Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 6:17am

PopeWatch: Benedict Speaks

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The Pope Emeritus has given an interesting interview:

 

Pope Benedict reminds us of the formerly indispensable Catholic conviction of the possibility of the loss of eternal salvation, or that people go to hell:

The missionaries of the 16th century were convinced that the unbaptized person is lost forever. After the [Second Vatican] Council, this conviction was definitely abandoned. The result was a two-sided, deep crisis. Without this attentiveness to the salvation, the Faith loses its foundation.

He also speaks of a “profound evolution of Dogma” with respect to the Dogma that there is no salvation outside the Church. This purported change of dogma has led, in the pope’s eyes, to a loss of the missionary zeal in the Church – “any motivation for a future missionary commitment was removed.”

Pope Benedict asks the piercing question that arose after this palpable change of attitude of the Church: “Why should you try to convince the people to accept the Christian faith when they can be saved even without it?”

As to the other consequences of this new attitude in the Church, Catholics themselves, in Benedict’s eyes, are less attached to their Faith: If there are those who can save their souls with other means, “why should the Christian be bound to the necessity of the Christian Faith and its morality?” asked the pope. And he concludes: “But if Faith and Salvation are not any more interdependent, even Faith becomes less motivating.”

Pope Benedict also refutes both the idea of the “anonymous Christian” as developed by Karl Rahner, as well as the indifferentist idea that all religions are equally valuable and helpful to attain eternal life.

“Even less acceptable is the solution proposed by the pluralistic theories of religion, for which all religions, each in its own way, would be ways of salvation and, in this sense, must be considered equivalent  in their effects,” he said. In this context, he also touches upon the exploratory  ideas of the now-deceased Jesuit Cardinal, Henri de Lubac, about Christ’s putatively “vicarious substitutions” which have to be now again “further reflected upon.” 

With regard to man’s relation to technology and to love, Pope Benedict reminds us of the importance of human affection, saying that man still yearns in his heart “that the Good Samaritan come to his aid.”

He continues: “In the harshness of the world of technology – in which feelings do not count anymore – the hope for a saving love grows, a love which would be given freely and generously.”

Go here to read the rest.  Christ did not die on the Cross for His followers to embrace the common notion today that God loves us just the way we are and that we are all bound for Heaven:

 

13Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. 14How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!

Matthew 7:  13-14

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Father of Seven
Father of Seven
Thursday, March 17, AD 2016 5:02am

Well said, Donald. Christ did not die for indifferentism. Pope Benedict’s views should be seen as a direct rebuke to those of his successor.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Thursday, March 17, AD 2016 7:31am

May God bless and protect Pope Emeritus Benedict XXVI.
.
And may God be merciful in having Jorge Bergoglio deposed and anathematized.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Thursday, March 17, AD 2016 7:31am

Opps, XVI, not XXVI. Argh! Fat fingers!

Philip
Philip
Thursday, March 17, AD 2016 7:43am

Refreshing interview.
No off the cuff pie in the sky.
Thanks Pope Emeritus.

I have watched family members depart from the Way the Truth and the Life because of this indifference that is NOT repudiated by the Church hierarchy. Then add to that the rebuke we get when we try to teach the truth. We are bigots, closed minded and hate mongers.

Meanwhile Jesus weeps
and we the remnant carry on in the footsteps
of Christ. Carrying our Cross up the mountain.
Knowing our Good Friday is near.

Dale Price
Dale Price
Thursday, March 17, AD 2016 7:49am

All right–the Pope defending the importance of being Catholic! W00t!

bill bannon
bill bannon
Thursday, March 17, AD 2016 9:32am

Hmmm. But Benedict spoke of the Jewish non convert Etty Hillesum in Rahner terms. Invincible ignorance can be caused by scandals like the sex abuse period and its coverup.

