H
HagiaSophia
Guest
"…When it came to poverty in the Third World, Hume seemed to be sympathetic to the ideas of the liberation theologians. Lacking the intellectual rigor of a Cardinal Ratzinger, he failed to see the flaws in the superficially appealing solutions to the problems of poverty and oppression promoted by Sandinista fellow travelers in certain Catholic aid agencies. Their great cause, the revolutionary war in El Salvador, failed in its objectives and left 90,000 dead.
In Britain, too, Cardinal Hume’s sympathies were with the Left - he loathed Mrs. Thatcher - yet he retained an old-fashioned respect for the British Establishment, and the British Establishment loved him in return. Thanks to the media’s focus on celebrity conversions, one gained the impression - almost certainly a wrong one - that Hume believed there was more rejoicing in Heaven at the conversion of a duchess than of a commoner. Far from being a sign of contradiction, Hume liked to solve problems through quiet chats with “the great and the good” behind closed doors. It seemed somehow appropriate that his brother-in-law was the Cabinet Secretary, and that the Cardinal rose from his deathbed to receive the Order of Merit from the Queen.
None of these weaknesses are a matter of blame. The most serious charge that might be made against Cardinal Hume by an advocatus diaboli would be his apparent tolerance of unorthodox teaching, whether from the pulpit or, more perniciously, in the catechetical material used in Catholic schools, such as Weaving the Web. Vatican II made handing on the faith of the Apostles a primary duty of bishops, yet time and again, when tendentious distortions of Catholic teaching were pointed out to him, Cardinal Hume did nothing. Worse, he turned on those who raised objections, such as the heroic Daphne Macloud of Ecclesia et Pontifice, dismissing them as “trouble-makers.” The Cardinal ignored all public criticisms, and interventions from Rome were dismissed as unwarranted interference in the autonomous jurisdiction of a Bishop.
If, then, a new generation of Catholics has arisen which is largely ignorant of what it means to believe; if few Catholics are equipped to defend their faith; if most Catholics decide for themselves what dogmas to accept and what rules to obey - then Cardinal Hume must take part of the blame…"
http://www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?did=0505-read"…
In Britain, too, Cardinal Hume’s sympathies were with the Left - he loathed Mrs. Thatcher - yet he retained an old-fashioned respect for the British Establishment, and the British Establishment loved him in return. Thanks to the media’s focus on celebrity conversions, one gained the impression - almost certainly a wrong one - that Hume believed there was more rejoicing in Heaven at the conversion of a duchess than of a commoner. Far from being a sign of contradiction, Hume liked to solve problems through quiet chats with “the great and the good” behind closed doors. It seemed somehow appropriate that his brother-in-law was the Cabinet Secretary, and that the Cardinal rose from his deathbed to receive the Order of Merit from the Queen.
None of these weaknesses are a matter of blame. The most serious charge that might be made against Cardinal Hume by an advocatus diaboli would be his apparent tolerance of unorthodox teaching, whether from the pulpit or, more perniciously, in the catechetical material used in Catholic schools, such as Weaving the Web. Vatican II made handing on the faith of the Apostles a primary duty of bishops, yet time and again, when tendentious distortions of Catholic teaching were pointed out to him, Cardinal Hume did nothing. Worse, he turned on those who raised objections, such as the heroic Daphne Macloud of Ecclesia et Pontifice, dismissing them as “trouble-makers.” The Cardinal ignored all public criticisms, and interventions from Rome were dismissed as unwarranted interference in the autonomous jurisdiction of a Bishop.
If, then, a new generation of Catholics has arisen which is largely ignorant of what it means to believe; if few Catholics are equipped to defend their faith; if most Catholics decide for themselves what dogmas to accept and what rules to obey - then Cardinal Hume must take part of the blame…"
http://www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?did=0505-read"…
