Which man is the pope today?

Thanks for this.
There is nothing new in John Wilkins assessment of the change in outlook that Pope Benedict undertook before he became Cardinal.
He is reiterating what Hans Kung said about Joseph Ratzinger when they were both at Tubingen in the late '60's.
Kung's memoirs give a lucid interpretation of how the sea change in the present Pope's views hinged to a large extent on his personality , background and upbringing.
It is sad that he has allowed retrenchment in the church, although I know some would not agree. Confidence in the institutional church has eroded for many and your last paragraph sums up the dilemma and stasis we are in. Saddening.

I do believe that Fr. Kennedy has put his finger squarely on the contradiction in our pope's thinking. As the opposite side of a coin with his predecessor, he is fearful, defensive, inward-looking. Luckily, the Holy Spirit is in charge and she will lead the Church into the future.

Eugene Kennedy has opened a very serious discussion of what really happened to the bright, forward-looking young theologian of Vatican II that has made him into someone else who retreats from the boldness and freshness of the Council and is reversing the work of the Holy Spirit we exclaimed when the Council gave new life to the Church around the world. The Church needs that young theologian to sit on the Vatican cathedra and express the thoughts he espoused that were voted into our law by the 2,300 bishops who met for those early 60s years of great rebirth of our faith. Where is that brilliant theologian now when we need him? Come back home Ratzinger.

"He may be the 'on-the-one-hand-and-on-the-other-hand' Holy Father."

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And that particular expression — on-the-one-hand-and-on-the-other-hand' — is not only one of his favorites in both his writings and in interviews,   it indeed captures the paradox of Joseph Ratzinger,   now Benedict.     The same man who can coldly hand another theologian his head on a platter of rebuke for even minor divergence from the 'company line',   was once a priest-theologian capable of seeing shades of gray and comprehending nuance — a man who wrote eloquently on the importance of individual conscience,   even if in conflict with the Church.     The same man who now relishes the medieval trappings of satin,   lace,   liturgical theatrics and royal courtiers,   was at one time a simple priest and quiet introvert who masterfully played Mozart on his modest home piano and also had a fondness for the neighborhood stray cats.
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Benedict today seems comfortable only amid the tidiness of his books,   Vatican finery and hard-line theology — an insulated and gilded glass case,   and quite out of his element in the messy real world where everyone else lives.     The man is indeed a complex study in human contradictions.
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I am so confused. Where is the ambiguity in this sentence: "Catholic Culture reports that he urged Sicilians “to be saints” and then, in almost the same breath, offered a quick, sure passage to Heaven by telling them to “reject the Mafia.”?

Wouldn't saints reject the mafia, a murdering organized crime organization? What's the beef, Kennedy?

Is the Pope supposed to acquiesce to the mafia?

Kennedy captures the contradictions of the man who has been quite uncomfortable ever since the students interrupted his lecture and took over his microphone. Joseph Ratzinger is not sure whether he wants to embrace our Separated Brethren or condemn them, whether to advocate the Latin Mass or merely permit it, whether to reach out to Jews or insist that they are killers of Christ, whether to embrace historical criticism or to ridicule it, whether to speak from a lofty throne; Hold on there is no alternate for that one. And on and on and on.

Benedict XVI is a man who has not found himself. Is it the blind leading the blind?

Dr. Kennedy, in his gentle and forgiving way, has found an interesting excuse for this man who, it has been rumored, finagled his election. In America we often call a person who behaves in such a way in politics by that very name - politician. Benedict is trying to be all things to all men(I would like to say women also, but I doubt it) and has succeeded in being only a politician. Should a man of God be a politician? Is that the role model projected by Jesus during his life with us? Aren't priests supposed to model Christ? Isn't the Pope, in this case, a priest first and Pope by act of the Holy Spirit? When will Benedict allow the Holy Spirit to become apparent in his works, words and ideas?