“…I am also thinking of Etty Hillesum, a young Dutch girl of Jewish origin who died in Auschwitz. At first far from God, she discovered him looking deep within her and she wrote: ‘There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there, too. But more often stones and grit block the well, and God is buried beneath. Then he must be dug out again’ (Diaries, 97). In her disrupted, restless life she found God in the very midst of the great tragedy of the 20th century: the Shoah. This frail and dissatisfied young woman, transfigured by faith, became a woman full of love and inner peace who was able to declare: ‘I live in constant intimacy with God’…”

— Benedict XVI, 13 February 2013

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Thursday, March 17, AD 2016 12:14pm

Bill Bannon wrote, “But Benedict spoke of the Jewish non convert Etty Hillesum in Rahner terms…”
Not really. As the Abbé Brémond explains, “In the course of the normal development of man, there occur moments in which the discursive reason gives place to a higher activity, imperfectly understood and indeed at first disquieting.” “This higher activity is intuitive rather than logical in its methods. It knows by communion, not by observation. It cannot give a neat account of its experience: for this experience overflows all categories, defies all explanations, and seems at once self-loss, adventure, and perfected love…. This other kind of knowledge is more like bathing in a fathomless ocean, or breathing an intangible and limitless air. It gives contact and certitude, but not understanding: as breathing or bathing give us certitude about the air and the ocean, but no information about their chemical constitution.”
This is what distinguishes it from the knowledge imparted by revelation; it is purely experimental – « connaître » rather than « savoir » in French It is as different from the Christian’s understanding of God as a Breton fisherman’s knowledge of the coast differs from that of a naval hydrographer.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Thursday, March 17, AD 2016 12:44pm

Michael PS,
I could use you as a lawyer in traffic court on the 23rd if you’re near Bayhead N.J.

Philip
Philip
Thursday, March 17, AD 2016 1:16pm

bill bannon.

I appreciate the interesting contrasts from our former theologian, Pope Emeritus.
However reading too much into the life of Etty Hillesum isn’t to cloud over the truth that all religions are not salvific. The Mercy of God is that fathomless ocean and the giver of intangible and limitless air dispenses grace as He chooses. The path however is mapped out for us. For those who have never been privy of the map? Mercy.

May you be granted mercy come the 23rd.
If MPS is in the States, and near Jersey, you will have success no doubt.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Thursday, March 17, AD 2016 1:35pm

Philip,
If Michael PS spits rap like that into the mic in that court which is off Double Trouble Rd….we’ll both get life in prison.

Philip
Philip
Thursday, March 17, AD 2016 1:40pm

bill bannon.

So your NOT going to use your frequent flyer miles to get him fighting in your corner.
I misunderstood.

The spitting rap thing….
…..cool.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Thursday, March 17, AD 2016 2:21pm

Philip,
One religion…Catholicsm…has the fullness of the means of salvation but Pope Benedict in that audience would be incomprehensible to Pope Eugene IV because the latter wrote what Yves Congar would call the incomplete infallible which means he wrote a paragraph that is true but not the entire story. Pope Benedict and probably the entire magisterium notice unlike Eugene IV that invincible ignorance can come by bad behaviour of a person meeting Catholicism in the concrete encounter which can be good or ill. The homeless women who find shelter with Catholic nuns meet Catholicism as Christ meant it to be and they have no excuse for later rejecting the evangelization by one of those nuns. The young agnostic student who attends Fordham and sees Fordham supporting their married gay theology prof…he is not encountering Catholicism as willed by Christ who was the author of Romans chapter one condemning all gay acts as acts. That student for that reason and maybe others God knows about, has now a sense that Catholicism is not the true religion and he moves on. But God still wills his salvation and can accomplish that outside the sacraments which the catechism notes God created but is not bound by. Otherwise God could not save the invincibly ignorant which is absurd….ccc 1257…” not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude; this is why she takes care not to neglect the mission she has received from the Lord to see that all who can be baptized are “reborn of water and the Spirit.” God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments”.

Philip
Philip
Thursday, March 17, AD 2016 2:56pm

Thank you bill b.

