To elaborate on the Magisterium of the Catholic Church is our mission on Plinthos (Gk. "brick"); and to do so anonymously, so that, like any brick in the wall, we might do our little part in the strength of the structure of humanity almost unnoticed.
Here is a recent performance of in dulci jubilo by the Regensburg Domspatzen. I heard this amazing boy's choir sing for the annual Regensburg Ordination in the City Cathedral during my time in Regensburg a few years ago. It was the most beautiful sound I have heard in this life! They were singing directly behind me in the sanctuary of that medieval Cathedral. I am also familiar with the Audimax where they did this December 19, 2023 concert, that is the same auditorium of the famous/prize-winning Benedict XVI Regensburg Address at the University of Regensburg.
P.S. Today is the one year anniversary of the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. May he rest in the peace of Christ, and may he intercede for us before God for the Church and for the world, right now. Amen. We sorely need his help from heaven. May the Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on us all.
Here is the text of the song.
Latin/German Text
English Translation
1. In dulci jubilo, Nun singet und seid froh! Unsers Herzens Wonne liegt in praesepio, Und leuchtet als die Sonne Matris in gremio, Alpha es et O!
In dulci jubilo [In quiet joy] Let us our homage show Our heart’s joy reclineth In praesepio [In a manger] And like a bright star shineth Matris in gremio [In the mother's lap] Alpha es et O. [Thou art Alpha & Omega]
2. O Jesu parvule Nach dir ist mir so weh! Tröst' mir mein Gemüte O puer optime Durch alle deine Güte O princeps gloriae. Trahe me post te!
2. O Jesu parvule [O tiny Jesus] I yearn for thee always Listen to my ditty O puer optima [O best of boys] Have pity on me, pity O princeps gloriae, [O prince of glory] Trahe me post te. [Draw me unto thee]
3. O Patris caritas! O Nati lenitas! Wir wären all verloren (verdorben) Per nostra crimina So hat er uns erworben Coelorum gaudia Eia, wären wir da!
3. O Patris caritas [O Father's charity] O Nati lenitas [O Newborn's mildness] Deeply were we stained Per nostra crimina [by our crimes] But thou hast for us gained Coelorum gaudia [Heavenly joy] O that we were there.
4. Ubi sunt gaudia Nirgend mehr denn da! Da die Engel singen Nova cantica, Und die Schellen klingen In regis curia.
Eia, wären wir da!
4. Ubi sunt gaudia [Where be joys] If that they be not there There are angels singing Nova cantica [New songs] There the bells are ringing In regis curia [At the king's court] O that we were there.
Never has a pope been so clear and courageous in unveiling
the roots of violence in Islam, before Benedict XVI. And not afterward, either.
Two obligatory rereadings, to decipher the Egyptian crisis
by Sandro Magister
ROME, August 20, 2013 – In a few days many
dozens of churches, convents, homes of Christians in Egypt have been attacked or burned.
A tragedy within the tragedy, after the coup d'état that has plunged the nation
of the Nile into a civil war with hundreds if
not thousands of victims.
In covering the news of the numerous appeals for the cessation of violence,
“L'Osservatore Romano” of August 18 did not, however, succeed in listing among
these invocations even one from the Muslim world.
This public silence of the Islamic spiritual guides does not come as a
surprise. It accompanies almost every act of political violence that sees
Muslims in action, in one or another region of the globe.
It is a silence that is not explained by calculations of timeliness alone, or
by the fear of retaliation. Nor by the fact alone that today in Egypt the
greatest clash is between opposing Muslim factions, both of them determined to
assert with force the precepts of Islam: because it is not only the Muslim
Brotherhood of the deposed president Mohamed Morsi that has a conception of the
political struggle as jihad, as holy war, but this is also held by its
adversary, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the general placed at the head of the armed
forces by Morsi himself because he was believed to be the most faithful
Islamist of all.
In order to understand the ultimate root of the silence of Muslim spiritual
leaders in the face of the explosion of violence of Islamic inspiration, one
need do just one simple thing. It is enough to reread the initial part of the
lecture given by Benedict XVI on September 12, 2006 in the aula magna of the University of Regensburg.
The aggressive actions with which Muslim men and groups reacted to this lecture
were the tragic confirmation of the correctness of the theses presented by pope
Joseph Ratzinger. According to whom violence associated with faith is the
inevitable product of the fragile connection between faith and reason in Muslim
doctrine.
No pope before Benedict XVI had ever had the clarity of vision and courage to
express such a blunt judgment of Islam, nor to formulate with such rigor the
difference between Islam and Christianity.
Within the Catholic Church Benedict XVI was highly criticized for having dared
so much. He was accused of having destroyed the “dialogue” with the Muslim
world.
In reality, just two months after Regensburg
pope Ratzinger recollected himself in silent prayer in the Blue Mosque of
Istanbul. And he was able to perform this gesture - otherwise incomprehensible
- precisely because he had stated clearly what was his thought in this regard.
And it was precisely from the lecture in Regensburg
that there came to life that sprout of Islamic-Christian dialogue that found
its expression in the “letter of the 138 scholars” written to the pope by
Muslim representatives of various orientation.
Not only that. Also in that autumn of 2006, during his voyage to Turkey,
Benedict XVI said clearly to the Muslim world that it was facing the same
challenge that Christianity had already faced and overcome positively: that of
“welcoming the true achievements of the Enlightenment, human rights and
especially the freedom of faith and its exercise.”
Here as well, no pope had ever gone so far before Benedict XVI. Nor afterward.
Even today.
To the civil war that is inflaming Egypt
Pope Francis dedicated these words, after the Angelus on the feast of the
Assumption:
"Unfortunately sorrowful news is arriving from Egypt. I wish to pledge my prayers
for all of the victims and their relatives, for the wounded and for those who
suffer. Let us pray together for peace, dialogue, reconciliation in that dear
land and in the whole world.”
And three days later, at the Angelus of Sunday, August 18, he may have alluded
to it:
"The Gospel does not authorize in any way the use of force to spread the
faith. It is precisely the contrary: the true force of the Christian is the
force of truth and love, which involves renouncing all violence. Faith and
violence are incompatible.”
But let us return to the Ratzinger of 2006 and to those memorable words of his
on Islam, which are also decisive for understanding the Egyptian tragedy.
The following is what he said in the lecture of Regensburg
on September 12 and how he commented - after he had returned to Rome - on his voyage to Turkey that same autumn.
__________
1. IN REGENSBURG
[…] I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the
dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by
the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on
the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. […]
In the seventh conversation ("dialexis" - controversy) edited
by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The
emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in
religion". According to some of the experts, this is probably one of the
suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat.
But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and
recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war.
Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to
those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses
his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness that we find
unacceptable, on the central question about the relationship between religion
and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that
was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his
command to spread by the sword the faith he preached. The emperor, after having
expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why
spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is
incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God",
he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably ('sun logo')
is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever
would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason
properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one
does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of
threatening a person with death...".
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not
to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor,
Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek
philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is
absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories,
even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French
Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that
God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal
the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry.
At this point, as far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of
religion is concerned, we are faced with an unavoidable dilemma. Is the
conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek
idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see
the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and
the biblical understanding of faith in God.
Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole
Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: "In the
beginning was the logos". This is the very word used by the emperor: God
acts, "sun logo", with logos. Logos means both reason and word - a
reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as
reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in
this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find
their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos
is God […]
2. AFTER RETURNING FROM TURKEY
[…] In a dialogue to be intensified with Islam, we must bear in mind the fact
that the Muslim world today is finding itself faced with an urgent task. This
task is very similar to the one that has been imposed upon Christians since the
Enlightenment, and to which the Second Vatican Council, as the fruit of long
and difficult research, found real solutions for the Catholic Church. […]
On the one hand, one must counter a dictatorship of positivist reason that
excludes God from the life of the community and from public organizations,
thereby depriving man of his specific criteria of judgment.
On the other, one must welcome the true conquests of the Enlightenment, human
rights and especially the freedom of faith and its practice, and recognize
these also as being essential elements for the authenticity of religion. As in
the Christian community, where there has been a long search to find the correct
position of faith in relation to such beliefs - a search that will certainly
never be concluded once and for all -, so also the Islamic world with its own
tradition faces the immense task of finding the appropriate solutions in this
regard.
The content of the dialogue between Christians and Muslims will be at this time
especially one of meeting each other in this commitment to find the right
solutions. We Christians feel in solidarity with all those who, precisely on
the basis of their religious conviction as Muslims, work to oppose violence and
for the synergy between faith and reason, between religion and freedom. […]
__________
The complete text of the lecture in Regensburg on September 12, 2006, with the
notes added subsequently:
Pius V took a deep breath. "There was a man, one sent from God, whose name was John," he said for the third time, and now he was speaking in his usual voice--or was he? Tall and erect, no longer trembling, he went on with the sacred words, to the end of the Mass..."
"You Eminences," the Pope said, "Your Excellencies. The Supreme Commander of the fleet of the Holy League will be Don Juan de Austria."
Juan of Austria was born in Regensburg from the Emperor's brief liaison with Barbara Blomberg (a singer) on 24 February 1547 (the same birthday as his father [24 February 1500]).
The plaque on that infamous house has a poem about the event.
In this old house, the so named and world renowned Lord Emperor Charles V often rested after long journeying, and one fine day kissed a virgin's mouth here.
From there was born a son like his father, Don Juan of Austria who destroyed the power of the Turk at the Battle of Lepanto.
