4/18/05
Cardinal Ratzinger made news on the opening day of the conclave with a tell-it-as-it-is homily during the Mass 'pro eligendo Pontifice' which he presided as Dean of the College of Cardinals. The Mass preceded the cardinals' first Conclave session in the Sistine Chapel.
Ratzinger in forceful call
for conservative path
By Stacy Meichtry
In a sermon intended to set the tone for the next papal election, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger delivered a stinging critique of modern culture, calling upon the church to wield Jesus Christ as a shield against a “dictatorship of relativism.”
Standing before a semicircle of his peers and a massive audience of rank and file faithful, Ratzinger asked: “How many winds of doctrine have we known in the last ten years? How many ideological currents, how many fashions of thought?”
“Having a clear faith based on the creed of the church, is often labeled as fundamentalism. Meanwhile relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and 'swept along by every wind of teaching,' looks like the only attitude acceptable to modern standards."
Ratzinger’s sermon came hours before he and 114 of his fellow cardinals were to enter the Sistine Chapel and begin the conclave.
His sermon depicted the church as a “little boat of Christian thought” tossed by waves of “extreme” schools of modern thought, which he identified as Marxism, liberalism, libertinism, collectivism and “radical individualism.” Other dangers to the faith included “a vague religious mysticism,” “new sects,” and materialism.
“All men want to leave a trace behind,” he said. “But what remains? Not money. Buildings won’t remain; neither will books,” he said.
"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires," he told the cardinals, urging them to promote a “maturity of Christ” to protect the church from modern influence.
“Christ is the real measure of humanism. ‘Adult’ isn’t a faith that follows waves of fashion. Adulthood and maturity are a faith profoundly rooted in friendship with Christ,” he said
As the dean of the College of Cardinals, Ratzinger was designated to celebrate the “Pro Eligendo Romano Pontefice,” or the Mass for the election of the Roman pontiff, giving the conservative German a crucial platform to promote his outlook before cardinals are sequestered for the conclave.
His call for resistance echoed the combative stances he’s taken as John Paul’s top theologian, mounting defenses for “Culture of Life” issues, discouraging the presence of Islam in Europe and reprimanding church scholars who pushed the theological envelope. Ratzinger has also advocated the establishment of a “creative minority” to reinforce the faith of the church.
Ratzinger is widely believed to be a papal front-runner. Vatican watchers have reported that the German has culled the support of 40 to 50 John Paul loyalists who aim to maintain doctrinal continuity with the late pope. Ratzinger needs 77 votes, a two-thirds majority, to become pope.
In previous conclaves, breakaway candidacies have been known to lose their momentum in the early stages of balloting. Opposition to Ratzinger’s candidacy has been building among a group of moderate cardinals who are moving to block the German’s candidacy. Observers have identified Cardinals Godfried Danneels of Belgium and Walter Kasper of Germany as being among the core members of the opposition group.
In a Saturday Mass at Rome’s Santa Maria in Trastevere, Kasper instructed an audience of hundreds to not expect a “clone” of John Paul, nor “someone who is too scared of doubt and secularity in the modern world.”
[Joseph Ratzinger was xertainly never scared of 'doubt and secularity'!]
Monday, Ratzinger and his fellow cardinals appeared at the Pro Eligendo Mass robed in red vestments identical to the ones they wore at John Paul II’s funeral.
Bespectacled and looking slightly fatigued, Ratzinger read his homily in a tenor voice that drew concentrated looks from cardinals. Throughout the sermon, he experienced small bursts of coughing. Once, he reached into his vestment sleeve and withdrew a handkerchief to smother a cough.
“In this hour we pray with great instance that the Lord, after the great gift of pope John Paul II, grant us again a shepherd of the heart, a pastor that guides us according to the conscience, love and true joy of Christ,” Ratzinger concluded,
receiving applause from some cardinals, [2013 P.S. That did not sound like reaction to a 'front runner'! But perhaps, they were thinking as the media did after the homily, that it was decidedly not a homily by anyone who was interested in garnering votes!] including Camillo Ruini, a powerful Italian prelate. Vatican watchers speculate that Ratzinger could shift his constituency to Ruini if his own candidacy stalls.
Later Monday, cardinals processed into the Sistine Chapel and, placing a hand on the gospel, swore an oath of secrecy (“I promise, pledge and swear.”) against the threat of excommunication.
Following the oath, Cardinal Tomas Spidlik delivered a final meditation before exiting the chapel, leaving his younger counterparts to decide whether to immediately take a first vote or wait until Tuesday.
