RIGHT WING, REACTIONARY POPE?

I've never been a fan of Ratzinger - but a person whose views I often learn from had a mixed review of him on a2k at one point, that being Fbaezer. Maybe he'll show up here, and if not I'll try and chase down what he said back then.

Have to add that Ratzinger was part of a kind of last stand for me with the church - he and Hans Kung had a go-round on matters of contraception that I followed for a while back in the early sixties. Ratzinger won. I was disgusted.

There is a church here in Oak Park that follows Lefebvre's version of Catholicism. I visited the church during one of their Sunday masses. The service was entirely in Latin. I became an altar boy about 2 years before the Vatican II reforms and was required to memorize the entire worship in Latin. Decades later, attending such a service made me feel like I was suffocating. My wife was given a "head covering" to wear when we stepped inside. It reminded me of the low status of women in the Catholic Church.

Why do I hear complaints about Catholicism's organization from those identifying with the Catholic church and the thought does not seem to include, "Well, I will just join a Protestant church!"?

I do not understand what makes lapsed Catholics or practicing Catholics feel that there is no other recourse to being a Christian than being part of "the Church"?

Like Jews can be Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist. Protestants have many denominations. What is it about Catholics, that I have heard complaints, but never with the obvious solution of joining another brand of Christianity?

My own blunt opinion is that Catholicism, being a world-wide faith, seems to instill in its adherents an identity that is amazingly impervious to frustration with the faith.

I also have the opinion that in Protestantism there seems to be a forward looking mindset, while in Catholicism there is a rehashing of the past to better order the present? Catholicism reminds me of Orthodox Judaism. Protestantism reminds me of Reform Judaism.

Now everyone can go back to discussing "the Church ."

Foofie, you are a complete idiot . . . but in addition to that, you're a great braying jackass. No one here, but you, ignorant sod, mentioned "the Church." Since you obviously didn't read the linked material, and are obviously ignorant of the issues being discussed here, why don't you go bother some other thread with your equally stupid and uniformed opinions of Israel?

I learned to serve the mass in Latin, and in fact, was obliged to take courses in Latin. I steadily resisted that instruction, which i now regret, because wish i had had the sense to develop fluency in Latin.

The mass was something ritualistic, but intellectually disconnected from the community in any parish when it was in Latin. It was a boring service, and the celebrant only connected with the congregation during the sermon, if he didn't put everyone to sleep.

I hadn't thought about the treatment of women, but, of course, i did link an article about the ordination of women. I suspect the Catholic Church will lag behind in that matter, as well.

I attended an Orthodox Bar Mitzvah. Women were not allowed to sit with the men. The women all sat in a section that was separated from the worship by a "makeshift" wall.

Women are also assigned a lower status in Catholic worship.

My point is that regardless of "the issues being discussed here," there are Catholic people that complain about their faith, yet would never think to join another brand of Christianity. Perhaps, you can enlighten me? As we know, Luther was a Catholic priest.

My point is that you typical idiotic bullshit has nothing to do with the topic of the thread, which is embodied in the title. But don't worry, Foofie, now that you've **** all over the thread, it will probably die quickly.

About 30% of the world wide Lutheran Church does not ordain women either.
Nor do some free churches.

I’ll comment on a peripheral issue raised by Wandel…the Latin rite.

I learned to be a server while in the Air Force. The chaplain needed servers…and I volunteered to learn the Latin responses.

Ended up being lucky enough to serve Mass in the Basilica of St. Peter’s in Rome…and I served the Catholic Prelate of England, Cardinal somebody (name doesn’t come to mind).

I am an agnostic now…but I still think the Latin Rite was the way to go; I think doing away with it was a negative for the Church rather than a positive. There is a beauty and a majesty that about it that, to me, is incomparable.

As for Benedict…well, Benedict is gonna be a very conservative pope.

I think that for the Church, that is a good thing.

I am not Catholic, I don´t understand Latin, but I have heard the mass read in Latin and it was something special. I have attended church in Italy and it was in Italian and also that I enjoyed.
I enjoy the lithurgy in the Catholic, Lutheran and Angelican Church but no church service in a reformed church as they have no enjoyable lithurgy.

I learned the Latin mass while still a boy, seven or eight years of age. It simply wouldn't have occurred to me that any boy in the the Catholic Church did not learn the Latin mass in those days--perhaps all of us did because our parish was rural and small town based, and they needed everyone to step up (our priest celebrated the mass at least once each day).