Understood.
Obligation and responsibility lie upon the Church and it’s faithful. Our examination will be thorough for sure. What God chooses is his will, however our will united to His is true Catholicism.

DJH
DJH
Thursday, March 17, AD 2016 6:36pm

I don’t think Christ died for indifferentism either, but I have a hard time picturing my parents in Hell, which as non-members of the Catholic Church they most surely must be. I also have a hard time believing that Christ intended to require us to belong to and support with time, talent, and treasure the current Church–with a Pope who wavers on contraception, marriage, adultery, etc and Princes who live a lavish lifestyle, won’t condemn pro-abortion politicians, and offer to the laity expensive “Catholic” schools with non-Catholic teachers and questionable curriculum.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Thursday, March 17, AD 2016 7:37pm

DJH,
Try to find at a Catholic College which you trust a theology prof or at Trappist monastery which you trust…a holy monk or someone to talk to about what you just said about your parents. You have in my first post Pope Benedict implying that a Jewish young lady had received faith and hope and love…sanctifying grace directly from God as a non Catholic. You have ccc 1257 telling you God is not bound to the sacraments which He created…otherwise He couldn’t save those in invincible ignorance. I’m stunned at your judgement of your parents which the Council of Trent forbids outside of revelation…Session VI, first decree, chapter 12….”for except by special revelation, it cannot be known whom God hath chosen unto Himself.” You’re judging your parents and Christ clearly forbade such. Yikes.

Philip
Philip
Thursday, March 17, AD 2016 7:40pm

DJH.
Baptised parents?
I can’t fathom their souls in Hell either.

What of the soul who never heard of Jesus?
Invincible ignorance?
God looks at the heart.
Men look otherwise.
Jesus I Trust in you.

DJH. What of your parents dispositions prior to departure?

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Friday, March 18, AD 2016 2:43am

Good for Pope Benedict. Without belief in hell the Catholic religion is rather pointless.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Friday, March 18, AD 2016 5:17am

Michael Dowd wrote, “Without belief in hell the Catholic religion is rather pointless.”

Absolutely central to the Apostolic preaching is the second and glorious coming of the Lord. St Paul says, “because He set a day in which He is about to judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He appointed, having provided a guarantee to all, having raised Him out from [the] dead.” (Acts 17:31)

Now, as St Isaac of Syria explains, for those who love the Lord, His Presence will be infinite joy, paradise and eternal life. For those who hate the Lord, the same Presence will be infinite torture, hell and eternal death. St Maximus the Confessor, too, explains that the “fire” that will consume sinners at the coming of the Kingdom of God is the same “fire” that will shine with splendour in the saints. It is the “fire” of God’s love; the “fire” of God Himself who is Love. “For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29) The fire of hell and the uncreated light of Tabor are one and the same.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Friday, March 18, AD 2016 5:57am

Michael PS,
Matthew 25:41 has Christ seemingly distinguishing the fire of hell as unique: ” Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels.”
It was prepared for a group specifically. That it was prepared means it did not exist before it was prepared.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Friday, March 18, AD 2016 7:00am

“It [hell] was prepared for a group specifically. That it was prepared means it did not exist before it was prepared.”
.
I wonder how much of this is hyperbole. The reason why I say that is because words such as “before” and “after” imply time which is a physical dimension subject to the laws of physics in our multi-dimensional universe. Spirit beings such as angels, the devil and his demons are not subject to the laws of physics. I therefore wonder if in heaven and hell there is any such thing as a time dimension or three spatial dimensions. I do acknowledge that the Bible says that our bodies will one day be resurrected from the dead, and that Jesus Himself had a resurrected body. Yet we now from the Scriptural record that that body was not subject to the laws of physics (e.g., instantaneous transport between different spatial coordinates, dematerialization and rematerialization through enclosed doors and walls, etc.). All these things point to the plainly miraculous. So descriptors such as “before” and “after” are simply a crude way of trying to describe aa spiritual reality: hell is for the devil and his demons, heaven is for God, His angels and the redeemed. Without the laws of physics, space and time mean nothing.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Friday, March 18, AD 2016 7:32am

