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This is a very extensive, interesting and insightful article on the “Childless Culture” of modern urban America. Will there be enough children to replace those who are growing older and those who are dying? If there are not enough children who will pay for the elderly? If the childless generation succeeds, then they too will suffer. For this writer, one area that the author of this article neglected, and probably could not gauge, was the effect of aging on those who are electing to be childless.
Now, these folk have living parents and often grandparents. But grand parents and parents will die leaving the childless children without family. Friends, yes. But are today’s friends the same as today’s children who remain your children when you are old! This idea of family as companions along the journey of life may be quaint, but I suggest a visit to a contemporary elderly life home, or a nursing home. The people in these places often have families and yet, they cannot stay at home because of illness, frailty, behavioral problems, or simply because their children do not want to take care of them.
So, we posit the idea of millions of men and women who today could have children we imagine that they successfully carry out their childlessness. So, imagine that they are now fifty or sixty. They are weaker than they are now. Some are sick. Some are frail. All are without grandparents, parents or children. They are also either out of a job because of technological advances eliminating their employment, or they are forced to continue working until they are dead because of the increasing costs of urban singleton living.
Hey, they may indeed be happy. But this is also true, there comes a point in biological life when it is no longer possible to have children. So, the decision to be childless becomes, at that point, not reversible. Hey, they may be used to being a “family” of one. However, the socially hip scene changes with age. The friends move away or die away. The body degenerates. So, what! They may think that is not their problem. And it isn’t.
As the article inferred, Obama will take care of them. Oh, I forgot, he will be old too. And surprise! Obama is married and has two children. His retirement will be generous. His wife is a successful business person. And although his parents and grandparents are dead, I am sure he will have plenty of friends to keep him company as he grows older. Maybe, using him as the image for ourselves is not the best idea. Well, to each his/her own.
http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/pope-s-reflection-on-vatican-ii-part-1
This article is a very friendly, warm and heartening account of the Second Vatican Council. Give it a read, it is worth while and I believe you will go along with a younger Benedict as he first enters the realm of the Council.
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February 18, 2013, Monday — Benedict’s Vision
“We have nothing to give God, we have only our sin to place before him. And this he receives and makes his own, while in return he gives us himself and his glory.” –Pope Benedict XVI, September 25, 2011, during his visit to Germany, meeting with Catholics engaged in the life of the Church and society, in Freiburg im Breisgau
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The Pope’s Vision for the Future
A vision for the future of the Church set forth in 1969, 44 years ago, by the relatively young theologian Joseph Ratzinger, then 42 — so at almost the exact midpoint of his life from his birth in 1927 until now — was recalled today by Italian writer Marco Bardazzi on the Vatican Insider website.
It was a vision of a Church with “far fewer members” and with “little influence over political decisions,” to the point of being almost “socially irrelevant” and forced to “start over.” But it was also a vision of a Church that would find herself again and be reborn a “simpler and more spiritual” entity following “enormous confusion.”
The vision was set forth is a series of five radio homilies by Ratzinger in 1969, and was published in book form just two years ago by Ignatius Press as Faith and the Future.
Ratzinger said he was convinced the modern Church was going through a dramatic era similar to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.
“We are at a huge turning point in the evolution of mankind,” he said. “This moment makes the move from medieval to modern times seem insignificant.”
From the crisis “will emerge a Church that has lost a great deal,” he warned. “It will become small and will have to start pretty much all over again. It will no longer have use of the structures it built in its years of prosperity… It will be a more spiritual Church, and will not claim a political mandate flirting with the Right one minute and the Left the next. It will be poor and will become the Church of the destitute.”
The process outlined by Ratzinger was a “long” one “but when all the suffering is past, a great power will emerge from a more spiritual and simple Church.” Then, and only then, Ratzinger concluded, would Catholics begin to see “that small flock of faithful as something completely new… as a source of hope for themselves, the answer they had always secretly been searching for.”