May the Lord repay him at every moment both now and forever.
In diesem haus von alter Art
Hat offt geruet nach langer fahrt
Herr KAYSER CARL DER FÜNFFT genandt
In aller Welt gar wohl bekannt
Der hat auch hie zu gueter stundt
Geküsset einer jungfraw mundt
Dann draus erwuchs dem Vatter gleich
Der DON JUAN VON OESTERREICH
Der bei LEPANTO in der Schlacht
Vernichtet hat der Türckhen Macht
Der HERR vergellts ihm allezeit
So ietzt wie auch in Ewigkeit
The original of the Regensburg statue is in Messina (below) where there is an annual municipal celebration in August to commemorate the embarking of Don Juan from there in the year 1571, commanding the Holy League fleet.
1572 Monument to Don Juan of Austria by Andrea Calamech, a sculptor from Tuscany; head of Ali Pacha, commander of the Ottoman Fleet at the Battle of Lepanto, under Don Juan's left foot and the point of his sword
The fact that the Church's College of Cardinals is presently manipulated by Pope Francis appointed McCarrick favorites, is a fact that cannot be lost on Pope Leo XIV. But The Lion seems to be sound asleep!
When the foxes are in the henhouse someone has to chase the foxes away! It is the chief job of the shepherd to ward off the abusers of the flock, the abusers in every respect. The present day ubiquitous liturgical bullying is akin to the widespread moral effeminacy among the pastors of the Church, and to it's twin, weakness in sound leadership.
Consider the "wolf in sheep's clothing" of the Regensburg Bishop's Garden, "The Goose-Sermon Fountain!" It is in the center of the Cathedral courtyard beside the medieval cathedral of Regensburg, Ratzinger's Regensburg!
The Gänsepredigtbrunnen (goose sermon fountain, 1980) depicts the medieval story of the Goose Sermon: a fox who was too slow to catch geese dressed up as a clergyman and gave a sermon to the geese. When the geese fell asleep, he was able to catch them. It’s an allegory about false preachers and their gullible believers.
"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." --Jesus Christ (Matthew 7:15)
Here is the oath made by each cardinal at inserting his ballot at a conclave: "Testor Christum Dominum, qui me iudicaturus est, me eum eligere, quem secundum Deum iudico eligi debere."
"He's a good theologian, he's an excellent philosopher!" McCarrick on Francis' teaching.
One great irony is that McCarrick's only conclave elected Joseph Ratzinger Pope! I sense some regret for that in this speech.
McCarrick died on 3 April, Bergoglio on 21 April 2025.
N. B. "On the other hand, maybe the devil did not have your accommodations ready." Pope Francis to McCarrick on the key to the latter's longevity.
Requiscant in pace!
__
Here is the full McCarrick speech manuscript, faithfully taken down by Plinthos, in case the YouTube video should become unavailable. This is a very important speech for the state of the present Papacy!
Villanova University does not endorse and assume no liability for the material appearing or opinions expressed in this video. [split-second flash on the screen as McCarrick appears]
It’s really a pleasure to be here and to talk about one of, I think, the favorite subjects of most priests in the world, Pope Francis. I am happy that some of my family is here. And, of course, one of my nieces is one of your outstanding students, as you indicated to me yourself, Father President, earlier.
I’m gonna take my watch off, because, although I really don’t have to, my gauge usually is when two-thirds of the group is snoring, then I stop. So that, I’ll watch carefully to see when that happens in this community. As long as one-third is still awake then I’ll continue to go on. I don’t know how long it will last. I may not,...I may be one of those who fall asleep first because I had a great meal. I thank you Father President for that,...for that great treat.
I wanna start by saying, I’m very prejudiced, I’m very biased. I think this is an extraordinary man, the one whom God has given us as Pope. And I just thank the Lord every day. I really do, for this Holy Father. A strong man. A wise man. But more than anything else, a really good man. A man who understands people. A man who understands right and wrong, who understands weakness, who understands strength. I believe the Lord gave us the best He could find. And that’s, of course, always a great blessing because you get then someone very, very special. And I think Jorge Bergoglio is someone very, very special.
I wanna start with three stories. [Some audio adjustments] Because if I don’t start now, I’m never gonna finish. And, you know, the bad thing is you’ve heard them all before. The good thing is it’ll make me happy if I tell them. Because I think they’re great stories about the Holy Father. One is the Swiss Guard story. You all heard the Swiss Guard story? Well, thank you Father President, that’s very nice of you.
The Pope moved in to other rooms in the guesthouse. There is, in the Vatican, a guesthouse. It’s a hotel-like building. It has rooms with bathrooms and beds and everything like that. It has, it’s four floors and on the second floor was the room that they had always set aside for special guests. And, when he became Pope, they moved him in there, just for a day or two. Well, he was happy there. And, he doesn’t wanna leave. And I don’t...they’re gonna have to get him out with a screwdriver because he’s not gonna leave, as far as I know. But in order to, I’m using an expression, jazz it up a little, they decided to put the Swiss Guards all around, and, so, now they have Swiss Guards at the door of the guesthouse, and when you go inside the guesthouse, and then on the second floor, where he lives, right outside his room they have a guest,...they have a...Swiss Guard. And he stands there all the time as is proper, you know, this is a, this is the Pope. But, one day, right after they began to do this, the Holy Father gets up, I guess at 5 and he goes down to pray at 6 and o’er his Mass at 7. So at 6 o’clock he opens his door to go down and start his meditation to get ready for Mass. And he opens the door and he sees this kid there, the Swiss Guard, holding the halberd there at attention. The Holy Father looks at him. And he says to him. He says, “Son, how long have you been standing here?” “Since midnight, Holy Father.” The Pope says, “Since midnight?” “Yes, Holy Father.” The Pope goes back into his room. And a minute later he comes out with a chair. And he puts it down and he says “Sit down.” And the kid says “Holy Father, we’re not allowed to sit down.” And the Pope says “Sit down anyway.” And, the other part which I think may be apocryphal. He says “Are ya hungry?” But is very much like to Pope to do it, so I believe it could be possible. No cause he says “No, Holy Father.” He says “Ya want be to get ya a sandwich or something?” He says “No, Holy Father.” Cause, the kid is now terrified. When the sergeant comes and sees him sitting down, holding his sword. And eating a sandwich, even worse, eating a sandwich. So the Pope goes and, within fifteen minutes every Swiss Guard in the whole Vatican heard that story. Because, it was just, suddenly you have someone who really worries about people. Really worries about them and is concerned about ‘em, and is not afraid to do something about it. Even if it means he lifts up a chair himself and brings it out and says “Sit down.”
The second story is the reason why he stayed at Santa Marta, the guesthouse. The Jesuits, obviously want to take advantage of this poor fellow because he’s a Jesuit. If he was an Augustinian you guys would be trying to get at ‘em too. So, they have a number of high schools in Rome, in the Roman area, and they said “Holy Father, can we bring the seniors before they graduate and have a visit with you. So, he said, “sure.” So, he goes in there; they set up a hall somewhere and they have his chair on the side and he won’t use a throne. They know that now. In the beginning they put a throne and he would pick up the throne and put it down on the floor. And they said “Holy Father, you shouldn’t be carrying it.” And he said “You shouldn’t be putting it up there.” So, this is such an extraordinarily, this is a human being, someone,...in every way. So, he’s sitting down, and he says “OK, I have a talk. And as I look at you; you’re gonna be bored with my talk. So, rather than me talk, and you bored. Let’s put the talk away, and we’ll just talk.” And so, he starts to talk. He says “Do questions.” So, they asked him all kinds of questions. And, he answers them. And, you know, he’s funny. And he’s, even in the humor and everything, there’s an extraordinary streak of holiness in this fella. That, it’s wonderful to behold and wonderful to listen to. But, at the end of the thing. It’s almost over now. A little girl raises her hand. And he says “Yes?” And she says “Holy Father, why won’t you move into the palace?” You know, ‘cause he decided to live in this guesthouse. And he gives this wonderful answer after a minute’s thought; he says “for psychiatric reasons.” And everybody like jumps, and he waits, for,...he’s getting good on jokes now. He pauses for a moment then he says “I would go nuts up there.” So those are his psychiatric reasons, he says “I have to be with people. I have to be with people.” And, indeed, we think he does. And so he, but, just to come out with “for psychiatric reasons.” When I first heard I thought, this is insane. And I had a chance to speak to him shortly after that. I said “I was amazed at what you said, the answer that, “for psychiatric reasons” and we both started to laugh. And we laughed so hard Swiss Guard came to the door to look in to make sure nothing was happening in there. Because, he enjoys his own jokes. Which, I guess, I do too. We all do.
