BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

The Pope is more severe with
the Church than his critics are -
and for the right reasons
by Luigi Accattoli
Translated from

February 26, 2012

[La Lettura is the Sunday magazine of Corriere della Sera.]

The Catholic Church is in crisis - so the media loudly proclaim, and the custodians of the temple admit it.

But what is the crisis? There are conflicting opinions among analysts as among the protagonists.

As are the opinions on the chattering of the crows from the Vatican in the past few weeks. Some speak of a crisis of the Christian faith in general. some of the decadence of the historical Church, or of the European Churches, or of t the Church leadership, or of Curial government. The newspaper are focused on the latter. [No news there! The media have an irremediable obsession with the trivial and the seemingly serious, and a chronic aversion for the truly serious.]

We have the curious situation of a Pope who says more about what's wrong with the Church than his own critics, who - like Hans Kueng or the 'We are Church' movement - say that things would never be so bad if only the Church had the courage to undertake some reforms - democratic processes of decision-making, a more active role in the Church for laymen and women; a more positive note in preaching, less preoccupation with the current trends in sexual and bioethical culture, less attachment to the old forms of the Church presence in politics and public life.

They speak of reforms and point to what they call a crisis of leadership and accuse Popes Montini, Luciani, Wojtyla and Ratzinger of scarce fidelity to the innovative spirit of Vatican II.

Those who sustain this thesis argue that in 1967-68, after the first round of Conciliar reforms, fear of internal divisions prevailed among the Catholic hierarchy in the Vatican, which led, they claimed, to a halt in the Church's aggiornamento (keeping abreast with The world).

Instead, they claim, the most active components of the Catholic community were de-motivated, leading the Church to a progressive distancing from the vital world of man today.

Pope Benedict XVI however maintains that the crisis is far more profound, and that any changes in organization and preaching would not remedy anything unless there is a widespread renewal of the faith.

He spoke of this in the strongest terms when he addressed the Roman Curia last December 27. a Curia already all fevered up because of internal issues which would come to light a few weeks later by so many leaks of confidential documents. [Here, Accattoli falls into the usual unwarranted generalizing mode of MSM. What 'internal issues' were heating up the Curia in December 2011 that have not been present for decades, only taking different specificities with time, and therefore still assumed, probably quite unfairly, to be present today and tomorrow? And what earth-shaking disclosures have the few miserable leaked documents really brought to light? What catastrophes have they caused? More about this below, because it is a major element of the irrational and mindless Pavlov's-dog reflexes that have been the universal media response to these literally piddling leaks.]

Speaking of Europe, the Pope on that occasion asked his co-workers to observe "how the median age of persons who go to Church regularly is getting more and more old and that their number is diminishing continually, in keeping with the stagnation in vocations to the priesthood, and with how skepticism and disbelief are growing;".

His diagnosis was more severe than the denunciation: "The core of the Church's crisis in Europe is the crisis of faith. If we do not find a response ourselves, if the faith does not recover its vitality, to become a profound conviction and a true force resulting from the encounter with Jesus Christ, all other reforms will be ineffective".

Regarding the speed at which the Christians of Europe are aging, the Pope cited the 'joyous passion for the faith' which had comforted him greatly when he was in Africa last November, and before that, when he was in Madrid for World Youth Day: "Among them (young people and Africans), one could not perceive any sign of the fatigue of faith which has become widespread among us, none of that tedium of being Christian which has always been perceptible among us:.

'The tedium of being Christian': words to memorize. In the encyclical Spe salvi (2007), Benedict XVI, citing a 'prophecy' by Kant, asked whether Europeans still consider Christianity 'worthy of love'.

Tedium and disaffection: these are the two salient points in the theologian Pope's reflection on the de-Crhistianization of Europe. Few, I think, can have a more acute sense than he does of the crisis of faith.

Thus, this is the Benedettian concept: a reform of the Church through a recovery of faith. A recovery to be realized "through an encounter with Christ" - in prayer, penitence, conversion.

That is why he decreed a Year of Faith which begins in October on the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).

Also in October, a Synodal Assembly on the New Evangelization - that is, on the need to re-evangelize the European nations which had been among the first to be Christianized.

The German Pope's confidence in the "new way of being Christian' shown by young people and African Catholics is singular. He knows that the continent which has the largest number of churchgoing Catholics today is Africa, and he knows the projections by scholars that in 20-25 years, the number of African Catholics will surpass those of Europe.

He also knows that even today, the greatest number of 'active' Christians in the world are no longer those who belong to the historic churches (Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican or Reformation Protestant) but to the pentecostal churches, or free churches, or non-denominational Christian churches .