I am a Catholic. I am a convert of 22 years. I have deep respect for the Catholic Church. I have a deep fondness for Pope Benedict. We as Catholic christians can only answer to God and others of what we have seen, and experienced on our Catholic journey. I have never seen any abuse, or heard of any abuses of children or anyone else. These abuses are in the news. I have learned to help in a soup kitchen and feed the poor. I have taken communion to the sick. I have helped the poor pay their bills in St. Vincent de Paul Society. We are a community of love. We are a community of Faith.

I thank God for Pope Benedict. You say you are not sure he wants to be Pope. Who is their right mind would want to be Pope in the world we live in. The problem is not the Catholic Church but people live in a world of spiritual darkness. People have fallen away from faith and believe in God. Pope Benedict is kindness and goodness which is rare in this world. He is real!

A Catholic and loving it!

Kennedy may be right. It does appear at times that Benedict is two different people. I only wish that he and all bishops would set a good example for the rest of us Catholics by living as if they truly trusted in God. Sometimes they seem to value the institutional church more than they do its founder.

Which is more likely: that the Pope's attitudes towards what you see is the spirit of Vatican II is so radically inconsistent, or that the Pope's attitudes are consistent, but you're making false assumptions about the reform and the reform of the reform?

It does seem as if fear is what ultimately drives the pope. His vision of a "smaller" faithful remnant church runs so counter to Jesus's "Great Commission" to "go, preach to all nations..." that one would think it obvious to a theologian of his standing. But fear fogs thinking.

Fear, as my pastor has discussed, is equivalent to original sin. We humans are afraid, and so we hide. Pardon the Biblical metaphor...but Peter does this often in scripture. I am praying for "Peter," as I "John," consider where Jesus is calling me to be as his beloved disciple.

The Church of my childhood - the 1970s and 80s Church where "Jesus is Lord, Alleluia" rang out as a Memorial Acclamation (when "experimentation" with the liturgy was condoned), seems so far away. Those "experiments" spoke to me. And best and most important of all, Jesus was there, during our Eucharistic celebration at my parish when I was a kid. I could feel his warmth and his joy at hearing us praise him. My Mom said I was always so quiet at Mass. Of course, I know why - He was there. I even got upset once, when I was about 5, when I felt that our pastor had rushed through the Eucharistic Prayer that morning.

Can you imagine my shock when I learned that they had a book (called a "missal") that "programmed" these beautiful things we did? I was offended!

Fear will never bring down the Church. Jesus promised us, all of us, that he will be with us. Jesus showed us how much he loves us. I will never, ever let go of those truths, which I learned through our beautiful Catholic Church!

The Pope condemns the mafia and its complained about? It matters whether he "likes" being Pope? He claimed that one must like the "Latin Mass" in order to be saved? He has commented on altar girls at all? When was that? The anecdotes presented in this article do not present two Popes at all but rather a mixture of irrelevant information and factual inaccuracies.

We continue to struggle because we invest so much in a misplaced adoration of the papacy itself, as if it is our one true channel to know what truth is.
The precise issue in all of this is what we mean by inspiration of the Holy Spirit in regard to the pope. How does the free will of the individual man (the current pope) interact with the "guidance of the Holy Spirit" so that he remains free from error in the exercise of ordinary magisterium? If he is free in his will, then the pope is free to sin and to be in error. If he is not free in his will, then what does that say about his relationship to God? How then does the Holy Spirit keep the pope from error-- by osmosis? By making him a zombie of some sort? That is why the church at large and the collective faith of all believers of all the ages (not just those we agree with) has to be the true locus of what constitutes the Spirit's inspiration, not just the beliefs of the current pope or the current episcopal leadership of the church. To maintain otherwise, you have to live in denial of the corrupt papacies that have stained the church throughout many ages (as indeed many right-wingers do).