And then, the last one, the last story I wanna tell ya, then we’ll go’it a little more serious, is, I got very sick in Rome. In fact everybody thought I had, they thought I had died because they couldn’t get any life signs; so, they found out I had some,...my heart was slowing down, and, so, I have a pace-maker now. My whole family knows my story. So, I know, I...recovered. I did not die. I thought I should tell you that, in case you had some question about that. I recovered. And, that night, when they, I got back to the seminary where I was staying, I get a call. And it’s from the Pope. And, he calls; he says “How are ya, I heard you were, you were very sick, and, they say you weren’t at the Mass, ‘cause I missed his Mass. And, this is the night of his instillation; he took the time to call. And at the end, I was very honored, and at the end of the conversation I said to him; I said, very piously, as you try to be with the Pope, I said “Holy Father, I guess the Lord still has some work for me to do.” And there was a pause. And then the Holy Father said, this is a quote, the Holy Father said, “Well, that may be true. On the other hand, maybe the devil didn’t have your accommodations ready yet.” To which I said nothing. But, inside I’m saying You think that was an infallible statement? OK. This is our Pope. He enjoys life. He enjoys humor. He enjoys people. And he understands people, to an extraordinary degree. I think that we will get to know this as time goes by all the more. He’s preaching almost every day. And, you know, without notes. He goes in and he starts to preach, to the people. And I have gotten in the stage now, and I think many of us have, every day the Vatican Information Service releases what he says in the homily; and we’re all reading it. It’s almost become a new catechism to listen to the Holy Father every day talk about God, talk about the gospels, talk about our faith, an extraordinary gift. And we’re getting this from the Pope. And, because of the electronic age, we can get it within a couple of hours. We get the mind of the Holy Father, the prayerfulness of the Holy Father as he goes through. So it’s an extraordinary grace. And, but, what I wanna do, if I may now, is talk about what we know before the conclave. And then, right after the conclave. And then, what we can maybe judge from those, from that, passage of time.
Before the conclave, nobody thought there was a chance for Bergoglio. There’s a great Irish “bet-master” I guess. I don’t know what you call ‘em, whose name is Paddy Powers, in Rome,...in Dublin. And he bets on everything. He’s the great odds maker in the world. And, that’s where he makes his living; and he’s a multimillionaire. So, he, the Pope, what a great opportunity to bet on the conclave. And, so, he puts out his odds and he waits, you know, after a lot of consideration. And Cardinal Scola, the Archbishop of Milan was the favorite, as you know, it was in all the papers. And, he was three to one; which is pretty decent. And, other cardinals, Cardinal O’Malley was like twenty to one. But somehow he stuck in Cardinal Bergoglio who was two hundred to one. Just think what I could have made!, had I had some small change around when that was going on. I could have gotten my nephew Matty to raise some money for me. We could’ve been multi-millionaires. Two hundred to one! But it was interesting, as time went by the odds changed. Scola’s didn’t change because the leaders sort of continued in there. Cardinal Scola got a lot of, he got good odds. Cardinal Scherer, the Archbishop of Brazil, got good odds. Who others? Cardinal Ouellet, the Candadian, got good odds. But, and then, suddenly; and, how this happened, I don’t know. Suddenly, Paddy Powers, as he’s doing the odds, brings the two hundred guy down to a hundred to one. And, as the conclave was beginning, he was at forty to one. Well, that’s a big improvement from two hundred to one. How he got that I don’t know, to whom he was talking or how it came about. But it interesting as you saw this whole thing.
Bergoglio was a friend of mine. Because I live in a religious community in Washington, and it’s a community that was founded in Argentina, so, you know, they were always talking about Bergoglio, the Archbishop of Argentina. And that was maybe why I became;...and then, as Father said, in the College of Cardinals we’re always in precedence; you always know whose gonna be in front of you, you always know whose gonna be in back of you in lines. And I was like number sixty seven in the precedence, cause we had a hundred and fifteen. I was sixty seven; he was seventy two. So, we’d all be close by. The Archbishop of Bogota was the one most, next senior to me. But he would never know where he was going. So, he would yell out, when they would say “Your eminences would you please line up.” “McCarrick, where are you?” So I’d say, Pedro, here I am. And then, because he would yell so and usually yell where I was, so Bergoglio would come around, our time in the College. So, we would all get there.
Before the vote began there were two parts to the vote. All the cardinals are summoned to Rome, even those who can’t vote. And, if you cannot go you have to get excused, you have to you’re sick or you’re...planning a trip to the moon, or something like that,...you cannot go. So, we all go, but, the ones of us who are over eighty cannot vote, as you know. So I could not vote, I’m eighty three. So, what would happen is that, in the first week the meetings are called The General Congregations. All the cardinals are together, the voters and the non-voters. And they all talk about what is going on in the Church and what they would like to see the new pope be like, and things like that. What problems they see in the Church that the new pope should solve, and things like that. And you’re allowed four minutes to talk,...five minutes to talk, sorry. And, just about all of us talk. Especially the old guys talk because we got no chance to talk later on so we might as well talk now. I we have to say anything we have to say it now or no one is gonna listen, so. So I spoke. Some guys go like ten minutes!, you know, they figured they had a lot to say. But I was gonna say I’ll only go five. Well I only went five minutes and like fifteen seconds. Somebody clocked me. They said “you went over.” I said I didn’t. He said you went over by fifteen seconds. I said, ghee, you must be paying close attention to what I’m saying. He said “No, I was just playing close attention to how long you were saying it.” But, when, before we went into that, and then, of course, after about a week of that then you go into the conclave when we cannot even go near the place. Only the voters are allowed in. What goes on there, I just don’t know. Because, I was in another conclave; but, every conclave is different. About, maybe, just before we went into the general conversations when everybody can talk a very interesting and influential Italian gentleman came to ask if he could come to see me, so I said sure. He came to see me at the seminary, the North American College, where I was staying. We sat down. This is a very brilliant man, a very influential man in Rome; and he, we talked about a number of things. He had a favor to ask me, for, back here in the United States. But then he said “What about Bergoglio?” And I was surprised at the question. I said what about him? He said “Does he have a chance?” I said I don’t think so, cause, I, no one’s mentioned his name. He hasn’t been in anyone’s mind, I don’t think it’s on anybody’s mind to vote for him. He said “He could do it, you know.” I said what could he do? He said “He could reform the Church. If we gave him five years he’d put us back on target.” But he’s seventy six. “Yeah, five years, if he had five years, the Lord working through Bergoglio in five years could make the Church over again.” I said, that’s interesting. He said “I know you’re his friend.” I said, I hope I am. He said “Talk ‘em up.” Well, we’ll see what happens. You know, this is God’s work. So, that was the first that I heard that there were people who thought Bergoglio would be a possibility in this election.
Then, we had the General Congregations. I spoke, for five minutes and fifteen seconds, as the cardinal who timed me said. I said three things. I said that, number one, we’re getting away from the poor, and, to a certain extent, I’m afraid, in some areas of the world we were getting away from the poor. But that’s very dangerous. And I said I hope that the new, the one who is elected pope will be someone who, if he is not himself a Latin American will at least have a very strong interest in Latin America cause half the Church is there! So that you really have to begin to think of that, that’s where the people are. I forget what the third thing I said was. Probably wasn’t any good. Anyway. And then, a number of bishops, I would say, of the non-voters just about everybody spoke. Of the voters, maybe half spoke because they, you know, they could speak later, in the halls, in the lunch room, walking around. The, almost the last day, they called on Bergoglio. And he spoke for four minutes, period!, without a note, although he had obviously prepared. And without a watch. And he went on. And he spoke about something which we’ve heard from him now quite a bit: the Church on the periphery. That’s the word he used—periferio—in Spanish, he spoke in Spanish. And he said, “That’s where the Church has to be now. The Church has to be where people are hurting, people are discriminated against, where people are very poor, where people are very sick, where people don’t have homes, where people don’t have rights, where people are afraid, “I do not know how to love God anymore,” where people don’t have comfort in God’s presence anymore.” And he went on for four minutes and stopped. And, for the first time, I’m trying to think did I make this up after he was elected, I don’t think so. For the first time in those other days—there was a silence after he spoke, about thirty seconds, and nobody, Cardinal Sodano didn’t say “Thank you, your Eminence, I now call on Cardinal so and so.” It was just a pause there. Because he hit a nerve! There was some contact there, and I think, there was an Italian newspaper that found out about this, that’s why I can talk about it, and wrote in the paper, “Four Minutes that Changed the Conclave.” Because before the conclave began we had four minutes of Bergoglio talking about things that others have talked about, but doing it in a special way, and it made a difference. Was that part of it? Who knows? Was it my friend who said “Push Bergoglio,” did it say it to a lotta people? I don’t know. Because, what I wanted to do now is to talk about something that is very special to me. And I don’t know if you know about it. I want you to know about it.
You know, when the pope is elected, the cardinals who are electors go into the Sistine Chapel. You know, some have you have seen the Sistine, have been in the Sistine Chapel, so you know what it looks like. It’s a sort of long and relatively narrow room. Well, let’s say the altar is up here, the door there. There are two long wooden benches, on this side, two long wooden benches on that side. The cardinals sit behind them. And you can get like thirty people on each bench. You have a hundred and twenty voters, that takes care of it. Thirty, thirty, thirty, thirty, a hundred and twenty. There were a hundred and fifteen, a hundred and fourteen voters at this last election. So, they were there. And, what you do, in order, always, you know. When I went the last election in front of me was the Cardinal of Dublin, behind me was Pedro Rubiano, the Cardinal of Bogota. We’re always together. And what you do, you fill out your little card. You have card. It says “Eligo in Summorum Pontificem…” “I elect as Holy Father, as Supreme Pontiff...” and you write a name in. You have it in your hand. And you walk up with it in your hand. When you get to the altar, now this is the Sistine Chapel. And those of you who have seen pictures or have been there you know that behind the altar is this wonderful, powerful painting of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment. And, in front of that, you take this oath. You’ve taken oaths of secrecy before, but this is the last oath you take. And, every time you vote you take it. You know, if you vote five times, the last election they had five times, every time you vote, before you put your piece of paper with a name on in the urn you say in Latin “testo Dominus Jesus Christus qui me iudicaturus est,” its the only part I remember, it’s in Latin. “I call on Jesus Christ my Lord to be my witness, He Who will judge me.” Here you are standing before this great powerful, wonderful picture of the Last Judgment, “He Who will judge me. The man I am voting for is the one who, under God, I believe should be pope.” Now, what does that do? If you really believe that and you say it, it means this is no longer an election. This is a discernment; you are trying to discern God’s mind. You’re trying to find out what God wants. “I, the man whom I am voting for is the one whom I believe God wants to be pope.” Not the one who I would like to be pope. Not my buddy. Not the fellow who’s gonna give me a better diocese, or give me a place in Rome. Not the fellow whose gonna give me a lot of auxiliaries. The one that I believe, under God, that God wants to be pope. That really takes it out of the realm of elections, out of the realm of, you know, “my buddy, my friend;” it puts it in the realm of God. You try to read the mind of God. That’s precisely what the fellas did. And, I think that they read the mind of God; and I think that they came up with Cardinal Bergoglio.
