HOMILY OF INAUGURATION MASS OF BENEDICT XVI

EWTN.com ^ | 04-24-05 | Pope Benedict XVI

[Salvation]

 

HOMILY OF INAUGURATION MASS OF BENEDICT XVI

Homily of Pope Benedict XVI of the Mass for the Imposition of the Pallium, the Conferral of the Fisherman's Ring, and the Inauguration of the Pontificate, given in St. Peter's Square, Sunday 24 April 2005.

Your Eminences,
My dear Brother Bishops and Priests,
Distinguished Authorities and Members of the Diplomatic Corps,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
 

During these days of great intensity, we have chanted the litany of the saints on three different occasions: at the funeral of our Holy Father John Paul II; as the Cardinals entered the Conclave; and again today, when we sang it with the response: Tu illum adiuva – sustain the new Successor of Saint Peter.  On each occasion, in a particular way, I found great consolation in listening to this prayerful chant.  How alone we all felt after the passing of John Paul II – the Pope who for over twenty-six years had been our shepherd and guide on our journey through life!  He crossed the threshold of the next life, entering into the mystery of God.  But he did not take this step alone.  Those who believe are never alone – neither in life nor in death.  At that moment, we could call upon the Saints from every age – his friends, his brothers and sisters in the faith – knowing that they would form a living procession to accompany him into the next world, into the glory of God.  We knew that his arrival was awaited.  Now we know that he is among his own and is truly at home.  We were also consoled as we made our solemn entrance into Conclave, to elect the one whom the Lord had chosen.  How would we be able to discern his name?  How could 115 Bishops, from every culture and every country, discover the one on whom the Lord wished to confer the mission of binding and loosing?  Once again, we knew that we were not alone, we knew that we were surrounded, led and guided by the friends of God.  And now, at this moment, weak servant of God that I am, I must assume this enormous task, which truly exceeds all human capacity.  How can I do this?  How will I be able to do it?  All of you, my dear friends, have just invoked the entire host of Saints, represented by some of the great names in the history of God’s dealings with mankind.  In this way, I too can say with renewed conviction: I am not alone.  I do not have to carry alone what in truth I could never carry alone.  All the Saints of God are there to protect me, to sustain me and to carry me.  And your prayers, my dear friends, your indulgence, your love, your faith and your hope accompany me.  Indeed, the communion of Saints consists not only of the great men and women who went before us and whose names we know.  All of us belong to the communion of Saints, we who have been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we who draw life from the gift of Christ’s Body and Blood, through which he transforms us and makes us like himself.  Yes, the Church is alive – this is the wonderful experience of these days.  During those sad days of the Pope’s illness and death, it became wonderfully evident to us that the Church is alive.  And the Church is young.  She holds within herself the future of the world and therefore shows each of us the way towards the future.  The Church is alive and we are seeing it: we are experiencing the joy that the Risen Lord promised his followers.  The Church is alive – she is alive because Christ is alive, because he is truly risen.  In the suffering that we saw on the Holy Father’s face in those days of Easter, we contemplated the mystery of Christ’s Passion and we touched his wounds.  But throughout these days we have also been able, in a profound sense, to touch the Risen One.  We have been able to experience the joy that he promised, after a brief period of darkness, as the fruit of his resurrection.

The Church is alive – with these words, I greet with great joy and gratitude all of you gathered here, my venerable brother Cardinals and Bishops, my dear priests, deacons, Church workers, catechists.  I greet you, men and women Religious, witnesses of the transfiguring presence of God.  I greet you, members of the lay faithful, immersed in the great task of building up the Kingdom of God which spreads throughout the world, in every area of life.  With great affection I also greet all those who have been reborn in the sacrament of Baptism but are not yet in full communion with us; and you, my brothers and sisters of the Jewish people, to whom we are joined by a great shared spiritual heritage, one rooted in God’s irrevocable promises.  Finally, like a wave gathering force, my thoughts go out to all men and women of today, to believers and non-believers alike.

Dear friends!  At this moment there is no need for me to present a programme of governance.  I was able to give an indication of what I see as my task in my Message of Wednesday 20 April, and there will be other opportunities to do so.  My real programme of governance is not to do my own will, not to pursue my own ideas, but to listen, together with the whole Church, to the word and the will of the Lord, to be guided by Him, so that He himself will lead the Church at this hour of our history.  Instead of putting forward a programme, I should simply like to comment on the two liturgical symbols which represent the inauguration of the Petrine Ministry; both these symbols, moreover, reflect clearly what we heard proclaimed in today’s readings.

