Posted on 02/11/2013 8:03:38 PM PST by haffast
Ever since his appointment in April 2005, Benedict XVI has been a divisive figure. The euphoria over the election of a Bavarian pope that first swept Germany has long since receded. With all due respect to the first pope to voluntarily step down in hundreds of years: In the eight years he held office, the pope did more to polarize than to unify Catholics in his country of birth.
Benedict XVI never managed to grow beyond his former self, the conservative professor of theology Joseph Ratzinger. The pope did not build bridges as a Pontifex Maximus should. Here in Germany, his election led to an increasing split within the Church. On the one side were the disappointed advocates of long-overdue reform. On the other were the fundamentalists, the upholders of tradition and self-appointed guardians of the faith who wanted to turn the clock back to before the Second Vatican Council and sought salvation in an authoritarian and hierarchical Church of the past.
Some in Germany are already speaking of a schism within the Conference of Bishops. During his years in office, Pope Benedict boosted the reactionary wing of the Catholic community, with its frequently obscure splinter groups, more than his predecessor did -- be it with his approaches to the ultra-conservative Pius Brothers, his scolding of renegade theologians or his fondness for the Traditional Mass. His efforts to address the abuse scandals that rocked the Catholic Church all over the world were too little, too late. Neither in the United States, Ireland nor Germany did he and his bishops manage to regain the trust subsequently lost.
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(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
Well it works well for Barack the Kenyan so what's the point? It works for some people and doesn't work for others.
Says the liberal German rag.
Hmm. So who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in this characterization?
I feel like I am back in fourth grade taking a reading comprehension test: "What do you think the author's attitude is towards conservaives?"
Gee, if Der Speigel hates Benedict this much, he was a better pope than I gave him credit for.
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Spiegel = “looking glass.”
Anyhow. Even though this pope hasn’t actually kicked any priests out of their congregations no matter how lefty liberal their ideas of Christianity are, Spiegel is screaming.
I’m not a Catholic however as a protestant Christian if the world loves us then something is awfully wrong.
Those seeking “long-overdue reform”, are a band of fake Christians looking to destroy the church by shaming it into accepting sodomy and infanticide. The Bidenites as I like to call them. What branches of the faith have not succumbed to the rotting influence of this filth? Now, even our capital’s cathedral wallows in sin. Disgusting. I refuse to even acknowledge them. They are priests in the service of darkness.
The Catholic-bashers of all stripes are certainly reveling in this news. Sensible conservatives, whether Catholic or not, had better hope that this works out for the good of the Church—meaning its return from dissidence and liberal rot throughout too many of its members, up to and including some of the bishops and other people in key roles.
No doubt Der Spiegel dreams of a new Pope who will approve of abortion, gay marriage, women priests, and all the rest of the liberal agenda. That will not happen. But we could get a weak Pope who lets the rot spread again by default.
If the Church embraces the side of the “disappointed advocates of long-overdue reform,” I believe I will find another faith.
I think the Catholic Church along with many Protestant ones need to clear out the dead wood, get rid of the poisoned practices so many of their leaders espouse.
If you unite the good churches with the poisoned ones, they will soon all be poisoned.
The Church needs some polarization so we can tell the good from the bad.
So standing firm for God and Christ is polarizing?
Christ told us that it would be.
Hey. . .Peter Wensierski . . .who died and made you Pope?
Go ahead German press, eat your own. Shame.
Ratszinger was the best thing to come out of Germany in the past 100 years (some beers excluded as they may be somewhat comparable in quality).
I was about to quote the same lines and say something similar. How are we supposed to coexist with these people?
We’re not. We’re supposed to segregate ourselves from them at all costs.
He was only polarizing to those who felt guilty about their lifestyles, as he reminded them of their sinfulness.
You can’t unify the evil half with the good half unless the Holy Spirit changes their hearts
Joseph Ratzinger was one of the more influential persons at Vatican II, but when 1968 came, he saw that matters had gone awry, and he set his face against those who wanted to separate the Church from Holy Tradition and from Rome.
Yes. It’s time to get back to the good old days of denunciation. If a church practices filth, this is not “another way of loving Christ’. This is perverting Christianity. These are FAKE churches.
The devout denominations need to hold an emergency conference, putting aside differences at least temporarily, and must agree to join in disavowing those who practice ‘Progressive Christianity’.
The Washington National Cathedral is a ROGUE church, meaning it is no longer a church glorifying the Lord. Dare I say ‘heretic’.
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