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The Destruction of the Church’s Mission through Worldliness
Has Benedict’s vision for the Church’s future change over the past 44 years?
An exceptional talk he gave on the matter a year and a half ago offers insight into the Pope’s mind on this question. His talk is worth recalling now, in light of his announcement of his resignation on February 11, to take effect on February 28.
On his September 22-25, 2011 apostolic journey to Germany, Benedict went into his vision for the Church’s future in some detail in an address to Catholic workers in Freiburg im Breisgau on the final day of the trip, on Sunday, September 25.
“For some decades now we have been experiencing a decline in religious practice and we have been seeing substantial numbers of the baptized drifting away from Church life,” Benedict began.
So, in a sense, he was saying that the vision he had set forth in 1969 had, by 2011, come to pass.
He then posed the question this situation inevitably calls forth: should the Church not change?
“This prompts the question: should the Church not change? Must she not adapt her offices and structures to the present day, in order to reach the searching and doubting people of today?”
His answer?
“Yes, there are grounds for change,” he said. “There is a need for change. Every Christian and the whole community of the faithful are called to constant change.”
But, what type of change?
His answer: that the Church must “set herself apart from her surroundings, become in a certain sense ‘unworldly.'”
This is an arduous way of changing, a counter-cultural way.
And this is why the Church’s relationship to the world must always be nuanced.
Yes, the Church must change, and make herself “up-to-date.”
But she must not conform to the modern or progressive world; rather, she must “set herself apart from her surroundings” and “become in a certain sense ‘unworldly.'”
And the reason for this is that the Church’s mission is to point men and women beyond themselves, beyond whatever “present” they inhabit, beyond whatever “modern world” they live in, to what is eternal, that is, to God.
Benedict said (the italics are my own):
“The Church’s mission has its origins in the mystery of the triune God, in the mystery of his creative love. And love is not just somehow within God, it is God, he himself is love by nature.
“And divine love does not want to exist only for itself, by nature it wants to pour itself out. It has come down to humanity, to us, in a particular way through the incarnation and self-offering of God’s Son: by virtue of the fact that Christ, the Son of God, as it were stepped outside the framework of his divinity, took flesh and became man, not merely to confirm the world in its worldliness and to be its companion, leaving it to carry on just as it is, but in order to change it.”
Benedict then set forth a vision of an “economy” that is not an exchange of goods and sevrices between men, but an exchange between men and God.
“The Christ event includes the inconceivable fact of what the Church Fathers call a sacrum commercium, an exchange between God and man,” Benedict said.
“The Fathers explain it in this way: we have nothing to give God, we have only our sin to place before him. And this he receives and makes his own, while in return he gives us himself and his glory: a truly unequal exchange, which is brought to completion in the life and passion of Christ.
“He becomes, as it were, a ‘sinner,’ he takes sin upon himself, takes what is ours and gives us what is his…
“The Church owes her whole being to this unequal exchange. She has nothing of her own to offer to him who founded her, such that she might say: here is something wonderful that we did! Her raison d’être consists in being a tool of redemption, in letting herself be saturated by God’s word and in bringing the world into loving unity with God.
“The Church is immersed in the Redeemer’s outreach to men. When she is truly herself, she is always on the move, she constantly has to place herself at the service of the mission that she has received from the Lord. And therefore she must always open up afresh to the cares of the world, to which she herself belongs, and give herself over to them, in order to make present and continue the holy exchange that began with the Incarnation.”
But this mission, to be a “tool of redemption,” to bring the world into loving unity with God, can be frustrated.
“In the concrete history of the Church, however, a contrary tendency is also manifested, namely that the Church becomes self-satisfied, settles down in this world, becomes self-sufficient and adapts herself to the standards of the world,” Benedict said.
“Not infrequently, she gives greater weight to organization and institutionalization than to her vocation to openness towards God, her vocation to opening up the world towards the other.”