Lucius,
Space no…time yes. Hell and purgatory have time; Heaven doesn’t. There was a before and after to the demons’ rebellion. Aquinas said the angels have no dimensive quantity as I recall. They are neither tiny nor gigantic unless they take on a visible form like the angel in Tobias.
In Ezekiel 28, the king of Tyre slowly becomes a metaphor of Satan as here:
” 14
With a cherub I placed you;
I put you on the holy mountain of God,*
where you walked among fiery stones.
15
Blameless were you in your ways
from the day you were created,
Until evil was found in you.”

Now unless the king of Tyre was immaculately conceived, he symbolizes satan from verse 14 onward. So Satan was immaculate like all angels but then after time, he fell.

DJH
DJH
Friday, March 18, AD 2016 7:51pm

As noted, I have a hard time putting my parents Hell. But the Church does teach No Salvation Outside the Church, so it seems to me that the Church is teaching error. You can’t have No Salvation Outside the Church and then have all these exceptions. As Benedict notes…why bother to convert anyone to Christianity? My parents were baptized Episcopalians, but lapsed when the Episcopal Church got loopy in the late 60s.
.
Trust me, I “judge” my parents quite well actually, far, far better than any priest or bishop I’ve ever met.
.
It is partly due what I perceive as their good example the Church and Her hierarchy look ever dimmer. Father even said the Catholic Church was the last group to hold any standards. That was back under JPII. I don’t want to know how disappointed they’d be with the current Pontiff.

bill bannon
bill bannon
Saturday, March 19, AD 2016 7:35am

DJH,
” Salvation is from the Jews ” said by Christ to the Samaritan woman at the well. If you stop there and fixate only on that quote, you won’t know the whole Christ. If you only read Pope Eugene IV, you won’t know the whole Church. The broader Christ told of the good Samaritan heretic ( they rejected everything in the scriptures except the pentateuch…and changed a sentence in that) …the good Samaritan heretic who helped a mugging victim when Jews passed by uninvolved. Christ prioritized the Samaritan’s conduct far above his heresy.
Christ was almost killed in His home area for saying Elijah during the famine was sent to no widow among the Jews but to a widow in Jezebel’s native land…Sidon. And Christ noted that there were many lepers in Israel during Elisha’s day but only Naaman the Syrian was cured.
Christ told the pleading Canaanite woman He had come only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel ( ps…He had already cured the centurion’s servant)….He was joshing her….the Bible has many ruses like Solomon finding the real mom by threatening to cut the infant in two. Then Christ hears the Canaanite’s retort and exclaims…” woman, great is thy faith”.
That sounds a lot like Benedict in 2013 praising the “faith” of Etty Hillesum…an unconverted Jew. Christ is the beginning of this specific “liberalism” of prioritizing conduct far above affiliation. Always ask yourself if you had been a strict Jew when Christ talked in that time and you were there near Him….would you have joined that group who agitated for His death. The person who senses that Catholicism is the true faith but backs away because right now they are free from any strictures on their behaviour…those people perish in hell if they maintain that attitude til their last breath. But there are millions of people worldwide who don’t consider Catholicism at all after the priest sex abuse
decades. Yet God loves them despite that type of psychological invincible ignorance caused by the “good” tree in this case producing bad fruit. God can save them through Christ and through the Church not by their converting but by God working on their ethics…as Christ prioritized the ethics of the heretical good Samaritan. They can thus be saved through the Church without knowing it…like the good Samaritan or the good thief.

Philip
Philip
Saturday, March 19, AD 2016 7:55am

bill bannon.

Beautifully worded and thought out.
I hope DJH appreciates the poetry.

Lionel Andrades
Lionel Andrades
Sunday, March 20, AD 2016 1:13pm

Rahner’s Anonymous Christian is main line Catholic theology : coming back full circle
http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2016/03/when-fr.html

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