Spe Salvi a 'Greatest Hits' collection of core Ratzinger ideas
Print Friendly VersionBy JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
New York
If one were to compile a list of the core concerns of Joseph Ratzinger, his idees fixes over almost sixty years now of theological reflection, it might look something like this:
• Truth is not a limit upon freedom, but the condition of freedom reaching its true potential;
• Reason and faith need one another – faith without reason becomes extremism, while reason without faith leads to despair;
• The dangers of the modern myth of progress, born in the new science of the 16th century and applied to politics through the French Revolution and Marxism;
• The impossibility of constructing a just social order without reference to God;
• The urgency of separating eschatology, the longing for a “new Heaven and a new earth,” from this-worldly politics;
• Objective truth as the only real limit to ideology and the blind will to power.
All those themes take center stage once again in the encyclical Spe Salvi, released today in Rome. In that sense, one could argue that the text represents a sort of “Greatest Hits” collection of Ratzinger’s most important ideas, developed over a lifetime, and now presented in the form of an encyclical in his role as Pope Benedict XVI.
Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesperson, lent credence to this reading in a Rome news conference this morning, saying that in Spe Salvi “we see very clearly the hand and the style of the author,” describing the encyclical as “absolutely and personally” the pope’s own thought. (In fact, Lombardi said, papal advisers are working on the draft of another encyclical, this one on social themes, and were "surprised" that in the meantime Benedict produced an encyclical more or less entirely on his own.)
One should hasten to add, of course, that Benedict himself would not really see these as “his” ideas, but rather as foundational principles of 2,000 years of Christian teaching and tradition. Yet few figures over the last 60 years have articulated these points with the force, or the political and ecclesiastical consequence, of Joseph Ratzinger.
In essence, the message of Spe Salvi can be expressed this way: If human beings place their hopes for justice, redemption and a better life exclusively in this-worldly forces, whether it’s science, politics, or anything else, they’re lost. The carnage of the 20th century, the pope suggests, illustrates the folly of investing human ideology and technology with messianic expectations.
Instead, ultimate hope – what the pope describes as “the great hope” – lies only in God, because only through the moral and spiritual wisdom acquired through faith can technology and political structures be directed towards ends which are truly human.
As early as 1977, in his book Eschatologie: Tod und ewiges Leben (“Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life”), which Ratzinger once described as his “most thorough work,” the future pope argued that under the impact of Marx, mistaken notions of the Kingdom of God were threatening the integrity of the Christian message. When people confuse the gospel with a political message, he wrote, the distinctively Christian element is lost, “leaving behind nothing but a deceptive surrogate.”
In his 1987 book Church, Ecumenism and Politics, Ratzinger returned to the theme: “Where there is no dualism,” he wrote, meaning a strong distinction between eschatology and politics, “there is totalitarianism.”
The fear that politics could replace the Last Judgment and the afterlife as the focus of Christian hope was also perhaps Ratzinger’s deepest underlying objection to liberation theology, the movement in Latin America in the 1960s, 70s and 80s that sought to align the church with progressive efforts for social change.
Thus it is no surprise in Spe Salvi to see Benedict XVI drawing a sharp distinction between Jesus and social revolutionaries of his era such as Spartacus and Bar-Kochba, nor warning once more that Marx’s “fundamental error” of materialism led to “a trail of appalling destruction.”
The necessary link between reason and faith is also a favorite preoccupation of the pope; it was the heart, for example, of his now-famous lecture at the University of Regensburg in Bavaria on Sept. 12, 2006, that touched off protest in the Islamic world because of Benedict’s citation of a 14th century Byzantine emperor concerning Muhammad.
“Reason needs faith if it is to be completely itself,” Benedict writes in Spe Salvi. “Reason and faith need one another in order to fulfill their true nature and their mission.”
Throughout the 19,000-word encyclical, there are several other vintage Ratzinger touches.
For example, Ratzinger has long pressed the need to re-present basic concepts of the faith to a modern world he regards as jaded by a sort of weary familiarity with Christianity. Thus in Spe Salvi, we find him writing: “We who have always lived with the Christian concept of God, and have grown accustomed to it, have almost ceased to notice that we possess the hope that ensues from a real encounter with this God.”
Likewise, both as a personal theologian and as pope, Benedict has long said that he has no objection to the theory of evolution as such, but is alarmed by a radically materialistic philosophy that would see human beings as exclusively the random product of an evolutionary process.
“It is not the law of matter and of evolution that have the final say,” he writes in the new encyclical, "but reason, will, love – a Person … Life is not a simple product of laws and the randomness of matter, but within everything and at the same time above everything, there is a Spirit who in Jesus has revealed himself as Love.”
