5/22/19 P.S. I was preparing to illustrate this post with the most recent photo I have on file of Cardinal Sarah visiting the Emeritus Pope, but Scneron at La Vigna dei Signore posted these new ones, presumably taken this month, which shows the cardinal accompanied on his visit by French journalist Nicolas Diat, to whom he has given three book-length interviews so far, as well as by the cardinal's secretary.
Having been away from the Forum for a few days, I find that the most important item I must post ahead of any is this one from Sandro Magister today. I am among those who hope and pray that God sees fit to have Cardinal Robert Sarah as the next Pope, but I was quite stunned several days ago to read a report in which he was quoted as having listed Pope Francis along with John Paul II and Benedict XVI as 'blessings' from Vatican II - I cannot now find the article and I wish I had bookmarked it, but I do know I came across it through a canon212.com 'headline link' which predictably - and rightly - ridiculed Sarah for having said so, if he did say so. I had meant to look further into the report but never had a chance to do so.
I had been thinking that Cardinal Sarah's failure to subsribe to any of the various public appeals to Pope Francis having to do with his anti-Catholic statements and actions was in keeping with Curial decorum since he is part of Bergoglio's official family as the titular head of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments. In the same way Cardinal Mueller did not do so while he was Prefect of CDF - nor has he done afterwards, although he has given interviews right and left to criticize Bergoglio on his own, not as part of any group, in the one-step-forward, two-steps-back approach he seems to take with Bergoglio (the latest being to disagree with the authors of the Open Letter to Catholic bishops that Bergoglio is a heretic at all, even as he, Mueller, continues to defend Amoris laetitia in the same statement of being, at worst, 'ambiguous'on the matter of adultery. About Mueller, I truly do not understand Fr. Hunwicke's continual praise of him as a theologian - citing only those statements of Mueller that are orthodox and theologically sound, and not any of his inconsistencies about Bergoglianism.]
I believe Cardinal Sarah - at the risk of being lumped with the overwhelming majority of the world's cardinals and bishops who have vociferously or mutely cast their lot with Bergoglio - has decided that remaining CDW Prefect for now and avoiding any direct criticism of Bergoglio is his most prudent course of action, even as he continues to contradict the key elements of Bergoglianism in the three interview-books he has published so far during this pontificate. The following report is yet another way of doing it:
Cardinal Sarah endorses the 'Notes'
of Benedict XVI, 'martyr for the truth'
May 20, 2019
Cardinal Robert Sarah took everyone by surprise on the evening of May 14 in Rome, in the auditorium of the cultural center of the church of San Luigi dei Francesi (St. Louis of the French), when everyone was expecting him to present his latest book, entitled
Le soir approche et déjà le jour baisse (Night approaches, already the sun is setting)
[from St. Luke's account of the two disciples who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus on that first Easter Sunday, "It is nearly evening and the day is almost over" on the Church’s crisis of faith and the decline of the West.
Because instead, the cardinal said as he began, to speak, “This evening I will not talk about this book at all.” And the reason - he explained - is that
“the fundamental ideas that I develop in it were illustrated, presented, and demonstrated brilliantly last April by Pope Benedict XVI in the ‘notes’ that he had composed in view of the summit of the presidents of the episcopal conferences on sexual abuse convened in Rome by Pope Francis from February 21 to 24.”
Cardinal Sarah continued:
“His reflection has revealed itself to be a true source of light in the night of faith that touches the whole Church. It has prompted reactions that at times have bordered on intellectual hysteria. I have felt personally struck by the wretchedness and coarseness of several comments. We must be convinced that once again the theologian Ratzinger, whose stature is that of a true father and doctor of the Church, has seen correctly and has touched the deepest heart of the Church’s crisis.
“I would therefore like us this evening to allow ourselves to be enlightened by this demanding and luminous thought of his. How could we summarize the thesis of Benedict XVI?
Allow me to simply cite him: ‘Why has pedophilia reached such proportions? In the final analysis, the reason is the absence of God.’ This is the architectonic principle of the entire reflection of the pope emeritus. This is the conclusion of his long argumentation. This must be the starting point of every investigation of the scandal of sexual abuse committed by priests, in order to propose an effective solution.