I wanna talk about the beginning of Bergoglio. Almost every has seen that scene on the balcony; they announced who it was, and they didn’t come right out. And, I think they may have had a little bit of a quarrel in the back before he came out. They probably said “Holy Father, here is an ermine cloak to put on.” And, knowing him he probably said “Oh, thank you very much but I’m not cold.” And they said “Holy Father, here is a gold cross that you should put on.” And he probably said “No, no, I have my own, thank you very much.” And so he comes out in his plain white cassock and with his old cross on and he goes out. And the fist thing he said, every body remembered, he says “Good evening.” And with that “Buona sera” he won over Rome. Because every other Holy Father, even the great John Paul II, you know, came out with a great wonderful statement, right away. And this fella comes out and he says “Good evening.” And it hit them, because the emotion at this moment for everyone in Rome...Someone said to me, and it’s a great remark; and I wish I had said it myself. When the white smoke went up, finally we had a pope. The crowd began to sing “Viva il Papa!” “Long live the Pope!” they had no idea who it was gonna be. But, the faith of our people, our faith, this Catholic faith, we know who it is, “Long live the Pope!” “We are the Pope’s people!” “We are the Pope’s men and women!” “This is our Leader!” This is our Shepherd!” “This is our life!” “Viva il Papa!” Whoever he is! Cause nobody knew. It took an hour till they found out. During that hour some wise guy in the crowd would shout out “Viva il Papa!” and then another hundred thousand would start to cry “Viva il Papa!” And then he comes out. And they look at him. They don’t know, nobody knows who he is. Even CNN, that I was watching, didn’t know who he was. They couldn’t figure out what the name was. Then when they say his name is “Francis,” he’s gonna take the name Francis? Everybody says “This is crazy. Nobody has ever taken “Francis.” They couldn’t pronounce the name “Bergoglio.” He comes out and he says “Good evening.” They are some way or other entrenched by this. And then, remember what he does?, he says, “Before we do anything else let’s pray for Pope Benedict. And he leads them in prayer for Pope Benedict. Then he says “Now, I’m gonna take this job, this is a very tough job, would you all pray for me? And he puts his head down. And somebody starts praying for him, an Our Father, a Hail Mary, a Glory Be. During that time he’s praying. A pope has never asked people to pray for him. Oh, they have, but they, he’s never put his head like “OK, I’m gonna stop now, you pray for me.” He did. And then, the conversation. I remember the wonderful, extraordinary short talk of JPII, when he became pope. I was magnificent. No, it was something you would remember, you could memorize. But this fella was totally different! It’s not something you would want to memorize. It’s just a friendly conversation. It was like he took everybody there and was chatting with them. Everybody in the whole place and said “Well, now here I am, thank you for praying for Pope Benedict, thank you for praying for me. This is what we’re gonna try to do, and tomorrow I’m gonna go here and I’m gonna go there.” And meanwhile the guys are writing down figuring out what he wants to do the next day. And then when he gets to the next day what does he do? He visits Our Lady. There’s this great Roman icon of Our Lady The Salvation of the Roman People. He’s Bishop of Rome. He makes that clear. He’s bishop of Rome. Some of the popes have just let the Rome thing just wander by and they’re popes, they’re universal pontiffs. That he is, of course! But he is so conscious of the fact that all of this has come to him because he is bishop of Rome. They elected him bishop of Rome. He said “The cardinals have come together and they have elected someone from the ends of the earth. It’s had to get farther away from Rome than Buenos Aires, Argentina. It’s a long way off! And here he is. And he himself is amazed by this. His beginning, then, is so remarkable. Apparently he went, after he was finished he went, he waves to everybody, he goes inside and he calls his Father General. He’s a Jesuit. He never forgets that. He calls Father General. And, of course, the General is watching it on television. He’s not paying any attention to what his phone’s doing. So he calls the switchboard. And he says “May I speak to Father General, it’s Father Francis.” The operator, who is a brother, I guess, says “Father Francis who?” He says “Father Francis from the Vatican.” He says “Father Francis who?” And then the Pope says “Is this Artilio?” He says “Yes.” “Artilio, I haven’t spoke to you.” Because he knew...”Artilio I haven’t spoken to you for…” And they had this conversation for about two minutes before the guy, the operator, maybe an old gentleman, says “You are the Francis who’s pope!” And he says “Well, yes.” He said. “Hold on.” So he tries to find the General. And they can’t find the General. Finally, they find the Assistant General. There are about six Assistant Generals in the Jesuits. And they find one of the assistants and they say “The Pope is calling the General.” So, you never, I guess, you never burst in on the General. You always, you know, knock and you wait, and, whatever. They knock in and the poor General is watching the television and they say “The Pope is on the phone, The Pope is on the phone.” And it’s these strange, totally simple, and yet, extraordinary things. And then, remember the next day? He goes to pay his bill? At the Vatican hotel? It belongs to the Vatican. It’s his hotel now. But he goes to pay his bill. And, I couldn’t figure out really why he would do that. I thought, ghee, maybe it’s for show? And then I found out later on there’s a very stupid custom. Some of the bishops don’t pay. You know, they say “I’m here on business.” And they walk out without paying. They won’t do it anymore. They won’t do it anymore. So, these little things that he does, there’s always a reason. There’s always a special something there that he has in mind. So he’s, this is a brilliant man. This is a man who plots the strategy as it goes along, a man who does not forget. And then, the first days were so extraordinary.
He had Mass with the electors the second day, after the election, the day after the election he had Mass; I wasn’t there, cause I’m not an elector. But, in the old days the pope would always vest by himself. And suddenly he would appear and the procession would begin. And, suddenly, while the cardinals are getting dressed, someone comes out with another table. They say “What are you doing that for?” They said “The Pope’s getting vested.” They say “Here?” Cause the cardinals never see the Pope get vested. He always gets vested inside. He comes in. He puts his own stuff on. Talks to them while he’s getting vested, you know. This never happened. Then, I wasn’t there, I’m not an elector, but, what I hear, he goes up and they put the throne up for him. He doesn’t say anything that day. But the next day he says, you know, I’m not comfortable on a throne. Just put chair there. So he’s sitting. “Here Holy Father.” “I know what I’m gonna say.” They say “But it’s been prepared.” He said “Good, hold on to it, we may use it someday.” So he goes in and he talks, a wonderful homily. But the cardinals were there, cause they all coming back then, after that, where I was saying. And, you know, the story of the homily. Everyone had the story of the homily. How thoughtful it was. How powerful it was. How careful it was. I guess what I am more than anything trying to say, this is a real person. This isn’t a make-believe. With loves, and fears and hopes and concerns and desires and longings and prayers.
Now, watch this message. Here you know more than I. I’m not going to talk about his encyclical. I hope you read that. But, its clear, what he’s trying to do. Someone said to me earlier “You can see where Benedict stops and Francis begins in the homily. Yes you can and you can’t. Because he will take the threads of Benedict and weave them into his own theology, you know. This is not a bad theologian. He’s a good theologian; he’s an excellent philosopher. I hope some of you read the article that was in America magazine. And it was in Jesuit magazines around the world, cause he did them this great favor. He gave them this huge interview, to Jesuit publications all over the world. And they ask hard questions and he answers them. Just as he’s on the plane, coming back from Brazil. They asked him hard questions and he answers them. And he answers them gracefully, thoughtfully, clearly, prudently, and honestly. You can’t do better than that! I’m not sure I answer questions that clearly, that courageously. Do I, and do you, maybe, scoot around answers we don’t want to touch the difficult things. Not with him. What you see is what you get. What you see is what you get. And the things you get are pretty wonderful.