Many observers have noted that sometimes Benedict the Supreme Pastor and Joseph Ratzinger the exacting theologian sit in uneasy tension with one another, and those contrasting elements of his personality are clearly visible once again in Spe Salvi.
At times, Benedict can be almost poetic, as in this passage attempting to express the notion of eternal life: “It would be like plunging into the ocean of infinite love,” he writes, “a moment in which time – the before and after – no longer exists.”
In other passages, however, Spe Salvi can read like an essay one might find in a journal of theology of Biblical studies. Benedict critiques an ecumenical translation of the New Testament, for example, one approved by the German Catholic bishops, for offering what he regards as an overly subjective reading of the Greek word hypostasis. The pope prefers the term "substance" arguing that what's meant is not an inner conviction about the faith but rather its objective foundation. Benedict also spends considerable time reflecting on two pairs of Greek terms: hypostasis/hyparchonta and hypomone/hypostole.
Benedict can also be surprisingly ecumenical in his erudition; to correct the translation mentioned above, the pope cites approvingly the work of a liberal German Protestant exegete, Helmut Köster. (Köster, by the way, was a student of Rudolf Bultmann, the liberal exegete who developed the idea of “demythologizing” the Bible, and a longtime bête noire of Ratzinger’s.)
Benedict is, by his own admission, a convinced Augustinian, and no one could miss that in Spe Salvi: Augustine is cited no fewer than 13 times, often at some length.
Finally, Benedict the intellectual is also a man deeply respectful of pious popular tradition, and this too shines through Spe Salvi. For example, towards the end of the encyclical, Benedict recommends a return to the custom of “offering up” one’s small daily sufferings in prayer to God, writing that even if there were “exaggerations and perhaps unhealthy applications” of the idea, it still offers Christians a way to insert small inconveniences “into Christ’s great compassion.”
Benedict XVI is a classic music lover who, at age 80, still enjoys passing time at a piano keyboard. To evoke another musical metaphor, Spe Salvi amounts to Ratzingerian “variations on a theme,” reworking and refining key leitmotifs of his thought. The question is whether the new score in Spe Salvi will also catch the ears of those who, to date, have not yet started humming the tune.
Where do you think Christ is
Where do you think Christ is these days that he is unaware of things in Rome?
(The Vatican) "Spe Salvi"
(The Vatican) "Spe Salvi" draws upon the rich
treasure of Benedict XVI's learning, with
references from the lives of the saints and the
Church Fathers....Referring to the New
Testament's times, he writes, "Christianity did
not bring a message of social revolution like that
of the ill-fated Spartacus, whose struggle led to
so much bloodshed. Jesus was not Spartacus, he was
not engaged in a fight for political liberation."
The reference of Spartacus is a subtle way of
papal condemnation of Liberation Theology. Yes,
Spartacus would have loved to free the poor
people in Latin America instead of waiting and
sitting...for...nothing....
Victims of clergy sexual abuse suffer a living
hell, a lingering death of their souls. It is not
"bloodshed" but their innermost souls who suffer
worse than bloodshed. However the victims of
oppressive governments in Latin America do suffer
bloodshed http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/
The papal contempt for Liberation Theology is
mindboggling. "The Church may preach of another
world, but their real interest is THIS
WORLD!...The Vatican owns much more of the world
than anybody else" full text in The John Paul II Millstone
http://jp2m.blogspot.com/
Symphonies. Benedict has the
Symphonies.
Benedict has the baton now at least of one section of the orchestra. Unfortunately the various sections do not hear each other. Perhaps if we removed the ear muffs we could hear the whole Christian orchestra. The Roman church has not been in the depression of heresy but just a recession from the mandated action of Jesus and the sermon on the Mount. 'They will know we are Christians by our love' 'Actions speak louder than words' 'Do unto others' 'As long as you did it to the least of my brothers' True Christianity is about doing and I would tend to list a lot of dogma and explanations as trivia [interesting facts and theories but usually inconsequential]
By the way Krista Tippet interviewed Jim Wallis on her show Dec 2nd.
Charley
It wasn't until around the
It wasn't until around the turn of the 20th century that Christian churches began the movement away from ideological (ecclesiological) self-obsession to rediscovery of the Sermon on the Mount, the social Gospel message and the theological virtues of Godlikeness — after Pius IX, the last of the pope-kings, had his earthly kingdom (Papal States) wrested from him/ Church.
Leo XIII and popes following him began the shift to social focus, which led to Vatican II; in Protestant circles, Walter Rauschenbusch, Martin Luther King and Jim Wallis track with what has been happening in Catholicism.
Not to neglect the contributions of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who intervened new quantum cosmology into the developing religious ferment! The connection of informed cosmic awareness (quantum science) is essential to a sense of universal religious belonging/ consciousness. POINT: the perspective of evolutionary consciousness gives new and hopeful dimensions to all the theological virtues. There is still more to be said about, gaudium et spes, fides et ratio, amor (eros) et caritas (agape), notwithstanding recent encyclicals.
