Can the sheepdog become the shepherd? (Ratzinger)

[IChing]

By ARTHUR JONES ; National Catholic Review 5-7-05

If as Catholic Christians we can no longer grow further in Christ, we’re doomed. If we decide that no one else can grow further in Christ, either, we’re still doomed. So, to Pope Benedict XVI.
No cardinal in modern times has assumed the papacy with so many hypercritical eyes on him. Mine included. He probably wouldn’t think much of me either if he knew me.
Everyone has a take on Joseph Ratzinger’s commissions and omissions of the past 26 years. And he has his own take on everyone else -- including Western society with its intellectual and moral relativism. Indeed, he argues, the West is under the control of a dictatorship of relativism -- against which will he continue his dictatorship of orthodoxy?
That was a winning message in the conclave, that orthodoxy dictatorship. But what about in the world? He wants to re-Christianize, re-Catholicize Europe.

>>>>snip
But the past 26 years have been problematic for Brazilians particularly and for Catholics worldwide who were trying to change the structures that keep the poor oppressed. Brazil is simply one example. In 15 years Catholics will no longer be in a majority in that country.
Could there be any connection between that rapid decline and the fact that for the past 26 years the Vatican has been fiercely separating the Brazilian church from the Brazilian poor?

A Brazilian bishop, the Vatican-disdained Claretian, Dom Pedro Casadaliga of the Mato Grosso, used Dom Oscar Romero as an example of what has been going on in the universal church. Said Casadaliga, in his open letter on the 25th anniversary of El Salvador Archbishop Romero’s death: “In the month of March 1983, I wrote in my diary: ‘I either can’t understand it at all, or I understand it all too well: The photograph of the martyred Dom Romero with Pope John Paul II, on huge posters for the pope’s visit, was banned by the joint church-state government commission in El Salvador.’ ”
In Brazil, post-Vatican II, a tide of Catholic hope and joy bore up the poor and the church. Pope John Paul II with his appointments, and Ratzinger with his crackdowns, dammed that tide.

>>>snip

http://ncronline.org/

[PurityOfEssence]

1. Can the Judas Goat still hang with the flock?

Religious organizations are political organizations, and by sheer size and scope, the Catholic Church looms as a classic example. In many ways, it can be said that the Roman Empire never really fell; it just went into an insular mode of indirect control.

Collusion with those in power is always a dicey proposition, but in lands of great inequity, it's quite risky.

Ratzinger's an enforcer. Enforcing things is tricky when well outnumbered. Does he have the ability to deal with reality in the outside world? His has been a life of maneuvering within systems that are essentially closed; in those environs, power is not questioned.

Still, instability within a sixth of the Earth's population isn't a pleasant prospect, even if it does help to limit a dangerous power bloc.

A bureaucrat thrust into the fluid world of commerce is a dangerous thing, and I wonder if this guy's equipped to deal with it all. Besides that, I hate imperious musclers, and he's a pip. Dark, dark ages seem to loom.

With any luck, he may fragment the huge empire that is the Roman Catholic Church, but in doing so, it'll be one king-hell mess. We don't need any more rupturing of established institutions right now.

The reformation came from the abuses of a corrupt church, and by screwing the poor more than the norm, another comeuppance may be in the offing.

What a fucking mess. What an asshole to put at the reins of this lumbering monster of would-be world domination.

Stay tuned.

[Dover]

2. What...........you mean like a German Shepherd?

I really prefer sheep dogs.