The first symbol is the Pallium, woven in pure wool, which will be placed on my shoulders.  This ancient sign, which the Bishops of Rome have worn since the fourth century, may be considered an image of the yoke of Christ, which the Bishop of this City, the Servant of the Servants of God, takes upon his shoulders.  God’s yoke is God’s will, which we accept.  And this will does not weigh down on us, oppressing us and taking away our freedom.  To know what God wants, to know where the path of life is found – this was Israel’s joy, this was her great privilege.  It is also our joy: God’s will does not alienate us, it purifies us – even if this can be painful – and so it leads us to ourselves.  In this way, we serve not only him, but the salvation of the whole world, of all history.  The symbolism of the Pallium is even more concrete: the lamb’s wool is meant to represent the lost, sick or weak sheep which the shepherd places on his shoulders and carries to the waters of life.  For the Fathers of the Church, the parable of the lost sheep, which the shepherd seeks in the desert, was an image of the mystery of Christ and the Church.  The human race – every one of us – is the sheep lost in the desert which no longer knows the way.  The Son of God will not let this happen; he cannot abandon humanity in so wretched a condition.  He leaps to his feet and abandons the glory of heaven, in order to go in search of the sheep and pursue it, all the way to the Cross.  He takes it upon his shoulders and carries our humanity; he carries us all – he is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.  What the Pallium indicates first and foremost is that we are all carried by Christ.  But at the same time it invites us to carry one another.  Hence the Pallium becomes a symbol of the shepherd’s mission, of which the Second Reading and the Gospel speak.  The pastor must be inspired by Christ’s holy zeal: for him it is not a matter of indifference that so many people are living in the desert.  And there are so many kinds of desert.  There is the desert of poverty, the desert of hunger and thirst, the desert of abandonment, of loneliness, of destroyed love.  There is the desert of God’s darkness, the emptiness of souls no longer aware of their dignity or the goal of human life.  The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast.  Therefore the earth’s treasures no longer serve to build God’s garden for all to live in, but they have been made to serve the powers of exploitation and destruction.  The Church as a whole and all her Pastors, like Christ, must set out to lead people out of the desert, towards the place of life, towards friendship with the Son of God, towards the One who gives us life, and life in abundance.  The symbol of the lamb also has a deeper meaning.  In the Ancient Near East, it was customary for kings to style themselves shepherds of their people.  This was an image of their power, a cynical image: to them their subjects were like sheep, which the shepherd could dispose of as he wished.  When the shepherd of all humanity, the living God, himself became a lamb, he stood on the side of the lambs, with those who are downtrodden and killed.  This is how he reveals himself to be the true shepherd:  “I am the Good Shepherd . . . I lay down my life for the sheep”, Jesus says of himself (Jn 10:14f).  It is not power, but love that redeems us!  This is God’s sign: he himself is love.  How often we wish that God would make show himself stronger, that he would strike decisively, defeating evil and creating a better world.  All ideologies of power justify themselves in exactly this way, they justify the destruction of whatever would stand in the way of progress and the liberation of humanity.  We suffer on account of God’s patience.  And yet, we need his patience.  God, who became a lamb, tells us that the world is saved by the Crucified One, not by those who crucified him.  The world is redeemed by the patience of God.  It is destroyed by the impatience of man.

One of the basic characteristics of a shepherd must be to love the people entrusted to him, even as he loves Christ whom he serves.  “Feed my sheep”, says Christ to Peter, and now, at this moment, he says it to me as well.  Feeding means loving, and loving also means being ready to suffer.  Loving means giving the sheep what is truly good, the nourishment of God’s truth, of God’s word, the nourishment of his presence, which he gives us in the Blessed Sacrament.  My dear friends – at this moment I can only say:  pray for me, that I may learn to love the Lord more and more.  Pray for me, that I may learn to love his flock more and more – in other words, you, the holy Church, each one of you and all of you together.  Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves.  Let us pray for one another, that the Lord will carry us and that we will learn to carry one another.