I understand what people say when they speak of the beauty of the Latin mass, but i also know that for many young people, it was just the most obvious factor in the boredom they felt with church services. For many of the altar boys, they learned no Latin, they were just gabbling responses which they knew by rote and had learned phonetically--they really had no clue what they were saying.

This sort of thing is even more likely to be true for rural peasants in places like South America, where they would have trouble even with a "vernacular mass" in Spanish, never mind Latin. And for the reason of the ability of the priest to make contact with his congregation, i think the possibility of Catholic conservatism bodes ill for the organization. In central and South America, the charismatic and fundamentalist Protestant sects have already made deep inroads in a formerly almost exclusively (at least nominally) Catholic adherence. In fact, both inspired by the Second Vatican Council, and aware of the "threat" posed by American charismatic missionaries, it was the priests of South America who developed what is now known as liberation theology.

So, i disagree with Frank, i think Benedict will not be good for the Catholic Church. (Next post about the pope, too.)

Benedict has called holocaust denial intolerable.



You can read the entire article at the English language news portion of the ANSA web site. (ANSA is an online news service of several Italian newspapers and news organizations.)

My mixed view was on the early days of his papacy.
I had liked what he wrote about love, and another bull, so I imagined he was going to make a gradual shift from the charismatic style of Woytila to a more "intellectual" papacy, destined to try to keep the faithful in richer countries -who were leaving the Church by droves.
He has been both ineffectual and too conservative.

Woytila made the Catholic Church more similar with the evangelical movements than with the stablished Christian churches of European roots (both Protestant and Orthodox). This shift -which meant more power to some orders and movements, usually right wing and fundamentalist- was also a dive into blind faith and emotions, vis a vis discussion of the doctrine and how to live with it.
The movement proved to be too big for Ratzi to not go with the flow.
I happened to be in the Vatican the day in 2007 when some Maltese priests were sanctified and what I saw -as movement of fanatic masses- had nothing to do with the way the Holy See was in the times of Paul VI. It was a sort of Religious Disneyland, all spectacle, tourist buses and police barriers. Exactly the same crap Woytila worked so much to build, only John Paul II was charismatic himself. Ratzinger is a poor and strutting player upon the stage. Yuck.

So Ratzi is not near his flock, has supported the same extreme right wing factions his predecessor did, has promoted the mingling of the Church with politics (not only, but most clearly in Italy, where he and Berlusconi tortured poor Eluana Menglaro's family) and has had several stupid blunders, showing the place of his cold heart (not ecumenical, to say the least).

--

As for the mass in Latin, Vatican Council II got rid of it, in an intent of making the Church nearer to the people. I think it was a good idea for the Church, but since it was more formal than substantial, it is now part of the right wing populist movement who took over.
Ratzi in his heart is right wing, but not populist. He'd love to have Latin back, but he knows it would do him no political good.

I have no particular opinion about the current Pope except to note that his current focus on a rather more conservative orthodoxy is generally consistent with the Church's historical reversion to its norms after a period of - in its terms - significant change. I'm sure the merits or lack of them on this question and his motives are arguable on both sides.

I too grew up in a Catholic environment, served as an altar boy, like most beginning at about 10 years of age. The Latin ritual was always a beautiful, meaningful and even reassuring thing to me. Nothing mysterious about it - We studied the language in school and I recall the liturgy equally well in both English and Latin. In an interesting way the Latin separated the ritual from the vulgarity of life. It remains a meaningful and beautiful thing to me.

That our existence and the material world is the act of a higher being seems very clear to me - though I don't particularly worry about what others believe on this persistent question. I no longer practice the faith but, perhaps a bit like George Santayana, I believe that it or something like it (I don't know of an acceptable or better alternative) is necessary for the maintenance of our cultural, spiritual and even practical lives.

I didn't realize there are so many former altar boys on A2K who learned the Latin mass. Does anyone remember singing: "Tantum Ergo - Makes your hair grow"?

I could probably serve Benediction still...with a bit of help from some Latin card prompts.

I think I could sing both Tantum Ergo...and O Salutaris Hostia with no trouble.

Actually loved the ritual part of religion...of the Catholic religion.

But when it came down to dogma...I ran into some problems.

Was gonna become a priest....and then discovered that women were much too important to my life. Best for me and the Church that I never went that direction.

Dominoes, dominoes . . . who hid the dom-min-noe-oh-ohs?

I canna play dominoes better than you can.

And my brother's contribution to liturgical wit: In the name of the Daddy-O, the Laddy-O ana Holy Spook . . .