And here Benedict spoke about the mission of the Church, and of each member of the Church, using words which may shed light on his decision to resign the papacy.
“In order to accomplish her true task adequately,” Benedict said a year and a half ago, “the Church must constantly renew the effort to detach herself from her tendency towards worldliness and once again to become open towards God. In this she follows the words of Jesus: “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (Jn 17:16), and in precisely this way he gives himself to the world.”
Benedict’s decision to “leave the world” and, as it were, become “hidden” in a small convent inside the Vatican walls, may be seen as his attempt to try to accomplish his true task, which is “to open up the world towards the other.”
He added, provocatively:
“One could almost say that history comes to the aid of the Church here through the various periods of secularization, which have contributed significantly to her purification and inner reform.”
He is saying that those periods in which the Church has seemingly been diminished by secualr forces, by the powers of this world, are actually periods which are needd to bring about the Church’s “purification and inner reform.”
And this is the vision that Benedict has for our future.
That we will lose many privileges, and many glories, from a human perspective. Cathedrals may close. Schools and universities may be abandoned or lost. Religious orders may die out. Secular laws may put great pressure on the Church.
But all of this can be freeing.
And of this can be a way of liberating the Church from a facade of holiness, and bringing about true holiness.
“Secularizing trends – whether by expropriation of Church goods, or elimination of privileges or the like – have always meant a profound liberation of the Church from forms of worldliness, for in the process she, as it were, sets aside her worldly wealth and once again completely embraces her worldly poverty,” Benedict said.
The destiny of the tribe of Levi…
“In this she shares the destiny of the tribe of Levi, which, according to the Old Testament account, was the only tribe in Israel with no ancestral land of its own, taking as its portion only God himself, his word and his signs,” he said.
“At those moments in history, the Church shared with that tribe the demands of a poverty that was open to the world, in order to be released from her material ties: and in this way her missionary activity regained credibility.”
And this is the key phrase: “in this way her missionary activity regained credibility.”
For that is what Benedict is after, in the end.
As a theologian, as a bishop, as a Pope, he wants the message of Christ to be seen for what it is, something life-giving, something liberating.
And if that message is losing credibility, the whole mission of the Church is in jeopardy.
If scandals, if corruption, if hypocrisy, if cover-ups, have made the message of the Church a message no one can hear within a sneer, then something must be done to free the message once again.
Something dramatic.
For the sake of the message.
Something like taking an action not taken in centuries.
Something like resigning the papacy and devoting one’s life to prayer.
“History has shown that, when the Church becomes less worldly, her missionary witness shines more brightly,” Benedict said.
“Once liberated from material and political burdens and privileges, the Church can reach out more effectively and in a truly Christian way to the whole world, she can be truly open to the world…
“The Church opens herself to the world not in order to win men for an institution with its own claims to power, but in order to lead them to themselves by leading them to him of whom each person can say with Saint Augustine: he is closer to me than I am to myself (cf. Confessions, III,6,11). He who is infinitely above me is yet so deeply within me that he is my true interiority.
“This form of openness to the world on the Church’s part also serves to indicate how the individual Christian can be open to the world in effective and appropriate ways.”
It is in these lines that one may find Benedict’s true interpretation of the Second Vatican Council, and the Council’s search to “open up” the Church so that her message could be better heard by the world. The entire point of the “opening up” was not to become worldly, but to be able to preach to the worldly.
“It is not a question here of finding a new strategy to relaunch the Church,” Benedict said. “Rather, it is a question of setting aside mere strategy and seeking total transparency, not bracketing or ignoring anything from the truth of our present situation, but living the faith fully here and now in the utterly sober light of day, appropriating it completely, and stripping away from it anything that only seems to belong to faith, but in truth is mere convention or habit.