His first homily, to the people, he did it in that little church right outside the Porta, the Gate of Saint Ann. There’s a little church of Saint Ann. It’s the Vatican parish church. Of course it’s run by the Augustinians. Everybody knows that. And very holy Augustinians, like they all are. So, anyway, he goes there. And they say “We can only fit like two hundred people in this church.” He says, “That’s alright, there won’t be any more than that.” Well, of course, there were two thousand. And so, he goes out into the street. And the cops go crazy. The people go crazy too, they’re so happy to be with the Pope. But the cops are saying “They’re gonna kill him. Some nut’s gonna kill him.” And that’s my fear too. And I said that to him once. And he said “I know that. I know they worry about me. But, don’t you realize that the more they worry about me the more careful they are and the safer I’ll be.” But, I think his basic conviction is “God wants me to continue. If God wants me not to, I won’t.” I think that’s where he is. That’s where he’s coming from. And it’s hard for us, cause I’m not at that stage, where I have that kind of trust and faith. I should have it, I’m 83, and I’ve been a priest for fifty five years. But he has it. He is that much in tuned with God. You know he says “Lord, you want me tomorrow, I’m ready. You want me ten years from now, I’m ready. I’m just here because you put me here. I’m just gonna do what I think you want me to do. I’m just gonna say what I think you want me to say. This is what my life is gonna be. Let me live it joyfully.” Because he’s always smiling. He’s always smiling. And then, of course, his homily that day was about the woman taken in adultery. Who can throw the first stone? The Pope had a mantra that people heard time and time and time again. He said “We must never get tired of asking for forgiveness. That God never gets tired of forgiving. We can sometimes get tired asking for forgiveness. But He never gets tired. So, since He never gets tired of forgiving we should never get tired of asking Him. But then it doesn’t matter what we’ve done, it doesn’t matter what haunts us, it doesn’t matter what we think the state of our soul is or anything like that.” That’s why he said that “We must always remember God never gets tired of forgiving. We must never get tired of asking for forgiveness.” They said to me, the papers had it too, that, there were more confessions in Rome that day than in the history of man. Rome never had that many confessions. And people were saying “If God really is so anxious to forgive I might have well give Him a chance.” Someone was saying that that also was true, it happened also at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. I don’t know that, but, in Rome, that’s true. And this great Holy Father. And the power of his message. And, of course, going back now, he talks again about the periphery, that he talked about in the General Congregations. People who are outside the veil, the people who are far away, the people we don’t think about, the people who need help and we don’t give it to the, the people who are so poor, the people who are hungry today, the people who live in our world still on a dollar a day and can’t feed a family. I travel, I’ve seen these people. I’ve seen these refugees coming. Three weeks ago I was in Jordan. And, I went to the hospital there where they were trying to treat some of the refugees. And, the saddest ones of all are the Iraqi because they’re on their second bounce. The Christians who have fled from Irag to Syria and were getting together a little security there and now they’re fleeing from Syria, so they’re on the second bounce of this terrible sorrow. And the children, the little children, they don’t know what’s going on, and they hug you and because they just are so anxious to find somebody who’s goins to love them. Their parents will, but their parents are so sad. This is the periphery of which Pope Francis speaks. And, of course, he made it so clear in that visit to Lampedusa, that little island, that little Italian island off the coast of Malta, where so many refugees from Africa have been trying to come to Europe. They are people in boats that are seldom not sea-worthy. And so many of them drown. And he went out into a boat, and on a plane wooden blank altar he offered Mass. And he offered it “For these who have drowned, especially for our Muslim brothers and sisters who have drowned in the waters here, trying to find a better place for their children. You know, I close my eyes and I think, this is what Jesus would’ve done. This is what the Lord would’ve done. This is what he would want us to do. So, this is your Pope. This is the man whom God has given us. I think he will always be gracious to the rich. Sometimes people who are wealthy are concerned that maybe he’s mad at them. But that, we’ve had conversations, and he’s not. He’s only mad at them if they won’t help the poor, if they turn their backs on the poor. But those people who have wealth and who share it with the poor, he’s right with them 100%, as we would expect him to be. As long as people love the poor and wanna help the poor, this pope is their champion and this pope is their friend. His love for the poor is biblical, it’s like in the days of the bible. It is that powerful, that...centered on the Lord Jesus, on God’s goodness. So, he has this great thing. And he’s a wise man, you know. I don’t know, when you read that article, if you have a chance to read it, I really would recommend it, in the Catholic magazines, where he, on and on, he talks about his life and he talks about everything and,...you can see that the citations there, this is a brilliant man, this is a man of culture, this is a man who has had extraordinary contact with the world, with literature, with philosophy,...the quotations back and forth; this is in conversation, he doesn’t know what they’re gonna ask him. And yet he has this ability to talk so freely and so powerfully, so wonderfully about things going on in the world, and cites the great philosophers and cites the poets and cites the ancients and puts it all together! There’s a wonderful, there are two books that I know of, one is Conversations with Him. An Italian reporter, an...Argentinian reporter. It was in Italian. Where he asks him all kinds of trick questions, not trick questions, but difficult questions. And his answers are just like the answers we have seen just like when they ask him… This is a man that… we speak of the Lord sometimes, I don’t wanna say that… I think he’s like the Lord; the Lord is semper idem. Well you Latin scholars, you know, he’s always the same. The Lord never changes. He’s never,...he’s always loving, he’s always forgiving, he’s always gentle, he’s always gracious. That’s what Francis is like. And that’s why, around the world, young people especially are saying “...A man we can listen to.” Cause he’s authentic. Cause he’s telling it like it is. And, understanding of human nature. Understanding that he says some things that maybe would surprise us. But the interesting thing is that if you examine what he’s saying, it’s what the Church has said all the time. Maybe not what the canonists have said all the time, or what different theologians have said all the time. But the teaching of the Church all the time, is the teaching of John Paul...of Pope Francis. Compare it with Saint John Paul II. It’s there. Even with Pope Benedict! This man is not saying new things. Sometimes there are unfortunately bishops who will go too far to the left, too far to the right. We must be in the center. I’ve always told my nephews, stay in the center, you gotta stay in the center. And this is really the, this is the, I think, the secret of holiness, it’s the secret of Pope Francis. And not to be afraid. Almost here is his predecessor, Karol Woytila, who became JPII, saying, “Do not be afraid.” Its as though you would here that whispering it into his ear. And what a great thing it will be when he canonizes JPII and John XXIII. Because this is a man who has so many things like them! He’s like the great saints in so many ways. With an understanding of human nature. In prayerfulness...when he says “I’m not gonna judge. Jesus is the judge. My job is to be His agent in bringing people back to Him. So that He can judge.” And Jesus constantly says “I...judgment belongs to My Father, Who loves you."
CNN wanted to do a, and I guess they’ll do it next month, a six month analysis of Francis, and they came and they asked me to do a part of it, and so they had me on the TV for about an hour and a half. Now, you know, if I get two sentences in there or three words it’ll be remarkable. But, they did ask me, they said “In a word, what’s the difference between Francis and Benedict and all the rest.” And I thought for a minute and I said the others are great popes. But Francis is a pastor. I think that maybe, that’s what I wanna end up by saying I think Francis is a pastor. I think we have maybe never had a pastor in so long a time. JPII, whom I loved, whom we all loved, who I had the privilege of knowing reasonably well. JPII strode across the stage of the world with his enormous charism, his enormous power. Francis doesn’t have that. He will walk across the straits of the world and people will follow him. They will find in him like they found in the pied piper of Hamelin, they will find in him a certain charism, that reminds them that this is what God’s love is all about. And this is what Francis is all about. So, it’s 8:26, so I’m gonna leave it there, and wonder if you have any questions. Easy questions! Thank you.
And I want to congratulate the ones in the back who did not snore. I saw you sleeping! But you did not snore, and I thank you! That was very nice.
I have left you so puzzled! Ha Ha.
I thought sure my niece would have a question, but she…
Q. Do you think he’s changed the papacy?
I’m gonna give you a statement that’s not courageous. I’m gonna wobble and say if he has two years he will have changed the papacy. But I think it’s gonna take more than six months. What’s gonna be very interesting, his first consistory of cardinals. Unfortunately Pope Benedict, anytime he had vacancies he would fill them, pretty quickly. So there are only like six vacancies now. So that, ah, Pope Francis is not going to be able to suddenly to remake the college of cardinals. Hopefully. Doesn’t matter whether I die, I can’t vote anyway. But if, and I’m not gonna say hopefully some of the younger guys will die! But, I think, ah, enough will turn 80 within the next couple of years that he’ll have a good group, and then if he names enough cardinals who are of his mind...I could name twenty right now, around the world, who would be archbishops in major places of his mind. Or even curial officials who would be of his mind. He has to have time to do that. Because right now, if God forbid anything happened to him, almost everybody would be in place who was in place before, only a few changes he has been able to make. But the longer he’s in the more I think it is likely that we could say that he has changed the papacy. He’s done some things, even already. With regard to transparency. This in not really in the spiritual area but in the area of finance. There’s much more transparency, in fact the Instituto Pro Opere Religione, the IOR, which have the Vatican Bank, their situation has been very much changed, re-done. That just came out today, with a statement, was very well done. The banking agencies around the world were saying “gee that’s wonderful.” He’s gotta keep doing that I think. Not just in the financial area. Especially in the area of the nomination of bishops. That’s none of my business, cause I’m done. We have wonderful, holy bishops. But you can have holy bishops who are very conservative, and you can have holy bishops who are very liberal, and I think the Lord needs a lot of holy bishops who are right in the middle.
Can I tell you one JPII story? I’ve almost run out of Francis stories. I have one JPII story I can tell ya.
