Posted on 03/08/2005 6:32:23 AM PST by NYer
For example, in the closing homily for the annual week of prayer for Christian unity, last January 25, Kasper said some things out of keeping with his reputation as a progressivist.
I tried reading Kasper's book, Jesus The Christ. Not that I finished it, but even from the get go it was one, big, vacillation fest. Impossible, IMO, to pin him down as friend or foe.
My goodness, think about that sentence. The grandest of all concession by a progressivist is the cornerstone of the Faith.
Holy smokes are we in for some interesting times, if this is the guy for whom the white smoke wafts.
Prayers being offered up now, in advance, that the Holy Spirit deliver us from Kasper.
Thanks for the ping.
These quotations are unrecognizable from the man of only 2 years ago.
What do you reckon? Has he had a conversion experience or is he laying out an election manifesto to appeal to the widest possible electorate?
Watch now, as many come to defend his "orthodoxy". "He's not really heterodox" they will say, "just misunderstood."
I don't think we have to worry about the white smoke rising for Kasper. Though at times I think it's unseemly, www.paddypower.com has odds on who the next pontiff will be. PaddyPower can be remarkably accurate, as was shown during the 2004 presidential election. Kasper isn't even mentioned as a possibility on the website.
Better late than never, but my goodness is he late for the train, or what?
"The candles, the vestments, the music, and everything human art has to offer, must not be eliminated as if they were superficial pomp. The entire celebration of the eucharist should be a foretaste of the coming kingdom of God. In it, the heavenly world descends to our world. This aspect is particularly vivid in the liturgy and theology of the Eastern Church. In the West, however, after the council both the liturgy and theology have unfortunately become puristic and culturally impoverished in this regard."
As for communion, Kasper confirms that "we cannot invite everyone to receive it." Exclusion applies especially to non-Catholics: But it also applies to Catholics in a state of grave sin. Kasper recalls the duty - largely fallen into disuse - to make recourse to the sacrament of penance, in order "not to eat and drink unworthily the body and blood of the Lord":
"Here we meet with another weak point of postconciliar development. The affirmation that unity and communion are possible only in the sign of the cross includes another affirmation, that the eucharist is not possible without the sacrament of forgiveness. The ancient Church was fully aware of this nexus. In the ancient Church, the visible structure of the sacrament of penance consisted in the readmission of the sinner to eucharistic communion. Communion, excommunication, and reconciliation constituted a single unity. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran theologian executed by the Nazis in 1945, rightly warned against cheap grace: 'Cheap grace is the sacrament on sale, it is the Lord's supper without the remission of sins, it is absolution without personal confession'."
"Cheap grace is, for Bonhoeffer, the cause of the Church's decline. The rediscovery and renewal of the character of the assembly and of the banquet of the eucharist have undoubtedly been important, and no intelligent person thinks of undoing them. But a superficial conception of these, detached from the cross and from the sacrament of penance, leads to the banalization of these aspects and to a crisis of the eucharist such as we are witnessing in the life of the Church today."
It's good to hear this, but the irony of his laying it out like this is almost too much to bear. Everything he said here has been said, ad nauseum, by the Traditionalists for the past 30 years.
That exact statement could be made about Hillary Clinton too. Except maybe the "man" part.
"Everything he said here has been said, ad nauseum, by the Traditionalists for the past 30 years."
Amen. But we should still pray the perhaps finally the traditionalist warnings for 30 years are maybe now having some effect.
Maybe this guy is all about 'nuance'. Maybe I'm wrong, and he's not a big vacillator, but the mere fact that I'm having to weigh this creates a smoke I can't see through.
Amen!
Of course, the error is never ours. Unthinkable.
Here in our little world of keystrokes, we know exactly and infallibly what the Church needs. If only it would do just as we say. All would be well.
"Damn thee to hell, Kasper. I have already condemned thee. Why dost thou still push thy head out of the pit?"
On cue.
Someone must have tossed him a life preserver.
"On cue."
ROFLMAO! Kudos to you - you called that one perfectly!
Isn't it amazing? - antichrist has scented the Pope's blood, done a makeover, commenced his advance, and already they are queuing to worship at his feet!
This is like Hillary suddenly decrying abortion. I would be wary of "conversions" at this time. A papal election is coming up--the perfect time for moving to the right. Kasper should never have been made a cardinal in the first place.
Pope Pius XII, in Humani generis, warned that the new theologians taught modernism in a secretive way, "although they express themselves with prudence in their printed works, they nevertheless speak much more openly in their notes which they hand out in private..." (Humani Generis)
And Pius X said this about modernists in general: "While they make a pretense of bowing their heads, their minds and hearts are more boldly intent than ever on carrying out their purposes - and this policy they follow willingly and wittingly, both because it is part of their system that authority is to be stimulated but not dethroned, and because it is necessary for them to remain within the ranks of the Church in order that they may gradually transform the collective conscience" (Pascendi)
Kasper is a heretic. He denies the historicity of the Gospel miracles, including the accounts of the Resurrection.
Read both articles on the Chiesa site. They look very interesting.
Keep an eye on Bergoglio. Both Sandro Magister (rather explicitly) and John Allen (by implication) seem to think he is a real front runner at this point.
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