It's S-O-O-O-O refreshing to see the direction that Benedict XVI's papacy is yet tending. When the laity of all Christian denominations pick up anew on the social gospel, it is likely (possible) that a quantum movement from ecclesial narcissism will occur, and that people/ churches will become authentically open to a more universal sense of faith, hope and love — then interfaith discussions can become serious. It can't happen too soon, for only when this happens will religion come to a new and universal greening. When this new religious awareness breaks out, hope will become infectious. I can't wait until the "evolutionary-open" encyclical on hope comes out. The "new" theology has to be put in place before ecclesiology can be refocused.
Can we really hope (believe?) that this is what is happening?
Excellent highlights
Excellent highlights especially in terms of truth, love as the foundation of hope. Given that, the "We are Church" movement asked a couple of questions about Spe Salvi - why are there few if any connections to Gaudiam et Spes from Vatican II? Also, will there be any attempt to apply this encyclical to the Church structures themselves?
To this point, there is an interesting article in the latest Tablet that raises questions about the Church - is it seeking hope based on truth and love or on power and authoritarianism?
[The following is taken from The Tablet for Dec. 1, 2007. http://www.thetablet.co.uk/articles/10689]
Rendering unto Caesar
Stephen Wall
A former adviser to Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor explains why he is struggling with recent approaches to some of the conflicts between Church and State. Indeed, it is the State that exhibits the very tolerance that should be at the heart of Christianity
The journalist Malcolm Muggeridge used to say that he wished he could take Jesus on a tour of the Vatican to see if he would find his life and ministry in any way in evidence.
I do not imagine that Our Lord would find anything very relevant to his redemptive message in the change from lace frills to plain pleats in the papal surplice. He might think that the simplicity of the lilies of the field was not much on view either.
He might be surprised to find that the successor of St Peter, the fisherman, is the head of a political state. Is that what he meant when he said: "Render unto Caesar..."?
As Catholics, we have had to live with the fripperies and vanities with which the official Church adorns itself. Although they do not actively damage the lives of ordinary mortals, they do seem to me to be a potent symbol of a Church that is inclined to ignore the beam in its own eye while unfailingly pointing to the motes in the eyes of the rest of us. As a Church beset by scandal has become less authoritative, so it has become disproportionately more authoritarian. The God of reconciliation, whose Spirit imbued the Church at the second Vatican Council, has fallen out of favour and the God of retribution has been aggressively summoned to take his place.
Thus, in the United States, a Catholic candidate for president found himself threatened with excommunication because he chose to exercise his own conscience and political judgement on the issue of abortion. Compare that with the situation of Jack Kennedy who could only secure election as America's first Catholic president by promising to exercise the very independence of judgement which some bishops wanted to deny to John Kerry 40 years later. Is it the rights and wrongs of the issues that have changed, or the character and politics of the Church?
Last week, the Church in our own country was arguing that giving same-sex couples access to in vitro fertilisation (IVF) was wrong, because of the harm to be done by bringing fatherless children into the world. Yet this is the same Church which, by proclaiming the iniquity of artificial contraception, wills into the world millions of children who will never know true parental love of any kind. It sees in this no apparent inconsistency or injustice, any more than it sees injustice in denying to gay couples the right to adopt through its agencies.
In both cases, the Church makes a number of mistakes. It makes a mistake about its role in society. It is using, or abusing, its own moral absolutism to deny to people whose way of life it stigmatises the civil rights that a more generous state recognises as basic to their status as citizens under the law. I refer of course to the Catholic Church's objection to adoption by gay couples. This is a potentially dangerous blurring of an important boundary.
Instead of "hating the sin but loving the sinner", gruesomely patronising as that phrase is, the Church is attempting to use its application of the civil law to punish the sinner because of his or her sin. There seems to me to be nothing in Christ's teaching to justify such an approach. Indeed, the whole of Jesus' life, and even more so his death, point firmly in the opposite direction.
The Church makes another mistake by giving pre-eminence to its concept of law and disregarding its duty of love. In the case of IVF, we are talking about couples who would not go through the heartache of the process unless they wanted, out of their love for each other, to bring a much-loved child into the world. The same is true for gay couples wishing to adopt. Do the Church's leaders stop to consider that the injunction to love your neighbour as yourself is as perfectly fulfilled as is possible in human life through couples who commit to each other and for whom the sexual expression of that love is its most intimate and binding manifestation?
