Paven

Kardinal Ratzinger / pave Benedikt var i hele mitt liv som katolikk min favoritt. Da jeg ble opptatt i Den katolske kirke i 1994 ledet han Troskongregasjonen og sammen med pave Johannes Paul ledet han slik Kirken i mange år på en ypperlig måte. Da han så selv ble pave i 2005 var jeg svært fornøyd, men etter han gikk av for nesten 10 år siden, har jeg opplevd situasjonen som mindre ideell. Da han så døde på nyttårsaften var det trist, men selvsagt ingen overraskelse, siden han jo var over 95 år gammel. Det var vemodig å se på begravelsen i dag.

EWTN Norge presenterte et interessant intervju med pave Benedikts medarbeider gjennom mange år, erkebiskop Gänswein. Her er noen utdrag fra intervjuet:

– Hvordan opplevde du de siste ukene og månedene av pave emeritus Benedikt XVIs liv?

I motsetning til hva han selv hadde trodd, så ble han jo meget gammel. Han var overbevist om at han, etter at han abdiserte, bare skulle få ett års tid på seg av Vår Herre. Han var vel selv den som ble mest overrasket over at det ble ganske mange år.

Mot slutten var han fysisk meget svak, gebrekkelig, men gudskjelov fikk han beholde sitt klare hode. Det smertefulle for ham var å erkjenne at stemmen ble stadig svakere. Hele livet hadde stemmen vært hans verktøy, og så mistet han det gradvis. Men han forble klar, og han var fattet og samlet.

– Du har tilbragt mange år ved hans side. Hva ser du på som de viktigste øyeblikkene?

… Det som alltid imponerte meg, ja, og overrasket meg, var hans godhet; hvor fredfull og avbalansert han var, også i veldig krevende og utmattende situasjoner – og noen ganger også veldig triste situasjoner, menneskelig sett.

Han mistet aldri fatningen, mistet aldri besinnelsen. Tvert imot: jo større utfordringene var, jo fredeligere ble han, som om ordene ble fattige. Dette hadde en god og velgjørende effekt på folk omkring ham. …

– Når vi ser tilbake på hans pontifikat, hva var hans største utfordringer?

Det var klar helt fra begynnelsen av hans pontifikat at den største utfordringen var det han kalte «relativisme». Den katolske tro og Den katolske kirke er overbevist om at i Jesus Kristus kom sannheten til verden og ble menneske: «Jeg er Veien, Sannheten og Livet.»

Relativismen sier: «Den sannheten du forkynner er intolerant. Dere tolererer ikke andre overbevisninger, annet enn innen kristendommen når det gjelder økumenikk, dere tolerer ikke andre religioner, dere ser ned på dem.» Det stemmer selvsagt ikke. Toleranse betyr at jeg tar alle seriøst i deres tro og overbevisninger, og aksepterer dem. Men det betyr ikke at jeg simpelthen nedvurderer min egen tro: troen jeg er overbevist om, troen jeg har mottatt for å gi videre. …

– Santo subito -helgen med en gang?

Det budskapet sto å lese under Johannes Paul IIs begravelse på Petersplassen. Jeg husker det godt: det var mange tegn og store plakater med «Santo subito». Jeg tror det går i den retningen.

Danske Katolsk Orientering trykker en grundig anmeldelse av Benedikt XVI – Ein Leben (1184 sider). Boka kom ut på tysk i april i år og kommer visst på engelsk (i to bind) i november. Her er en hel del av anmeldelsen:

… Joseph Ratzingers barndom er en del af hele det tidsbillede, Peter Seewald ruller ud i den store nye biografi: Benedikt XVI. Ein Leben (Benedikt XVI Et liv). Og Seewald må siges at være den rette mand til opgaven. … Års researcharbejde, jagt i arkiverne og privat korrespondance med pave Benedikt ligger bag Seewalds nye biografi. Mere end 100 skolekammerater, venner fra præsteseminariet, naboer, familiemedlemmer og universitetskollegaer er blevet interviewet til den 1084 sider lange Benediktbiografi.

Den unge Joseph er temmelig indadvendt og flygter ind i bøgerne. Yndlingsbogen bliver Hermann Hesses Klassiker Steppeulven – senere hippiernes kultbog. Han skriver digte, og som seminarist er han igennem en langvarig forelskelse, før han beslutter sig for at blive præst. ”Ja, jeg er blevet berørt af kærligheden i dens forskellige dimensioner og former. At være elsket og give andre kærlighed tilbage har jeg mere og mere oplevet som helt grundlæggende”, siger pave Benedikt, og Seewald spørger ham direkte: ”Var De forelsket i en pige? Måske. Altså ja? Man kunne udlægge det sådan. Hvor længe varede så denne lidelsesfulde tid? Nogle uger? Et par måneder? Længere.”