Dr. Kennedy, As always I am impressed with your insight. When I returned to Catholicism after a 40 year absence in 2005 it was because I was blessed with experiences that directly taught me that God is Love. I naively thought that this was what guided our Church in all of its affairs within and without. However, after two years of being staunchly conservative I began to see in myself the unconscious helplessness and meaninglessness that fueled a narcissistic desire for power and meaning. I had been blessed to observe that my unresolved narcissism had shifted to spiritual narcissism which desired to control and criticize rather than to compassionately understand the underlying vulnerabilities in those that I had opposed. It seems to me that conversion does not change our personality structure and we can remain as fragmented as before unless, through the Grace of God we are given the insight to be vulnerable enough to come face to face with the hidden fear and hatred which forms the foundation of our human identities and influences us to relate to one another in episodes of that reflect the reality of the continuing internal conflict of the dark and the light. Staying within the limits of what we have formed and what has been formed to protect oneself does not heal this conflict. Love is what reveals what needs healing in all of us. As Christ and the saints have shown us it is sacrificial love which transforms and converts. Theology and ritual in the proper perspective can reinforce this sacrificial love or within the wrong perspective can continue to reinforce the primitive defenses to protect one from being vulnerable.

Or the "old men" of the Curia have gotten to him as they did to Paul VI on Humanae Vitae. When the culture is to hunker down and repel perceived or real threats, even an independent thinker can become worn down.

on the other hand from "St. Francis scattering of bread crumbs behind him for his beloved birds" Francis also preached peace to the wolves as the men refused to listen.

want an end to the rising debt? practice peace and fully disband our corrupt and greedy military, a cancerous growth overwhelming and consuming our body politic

and come to Los Alamos Saturday July 30, for Peace, in sack cloth and ashes

You wrote:

"He is now following his predecessor’s plan to undo Vatican II, to lead, as it is called, 'a reform of the reform' that will restore the pre-Vatican II church with all its supposed glory of Latin Masses..."

Which Vatican II document would that be undoing?

Benedict, for all his human flaws, is the leader of more than a billion Catholics, most of whom accept him as the Vicar of Christ trying to live up to that vocation, while a few bitter old men and women, disappointed with their own lives, do all they can to bring him down with words and deeds Christ decried as evil. If you want to see today's Pharisees, Dr. Kennedy, look in a mirror.

Why is it that only the Novus Ordo can speak to people of today? Are we so very different in the 21st century from our predecessors in the 15th, 16th, 17th centuries? Have we become to informed and so mature and so enlightened that we cannot be touched by the wonder and mystery of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass? Are we so much better than the countless men and women who lived before us?

To be clear, the Holy Father has never presented "the Latin Mass, including a veto on altar girls, as the bus we had better be on if we want to be saved". All the Holy Father did was to offer this form of Mass as a viable option to those who want to celebrate it. Why is it that the liberal progressive wing is so defensive about choice and freedom of conscience and expression, except when it comes to the "Latin Mass"? Why are they such hypocrites about that? What is it about the "Latin Mass" that scares Professor Kennedy and his allies so much?

I think what it is about the "Latin Mass" that scares them so much is that so many young people seem to be embracing it. They see the fact that more young people, young families, than older people attend the Extraordinary Form Masses and they take that to mean that this generation of Catholics is rejecting the reforms of the "Spirit of Vatican II". They fear it represents a whole-sale rejection of the project that they have devoted so much of their lives to. They are right.

The Holy Father was present at Vatican II, he was an influential theologian and scholar at the Council. He knows what went on, he was privy to much of the debate, and he saw the legitimate reforms of the Council perverted by this "Spirit of Vatican II" into the chaos and dissent of the 1970s and 1980s, and he, like Blessed John Paul II, is committed to returning the Church, not to pre-Vatican II days, but to the actual and authentic reforms of the Council.

An excellent essay on the Papal ambiguity that seems to be reducing the RC Church to a conservative rump,fearful of diversity,and of the tension that comes from being alive, from being incarnate like the Son of God in Palestine two thousand years ago. Tradition is not a strait-jacket but a seed-bed, from which new and varied forms of being church emerge. That was the wonderful vision of Vatican II that inspired the present writer to go forward for ordination and the religious life, and the abandonment of which led me out of the RC Church and into the Church of England, which, for all its faults, is not afraid to venture into the unknown. Maybe now that you have got so many of our conservatives in the Ordinariate, Benedict's baby, we may be able to show the way?

