The Bishop's Weekly Column from the Parish Bulletin

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

CATHOLIC CHURCH

Pope Benedict XVI

April 24, 2005

"We might have to part with the notion of a popular Church. It is possible that we are on the verge of a new era in the history of the Church, under circumstances very different from those we have faced in the past, when Christianity will resemble the mustard seed [Matthew 13:31-32], that is, will continue only in the form of small and seemingly insignificant groups, which yet will oppose evil with all their strength and bring Good into this world."

These words come from a 1996 book written by the then Josef Cardinal Ratzinger: Salt of the Earth. These words were not included in the English translation but in the German language original and they created such a flap in Germany at the time the book was published that they were omitted in subsequent translations.

The Cardinal clearly admits that the Catholic Church will most likely be less than its former self, and much reduced in numbers in the future. The man who prophesied this has become the man to shepherd us in this 21st century.

The media has been rife with all sorts of conflicting speculation about what a Ratzinger Papacy might mean – doom and gloom merchants abound and now this: the new Pope is himself a "doom-and-gloom" merchant ? No don’t believe any of what you read and hear concerning this man. Most of the "talking heads" in the media seem to be repeating what they heard the other one say; few people really know this man !

Few people know this man I say, and that is very much surprising, since he comes to the papal throne with scores of published books and speeches galore which lay out for all to read his program of action and none of the "experts" have read a word he has written. For years our new Pope has sounded the alarm and proposed solutions in his books to all of the major problems facing today’s Church. He calls it the "reform of the reform". Vatican II was hijacked and the original intent needs to be made clearer and blurred distinctions need to be made sharper.

I think anybody who watched his homily to the Cardinals at the conclave Mass will have been stunned by his blunt statement of the real problem within the Church today – bad theology. He said in part:

"How many winds of doctrine we have known in these last decades, how many ideological currents, how many fashions of thought? The small boat of thought of many Christians has often remained agitated by the waves, tossed from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, etc."

He went on:

"Every day new sects are born and we see realized what St. Paul says on the deception of men, on the cunning that tends to lead into error (cf. Ephesians 4:14). To have a clear faith, according to the creed of the Church, is often labeled as fundamentalism. While relativism, that is, allowing oneself to be carried about with every wind of "doctrine," seems to be the only attitude that is fashionable. A dictatorship of relativism is being constituted that recognizes nothing as absolute and which only leaves the "I" and its whims as the ultimate measure."

And he proposed a solution:

"We have another measure: the Son of God, true man. He is the measure of true humanism. "Adult" is not a faith that follows the waves in fashion and the latest novelty. Adult and mature is a faith profoundly rooted in friendship with Christ. This friendship opens us to all that is good and gives us the measure to discern between what is true and what is false, between deceit and truth. We must mature in this adult faith; we must lead the flock of Christ to this faith. And this faith, the only faith, creates unity and takes place in charity."

When I heard these words at about 4.30 am on Monday morning last, I almost fell off my chair in horror: "Right speech, wrong time !" I thought. What Cardinal Ratzinger had done was to throw down the gauntlet of challenge to the College of Cardinals and to say, in effect – elect a man who will teach that Christ and His Church are the only means of salvation or watch the total extinction of the Church. My only thought now was that he had decided that he was too old to be given the task before the Church but that he had better use the platform of his current job as the Dean of the College of Cardinals to warn them of the seriousness of the crisis before us all.

Evidently the College of Cardinals recognized the same crisis and placed upon his shoulders the burden of leading us away from it.

Already as a young priest at the Second Vatican Council he began to become worried and then sounded the alarm:

"Now and then, on returning from Rome, I found the mood in the Church and among theologians to be quite agitated. The impression grew steadily that nothing was now stable in the Church, that everything was open to revision. More and more the Council appeared to be like a great Church parliament that could change everything and reshape everything according to its own desires. (…)

When I came home after the Council’s first session, I had been filled with the joyful feeling, dominant everywhere, of an important new beginning. Now I became deeply troubled by the change in the ecclesial climate that was becoming ever more evident. In a presentation at the University of Münster on true and false renewal in the Church, I tried to sound a first warning signal, but few if any noticed. I then became more emphatic at the Bamberg Catholic Congress in 1966, so much so that Cardinal Döpfner expressed surprise at the "conservative streak" he thought he detected." Milestones pp 132 & 134.

Unlike most if not all of his critics (Traditionalists a well as liberals) I have read many of Benedict XVI’s books, written as the then Cardinal Ratzinger, and I am convinced that the world does not know this man. I am also convinced that since the College of Cardinals has entrusted this man with the highest office in the Church that they hold out great hope that he will lead us away from the brink. One commentator breaks with the mould of the rest (because he, like me, has read what the Pope really thinks and believes) and suggests the following analysis:

"The popular media have assigned Ratzinger the image of a dour conservative, cracking down on dissenting theologians. Quite the opposite might be the case: as pope, Ratzinger might conceivably become something of a unifying figure in the Christian world.

From an institutional vantage point the Church appears weakened beyond repair. Not only the faith but also the faithful are at risk. I hold out no hope for today's Europeans. But Ratzinger places his hopes on the purely spiritual weapons that made Christianity a force to begin with. He has said, in effect, "I have a mustard seed, and I'm not afraid to use it." I do not know, of course, whether he will have the opportunity, but were he to ascend to the throne of St Peter, the next papacy might be more interesting than the last one."

One thing is clear, this papacy will not be a continuation of the last despite the fact that some Church hierarchs are trying to say that it will. Already liberal ex-theologians are wagging their heads in disbelief at the Cardinals’ choice. The Church is in for an even rockier ride, but I think a purification also. Only a Pope who is a theologian can possibly lead us away from four decades of "nightmare theology" and given his proposals and now the top job perhaps we might yet see a change. Remember what little Jacinta from Fatima always used to say (because Our Lady told it to her): "Pray for the Holy Father !" Now more than ever!