These are not issues that should be decided by trading biblical quotations, or by recourse to claims of authority, which in my view have to be earned, not assumed. And, in any case, Christ's teachings on wealth, property and power seem to be much more categorical, and much more widely disregarded, including by the Church, than what he had to say on almost any other topic. These are, rather, issues that should be determined by recourse to what Jesus said, by following his own regard for the spirit of the law rather than its letter and by the application of the consciences and independence of judgement with which our creator endowed us.
Above all, the Church's approach should be rooted not in power, authority and threat, but in love and understanding and, dare I say it, in acknowledging that it can be wrong or that many of life's most poignant problems raise issues of right and wrong, love and duty, pain and suffering that are not susceptible to simple answers.
The Church portrays itself as the victim of an aggressive secularism. It looks to me, rather, as if the Church is itself in danger of adopting an aggressive fundamentalism and that the secular societies it excoriates demonstrate a tolerance that is often closer to the ideal of Christian charity.
As a lifelong Catholic, I continue to be inspired by the many excellent Catholic men and women, lay and ordained, who live the spirit of the Gospels. I find hope and communion in the celebration of Mass and I believe in striving for reform from within. It is in that spirit that I hope that the window of fresh air that was Vatican II can be prised open once again.
A point of interest to the
A point of interest to the Church's predicament: isn't it curious that the Italian Pope John XXIII is the "realist" and the Polish-German Popes (JP2 and Benedict) are the "Romanists"? The realist knows the reciprocal relationship between objectivity and subjectivity. The Romanists are objectivists who equate subjectivity with "relativism", with negative implications toward "relativity", as in "quantum" relativity. Perhaps Benedict is budging?
Liberation Theology is the theology of realism while Dominion Theology is the theology of objectivism. The alienation between objectivism and subjectivism is as damaging as the alienation between fideism and rationalism. Objectivity and subjectivity are essentially relational as are faith and reason. Objectivity supposes subjectivity as subjectivity supposes objectivity; "faith supposes reason as grace supposes nature" (J. Courtney Murray, SJ). Natural Law will prevail; we eschew it at our own peril!!! Religion that isn't "green" isn't credible religion.
I believe that Liberation Theology cannot be suppressed even as Vatican II cannot be reversed and awakening to green consciousness cannot be avoided.
FYI: correlating with "Spe
FYI: correlating with "Spe Salvi" is the open E-mail I sent to Pope Benedict XVI on 07/07/07:
Dear Holy Father:
Religious culture needs to reveal to consciousness the essential connections of Prevision and Provision in the Naturalis Sacramentum Ordinis if reason and faith, science and religion, would find reconciliation. An understanding of the essential continuity of Prevision and Provision can help people converge universally in hope and affirmative Love. The basis for the co-identification of reason and faith in universal purpose is presented here in brief in the sense of "GREEN Religion” inside the cosmic/cultural spectrum of Intelligent Design and Purpose.
GREEN Religion inside the Cultural Spectrum:
Because of public consciousness awakening to social/ ethical obligations of avoiding the trashing of Nature, it’s become common to use the word “green” with religion. The word green makes the religion/ ecology connection, for the color of life is photosynthetic chlorophyll.
There is a profound and scientific sense that needs to be fleshed out in order to get a fuller understanding of what “green” religion means from the human perspective. From the consensus human perspective, there is an essentially energetic component of consciousness that connects culturally with self, family, community, Earth and the Cosmos. The color refraction of this connection is G.R.E.E.N.
G is for GOD, Intelligent Design, Who/ what consciousness experiences and recognizes as the Provident, purposeful Personality/ Rationality in Creation.
R is for RELIGION, the consciously mindful human insight (religere), and the divine bonding of necessity (religare) that gives inherency and coherency to the Vital Continuum.
E is for ECOLOGY, the means of provision, the “house”, the network domain of life built of and by light energy. The living complex sustains diversification, the continuum from which humankind obtains.
E is for EDUCATION: consciousness derives from within life’s network domain; it is a subtle energy complex and process that is transmitted from generation to generation, and which enlightens humanity to the divine sense and expands the self-originating potentials of learning, teaching and prevision.
N is for NATURE/ NURTURE: Nature is about ecological balance; Nurture is about learning and teaching the sustaining lessons of ecology, of reciprocity — intentional symbiosis. Self-reflective consciousness is intensional and intentional. The deep wave/ particle bonding and transformation of all cosmic substantiation is internally tensioned (ex opere operato) and intentionally motivated (ex opere operantis); internal tension is in the nature of strong force bonding, as in the atomic nucleus, and intentional motivation is force-dependent, as the weaker bonding of electrons.
The energy of the cosmos is defined by the electromagnetic spectrum, which characterizes all edification, substantive and spiritual, provision and prevision. The “cultural spectrum” is the energy of social edification, substantiated and empowered in/ by the wave-lengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, namely, wave-lengths of the infrared, visible light, radio-waves and broad-band, all of which process by way of communication, consciousness and conscience, what constitute reason and the “process of reason”, TRIMORPHIC Resonance, PROTENNOIA.
