Habemus papam: the new Pope needs our prayers

The Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 04/20/05 | Leader

[Pokey78]

Aspellbinding pause came after the words "habemus papam" were pronounced on the balcony of St Peter's at 5.43 yesterday, before the name was given. Then came "Josef" - Josef Ratzinger. Those watching, in the city and the world, waited during those seconds, agog to know the identity of the new Pope. But why should the world care who the new Pope is?

The answer lies in the extraordinary influence of the last papacy, of Pope John Paul II. Geopolitically, it changed the face of the world, not least by bringing the Soviet empire tumbling down. John Paul's importance was recognised by the turnout of world leaders at his funeral, and not just those who agreed with his principles.

Cardinal Ratzinger was one of two cardinals in this conclave who had voted for John Paul II. Yet he is not John Paul III, but Benedict XVI. It was 1978 when we last had a new pope, and many have forgotten the interest and uncertainty such a change brings. No one can predict the reign.

Some hopes of the secular world certainly will not be fulfilled. Western liberals are shocked by the Church's attitude to abortion, contraception, practising homosexuality, the ordination of women and the ordination of married men. But the Western world will be disappointed if it expects Pope Benedict to countenance abortion or sex outside marriage. Movement might have been expected on the ordination of married men, a matter of discipline, not moral doctrine.

But in whatever years are left to Pope Benedict, 78 last Saturday, no betting man would put money on change even here.

Cardinal Ratzinger was no monstrous obscurantist. He did not tolerate out-of-line theologians teaching in the name of the Church, but at least he was a proper theologian with an international reputation himself. As a theologian he attended the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), and he intends to continue its engagement of the Church with the world. But, in line with that council, how open will he be to collegial authority, and will he see the laity as prime movers of the Church in the new century?

His choice of the patronal name Benedict invokes his unfortunate predecessor Benedict XV, elected at the beginning of the First World War, and dead eight years later, worn out by unsuccessful efforts for peace. But the name also refers back to St Benedict, the builder of Western monasticism.

At the opening of this conclave, Cardinal Ratzinger delivered a sermon stressing continuity of religious doctrine in contrast with the endless experiment of secular ideologies, seesawing from "Marxism to free-market liberalism, even to libertarianism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism". If St Benedict of old built a new Christian society for a Europe ruined by the fall of the Roman Empire, Pope Benedict is confident that he knows where to look for a vision to transform newly decayed Europe and the world.

It is no business of a national newspaper to decide the pastoral priorities of a man Catholics call the Vicar of Christ. Some readers will be very interested in his reverent attitude to liturgy. As far as Britain, its Queen and Government go, there is a presumption of friendship with the Pope, cemented by the visit of John Paul II in 1982. Society shares with the Church the furtherance of family values, education, social cohesion, peace and aspirations to human fulfilment, with a rejection of a culture of pornocracy or drugs. Christian rivalries no longer turn the Pope into Antichrist. Pope Benedict's task is daunting, and he asked in his first public words for prayers. He surely has those of Christians and the good wishes of many beyond his flock.

[Mill John Stuart]

Doesn't take much to get y'all going, does it?

[Mill John Stuart]

What are libertarian worshipers of their own bellies?

[Mill John Stuart]

One would have to say that Pogo is a bit more than a children's book. It's clearly for adults, and one of the most respected, and thoughtful comic strips of all time. What is Gala about? You're definitely right about the freak part, though. I guess that goes with the territory.

[Mill John Stuart]

Somehow my earlier reply did not get through. You seem to raise a serious question, deserving a serious answer. I saw a priest in Nicaragua who ran schools, churches, womens' centers, and reconciliation meetings between Contras and Sandinistas. He would travel on foot and by mule with a group of lay workers hundreds of miles throughout the countryside around the town of Waslala. He spent something like 150 days on the road each year establishing the link between the Catholic Church and the tiny communities in the nearby mountains. His perspective came from the tradition of Vatican II and liberation theology. He said we should see the face of Christ in the face of the shoe shine boy. People worked with him who were both Sandinista and Contra and everything in between. His people served as "delegates of the word" in the tradition of the Christian Base Communities of Liberation Theology. Ratzinger's crackdowns and censures were directed against people like him, people who clearly had great faith in the church, who were clearly within the house, and were building it and holding it together. Yes, you would have to say that in driving people like these out of the Church, Ratzinger was creating and giving life to the very heart of darkness, he is ostensibly fighting against.

[dsc]

"Just because we are conservative"

We?

"doesn't mean we are anti-modernist, does it?"

Modernism has a specific definition within the context of Catholicism. See the writings of Saint Pius X.

"What are American democracy"

America is a republic, not a democracy.

"capitalism"

Capitalism is not an "ism." It's just the way people act when they are free. Goes back as far as history.

"the bill of rights"

The Bill of Rights is grounded in Natural Rights philosophy, which does not fall under the heading of modernism as the term is used in the Catholic Church.

"internet blogging"

The Soviet union had its samizdat; the French revolutionists had their pamphleteers, and in earlier ages information was passed by word of mouth.

BLogging is just a more efficient way to do what has always been done.

[MeekOneGOP]

They removed the comment, but not the poster.

[ExGeeEye]

Explanatory note on the graphic:

One of Dana Carvey's characters, shown here on the right, was "the Church Lady" who had a fictional cable access show (cf. "Wayne's World") called "Church Chat".

