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.
1. How do we know that you are quoting accurately? How do we know that you aren't taking it out of context? How do we know that this quote ever actually existed?
Ultima, at this point, if you asserted the sky is blue, I would run outside to check before believing you. Without independent third-party verification, nothing you post ought to be believed.
You have quoted out of context. You have misquoted. You have misrepresented the words of others. And now, you have posted lies (Though I believe that you did this inadvertently by quoting liars in whom you had faith.).
2. If this quote is real, the author asserts what is not logical. He, himself cites the note as being to Lumen Gentium. He, himself admits that the reason for the note was to clear up matters pertaining to definitions about the collegiality of bishops, and the authority of the popes, as Fr. Abbott said in his actual footnote, applying the note to Chapter III of Lumen Gentium.
It is an extraordinary leap of logic (wishful thinking?) to try to apply the note which was clearly meant for Lumen Gentium, even by this author's own admission, to the rest of the Council.
Of course, this morsel just plain old contradicts the truth:
"One could say therefore, that this pronouncement exempts Vatican II as a whole from any dogmatic responsibility and ipso facto does not oblige any faithful to accept it..."
The final act of the Council by Pope Paul VI enjoins all Catholics to obey and accept all the results of the Council. Explicitly. Thus even meeting the internal requirements of the note.
3. It wouldn't matter anyway. Few of us have claimed that the Council offered any new infallible definitions. We have merely claimed that the Council taught no error. That is an infallibility guaranteed to all Councils.
In conclusion: your "scholarship" is to be disregarded; but at least you ought to offer something that would actually buttress your false arguments, rather than a quote which is logically flawed, and thus supports the arguments of your adversary; and your point, if you could prove it, is beside the point.
Care to offer an explanation of why you quoted a lie from The Great Facade? Care to offer comment on the worthiness of that work? The intellectual honesty of Messrs. Ferrara and Woods?
In charity,
sitetest
"I share their view totally. Neither you nor Site-pest understand fully the gravity of the current situation."
Oh my, you've graduated from posting non-existent "quotes" to name-calling. A little ad hominem to spice up the morning. * sigh *
"By their fruits you shall know them."
sitetest
"The fault was my own, i am not infallible. But your personal attacks in dealing with the ideas of others has been enlightening."
It is you who have resorted to ad hominem attacks.
As you state, I have dealt with ideas, here. And to attack ideas, to attack faulty scholarship, to attack lies offered as truth, is not to attack persons.
sitetest
It is in keeping with the masonic plot to establish a grand temple of universal brotherhood above all religions and beliefs, "Unity in diversity" a concept so dear to the New Age and to globalization. "We were excommunicated by Clement XI in 1738 because of our interdenominational principles. But the Church was definitely in error, if it is true that, on 27th October 1986, the present Pope gathered together men of all religious confessions in Assisi to pray for peace. What else are our brothers looking for when they gather together in temples, than love between men, tolerance, solidarity, defense of the dignity of the human-being, considering themselves equal, above political and religious beliefs and the color of their skin?" (Grand Master Armando Corona, of the Grand Lodge of the Spring Equinox, Hiram –voice of the Grand Orient of Italy –April 1987)
"But the earthquake happened in 1997...And Assisi I was in 1996."
As given in the latter part of your own post, I think that Assisi I was in 1986.
sitetest
This is for you: "EARTHQUAKES & DISASTERS!"
My faith is not shaken by Pope John Paul II doing his spiritual part in trying to unite, in brotherhood, as children of God that He created, peace among the nations.
No problem.
It's amazing the tricks the keyboard will play on you. ;-)
sitetest
"Fine. It's clear from what mudhole you are coming from. Bye-bye."
Care to offer any more insults, ultima?
By their fruits you will know them.
You are in my prayers, good-bye.
sitetest
You forgot to add the "IMHO."
By their fruits you will know them.
Amen.
LOL.
sitetest
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