En yderst samvittighedsfuld præst” ”En yderst samvittighedsfuld og meget duelig præst med teologiske kundskaber, der er overordentlig store for hans alder”. Sådan er skudsmålet fra sognepræsten i München-Bogenhausen om kapellan Ratzinger, der også beskrives som lidt for genert. Kometkarrieren starter med disputats om Sankt Bonaventura og ansættelse ved universitetet i Bonn. Tiltrædelsesforelæsningens tema er en ægte Ratzinger – troens Gud og filosoffernes Gud.

Meget tidligt opdager han kvaliteterne i la nouvelle theologie – en bevægelse, der ønskede en grundlæggende reform af katolsk teologi med en tilbagevenden til kilderne – kirkefædrene.

Ratzinger vækker opsigt, da han i oktober 1958 i tidsskriftet Hochland skriver om, at den moderne kirke er blevet en hedensk kirke – selv om facaden er i orden, og man kan fremvise de nydeligste religionsstatistikker. Og han taler i klartekst:

”Hedenskaben sidder i dag i Kirken selv og det kendetegner kirken i vore dage som også den nye hedenskab, at det drejer sig om hedenskab i kirken og om en kirke, i hvis hjerte hedenskaben lever”. Artiklen kommer i 1958 i tidsrummet mellem Pius XIIs død og valget af hans efterfølger. På en vis måde formulerer den Kirkens program for eftertiden. Den store fortælling, Kirken har præget verden med er ved at falme, og Kirken må til at indstille sig på at være en mindretalskirke. Det blev opfattet som stærkt provokerende, og Ratzinger bliver kaldt modernist. Men i Köln sidder kardinal Frings med de samme tanker.

…

Grundig biografi om pave BenediktLes mer »

Sandro Magister skriver om de to bispesynoden som ble avholdt i Vatikanet høsten 2018 og høsten 2019, bl.a.:

That on the Amazon is the second synod in a row in which Francis has disappointed the expectations of those awaiting the innovations that he himself, the pope, had foretold.

In the 2018 synod on young people, the issue on which the expectations and controversies had focused was homosexuality. The base document of the discussion, in its paragraph 197, explicitly admitted a possible paradigm shift in judging “homosexual couples.”

And instead nothing. When the synod gathered, Francis imposed and obtained silence on the subject. No mention was made of it in the assembly discussions, nor in the final document, much less in the post-synodal pontifical exhortation “Christus vivit.” And so that on young people – emptied of its only spicy ingredient – became the most useless and boring synod in history.

The following year, with the synod on the Amazon and especially with what followed, the disappointment of the innovators was even stronger.

Because this time at the synod the discussion did take place on the most awaited and disputed change, which was the ordination of married men. In the final document the proposal passed with more than two thirds of the votes. And still in early January many were sure that Francis would adopt and authorize it, in the post-synodal exhortation expected at any moment.

But then came, in strenuous defense of the celibate priesthood, the bombshell book by pope emeritus Benedict XVI and Cardinal Robert Sarah, received by the innovators as a disastrous omen.

And in fact shortly afterward the post-synodal exhortation “Querida Amazonia” fell like a sudden chill, with the total silence of Francis on the subject. …

Hvorfor skjedde så dette? Magister forklarer det med utviklingen i Den katolske kirke i Tyskland, som pave Frans ikke liker. Les mer om dette her.

Pave Benedikt fyller 92 år i dag, og er ganske skrøpelig, men fortsatt klar i hodet. Les om ham på Wikipedia – på engelsk og norsk. Mange skriver om ham i dag, bl.a. Rome Reports, som også viser en kort video. De skriver bl.a.:

Pope emeritus Benedict XVI turns 92 today. Pope Francis visited him on the eve of his birthday, with the Vatican publishing a photo from the visit.

Benedict XVI’s day will be spent in private celebration. It is unknown if he will raise a pint of beer, as he has in previous years, or if his brother Georg will come in town to celebrate with him. …

… This year, his birthday is overshadowed by the fire in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. In 2008, the pope emeritus spoke to young people from inside the cathedral, while commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Blessed Virgin at Lourdes.

Bildet under viser pave Benedikt i Notre-Dame de Paris.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker er en (gift) katolsk prest i USA som skriver en hel del (jeg lurer ofte på hvordan han får tid til det, siden har er sogneprest i en aktiv menighet) og jeg leser hans (oftest) interessante artikler ganske ofte. Han skrev nylig en artikkel han kalte: TEN REASONS WHY POPE FRANCIS’ SILENCE IS A DISASTER. Han åpner artikkel slik:

I was amazed to read the Pope Francis’ supporters, Fr Spadaro and Cardinal Napier have been comparing the Pope’s silence on the Vigano accusations to Our Lord’s silence before Pilate. … There are so many problems with this that it is hard to know where to start.

