June 22, 2012
This is a rather belated entry because I only came across it during a Google search for something else, but it reminds me that last year, at around this time, Cardinal Canizares also wrote a beautiful tribute to Benedict XVI (on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of his priestly ordination) for the same newspaper (which carries the Spanish weekly edition of L'Osservatore Romano as a Sunday supplement), a translation of which I posted on Page 225 of this thread.
http://benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=8527207&p=225
Obviously, he has written this new tribute in the wake of Vatileaks-etc...
A Pope for our day
At a time when mankind is at a great crossroads,
we have received the great gift of a man elected and sent by God
by Cardinal Antonio Canizares
Prefect, Congregation for Divine Worship
Translated from
June 13, 2012
We are living a crucial stage in history, in the world, in old Europe, in Spain, but most especially, in the Church which lately has been taking some hard knocks.
We are men of an age that is as fascinating as it is contradictory. Mankind today possesses instruments of unprecedented power. It can make this world a garden or reduce it to rubble. It has achieved an extraordinary capacity to intervene in the very founts of life: It can use this for good within the bounds of moral law, or yield to the myopic arrogance of a science that does not accept its limitations to the point of trampling on the respect that is due to every human being.
Today, as never before, mankind is at a crossroads. And at this crossroads, it has received the great gift of a man, elected and sent by God, Pope Benedict XVI, who, as few can, is concerned for man, his great questions, his very being and sense of well-being; for the value and dignity of the human person, for his freedom and his capacity to create a future and open new paths of hope, for his inalienable rights and the fundamentals that are derived not from the consensus of established powers, public or hidden, but from the very truth of the human being that is inseparable from the reality and foundation that sustains and orients him - God.
Pope Benedict, whose program from the first moment of his Pontificate, was nothing but, at every moment, to do what God wants, never tires of concerning himself about man, whom he loves and serves with all his powers, as if hearing that voice that Adam, the first man, heard in Paradise: "Adam, man, where are you?", similar to that other voice, from Genesis, in the dawn of mankind, "Where is your brother?"
Hearing that voice, God himself, before that Presence which sustains us all, the Pope responds with the only answer that man can give: the response of faith. And that is why he has called on the whole Church, in every place and situation, to "open the doors of faith".
A man of faith, who confirms us in the faith, is the great light whom mankind needs at this crossroads of history. A man of faith who is not daunted by the great difficulties that beset him artificially, devoid of sense and contrary to light - someone that mankind needs and asks for, and who blazes the path inexorably. Without allowing himself to be carried away by the ephemeral circumstances of the moment, seeking to listen to the voice of God, seeking his will, and through his thought, translated to words and teaching or to action and witness of man and his truth, which is testimony to Christ, affirms precisely again and again, opportunely or not, the only response that men need and hope for: Jesus Christ, Logos, Eternal Word, Wisdom of God, Love incarnate, man among men, the only one who knows what is in the heart of man, in whom the mystery of man is clarified, a Pope who discloses for us the sublimeness of our vocation, and who opens to us the great future for the mankind that we are.
Pope Benedict does not retreat nor change course in the face of so many things that have been dumped on him and those around him, but simply - with the simplicity of 'a worker in the vineyard of the Lord" - trusts in God, listens to God, confirms us in our faith, and encourages our hope.
Pope Benedict, like the faithful and prudent servant of the Gospel, has a passion for God and for man, he is a searcher and tireless witness-servant of the truth, of Truth with a capital T that penetrates and fills man's restless heart.
Passionate for the truth, he is a free man, a man of faith, the faith that gives freedom, and makes us free. And so, he is trying to restore to man his genuine self: as the image and likeness of God, Supreme Truth and Sovereign Freedom, the spring at which we drink the freedom that we yearn for, for us and our children.
This the great lesson of Pope Benedict, the Pope who is providential for this time in our history.
That is why he has convoked a Year of Faith. That is why he has called another universal assembly of the Bishops' Synod to discuss the most urgent and burning question of a new evangelization of the contemporary world.
The people, who have a profound sense of the truth which sustains them and which is nested in their heart, perceive in the Pope the Good Shepherd who loves them and leads them, not a bureaucrat nor seeker of power who would dominate the flock, and they are with the Pope: We saw it in Milan, in the procession of Corpus Christi after that in Rome - because people recognize in him the Good Shepherd who gives his life for his sheep.
