Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI RIP

 

May Angels lead you into paradise;

may the Martyrs receive you at your coming

and lead you to the holy city of Jerusalem.

May a choir of Angels receive you,

and with Lazarus, who once was poor, may you have eternal rest.

Catholic tales

Pope Benedict XVI leads the New Year solemn mass in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Photo: EPA

A headline from The Telegraph in January 2011:

"First Anglicans are received into the Roman Catholic Church in historic service. The first Anglicans have been received into the Roman Catholic Church under a scheme set up by Pope Benedict XVI." 

After five years I am pleased for those Anglicans who have made the journey and have found contentment but there are still many Anglicans who are unable or unwilling to make the same journey for a variety of reasons even though their own church has left them.

I greatly admire Pope Benedict XVI. He showed great courage in setting up the Ordinariate. I am pleased that his vision has been a success but I feel less affection for a church which has caused so much misery to so many in the name of Christ.

Families built on 'mixed' marriages over many generations will have experienced refusal to recognise marriages, rejection of children and cruelty meted out by nuns, Christian Brothers and the like. Not having been directly on the receiving end, it is easy for me to say it is the message not the messenger but that has not prevented those who have suffered refusing to return, often leaving a gap in their lives. I find that so sad.

What amazes me is the ignorance of many cradle Catholics, not just the laity but priests too, who appear to regard non-Catholics (separated brethren) as though they are barely Christian and doomed to purgatory. Ironically many Anglo Catholics are probably more 'Roman' in their worship than many cradle RCs so I was particularly disappointed to read a well respected blogger penning  Eucharistic Miracles and Protestants? Perhaps it is simply the zeal of a Pauline convert or the perception of a former Evangelical but I do not recognise my fellow worshippers in this description as they genuflect to the Blessed Sacrament:

"Protestants deny the truth of transubstantiation... Nevertheless, when Protestants get upset that they are not admitted to communion in a Catholic Church, Eucharistic miracles remind us that Catholic do actually believe that something different is going on at Mass. Sure, we share baptism and faith in Jesus Christ with non Catholic Christians, but they themselves deny transubstantiation so I always wonder why they get upset when we affirm their denial and say they shouldn’t come to communion."

This was the Conclusion of the 1971 ARCIC declaration on Eucharistic Doctrine:

[12.] We believe that we have reached substantial agreement on the doctrine of the eucharist. Although we are all conditioned by the traditional ways in which we have expressed and practised our eucharistic faith, we are convinced that if there are any remaining points of disagreement they can be resolved on the principles here established. We acknowledge a variety of theological approaches within both our communions. But we have seen it as our task to find a way of advancing together beyond the doctrinal disagreements of the past. It is our hope that, in view of the agreement which we have reached on eucharistic faith, this doctrine will no longer constitute an obstacle to the unity we seek.

There has been more dissent born out of ignorance reported in the blogsphere. From Fr Hunwicke in Tales from the Ordinariate (2) and Twisting a Tale of the Ordinariate from Antique Richborough which thankfully offers more hope.

Amidst this squabbling it was another piece which caught my eye in the 'Catholicism Pure & Simple' blog, The Biggest News Story Never Told. - "What’s the biggest news story of our time? What has been the biggest story for the last decade and one-half? Answer: the resurgence of Islam, and, in particular, the rapid spread of Islamic jihad. But, with a few exceptions, you would never know it from reading the Catholic press."..."Catholic bloggers and journalists are still fighting yesterday’s battles without seeming to realize that we are in the midst of a new battle." [My emphasis - Ed.]

Christianity is being wiped out in the Middle East. It is frequently mocked in the West as secularism replaces faith. It does not help if people of faith opt for blind obedience out of fear. Fear God, yes, but worshippers should not be frightened into submission. That is Islam. God gave us free will. We should use it to unite in hope, not divide. 

The Mission

A Jesuit from South America, Pope Francis, is to lead the world's 1.2 billion Catholics. God grant him the strength to complete His mission on earth in the steps of the beloved Benedict XVI.

A thought for Lent - and beyond.