The character was drawn from life, according to Carvey; ladies of his family's church who said things like "some people only come to church when it's con-VEEN-ient" and rhetorically wondering whether some malfeasance or other-- short skirts or unwed snuggling-- was caused by-- "could it be...SATAN!?"

Of course, it could be, but is more often our own Adamic nature that really needs no supernatural impetus.

Which explains why I, a serious Christian of the Baptist brand, enjoyed "Church Chat" :)

[lillybet]

God Hears our Prayers, he has chosen well for the good of all

[dsc]

"Of course, it could be, but is more often our own Adamic nature that really needs no supernatural impetus."

I find it very hard to know how to know.

IMB, since the fact that we have a sinful nature is attributable to Satan, all sin is due in a way to his influence.

I don't imagine that Satan is imminently present every time a minor sin is committed, but he precipitated the events that led to it.

Then, too, he has a lot of help. A whole army of angels was cast out of Heaven with him, right? What we Catholics used to refer to as Satanum aliosque spiritus malignos: Satan and the other malign spirits (that wander the world seeking the ruin of souls).

I sometimes hear liberals arguing in favor of abortion on demand, and at such times I have no sense of Satan's presence or any reason to suspect it...but can we say his influence is absent?

As I said, I find it very hard to know how to know what might be direct influence, and what is just the influence of the wrongheaded ideas he introduces into the world.

Talking about it makes me want to say the prayer to the Archangel Michael (which I know Baptists don't do).

Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio;
contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium.
Imperat illi Deus; supplices deprecamur: tuque,
Princeps militiae coelestis, Satanam aliosque spiritus
malignos, qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in
mundo, divina virtute in infernum detrude. Amen

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle;
be our safeguard and protection against the wickedness
and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly
pray; and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by
the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil
spirits who wander the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

[aposiopetic]

My sole assertion stands, that you (for whatever reason) reject a simpler and more benign explanation: the discouragement (what you call "suppression" -- a condition which no longer obtains, given the state of worldwide communications in 2005) of the teaching of error is done to fulfill the two great commandments.

For the record, since my comment went to the issue of motive, I never asserted that Ratzinger had somehow succeeded in stopping the teaching of every known or conceivable error among a billion or so Catholics.

Feel free to take that debate up with someone else.

[Killborn]

He's dead now.

[MeekOneGOP]

He's still alive:

http://www.freerepublic.com/~milljohnstuart/

[Killborn]

Whoops. I could have sworn he was dead. Anyway, what's the VK consensus?

[MeekOneGOP]

I expect he will step in a bear trap soon enough. :)

[Killborn]

Sounds good. :)

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

One would have to say that anyone who gets their theology and philosophy from the funny pages is a few bricks shy of a load.

Thankfully your new Pope seems to take his from the Bible.

[Mill John Stuart]

Considerable hairsplitting over what is conservative, a democracy versus a republic, and what is an 'ism. As an aside on the issue of capitalism, you seem to be applying the famous American Catholic buffet approach of embracing a moral perspective that the pre-modernist Church condemned (usury)and that John Paul II, and Benedict XVI criticized (free market neo-liberalism) even as you join them in condemning things you find objectionable.

In a conventional historic or cultural sense of modernism the American political system(whatever you choose to call it), certainly the French revolutionary pamphleteers, the Bill of Rights and and the Rights of Man would come under the heading modernist. Freedom of expression, forbidding the establishment of a state religion - These are clearly enlightenment ideas. Of course there are continuities between Medieval and modernist thought, in this conventional sense. Parts of Aquinas could stand on either side of that line.

Seems that aside from the fussing about definitions, the substance of your comment lies in Pius X's injunction against what he considered to be modernist heresies (65 of them!)in the Catholic Church around the beginning of the 20th Century - the Lamentabili Sane and his oath against modernism that was imposed on several generations of Church leaders. This is actually quite interesting, and indeed helpful, in understanding the historical context of Ratzinger's denunciation of modernism. Apparently the Holy Office kept dossiers on church leaders suspected of modernist deviations, including at least two who later became Popes. The current Pope Benedict XVI's namesake - Benedict XV and also John XXIII. John insisted on reviewing his file after becoming Pope and returned it to the Holy Office with the bemused note "Yes, but now we are infallible." It is also interesting how Ratzinger played enforcer both against Liberation theologians, which is not surprising, and also against strident anti-modernist Society of St. Pius X. The shifting tides in Catholic orthodoxy argue against allowing any faction to capture the apparatus of the Church and use it to drive out what it deems to be heretical. This is something that Averroes, the Moslem anticipator of Aquinas' project of reconciling philosophy and revealed truth, observed. Many ideas that were once banned as heretical were later accepted, so the religious institutions have not been able to say with any timeless certainty what is heretical. It undermines the authority of anyone (even a Pope) who would try to use means besides persuasion to define the parameters of the faith.

[dsc]

"you seem to be"

I'm not even going to waste time on that.

Here's a clue: most people on FR have been around long enough to have seen every device you try to employ in that post, and to become heartily tired of them.

[Mill John Stuart]

As an anti-modernist you do have to do some philosophical gymnastics to embrace capitalism.

With respect to all those devices you recognize, again I am flattered.

[Mill John Stuart]

Y'all should know that 'possums are champs at playing dead, and then popping right back up when it suites 'em.