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Cardinal Ratzinger Discovers America
The Remnant Newspaper ^ | December 15 | John Rao

Posted on 12/12/2004 8:54:32 AM PST by Land of the Irish

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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.

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TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic
KEYWORDS: americanism; catholic; ratzinger; secularization
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To: sinkspur
A "throwback", interesting.

But I think we've hit upon something here. Your and the dominant culture's definition of "freedom" or "liberty" is what is called in moral theology negative freedom ie. the freedom from restriction or restraint. However the Church has always referred to freedom as positive freedom ie. the freedom to do as we ought, from the CCC (unless that is too "old" for you too)

1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.

1732 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil, and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.

1733 The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to "the slavery of sin."28

1740 Threats to freedom. The exercise of freedom does not imply a right to say or do everything. It is false to maintain that man, "the subject of this freedom," is "an individual who is fully self-sufficient and whose finality is the satisfaction of his own interests in the enjoyment of earthly goods."33 Moreover, the economic, social, political, and cultural conditions that are needed for a just exercise of freedom are too often disregarded or violated. Such situations of blindness and injustice injure the moral life and involve the strong as well as the weak in the temptation to sin against charity. By deviating from the moral law man violates his own freedom, becomes imprisoned within himself, disrupts neighborly fellowship, and rebels against divine truth.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1731-1733, 1740

This is in agreement with the encylicals Libertas and Veritatis Splendor

A couple of points from the latter illustrate:

At the root of these presuppositions is the more or less obvious influence of currents of thought which end by detaching human freedom from its essential and constitutive relationship to truth.

"The beginning of freedom", Saint Augustine writes, "is to be free from crimes... such as murder, adultery, fornication, theft, fraud, sacrilege and so forth. When once one is without these crimes (and every Christian should be without them), one begins to lift up one's head towards freedom. But this is only the beginning of freedom, not perfect freedom...".23

These words of Jesus reveal the particular dynamic of freedom's growth towards maturity, and at the same time they bear witness to the fundamental relationship between freedom and divine law. Human freedom and God's law are not in opposition; on the contrary, they appeal one to the other. The follower of Christ knows that his vocation is to freedom. "You were called to freedom, brethren" (Gal 5:13), proclaims the Apostle Paul with joy and pride. But he immediately adds: "only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another" (ibid.). The firmness with which the Apostle opposes those who believe that they are justified by the Law has nothing to do with man's "liberation" from precepts. On the contrary, the latter are at the service of the practice of love:

There is a great deal more in this extrodinary encyclical, I urge you to study it.

321 posted on 12/14/2004 9:56:21 AM PST by kjvail (Judica me Deus, et discerne causam meam de gente non sancta)
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To: Land of the Irish

I don't like this at all.

I'll come back later and try again to see if I still feel sick to my stomach reading it.


322 posted on 12/14/2004 10:38:50 AM PST by Askel5 († Cooperatio voluntaria ad suicidium est legi morali contraria. †)
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To: sinkspur

This is the sort of "logic" that infuriates me. The Papal tiara is no disgrace, some of the holiest men to ever walk the earth have worn such a crown, men who were a hell of a lot more humble than you seem to be. The pomp is meant to be *impressive*, to impress upon both the pontiff and those witnessing certain ideals, such as the awesome responsibility that is being accepted and the supreme obedience owed to the one being crowned.

I could easily turn your own argument against you. Can you honestly say you own nothing that is not essential? Why do you, if you are such a good Christian why not sell all you have and give it to the poor as Jesus commanded? You obviously have a computer and internet service, think how many poor people the money from that would help. Jesus never had such things. He slept on the ground, why don't you sell your bed and do the same? Why not be a servant instead of lording it over all those who don't have all the luxuries you enjoy?

Here I think we have hit on your real grudge. But it is no problem. If you think the clerics are lording it over others, why not became a cleric yourself, they certainly need the manpower.

Long Live the Pope!


323 posted on 12/14/2004 2:32:00 PM PST by Guelph4ever (“Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam et tibi dabo claves regni coelorum”)
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To: Guelph4ever
If you think the clerics are lording it over others, why not became a cleric yourself, they certainly need the manpower.

I'm a step ahead of you. I'm a permanent deacon. And I don't wear one item of gold, including a gold watch.

324 posted on 12/14/2004 2:56:24 PM PST by sinkspur ("It is a great day to be alive. I appreciate your gratitude." God Himself.)
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To: Guelph4ever

As you might surmise, I fully agreed with Paul VI's disposition of the tiara.


325 posted on 12/14/2004 2:57:38 PM PST by sinkspur ("It is a great day to be alive. I appreciate your gratitude." God Himself.)
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To: sinkspur
I don't disdain the history of the Church.

Oh, please. When have you ever said anything favorable about the post-Constantine, pre-Vatican II Church?

I suppose you would have preferred that Chartres and St. Peter's had never been built. Why don't you join one of those Calvinist Reformed churches where the buildings are as plain as possible so that there are no "distractions"; you'd fit right in.