Self-reflective, human consciousness is conscionably able to choose relationships that serve wellbeing. The cultural amassing and selecting of purposeful actions and constructs, also worldview, serve the sustainable intentions of culture. It is a fact-based understanding of cultural experience (wisdom) that the sharing of faith serves wellbeing, personal and social, what is the authentic sense of essential religion.
Faith-sharing is about expanding self-reflective sense and the continuity linkages of the self in family, community, Earth and Cosmos. This insight is consistent with the sense of “aggiornamento” and evolutionary consciousness referenced in the Second Vatican Council. [“Gaudium et Spes”, Fourth Constitution, Intro.]
With filial affection, I am respectfully,
Sylvester L. Steffen
[My REJOINDER to the "God is Love" Encyclical is at www.secondenlightenment.org and at www.acolyte.gather.com]
Gino, religion is a green
Gino, religion is a green apple — it takes a lifetime to ripen. You can quote me on this.
I have come to this reconciliation of science and religion: religion is real only as it functions in the living relationships of conditioned subjectivity and Unconditioned Objectivity (Spirituality). Religious consciousness is the "green apple" that needs a lifetime to mature.
This is my "reconciliation" — Prephysics suppose physics/metaphysics as physics/ metaphysics suppose Prephysics; substance supposes Spirituality as Spirituality supposes substance; nature supposes Grace as Grace supposes nature; reason supposes faith as faith supposes reason; science supposes religion as religion supposes science; prevision/ provision suppose Prephysics as Prephysics suppose Prevision/ Provision.
DIVINE INSTANCE and The UNITY AND CONTINUITY of Prephysics-Physics-Metaphysics:
Philosophy (reason) and theology (faith) seek together the same purpose: to understand the One Reality to which all belongs.
We grow up with a consciousness of dualistic realms, namely, that spirituality is one realm of reality, and materiality is another. Our consciousness is pulled in opposing directions because it is divided by cross-purposes of spirit/ matter. The schism can be healed by the mutuality of spirit/ matter — intention and pursuit of common purposes — that is what philosophy and theology do together, what reason and faith do.
The title terms introduced here have been handed down from the Greek philosopher Aristotle. The root word is “physics”, in Greek, "physika" means the physical world, things having dimensions that are quantifiable, that can be measured, weighed, etc. The word "meta" means with, alongside; so "metaphysica" means that which accompanies matter, physical realities, namely, such immaterial processes as consciousness, intelligence, what are spiritual, non-material qualities.
From experience we know that nothing comes from nothing and that everything comes from something. So, from where does spirituality, non-physical qualities come from? The traditional answer is God, who is Unconditioned Spirituality. God is also understood to be the Creator of the material world as well; so metaphysical consciousness is spiritual awareness that directly links Divinity and materiality.
The science of quantum relativity introduces factual insights that change the handed-down dualistic world of Aristotelian Philosophy and Scholastic Theology (the philosophy/ theology of St. Thomas Aquinas that prevails officially in the Catholic Church). Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity says that all matter is from energy, is energy. What that says is that "unqualified" energy (prephysics) becomes qualified in the substance (reality) of all matter; also in quantum science, physica are understood to come from something prior, namely, from "prephysica", some prior subjectivity/objectivity (cosmic energy). The dualisms of energy and matter, of soul and body that have been rationalized in Aristotelian Philosophy and Catholic Theology (Scholasticism), no longer adequately inform postmodern awareness.
Scholastic Theology teaches about “divine providence” operative in nature. The question for believers today is “does quantum science do away with the understanding of divine providence, of God present in creation?” No. Quantum science gives a new, fresher and more credible sense of God, of Divinity.
The quantum-scientific understanding of “prevision” and “provision”, the providential essence of nature and God, is found not in the dual realms of physics and metaphysics but in the continuity and oneness of prephysics, physics and metaphysics.
In effect it can now be said that the tradition of dualistic rationalizing, energy vs. matter, is “debunked” by the “prephysics” understanding of unqualified energy, from which physics and metaphysics derive and are sourced.
The premise of Prephysics may be to some a provocative insight for it challenges the anciently held philosophy and theology of metaphysics. But, it also makes sense of the energetic manifestations of metaphysics in physical substances.
All substance is internally dynamic, hence, matter is energetic, “spiritual” in its qualifications; in fact, it is the “spiritual”, energetic dimension of matter that drives transformations and enables relationships. New science presents a basis in fact for the primacy of spirituality, for the primacy of conscience.