The second symbol used in today’s liturgy to express the inauguration of the Petrine Ministry is the presentation of the fisherman’s ring.  Peter’s call to be a shepherd, which we heard in the Gospel, comes after the account of a miraculous catch of fish: after a night in which the disciples had let down their nets without success, they see the Risen Lord on the shore.  He tells them to let down their nets once more, and the nets become so full that they can hardly pull them in; 153 large fish: “and although there were so many, the net was not torn” (Jn 21:11).  This account, coming at the end of Jesus’s earthly journey with his disciples, corresponds to an account found at the beginning: there too, the disciples had caught nothing the entire night; there too, Jesus had invited Simon once more to put out into the deep.  And Simon, who was not yet called Peter, gave the wonderful reply: “Master, at your word I will let down the nets.”  And then came the conferral of his mission: “Do not be afraid.  Henceforth you will be catching men” (Lk 5:1-11).  Today too the Church and the successors of the Apostles are told to put out into the deep sea of history and to let down the nets, so as to win men and women over to the Gospel – to God, to Christ, to true life.  The Fathers made a very significant commentary on this singular task.  This is what they say: for a fish, created for water, it is fatal to be taken out of the sea, to be removed from its vital element to serve as human food.  But in the mission of a fisher of men, the reverse is true.  We are living in alienation, in the salt waters of suffering and death; in a sea of darkness without light.  The net of the Gospel pulls us out of the waters of death and brings us into the splendour of God’s light, into true life.  It is really true: as we follow Christ in this mission to be fishers of men, we must bring men and women out of the sea that is salted with so many forms of alienation and onto the land of life, into the light of God.  It is really so:  the purpose of our lives is to reveal God to men.  And only where God is seen does life truly begin.  Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is.  We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution.  Each of us is the result of a thought of God.  Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.  There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ.  There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him.  The task of the shepherd, the task of the fisher of men, can often seem wearisome.  But it is beautiful and wonderful, because it is truly a service to joy, to God’s joy which longs to break into the world.

Here I want to add something: both the image of the shepherd and that of the fisherman issue an explicit call to unity.  “I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must lead them too, and they will heed my voice.  So there shall be one flock, one shepherd” (Jn 10:16); these are the words of Jesus at the end of his discourse on the Good Shepherd.  And the account of the 153 large fish ends with the joyful statement: “although there were so many, the net was not torn” (Jn 21:11).  Alas, beloved Lord, with sorrow we must now acknowledge that it has been torn!  But no – we must not be sad!  Let us rejoice because of your promise, which does not disappoint, and let us do all we can to pursue the path towards the unity you have promised.  Let us remember it in our prayer to the Lord, as we plead with him: yes, Lord, remember your promise.  Grant that we may be one flock and one shepherd!  Do not allow your net to be torn, help us to be servants of unity!

At this point, my mind goes back to 22 October 1978, when Pope John Paul II began his ministry here in Saint Peter’s Square.  His words on that occasion constantly echo in my ears:  “Do not be afraid!  Open wide the doors for Christ!”  The Pope was addressing the mighty, the powerful of this world, who feared that Christ might take away something of their power if they were to let him in, if they were to allow the faith to be free.  Yes, he would certainly have taken something away from them: the dominion of corruption, the manipulation of law and the freedom to do as they pleased.  But he would not have taken away anything that pertains to human freedom or dignity, or to the building of a just society.  The Pope was also speaking to everyone, especially the young.  Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way?  If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us?  Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful?  Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom?  And once again the Pope said:  No!  If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great.  No!  Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide.  Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed.  Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation.  And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ!  He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything.  When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return.  Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life.  Amen.
 
[Vatican Original text: English]

POPE BENEDICT XVI: MAY THE CHURCH BECOME ‘A SACRAMENT OF UNITY’ FOR HUMAN RACE

PAPAL PROGRAM FOR YESTERDAY AND COMING DAYS

BENEDICT XVI, A POPE OF CHRIST, COMMUNION, COLLEGIALITY

TEXT OF THE FIRST HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

HABEMUS PAPAM, CARDINAL JOSEPH RATZINGER, POPE BENEDICT XV

WELCOME BENEDICT XVI!

[wideawake]

What? No answer to post 80?

Actually, I'm not surprised.

[Romulus]

I have never cared for that crosier, but to call it "grotesque" is a reach. Would you have him toting something polite and docorous, suitable for a little girl's First Communion?