The papal tiara and the other royal trappings of the papacy are needed more than ever these days in order to remind the faithful that the Church is not a democracy.

Objecting to the things you object to is Protestant, and that's the nicest word for it.

326 posted on 12/14/2004 3:31:42 PM PST by royalcello
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To: royalcello
Objecting to the things you object to is Protestant, and that's the nicest word for it.

LOL!! If you like to see bishops wearing white gloves and $10,000 rings, the SSPX has a bishop who does just that, when he's not telling women they're too dumb to go to college.

327 posted on 12/14/2004 3:46:12 PM PST by sinkspur ("It is a great day to be alive. I appreciate your gratitude." God Himself.)
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To: Grey Ghost II
I respectfully disagree. He's an idiot....

LOL Very good GG. That was funny.

328 posted on 12/14/2004 6:05:59 PM PST by St.Chuck (Induimini Dominum Iesum Christum)
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To: sinkspur
I'm a step ahead of you. I'm a permanent deacon.

And thankfully, you will NEVER become a priest, despite your cries for a married priesthood.
329 posted on 12/14/2004 7:06:06 PM PST by Conservative til I die
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To: Conservative til I die
And thankfully, you will NEVER become a priest, despite your cries for a married priesthood.

So what? I don't want to be subject to a move to another parish, or have any administrative responsibilities, as priests do. Preach, teach, administer sacraments, and go home to my wife.

Perfect life.

330 posted on 12/14/2004 7:11:46 PM PST by sinkspur ("It is a great day to be alive. I appreciate your gratitude." God Himself.)
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To: Land of the Irish

This puts me in mind of a couple of essays (and several articles on Leo) which I found in this 1895 mambo Catholic Book from Baltimore. I was disappoined when first it arrived because it seemed to be only bios/histories, diocese by diocese. Interesting enough but not what I thought I was getting.

Then I realized there was a whole introductory section well worth the book's seriously hefty postage weight in gold. =)

I'll post some. The duality between the "Know Nothing" reaction and the fervently beating patriotic heart appears just to be beginning. Interesting reads.


331 posted on 12/14/2004 7:29:30 PM PST by Askel5 († Cooperatio voluntaria ad suicidium est legi morali contraria. †)
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To: TradicalRC
I suppose John the Baptist was an anti-Semite as well.

You can suppose whatever you want. I would disagree with this supposition.

332 posted on 12/14/2004 8:23:46 PM PST by DBeers
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To: pascendi
No. You provide support for your dumb quip.

I do not need it as I am quite secure.

333 posted on 12/14/2004 8:34:52 PM PST by DBeers
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To: DBeers

That makes sense. Say something aimless, fail to provide support for it, and then have feelings of security.


334 posted on 12/14/2004 8:42:47 PM PST by pascendi (Quicumque vult salvus esse, ante omnia opus est, ut teneat catholicam fidem)
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To: pascendi
That makes sense. Say something aimless, fail to provide support for it, and then have feelings of security.

Your words too say much...

335 posted on 12/14/2004 8:45:22 PM PST by DBeers
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To: DBeers
"Your words too say much..."

Come on man, if you have something you want to say, just say it.

336 posted on 12/14/2004 9:34:35 PM PST by pascendi (Quicumque vult salvus esse, ante omnia opus est, ut teneat catholicam fidem)
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To: pascendi
Come on man, if you have something you want to say, just say it.

I have written exactly and measured as wanted -clearly.

337 posted on 12/14/2004 10:16:14 PM PST by DBeers
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To: DBeers
Whenever you're ready to explain why the author's work is just a whole lot of drivel, I'd be happy to hear it.

If, on the other hand, you never really had anything substantive to offer to begin with, then sure, perhaps measuring your words carefully really is the best course of action for you. That would be understandable.

338 posted on 12/14/2004 11:39:50 PM PST by pascendi (Quicumque vult salvus esse, ante omnia opus est, ut teneat catholicam fidem)
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To: pascendi
I suggest you compare the following two statements and see where your dilemma may lie with both my statement and your inability to recognize the 'anti-American' tone of the article in question:

ME: "Yet more of John Rao's anti-American drivel..."

YOU: "Whenever you're ready to explain why the author's work is just a whole lot of drivel, I'd be happy to hear it.

In addition to not being pleased with the authors attempted disparaging of Cardinal Ratzinger. The premise of the article itself disparaging Cardinal Ratzinger in 'guilt by association' methodology self-evidently must be anti-American in presupposition.

My opinion is in the broad sense and not as you apparently believe an attempt to discount any specific and or obvious Truth interweaved with the opinion the article contains.

339 posted on 12/15/2004 3:45:51 AM PST by DBeers
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To: sinkspur
So what? I don't want to be subject to a move to another parish, or have any administrative responsibilities, as priests do. Preach, teach, administer sacraments, and go home to my wife.

Perfect life.

Actually you used to routinely bitch about the archaic old celibacy laws keeping a good candidate (chuckle) like you out of the priesthood.
340 posted on 12/15/2004 5:03:45 AM PST by Conservative til I die
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