blog, adding sternly: " . . . you are embracing serious theological error."

Beckwith, 46, said in a telephone interview that he had expected some repercussions in academic circles but was stunned by the public response. He said strangers have called him at home to berate him, and that his Internet server was overwhelmed by 2,000 e-mails a day to his personal Web site, which in the past seldom generated more than 90 a day.

"It's beyond anything I've ever experienced," he said.

Beckwith is not the first, or even the most prominent, evangelical to switch to Catholicism in recent years. Others include Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), theologian Scott Hahn and the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the journal First Things. On the other side of the equation, the Catholic Church has been losing droves of ordinary worshipers to the Pentecostal form of evangelicalism, particularly in Latin America.

Beckwith said his decision reflects how dramatically the divisions between evangelicals and Catholics have narrowed in recent decades, as they have stood shoulder to shoulder on issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage and school vouchers.

The stormy reaction, however, is a reminder of the gaps that remain, particularly on such theological questions as whether to baptize infants and how human beings gain "justification," or righteousness in the eyes of God.

Beckwith said he was raised as a Catholic in Las Vegas and was "born again" as an evangelical during his teens, at the height of the countercultural "Jesus movement" in the 1970s. He earned a master's degree and a doctorate in philosophy from Fordham University, a Jesuit institution, but then taught at Protestant schools, including Trinity International University and Baylor.

He said that for many years he agreed with the criticisms of the Catholic Church made by Martin Luther and other leaders of the 16th-century Reformation, who emphasized the authority of the Bible alone -- rather than the pronouncements of church leaders -- and who argued that justification resulted from the grace of God, not from good deeds.

But his thinking began to change, he said, as he read more deeply into Catholic theology, including works by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. After studying Ratzinger's book "Truth and Tolerance" last year, he said, he called a prominent evangelical philosopher, read him a passage about whether theology is really knowledge, and asked him to guess the author.

"He reeled off the names of a bunch of evangelical theologians," Beckwith recalled. "I said, 'No, it's Ratzinger!' And he said, 'So he's one of us!' " Beckwith said he was also deeply affected by a joint declaration in 1999 by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church on the doctrine of justification, which he said went a long way toward eliminating this historical source of division.

"I do agree with Protestants that there is no good I can do, no work I can perform, that would justify me," Beckwith said. "But there are many places in scripture that say there's an obligation Christians have to take on the character of Christ, and that contributes to their justification. The Catholic solution is: I am required to take on the character of Christ, but it is not my power that does it, but God's grace."

Chuckling gently, Beckwith said that in discussions with fellow theologians over the past year, he suddenly found himself making "Catholic-type arguments" about natural law and truth, arguing that everything found in the Bible is true, but not everything that is true is found in the Bible.

"At the end of the day, the reason for the Reformation was the debate over justification. If that is no longer an issue, I have to be Catholic," Beckwith said. "It seems to me that if there is not a very strong reason to be Protestant, then the default position should be to belong to the historic church."

On his blog last week, he said he wrestled with whether to inform the Evangelical Theological Society immediately of his intention to return to Catholicism, or to wait until the end of his term in November. He said he and his wife prayed for guidance and received an answer when a 16-year-old nephew asked him to take part in his Catholic confirmation ceremony tomorrow. "I could not do that unless I was in full communion with the church," Beckwith said.

Because Baylor does not require its faculty to sign any statement of beliefs, a university spokeswoman said, Beckwith's change of heart will not affect his teaching post. And because he was baptized and confirmed as a Catholic in his youth, he did not have to undergo conversion -- he simply had to go to confession and receive Holy Communion. He did so in a quiet ceremony April 29 at a small church in Bellmead, Tex.

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Excerpt From "Truth And Tolerance"

This is the excerpt from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's book, "Truth and Tolerance," that Francis J. Beckwith read to a prominent evangelical philosopher and asked him to guess who wrote it.