They will be seated atop a wooden platform, elevated above electronic devices that jam cell phone signals and other spy equipment.
Robert Moynihan of Inside the Vatican had an interesting journal entry on this day:
On the question whether Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger will be the next Pope, the German journalist Peter Seewald replied:
“An interesting constellation exists in this conclave. Perhaps this is an omen, but next week is under the patronage of the Germans in the ecclesiastical calendar: from Tuesday, April 19, the Church remembers Leo IX – one of the most significant German Popes who reigned from 1049 to 1054.
"From Thursday, April 21, the Church remembers Father Konrad of Parzham. Parzham lies only a few kilometres away from Ratzinger’s place of birth, Marktl-am-Inn, and both lie in the same diocese, Passau.”
This interview was published in the German daily
Neue Passauer Presse on April 15, 2005. Peter Seewald wrote, together with Cardinal Ratzinger, the books “Salt of the Earth” and “God and the World."
HOMILY OF HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL JOSEPH RATZINGER
DEAN OF THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS
Missa pro eligendo Pontefice
Vatican Basilica
Monday 18 April 2005
At this moment of great responsibility, let us listen with special attention to what the Lord says to us in his own words. I would like to examine just a few passages from the three readings that concern us directly at this time.
The first one offers us a prophetic portrait of the person of the Messiah - a portrait that receives its full meaning from the moment when Jesus reads the text in the synagogue at Nazareth and says, "Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing" (Lk 4: 21).
At the core of the prophetic text we find a word which seems contradictory, at least at first sight. The Messiah, speaking of himself, says that he was sent "to announce a year of favour from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God" (Is 61: 2).
We hear with joy the news of a year of favour: divine mercy puts a limit on evil, as the Holy Father told us. Jesus Christ is divine mercy in person: encountering Christ means encountering God's mercy.
Christ's mandate has become our mandate through the priestly anointing. We are called to proclaim, not only with our words but also with our lives and with the valuable signs of the sacraments, "the year of favour from the Lord".
But what does the prophet Isaiah mean when he announces "the day of vindication by our God"? At Nazareth, Jesus omitted these words in his reading of the prophet's text; he concluded by announcing the year of favour. Might this have been the reason for the outburst of scandal after his preaching? We do not know.
In any case, the Lord offered a genuine commentary on these words by being put to death on the cross. St Peter says: "In his own body he brought your sins to the cross" (I Pt 2: 24).
And St Paul writes in his Letter to the Galatians: "Christ has delivered us from the power of the law's curse by himself becoming a curse for us, as it is written, "Accursed is anyone who is hanged on a tree'. This happened so that through Christ Jesus the blessing bestowed on Abraham might descend on the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, thereby making it possible for us to receive the promised Spirit through faith" (Gal 3: 13f).
Christ's mercy is not a grace that comes cheap, nor does it imply the trivialization of evil. Christ carries the full weight of evil and all its destructive force in his body and in his soul. He burns and transforms evil in suffering, in the fire of his suffering love. The day of vindication and the year of favour converge in the Paschal Mystery, in the dead and Risen Christ.
This is the vengeance of God: he himself suffers for us, in the person of his Son. The more deeply stirred we are by the Lord's mercy, the greater the solidarity we feel with his suffering - and we become willing to complete in our own flesh "what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ" (Col 1: 24).
Let us move on to the second reading, the letter to the Ephesians. Here we see essentially three aspects: first of all, the ministries and charisms in the Church as gifts of the Lord who rose and ascended into heaven; then, the maturing of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God as the condition and content of unity in the Body of Christ; and lastly, our common participation in the growth of the Body of Christ, that is, the transformation of the world into communion with the Lord.
Let us dwell on only two points. The first is the journey towards "the maturity of Christ", as the Italian text says, simplifying it slightly. More precisely, in accordance with the Greek text, we should speak of the "measure of the fullness of Christ" that we are called to attain if we are to be true adults in the faith.
We must not remain children in faith, in the condition of minors. And what does it mean to be children in faith? St Paul answers: it means being "tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine" (Eph 4: 14). This description is very timely!
How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of the thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves - flung from one extreme to another: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and so forth. Every day new sects spring up, and what St Paul says about human deception and the trickery that strives to entice people into error (cf. Eph 4: 14) comes true.
Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be "tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine", seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.