With respect, if Prof. Cullen lectures in psychology, God help the students who have to listen to him. yet again, as in his diatribes about 'set dressing', he displays the most extraordinarily muddled and woolly thinking, apart from his obvious dislike of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

1. Why should wanting to restore the beautiful Latin Mass, as an option, not as compulsory, indicate a rowing back from Vatican II, which never intended entirely abolishing the Latin Mass in the first place? How can you say the Latin Mass is a bastion of clericalism, when it is totally Christ centred and the 'new' Mass is mostly priest centred, depending almost entirely on the abilities of the celebrant as an entertainer. Is this not clericalism at its worst? Many of us who would be liberal in a lot of matters related to Catholic dogma love the Latin Mass, and want to have the choice of availing of it. Why should we be denied that choice?

2. Has Prof. Cullen only now discovered that the student unrest in Thuringen and other universities in the 60s caused Ratzinger to rethink his one time liberalism? Do try to keep up, Mr. Cullen.

3. What Mr. Cullen sees as ambiguity in Benedict's pronouncements, others, myself included, see as subtlety of thought. I am glad that Mr. Cullen does respect him as a theologian. If only he would stop this confused and confusing waffling about him, and maybe even study some of the Vatican II documents, we would all be better off.

A great article, but particularly the last two paragraphs. Specifically, citing Wilkins' suggestion that the events of 1968 were pivotal in changing Ratzinger's theological stance. Then when I read the last phrase of the same paragraph, "students even disrupted his lectures" I had an "aha" moment.

I've always wondered why Ratzinger abandoned the Vatican II vision and returned to the Middle Ages. This article helped to frame the questions about Pope Benedict 16 and supplied some of the facts that I lacked. As a clinical Social Worker who understands trauma and traumatic reactions, I could make a good case that the "disruption in his own classroom" was more the pivotal moment for him personally. I think that moment probably resurrected some memories of his own youth, his time and experiences in the Hitler Youth and as a 16-year-old soldier. The monumental change in direction of his theological outlook as a 38-year-old accomplished theologian, speaks to how big the events of 1968 were, but I maintain that the experience at his lectures was even more significant. Who knows what he himself experienced in those Hitler youth years. Who knows if there weren't moments when he wasn't swept up in moments of exuberance as a young adolescent, even if it was forced on him, even if he was forced to be a member of the Hitler Youth which was the case of many German boys of his generation. We don't really know what happened to the young Joseph or how that effected him. Very few Germans talk about their war experiences. I know that from personal experience.

I always thought Ratzinger had a failure of courage and reverted back to the security of the past. Just couldn't believe he had to go back as far as the Middle Ages. But I see it differently now. The remark about the "freedom of the conscience of the individual" also can mean something totally different for someone who was brought up in a country where there was such a failure of the conscience of so many people. Perhaps Ratzinger found security and safety in his theological concepts like resurrection, redemption and descent into hell and he felt secure in his classroom lectures. However, when his own students interrupted his lectures perhaps that brought back other memories of another time. That time was horrific, even traumatic for Ratzinger as a boy. Perhaps that fear was greater than the vision of Vatican II. Perhaps he could not take the chance to trust that "conscience" of humanity based on his own experience.

The last paragraph is a very good description of what trauma is all about, and what happens to those who are traumatized. The essence of trauma is that it destroys any sense that life is secure or safe. The basic sense of trust that is necessary to know that the world is safe is destroyed. It can question our faith, especially the belief in a God of love. The question of Theodicy is front and center? Many traumatized people return to the past, the time before the trauma or are stuck in the time of the trauma. I'm not sure he burried his gifts in the ground or even that this scripture is applicable in this case. I think his theology provides him security and is a psychological defense... but he does fear life, the dirty, messy, painful, awful aspects of every day real life. What you see sitting on the seat of Peter is this Pope's conflict born out of the war trauma of his youth.