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life": this saying of Jesus from the Gospel of John (14:6) expresses the basic claim of the Christian faith. The missionary tendency of this faith is based on that claim: Only if the Christian faith is truth does it concern all men; if it is merely a cultural variant of the religious experience of mankind that is locked up in symbols and can never be deciphered, then it has to remain within its own culture and leave others in theirs. That, however, means that the question about the truth is the essential question of the Christian faith as such, and in that sense it inevitably has to do with philosophy. --Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, "Truth And Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions," trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 184.

The Enlightenment Pope

By GIULIO MEOTTI in the Wall Street Journal

VATICAN CITY -- There's a popular joke here at the Holy See: The Swiss progressive theologian Hans Küng goes up to paradise to discuss his theories with Saint Peter. After the meeting, he comes out in tears: "How could I have been so wrong?" Heretical priest Leonardo Boff goes up next and also comes out crying: "How could I have been so wrong?" Then it's the turn of Joseph Ratzinger, the German who became Pope Benedict XVI. When his meeting's over, it's -- you've guessed it -- Saint Peter who comes out crying "How could I been so wrong?"

Joseph Ratzinger is the first "theologian pope" in a very long time. A Vatican writer once said that no other German since Martin Luther has had such a profound effect on the church. While Karol Wojtyla was a great prelate, Joseph Ratzinger is the author of academic textbooks used in seminaries and universities. At the same time, he's capable of teaching theology to simple people and children.
[Ratzinger]

In his 25 years as chief of the Congregation for the Doctrine and Faith, formerly known as the Holy Inquisition, Cardinal Ratzinger was renowned for his firm and orthodox views. But two years into his papacy, and a few days after his 80th birthday, he has managed to astound those who feared "God's Rottweiler." Benedict XVI has written so far one encyclical, titled "Deus Caritas Est," or God Is Love -- not exactly the theme you would expect from a "Panzer Pope." It's one of the most inclusive documents in Catholic theology.

Not many believed that a Bavarian shepherd, the son of a German police officer, would become, in just two years, one of the most popular popes in history. Numbers don't lie. Twice as many people descend upon St. Peter's now than under the also hugely popular John Paul II. Mr. Küng, one of Roman Catholicism's most prominent dissenters, recognizes that "Benedict is open to new ideas." Both men taught at the University of Tübingen in the late 1960s, a sort of Mecca for Catholic progressives, and back then Mr. Küng loved to tease the German about his empty classrooms. Joseph Ratzinger wouldn't say what students in 1968 wanted to hear.

The former architect of John Paul's Kulturkampf calmly accepts the challenges of secularization. He has proven that he's not the "harsh inquisitor" people called him. In 1979, the Vatican revoked Mr. Küng's license to teach as a Catholic theologian for questioning the pope's infallibility. Pope John Paul II neither met nor talked with Mr. Küng for a quarter of a century. Pope Benedict XVI received him after only one year.

If Cardinal Ratzinger upheld faith, Pope Benedict must spread it. He knows he can't hope for mass conversions or the evangelization of entire populations. But what he can work for is "a proud and visible Christianity." Of course he will never be open to married or female priests, but he's not a conventional conservative pope. He is the pope of fresh openness to the dialogue with nonbelievers, the pontiff of rational persuasion.

He was after all a young peritus, or adviser, at the Second Vatican Council, which profoundly modernized the Catholic Church, allowed the use of vernacular language in liturgy, increased the participation of laity and reached out to Judaism, condemning anti-Semitism. Ratzinger now wants to open the church further to the world. His approach to the crisis of Christianity is not defensive, and his reflection on the marginalization of religion is often based on self-criticism.

The columnist Andrew Sullivan wrote that Benedict XVI is "immune from reasoned inquiry." He could not have been more wrong. Benedict XVI is best understood as an "Enlightenment Pope" in an era in which reason has few defenders. The Pope is acutely aware of the oppression brought about by irrationality: In his childhood, it was Nazism; until the collapse of the Soviet Union it was Communism; today it is, as he puts it, the "dictatorship of relativism," the rejection of absolute norms, and radical Islam.