We, however, have a different goal: the Son of God, the true man. He is the measure of true humanism. An "adult" faith is not a faith that follows the trends of fashion and the latest novelty; a mature adult faith is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ. It is this friendship that opens us up to all that is good and gives us a criterion by which to distinguish the true from the false, and deceipt from truth.
We must develop this adult faith; we must guide the flock of Christ to this faith. And it is this faith - only faith - that creates unity and is fulfilled in love.
On this theme, St Paul offers us as a fundamental formula for Christian existence some beautiful words, in contrast to the continual vicissitudes of those who, like children, are tossed about by the waves: make truth in love. Truth and love coincide in Christ. To the extent that we draw close to Christ, in our own lives too, truth and love are blended. Love without truth would be blind; truth without love would be like "a clanging cymbal" (I Cor 13: 1).
Let us now look at the Gospel, from whose riches I would like to draw only two small observations. The Lord addresses these wonderful words to us: "I no longer speak of you as slaves.... Instead, I call you friends" (Jn 15: 15). We so often feel, and it is true, that we are only useless servants (cf. Lk 17: 10).
Yet, in spite of this, the Lord calls us friends, he makes us his friends, he gives us his friendship. The Lord gives friendship a dual definition. There are no secrets between friends: Christ tells us all that he hears from the Father; he gives us his full trust and with trust, also knowledge. He reveals his face and his heart to us.
He shows us the tenderness he feels for us, his passionate love that goes even as far as the folly of the Cross. He entrusts himself to us, he gives us the power to speak in his name: "this is my body...", "I forgive you...". He entrusts his Body, the Church, to us.
To our weak minds, to our weak hands, he entrusts his truth - the mystery of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; the mystery of God who "so loved the world that he gave his only Son" (Jn 3: 16). He made us his friends - and how do we respond?
The second element Jesus uses to define friendship is the communion of wills. For the Romans "Idem velle - idem nolle" [same desires, same dislikes] was also the definition of friendship. "You are my friends if you do what I command you" (Jn 15: 14).
Friendship with Christ coincides with the third request of the Our Father: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". At his hour in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus transformed our rebellious human will into a will conformed and united with the divine will. He suffered the whole drama of our autonomy - and precisely by placing our will in God's hands, he gives us true freedom: "Not as I will, but as you will" (Mt 26: 39).
Our redemption is brought about in this communion of wills: being friends of Jesus, to become friends of God. The more we love Jesus, the more we know him, the more our true freedom develops and our joy in being redeemed flourishes. Thank you, Jesus, for your friendship!
The other element of the Gospel to which I wanted to refer is Jesus' teaching on bearing fruit: "It was I who chose you to go forth and bear fruit. Your fruit must endure" (Jn 15: 16).
It is here that appears the dynamism of the life of a Christian, an apostle: I chose you to go forth. We must be enlivened by a holy restlessness: a restlessness to bring to everyone the gift of faith, of friendship with Christ. Truly, the love and friendship of God was given to us so that it might also be shared with others. We have received the faith to give it to others - we are priests in order to serve others. And we must bear fruit that will endure.
All people desire to leave a lasting mark. But what endures? Money does not. Even buildings do not, nor books. After a certain time, longer or shorter, all these things disappear. The only thing that lasts for ever is the human soul, the human person created by God for eternity.
The fruit that endures is therefore all that we have sown in human souls: love, knowledge, a gesture capable of touching hearts, words that open the soul to joy in the Lord. So let us go and pray to the Lord to help us bear fruit that endures. Only in this way will the earth be changed from a valley of tears to a garden of God.
To conclude, let us return once again to the Letter to the Ephesians. The Letter says, with words from Psalm 68, that Christ, ascending into heaven, "gave gifts to men" (Eph 4:8).
The victor offers gifts. And these gifts are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Our ministry is a gift of Christ to humankind, to build up his body - the new world. We live out our ministry in this way, as a gift of Christ to humanity!
At this time, however, let us above all pray insistently to the Lord that after his great gift of Pope John Paul II, he will once again give us a Pastor according to his own heart, a Pastor who will guide us to knowledge of Christ, to his love and to true joy. Amen.
2013 P.S. We may be sure Cardinal Ratzinger was not thinking about himself with his last line above, but we did get in Benedict XVI the Pastor he described = and much more. Deo gratias for having blessed us with the Pontificate of Benedict XVI, and Deo gratias for Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI himself.
File material taken from my 'reconstruction' of the days preceding the Conclave of 2005, posted in the PAPA RATZINGER FORUM:
freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=354517&p=1
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 12/03/2013 21:31]