[Romulus]

I have never cared for that crosier, but to call it "grotesque" is a reach. Would you have him toting something polite and decorous, suitable for a little girl's First Communion?

[Judica me]

Would you have him toting something polite and decorous, suitable for a little girl's First Communion?

No, but a corpus that looks human would be a start.

[Judica me]

What? No answer to post 80?

Sorry for taking so long. I can't spend all day on the internet...trying to be a productive member of society. The lie I was referencing was "consecration" of the Novus ordo Mass according to the ICEL version. The Nous Ordo Mass quotes Christ as saying:

For this is the Chalice of My Blood of the New and Everlasting Testament; which shall be shed for you and for all unto the remission of sins.

As we all know, according to the Bible (the inspired word of God) Christ did not use the word "all" at the last supper - he said "many". To claim otherwise is a lie. That would be a violation of the Eighth Commandment.

[Grey Ghost II]

Frankly, I think that's a very good representation of the corpus. The head is slightly raised, thus the eyes engage us--in the same fashion as the Madonna's gaze at the end of the Gibson Passion.

Frankly, I think both are misleading representations.

Christ addressed His Father in Heaven, not the "People of God", as He expired.

Likewise, Michaelangelo's Pieta, has the Blessed Mother's gaze fixated upon her Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, not "we", "the People of God", as depicted in the movie.

Nowadays, it' all about us!

[curiosity]

I think the Pope has tangled enough with darwinism to reevaluate the tentative capitualtion of his predecessors on this issue.

I believe the Holy Father is on record as accepting theistic evolution, which is compatible with both the Catholic faith and science. What reason do you have to believe he'll change his mind?.

Monogeny is still non-negotiable.

What exactly do you mean by monogeny? If you mean we are all descended from a single, geographically-isolated population, the most recent evidence tends to support that (The "out of Africa theory"), so I think we should be fine on this front.

On the other hand, the genetic evidence does not support the notion that all humans are descended from a founder population of exactly two people. Biologist friends of mine say the current estimate is that our founding population numbered somewhere in the hundreds. I'm not sure how that can be reconciled with a literal Adam and Eve. Perhaps they could symbolize a tribe?

Anyway, the evidence on the size of our founder population is pretty preliminary, so we won't have to worry about reinterpreting Adam and Eve for a while.

It's interesting that in Humanae Generis, Pius XII is not nearly as insistant or forceful on a literal Adam and Eve as he was about the special creation of the human soul. Reading it, I get the sense he was hedging his bets. What do you think?

[curiosity]

FYI:

Here's the Holy Father on the special creation of the human soul:

the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.

Clear, concise, no doubt this is immutable doctrine. Then we get to Polygenism:

For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin,(emphasis mine)

Note the bolded words. No declaration that polygenism is contrary to the Catholic faith, but rather a statement that it is not apparent how it can be reconciled to it. It may not have been apparent to Pius XII, of happy memory, but perhaps at some future date it will become apparent. We'll see.

At any rate, the genetic evidence isn't conclusive yet, so we don't have to worry about this for a while. Chances are, though, that we will in a decade or so. Might as well start thinking about it now.

[wideawake]

The lie I was referencing was "consecration" of the Novus ordo Mass according to the ICEL version.

(1) Not all new Masses are said according to the ICEL translation.

(2) The Holy Father does not compel celebration of Mass according to the ICEL translation.

(3) The ICEL translation is promulgated by bishops' conferences, not the Holy See.

(4) The Holy See has already ordered a review of the poor translating work ICEL has done.

(5) The Holy Father himself uses the Novus Ordo Missae proper, not a faulty English translation.

(6) The words of consecration, in minimo, are "hoc est enim corpus meum" and "hic est calix sanguinis mei." These words, combined with the proper elements and spoken by an ordained priest who intends to do as the Church intends, confect the sacrament. The mistranslated howler of "all" for multis does not affect the efficacy of the sacrament in any way.

Therefore it is disingenuous to maintain that the normative text of the Novus Ordo Missae is a lie. It is disingenuous to claim that the Holy Father promulgates a lie. It is also disingenuous to claim that the Holy Father requires Catholics to violate any commandment.

You made all that up in order to justify your own disobedience.

[Judica me]

(1) Not all new Masses are said according to the ICEL translation.

99.9% of them are.

(2) The Holy Father does not compel celebration of Mass according to the ICEL translation.

