Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list
Posted on 10/22/2004 2:42:11 PM PDT by B Knotts
ROMA - On Sunday, October 17, the first day of the twenty-seventh year of John Paul II's pontificate, the Old Testament passage read in all the Catholic churches in the world was the one from Exodus in which Aaron and Hur support the arms of Moses, which "grew tired."
The idea of Karol Wojtyla as a new Moses is a comparison that provides the title for a biography of him which he particularly cherishes.
That he is exhausted in body is apparent to all.
Less well known is who are the Aarons and the Hurs in the Vatican who stand by him, hold his arms aloft, and govern the Church with him - or, as some fear, in his place.
...
Historians of the contemporary Church know of no other papal secretary who has had such disproportionate influence. Dziwisz is the éminence grise of the circle that governs the Church in the shadow of pope Wojtyla. In the organizational structure of the Vatican, he appears as the supplemental prefect of the Pontifical Household, the prefect of which is James Michael Harvey, an American. In 2003, the pope promoted Dziwisz as the archbishop of a non-existent diocese, that of San Leone in Calabria. It is rumored that he also made him a cardinal in pectore, or in secret.
...
Since then, Ratzinger's power has been continually on the rise. When he turned 75 in 2002, the pope, instead of dismissing him, reconfirmed him without an age limit. And that's not all. In spite of his age, Ratzinger has recently jumped to the top of the list of candidates for the papacy. There are dozens of cardinals, in the Vatican and beyond, who would vote for him at the first scrutiny of a not-too-distant conclave. Some look at him as if he were already the de facto pope, the stony defender of the faith in a Church under attack from modernity.
...
If Ratzinger is Aaron, Sodano is Hur. The one is custodian of right doctrine; the other, governor of the Church's body. Pope Wojtyla has always been uninterested in ordinary governance - he is satisfied if it is in trustworthy hands. And Sodano has all of the power that comes from this act of delegation. There have been numerous calls for him to be replaced: the latest came from Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, prefect of the congregation "De Propaganda Fide." Sodano silenced these voices by inviting the magnates of the curia to a mass he celebrated in the Sistine Chapel last October 2, the feast of the Guardian Angels and his name day. He concluded the homily by saying that he would remain "with [my] hands always on the plow, as long as the Lord wants." The words rang out amid the solemnity of the four walls that will enclose the next conclave, and of Michelangelo's depiction of the Last Judgment.
Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list
Well, that's MOSTLY true. His elevation of McCarrick was, at best, an error. Similarly with the German he brought to the Vatican w/Cong. for Ecumenism (?)
Frankly, the College is not "full" of conservatives.
That's certainly the truth!
I think that, after Paul VI (and the brief reign of the very orthodox and probably murdered John Paul I), we were probably all so glad we didn't get a raving liberal that we have never demanded an accounting. The fact that the Vatican can now produce people who say JFK is self-excommunicated, to be immediately contradicted by the obviously politically motivated who say he's just fine (and permit a bunch of pro-abortion heretic priests and sisters to have a pro-Kerry rally in Wisconsin), indicates to me that we have a serious governance problem in Rome.
Priests and bishops openly defy and ignore this pope, and have done so since the beginning. And he in turn has done nothing but let them continue to destroy the lives of the faithful.
Not being interested in ordinary governance will most likely lead to Dioceses that are ungovernable. Ordinary governance may not be exciting, but if Holiness cannot be established in the Ordinary, what possible chance is there in establishing Extraodinary Holiness?
Are Sodano's hands 'trustworthy?'
This piece has an odd, and not all too good feel to it.
No comprende.
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