10 Things Pope Benedict Wants You To Know

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We see this today in radical currents within Islam, which justify terrorism and hatred in the name of God. Benedict is well aware, however, that in a different key, the same temptation to irrationality courses through every religion, which makes it all the more important that faith and reason remain on speaking terms. Instead, Benedict offered a message that was at the same time more gentle and yet more radical.

In his concluding homily, he chose to meditate on the Eucharist, Christ's gift of himself under the forms of bread and wine at Mass. The pope offered a memorable metaphor to describe its impact. He told the one million young people who had gathered to hear him:.

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To use an image well known to us today, [consecrating the Eucharist] is like inducing nuclear fission in the very heart of being the victory of love over hatred, the victory of love over death, Only this intimate explosion of good conquering evil can then trigger off the series of transformations that little by little will change the world. All other changes remain superficial and cannot save. For this reason we speak of redemption: Jesus can distribute his Body, because he truly gives himself.

That imagery came from Joseph Ratzinger's lifetime of prayer and devotion centered on the Eucharist. In March , Benedict XVI released a document called an "apostolic exhortation," officially drawing conclusions from the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist that took place in the Vatican in October It's titled Sacramentum Caritatis Sacrament of Charity and it offers Benedict's most developed reflections on the Eucharist.

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The Church's faith is essentiality a Eucharistic faith, and it is especially nourished at the table of the Eucharist For this reason, the Sacrament of the Altar is always at the heart of the Church's life The more lively the eucharistic faith of the People of God, the deeper is its sharing in ecclesial life in steadfast commitment to the mission entrusted by Christ to his disciples. That last line is important, because as Benedict goes on to argue in Sacramentum Caritatis, the faith expressed in the Eucharist comes with a mission.

On a personal level, it impels us to live our lives in accordance with what we profess during the Mass; we must become, as Saint Augustine once famously suggested, what we consume, meaning to model ourselves on Christ. On a social level, it means efforts to build a world in which the self-giving love of Christ, which is made new each time the Eucharist is celebrated, is the cornerstone upon which society is constructed, as opposed to ideology, profit, or the blind will to power.

Taken seriously, Benedict argues, the Eucharist can change the world-indeed, it's the only thing that can.

To take one example, when the Holy Father visited Spain in July , many expected a dramatic showdown with the Socialist government of Prime Minister Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose left-wing government has done battle with the Church on a variety of fronts: Many Catholics expected fire and brimstone from the pope. Instead, he was doggedly positive, concentrating on the Christian fundamentals, never directly engaging any of the issues that have divided Church and state.

Later, some German TV reporters asked Benedict what had happened. It's worth listening to his reply in full:. Christianity, Catholicism, isn't a collection of prohibitions: It's very important that we look at it again because this idea has almost completely disappeared today. We've heard so much about what is not allowed that now it's time to say: So, firstly it's important to stress what we want. Secondly, we can also see why we don't want something. I believe we need to see and reflect on the fact that it's not a Catholic invention that man and woman are made for each other, so that humanity can go on living: As far as abortion is concerned, it's part of the fifth, not the sixth, commandment: The human person must always be respected as a human person.

But all this is clearer if you say it first in a positive way. Benedict's desire is to lead contemporary Catholics back to the fundamentals of our faith, to remind us of that deep "yes" that lies beneath our specific "no's" on hot-button cultural debates. The Church does not engage in proselytism. Instead, she grows by "attraction": In other words, the pope wants Christians to let the "good news" of their faith shine through their own lives, so that its inner beauty can again become clear in a world accustomed to thinking of Christianity as little more than a fussy legal system.

That doesn't make the law less important or valid, but Benedict realizes that one doesn't stir hearts with law, but with love. That doesn't mean, however, that faith lacks consequences for politics. Benedict wrote in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, that "Justice is both the aim and the intrinsic criterion of all politics.

In an address to the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean on May 13, , Benedict endorsed what exponents of liberation theology have called the "preferential option for the poor," saying it is "implicit in the Christological faith in the God who became poor for us. Benedict has repeatedly spoken out in defense of the poor, often in language with very concrete political implications. For example, in December , he wrote to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at the time the president of the G8 group of nations, demanding "the rapid, total and unconditional cancellation" of the external debt of poor countries.

The pope described debt relief as a "grave and unconditional moral responsibility, founded on the unity of the human race, and on the common dignity and shared destiny of rich and poor alike. Benedict has shown a special pastoral concern for the struggles of Africa. In June he announced his intention to call a synod of bishops from Africa to discuss the crises facing the continent. In November , when a new bond measure was launched by the World Bank to raise four billion dollars over ten years for the immunization of children in impoverished nations against preventable diseases, the very first bond was purchased by Pope Benedict XVI.

For Benedict XVI, fidelity to Church teaching and Tradition is not opposed to social concern; to conceive of things that way, he believes, would be to pit faith against works, a position Roman Catholicism rejected during the Protestant Reformation more than five hundred years ago.

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At the same time, Benedict is clear that the role of the Church is to hold up moral values, not to provide a specific political blueprint for translating those values into political choices. The Importance of Catholic Identity. This thrust toward a stronger sense of identity forms one of the megatrends in contemporary Catholicism. In every area of the life of the Church-from liturgy to religious orders, from Catholic schools and hospitals to seminary instruction-the question of the day is, "How do we know it's Catholic, and how do we make sure it stays Catholic?

