Posted on 04/20/2005 3:05:44 PM PDT by Southside_Chicago_Republican
TUEBINGEN, Germany - In the cafeteria at Tuebingen University's theology department, students swapping lecture notes on a rainy Wednesday weren't preoccupied by their looming exams.
Instead, they were concerned about where their school's most famous former professor would take the Roman Catholic Church as Pope Benedict XVI. And they didn't exude optimism.
"It's going to be interesting to see what he does," said Thomas Burchard, a 20-year-old Protestant studying for the ministry. "He's very conservative and, like the Catholic Church, he goes against what the Bible says."
Fellow student Simon Reinitz, clad in black, his hair long and a stud piercing his left eyebrow, declared that Ratzinger was a caretaker pope, nothing more.
"Why not an African pope? Why not a Latin American pope? The church will make changes," Reinitz said. "This is just someone to hold over the conservatives."
Students and faculty at Tuebingen remain skeptical of Ratzinger, who left in 1969 partly out of disenchantment with the Marxist enthusiasm then sweeping the campus. The university remains the outstanding center of liberal theological study in Germany, and trains both Roman Catholics and Protestants.
They are proud that a former professor has gone to such great heights, but criticize his actions as the Vatican's chief enforcer of doctrinal orthodoxy. Those include decrees that many blame for barring priests from counseling pregnant teens about options including abortion and blocking German Catholics from sharing Communion with Lutherans.
Even the pontiff's former assistant, Bernd Jochen Hilberath, responded cautiously to his former teacher's elevation. Hilberath, who holds the same chair that Ratzinger once held, said the world's Catholics and other Christians are on edge, waiting to see if the papacy will change him.
"Joseph Ratzinger is a multidimensional person. He's not one-sided, but he has potential, it depends on his circle of advisers," Hilberath said.
While critics contend that the choice of the 78-year-old Ratzinger may signal a caretaker papacy, Hilberath said it is possible the German pontiff may surprise them as he tackles the tough issues of abortion, the church's ban on contraception, the sex abuse scandals and the ordination of women.
"He's informed about the issues, the facts, the history," he said, careful to note that only the pontiff himself knows what he is thinking. "We hope that the pope is a pope who regards the perspectives of the Gospels, but is also helpful to people in contemporary life."
Ratzinger had a few things to say about Tuebingen as well in his memoirs. He departed after left-wing student upheavals rocked the campus, and his classes were at one point interrupted by sit-ins.
"The Marxist revolution ignited the entire university, it shook its foundations," he wrote in his memoirs. "Hope remained, but into the place of God stepped the party and with it a totalitarianism of atheist worship, which is ready to sacrifice all of humanity to its false god."
Hoping to escape the endless disruption and confrontation, and wanting to be closer to his brother, Georg, Ratzinger left Tuebingen for the University of Regensburg in his native Bavaria.
In a statement Tuesday, Tuebingen's most famous scholar, the controversial Swiss theologian Hans Kueng, called Ratzinger's election "an enormous disappointment for all those who hoped for a reformist and pastoral pope."
Kueng, who has lost his official license to teach Catholic theology but continues to teach anyway, was the one who urged the theology department to hire Ratzinger, who later criticized his writings.
He has said that at the time he perceived Ratzinger as more moderate than he was during his years in the Vatican. Several of Ratzinger's students at Regensburg have described him as open to other people's ideas and eager for wide-ranging discussion.
That has inspired hope that Pope Benedict may be different from Cardinal Ratzinger.
"But we must wait and see, for experience shows that the papacy in the Catholic Church today is such a challenge that it can change anyone," Kueng wrote. "Let us therefore give him a chance: as with a president of the USA we should allow a pope 100 days to learn."
Yeah, I'd really take religious advice from him!
Have you also noticed that the same liberals, who are trying to tell churches what they should believe, are the same ones constantly crowing about church and state?
They really know how to win over values voters don't they ? The MSM is Dead, they just haven't figured it out yet. Want proof ? Look at the L.A Times circulation numbers, the trend is bankruptcy within 5 years.
Did you guys pick up on the fact that the university where they were conducting interviews taught Catholic and Protestant theology and some of the people interviewed were Protestant, likely Lutheran, theology students
though I would have thought someone studying theology would be a bit more well tactful about dissing the other team
Hope remained, but into the place of God stepped the party and with it a totalitarianism of atheist worship, which is ready to sacrifice all of humanity to its false god."
The real source of the objection. How tiresome of Ratzinger not to concede placidly to the replacement of the Christian transcendent with a thoroughly this-worldly goal: class struggle leading to sociopolitical "liberation":
Swiss theologian Hans Kueng, called Ratzinger's election "an enormous disappointment for all those who hoped for a reformist and pastoral pope."
"Reformist and pastoral"= Marxist. Hans Kueng, an advocate of Marxist "liberation theology," can no longer teach Catholic students because his teaching license was revoked by the Vatican.
Good question, I can barely remember when Pope John Paul II was elected - he was also a virtual unknown so I don't think even if the MSM was that vicious then, and I think it has just gotten more vicious as the competition has ramped up, they didn't have anything to work with.......I also think the fact he was Polish was well heralded, that I seem to remember....
I'm not Catholic, so I wouldn't know. What is truly moronic is the people wanting the Catholic Church to change its positions on the various topics such as abortion, homosexuality, etc. It's not enough that they support those activities, so now they have to have an official sanctioning of them?
The left certainly doesn't mind when two Dim "Reverends" run for the White House. However, just let one Republican profess a belief in Jesus Christ and we are suddenly headed for a theocracy.
From the description, I doubt I'd let him close enough to my house to take out my trash!
I'm not Catholic either, but I was impressed by the pope's "dictatorship of relativism" sermon. I think this is exactly the kind of thing he was talking about. I don't know that it's official sanctioning that they want (at least for the non-Catholics) but rather, they want to put an end to any opposition to their activities. One doesn't have to be a Catholic to stand by the pope on this one.
I know one of B16's students who absolutely loves him. Too bad the MSM didn't interview him.
Fat chance of that!
Magots probably don't even go to church or believe in anything, but they know what kind of Pope they want. My dog has more brains.
It's not just the Catholic Church that is being pressured into changing its stand on those issues. Protestant churches are facing the pressure, as well.
Hmmmm. Maybe after a couple thousand years, they do have an idea or two worth keeping.
Truth stays the same. Best quote on Catholicism:
"The Catholic Church is the only thing which saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age."
- G.K. Chesterton
Well, that is all part of the liberal disorder: they cannot stand the fact that, somewhere, there are people who do not agree with them and their ideology.
I am not a Roman Catholic, but I have deep respect for the office of the Bishop of Rome. It's men like JP2, and now Ben16, that really engender respect in me. One need not agree with everything they state in order to respect them, and share agreement with them on other points. At least they're not wishy-washy.
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