No, but he sure can stop it. Haven't heard a peep out of any pope about this issue. I guess they are too busy schmoozing with the Orthodox, Muslims and the Jews to worry about the validity of the Sacraments.

(3) The ICEL translation is promulgated by bishops' conferences, not the Holy See.

Who's the boss of these bishops. Is there anybody in control of this situation?

(4) The Holy See has already ordered a review of the poor translating work ICEL has done.

A review? Are you kidding me? The Bible is clear. Why does it take 20 years to fix such a glaring mistake?

(5) The Holy Father himself uses the Novus Ordo Missae proper, not a faulty English translation.

I don't have the opportunity to travel to Rome each weekend to go to a valid Mass.

(6) The words of consecration, in minimo, are "hoc est enim corpus meum" and "hic est calix sanguinis mei." These words, combined with the proper elements and spoken by an ordained priest who intends to do as the Church intends, confect the sacrament. The mistranslated howler of "all" for multis does not affect the efficacy of the sacrament in any way.

Total BS.

De Defectibus Decree states: “Defects may arise in respect of the form, if anything is wanting to complete the actual words of the consecration. The words of consecration, which are the formative principle of this Sacrament, are as follows: ‘For this is My Body,’ and ‘For this is the Chalice of My Blood of the New and Everlasting Testament; the Mystery of Faith, which shall be shed for you and for many unto the remission of sins.’ If any omission or alteration is made in the formula of consecration of the Body and Blood, involving a change of meaning, the consecration is invalid. An addition made without altering the meaning does not invalidate the consecration, but the celebrant commits a grave sin.”

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

"and you, my brothers and sisters of the Jewish people, to whom we are joined by a great shared spiritual heritage, one rooted in God’s irrevocable promises. "

This novelty gets repeated so often it's a classic.

Let's compare it to what the SSPX teaches.

Supernaturally seen, such a scenario, capable of many adaptations, represents one more in many steps of the Jewish people towards their appointment with God at the end of the world, when, maybe converted by the heroism and endurance of the Catholics undergoing persecution by their Anti-Christ, they will at last convert (Romans XI) and discover their own true Messiah, Jesus Christ, who has never ceased to love them as his own people. However, until they re-discover their true Messianic vocation, they may be expected to continue fanatically agitating, in accordance with their false messianic vocation of Jewish world-dominion, to prepare the Anti-Christ's throne in Jerusalem. So we may fear their continuing to play their major part in the agitation of the East and in the corruption of the West. - Bishop Williamson, SSPX, December 1, 1991

Judaism, on the other hand, is the heir to the system, which crucified our Lord. - Marcel Lefebvre, SSPX

Can it truly be said that the Jewish race is guilty of the sin of deicide, and that it is consequently cursed by God, as depicted in Gibson’s movie on the Passion? ... The Gospel teaches us, therefore, that the Jewish race brought upon themselves the curse that followed the crime of deicide. ...This curse is the punishment of blindness to the things of God and eternity, of deafness to the call of conscience and to the love of good and hatred of evil which is the basis of all moral life, of spiritual paralysis, of total preoccupation with an earthly kingdom. It is this that sets them as a people in entire opposition with the Catholic Church and its supernatural plan for the salvation of souls. - SSPX FAQ

God puts in men's hands the "Protocols of the Sages of Sion" and the "Rakovsky Interview", if men want to know the truth, but few do. - Bishop Williamson, SSPX, May 1, 2000

The Jews are a similar case. As early as 200 the Church author Tertullian remarked that as Catholic faith goes up, so Jewish power goes down, while as Catholic faith goes down, so Jewish power goes up. In the Catholic Middle Ages the Jews we're relatively impotent to harm Christendom, but as Catholics have grown over the centuries since then weaker and weaker in the faith, especially since Vatican II, so the Jews have come closer and closer to fulfilling their substitute-Messianic drive towards world dominion. - Bishop Williamson, SSPX, Oct 1, 2001

The Jews are no longer the people of a valid Covenant, in fact any religious practice of their dead covenant, because it looks forward to the Messiah coming, has been, ever since the Messiah came, mortal sin, at least objectively. And secondly, down 2,000 years Jews have repeatedly sought to undermine the Catholic Church and to take Christ out of Christendom (leaving only endom or enddoom!). - Bishop Williamson, SSPX, Apr 2, 2000