A consummate student of Western culture, Benedict knows that since the Peace of Westphalia in , religion has suffered a progressive exile from public life, especially in Europe. In the West today, religion is often seen as a purely private matter, and religious people feel pressure to either downplay or abandon those aspects of their faith that don't "fit" with the values of enlightened modern culture.

Over time, Benedict worries, in too many areas the Catholic Church has gradually assimilated to this ethos, absorbing its world view like secondhand smoke.

The result is that some Catholics, and some Catholic institutions, are shaped more by the values of secular modernity than the tradition of the Church. The time has come, Benedict believes, to recover a strong sense of what makes Catholics different. His decisions in July to broaden permission for use of the pre Vatican II Mass, and to reassert that the Catholic Church alone is the true church willed by Christ, both express this conviction.

Its key figures accent the need for the Church to speak its own language, premised on the conviction that Christianity is itself a culture, often at odds with the prevailing world view of modernity. Restoring a sense of Catholic distinctiveness-a Catholic version of what sociologists call the "politics of identity" has in some ways been Joseph Ratzinger's life's work.

In that light, Pope Benedict is less immediately concerned with numbers, such as Mass attendance or turnout at papal events, than with fostering a deep sense of Catholic distinctiveness, however few those who embrace such a spirit may be. As early as The Ratzinger Report in , he put things this way: Among the most urgent tasks facing Christians is that of regaining the capacity of non-conformism, Le.

That doesn't mean, of course, that Benedict wants Christians to cut themselves off from the world, retreating into a Catholic ghetto. Rather, he wants them to be in the world but not of it - to find, as he once memorably put it, " that none-too-easy balance between a proper incarnation in history, and the indispensable tension toward eternity. Christ and the Church Are Inseparable.

Any attempt to say "yes" to Jesus but "no" to the Church, Benedict insisted, ultimately falls apart, because Jesus' message was intended precisely "to gather and to save" a people, which is the Church. The Wednesday catechesis is the most important regular opportunity a pope has to get his message across, and for a teaching pope such as Benedict XVI, the choice of theme is revealing in terms of his priorities. Benedict is well aware that for many contemporary men and women, Jesus of Nazareth remains a fascinating figure, but they often struggle with aspects of institutional religion.

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The natural temptation, therefore, is to opt for Jesus without the "intermediary" of the Church. In the end, however, one cannot truly love Jesus or follow his teachings, Benedict insists, without taking one's place in the family of faith that Jesus called into being. Being part of that family comes with no guarantees of perfect contentment; like any family, the Church has its ups and downs, its moments of disappointment and heartache.

If that's true of a human family, how much more it is of a global Church of more than one billion people, carrying the weight of two thousand years of history! But just as one does not walk away from a family when things get rough, similarly a disciple of Jesus does not walk away from his or her Church. Describing as "baseless" any "individualistic interpretation of the proclamation about the Kingdom made by Christ," Benedict said that the "obvious intent" of Jesus "was to unite the community of the covenant" into "the Twelve," symbolized and by the twelve apostles.

In this light, one understands how the Resurrected One conferred upon them, with the effusion of the Spirit, the power to forgive sins cf. The Twelve Apostles are thus the most evident sign of the will of Jesus regarding the existence and mission of His Church, the guarantee that between Christ and the Church, there is no contraposition.

In a similar vein, popes teach the world through their actions, their personalities, and their "styles," in addition to their explicit speech. For example, perhaps one of the most eloquent moments of John Paul II's papacy came near the end on Easter Sunday , when despite his obvious agony, he spent twelve long minutes at the window of his apartment, struggling to speak to the faithful gathered below in Saint Peter's Square and to the millions watching around the world. The way John Paul poured himself out in service that day spoke volumes about his self-sacrifice, even though he never managed to utter a single word.

Probably without being conscious of it, Pope Benedict XVI is teaching the world something through his own behavior. He is exceedingly humble and gentle, which stands in stark contrast to the bluster and braggadocio often associated with global titans in the worlds of politics, finance, and culture. He is living proof that one does not have to be an exhibitionist to lead and to inspire. Perhaps more important, he's teaching a microwave world that expects instant results to slow down a bit, to catch its breath, and to look before it leaps.

Upon Benedict's election, there were fevered expectations of swift and dramatic action in many quarters. Some expected a root-and-branch reform of the Roman Curia, the Catholic Church's central organ of government. Others anticipated a sweeping crackdown on dissident theologians and liberal activists within the Church. Do we open it sometimes to read it together? Do we meditate on it while reciting the Rosary?

Mothers are the strongest antidote to the spread of self-centred individualism. I remember what my mother said about us — there were five of us: When they asked her: Should they strike this one, it hurts me; should they strike that one, it hurts me. All five hurt me.

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And this is how a family is! The children are all different, but all children. The Church cannot and does not want to conform to a mentality of impatience, and much less of indifference and contempt, towards old age. We must reawaken the collective sense of gratitude, of appreciation, of hospitality, which makes the elder feel like a living part of his community.

I remember once listening to a very wise, old person; very simple, but with that uncommon wisdom of life and piety: It is the flower of a noble soul. Your email address will not be published. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Comment below with other topics you would like us to cover! Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published.

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