On Truth And The Church

"Without truth, it is easy to fall into an empiricist and sceptical view of life, incapable of rising to the level of praxis because of a lack of interest in grasping the values — sometimes even the meanings — with which to judge and direct it. Fidelity to man requires fidelity to the truth, which alone is the guarantee of freedom (cf. Jn 8:32) and of the possibility of integral human development. For this reason the Church searches for truth, proclaims it tirelessly and recognizes it wherever it is manifested."

- Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in veritate, 2009"

On Mariology, Christology And The Ark

Today is the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Although I remain a material heretic to my friends at the University of Dallas, I will engage in thinking and reflecting on Luke 1:42-45 and of course Luke 11:27-28. Earlier in August, Pope Benedict XVI presented some thoughtful insights:

In the First Reading we heard: “God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the Ark of his Covenant was seen within his temple” (Rev 11:19). What is the meaning of the ark? What appears?

For the Old Testament, it is the symbol of God’s presence in the midst of his people. However, the symbol has given way to reality. Thus the New Testament tells us that the true ark of the covenant is a living, real person: it is the Virgin Mary. God does not dwell in a piece of furniture, he dwells in a person, in a heart: Mary, the One who carried in her womb the eternal Son of God made man, Jesus our Lord and Saviour.

In the ark — as we know — the two Tables of the Mosaic Law were kept. The Law expressed God’s wish to preserve the Covenant with his People, pointing out the conditions for being faithful to the pact with God in order to conform to God’s will and thereby also to our own profound truth.

Mary is the Ark of the Covenant because she welcomed Jesus within her; she welcomed within her the living Word, the whole content of God's will, of God’s truth; she welcomed within her the One who is the new and eternal Covenant, which culminated in the offering of his Body and his Blood: a body and blood received through Mary.

Therefore Christian piety rightly turns to Our Lady in the litanies in her honour, invoking her as Foederis Arca, that is, “the Ark of the Covenant”, the Ark of God’s presence, the Ark of the Covenant of love which God desired to establish with the whole of humanity, in Christ, once and for all.

- Pope Benedict XVI, Homily on the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at St. Thomas of Villanova Parish, Castel Gandolfo (Monday, 15 August 2011).

On Snakes, Shipwrecks, And The Pope

A friend of my quoted this:

"The Holy Father [Pope Benedict XVI] is currently on an Apostolic Visit to Malta. St. Paul also took a trip to Malta. He was shipwrecked and bitten by snakes. I hope the Pope has a better journey."

- Cardinal Sean O'Malley, O.F.M.

On European Secularism and Pope Benedict XVI

Pope Benedict XVI thinks Europe needs to wake up from their godless slumber. Maybe America can take a page from his play book.

From Day One, countering Europe's supposed slide into a godless secularism has been high on Benedict's agenda. Recently, that defense of the church's values has been looking almost like a counteroffensive. On Oct. 17 in Spain, the traditionally Catholic right turned out perhaps as many as 1 million people in the streets of Madrid to oppose plans by the country's center-left government to loosen abortion laws (allowing 16-year-old females, for example, to terminate their pregnancies without parental consent). And on Tuesday, in a Vatican meeting with the new European Union envoy to the Holy See, Benedict chided those who deny the "Christian roots" of Europe. Said the Pope: "Europe will not truly be herself if she cannot keep the originality that made her great. When the church reminds Europe of its Christian roots, it is not looking for special status, [but] recalling the fact that the founding fathers of the European Union were inspired by Christianity."

- Jeff Israely, "The Pope to Unhappy Anglicans: Come On In!" in Time, October 20, 2009. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1931193,00.html

On Anglicans 'Swimming the Tiber'

Yesterady Pope Benedict XVI (J. Ratzinger) proposed a new assimilation process for Anglicans to return back to Rome and "swim the Tiber"

For Anglican leaders, the Vatican announcement is the latest minefield to manage in their ongoing effort to avoid a full-fledged schism within their 80-million-strong church, which includes 2.2 million American Episcopalians. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is juggling the gripes of Anglicans of all philosophical stripes and ecclesiastical sensibilities, most notably as battles over women and gay clergy have undermined that prized "communion" within Anglicanism for more than two decades.

