April 19, 2005

Pope Benedict XVI and dashed hopes

On John Paul II's death, I wrote over here as follows:

As a former Catholic, I can appreciate the office and the ritual, but I disagreed with the man and his leading of his Church back to pre-Vatican II days. I'm glad he didn't suffer, but I hope they pick a replacement Pope who's a man of the 21st century. Pope John II knew and used the trappings of the late 20th century media machine very well, but his bringing Opus Dei to the forefront of the Church, his blanket condemnation of artifical birth control (in the age of AIDS!), and his uncompromising stance on abortion (health of the mother? Too bad!) are/were not good things, in my view and that of (apparently) many Catholics who still attend Mass. (I base that on poll data I've seen which says that many American Catholics admired him but ignored his teachings on those subjects).

Well, so much for that hope. Here's part of what the new Pope said yesterday as the conclave began:

How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking… The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves – thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and “swept along by every wind of teaching”, looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today’s standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.

He goes on to renounce "relativism," which implies to me that he's a proud fundamentalist, and that we can't expect any useful changes in the Church's views as I hoped in my note above. Wonderful.

Via Andrew Sullivan.

Posted by Linkmeister at April 19, 2005 03:05 PM
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