I would like to mention some books that touched me to change my mind and my heart, even before I came to know Bishop Lazo and the Society. One of them is called The Plot Against the Church. I got it from someone in Thailand. This book opened my eyes and gave me another impression of the teachings of Vatican II. Vatican II was hijacked by the enemies of the Church starting with the very first Session in 1962. Remember, I was ordained in 1961, only a year before. The Jews had their way and got their victory because they were granted by the Fathers of the Council that we should no longer condemn the Jews who crucified Christ. Since then, there are no more prayers on Good Friday condemning the guilty Jews anymore. Pope John XXIII forbade that and now we don't pray for the Jews anymore. We leave them in peace, or...in pieces. One Italian Salesian Father, Fr. John Ulliana, told me the Jews are very good people, they are the forefathers of Christianity, Jesus is a Jew, Mary is a Jew, many saints were Jews, that we should speak well of them and no more condemning them [as the enemies of the Church]. That was the first eye-opener for me. - Bishop Manat, SSPX, Nov 2001

[wideawake]

Thank you, ECO, for bringing the full poison of the SSPX's anti-Semitism to light once again.

By the SSPX's Hitlerian standards, even Pio Nono was a heretic on the matter of the Jewish people.

[wideawake]

99.9% of them are.

You really believe that 99.9% of all New Masses are celebrated in the English language according to the ICEL translation? Really?

easier said than done. I still don't see how this constitutes the Holy Father compelling people to violate the Commandments and therefore justifies schism.

Who's the boss of these bishops. Is there anybody in control of this situation?

Let's stipulate for argument's sake, that the Holy Father is doing a terrible job managing his bishops. Once again, this is not grounds for schism.

A review? Are you kidding me? The Bible is clear. Why does it take 20 years to fix such a glaring mistake?

There are many reasons, of course. And again, managerial incompetence does not justify schism.

De Defectibus Decree states

By this standard, the entire Byzantine Rite of the Catholic Church has never had a valid Mass, and even a New Mass with the word multis translated correctly is invalid.

And as any Catholic who knows their Scripture is aware, neither the words of Consecration of the Tridentine or the Pauline Mass are identical to any Scriptural account, but are an amalgam.

A decree is not necessarily a dogmatic document, in fact, they are overwhelmingly disciplinary.

Basically, you are arguing that schism is acceptable if the Church is disciplinarily lax.

Sorry. That doesn't wash.

[Judica me]

Basically, you are arguing that schism is acceptable if the Church is disciplinarily lax.

Give it up. You can't have it both ways. The CHURCH has said that schism is acceptable - not me. You cannot embrace every novelty of the new Church except the one that basically says that any monotheistic religion is a means to salvation.

[wideawake]

Give it up. You can't have it both ways. The CHURCH has said that schism is acceptable - not me.

(1) You most definitely said it was acceptable under certain conditions.

(2) The Church has never said that schism was acceptable. Your reference in passing to the Balamand Statement doesn't absolve you from the obligation of reading it if you're going to make such statements.

Please point me to the exact language in any magisterial document that says "Schism is acceptable" or "Schism is acceptable under certain conditions" or "Schism can be permitted in these circumstances" or any other similar statements to that effect.

You cannot embrace every novelty of the new Church except the one that basically says that any monotheistic religion is a means to salvation.

The Church has never said that any faith other than the Catholic is a means to salvation. It has pointed out that other faiths teach partial versions of the truth and that this should be acknowledged as constructive - not salvific.

You're just making stuff up.

[Judica me]

The Church has never said that any faith other than the Catholic is a means to salvation.

You're clueless. Read the new Catechism.

[wideawake]

You're clueless. Read the new Catechism.

Oh, I've read it. And in the Latin, to boot.

Please direct me to the precise paragraph(s) which explains that one can be saved by joining a non-Catholic religion.

[Judica me]

Please direct me to the precise paragraph(s) which explains that one can be saved by joining a non-Catholic religion.

841 The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."

[murphE]

Oh, I've read it. And in the Latin, to boot

I don't get this statement. The original was in French.

[wideawake]

The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims;

The plan of salvation also includes plagues and famine and the Antichrist and the Beast and the Whore of Babylon as well, according to the Apocalypse.

This paragraph does not say that by becoming a Muslim one will gain salvation.