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THE CHURCH MILITANT - BELEAGUERED BY BERGOGLIANISM

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I was going to add this article to the post that had the above photos, but that post is too far back, so I am opening a new post. Once again, my thanks to Aldo Maria Valli for not missing any opportunity to bring up Benedict XVI's teachings which, as he says below, represent a counter-trend to the currently dominant thinking.

The travails of Benedict XVI
Translated from


The photo of Benedict XVI with a bruise under his right eye inspires infinite affection. Published on Facebook by ons. Stefan Oster, Bishop of Passau, who visited the Emeritus Pope Thursday, shows Joseph Ratzinger in all the frailty of his present condition.

Benedict XVI, who will be 91 in April, appears thin, but what struck me most was his expression. Perhaps I am wrong, but in that particular photo, he looks a little lost and betrays a kind of mortification typically of aged persons under certain circumstances.

We know that for years, Papa Ratzinger virtually sees nothing with his left eye because of a maculopathy, and also that he now has to use a hearing aid. All this certainly does not make it easy for him to entertain visitors. Nonetheless, in the former Vatican monastery that has become his residence, he gladly receives visits from friends, and with the simplicity characteristic of him, he did not mind being photographed with his injury, thus providing an image that has instantly become dear to all who think of him and pray for him.

There is so much truth in these recent photographs of Benedict XVI. And to see Papa Ratzinger this way, weakened and helpless, robed in a cassock that has become too large for him, reminds me of the words he wrote about suffering in his encyclical Spe salvi on Christian hope: “We can try to limit suffering, to fight against it, but we cannot eliminate it” (No. 37).

He explains:

It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater.

It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love.
(No. 37)


Farther on, Benedict XVI, with his characteristic lucidity, draws attention to the social implications of suffering and the close connection between the acceptance of suffering, and truth.

The true measure of humanity is essentially determined in relationship to suffering and to the sufferer. This holds true both for the individual and for society. A society unable to accept its suffering members and incapable of helping to share their suffering and to bear it inwardly through “com-passion” is a cruel and inhuman society.

Yet society cannot accept its suffering members and support them in their trials unless individuals are capable of doing so themselves; moreover, the individual cannot accept another's suffering unless he personally is able to find meaning in suffering, a path of purification and growth in maturity, a journey of hope.

Indeed, to accept the “other” who suffers, means that I take up his suffering in such a way that it becomes mine also. Because it has now become a shared suffering, though, in which another person is present, this suffering is penetrated by the light of love.

The Latin word con-solatio, “consolation”, expresses this beautifully. It suggests [ubeing with the other in his solitude, so that it ceases to be solitude.

Furthermore, the capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reign supreme.

Truth and justice must stand above my comfort and physical well-being, or else my life itself becomes a lie. In the end, even the “yes” to love is a source of suffering, because love always requires expropriations of my “I”, in which I allow myself to be pruned and wounded. Love simply cannot exist without this painful renunciation of myself, for otherwise it becomes pure selfishness and thereby ceases to be love
. (No. 39)


The entire encyclical should be re-read, such is it profundity and such are the reflections therein that are able to ‘hook’ in the reader, as a counter-trend to the dominant thinking today.

I will limit myself to one point which helps us to understand even better how the nonagenarian Ratzinger would be living his condition of advanced age day to day:

There used to be a form of devotion — perhaps less practised today but quite widespread not long ago — that included the idea of “offering up” the minor daily hardships that continually strike at us like irritating “jabs”, thereby giving them a meaning. Of course, there were some exaggerations and perhaps unhealthy applications of this devotion, but we need to ask ourselves whether there may not after all have been something essential and helpful contained within it.

What does it mean to offer something up? Those who did so were convinced that they could insert these little annoyances into Christ's great “com-passion” so that they somehow became part of the treasury of compassion so greatly needed by the human race. In this way, even the small inconveniences of daily life could acquire meaning and contribute to the economy of good and of human love. Maybe we should consider whether it might be judicious to revive this practice ourselves.


And listen to what Benedict XVI said in May 2010 during his visit to the chapel of the Piccola Casa della Divina Provvidenza (Little House of Divine Providence) in Turin, better known as the Cottolengo [an Italian term for hospitals and hospices for the sick, derived from the Turin institution founded by San Giuseppe Benedetto Cottolengo, a pioneer among Turin’s great ‘social saints’ of the 19th century, and who also founded a religious order with priests, sisters and brothers]. Meeting with the wards in the institution, he said:

“Dear people who are suffering ailments: You are carrying out an important task: by living your sufferings in union with Christ who was crucified and rose, you are taking part in the mystery of his suffering for the salvation of the world. By offering our pain to God through Christ, we can collaborate in the triumph of good over evil, because God renders our offering, our act of love, fruitful.

Dear brothers and sisters, all of you who are here – do not feel that you are estranged from the destiny of the world, but know instead that you are precious pieces of the beautiful mosaic that God, as a great artist, is putting together day after day, with your contribution. Christ, who died on the Cross to save us, allowed himself to be nailed on it, because from that wooden cross, that sign of death, life would flourish in all its splendor.”

There! Wecan be sure that Pope Benedict is offering his own sufferings for the good of mankind and of the Church. And in that way, he is collaborating in the triumph of good over evil.

Let us unite ourselves with him.

I am struck by the name of St. Joseph Benedict Cottolengo - it is the second such combination in a saint's given names that I am aware of. The other is St. Benedict Joseph Labre, the beggar saint of Rome (1748-1783), one of the saints along with Bernadette of Lourdes, whose birthday on April 16 is shared by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Very auspicious portents!
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