“To put it another way: for people of every era, and not just our own, the Christian faith is a scandal,” Benedict said. “That the eternal God should know us and care about us, that the intangible should at a particular moment have become tangible, that he who is immortal should have suffered and died on the Cross, that we who are mortal should be given the promise of resurrection and eternal life – for people of any era, to believe all this is a bold claim.
“This scandal, which cannot be eliminated unless one were to eliminate Christianity itself, has unfortunately been overshadowed in recent times by other painful scandals on the part of the preachers of the faith,” he continued.
“A dangerous situation arises when these scandals take the place of the primary skandalon of the Cross and in so doing they put it beyond reach, concealing the true demands of the Christian Gospel behind the unworthiness of those who proclaim it.”
One senses in these words the terrible consequences of the priestly abuse of children for the Church, but not so much for the Church as institution as for the Church as the source of a message of healing and holiness.
The scandals have rendered the Church almost incapable of preaching her essential message.
This, too, helps explain why Benedict decided to resign.
“All the more, then, it is time once again to discover the right form of detachment from the world, to move resolutely away from the Church’s worldliness,” Benedict said.
The Pope then summed up his argument to the German Catholics he was speaking to:
“Openness to the concerns of the world means, then, for the Church that is detached from worldliness, bearing witness to the primacy of God’s love according to the Gospel through word and deed, here and now, a task which at the same time points beyond the present world because this present life is also bound up with eternal life.
“As individuals and as the community of the Church, let us live the simplicity of a great love, which is both the simplest and hardest thing on earth, because it demands no more and no less than the gift of oneself.”
Those lines are worth repeating. They seem to describe the choice that Benedict has made:
“As individuals and as the community of the Church, let us live the simplicity of a great love, which is both the simplest and hardest thing on earth, because it demands no more and no less than the gift of oneself.”
http://news.yahoo.com/ap-interview-egypts-pope-criticizes-islamists-195303020.html
“We are a part of the soil of this nation and an extension of the pharaohs and their age before Christ. Yes, we are a minority in the numerical sense, but we are not a minority when it comes to value, history, interaction and love for our nation,” he said.
His Holiness is right to assert that the Coptic Christian community pre dates the Islamic conquest of the seventh thru ninth centuries His annoyance with constantly being relegated to minority status should resonate with Americans who are currently battling to empower all so-called minorities. However, unlike USA where recent minorities actually are such, the Coptic Christian community dates from the earliest Christian era, in the first century, (that’s 0 to 99 years) Anno Domini.
http://www.delmarvanow.com/viewart/20130126/LIFESTYLE/301260034/Pope-social-networking-virtual-real
This very fine article is definitely very interesting. The Holy Father has some very keen and meaningful insights into the positive aspects of the virtual media. As noted in the article, His Holiness, is a twitter superstar with 2.5 millions followers and many who follow his Latin tweets also.
Absolutely fascinating account of the life of L. Ron Hubbard. I read almost all his books, never subscribed to his religion because I am a Christian. But I still found him fascinating and find this latest revelation about his life to be the definitive conclusion to his fantasy.
An Answer to those who perpetuate the lie that religion and in particular, Christianity, are anti science.
Ace I will not answer such silliness except to say, read your history and realize that learning was carried over from Greek and Romans by the Christian monasteries, to include languages and mathematics. geology, archeology,botany, astronomy, etc. Second, Almost all major Universities in Europe, Asia, Africa, USA, indeed the world were founded by devout Christians, many of them Priests, Pastors or Evangelists. Third, the great scientists of the early discoveries were Christian monks, Pastors or Scholars to include Gregor Mendel the father of modern botany and plant genetics, Newton, the father of modern physics, Kepler and myriad others. The great hospitals and institutions of charity were founded by Christians to include the more secular ones such as the Red Cross, Boy and Girl scouts. The great abolitionists were Christians, as well as the Woman suffrage leaders. Note that the Civil rights movement was led by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King and the Reverend Dr. Ralph Abernathy, and the Rev. Fathers Berrigan were stanch anti-war protesters. So, Ace, please read your history, get enlightened and realize that you are merely repeating parrot like the mantra of ignorant anti religion and anti Christian bigots and those who promote anti religion intolerance.
http://shine.yahoo.com/the-thread-hit-list/a-smiling-anita-hill-shows-up-at-sundance-204556971.html
The film’s angle, said the director after the screening, is all about “looking at the next generation of people, looking at the next generation of issues and getting it right,” in terms of gender inequality.
