Posted on 08/06/2002 5:10:58 PM PDT by nickcarraway
One picture told it all: At Toronto's airport, the world's eye caught little ten-year-old Georgia Rae Giddings as she emotionally burst into tears after Pope John Paul II embraced her. For the next hour, she recalled the moment repeatedly before crowds of journalists. "When I stood in front of the Pope, I just got dizzier and dizzier," she said.
"Out of Step" with the Contemporary World
She's not the only one. Many of the million or so attending the World Youth Day celebrations reported the same phenomenon.
Most people would be astonished to hear that the Holy Father might be the most beloved person in the world among young people. After all, we're always told the Catholic Church's message is irrelevant, outmoded and - worst of all - square. Cynics charge it has nothing meaningful to say to today's fun-loving, hedonistic youth.
According to the press, polls repeatedly show the Pope's relentless opposition to contraception, abortion, homosexuality, pornography, pre-marital sex, easy divorce and other fruits of the sexual revolution is anathema to the modern and fashionable. (It goes without saying that no one knows the mind of the modern and fashionable like the media.) The Holy Father, they conclude, is out of step with the contemporary world.
A Rebuke to the Modern Age
Okay, then how do you explain nearly a million kids at the Pope's World Youth Day? And where else would the gathering of that many youngsters be termed a "disappointing" turnout?
Perhaps it's because young people's love for the Holy Father is a direct rebuke to the modern age, and thus to its primary megaphone, the modern journalist. No institution has been a more powerful force for secularism, materialism or sexual freedom than the media.
Most reporters today are alienated from religion, looking at faith as little more than an ancient superstition. They don't understand it, so they don't cover it - unless a "religious" story involving scandal or human weakness pops up. That they comprehend.
In listening to World Youth Day participants speak, their deep affection for the Holy Father is clear. The same words keep popping up over and over to describe him - "radiance," "hero" "world's role model," "leader of youth," "our rock," "following in St. Peter's footsteps," and "the person closest to Jesus."
Thus, reasons for the Pope's youthful legions are quite simple: When young people see the weary, lined, rugged, leathern visage of the Holy Father, they see the face of love. Not love the way Hollywood loves them - as walking wallets, rear ends in movie theaters, pairs of ears to listen to the latest CDs - but real affection, from someone who sees them rightfully as precious individuals with eternal souls. And when the Vicar of Christ's deep, aged, honeyed voice is intoned, it seems they're hearing the very Words of God.
An Inexhaustible Treasure of Grace
This, then, is the Papal appeal to the young: faith, as the steadfast leader of the Church, the eternal Bride of Christ; hope, offering refuge for the restless heart; and love, from a elderly man walking in persona Christi. Of these, as St. Paul says, the greatest is love.
This is what Georgia Rae Giddings reacted to. After telling the Pope she loved him, he tenderly stroked her head and whispered gently that he loved her too, the perfect personification of Cardinal Newman's great motto of "Heart Speaketh to Heart." It's hard to imagine any other world leader reacting this way to the presence of an unexpected young stranger - so fearless, so compassionate, so Christlike.
No wonder kids love him.
Catholicism may be known as the Old Faith, it's the Young Faith too, with a remarkable, time-tested ability to outlive every fad that mocks it as passe. Each Catholic generation discovers anew the richness and power of their ancient religion, finding within it an inexhaustible treasure of grace and beauty, boundless as the sea. Once that discovery is made, as a million young pilgrims recently learned, no worldly interest can ever again quite satisfy.
We can only keep praying that it happens.
It actually does NOT surprise me that an SSPXer would seek to defend Tim McVeigh.
Your point being?
If I was not clear on this point before, let me be now: I do not believe in Jansenist or Calvinist theology.
However, I believe that in a world which has lost its sense of sin, Catholics need to develop a stronger sense of their own unworthiness and sinful nature, and the need for repentance. And that's precisely what we aren't getting in a lot of our Churches. Certainly it's what I never got out of the Novus Ordo parishes I attended. In that sense I do admire the Jansenists.
And as for 'gaining the attention and admiration of Calvinists', I fail to see why this is necessarily bad if this leads them to find in the Catholic Church what they're missing in their own.
Your point being?
Real "traditionalists" don't
It is always a questionable exercise to decide to what extent others have a sense of sin. Be that as it may, a preceived or imagined deficency will not be corrected by heresy.
Wouldn't it be much better to cite the writings of this Pope and his own example (Confession twice weekly) as a right response?
Your point being?
Real "traditionalists" don't
It is always a questionable exercise to decide to what extent others have a sense of sin. Be that as it may, a preceived or imagined deficency will not be corrected by heresy.
Wouldn't it be much better to cite the writings of this Pope and his own example (Confession twice weekly) as a right response?
Dear Ultima Ratio,
You have missed out on some of our heated debates on this issue. I am posting a link to the USCCB web site which provides the proper norms for church architecture and liturgical music. It may surprise you to learn that "kneelers" are NOT OUT and Tabernacles are to retain a place of prominence. What has happened though, is that certain bishops have "interpreted" these norms to suit their personal taste. I am also posting a 2nd link to the web site of a very disgruntled catholic who travels around the country, videotaping Fr. Dr. Vosko, the "wreckovator" of cathedrals. Both are worth the visit:
We can only keep praying that it happens.
Did I read this correctly, CG?
I would say that 'Jansenist' is more often the club to beat CT's over the head with. The word stirs up negative associations with the pre-Vatican II Church: excessive scrupulosity,pietism, and legalism; fixations on sin and damnation to the exclusion of God's mercy and forgiveness; a narrow triumphalism; black-habited nuns thwacking children's knuckles with rulers, etc. etc.
The word 'Calvinist' doesn't cause Catholics' blood to boil in the same way.
Say ONE mildly complimentary word about the Jansenists as people, and no matter how much your condemn their theology, you will be cast out with the lepers.
Indeed!
Honestly...yes and no.
The Calvinists (in our opinion) hate Roman Catholicism (but not Roman Catholics themselves, usually ;-), and much of their ammo lately has been gleened from schismatic "Catholic" websites, such as the Assissi event, reading the Koran, etc.
I think it is simply a matter of pointing out the odd bedfellows that schismatic Catholics are keeping in their condemnation of all things in the post-conciliar Church. The fact that schismatics and the worst of the anti-Catholic Calvinists use the same rhetoric and debate tactics is worth exmining, that's all.
We have a Catholic Caucus here, an emerging schismatic Traditionalist Catholic Caucus, and a well established Anti-Catholic Caucus and Calvinist Caucus (which occasionally intersects quite accurately with the Anti-Catholic Caucus.)
The fact that the Catholic Caucus finds itself defending the RCC against not only the Calvinist Caucus and wider less cohesive Anti-Catholic Caucus but also the emerging schismatic Traditionalist Catholic Caucus is quite troubling to us. The fact that all three are using the same talking points is simply a fact that is being pointed out here.
I have attempted a small clarification of matters regarding schismatic and non-schismatic Catholics, but the posts on this thread go far beyond my meager attempt and far beyond my ability to even make a reasoned response, so I'm staying out of it.
I might be tempted by some of the points of the schismatic Catholics if it were not for the fact that they are so interchangable with the anti-Catholic rhetoric of the anti-Catholic Caucus and Calvinist Caucus posts here (especially as I dismiss out of hand any Calvinist argument, as any sane Catholic must.)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.