Maybe Pope Benedict XVI has a split personality.

I do not believe there are 2 different Pope Benedicts. I believe there is one Joseph Ratzinger who always comes down on the winning side. Whichever side he thinks will "win" is the one he supports. If you follow his life, he's always supported the side that was winning--until it wasn't winning; then he supported the other side that was then winning. I know it sounds confusing, but it seems to me that he always lands on the winning side of whatever it is he's a part of. MCS

This is a great question. Smarter men will no doubt be able to shed light on this puzzle as Fr. Kennedy has, but to me, it was probably a "sea change" in Joseph Ratzinger's thinking when he observed the great exodus of priests and religious following Vatican II. His Teutonic mind, sheltered in academic institutions for most of his young life, was affronted by the perceived upheaval and turmoil in the Church. He concluded something very wrong was happening, and the Church must step back. Others saw all this as the working of the Holy Spirit taking Christ’s church to a new and better place.

Mentored by Pope John Paul, as he was, and their close relation completed his turn to the "conservative side."

When I met Cardinal Ratzinger:.....My husband and I were volunteering for 2
years at the Austrian Hospice in the Old City of Jerusalem in the 1990's.One
day I was taking my daily exercise speed walk thru the Old City, when suddenly
next to me was walking a priest about my height. I turned to him and what a
shock...I asked, "Cardinal Ratzinger?" "Yes",he replied with a smile as the
two of us stood facing. I took his hand and started to go down on one knee,
but he lifted me up as I told him the Church of ( my State then) greets you.
He delighted in the information I shared and we shared some brief conversations. We said "good-bye" and as he started to walk on, I said to
him, "Be sure to remember women's role in the church." He turned, smiled, and
bowed his head. I was deeply touched and delighted to meet the man of
'controversy' and I felt comfortable with him. When I got back to the hospice
I announced to my husband and a newly arrived visiting priest( a well known
theologian in the church) that "guess who I just met?" When I told them with
a bit of "I wonder if it is true about the controversy about what he does, etc?" The visiting priest smiled and said to me, "I am a friend of his, we
were friends since seminary days, at Tubegan, and when he was Archbishop of
Munich and I visit him every time I am in Rome." I slapped my face slightly
and asked.."Oh, am I going to be excomunicated?" He said, "Let me tell you
about my last visit with him. The then Pope JPII who was his 'boss' had just
published some declaration [ wish i could remember the latin name he
used but i can't right now] that Ratzinger signed off on. When I read what
JPII had just published ,I retreved a publication and sermon that then
Archbishop Ratzinger had preached in his diocese. I held up both copies to
him in his office and asked, pointing to the JPII publication and then to
his from Munich and said to him....I know you believe in what you wrote in this article in Munich...it is not the same as JPII's, how could you put this
out? Ratzinger said to me, "I do what I am told." Well, I was in a pondering
mood and ever since that exchange,(and i supported Ratzinger as Pope), i
still am puzzled by the "I do what I am told." I just spent two weeks in Rome
this past May...I am deeply troubled by what I saw and heard and more deeply
troubled as I return home and are meeting long time faithful catholics leaving
the church. And I am in a diocese who has just been sent an Opus Dei Bishop.
May God help me. I smile some times and say to Mystery, "if this Bishop
excomunicates me for challenging him about his rejection of Vatican II, I
will stand on the steps of the cathedral and sing, "Free at last, free at
last, thank you Mystery, for I am free at last to live the spirit of Vatican
II." dncrowley

This article reflects more about the author than it does about the pope. While it is certainly true that Joseph Ratzinger often uses the expression "on the one hand" to indicate that he understands complexity and nuance in the issues of church and life in general, it is by no means paradoxical. He is a learned man and a deep thinker who is a proponent of the very catholic concept of "both/and".