Only lately have I come to appreciate this potential solution to the dualistic divide between physics and metaphysics and between philosophy and theology. From correspondence with a treasured friend, the late James N. Studer, OSB, it has become clear to me that he also came to a sense that there is an answer for the dualistic breach between matter and energy, physica and metaphysica. On February 9, 1993, Father Studer wrote me:
“You exercise a metaphorical flight that takes you beyond what by my metaphorical action I can handle. Your poster with the figures like ‘in pontifical umbrage of [phylum filled tomes]’ does not make enough sense to me literally to handle it metaphorically. You … build in, almost unconsciously, my system of criteria for judging fundamentally what is real. You build it into a powerful intuitional system that is often sufficient to use implicitly the rational criteria (ordinarily more obvious, more complementary) that I need for appropriate qualification of an ordinary intuitional system for judging. You don’t need a metaphysics. We more peasant types do.”
[RELIGION & CIVILITY, pp 67,68, Print-On-Demand, www.authorhouse.com]
All the best! slsteffen
Gino is to be commended.
Gino is to be commended. Duality between the material and spiritual must be breached by faith.
In a country like Australia with its vast and varied landscapes, the power of nature is a reflection of God's presence. There can be no doubting the divine presence in coral reefs, rainforests and unique outcrops like Uluru.
Our indigenous people loved the land for tens of thousands of years and speculated about its origins in highly spiritual terms.
Westernization has brought both economic development and a growing alienation of people from both Nature and God.
This week's News Report of sexual attacks on a child of ten in an indigenous community is a sign of this despair:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/11/2116136.htm
Regrettably too, Australia is one of the world's high energy users with major cities following the North American Models of sprawling Freeway Cities whose design is largely contrived by commercial land developers of shopping malls and housing estates eating into green space. Some of the best farmland around Brisbane is now idle and awaiting subdivision on the fringes of the Sunshine and Gold Coasts.
Cities are being chocked by traffic grid-lock. Conservative Politicians call for more freeways and commercial road tunnels rather than stronger planning measures and use of more public transport.
On 24 November 2007, Australians chose a new direction by electing the National Labor Government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. One of the first changes has been the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol to control Greenhouse Gas Emissions. The New Australian Government is a cautious environmental player and needs the support of people of goodwill to go further.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/11/2116137.htm
His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI made a remarkable commitment to use an inclusive faith as a defense against the problems of alienation in his address to the Youth at Loreto in Italy on 1 September 2007. This wonderful homily should have attracted more attention. Indeed, it is a bit difficult to locate on the Vatican Web Site.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2007/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20070901_veglia-loreto_en.html
Gino will be pleased at the harmony between spirituality and the enthusiasm of youth as creative agents for change in the Kingdom of God.
"Thus in the United States,
"Thus in the United States, a Catholic candidate for president found himself threatened with excommunication because he chose to exercise his own conscience and political judgement on the issue of abortion..."
"Jesus then said to those Jews who believed in Him," If you remain in my Word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32)
Now, I don't know about you, but my vote is with Jesus.
P.S. According to Father Basil Cole, a Dominican Theologian and consultant to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "If a Catholic publicly and obstinately supports the civil right to abortion, knowing that the Church teaches officially against that legislation, he or she commits that heresy envisioned by Can.751 of the Code of Canon Law. Provided that the presumption of knowledge of the law and penalty and imputability are not rebutted in the external forum, one is automatically excommunicated..." (Catholic World News, Oct,18,2004).
John Kerry was well aware that, " the teaching condemning any direct abortion
is a dogma of Divine and Catholic Faith and that the denial of the same constitutes heresy."
I would suggest that John Kerry actually excommunicated himself.
Anne, A lot of people
Anne,
A lot of people suggested that John Kerry excommunicated himself. However, if John Kerry had expressed himself differently, as opposing government oversight over what women do after they get pregnant or by saying it is the woman's responsibility not to choose abortion instead of the government's responsibility to make sure she can't, would he have excommunicated himself in your view?
I would suggest that there is a major difference between supporting legal abortion and advocating that women have abortions. The latter, it seems to me, is what "publicly and obstinately" supporting the civil right to abortion means.
I would suggest that there
I would suggest that there is no such thing as 'excommunicating yourself'. That is a pseudo-term that indicates that the church realizes it cannot figure out how to control something, as we've discussed on the cafe in the past. If the church could excommunicate on all the bases that people can come up with, then why doesn't it? And, simply enough, because the facts don't come in that way. There is no question but that the church would like to return to a time when it controlled the political sphere, but its attempts to do so in diverse political societies usually fail more than they succeed. And make the church look pretty awful in the failings.
In an excommunication 'latae
In an excommunication 'latae sententiae' it could be said that the person who commits the offense excommunicates themselves. No pronouncement is needed, but the penalty remains (ie. the women who attempt ordination and then attempt to celebrate the Eucharist are automatically excomunitcated).