Along with our thanksgiving to God for this great gift, and our thanks to the Pope for his efforts, courage, generosity, the way he lives only for others, as the Lord did, we must gather around him more closely each day, listen to him, follow the way he indicates that will lead us to the living waters that will quench the thirst of mankind in our day, without ever forgetting to pray for him, which is to pray for the whole Church and for the world.
How much we need to pray! What a great service we would do to the Church, to all mankind, and even to our own Spain, if we prayed more, if we undertook a great campaign for prayer as we find ourselves at this crossroads.
Apropos, I was struck by a post-script I had to that 2011 entry, which seems relevant to what appears to be the 'Vatlileaks case' against Cardinal Bertone:
Those of you who follow Catholic blogs in English may have come across an item first reported in English by Robert Moynihan, about statements reportedly made by Cardinal Canizares to an Italian blogger who ran an article in three lengthy parts that is more or less an informal biography of the Spanish cardinal. It makes for very interesting reading about his background (he has always considered himself 'progressive' and not at all traditionalist!)[ his 'rivalry' with the powerful 'moderate' Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid when he, Canizares, as Archbishop of Toledo, was Primate of Spain [one reason why Benedict XVI promoted him to Rome]; and, what Moynihan particularly purveys, the cardinal's account of how the Secretariat of State has sought to keep tight 'control' over all the dicasteries of the Roman Curia to the point of requiring Curial heads to submit any speeches or articles for vetting; his personal experience of how he - and the Pope - found out that his communications to the Pope (also required to be passed through the Secretariat of State) had been deliberately shelved and not passed on, and that since then, on the Pope's instructions, he has found another way to send his communications directly to the Pope through a trusted emissary. Perhaps the most shocking, however - which, I felt, may have overstepped discretion - was his explicit complaint of how he had tried to be friends with Cardinal Bertone but had been rebuffed at every step so he has stopped trying...
Lessons from Joseph Ratzinger:
Why despite everything
the Church survives and holds up
by Michelangelo Nasca
Translated from
June 22, 2012
Napoleon is reported to have said famously that he would destroy the Catholic Church. To which a cardinal replied calmly: "He will never succeed. Not even we have managed to do that!"
Citing this anecdote, the then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith replied to a question about the Church from Peter Seewald in his second book-length interview with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger,
God and the world.
"I think that this paradox," said the future Pope, "brings to light something very important. The Church has never lacked for human wrongdoings. But if she continues to hold up, despite a thousand and one creaks and cracks, if she continues to exist, if she continues to produce great saints, martyrs and believers, people who give their lives to serve as missionaries, nurses, teachers, this only shows that there is something else that holds her up".
In these smoldering summer days, the polemics and insinuations against the Church will likely not lessen, and unfortunately, she does not lack for creaks and cracks these days. In fact, one cannot deny that some prelate somewhere is bound to be caught out doing something improper (like the Argentine bishop Fernando Maria Bargallò, who has been the subject of worldwide ridicule after photos and video of him were released showing him 'cavorting' in the sea with a woman he claims to be a childhood friend, which certainly did not look like he was administering baptism to her).
Things like this certainly cause the friends of the Vatican vipers to gloat, while the enemies of the Church use the occasion to ask Catholics to embark on an exodus away from the Church!
But let us listen further to Cardinal Ratzinger in that interview from 12 years ago, who speaks passionately about the Church - not different in any way from the man who is Pope today:
I cannot truly imagine myself leaving the Church. It is my most intimate homeland. I have been fused to her from birth to such a point that, in order to separate myself from her, I would have to cut my own flesh and destroy myself.
Of course, there are always things that provoke anger, on the large scale as well as in smaller things... But one does not leave the family just because one is angered. Above all, we shall not be torn apart if the love that binds one to the other is stronger than whatever reasons for irritation or anger, if our life is held up by that original power".
[I translated the Italian citation given, as I do not have access now to the English version of God and the world.]
So, let us move forward with the certainty inherent in the faith that despite everything, there is always the Other who keeps our Church upright.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 22/06/2013 16:42]