His "lectio magistralis," held at Regensburg University last September, sparked a huge controversy as he explored his theories on the relationship between reason and faith. The one requires the other, the pontiff said, if mankind wants to avoid what he called the "pathologies and life-threatening diseases associated with religion and reason" -- in other words, politically and religiously inspired fanaticism. As pope, Joseph Ratzinger looks to Athens and Jerusalem, whose coming together, he proudly says, gave birth to "the West."

"The inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of history of religions, but also from that of world history....This convergence, with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe." A "European Islam," in other words, would have to undergo a similar convergence process. Only an Islam tempered by logos, which means both "reason" and "word" in Greek, can possibly be part of any meaningful interfaith dialogue, the pope suggested.

"God acts with logos" -- and so does his representative on Earth. "This will be a pontificate of concepts and words," said Wojtyla spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls when Cardinal Ratzinger was elected pope. The past century didn't know a pontiff with a language so sharp. Joseph Ratzinger is a tireless writer the way Karol Wojtyla was a strenuous actor and traveler. He loves words which he utters firmly, but always softly, as a gentle pastor, to his one billion and 27 million faithful. He doesn't shy from scandal, like when he gave a private audience to Oriana Fallaci, the beautiful provocateur and the scourge of Islamic fanaticism. He uses strong words against the nihilism of Islamic terror and in favor of the existence of Israel as a sovereign state and "sign of God's choice."

This shy scholar, who during his Tübingen days meditated on St. Augustine's dictum "in interiore homine habitat veritas," has never ceased to seek and fight for the truth.

Mr. Meotti is a journalist with Il Foglio. Elizabeth Galloni translated this article from the Italian.

Why Benedict's first two encyclicals are on love and hope

The answer to this question is found in an earlier post: Benedict's main point in his book, Jesus of Nazareth.

"What did Jesus actually bring, if not world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? The answer is very simple: God. He has brought God... He has brought God, and now we know his face, now we can call upon him. Now we know the path that we human beings have to take in this world. Jesus has brought God and with God the truth about our origin and destiny: faith, hope, and love."

The importance of "faith, hope and love" was already emphasized by then Cardinal Ratzinger in his book God and the World. There he quotes Sor Lucia on the only message that is important, the real message of Fatima. Sor Lucia told him to tell the world this: Don't take notice of the other things related to the Fatima story. The only message that is important is "faith, hope and love."

Benedict XVI's provocative theme

From CWNews.com

Pope Benedict XVI chose a provocative theme for his first public audience of the autumn season in Rome: the solemn obligation of Catholic pastors to protect the truths of the faith. If only more Catholic bishops took that obligation so seriously!

In his commentary on St. Cyril of Alexandria, the Pope noted that the
5th-century theologian recognized his duty, as bishop, to be "custodian of
accuracy-- in other words, the custodian of the true faith."

The alternative, the Pope continued, is to allow novelties to creep into
the faith, so that what young Christians learn is not quite the same as
what their forefathers were taught, and the precious heritage of the
original faith is diluted.

This is not merely a question of differing opinions, the Holy Father
explained. Only the faithful preservation of the original Gospel message,
Pope Benedict concluded, provides us with "a guarantee of continuity with
the apostles and with Christ Himself."

If the Catholic faith changes from generation to generation, then we
Catholics of the early 21st century do not fully share the beliefs of the
first apostles. If our understanding of the Nicene Creed differs from the
understanding of the prelates who gathered for the Council of Nicea, then
we have no firm assurance that we are members of the same faith, the same
Church, the Mystical Body of Christ.

The truths of the faith, then, are matters worth fighting for. A teacher
who leads his students to question the faith is endangering their
connection with the Church, and thus endangering their souls. False
teaching is a scandal, the Pope reminded his audience, and "anyone who
disturbs the least of those who believe in Christ will suffer unbearable
punishment."

In the past decade we have learned to treat the scandal of sexual abuse
seriously. But what about theological abuse? What about the abuses involved
in false teaching and false preaching, which confuse the faithful and
squander the legacy of the Catholic faith?

Why can't Church leaders confront errors directly, and denounce them? Is
the façade of polite respectability more important than the reality of
Catholic orthodoxy?