His 'impolitic' reaction to the crisis leads him to look at enthusiastic, vital and charismatic forms of living the faith, such as that of young people and Africans.

It is a surprising development in a man who is so rational. But that which is surprising deserves to be understood.




Some reflections on mindless
media hype of Vatileaks, etc

The cacophonous chorus in the media - and therefore in public opinion - of Chicken-Little sky-is-falling reactions to Vatileaks is truly appalling because it seems so mindless. And because everyone is indulging in it, including names like Luigi Accattoli and Andrea Tornielli.

Haven't the Vaticanistas themselves all these past few decades accustomed the public to think of the Vatican as a perennially simmering devil's brew of career rivalries, petty intrigues and other unspecified irregularities and unspeakable acts, leaving the public to imagine the worst they can?

Surely, what the public has been imagining all these years about 'resident wickedness in the Vatican' is far more lurid and catastrophic than what these pathetic documents have revealed.

C'mon! Over-priced contracts, absurdly petty backbiting and backstabbing, as Mons. Vigano claims (even as he practices it himself); a loony anonymous memorandum whose principal purpose seems to be to trigger an open and unseemly premature war for the papal succession; and an exchange of documents expressing reasonable reservations about some provisions of anti-money-laundering regulations? That's what all this 'scandal' has amounted to so far.

The entire community of Dan Brown clones churning out their potboilers about unimaginable depths of Satanic evil in the Vatican must be splitting their sides laughing at the puniness of these allegations - which all of MSM as well as the Catholic media are blowing way beyond proportion! And let no one sanctimoniously claim 'it's the principle of the thing', not the actual magnitude (or lack thereof) of the alleged offenses/crimes/sins.

NO! Perspective matters too. Proportion matters. There is no Banco Ambrosiano scandal here that cost the Vatican $250 million to reinmburse bank clients who lost their funds in the bank collapse. No one has hanged himself from London's Blackfriars Bridge or in a jail cell over anything in Vatileaks. No Swiss Guard love triangle homicide-suicide. No innocent teenager abducted by the Mafia or Eastern European spy services to leverage the release of a would-be assassin.

The only assassinations committed so far have been character assassinations, and surely that exquisite black art was not invented in the Ratzinger Pontificate! Far worse slanders than those in Vatileaks were universally perpetrated against the person of the Holy Father himself in that hateful and hate-filled spring of 2010.

So please, can everyone - Vaticanistas first of all -just sit back and consider rationally how much ado about nothing this tragicomedy of errors constitutes? If the 'scandalized' media were really scandalized,
- They ought to have exposed and named the officials who awarded the overpriced contracts at the Governatorate, so they can be properly investigated and disciplined.
- They should have insisted that Vigano reveal exactly what corruption took place, since he threw the word around but did not substantiate it - did anyone get kickbacks or otherwise profit materially from all the cronyism, and who were they?
-- They could have done investigative work on the RAI executive whom Vigano names as a scurrilous and disreputable lay henchman, in effect, of Cardinal Bertone.
- They should have checked out Vigano's claims that Mons. Paolo Nicolini falsified invoices and had cash shortfalls when he worked at the Lateran University.
- They should have asked for the formal report of the internal Vatican inquiry that did investigate Vigano's accusations and concluded they were unfounded. (It wouldn't have hurt the 'accused' since their names and alleged offenses were already disclosed by Vigano, and the findings exonerating them or failing to establish their culpability would have been good for them.)

They did none of that. If such allegations by an inside source had been made about Italian government officials, verification checks would have been carried out promptly and energetically by the media. But because the accusations involve Vatican officials, everyone in media is willing to just accept Vigano's accusations as fact and take his letters as sufficient evidence for his allegations.

What's the worse that has happened to anyone here? A man who desperately wanted to become a cardinal more than anything else will probably never get to be one. Cardinal Bertone may find it even more difficult to get his act together and clean house in the Secretariat of State.

Oh, but think of the damage to the image of the Church, you might say! Get real! They'll pile up on her, anyway, with or without Vatileaks. The entire catalog of evil, human and subhuman, is already imputed to her. MSM would have easily found some other pretext to start a next round in their determined campaign to sink the Barque of Peter and topple the Rock.

And the Church is not going to lose more 'faithless' because of this - they already dropped out long ago. They have to be re-evangelized in any case, or given up as good riddance.

So, enough already with the pretend hand-wringing and faux outrage over 'the revelations of Vatileaks'. There is still no there there, and no one in MSM can get out of the herd mentality enough to say so. Or prove with facts that there is something here other than the customary dose of human fallibility and sinfulness that afflicts all of us.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 27/02/2012 17:19]