Og han fortsetter slik med første og andre grunn:

First of all, when you or the person you support is under fire for something of which that person may be guilty it is not a good idea to play the victim….not even a little bit. But to compare the person under fire to Jesus at his trial? No. Just don’t go there. Playing the victim card doesn’t work anymore. It’s a worn out ploy. After the blizzard of snowflakes and faux victims we can see through that trick now.

Secondly, if the person in question is a privileged person don’t play the victim card at all. Would you pity Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton if they played the victim card? No. If a person is a powerful and privileged person and you play the victim card it is a big own goal. The pope is one of the most powerful people in the world. He’s right up there with the Queen of England as an international leader and he is therefore on the top of the heap. When the big guys play the victim card it is not only ridiculous, it is a gross insult to all the true victims in the world. …

Janne Haaland Matlary skriver også om dette i dag i Dagens Næringsliv, med følgende ingress: Et råd til paven: gi fullt innsyn i sakene om seksuelle forbrytelser. Jeg leste artikkelen tidligere i dag, men man må ha abonnement for å lese den på nettet.

OPPDATERT 10. september: Nå er denne artikkelen lagt ut på katolsk.no.

Catholic Herald trykker i dag en interessant artikkel om Pave Frans’ fem første år, og artikkel oppsummeres slik:

Despite Pope Francis’s clear desire for change, and for all the grand, structurally reforming moves of the last five years, it is hard to point to any measurable progress. In fact, things look worse, not better, in many cases. How is this possible?

The key to understanding Francis is his paradoxical style of governance. He wants to think big, give clear direction and leave it to others to carry through the minutiae. Yet he has kept himself apart, and even at odds with, the very structures and mechanisms which would allow him to work like this.

The small circle on which he has become dependent are far from the loyal friends he needs. Many are now enmeshed in scandals of their own, well past the age of retirement, freelancing their own agendas, or jockeying outright for position at the next conclave.

A zealous reformer and a conscientious, maybe even saintly, priest Francis may be, but as the head of a functioning government, he cuts an increasingly isolated figure.

Kommende søndag er det 5 år siden pave Benedikt kunngjorde sin avgang og NTB har laget en artikkel som starter med at «Tidligere pave Benedikt skriver i et avisinnlegg at han nærmer seg døden og er klar for sin «siste pilegrimsreise».» Flere aviser har trykket denne teksten, og på katolsk.no finner vi den her. Også Catholic Herald skriver om det samme, og nevner at pave Benedikt svarte på forespørsler om hans helse fra lesere av den italienske avisa Corriere della Serra:

In a nine-line letter to Corriere della Serra, Benedict XVI thanks the paper’s readers for their concern, and assures them he is surrounded “by a love and a goodness that I could not have imagined”.

“I was moved that so many readers of your newspaper want to know how I am spending this last period of my life,” he said.

“I can only say in this regard that, in the slow decline of physical strengths, inwardly I am on a pilgrimage Home,” he added, capitalising the Italian word ‘Casa’.

“It is a great grace for me to be surrounded, in this rather tiring last piece of the road, by a love and a goodness that I could not have imagined.”

He said he considered the reader’s concerns as “company” on his journey, and assured them of his prayers.

The paper says it had contacted Benedict XVI through a “reserved channel” to ask him how he was doing.

Jeg så bildet over på Twitter. Pave Benedikt (sier teksten på Twitter) er sammen med erkebiskop Gänswein og msgr. Antonio Catelan, sekretær for the Ratzinger Foundation i Brasil.

Catholic Herald skriver bl.a. dette om dagens besøk;

President Donald Trump is meeting Pope Francis for the first time.

The president, accompanied by his wife and several aides, arrived at the Vatican just after 8 a.m. local time. The president greeted Francis in Sala del Tronetto, the room of the little throne, on the second floor of Apostolic Palace Wednesday morning.

The men shook hands and Trump could be heard thanking the pope and saying it was “a great honour” to be there. They then posed for photographs before a private meeting.

Trump arrived in Rome Tuesday evening, his motorcade closing a busy Italian highway just after rush hour and prompting hundreds of onlookers to briefly step out of their gridlocked cars to gawk at the fleet of armoured vehicles. He spent the night at the U.S. ambassador to Italy’s residence. …

Jeg så en del av besøket (noen jeg sjelden har gjort før, det var mer pompøst og høyttidelig enn jeg hadde regnet med, spesielt før og etter de besøkende treffer paven), der bl.a. erkebiskop Georg Gänsweins viktige rolle er ganske synlig.