The boisterous debates of the early Church helped to define orthodox
Christian doctrine. We know what we believe today in part because our
Christian ancestors for 15 or 16 centuries ago hurled insults and anathemas
at each other until finally, in a trial by intellectual combat, the truths
of the faith emerged.

Today, Pope Benedict suggests, the orthodox teachings of the Church are
endangered not by direct challenges but by studied indifference-- not by
declared enemies who demand that we renounce a doctrinal teaching, but by
supposed friends who tell us that it really doesn't matter. For many
Christians, perhaps this is how the faith ends: Not with a bang but a
whimper.

Doctrine does matter. The fundamental truths of the faith, passed down from
the apostles, are our most precious heritage. It's a faith worth fighting
for.

Plunging into the ocean of infinite love

What is eternal life? This is how Benedict XVI depicts it in his new encyclical on Hope:

It would be like plunging into the ocean of infinite love, a moment in which time—the before and after—no longer exists. We can only attempt to grasp the idea that such a moment is life in the full sense, a plunging ever anew into the vastness of being, in which we are simply overwhelmed with joy.

Faith and Myths

An op-ed I wrote for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, 26 May 2005

THE saint-maker himself will be made a saint. Benedict XVI has just announced, to the applause of everyone, the opening of the cause for John Paul II's beatification. This holy man will most probably be called John Paul the Great for the great good he did to mankind. Holiness, faith and fidelity have always been drivers of human achievement.

Of course, some people do not see things this way. I still remember a mural in my college days, where students presented a time line of history. Science, arts and learning were in crescendo, except in one interlude when the Catholic faith allegedly cast its shadows during the Dark Age.

All that is now old hat-a myth dating back to the 18th century, thought up by the likes of Voltaire and drummed into our minds by Marxists and secularists.

It is an established fact, on the other hand, that the universities were born around the 12th century, under the aegis of the Catholic Church. It was the Church which stood as an oasis of learning during the "Barbarian Invasions." Drawing strength from Christianity and rich human milieu, a creative wind started to blow in the Late Middle Ages, then into the Renaissance and thereafter. Catholic artists like Dante, Raphael, Michaelangelo and Shakespeare brightened up the world. And in his Mona Lisa, Da Vinci gave us an exquisite image of Christian joy.

Historical research is now showing that the prodigious growth of science-biology, astronomy, medicine, and what have you-had its roots in 13th-century scientific method: observation, experimentation and quantification. And who formulated it? St. Thomas Aquinas, the Church's universal teacher. One of his disciples, Francisco de Vitoria, has been immortalized in a United Nations monument for laying down the principle of human rights. And thus he is a father of our modern democracy and economic growth.

In an age when Christianity is depicted as a myth, it is necessary to dismantle the myths that the secularists are spinning. A recent myth, for example, is that there was external lobbying at the conclave. It is true, of course, that the cardinals just elected somebody who was already chosen beforehand. But it was the Third Person, the Holy Spirit, who did the choosing. And this Person chose Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Not an old-fashioned doctrinaire, our Pope Benedict XVI has a bold, penetrating mind which can diagnose the roots of our present disorder. "My father is always working," he once said quoting the Bible. "We should then let him enter and let him work. And so things are born which open to the future and renew mankind...This, for me, is a message of greatest importance."

"It is a message," he says, "that leads to overcoming what could be considered the great temptation of our times: the pretense that after the 'big bang' God retired from history." God the Clockmaker, in this pretense, left the universe on its own, leaving our lonely ego to be "carried about by every wind of doctrine."

And so the Pope points to the importance of "real contact with Him who created us, and works through us...This is holiness...'It is not for me,' we tend to think, 'It is too high a goal.' Holiness then becomes a thing reserved for some 'greats' whose images we see on the altars, and who are completely different from us ordinary sinners."

With a phrase he likes to repeat, he clarifies: "Holiness is becoming a friend of God, speaking with him as if speaking with a friend. It is letting the Other work, the Only One who can really make the world both good and happy." Our Pope loves to stress "absolute fidelity to the Church's faith," because "the person who is bound to God no longer has fear....and in its place is born the courage to respond to today's world."