It is absurd based on the widely known facts, for Mr. Kennedy to liken Benedict XVI to "an experienced jockey who hugs the rail to win the derby, he positioned himself knowingly for the brief race to his election." Quite the opposite is true.
The idea of a "fearful" Ratzinger is true only in the imagination of the misguided Hans Kung who has sadly spent the last years of his once brilliant career attempting to defame a man he once considered a friend.

One may not agree with his theology, but when it comes to integrity and fortitude, Joseph Ratzinger has proven himself to have both in spades.

A powerful and masterful psychological-theological portrait with all the light and shadows in the right place. I’ve thought a lot about the contradictions you point out, and the known facts you mention. And I tried to know better the Joseph Ratzinger who lies behind the Cardinal and the Pope looking at his pictures. I advise you to do the same: some times he has an aloof look, when his smile turns in a sort of grim; in other, more rare moments, he looks at ease. I don’t forget to be almost frightened by his stern look, and to be touched by his fatherly figure, in situations when he was relaxed. I keep one of his photos in my mind: it was taken during a trip to Brazil, and in it he had a loving look; at the time he was being embraced by two young poor children and, in turn, embracing them. I feel he has, like many intellectuals, used to live in introspective isolation a deep fear of real people, and, at the same time, an equally deep longing for tenderness and intimacy. Forgetting the cardinal’s theological U-turn, I must confess I pity the Pope, in the tremendous loneliness of power, forced to face what is, perhaps, the most decisive and unpredictable period in History.

Professor Kennedy may be right. But when writing an opinion, we all need to be aware of (and steer clear of) our biases, so that we can think clearly. I reckon Ratzinger's dual personality is only apparent. Perhaps the Pope is the normal, while we are thinking from from a biased opinion. By way of analogy, read the short quotation below from GK Chesterton's book "Orthodoxy", as he describes Christianity:

"Suppose we have heard of an unknown man spoken of by many men. Suppose we were puzzled to hear that some men said he was too tall and some too short; some objected to his fatness, some lamented his leanness; some thought him too dark, and some too fair. On explanation would be that he might be an odd shape.

But there is another explanation. He might be the right shape. Outrageously tall men might feel him to be short. Very short men might feel him to be tall. Old bucks who are growing stout might consider him insufficiently filled-out; old beaux who were growing thin might feel that he expanded beyond the narrow lines of elegance. Perhaps Swedes (who have pale hair like tow) called him a dark man, while black people considered him distinctly blond. Perhaps (in short), this extraordinary thing is really the ordinary thing; at least the normal thing, the centre. Perhaps after all, it is Christianity that is sane and all of its critics that are mad - in various ways."

Like Christianity, I'm certain Pope Benedict is the normal one, because he is balanced. Too often, our opinions are infected with bias and lack balance. This is a much more sound explanation as to why to some, Pope Benedict appears to be "...two very different men seated on the Chair of Peter at this time."

Very interesting article about Pope Benedict XVI. I agree that he has changed from the bright, excited Theologian of Vatican II and seems to have become a very conservative individual who is afraid of the modern world. Professor Kennedy has hit the nail on the head in his description of our present Pope. God Bless Pope Benedict and i pray that the Holy Spirit will guide him.

Just an afterthought:

Certitudes of any kind make me shiver, because so much harm has being done because of them. I prefer doubts: “The cloud of unknowing”, “The dark night of the soul”. So well expressed in Mother Theresa of Calcutta last words: “If there is a God, I beg Him to forgive me”. She, who was reduced to the bones after an entire life dedicated to the poorest of the poor…

While reading, yesterday, a magnificent report about the crisis in the Anglican Church in the Financial Times, I found the echo of her words in the statement by an English pastor: The Church has to be about improving life here on Earth, and not just a bet on the existence of Heaven. “If, at the end of my life,” said Tom Thubron at Wheatley Hill, “there’s a kind of blind coming down and that’s all there is, I wouldn’t have thought I’d have wasted my time. It isn’t that religion has made me holy. But it’s kept me honest with myself. I think my influence has been in trying to make the world better. And that in itself is worthwhile.”