When I was archbishop, this is a real true story. My family has heard it I think sixteen times. I love this story! JPII came to Newark. There were some cardinals and bishops of the United States who said “It’s a waste to go to Newark.” But the Holy Father said “I promised Archbishop McCarrick I would go to Newark. And so I go to Newark.” And that was the end of it. So he came to Newark. He came that one afternoon, it was raining. It rained the whole time. It was horrible. But, anyone who was there, who was in Giants Stadium, 80,000 people in Giants Stadium! Teaming rain. Cathy, where you there? Hm. My own family. Ha Ha. This rain was terrible and I could see people not going, but it teamed, and people from all over New Jersey and some from New York and some Pennsylvania, just a powerful, powerful time! Before he went out there, he stood in the back with an umbrella over him. There’s two stories. He was gonna put his cope on and his miter on he looked at me and I go like, made a grimace. He wondered why, he looked around. And then he realized, and he could read my mind, he could read people’s minds, and I could read his mind, because he would grunt. You had to know his grunts. JPII was a great grunter! And you know he would say, hm! Hm. Hm. And you could know this was totally different things that he would say. And so his grunting was very good. But, anyway. He looked at me, and I looked like that and he saw what was happening. They were putting everything on him. And my thought was this. Anybody could walk down, any bishop can walk down the isle with a cope and a miter and a crosier. I did it myself. I was archbishop, that was my job. The only guy in the world who could do it, who could walk down in a white cassock was him. And if he put all that other stuff on he’d be just like the rest of us, it wouldn’t be that... So he says “I think I go just with cassock.” So he took it off. So I have a big smile. He looked at me. Cause, he knew.
Then he comes to the back of the Cathedral. And, it’s a large cathedral, larger than St. Patrick’s actually. And, he stopped. And he knew, according to our plan, that he was gonna go down one isle and through the secret service and then go into the sacristy. Usually when he would visit something he’d go down one side and go back the other so that he would be able to touch, you know, everybody on each side. So he stopped, and he knew that that was not gonna be happening this time, so he tried to figure it. He figured what’s it gonna be. His knees were bothering him. His legs were bothering him. Cause he was, you know “I do what I have to do.” He would say. Just an extraordinary, powerful man! So he put his arms out! And he walked down, with difficulty, because ya, if ya have your arms out ya don’t have the kind of balance to go down. People grabbed him on both sides. Three times the size of this isle. And I remember that so well! I said to myself, this is a lesson to me from God. Be in the middle. Ya gotta be able to touch both sides. If you’re on one side you’re gonna lose the other. If you’re on the other side you’re gonna lose one. The only way you can try to reach all your people is by staying in the middle and reaching out to them both. And that’s what he did. I learned that lesson. And I think this Holy Father knows it beautifully. Stay in the middle. You stay where Jesus was. You stay where the popes have to be. They have to be in the middle. They can’t be too conservative. They can’t be too liberal. They’ve gotta be both liberal and conservative; they’ve gotta be centrist! They’ve gotta be where Jesus is and Jesus is Central of all things. So, I will never forget that story. I hope I have tried to do it my own life. I’m not sure I have but that’s what we have to do. And this pope I think does that. He understands it in a special way. Thank you.
Here is the list of names and portraits of the seven bishops (five in Bavaria) who famously opposed the German Bishops Conference in its attempt to seek inter-communion for non-Catholic Christians. These bishops sent their dubia to the Vatican and are said to have recently received a secret clarification in the negative from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I also include a copy of the letter sent by the bishops to the CDF.
Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, Archbishop of Cologne (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Archbishop Ludwig Schick of Bamberg (Bavaria)
Bishop Konrad Zdarsa of Augsburg (Bavaria)
Bishop Gregor Maria Hanke of Eichstätt (Bavaria)
Bishop Stefan Oster of Passau (Bavaria)
Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg (Bavaria)
Bishop Wolfgang Ipolt of Görlitz (Saxony)
In the period from February 19 to 22, 2018, the German bishops met for their Spring Plenary Assembly in Ingolstadt.
Under item IL.1 of the agenda, the Bishops were given for a so-called pastoral handout by the Ecumenical Commission entitled: "On the path of unity with Christ: Confessional marriages and joint participation in the Eucharist" for consultation and decision-making. According to the text, mixed-denominational couples, as a "practical laboratory of unity,” take place in a state in which the separated churches are on their way together towards the goal. Because of the importance of marriages between Catholic and Protestant Christians in Germany, the statement respects “the pain […of those] who share their whole lives but cannot share God's saving presence in the Eucharistic meal.” According to the joint Reformation commemoration in 2017, the handout is intended as a voluntary commitment "to provide every assistance to interdenominational marriages, to strengthen their common faith and promote the religious education of their children," offering concrete help and regulation — as declared together with the Protestant Church in Germany in an ecumenical penance and reconciliation service on 11 March 2017 in the Michaeliskirche.
According to this, an opening to Protestant Christians in denominational marriages to receive Communion via Canon 844 (4) CIC 1983 is to be made possible, since a "gravis spiritualis necessitas" [grave spiritual necessity] is adopted according to the document presented on denominational differences of marriage.
On February 20, 2018, the text presented above on non-denominational marriages and the common participation in the Eucharist was voted on in the Assembly. The document was adopted by a 2/3 majority of the German bishops. Of the 60 bishops present, 13 voted no, including at least seven diocesan bishops. Modi (amendments) may be submitted until 16 March, but they will no longer call into question the fundamental adoption of the document.
Personally, we do not consider the vote held on 20 February to be right, because we do not believe that the issue we are discussing here is a pastoral one, but a question of the faith and unity of the Church, which is not subject to a vote. So we ask you, Your Eminence, to clarify this matter.
1. Is the document presented here a "pastoral handout" — as asserted by some German bishops — and thus merely a pastoral question, or is the faith and unity of the Church fundamentally called for, rather than the determinations made here?
2. Does Article 58 of the document not relativize the faith of the Church, according to which the Church of Jesus Christ is realized in the Catholic Church (subsists) and it is therefore necessary that an Evangelical Christian who shares the Catholic faith with regard to the Eucharist should in which case also become Catholic?
3. According to nos. 283 to 293, it is not primarily the longing for Eucharistic grace that becomes the criterion for [serious spiritual] distress, but rather the common reception of Communion of spouses belonging to different confessions. In our opinion, this distress is none other than which belongs ecumenism as a whole, that is, of every Christian who seriously strives for unity. In our view, therefore, it is not an exceptional criterion.
4. Is it at all possible for a single national episcopal conference, in one particular linguistic region, to make an isolated decision concerning such a question about the faith and practice of the whole Church, without reference and integration into the universal Church?
Eminence, we have many other fundamental questions and reservations about the proposed solution contained in this document. That is why we are voting in favor of renouncing a derogation and, instead, finding a clear solution in ecumenical dialogue to the overall problem of "Eucharistic communion and ecclesial communion" which is viable for the universal Church.
We ask for your help, in the light of our doubts, as to whether the draft solution presented in this document is compatible with the faith and unity of the Church.
We ask God's blessing for you and your responsible duty in Rome and greet you warmly!
Here are two basic protestant principles of faith and what is wrong with them.
1. SolaScriptura.
2. Private interpretation of Sacred Scripture.
Both principles are heretical because the first is opposed to the Christian principle of Sacred Tradition and the second is opposed to the Christian principle of The Magisterium.
The Catholic and true principles of faith (the essential and interconnected sources of the transmission of Divine Revelation) are 1) the Magisterium, 2) the Sacred Tradition and 3) Sacred Scripture.
The fundamental error of all of the principles of protestantism (sola fide, sola scriptura, sola gratia, soli Deo gloria and solus Christus) may be summarized in the rejection of faith in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. So that the true protestant is left at the mercy of his own opinions. Protestantism entails an exaggerated subjective emphasis. As G.K. Chesterton once said, the problem with protestants is not that they reject the pope but that for them every man is pope!
In his renouned and prize winning "Regensburg Address" Pope Benedict argues that modern relativism and materialism have their origin in the Protestant Reformation rejection of Greek thought (since it was considered a corruption of true Christianity), and consequently of traditional logic and common sense. If there is no check, no external objective truth on which to judge private interpretation and internal faith (namely Sacred Tradition and the Church Magisterium), then anything goes, as long as you believe it! Then faith would be fiction, because many believe error. Then even the terrorists would be right!!! The relevant passage is where he explains the three stages of dehellenization about halfway into the talk. That, the error of dehellenization and its harmful consequences was the central theme of that notorious and landmark talk. Find it at the link below.
The world needs the pope, the Church always has a pope with the keys to the kingdom of heaven (to make Christ Himself accesible to men in every time and place against every political current), against whose teaching authority, given, inspired and defended by Christ Himself, "the gates of Hell shall not prevail!"
Do not read Catholic material! That has been the standing Protestant policy for five-hundred years. Why? Well, if you do and persist at it with an open heart, and you have at least ordinary intelligence, you will see and be convinced of the irresistible truth of the Catholic Faith against which the gates of Hell shall never prevail!
I first noticed the influence of this policy in my USA high school liberal arts courses: e.g. English Literature, American History. The literature courses completely omitted works by such huge 20th century English authors as Belloc, Chesterton and Tolkein, C.S. Lewis (a Protestant with a thoroughly Catholic mind). As a matter of fact, the greatest 20th Century English intellectuals include a disproportionate number of Catholics among their ranks.
N.B. Unfortunately this German Protestant well known doctrine mantra of rejecting all Catholic thought and literature "Catholica non leguntur" is seldom discussed outside of Germany, but it is a bias which brought world revolutions to us and an essential ingredient for the rise of the Third Reich.
That close-minded anti-Church Protestant fideism was the seedbed for the French Revolution and the later totalitarian regimes which logically followed from the closing of the mind to truth in the name of freedom, cooperation and world peace: "liberty, equality and fraternity and death to the Church!"