Our world faces many challenges: terrorism, poverty, conflict. But all these are exacerbated in a Godless landscape where selfishness darkens our view. Thus we create worse evils: abortions, marriage breakups, drug addiction, an eroticized society. To solve these, we need God's light which we find in "The Catechism of the Catholic Church." This "sure norm for teaching the faith" shows us that the Holy Spirit, Love in Person, has a dream:

"The Church's first purpose is to be the sacrament of the inner union of men with God," and her "structure is totally ordered to the holiness of Christ's members." (775; 774)

Driven by this God-given purpose, John Paul II wrote "Novo Millennio Ineunte," (At the Beginning of the New Millennium), "a program for all times." And he placed holiness, "the fullness of the Christian life," as the Church's top priority, a counterproposal to "a life of mediocrity marked by a minimalist ethic and a shallow religiosity."

To reach this appealing end, the Holy See enjoins Christians to undergo "a training in holiness":

First, the art of prayer: dialoguing with our friend "until the heart truly 'falls in love.'" Second, going to confession, to let God enter the soul in grace. This is key. Third, attendance at Mass, where Christ gives us all our strength. Fourth, giving primacy to God's presence in the soul, so as not to fall into "doing for the sake of doing." Fifth, listening to God's word in catechesis, giving direction to our lives. Sixth, doing apostolate with "burning conviction...without ever hiding the most radical demands of the Gospel." For example: loving God with all our mind and the duty of "praying always," "uniting prayer to works and good works to prayer." (Lk 18:1; CCC 2742-5) Seventh, a "spirituality of communion" whereby we see and serve God in others, specially the poor. For this, the Church calls on Mary, "the radiant dawn."

It is the Catholic Church's purpose of seeking holiness that moves Pope Benedict XVI. It is this purpose that should move each member of the Church, whether he is a bishop, a priest, or a layperson.

It is time for all to take part in the dream and work boldly: If each one of the billion Catholics would work as one team against our Church's problems (Benedict XVI refers to ignorance of the faith, interior emptiness, the relativists' denial of truth, the secularists' obstruction of God) and follow faithfully the voice of the good shepherd in moving toward our first purpose of becoming saints-first things, first!-then the power of Christianity, the unlimited power of the "Person" whose divine beauty surpasses the imaginings of any myth, will unfold in all its brilliance.

In creation's beauty we touch God's beauty

By Benedict XVI

Question posed by Sara Simonetta :

"I believe in the God who has touched my heart, but I have many insecurities, questions and fears that I carry within. It is not easy to speak about God with my friends; many of them see the Church as a reality that judges youth, that opposes their desire for happiness and love. Faced with this refusal, I feel all of my solitude as human and I want to feel near God. Your Holiness, in this silence, where is God?".

Response of the Holy Father:

Yes, even though we are believers, we all know God's silence. In the Psalm we have just recited, there is this almost despairing cry: "Make haste to answer me, O Lord... Do not hide your face!", and a little while ago a book of the spiritual experiences of Mother Teresa was published and what we already all knew was a little more clearly shown: with all her charity and the power of her faith, Mother Teresa suffered from God's silence.

On the one hand, we must also bear God's silence in order to understand our brothers who do not know God.

On the other, with the Psalm we can always cry to God once again: "Answer us, show your face!".

And without a doubt, in our life, if our hearts are open, we can find the important moments when God's presence really becomes tangible even for us.

I now remember a little story that John Paul II told at the Spiritual Exercises he preached in the Vatican when he was not yet Pope. He recounted that after the war he was visited by a Russian official who was a scientist and who said to him as a scientist: "I am certain that God does not exist. Yet, if I am in the mountains, surrounded by his majestic beauty, by his grandeur, I am equally sure that the Creator does exist and that God exists".

The beauty of creation is one of the sources where we can truly touch God's beauty, we can see that the Creator exists and is good, which is true as Sacred Scripture says in the Creation Narrative, that is, that God conceived of this world and made it with his heart, his will and his reason, and he found it good.

We too must be good in order to have an open heart and to perceive God's true presence.

Then, hearing the Word of God in the solemn liturgical celebrations, in celebrations of faith, in the great music of faith, we feel this presence. I remember at this moment another little story which a Bishop on his ad limina visit told me a little while ago.

