august 2005

Pave Benedikt og lutheranerne

Før pave Bendikt reiser til Tyskland til Verdensungdomsdagene denne uken spekuleres det litt om hvordan hans forhold til den lutherske kirke er og vil bli. John Allen skriver om dette i siste utgave av Word from Rome, og nevner bl.a. fra fullførelsen av rettferdiggjørelses-dokumentet (noen sier at Ratzinger var den som skapte problemene, mens andre sier som her at det var han som berdet avtalen):

Later, Ratzinger played a key role in rescuing an agreement with the Lutheran World Federation on the doctrine of justification. It was announced to much fanfare in June 1998, then seemingly unraveled, and rolled out again in June 1999. The heart of the agreement was this sentence: «By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping us and calling us to good works.»

When the agreement seemed to founder, German media reported that Ratzinger had torpedoed it. On July 14, 1998, Ratzinger published a letter in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine calling those reports a smooth
lie.» He said that to scuttle the dialogue would be to «deny myself.» On November 3, 1998, a special ad hoc working group met at the home of Ratzinger’s brother Georg in Regensburg, Bavaria, to get the agreement back on track. Lutheran Bishop Johannes Hanselmann convened the group, which consisted of Hanselmann, Ratzinger, Catholic theologian Heinz Schuette and Lutheran theologian Joachim Track.

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Pave Benedikts stil

15. juli lste jeg på siden www.chiesa.com om pave Benedikts stil, om måten han oppfører seg på i forhold til forriga pave. Der står det bl.a.:

«The same masses of the faithful that applauded the gestures or striking phrases of pope Karol Wojtyla, while almost completely missing what it was that he was talking about, are doing the opposite with the new pope. They follow Ratzinger’s homilies word for word, from beginning to end, with an attentiveness that astonishes the experts. Verifying this takes nothing more than mingling among the crowds in attendance at a Mass celebrated by the pope.

The new pope’s style is sober in terms of his contact with the masses. His symbolic expressiveness comes entirely from the liturgy, which he celebrates with a great sense of authority. But apart from the Masses, catecheses, and
blessings, Benedict XVI is a minimalist.»The pope must not proclaim his own ideas, but rather constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word,» he said when taking possession of the Chair of the Bishop of Rome, in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, on May 7. And he keeps to this standard even in regard to public gestures. He does very little of his own. He wants the faithful to pay attention to what is essential, which is not his own person but Jesus Christ alive and present in the sacraments of the Church.»

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