I respectfully disagree. He's an idiot....
Posted on 12/12/2004 8:54:32 AM PST by Land of the Irish
Cardinal Ratzinger
Discovers America
John Rao, Ph.D.
REMNANT COLUMNIST, New York
Cardinal Ratzinger has discovered America. Troubled by the total secularization of European life—reflected, most recently, in the battles over European unification and the continental chorus of criticism accompanying Professor Rocco Buttiglione’s reiteration of the Church’s teaching on homosexuality—the cardinal now suggests that the United States may perhaps offer the better model of Church-State relations for a desacralized world. According to a November 25, 2004, report on Zenit.com, the Cardinal, responding to the secularization of Europe, made the following comments on Vatican Radio:
I think that from many points of view the American model is the better one. Europe has remained bogged down. People who did not want to belong to a state church, went to the United States and intentionally constituted a state that does not impose a church and which simply is not perceived as religiously neutral, but as a space within which religions can move and also enjoy organizational freedom without being simply relegated to the private sphere… One can undoubtedly learn from the United States [and this] process by which the state makes room for religion, which is not imposed, but which, thanks to the state, lives, exists and has a public creative force. It certainly is a positive way.
This, of course, was the position of the Americanists of the 1890’s, who argued that things spiritual thrived in the United States to a degree that Europeans, passive and obedient to their manipulative governments, could never match. Cardinal Ratzinger has apparently arrived at a similar judgment in typical contemporary Catholic fashion: much later than everybody else, and naively uncritical.
It seems to be the fate of the post-conciliar Church to take up the banner of erroneous causes just as their poisons are beginning to become somewhat clearer to the rest of the outside world. I hope that His Eminence has been misquoted. If not, I pray that a deeper study of the system in the United States will reveal to him just how much the so-called religious character of America is, at best, heretical, and, at worst, a “spiritualized” secularism emerging from errors inherent in Protestant thought.
One still hears the argument that the threat of Americanism was exaggerated at the time of Leo XIII’s encyclicals against it, and that, in any case, it disappeared shortly thereafter. Certainly many people in Rome as well as the United States wanted to make believe this was the case, using the Modernist crisis, and undoubted American loyalty to the Papacy throughout it, as proof positive of the country’s orthodoxy. But the crises warned against by St. Pius X’s pontificate precisely involve the sort of philosophical, theological, and exegetical issues that Americanism sweeps aside as a horrendous waste of time and energy. Modernism’s intellectual character stood in the way of the Yankee pragmatism that simply wanted “to get the job done” without worrying about anything as fruitlessly divisive as unpaid thought. It was part and parcel of all that pretentious European cultural hoo-ha responsible for the Old World’s ideologies, revolutions, wars, and bad plumbing. Americans could recite the Creed and memorize catechisms better and in larger numbers than anywhere else. Confident in their orthodoxy and the Catholic-friendly character of their political and social system, they could “move on” to devote themselves to the practical realities of daily life. Criticisms of what the “practical life” might actually mean in the long run could be disregarded as unpatriotic, communist, and useless for short or long-term fund raising.
America, with Catholic Americans in lock-step, thus marched forward to nurture what St. Cyril of Alexandria called “dypsychia”: a two-spirited existence. On the one hand, it loudly proclaimed outward commitment to many traditional doctrines and “moral values” making it look spiritually healthy. On the other, it allowed “the practical life”, to which it was really devoted, to be defined by whatever the strongest and most successful men considered to be most important, silencing discussion of the gross contradiction by laughing such fruitless intellectual quibbles out of the parlors of a polite, common-sense guided society. It marched this approach into Europe in 1945, ironically linking up with one strain of Modernism that itself encouraged Catholic abandonment to the direction of anti-intellectual “vital energies” and “mystique”. Vitalism and Americanism in tandem then gave us Vatican II which, concerned only with “getting the practical pastoral job done”, has destroyed Catholic doctrine infinitely more effectively than any mere straightforward heretic like Arius could have done. Under the less parochial sounding name of Pluralism, it is the very force which Cardinal Ratzinger is criticizing inside the European Union, and which is now spreading high-minded “moral values”, “freedom”, and “democracy” around the globe through the work of well-paid mercenaries and five hundred pound bombs.
If, heaven forbid, Cardinal Ratzinger honestly believes that true religion prospers under our system better than under any other, he is urging upon Catholics that spiritual and intellectual euthanasia which Americanism-Vitalism-Pluralism infallibly guarantees. The fate of many conservative Catholic enthusiasts for this false God, in their response to the war in Iraq, should be one among an endless number of warnings to him. No one is more publicly committed to orthodoxy than they are. No one praises the name and authority of the Pope more than they do. And yet never have I heard so many sophistic arguments reducing to total emptiness both profound Catholic teachings regarding the innocence of human life, as well as the value of the intellect in understanding how to apply those teachings to practical circumstances, as I have heard coming from their circles.
May God save His Eminence from adulation of a system that waves the flag of moral righteousness and then tells us that we are simply not permitted to use our faith and reason to recognize a wicked, fraudulent war for the anti-Catholic disaster that it is; an evil that a number of Catholics are some day legitimately going to have to apologize for having helped to justify. May God save His Eminence from a religiosity which will eventually line “fundamentalist” Catholic “terrorists” against the wall along with other “divisive” enemies of the system who cannot live or die under a regime of dypsychia.
LOL!! Ain't that the truth!
If I were to press you to substantiate this point, you would fail miserably. In public. I would like to do that.
Are you game?
Please ping the appropriate parties. Not a jot or tittle of the law will pass away, you know.
I think you are capable of supporting a parallel kingdom, if you disapprove of how the one you live in is run. Not true?