Under the new structure, groups of Anglicans can move into a local Catholic Church that will be headed by former Anglican clergy, who can ease them into Catholicism without their having to kiss goodbye their own pastor or the rites they were raised on. Married Anglican priests who convert, like married priests in the Eastern Rite of Catholicism, will not be eligible to become bishops.

The Vatican's doctrinal chief, Cardinal William Levada, told reporters on Tuesday that Catholic leaders were simply responding to requests by certain Anglicans to find a comfortable home in Catholicism.

The question looming in my mind is how they can find like minds with core conservatives, and church style, but there is not much talk concerning anything related to their view of Jesus. Call me simple, but I want to hear how justification by faith alone in Christ alone comes into play between Anglicans and Catholics.

- Jeff Israely, "The Pope to Unhappy Anglicans: Come On In!" in Time, October 20, 2009. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1931193,00.html

On Pope Benedict XVI and Justification By Faith

Is the Pope Catholic? I came across Pope Benedict XVI's words from November 19, 2008. He states:

"The relationship between Paul and the Risen One became so deep as to induce him to maintain that Christ was no longer solely his life but also his very living, to the point that to be able to reach him death became a gain (cf. Phil 1:21). This is not to say he despised life, but that he realized that for him at this point there was no other purpose in life and thus he had no other desire than to reach Christ as in an athletics competition to remain with him for ever. The Risen Christ had become the beginning and the end of his existence, the cause and the goal of his race. It was only his concern for the development in faith of those he had evangelized and his anxiety for all of the Churches he founded (cf. 2 Cor 11:28) that induced him to slow down in his race towards his one Lord, to wait for his disciples so they might run with him towards the goal. Although from a perspective of moral integrity he had nothing to reproach himself in his former observance of the Law, once Christ had reached him he preferred not to make judgments on himself (cf.1 Cor 4:3-4). Instead he limited himself to resolving to press on, to make his own the One who had made him his own (cf. Phil 3:12)."

And again:

"It is precisely because of this personal experience of relationship with Jesus Christ that Paul henceforth places at the centre of his Gospel an irreducible opposition between the two alternative paths to justice: one built on the works of the Law, the other founded on the grace of faith in Christ. The alternative between justice by means of works of the Law and that by faith in Christ thus became one of the dominant themes that run through his Letters: "We ourselves, who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law; because by works of the law no one will be justified" (Gal 2:15-16). And to the Christians of Rome he reasserts that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus" (Rm 3:23-24). And he adds "we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law" (Ibid., v. 28)..."

And again:

"At the moment of his encounter with the Risen One he understood that with Christ's Resurrection the situation had changed radically. With Christ, the God of Israel, the one true God, became the God of all peoples. The wall as he says in his Letter to the Ephesians between Israel and the Gentiles, was no longer necessary: it is Christ who protects us from polytheism and all of its deviations; it is Christ who unites us with and in the one God; it is Christ who guarantees our true identity within the diversity of cultures. The wall is no longer necessary; our common identity within the diversity of cultures is Christ, and it is he who makes us just. Being just simply means being with Christ and in Christ. And this suffices. Further observances are no longer necessary. For this reason Luther's phrase: "faith alone" is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love. Faith is looking at Christ, entrusting oneself to Christ, being united to Christ, conformed to Christ, to his life. And the form, the life of Christ, is love; hence to believe is to conform to Christ and to enter into his love. So it is that in the Letter to the Galatians in which he primarily developed his teaching on justification St Paul speaks of faith that works through love (cf. Gal 5:15)."

In this address he is simply saying, look justification by faith, in so far as you are not liberated from good works. I take this to mean, do not use your freedom for a liscence to sin. He end stating:

"At the end, we can only pray the Lord that he help us to believe; really believe. Believing thus becomes life, unity with Christ, the transformation of our life. And thus, transformed by his love, by the love of God and neighbour, we can truly be just in God's eyes."

- Pope Benedict XVI, St. Paul (13): "The Doctrine of Justification: From Faith to Works," to the General Audience at St. Peter's Square, November 19, 2008. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081119_en.html