“The crisis of pedophilia in the Church, the scandalous and distressing multiplication of abuse has one and only one ultimate cause: the absence of God. Benedict XVI summarizes it in another formula that is also clear. I quote: ‘It is only where faith no longer determines the actions of man that such crimes are possible.’
“The theological genius of Joseph Ratzinger here touches not only upon his experience as pastor of souls and as bishop, as father of his priests, but also upon his personal, spiritual, and mystical experience. He goes back to the fundamental cause, he allows us to understand what the only way can be for getting out of the frightening and humiliating scandal of pedophilia. The crisis of sexual abuse is the symptom of a deeper crisis: the crisis of faith, the crisis of the sense of God.”
Cardinal Sarah's entire lecture is reproduced in full in the French edition of this blog:
> Lumière dans la nuit. Au cœur de la crise des abus sur mineurs, le regard de Benoît XVI sur l’Église
[A light in the night: At the heart of the sexual abuse crisis, n Benedict XVI's look at the Church today]
Cardinal Sarah goes over Joseph Ratinger’s analysis step by step, agreeing with it completely.
- He refutes, in biting terms, the criticisms that have been brought against it.
- He emphasizes the effects of the crisis of faith in the lives of priests and in the formation of seminarians.
- He stigmatizes the false “guarantism” that, in tolerating doctrines contrary to the integrity of the faith, also encourages practices contrary to chastity.
- He invokes that profound respect for the “Eucharistic body of the Lord” without which there is no longer any respect for “the pure and innocent bodies of children.”
And this is the finale, more than ever in unison with Ratzinger:
“To conclude, I say to you again with Pope Benedict: yes, the Church is full of sinners. But it is not in crisis, we are the ones who are in crisis. The devil wants to make us doubt. He wants to make us believe that God abandons his Church.
But no, this is always ‘the field of God. There are not only the weeds but also the good wheat of God. To proclaim these two aspects with insistence does not stem at all from a false apologetics: it is a service that it is necessary to render to the truth,’ says Benedict XVI.
He proves it, his prayerful and teaching presence in our midst, in the heart of the Church, in Rome, he confirms it for us. Yes, in our midst is the good wheat of God.
“Thank you, dear Pope Benedict, for being according to your motto a cooperator with the truth, a servant of the truth. Your word encourages and reassures us. You are a witness, a ‘martyr’ for the truth. Thank you.”
No need to say that this impassioned apologia for Ratzinger’s analysis made by Cardinal Sarah is the polar opposite of the gelid welcome reserved for it by Pope Francis:
> Between the Two Popes There Is “Fracture.” The Silence of Francis Against Benedict
As for the most recent book by the cardinal, the third in a trilogy preceded by
Dieu ou rien (god or nothing) and
La force du silence (The power of silence), it is still only available in the original French edition, but by September, it will also be available in Italian, English, Spanish, German, and Polish.
5/22/19
Further P.S. - Thanks to Beatriz at her site,
benoit-et-moi.fr/2019/ for calling my attention to Magister's little post-scriptum in the Italian version of the above post in which he reports the ff (my translation):
Speaking of another book, it must be noted that the last one published by the Emeritus Pope, with 25 prevously unpublished homilies dating to his years as theologian and cardinal, was among the top ten best-selling books in Italy last week. It is entitled Per amore, and Settimo Cielo published an excerpt from one of the homilies recently.
It speaks volumes of the public appreciation for Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's thoughts and teachings that books for and about him continue to make the bestseller lists. Might it reflect a thirst and hunger on the part of the faithful for firm unequivocal Catholic teaching in place of the grossities they have been forcefed for the past six years?... I am, of course, very happy, that these homilies have now been published - and I am still hoping for some fortuitous turn that will come, in terms of all the Thursday homilies he delivered for years 40 weeks a year at the German chapel in the Vatican from 1982 when he came to Rome to be CDF Prefect till early 2005. surely, someone must have recorded some or all of them!
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/05/2019 14:22]