26 February 2013

The Church has failed Pope Benedict (?)

An excerpt from The Anchoress' "The Pope's Benedict Option" at First Things"

[Pope Benedict] says he is tired, and we can’t doubt it. An introvert’s energy is quickly depleted by social interaction, be it celebratory, diplomatic, or grimly administrative. Spare hours of solitude were unlikely to have brought the pope to full re-charge if passed (as they probably were) in contemplation of the Church’s failure in its primary duty to Christ: demonstrating the gospel to a world sorely in need.


The failure is heard in the shrieks of pain, ignorance, and hatred directed at the Church throughout the chambers of mainstream and social media; it is seen in the faithful priests and laypeople who read one awful headline after another and continue on, but with increasingly slumped shoulders; it stands before the pope’s very eyes, in the form of priests and religious who have served idols and theologies formed within themselves, and in the bishops and cardinals who have handed in their resignations, or who should bow out and won’t.

Particularly damning is Scalia's observation that there are priests and religious who have spent their consecrated lives in service to idols and syncretistic theologies.  

Well worth your time to read the whole thing.

UPDATE:  The Holy Dominican Nuns of Summit, NJ point out in the combox that the article as a whole is about BXVI's decision to enter monastic life after leaving the papacy.  It was not my intention to suggest that The Anchoress' article was principally about how various elements in the Church have failed the holy father.  Mea culpa! 
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6 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:59 AM

    Nothing new under the sun.

    Headline from 33 A.D. "Has the Church failed Jesus on the Cross?"

    Headline from Earlier. "Has the Church failed Moses?"


    Fr. Joshua

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous1:36 PM

      My very thoughts too.

      Alas, didn't B16 say that if he wasn't been criticized by the secular press he'd think the he wasn't doing his job? B16 has never come across to me as a shy flower; not as the pope nor as a cardinal in charge of the CDF.

      I give zero credibility to those who purport to know someone else's heart from afar. It's border-line gossip.

      We'll never know the deepest reasons of B16 unless he discloses them. I'm fine with this, but apparently idle scribes and busybody readers aren't.

      Delete
    2. Any vile rumor is just fine when it reinforces the media's anti-Catholic narrative.

      Delete
  2. We thought this article was about the Holy Father embracing monastic life not the church "failing" the pope!

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    Replies
    1. Dear Sisters, you are correct, of course. The whole of the article is about BXVI's decision to embrace monastic life post-papacy. The portion I excerpted, however, is about how various priests and religious, etc. have failed the holy father.

      Delete
  3. Anonymous11:44 AM

    Anyone thinking that the Church is in dire shambles as never before is deluded.

    I invite those who disagree to read the exhortation to the conclave cardinals in 1774 by St. Alphonsus of Liguori about the problems of the Church then; it reads as if it had been written last month: http://bit.ly/XzYEeK

    ReplyDelete