Under kan man se et redigert opptak av besøket, i to deler (før og etter det private møtet mellom paven og presidenten).

Del 1

Del 2

16. april (påskedag) fyller pave (emeritus) Benedikt 90 år – jeg gratulerer ham med dagen litt på forskudd.

I en artikkel på the Catholic Herald, med overskrift The Ratzinger revolution, og ingress His writings will one day inspire a generation to revolt against the West’s secular consensus kan vi lese bl.a.:

Benedict XVI will celebrate his 90th birthday on Easter Sunday. Cardinal Joachim Meisner famously described him as a man who is as intelligent as 12 professors and as pious as a child making his First Communion.

If one inserts the words “Joseph Ratzinger” into the Google Scholar search engine, which records academic publications, one obtains some 24,600 hits in four seconds. The words “Benedict XVI” bring up even more results – 66,100. ….

As Bavaria’s most famous son since Ludwig II enters his 10th decade of life, it is worth considering what the impact of all these publications might be in the brave new world of 21st-century Catholicism. My thought is that the publications of Ratzinger will form a treasury to be mined by future generations trying to piece together elements of a fragmented Christian culture.

Ratzinger himself emphasises that the seat of all faith is the memoria Ecclesiae: the memory of the Church. He believes that “there can be a waxing or waning, a forgetting or remembering, but no recasting of truth in time”. As a result, “the decisive question for today is whether that memory can continue to exist through which the Church becomes Christ and without which she sinks into nothingness”.

In this void of nothingness, in a world without the memoria Ecclesiae, the human person strives for an autonomy that is in conflict with his nature. It is natural, normal and healthy for one’s sense of self to exist within the context of a living history and tradition. Those without such moorings often spend their entire youth trying to “find themselves” without much success and often only after years of painful experimentation.

These reflections on the importance of memory were made by Ratzinger in 1982. Earlier, in 1958, during his theological teenager phase, Ratzinger wrote an essay entitled “The New Pagans and the Church”. In it he observed that whenever people make a new acquaintance they can assume with some certainty that the person has a baptismal certificate, but not that he has a Christian frame of mind. This was a full decade before the cultural revolution of the 1960s. …

…. When a new generation arises in full rebellion from the social experiments of the contemporary era, craving a human ecology that respects both God and nature, and wanting to be something more than rootless cosmopolitans, Ratzinger’s publications will serve as Harry Potter-style Portkeys, giving creative young rebels access to the missing cultural capital – indeed, access to what Ratzinger calls the memoria Ecclesiae.

High on the list of the missing cultural capital is the realisation that from the earliest times Christianity has understood itself as the religion of the Logos, the religion according to reason. As Ratzinger expresses the principle: “Faith has the right to be missionary only if it transcends all traditions and constitutes an appeal to reason and an orientation towards the truth itself.” The lack of truth, he argues, is the major disease of our age.
….

Både engelsk Wikipedia og norsk Wikipedia har grundige artikler om pave Benedikt.

Kanskje jeg skal lese denne boka, for det er ikke alltid like lett å forstå pave Frans. Slik kan vi lese på First Things:

An important new book has appeared that carefully evaluates Francis’s pontificate, and provides something the pope—for all his good deeds—often hasn’t: context and clarity.

What Pope Francis Really Said by Tom Hoopes, writer in residence at Benedictine College, is one of the best books to appear on the subject—because it avoids caricaturing Francis, from either the left or the right, and strives to get to the heart of his papacy by studying the full context of his teachings. A second strength is that it rescues Francis from distortion without overlooking his flaws.

Hoopes comments: To try to understand what Pope Francis wants from the Church in the twenty-first century, we should start by invoking Our Lady, Undoer of Knots. Our understanding of Pope Francis has become knotted up with conflicting feelings fed by mistaken reporting, false adulation, rash judgment, and the pope’s own verbal slip-ups.

One of the challenges in covering Francis is that he frequently speaks in incomplete sentences, particularly in the free-wheeling—and often problematic—interviews he grants to the press. Explaining Francis’s teachings in their proper context, therefore, is like putting together a huge jigsaw puzzle—because he says so many things, about a particular subject, at different times, and with different emphasis. But Hoopes has done an admirable job tracking down Francis’s most important statements, and bringing them together to provide a coherent summary of his teachings.

Regarding the pope’s much-discussed views on the economy, for example, Hoopes immediately puts to rest the notion that Francis is a crypto-Marxist who despises every aspect of the free market. In fact, as Hoopes documents, Francis’s views are rooted in the Gospel and the Church’s rich body of social teachings and these are “not just focused on bettering the material needs of the poor,” but addressing the needs of rich and poor alike. …

Her er boka på Amazon.