In a purely practical sense people 'excommunicate' themselves from family, social groups, even churches every day. Simply withdrawing from the community is a form of self-'excommunication'. The difference is normally when we 'excommunicate' ourselves from a secular group we don't still demand our 'rights' in that group.
++++++
Friends of OLGC
Well, lots of things can "be
Well, lots of things can "be said", HT, so I'm glad we're getting so we agree more and more on here! Being that you are into definitions (?--or just canon law?), a definition of excommunication is like such as this, just to pull one, "To deprive of the right of church membership by ecclesiastical authority". As in, they have to do the work of showing something serious enough to deny sacramental response by clergy, to put people outside the membership (on this earth, only)...People do, in fact, have rights of membership by baptism, rights that extend until the end of all times into eternity...thus indelible. Yes, in old talk that you prefer, the "milk-bottle soul" receives an INDELIBLE mark of membership. Guess what? That hasn't changed.
Now, I fully realize--as do you--that canon law can be written (any whitchy-way) so that the definition is effectively "transformed", shall we say, or turned around, shall we say? To whit: you do what we say not to and you've done it to yourself without us doing anything. Because we don't know what else to do...or we are too lazy to make the case...or we really just want your catholic friends to gossip and shun you in age-old human group fashion...or whatever...
I say that is meaningless, except to cause pain, as is intended. And I say it's cheesy. And I say it's controlling. And I say it's lazy.
When we leave a secular group, we take a hike. We don't excommicate ourselves...when we leave the church, we can always come back...and GOD SEES ALWAYS THE INDELIBLE MARK ON OUR SOUL..
The Church's ancient and
The Church's ancient and misinformed understanding of human sexuality is at the root of its hurtful theology/ ecclesiology. [BTW, the Jesuits are in a unique position to do something about it.] Let me explain what I mean by way of excerpting from an essay "Feminity: Cosmic Rationality's Ground State", from my book QUANTUM RELIGION, pp 127-130, available PrintOnDemand from www.authorhouse.com
"As the atomic nucleus monitors and grounds the energetic attraction between the nucleus and electrons, so woman is the central consciousness and grounding of the nuclear family; the elemental “trinity” of these essential structures, physically, psychically and vitally, is embedded in all societal groupings. Conscious fidelity by all Earthlife groupings (and by individuals composing them) to the essential fact-grounding of their vitality in atomic/molecular “femaleness” is prerequisite for individual/social vitality to exist and flourish.
"Self-reflective consciousness enables reflective intentionality and purposeful action. Femininity, consciously grounds free electrical energy (electrons—masculinity) in purposeful action. Femininity mirrors divinity directly in purposeful creativity, for it is the evolved rationality of cosmic vitality and the inherent centeredness of family, church and civil society. [One] definition of femininity is 'the evolved groundstate of conscious, cosmic soul/substance.'
"If a fundamental cause is to be identified for the wasteful disasters being wreaked on Earth and her vital resources, a prime candidate is the violent effrontery of males who have from time immemorial arrogated unto themselves — to the exclusion of women — the groundstate position in the organization of societal order. Hope for humankind, indeed, for all life, lies in a turnaround of societal consciousness that restores female centeredness to its universal role in the cosmic working of atomic/molecular soul/substance.
"Personal call to conscience is inspired by family experience. When family voice speaks authentically in the upbringing of a child, the child can most generally be trusted to respond authentically. When family voice lacks authenticity and speaks from conflicted grounding, the child will grow up conflicted. Modern societies are composed of members who have grown up in families with conflicted voices. These members have been deprived the experience of familial harmony and are uprooted from a consciousness of their own authenticity.
"This psychic disorder, that is, the mental confusion of being uprooted from one’s inherited authenticity by conflicted familial voices, is called “schizophrenia”. So imprinted in societal patterning is male arrogance against the cosmic authenticity of female groundedness that the psychic disorder resulting from it is manifest in physiologic disease — to the point that it is now difficult to distinguish cause from effect. Indeed, certain genes may be transmitted which physiologically dispose certain individuals to the psychical manifestations of schizophrenia.
"In authentic family living, the call of conscience, if not instinctive, certainly appears early in individuals as a sense of personal obligation to serve one another. This instinctive/ intuitive rationality is a “rationality of service”, the underlying rationality of the universal call to priesthood. It is as essential to female rationality as it is to male, if not more so, for nurture is experientially and preeminently associated with femaleness. Priesthood, the call to service is quintessentially the conscionable intuition of cosmic vitality — femininity.
