Posted on 01/10/2015 2:40:34 PM PST by NYer
“The future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints” — Joseph Ratzinger, 1969.
Forty–six years ago, Father Joseph Ratzinger gave a series of conferences that were later published in book form under the title Faith and the Future (Ignatius Press). What was the future in 1969 has become the present. Joseph Ratzinger’s words are stunningly prophetic. Read them.
The future of the Church can and will issue from those whose roots are deep and who live from the pure fullness of their faith. It will not issue from those who accommodate themselves merely to the passing moment or from those who merely criticize others and assume that they themselves are infallible measuring rods; nor will it issue from those who take the easier road, who sidestep the passion of faith, declaring false and obsolete, tyrannous and legalistic, all that makes demands upon men, that hurts them and compels them to sacrifice themselves.
To put this more positively: The future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints, by men, that is, whose minds probe deeper than the slogans of the day, who see more than others see, because their lives embrace a wider reality. Unselfishness, which makes men free, is attained only through the patience of small daily acts of self-denial. By this daily passion, which alone reveals to a man in how many ways he is enslaved by his own ego, by this daily passion and by it alone, a man’s eyes are slowly opened. He sees only to the extent that he has lived and suffered. If today we are scarcely able any longer to become aware of God, that is because we find it so easy to evade ourselves, to flee from the depths of our being by means of the narcotic of some pleasure or other. Thus our own interior depths remain closed to us. If it is true that a man can see only with his heart, then how blind we are!
How does all this affect the problem we are examining? It means that the big talk of those who prophesy a Church without God and without faith is all empty chatter. We have no need of a Church that celebrates the cult of action in political prayers. It is utterly superfluous. Therefore, it will destroy itself. What will remain is the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church that believes in the God who has become man and promises us life beyond death. The kind of priest who is no more than a social worker can be replaced by the psychotherapist and other specialists; but but the priest who is no specialist; who does not stand on the sidelines, watching the game, giving official advice, but in the name of God places himself at the disposal of men, who is beside them in their sorrows, in their joys, in their hope and in their fear, such a priest will certainly be needed in the future.
Let us go a step farther. From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge a Church that has lost much She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so will she loose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, she will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision . As a small society, she will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. Undoubtedly she will discover new forms of ministry and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. In many smaller congregations or in self-contained social groups, pastoral care will normally be provided in this fashion. Along-side this, the full-time ministry of the priesthood will be indispensable as formerly. But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world. In faith and prayer she will again recognize the sacraments as the worship of God and not as a subject for liturgical scholarship.
The Church will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right. It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek. The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will will have to be shed. One may predict that all of this will take time. The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain — to the renewal of the nineteenth century. But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.
And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.
Prophetic ping! How I miss Pope Benedict XVI!
So much wisdom and it’s only six paragraphs.
It is now catching up speed.
I miss him also! Wonderful post.
WOW! What discernment! We are lacking men of his stature today. Makes on wonder if he was forced out.
He was a FANTASTIC Pope, I miss him.
No ... I don't think so. He never wanted to be pope. He is a theologian and planned on spending his retirement years writing books. The burden of being pope was too heavy. I truly believe he prayed over this. The better question might be why did he not fully embrace this burden, just as our Lord embraced His cross.
It’s good to see all these posts! When Pope Benedict took over, it felt, to me anyway, like a seamless transition. He was humble, yet always stood his ground. I was worried he’d be forgotten. I’m glad he isn’t!
I'm surprised at how many people claim they miss Pope Benedict but refuse to say Francis is the reason they miss him.
The Pope was forced out. Popes don’t resign. This was a coup. Benedict’s allies were forced out too. The new reign is diametrically opposed to Benedict’s teaching, that is, against Catholic truth.
I’ll do it!! I miss Pope Benedict because of Francis! He SCARES me.
Pope Paul VI referred to Vatican II when he said that the ”smoke of Satan” having entered the Church.
With Francis’ opening to Marxist liberation theology we can paraphrase Pope Paul VI.
According to Pope Francis: no crime ever deserves the death penalty.
Pope Francis is a dissident of the teachings and Magisterium of the Church. His first step as Pope was to legitimize the Marxist liberation theology, a perversion of the Gospels proscribed by His Holiness John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI following the precedent s of repudiation of that diabolical ideology set by all the Popes since the end of the XIX century.
The position of the Church on the death penalty is also clear including the legitimization of the tyrannicide. St. Thomas Aquinas gave the most substantial argument for tyrannicide. He based his position on his arguments for just war and capital punishment. St. Thomas concluded, “He who kills a tyrant (i.e. an usurper) to free his country is praised and rewarded” (In 2 Sentences, 44.2.2).
Certainly, a Pope that gave moral support for president Obama to keep afloat the Cuban tyrants would not “praise and reward” a patriot who would ultimate the genocides of the Cuban people.
To delve deeper on this matter:
Does the Church Condone Tyrannicide?
FR. WILLIAM SAUNDERS
Good info.....never heard that before.
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