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The most unpleasant. regrettable and perennially annoying aspect of the build-up to John Paul II's beatification is that it provides malicious minds - in both the Catholic and secular worlds - with a gift-wrapped, silver-platter occasion to pursue their preposterous Ratzinger-cannot-hold-a-candle-to Wojtyla spite campaign. I am posting this rather frivolous British blog from someone who calls himself Heresiarch because it typifies the malice that drives this campaign, which began the moment the world was told that the new Pope was Joseph Ratzinger. At least, Heresiarch is not Catholic, so his blithe cynicism is perhaps even to be expected, unlike the malicious 'Vatican insider' he cites...
Revealed: Ratzinger's
'palace revolution'
by The Heresiarch
April 3, 2011
An interesting tidbit about differing pontifical styles in yesterday's Times [of London], which had a piece on preparations for the forthcoming (and laughably rushed) beatification of Pope John Paul II. It comes from a Vatican insider who preferred to remain anonymous [They always do, the cowards!]:
"In 27 years he [JPII] didn't change a nail in his personal apartment. Ratzinger had it completely refitted with German kitchen equipment and electronic devices everywhere".
This is presented as evidence of JPII's superior personal sanctity - the report says that this "trumped his weaknesses as governor of the church".
Others might see the state of the apartments as a metaphor for stagnation and rot in the institution more generally. The vignette does reveal that the present Pontiff has been, at least as regards his personal living space, a radical moderniser. He has also moved to copyright the papal image, so we're unlikely to be seeing many Benedict lollipops.
It could be that, coming from Communist Poland, Wojtyla found the papal apartments splendid rather than antiquated, and Ratzinger simply had higher expectations.
[ALRIGHT ALREADY! There was a very practical reason why the new Pope could not move into the papal apartment for several weeks in 2005. The Pope's private quarters (bedroom and adjoining bathroom facilities) had to be conformed back for 'normal' use because in the final years of Papa Wojtyla's illness, these had to be refitted to meet the physical limitations of an octogenarian in the last stages of Parkinson's and his medical needs, including an adjoining emergency room with all the hospital apparatus that might conceivably be needed by a patient who was, after all, the spiritual leader of the world's Catholics. So, even in this sense, it is false that nothing was ever changed in the papal apartments for 27 years!
This much we also know from what was reported at the time: Since there had to be renovations, anyway - three decades is more than a reasonable time between home renovations! - Benedict XVI asked that the walls in his private quarters be repainted with warmer colors; he had apartments built for his private secretaries in what had been attic space above the papal apartment; and when a German firm offered equipment for a complete modern kitchen, he accepted it, for the convenience of his housekeepers, because it was well known that Papa Wojtyla's Polish housekeepers had to make do with an antiquated kitchen. It was also for their convenience that the patchwork and inefficient electrical system was updated. So what is wrong with all that?
In his sixty years as priest, professor, cardinal and now Pope, I do not think Joseph Ratzinger was ever accused of being other than austere in his private life. Even his house in Pentling is a very modest middle-class home!]
On the other hand, John Paul II strikes me as the type who, in the Middle Ages, would have worn a hair-shirt, while Benedict XVI, in the Renaissance, would probably have hired Raphael to paint his bedroom. They would both have enjoyed burning heretics, however.
Benedict XVI is also getting short shrift for his personal holiness from his mindless critics, as if holiness only consists of hairshirts and mystical trances! And yet many of the cardinals who wrote about the 2005 conclave later pointed out Cardinal Ratzinger's personal holiness as one of the factors that made them vote for him.
The comparison game will only get worse because now, they will be comparing him not just to another Pope but to a saint-by-acclamation who will probably be canonized before long. These gratuitous comparisons are nothing but vicious exercises undertaken by idle minds, the devil's very workshop.
Eamon Duffy, a Cambridge professor of Christian history and a prominent Catholic writer, wrote a condescending and almostt insulting article about Benedict XVI before the UK visit last September.(Page 135 of this thread). Among other things, he said, in a typical putdown of Benedict XVI:
"John Paul II was manifestly a giant on the world stage...By contrast, Pope Benedict is an altogether smaller figure, a man of the sacristy and the lecture room..." to which I reacted with these words:
Has Duffy just dropped in from Mars? Where was he in the past five years, when Benedict XVI quickly eclipsed John Paul II's audience figures at the Vatican, scored a number of impressive foreign trips, wrote 3 landmark encyclicals and an even more landmark book on Jesus, to mention just a few concrete facts?
And where was he in the 25 years before that, when Joseph Ratzinger was arguably the most prolific and best-selling Catholic theologian of the second half of the 20th century? And that Joseph Ratzinger had all these solid theological achievements independent of his function in the Roman Curia.
Everyone seems to forget that he came to the Papacy better known internationally before he became Pope than any new Pope in the entire 20th century (Pius XII maybe, but he was Secretary of State in the 1930s long before communications technology made the world a global village)! And by virtue of having presided at John Paul II's funeral Mass, he was also the first potential Pope in history to be seen 'in action' by the largest worldwide TV audience so far.
I really do not understand why so many Catholic prelates and academics like Duffy appear to forget - conveniently and unpardonably - the extraordinary biography of Joseph Ratzinger before he became Pope, and continue treating him as almost 'unworthy' to be wearing the Shoes of the Fisherman after someone like John Paul II. Especially since from all accounts, he was elected Pope precisely because there was no one else who could conceivably step into the shoes of the late Pope with the same authoritativeness and personal holiness!
In checking back on that Duffy article, I found on the same page a blog entry by the Heresiarch that I posted before the Pope's UK visit entitled 'Ten reasons to love the Pope', of which 5 were serious and the other 5 flippant and frivolous...
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 04/04/2011 19:06] |