That would be entirely incorrect.
Pertaining to this particular question, the first source which comes to mind is your namesake, the Bull Unam Sanctam, which declares infallibly that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.
Glad to hear that.
You people switched names on me while I wasn't paying attention.
At any rate, no, I do not and would not support any parallel structure to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
I don't think John Paul II would steal nearly half of my income like the current democracy we live in.
They are both idiots...but only one of them was elected by the people.
Not at all. Your argument that voters are morons, taken to its logical conclusion, would impose some sort of intellectual threshold on suffrage. No different from the color barrier.
You might want to log off and start posting again in the morning, once you sober up.
Your insults were, once upon a time, much more creative.
The Prince of Wales may be an adulterer, but he is NOT an "idiot." From Charles Coulombe's Monarchy FAQ:
Much is made of the marital woes of the Royal Family, particularly of the Prince of Wales. But given the kid-glove treatment our own president has received in this area, can it not be asserted that the Prince‘s annoyance of many influential groups by his stand in such areas as architecture, the environment, and education has been at least a partial source of his woes? This appears from a revealing 21 January 1993 letter he wrote to Tom Shebbeare, director of the Prince's Trust (and quoted on pp. 493-494 of Dimbleby's biography):
For the past 15 years I have been entirely motivated by a desperate desire to put the "Great" back into Great Britain. Everything I have tried to do---all the projects, speeches, schemes, etc.---have been with this end in mind. And none of it has worked, as you can see too obviously! In order to put the "Great" back I have always felt it was vital to bring people together, and I began to realise that the one advantage my position has over anyone else's is that I can act as a catalyst to help produce a better and more balanced response to various problems. I have no "political" agenda---only a desire to see people achieve their potential; to be decently housed in a decent, civilised environment that respects the cultural and vernacular character of the nation; to see this country's real talents (especially inventiveness and engineering skills) put to best use in the best interests of the country and the world (at present they are being disgracefully wasted through lack of co-ordination and strategic thinking); to retain and value the infrastructure and cultural integrity of rural communities (where they still exist) because of the vital role they play in the very framework of the nation and the care and management of the countryside; to value and nurture the highest standards of military integrity and professionalism, as displayed by our armed forces, because of the role they play as an insurance scheme in case of disaster; and to value and retain our uniquely special broadcasting standards which are renowned throughout the world. The final point is that I want to role back some of the more ludicrous frontiers of the 60s in terms of education, architecture, art, music, and literature, not to mention agriculture! Having read this through, no wonder they want to destroy me, or get rid of me...!Like his Stuart ancestors, he would attempt to play the role of steward of the land; his interest in hunting for example, is very reminiscent of his predecessors': "Despite protests by anti-hunting groups, the Prince of Wales takes a close interest in the sport at all levels and has defended it as an effective form of sporting conservation of wildlife and its habitat in the British countryside," as we read in the Royal Encyclopaedia. So too with what the same source tells us about the Prince's farm at Highgrove:
A particular concern on the Home Farm is environmental conservation: straw is never burned; chemical fertilisers are being reduced as much as possible; and in keeping with the Cotswolds landscape, 548 metres of dry-stone walls have been rebuilt around the land. In 1985 the decision was taken to go organic on three blocks of land as part of a general move to what has been called biologically sustainable farming linked to conservation. The step to full organic status on the whole estate is said to be on line for 1996.The Prince‘s refusal to join the Masonic Order, and his denunciation of Henry VIII‘s split from Rome augur well for him as King Charles III---if he is allowed to reign by the powers-that-be.
It is inevitable that certain actions of Pope John Paul II, such as his refusal to be crowned or his recent praise of the revolutionary values of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" during a visit to France would trouble Catholics of monarchist sympathies. However, the same Pope also beatified Emperor Karl of Austria-Hungary, a move that was welcomed by many traditionalists.
Just as being a good Catholic does not require that one agree with every action of the Pope, being a good monarchist does not require that one agree with every action of the king. In both cases one can respect the office while recognizing that the occupant can err.
Great. He likes to fox hunt, play polo, and has an organic farm. All at the expense of the British taxpayer, of course.
Blair fights terrorists, Charles plays with manure.
I respectfully disagree. He's an idiot....
It is amazing that any human being would object to Liberty and Equality, or Fraternity, for that matter.
As to being "crowned," Peter chose to be martyred upside down, feeling he was not worthy to die as Him who had no place to lay His Head.
A "crown" for the successor of Peter is a joke.
Sarcasm noted. We apparently agree on Europe; my point was that America can't wait to be just like her.
That is a LIE, a vicious, leftist, Jacobin, evil LIE. Prince Charles's organic farm is self-sufficient. His income comes from the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall, not from the British taxpayer. The monarchy contributes more to the treasury (from the revenues of the Crown Estates) than it receives in government funds.
All you care about is that Tony Blair supported your beloved war in Iraq. It doesn't bother you that his government, which automatically reaches for the authoritarian solution to every problem from restricting trial by jury to national ID cards, has done more damage to British liberty than the worst kings ever could have dreamed of. It doesn't bother you that he has NO respect for his country's ancient constitution, brutally severing Parliament's medieval heritage by expelling the hereditary peers, who were removed not because they were "undemocratic" but because they were independent. It doesn't bother you that Blair wants to abolish the Pound and replace it with the Euro, handing over control of Britain's economy to a foreign bureaucracy.
Whatever one thinks of monarchy or the Iraq war, anyone who admires the socialist creep Blair is no conservative.
You have not read any history. Hitler came to power in a democracy and the French Revolution justified itself with an appeal to democracy. Seems both Jefferson and Thomas Paine were very supportive of it. Don't know about Russia.
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