Ein Drama in vier Akten DT vom 30.07.2009, Nr. 90, S. 7 von Michael Karger
Joseph Ratzingers Habilitation über den Franziskanertheologen Bonaventura war der Auftakt für sein Mitwirken in entscheidenden Phasen der Theologiegeschichte
Die Veröffentlichung von Band 2 der Gesammelten Schriften Joseph Ratzingers steht bevor. Er wird vor allem auch den bisher unveröffentlichten ersten Teil seiner 1955 eingereichten Habilitationsschrift enthalten. Das gibt Anlass, nach den Hintergründen zu fragen, woran damals seine Habilitation beinahe gescheitert wäre. Weil die Aussagen der Gutachten bis heute nicht bekannt sind, wird viel über die Gründe für die Rückgabe der Erstfassung der Habilitation Joseph Ratzingers 1955 spekuliert.
Trotz Gegenwind erhielt er bald einen Ruf nach Bonn
Bei genauer Betrachtung aller zugänglichen Quellen ergibt sich aber auch ohne diese Kenntnisse ein durchaus eindeutiges Bild: Die Arbeit wurde vom Zweitkorrektor Michael Schmaus als gefährlich modernistisch beurteilt und zurückgewiesen. Der junge Wissenschaftler Ratzinger konnte seine akademische Laufbahn danach nur noch dadurch retten, dass er den weitgehend unbeanstandet gebliebenen dritten Teil erneut einreichte. Allerdings fehlte in diesem dann schließlich angenommenen Teil die systematische Darstellung der neuen These des Verfassers, mit der ohne Zweifel der Stern des Theologen Joseph Ratzinger sofort strahlend aufgegangen wäre. Trotz weiterer Verhinderungsmaßnahmen erhielt Ratzinger bald einen Ruf auf eine renommierte Ordinarienstelle: Er wurde 1958 auf die Professur für Fundamentaltheologie in Bonn berufen. Als persönlichen Konzilsberater nahm der Ortsbischof Kardinal Josef Frings den jungen Professor Ratzinger mit nach Rom. Auf der Grundlage seiner Habilitationsthese konnte Ratzinger in die Offenbarungskonstitution des Zweiten Vatikanums bahnbrechende Einsichten einbringen und dadurch verhängnisvolle Engführungen verhindern.
Thesen, die in München als angeblich nicht rechtgläubig unterdrückt worden waren, entfalteten schließlich auf dem Konzil eine große Wirkung. Dies gelang allerdings auch auf dem Konzil nur gegen viele Widerstände. Der medienunterstützten reformistischen Konzilsrezeption gelang es allerdings sehr schnell, den theologischen Ertrag der Offenbarungskonstitution einseitig umzudeuten. Folge waren die nachkonziliaren Wirren und eine bis heute weitgehend unverstanden gebliebene Kirchenversammlung. Kaum war Joseph Ratzinger Präfekt der Kongregation für die Glaubenslehre geworden, schlug auch die Stunde der besonderen Wirksamkeit des dritten, angenommenen und 1959 veröffentlichten Teils seiner Habilitation über „Die Geschichtstheologie des heiligen Bonaventura“. In den stark ideologisierten Auseinandersetzungen um die Befreiungstheologie waren es die von Kardinal Ratzinger vorgetragenen Klarstellungen über das Verhältnis von Eschatologie und Utopie, die zur Unterscheidung der Geister führten. Für seinen Einsatz gegen die innerkirchliche Ausbreitung der marxistischen Erlösungslehre wurde Kardinal Ratzinger besonders in Deutschland heftig angefeindet.
Sein Habilitationsthema erhielt Ratzinger von seinem Doktorvater, dem Münchener Fundamentaltheologen Gottlieb Söhngen (1892–1971) gestellt: Er sollte „herausbringen, ob es in irgendeiner Form beim mittelalterlichen Franziskanertheologen Bonaventura eine Entsprechung zum Begriff der Heilsgeschichte gebe und ob dieses Motiv – wenn erkennbar – in Zusammenhang mit dem Gedanken der Offenbarung stehe“ („Aus meinem Leben“=AmL, dt. 1998). Söhngens Interesse war ein systematisches und kein historisches. Dadurch war allerdings ein Konflikt mit dem Mittelalterforscher Schmaus vorprogrammiert. Hintergrund der Fragestellung war für Söhngen das von der Vätertheologie herkommende heilsgeschichtliche Denken der Nouvelle Theólogie in Frankreich: „Offenbarung erschien nun nicht mehr einfach als Mitteilung von Wahrheiten an den Verstand, sondern als geschichtliches Handeln Gottes, in dem sich stufenweise Wahrheit enthüllt“ (AmL). Pius XII. hatte allerdings 1950 in seiner Enzyklika „Humani generis“ die Nouvelle Theólogie verurteilt, was Söhngen mit Wut und Verzweiflung aufgenommen hatte. Damit wird der zweite Vorbehalt von Schmaus berührt: Er stand dem Heiligen Offizium nahe und wurde von Henri de Lubac SJ, dem sein Orden nach der Verurteilung von 1950 übel mitgespielt hatte, in seinem Konzilstagebuch ausdrücklich zu den „römischen Integristen“ gerechnet.
Seit 1952 war Ratzinger Dozent am Priesterseminar in Freising. Als er 1954 seine Materialsammlung abgeschlossen hatte wurde er zum Wintersemester 1954/55 zum außerordentlichen Professor für Dogmatik und Fundamentaltheologie an der Philosophisch-Theologischen Hochschule Freising ernannt. Trotz der Doppelbelastung, in zwei Fächern wöchentlich fortlaufend Vorlesungen auszuarbeiten und „nebenbei“ die Habilitationsschrift zu erstellen, konnte er zum Ende des Sommersemesters 1955 das Manuskript abschließen und die beiden Pflichtexemplare im Herbst abgeben. Söhngen nahm die Arbeit mit Begeisterung auf und berief sich sofort in seiner Vorlesung auf die neuen Erkenntnisse seines Meisterschülers.
Der Zweitgutachter, der Dogmatikprofessor und Direktor des Grabmann-Institutes für mittelalterliche Theologie Michael Schmaus (1897–1993), ließ sich mit dem Gutachten viel Zeit. Erst kurz vor Ostern 1956 eröffnete er Ratzinger auf der Dogmatikertagung in Königstein „sachlich und ohne Emotion“, dass er die Habilitationsschrift „ablehne, da sie nicht den dabei geltenden wissenschaftlichen Maßstäben genüge“ (AmL). Den völlig vernichteten Ratzinger verwies Schmaus zudem auf einen baldigen Fakultätsbeschluss zu seinem Fall. Nun schien für Joseph Ratzinger seine akademische Laufbahn bereits am Ende zu sein. In Freising stand das Sommersemester 1956 vor der Tür und musste vorbereitet werden. Seine alten Eltern wohnten bei ihm in einer geräumigen Professorenwohnung auf dem Domberg. Auch wenn Ratzinger das Gutachten von Schmaus nie ausdrücklich erwähnt, so kann man doch drei Ablehnungsgründe aus seinen Äußerungen erschließen:
1. Voreingenommenheit, verstärkt durch die als Anmaßung empfundenen, überheblichen Urteile des Anfängers. Dies geht aus folgenden Aussagen Ratzingers hervor: „dass ich über ein mittelalterliches Thema gearbeitet hatte, ohne mich seiner Führung anzuvertrauen“. „Mit einer für einen Anfänger wohl unangebrachten Schärfe kritisierte ich die überwundenen Positionen, und das war Schmaus ganz offensichtlich zu viel, ...“ 2. Grund: „Da er nun schon einmal aufgebracht war, reizten ihn auch das unzulängliche graphische Erscheinungsbild und verschiedene Zitationsfehler, die aller Mühsal zum Trotz stehengeblieben waren.“ 3. und entscheidender Ablehnungsgrund: „Aber auch das Ergebnis meiner Analyse missfiel ihm. Ich hatte festgestellt, dass es bei Bonaventura (und wohl auch bei den Theologen des 13. Jahrhunderts überhaupt) keine Entsprechung zu unserem Begriff ,Offenbarung’ gebe, mit dem wir üblicherweise das Ganze der geoffenbarten Inhalte zu bezeichnen pflegen, sodass sich sogar der Sprachgebrauch eingebürgert hat, die Heilige Schrift einfach ,die Offenbarung’ zu nennen.“ Somit „liegt Offenbarung der Schrift voraus und schlägt sich in ihr nieder, ist aber nicht einfach mit ihr identisch. Das aber heißt dann, dass Offenbarung immer größer ist als das bloß Geschriebene. Und das wieder bedeutet, dass es ein reines ,Sola Scriptura’ (durch die Schrift allein) nicht geben kann, dass zur Schrift das verstehende Subjekt gehört, womit auch schon der wesentliche Sinn von Überlieferung gegeben ist“ (AmL).
