Saturday, January 21, 2006

Pulling weeds

Fr. Neuhaus thinks that the papacy of Benedict XVI is being undermined by the American Jesuits. Sandro Magister thinks it is being undermined by the neo-cathecumenals. At any rate, the best starting point is gratitude for who this Pope is and what he says. A pontificate is also undermined when we try and use it to push our well-meaning political plans for the Church.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

A pontificate is also undermined when we try and use it to push our well-meaning political plans for the Church.

Are you accusing Fr Neuhaus of doing this? If so, how? By giving him the lead article in First Things last month?

XC

Anonymous said...

by giving *the pope* the leading article...

Anonymous said...

A pontificate is also undermined when we try to use it to push an imaginary "third way"

Crossroads Cultural Center said...

What "third way" are you talking about? And who would be pushing it? The Christian profession of faith is that only one is "the way, the truth and the life." And the temptation of averting our eyes from Christ and trying to enforce our own ecclesio-political agenda applies to us all, in case you didn't noticed.

Anyway, if you want to have a discussion, it would be nice if you signed with your own name.

Best,

Carlo

Anonymous said...

The Christian profession of faith is that only one is "the way, the truth and the life."

That's true, but it's also true that among the followers of Christ there is plenty of disagreement and debate on matters of ecclesiology and politics. For example, on the war in Iraq. Or, remember the debate between then-Cardinal Ratzinger and Cardinal Kasper on local and universal Church? There's nothing wrong with debate and criticism, and pooh-poohing the concerns of Fr Neuhaus and Sandro Magister--or of the NeoCats and the Jesuits, for that matter--does not seem to me to be fair.

Mr Anonymous must be referring to the article titled "Europe and its Discontents" which was published in the last issue of First Things.