There was a very intelligent woman who was not a Christian. She began to listen to the great music of Bach, Handel and Mozart. She was fascinated and said one day: "I must find the source of this beauty", and the woman converted to Christianity, to the Catholic faith, because she had discovered that this beauty has a source, and the source is the presence of Christ in hearts, it is the revelation of Christ in this world.

Hence, great feasts of faith, of liturgical celebration, but also personal dialogue with Christ: he does not always respond, but there are times when he really responds. Then there is the friendship, the company of faith.

Now, gathered here in Loreto, we see that faith unites, friendship creates a company of travelling companions. And we sense that all this does not derive from nothing but truly has a source, that the silent God is also a God who speaks, that he reveals himself and above all, that we ourselves can be witnesses of his presence, and from our faith a light truly shines also for others.

Thus, I would say on the one hand, we must accept that God is silent in this world, but we must not be deaf to his words or blind to his appearance on so many occasions. We see the Lord's presence, especially in creation, in the beautiful liturgy, in friendship within the Church, and full of his presence, we can also give light to others.

Thus, I come to the second part, or rather, the first part of your question: it is difficult to speak to friends today about God and perhaps even more difficult to talk about the Church, because they see in God only the limit of our freedom, a God of commandments, of prohibitions, and the Church as an institution that limits our freedom, that imposes prohibitions upon us.

Nonetheless, we must try to make the living Church visible to them, not this idea of a centre of power in the Church with these labels, but the community of companions where, in spite of all life's problems that exist for everyone, is born our joy of living.

Here, a third memory springs to mind. I was in Brazil, in Fazenda da Esperança, this great community where drug addicts are treated and rediscover hope, the joy of living in this world; and they witnessed what the actual discovery that God exists meant for their recovery from despair.

They thus understood that their life has meaning and they rediscovered the joy of being in this world, the joy of facing the problems of human life.

Therefore, in every human heart, despite all the problems that exist, is a thirst for God, and when God disappears, the sun that gives light and joy also disappears.

This thirst for the infinite that is in our hearts is also demonstrated even in the reality of drugs: the human being wants to extend the quality of life, to have more than life, to have the infinite, but drugs are a lie, they are a fraud, because they do not extend life but destroy it.

The great thirst that speaks to us of God and sets us on the path that leads to him is true, but we must help one another. Christ came to create a network of communion in the world, where all together we might carry one another, and thus help one another together to find the ways that lead to life and to understand that the Commandments of God are not limits to our freedom but the paths that guide us to the other, towards the fullness of life.

Let us pray to the Lord to help us understand his presence, to be full of his Revelation, his joy, to help one another to go forward in the company of faith and with Christ to increasingly find the true Face of God, and hence, true life.

Loving includes being loved

A typical mistake is to view love exclusively as doing something for the beloved, external deeds and self-giving. Yes, it is true that all these are an integral component of love and form a most significant component.

However, it is a mistake to think that love is only composed of action and activities. According to our Pope, love includes receiving love. It includes eros.

When you visit the Blessed Sacrament, said St. Josemaria, you are there to love and to feel loved. That's what union with someone -- love -- is all about. And you can visit God in the chapel itself, or in your place of work with your heart and mind.

Devotion to the Holy Face

I found these sites today and have to read more on them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Face_of_Jesus
http://www.catholictradition.org/Christ/holy-face.htm
http://www.holyface.org.uk/contact.htm
http://www.holyface.com/maineng.htm

They contain much information of a Vatican-approved devotion which has its own Feast on Shrove Tuesday, the day of the Mardigras. If only the world can rediscover this feast, which is such a great gift, I am sure the sensuality and coarseness of this day can be wiped out.

The promises of Jesus to Sister Marie Pierina and to Sister Mary of St. Peter are categorical:

"Every time my Face is contemplated I will pour out my love into the heart of those persons, and by means of my Holy Face the salvation of many souls will be obtained”.

"Those who will contemplate the wounds on My Face here on earth, shall contemplate it radiant in heaven."