The director the film is telling us HIS problem. The people of the USA had it right then and have it right now. We, the people are for each other and as the saying goes we “have each other’s back.” It is the Hollywood crowd that has it all wrong. They think of themselves as “Stars” or as “Very talented” or as the ‘Hollywood Royalty’ or the “Elite”. Actually, they are actors and actresses making a living by performing for other people’s entertainment much like an automobile worker makes cars or a garbage person takes away the trash. No better and no worse. However, to hear them tell it, we, the people have it wrong regarding our values and they are going to show us the error of our ways and point us to the brightness of their light. (Funny, how they attack religion as being preaching when what they do, day and night, is preach, preach, preach.) For them, there are the super stars, the super rich, the super successful. For them, there are the “has beens, the B grade” actors and actresses. For them, there are those who are sought after and those who are shunned. Their inordinate pride is amazingly self-centered and therefore fundamentally narrow and most of the time unwarranted. Yes, we the people got it right years ago during the hearing for Clarence Thomas who was the first Black man to become a Justice of the Supreme Court and who was set upon by the bigotry of Senator Kennedy and his cabal of cronies in the Senate. And we get it right every day as we live, work and socialize with each other down here in the lowlands where the PEOPLE actually live. By the way, Mr Director, who set you up as the teacher who is going to show the rest of us how to get it right? Take a look at your own house first. How many women are Directors of movies, or heads of production studios? It seems to me that Hollywood’s Directors are predominantly white males, and that Hollywood administrative structures are exclusively white males.
By the way, Anita looks fabulous in the photo. Good for her and we are all glad she made a success of her life. However, sadly, she very publically tried to make a disaster of another person’s life. Funny that Justice Thomas, whose wife is white, should have been accused by the Kennedy cabal of being a sexist and racist?! For some perspective on those we once called our leaders, read Killing Kennedy by Bill O Reilly concerning John and Robert Kennedy. Sections of it also treat of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his deeds of self-indulgence in the dark. The book is very factual, and very enlightening concerning those who would accuse others of misdeeds. The book restates an old adage that those who accuse others are probably doing it themselves and even worse than those they accuse.
Amazing to me that this former priest cannot honestly admit that his offense clearly was pointed out to him by his superiors. He says that he is bound by his conscience. Well, he also is bound by his conscience concerning his profession of vocation, his vows of ordination, and his profession of obedience to the Bishops, Archbishops and the Holy Father. Furthermore, his conscience is bound by his priestly position as a teacher of the official position of the Roman Catholic Church. His removal as a priest does not stop him from speaking, teaching or writing. It merely recognizes the fact that he has removed himself from any participation in the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. He did this by an action of his own free will and it would indicate his basic honesty to admit the fact and move on.
I looked at the three smaller photos in the article:
The essence of the article was this. Pope Benedict last year had asked three cardinals to investigate the “Vatileaks” affair. He had chosen three cardinals older than age 80 — Julian Herranz, Josef Tomko, and Salvatore De Giorgi — to conduct the investigation. They had begun their work last April, even before the Vatileaks scandal really “broke” in May. They were given the authority to summon any Vatican official, including other cardinals, to be questioned.
The three, evidently with a small but dedicated staff to help them, worked all year, interviewing dozens of officials. Their investigation paralleled the investigation of the Vatican police, but was of an even higher level, since the three cardinals could also interview other cardinals.
Progressive Politics 