"Life’s expectation, received from the lineage of all life that precedes us, is a natural inheritance. It’s the same for every person and is really quite simple, as St. Paul realized: “to proclaim the truth openly and to commend ourselves to every man’s conscience before God.” (2 Cor. 4:2). As St. Paul says, “this treasure we possess in earthen vessels”. The treasure’s incomparable worth finds its measure in Jesus’ example and teaching. “For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts, that we in turn might make known the glory of God shining on the face of Christ.” (Id: 6,7). That treasure is the personal consciousness of divinity; personal consciousness finds its worth in the lived lessons of exemplification and teaching.
"If we do not exemplify and communicate the message of Jesus’, Christian altruism, we miss the very service-mission that characterizes the essential groundedness of our own being. Paul’s Christian insight of universal obligation to conscience is at the same time the rationality of cosmic consciousness. Exemplification and teaching live on, even after our “earthen vessel” has yielded its light to death and its fragile tissue has returned to Earth’s dust whence it came.
"Light, insight, consciousness, conscience, cosmic/ Christian rationality/ spirituality, is the message, and we are “earthen vessels”, its messengers. In fact, like Jesus, like Paul, we are the messenger and the message. Female and male, we are, each and together, messenger and message, priest and “eucharistic” victim. Like wheat, we are in fact "gifts of light"; we are bread and spirit — eucharist — to one another. Maturity is a dying, the shedding of our own light for the benefit of others. “Unless the seed dies, it remains itself alone.” Light is our origin. Light is our destiny. The sharing of light is our mission...
"...In 1946 I matriculated at the SVD Preparatory Seminary, Epworth, Iowa, and I continued with the SVD until September 1957. At this time, having completed High School, Novitiate, College (Juniorate), Philosophy and First Year Theology, I came to the decision to discontinue formal studies to become an institutional priest. In a sweet turn of irony, I went on to marry and became the privileged father of six daughters and grandfather to seven grandchildren.
"The reason behind my decision not to become an institutional priest, as I gradually have come to understand it, was my conflicted consciousness over institutional Catholicism’s inability to reconcile universal and institutional priesthood with masculinity and femininity. The institution advances a theology that alienates women from it, not only from priestly service in Church, but also from its rationalized concept of God. This was to me a misdirection that I could not give my life to.
"The intuitive sense of harmonic family is to predispose young people to vocations of altruism. If their experience in responding to their intuition discovers institutional disharmony with natural harmony, the young are likely to opt fidelity to natural harmony over the conflicted voices of institutions. This may explain, in part, today’s crises in vocations to the priesthood and ministry; namely, that institutions fail to ground themselves in the rationality of natural authenticity and fail ultimately in sustaining their appeal to youthful idealism.
"The centrist, male mindset of Roman Catholicism is so engrained, theologically and structurally, that it is unlikely either for its theology or its male hierarchy to change unless and until women en masse refuse to accept the status quo, and, as a body reclaim their natural, God-given authenticity, theological and structural. After all, it is by reason of divine intention, scripted in Christian and cosmic rationality, in femininity, that Sacrament is experienced universally in the intensionality/ intentionality of cosmic energy/ matter — in conscionable soul/ substance.
John Allen: if Pope Benedict
John Allen: if Pope Benedict is the composer of "Spe Salvi," the great sumphony of hope, then you are the Toscanini masterfully conducting the symphony. Your essay on the Pope's latest encyclical was itself a moment of great music and poetry. The "Ratzingerian" musical score you describe sounds so uplifting that I can't wait to get a copy of the encyclical. I personally very much need to start humming the Pope's music of hope.
True indeed, Gino, John
True indeed, Gino, John Allen has become very in tune with Benedict over all these years and seems to have a good grasp of audience as well as the "musicians." I don't think he knew he would be in this position and is probably as surprised by the "Sound of Music" as the rest of us!
Did Christ speak Latin?
Did Christ speak Latin? www.pope-ratz.blogspot.com/
So how can the Vicar of Christ make Latin the "official language" of the Mystical Body of Christ?details in The John Paul II Millstone http://jp2m.blogspot.com/
When did Christ ever wear red expensive shoes, don on ornate ceremonial albs, be surrounded and protected by a private army, be a political head of state, write Ph.D books no one can understand except himself and by a few men, oppress those who work with and for the poor like Jon Sobrino? If Christ were to visit Rome today, what would he say about the worse sins of pedophile priests seething beneath the Vatican archives (Crimen Sollicitationis) which are worse than the sins at the Temple of Solomon?
Would he recognize the Peter-the-Rock clones residing at the grand palace of the Vatican rivaling the palace of the Ceasars of Rome? Christ would gag at his ostentious "Vicar of Christ" when they meet for the first time, they'd be like the Prince and the Pauper, the Pope being (and dressed as) the Prince!
full article in http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2007/08/benedict-xvi-vicar-of-christ-and-jon.html