Atlantis Online
March 29, 2024, 02:00:43 am
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Scientists to drill beneath oceans
http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php/topic,8063.0.html
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

Europe' Smallest Countries: - THE VATICAN

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 [7] 8 9 10   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: Europe' Smallest Countries: - THE VATICAN  (Read 3483 times)
0 Members and 50 Guests are viewing this topic.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #90 on: February 06, 2009, 10:28:07 pm »










Seeing revival in traditionalism



"Benedict wants the restoration of European Christianity, that's at the heart of this." says Catholic theologian Frank Flinn, of Washingon University in St. Louis. "He wishes to nullify the left, the liberation theologians. The Vatican seems to buy the theory that right-wing churches attract members, along the growth model of Evangelicals. A church making demands with stricter rules – the call of traditionalism – is seen as reviving the church in Europe."

Germans in particular – having spent decades confronting the Holocaust, fighting to end its legacy, making Holocaust-denial a crime – were unable to ignore a German-born pope who, in trying to promote church unity, nonetheless opened the door to misunderstandings about a central emotional project of postwar Germany. This week, the Bishop of Mainz, the Archbishop of Berlin, the leading theologian Hans Kung, and a host of German newspapers strongly and openly disagreed with the pope's decision to start restoring the St. Pius group.

The Bavarian-born pope has been especially popular in Munich, a heartland of German Catholicism. But the shine has been wearing off. "I am a Protestant and my wife is a Catholic, and we were both very proud to have a German pope," says Friedemann Losch, a retired professor. "But now we are unhappy with the mistakes Benedict is making. The church is split between modern Catholics and traditionalists, and Benedict is making it worse. We don't understand why."

Pope Benedict is known for a theological brilliance rooted in a traditional conception of Catholicism as the true church. As Cardinal Ratzinger, he held the highly influential post of "Head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith" and was known informally among liberals as "the Pope's Rottweiler" for his purges of Vatican II advocates. The Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Cardinal Schonborn, helped Ratzinger rise to the papacy, saying it was his destiny to restore the church, particularly in a Europe viewed as in spiritual decline and increasingly pagan. Benedict's project is to bring back some of the more devout faithful, such as the Pius X group – whose vision hearks back to a medieval period of stability, certainty, authority, and papal infallibility.

Yet Benedicts efforts are perceived, rightly or wrongly, as reversing the ecumenical focus of his predecessor, the popular John Paul II – and setting up "clashes" between faiths. The current outcry in the Jewish world comes in a context of other moves by the Vatican to step up to controversial religious lines: In 2006, at a speech in his academic hometown of Regensburg, the pope angered the Muslim world by quoting a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who said that Islam and the prophet Muhammad had brought only "evil and inhuman things." In 2007, he irritated Protestants by pronouncing their churches illegitimate and in need of reconciliation with Rome, in order to live fully in Christ. Even early efforts by Benedict to harmonize with the Eastern Orthodox world have run into criticism by Russian and other orthodox prelates for a lack of follow up and for aggressive missionizing in their lands.

Wilton Wynn, a long-time Vatican observer and writer who was close to Pope John Paul II, said in a phone interview from Rome that Benedict had been emerging as a strong proponent of "right-wing Catholicism, almost reactionary," when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, but that when Ratzinger become Pope Benedict, "there was almost no discussion about this. Now we are beginning to see the differences.

"I think the papacy is moving to the right more and more. He [Benedict] may even rather have a small dedicated following than a broad, less dedicated community."

Last week, Benedict angered the German Catholic hierarchy by appointing – without traditional consultation – a bishop in Linz, Austria, who had said that hurricane Katrina was divine retribution for sin, and a cleansing of nightclubs and abortion clinics.

This week, amid the furor, Benedict made a series of affirmative statements about St. Paul, Martin Luther, and the Catholic church's need to learn the lessons of the Protestant reformation.

Yet on Thursday, the Financial Times Deutschland quoted Georg Brunnhuber, a lawmaker from Merkel's Christian Democratic Party, who spoke to the pope this week and said the Vatican "is horrified by the discussion in Germany.... The impression there is that all of the anti-Catholic resentments hiding under the surface in Germany are now coming to the surface."

The St. Pius X group is also known as the Lefebvrist sect after its founder, French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who led attempts in the 1970s to renounce Vatican II. Vatican II brought new efforts to modernize and open the church, to shift away from the use of Latin in services. It corresponded with a rise in liberation theology that stressed in poor nations that individuals had a right to challenge repressive regimes. The group was finally excommunicated under John Paul II. 
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 [7] 8 9 10   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum
Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy