00 09/04/2013 13:30



ALWAYS AND EVER OUR MOST BELOVED BENEDICTUS XVI





Since March 13, 2013, almost every day has provided multiple occasions on which one could have - I could have - researched something said by Benedict XVI, usually many times in his Pontificate, that far antedates whatever the media chorus has chosen to raise hosannahs about, as though Pope Francis had said something totally unheard before in Christendom.

And I am sure that with time enough and space, one could find statements to the same effect, if not similar language, made by John Paul II backwards to John XXIII, to speak only of the 'contemporary Popes'. For the simple reason that the truths of the faith and the Church are immutable, and would therefore be stated and restated, though in different ways, by each Pope who is always the primary defender of the faith. But that kind of research effort should be unnecessary because it would be a petty if laborious indulgence.

However, I did want to react immediately - but did not, out of prudence and decorum - to the report on Cardinal Bergoglio's intervention during the pre-Conclave general congregations of the cardinals, and the now famous anecdote recalled by the Archbishop of Havana who said he was so impressed by that intervention that he asked the cardinal from Buenos Aires for a copy of it - and the soon-to-be-Pope replied he did not really have a prepared statement but nonetheless reproduced what he said in handwriting and turned this over to Cardinal Ortega.

It is the now-famous 'the Church should go to the peripheries' - 'the Church should step out of herself' - that Pope Francis retooled into his homily for the Chrismal Mass last Maundy Thursday.

My immediate reaction to Cardinal Ortega's anecdote, recounted publicly shortly after the Conclave, was that Benedict XVI had spoken extemporaneously and memorably about the 'peripheries' [in Spanish, Italian and French, the term is used in the same sense that English says 'suburbs or 'exurbs' but with the added connotation of 'marginal existence'] when he answered a question from a young Italian couple at the great 2007 Agora of Italian youth in Loreto in 2007 which drew half a million participants. His answer took the perspective of the young people who asked the question, in effect asking them to be agents of evangelization themselves, with the pointed observation that every place where Christ is, is a center, the center - that there are no peripheries for the Church...[COLORE]




PRAYER VIGIL AT THE YOUTH AGORA:
The Holy Father replies to questions
Piana di Montorso
Loreto, Italy
Sept. 1, 2007



Piero and Giovanna from Bari:
Many of us young people in the suburbs ('periferia') do not have a center, a place, or persons who are able to give us an identity. We are often without a history, without prospects and therefore, without a future. This gives rise to the experience of loneliness, and often, of dependency. Holiness, is there somebody or something for whom we can become important? How is it possible to hope, when reality negates every dream of happiness, every plan for life?

THE POPE:
Thank you for this question and for the very realistic presentation you have made of the situation. About the peripheries in this world with great problems, it is not easy to answer now, and we do not wish to live with a facile optimism, but on the other hand, we should have the courage to move ahead.

So let me anticipate the substance of what my answer is.

Yes, there is hope, even today. Each of you is important, because each person is known to God, desired by him, and for everyone, God has a plan. But we should discover this plan and respond accordingly, so that it will be possible - notwithstanding the situations of precariousness and marginalization you have described - to realize this plan of God for each of us.

Now to go to the details. You [the Pope uses the formal You throughout in addressing the youth] have presented realistically the situation of a particular society: that in these peripheries it seems difficult to get ahead, to change the world for the better.

Everything seems to be concentrated in the great centers of economic and political power; massive bureaucracies predominate, and whoever lives on the peripheries feels excluded from all of that.

But one aspect of this situation of emargination felt by so many is that the great vital cells of society which could be centers anywhere, even in the peripheries, have been broken up: the family, which should be the place of encounter among the generations - from the great grandparents to the grandchildren - where one learns to live, one learns the essential virtues necessary to live, the family is now shattered, it is in danger.

And that is why we must do everything possible so that the family remains alive, that it remains even today the vital cell, the center even in the peripheries.

In the same way, the parish too, which is the vital life cell of the Church, should be really a place of inspiration and life and solidarity which helps people to construct together centers in the periphery.

I must note here that there is often talk about the Church of the peripheries and the Church of the center, by which they mean Rome, but in reality, there are no peripheries in the Church, because where Christ is, there the center is.

Where the Eucharist is celebrated, where there is a Tabernacle, Christ is present, and that is the center. So we should do everything in order that these living centers are effectively present and are truly a force which works against emargination.

The living Church, the church of small communities, the parish church, the local church movements, should all be centers in the periphery and help overcome the difficulties which politics obviously is unable to overcome.

At the same time, we should also consider that despite the great concentrations of power, society itself today needs consolidation in terms of legality, of initiative and of creativity.

I know it is more easily said than done, but I see here persons who can commit themselves so that they can develop even in the peripheries, so that hope can grow. So we should take the initiative ourselves in these peripheries. And the Church itself must be present, in which Christ, the center of the world, is present.

Even in the Gospel today, we see that for God, there are no peripheries. The Holy Land, in the vast context of the Roman Empire, was a periphery. Nazareth itself was on the periphery of this periphery, an unknown town. But nevertheless, it was that unknown town that became the center which changed the world!

Even we should form centers of faith, hope, love and solidarity, of a sense of justice and law, of cooperation. That is the only way modern society can survive. It needs the courage to create such centers even where there seems to be no hope.

We should respond to such despair, we should cooperate with great solidarity and do what we can to promote hope, so that everyone can work together for a better life.

So we see that the world must be changed, but it is the mission of the youth to change it. And we cannot do this only with our own forces, but in a communion of faith, in a common path.

In communion with Mary, with all the saints, in communion with Christ, we can do something essential, and I encourage you, I invite you to have trust in Christ, have trust in God.

To be in the great company of the saints and going ahead with them can change the world, can create centers in the peripheries that will truly become visible and therefore make hopes realistic, when everyone can say, "I am important in the totality of history." And the Lord will help us. Thank you.



Cardinal Bergoglio's pre-Conclave
statement to the cardinals
at the General Congregation

Here is Vatican Radio's translation of the 'Bergoglio intervention' - which it entitled "A diagnosis of the problems of the Church: - that, according to Cardinal Ortega, was the ace that trumped every other 'candidacy' in the 2013 Conclave. Unfortunately, and typically, Vatican Radio fails to date the intervention, and I cannot find a date for it online either....:
1. - Evangelizing presupposes a desire in the Church to come out of herself. The Church is called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents, and of all misery.

2. - When the Church does not come out of herself to evangelize, she becomes self-referential and then gets sick. (cf. The deformed woman of the Gospel). The evils that, over time, happen in ecclesial institutions have their root in self-referentiality and a kind of theological narcissism.

In Revelation, Jesus says that he is at the door and knocks. Obviously, the text refers to his knocking from the outside in order to enter, but I think about the times in which Jesus knocks from within so that we will let him come out. The self-referential Church keeps Jesus Christ within herself and does not let him out.

3. - When the Church is self-referential, inadvertently, she believes she has her own light; she ceases to be the mysterium lunae and gives way to that very serious evil, spiritual worldliness (which according to De Lubac, is the worst evil that can befall the Church). It lives to give glory only to one another.

Put simply, there are two images of the Church: Church which evangelizes and comes out of herself, the Dei Verbum religiose audiens et fidente proclamans; and the worldly Church, living within herself, of herself, for herself. This should shed light on the possible changes and reforms which must be done for the salvation of souls.

4. - Thinking of the next Pope: He must be a man who, from the contemplation and adoration of Jesus Christ, helps the Church to go out to the existential peripheries, that helps her to be the fruitful mother, who gains life from “the sweet and comforting joy of evangelizing.”
I purposely did not refer to this at all in the days following the Conclave because of the violence of my immediate reaction. I felt that the statements were unwarrantedly generalized, as if the so-called 'self-referentiality', the 'keeping Christ within instead of letting him out', was a failing that affects the whole Church, and not, as it truly is, an affliction of many diocesan bishops and their illusions of each being a mini-Pope heading their own mini-Vatican. It has certainly never been the attitude of any Pope! And what genuine servant of Christ would 'keep Christ within and only for himself', an assertion that really raised my eyebrow skyhigh!

Even the definition of 'the worldly Church - 'living within herself, of herself, and for herself' - rings false. The worldliness of the German Church, for instance - which Benedict XVI admonished against when he visited Germany in 2011 - involves above all an active concern and material assistance for those who are in need around the world, not just Catholics, except that the organizations responsible for doing this have acted more like the 'pious NGOs' that Pope Francis decries, seemingly devoid of spiritual underpinnings for their philanthropy.

In fact, the media chorus has been so 'besotted' by everything about Pope Francis that no one has bothered to analyze his statements, especially when they are critical of the Church, perhaps even just because they are critical of the Church...
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 12/04/2013 10:51]