In dieser von Ratzinger selbst zusammengefassten Habilitationsthese konnte Schmaus „keineswegs eine getreue Wiedergabe von Bonaventuras Denken (wovon ich hingegen auch heute noch überzeugt bin), sondern einen gefährlichen Modernismus, der auf die Subjektivierung des Offenbarungsbegriffs hinauslaufen müsse“ (AmL) sehen. Schmaus lehnte die Habilitation nicht wegen der Respektlosigkeiten des jungen Wissenschaftlers oder der formalen Mängel ab, sondern wegen der modernistischen „Subjektivierung des Offenbarungsbegriffs“. Fünf Jahre nach „Humani generis“ bekämpfte Schmaus den jungen, des Modernismus verdächtigen Theologen Joseph Ratzinger. Ergebnis der Fakultätssitzung war, dass die Arbeit nicht ausdrücklich abgelehnt wurde, sondern zur Verbesserung zurückgegeben wurde. Dazu erhielt Ratzinger das Exemplar von Schmaus und stellte fest, dass der dritte Teil „gänzlich ohne Beanstandung geblieben war“ (AmL). Dies wunderte den Verfasser: „Dabei wäre gerade auch hier durchaus Sprengstoff enthalten gewesen“ (AmL). Damit meint Ratzinger die eigentliche These, die auch diesen Teil bestimmt: „Bonaventura benennt nirgendwo, soviel ich sehen kann, die Schrift selbst als ,Offenbarung’“ („Die Geschichtstheologie des heiligen Bonaventura“). Nach Bonaventura ist Offenbarung „gleichbedeutend mit der geistlichen Erfassung der Schrift“.
Warum wird die Schrift nicht Offenbarung genannt?
Warum die Schrift nicht Offenbarung genannt wird, schreibt der Habilitand: „Das versteht sich vom Offenbarungsvorgang her von selbst, in dem sich nämlich ,Offenbarung’ gerade als Erfassen geistigen Sinnes darstellt.“ Im dritten Teil steht sogar eine Entkräftung des Einwandes, dass dieses Offenbarungsverständnis einem „subjektivistischen Aktualismus“ Vorschub leiste, der an die Stelle der objektiven Offenbarungswahrheiten trete. Das Gegenargument Ratzingers besteht darin, „dass das die Schrift je erst zur ,Offenbarung’ erhebende Verständnis sich nicht als Sache des Einzellesers auffassen lässt, sondern sich allein im lebendigen Schriftverständnis der Kirche zuträgt. Die Objektivität des Glaubensanspruchs ist damit zweifellos sichergestellt.“
Inhalt des dritten Teils sind vor allem die geschichtstheologischen Konsequenzen, die Bonaventura aus seinem Offenbarungsverständnis ableitet. Ratzinger konnte nachweisen, dass sich Bonaventura mit den Thesen des Joachim von Fiore (gest. 1202) auseinandergesetzt hat. Dieser süditalienische Abt hatte aus der Heiligen Schrift drei heilsgeschichtliche Epochen abgeleitet: Auf das Reich des Vaters (Altes Testament) sei das Reich des Sohnes (Geschichte der Kirche) gefolgt, das noch im 13. Jahrhundert vom Reich des Heiligen Geistes abgelöst werde. Sehr bald verstanden sich nicht wenige Franziskaner als Avantgarde des Heiligen Geistes, der die Überwindung der Institution Kirche im neuen Reich der Freiheit und der Liebe im Namen des heiligen Franziskus aufgetragen sei.
Als Ordensoberer hatte Bonaventura die Aufgabe, die Lehre Joachims richtigzustellen und eine Spaltung des Ordens zu verhindern. Unter dem Titel „Die Geschichtstheologie des Heiligen Bonaventura“ reichte Ratzinger diesen Teil nun nochmals im Oktober 1956 ein: „Da bei der herben Kritik an meiner Arbeit dieser Teil ohne Beanstandung geblieben war, konnte man ihn wohl nicht nachträglich als wissenschaftlich unannehmbar erklären“ (AmL). Am 11. Februar 1957 wurde ihm die Annahme mitgeteilt. Bereits am 21. Februar sollte die öffentliche Habilitationsvorlesung stattfinden. Ihr Thema, das Ratzinger in seiner Autobiografie nicht mitteilt, war die Erörterung der Frage, ob die Ekklesiologie in die Fundamentaltheologie oder in die Dogmatik gehöre.
Ein Augenzeuge, Alfred Läpple, „Mentor“ und lebenslanger Freund Ratzingers berichtet, dass Professor Schmaus sich nach der Vorlesung erhob und sagte. „,Die Sache mit ihrer subjektivistischen Art, die Offenbarung zu deuten, ist nicht richtig katholisch.’ Ratzinger wollte beginnen zu erwidern. Doch da hat sich Söhngen eingeschaltet. Ein heftiger Streit entbrannte zwischen den beiden Professoren. Ratzinger blieb nur an der Seite stehen“ (Peter Pfister, Hg.: Joseph Ratzinger und das Erzbistum München und Freising. Regensburg 2006, S. 123). Es schloss sich die Sitzung des Prüfungsausschusses an und danach wurde Ratzinger formlos auf dem Gang seine Habilitation mitgeteilt. So ging der „Alptraum“ der Habilitation zu Ende, der fast die gesamte Zeit der Freisinger Dozententätigkeit von 1953 bis Anfang 1957 überschattete.
Ein Jahr später wurde Ratzinger zum ordentlichen Professor für Fundamentaltheologie und Dogmatik in Freising ernannt, allerdings „nicht ohne vorangegangenes Störfeuer von interessierter Seite“ (AmL), womit auch wieder auf Schmaus angespielt sein könnte. Alfred Läpple berichtet, dass Ratzinger im Sommer 1958 zu Kardinal Wendel einbestellt wurde, der ihm im Beisein von Professor Schmaus seine Ernennung zum Professor an der Pädagogischen Hochschule in München-Pasing mitteilte. Da zog Ratzinger zur Verblüffung der beiden Herren seine Berufung auf den Lehrstuhl für Fundamentaltheologie an der Universität Bonn aus der Tasche. „Es war für mich sozusagen das Traumziel, dorthin zu gehen“ (AmL).
Das „Drama der Habilitation“ war allerdings, aufs Ganze gesehen, selbst nur der erste Akt. Es sollten weitere Akte folgen, in denen sich entscheidende Phasen der jüngeren Theologie- und Kirchengeschichte spiegeln. Drei Monate bevor der junge Professor Ratzinger in Bonn seine Lehrtätigkeit aufnahm, kündigte Papst Johannes XXIII. die Einberufung eines Konzils an. Als Berater von Kardinal Frings übte Ratzinger einen beachtlichen Einfluss auf die Konzilsarbeit aus. Insbesondere kamen ihm, wie der Kardinal 1998 rückblickend feststellt, die Einsichten zugute, die ihm bei der Beschäftigung mit Bonaventura zugewachsen waren.
Am Vorabend der Konzilseröffnung bittet Kardinal Frings seinen Peritus, den deutschsprachigen Bischöfen eine theologische Beurteilung der vorbereiteten Schemata zu bieten. Der Vortrag konzentriert sich vor allem auf die Verhältnisbestimmung von Offenbarung, Schrift und Tradition. Die Ablehnung des Schemas „De fontibus revelationis“ und die Ausarbeitung von tiefer begründeten Alternativen zum Offenbarungsdenken des Konzils spiegelt die Einsichten Ratzingers wider: Offenbarung geht als lebendiges Geschehen der Schrift voraus. Nur in der gläubigen Auslegung der Kirche ist die Schrift Offenbarung.
Bei der Konzilsrezeption dominierte eine verkürzte Sicht
Die Konzilsrezeption aber – es folgt des Dramas dritter Akt – dominierte eine verkürzte Sicht der Dinge: Die popularisierte These von der „materialen Vollständigkeit der Schrift“ hatte sich verselbstständigt. In ihr sieht Ratzinger eine Ursache für den nachkonziliaren Traditionsbruch und den Glaubensverfall: „Das Drama der nachkonziliaren Epoche ist weitgehend von diesem Schlagwort und seinen logischen Konsequenzen bestimmt worden“ (AmL). Hauptprotagonist des „Gegenkonzils“ war Hans Küng, der im zweiten Band seiner nach der Wahl Joseph Ratzingers zum Papst erschienenen Autobiografie (2007) erstaunlicherweise mit Schmaus in der Kritik übereinstimmt: „Die von Schmaus in Ratzingers Habilitationsschrift ... diagnostizierte gefährliche Subjektivierung des Offenbarungsbegriffs ist (und bleibt bis heute) das Fragwürdigste an Ratzingers Offenbarungsauffassung.“
Während die reformistische Konzilsdeutung keinerlei Einschränkungen der Theologie durch das kirchliche Lehramt erlaubt, verwahren sich die Traditionalisten gegen jede lehramtliche Entwicklung über die Vorkonzilszeit hinaus. Gerade die zum Wesen der Kirche gehörige „beständige Identität in der Dynamik der Entwicklung“ (Joseph Ratzinger: Gottes Projekt. Regensburg 2009) hat auch die Traditionalistenbewegung nicht verstanden. So kommen interessanterweise die Extreme links und rechts überein.
Der vorerst letzte Akt des Dramas besteht in der Auseinandersetzung des Präfekten der Glaubenskongregation mit der Befreiungstheologie: Wie Bonaventura tritt er in seiner Zeit gegen ein chiliastisches Erlösungsverständnis auf, hinter dem der Marxismus steht, der bereits als falscher Messianismus und Weg in den mörderischen Totalitarismus überführt war und im übrigen kurz vor dem Zusammenbruch stand.
Nach vierundfünfzig Jahren wird die Habilitationsschrift des Papstes als zweiter Band der Werkausgabe erstmals vollständig veröffentlicht. Bücher haben ihre Schicksale, auch unveröffentlichte.
The fact that the Church's College of Cardinals is presently manipulated by Pope Francis appointed McCarrick favorites, is a fact that cannot be lost on Pope Leo XIV. But The Lion seems to be sound asleep!
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