Is this not the spirit that must guide any man of good will, any true follower of Jesus? For me, this is the core of the Social Teaching of the Church that any reformists of the reform are not able to erase.

By the way, in such a deep crisis that is affecting the entire world and threatening life on Earth, I would recommend a little bit more of ecumenism. One of the greatest and more lucid religious figures is, precisely, The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. And I would add the Dalai Lama or the Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who deserved so much the title of “The Green Patriarch”.

As well as the “preferential option for the poor” – that I’m afraid is becoming an option for the rich and powerful -, Christian and inter-religious dialogue it is a big Vatican II legacy that I fear is also being swept under the rug.

When you mention Benedict XVI contradictions, we must remember this one. And the not very decent efforts to rob part of the Anglican’s flock, granting them exceptcional treatment.

Could it be that Pope B-16 suffers the same sickness as many in our society today -- that he is bi-polar? Folks with this sickness can destroy life and happiness of those around them. Hopefully, I'm wrong. . .but how to explain it?

Make no mistake about it, Joe Ratzinger wanted to be Pope more than anything else. To think otherwise is naive. He is backward thinking and more than any Pontiff in modern history, frozen in Trent. He is also quite use to the imperial life as he was number two man prior to becoming Pope. His turning inward out of fear and loathing of all things he deems a challenge to protect "tradition" over inclusive love and diversity of views, makes him not only a poorly suited man for the job, but a failure. He is a failure as Head of the Church because he does not see the validity of many approaches to understanding God. He will be the LAST imperial Bishop of Rome. They have run out of time. The public sees the game they are playing: hold onto power and they continue to live the life of Kings, a life style that is altogether unbecoming of a bishop of the Church. This is it. People have had it. I do NOT believe they will endure. The Church must Change and radically so, or it will die by the end of this century. The game is up.

Thanks, it makes me feel a little saner when you have the same dubious feeling about Benedict then and now. But recently I found another soul who
seems over the same period to have withdrawn from promise of the Vatican 2 period. Michael Novak's book A Time to Build fell into my hands recently.
I was shocked to find that he had been of such a liberal mindset back then.
Perhaps genetics has something to do with it. Some of us just get fearful
and distrusting of the ongoing changes. Its perhaps a natural matter. But,
can we simply accept that this attitude should shape the future? The only real constant is change itself. To try to recover the past is a false sense
of confidence. Movements that are back searching always seem to fail. The
promise of Marxist Communism simply fell prey to disintegration and fell apart
internally, no bombs required. Our Church is also prone to disintegration.
A generation from now the musty ideals of a pre Vatican 2 reality will only
be more likely to be vary problematic. We need regeneration we do not need
to retreat. Its about Renewal not Retrenchment. My children have pretty much already abandoned organised religion. My grandchildren will probably
thereby, be trained not to respond to cheap grace. We are currently decimating
our membership in favor of what? A pre-Trent unreality and a very backward looking liturgical scene. If religion cannot infuse the present with Christ's
Love how can it survive by a retreat to the Past. None of it makes much
sense anymore. I have a feeling that its the lust for continuing absolute and
unshared power that is the evil choice of our time.
God Bless, memories of Louis Putz, Jack Egan and ND.
TomC

As usual---sour grapes by the author. And alot of venom besides.

Having just read every entry on this topic, I am struck by both the thoughtful and careful reflections and the short dismissive ones. I am attracted to the former in which I read a generally serious attempt to understand these last 40 years.
Jane Walton
Australia

Good article w/ lots to think about.

Look, just because he is pope doesn't mean he cannot suffer from the same ailments that other octogenarians suffer from, mild dementia, emotional issues, longing for the past etc. There's probably plenty of plaque on his MRI typical for individuals in the 80's.
What elderly relative we wished we didn't have to visit because all they did was talk about how good it was in the "good old days"?

Fortunately, they weren't in a position to actually make decisions, that are unquestioned, that can actually take an institution like the Church back centuries, back to the not so good "good old days"!