Re-posted from 14 March, 2011:

"The common practice today is to measure the Bible against the so-called modern worldview, whose fundamental dogma is that God cannot act in history - that everything to do with God is to be relegated to the domain of subjectivity. And so the Bible no longer speaks of God, the living God; no, we alone speak and decide what God can do and what we will and should do. And the Antichrist, with an air of scholarly excellence, tells us that any exegesis that reads the Bible from the perspective of faith in the living God, in order to listen to what God has to say, is fundamentalism; he wants to convince us that only his kind of exegesis, the supposedly purely scientific kind, in which God says nothing and has nothing to say, is able to keep abreast of the times."

Pope Benedict XVI

'JESUS of NAZARETH'

Pope Benedict XVI

True to his word, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI has announced his retirement for the good of the church because the burden of office demands more than his failing strength can muster. Appointed at an age when he was looking forward to retirement his early vigour has visibly waned before our eyes, suffering the indignity of being wheeled around on a trolley and in danger of becoming a figurehead manipulated by others, something  he was determined to avoid. His visit to Britain was a momentous occasion saddened only by the separation of the church. Who could not have been impressed with the grandeur of the occasion when James MacMillan's music announced the Pope's Westminster Cathedral entrance in contrast to the frail figure bestowing his blessing on all. God grant him a long and happy retirement.

Women in dog collars

Photo: Jane Mingay

How sad that this is what the Anglican church has come to. Dominated by women in dog collars desperate for purple shirts as though they have a God given right to be bishops. Such is the force of their feminist movement in the Anglican church they now dominate debate in England and Wales bringing with it all the equal rights baggage of parity, same sex partnerships and their pension rights.

The latest news from the BBC will give women clergy even more courage to oust all those who oppose their feminist strategies, faithful Anglicans or not, putting all their trust in synodical governance over the faith and tradition of the Universal church using their preposterous claim that their manipulations are the work of the Holy Spirit.

In our Creed we still claim to be members of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church but unilateral decisions of Synod have separated us from the wider church of East and West at a time when great strides are being made towards unity. Putting religious differences aside, this dialogue from "Light of the World" [ISBN 978-1-86082-709-9] on 'Overdue Reforms?' sums-up the position of women's ordination in the Universal Church:

"The impossibility of women's ordination in the Catholic Church has been clearly decided by a "non possumus" of the supreme Magisterium. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith laid this down under Paul VI in the 1976 document Inter insigniores, and John Paul II reinforced it in his 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis. In this document, speaking in virtue of his office about the "divine constitution of the Church", he writes —and these are his exact words—"that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful". Critics see this as a form of discrimination. The only reason Jesus did not call women to be priestesses, it is said, is that this would have been unthinkable two thousand years ago." - Peter Seewald.

"That is nonsense, since the world was full of priestesses at the time. All religions had their priestesses, and the astonishing thing was actually that they were absent from the community of Jesus Christ, a fact that in turn is a point of continuity with the faith of Israel. John Paul II's formulation is very important: The Church has "no authority" to ordain women. The point is not that we are saying that we don't want to, but that we can't. The Lord gave the Church a form with the Twelve and, as their successors, with the bishops and the presbyters, the priests. This form of the Church is not something we ourselves have produced. It is how he constituted the Church. Following this is an act of obedience. This obedience may be arduous in today's situation. But it is important precisely for the Church to show that we are not a regime based on arbitrary rule. We cannot do what we want. Rather, the Lord has a will for us, a will to which we adhere, even though doing so is arduous and difficult in this culture and civilization. Incidentally, women have so many great and meaningful functions in the Church that there can be no question of discrimination. That would be the case if the priesthood were a sort of dominion, whereas it is actually intended to be pure service. If you look at the history of the Church, women—from Mary to Monica and all the way down to Mother Teresa—have so eminent a significance that in many respects they shape the image of the Church more than men do. Just think of major Catholic feast days such as Corpus Christi or Mercy Sunday, which originated with women. In Rome, for example, there is even a Church where not a single man can be seen in any of the altarpieces." - Pope Benedict XVI

Thought for Lent (2)

"Have faith, and let faith be your guide."

Pope Benedict XVI

JESUS of  NAZARETH

Togetherness

A step in the right direction again thanks to Pope Benedict XVI.