Good analysis from John Allen about Pope Benedict’s plan

[NeelyAnn]

**FROM FR. Z:

Good analysis from John Allen about Pope Benedict’s plan

CATEGORY: Our Catholic Identity, The Drill — Fr. John Zuhlsdorf @ 2:59 pm **

My friend John L Allen, Jr., the nearly ubiquitous fair-minded columnist for the ulta-dissenting National Catholic Reporter has a piece in Forward, a Jewish daily.

Take a look at the full piece, but here is something of interest to WDTPRS readers. Some of this will sound familiar.

Allen is talking about the seeming contradictions in Pope Benedict’s XVI concern for dialogue with Jews.

However understandable that reaction may be, there is actually a hermeneutic key to Benedict’s papacy, one that lends logic to what can otherwise seem like maddening inconsistencies.

Here it is in a nutshell: Benedict’s top priority is internal, directed at the inner life of the Catholic Church. His aim is to restore a strong sense of traditional Catholic identity, in order to inoculate the church against infection by radical secularism. [Exactly right.] That’s not just a personal hobbyhorse of this pope, but rather the culmination of 50 years of mounting concern inside Catholicism that the church has gone too far in accommodating the ways and means of the secular world. Today, this wave of “evangelical Catholic” energy is the most important policy-setting force in the church.

As a result, when Benedict XVI says or does things that affect Judaism, the key is often to understand that **he’s not really talking to Jews but to other Catholics. [Good.] **

Thus, Benedict’s decision to revive the old Latin Mass, including that infamous prayer for the conversion of Jews, was certainly not crafted as a statement about Judaism. Instead, ** [Watch this…] **Benedict sees the old Mass as a classic carrier of Catholic identity, an antidote to any tendency to secularize the church’s worship. Likewise, Benedict did not lift the excommunications of four traditionalist bishops, including one who believes the Nazis didn’t use gas chambers, to endorse their troubled history with antisemitism. Rather, he did so because the traditionalists act as a leaven in the church, fostering appreciation for the Catholic past — even if their ideas on some matters lie far from the pope’s own thinking.

John Allen is a good analyst. He got this exactly right.

Pope Benedict has a plan, what I call his “Marshall Plan” to rebuild our Catholic identity. If we don’t know who we are as Catholics, we can have little influence in the world around us.

Liturgy is the tip of the spear.

 

[mfj]

Do you think there will be any visable change at the parish level. I don’t mean will the latin
mass be used, Do you think it will change hearts and minds?
I am a believer in the holier you make the church the more holy people will be drawn to her, Maybe I should change the wording. The stricter you adhere to the teachings will make people like me get off our lazy comfortable seat.

 

[John21652]

Do you think there will be any visable change at the parish level. I don’t mean will the latin
mass be used, Do you think it will change hearts and minds?
I am a believer in the holier you make the church the more holy people will be drawn to her, Maybe I should change the wording. The stricter you adhere to the teachings will make people like me get off our lazy comfortable seat.

If these changes are to filter down to the Parish level, there will need to be a lot of support for the reintroduction of certain elements of Catholicism. Will there be enough priests, Nuns, lay people who will be able to rpovide that support?
It wories me that there wont be.

 

[michaeldaniels]

It will require good priest and Bishops to make the necessary changes in their diocese and respective parishes…There should be at least one Latin Mass offered at every parish (not mission Churches)…but every main parish should have one offered…There needs to be daily mass offered throughout the week…at least one time a day, and confession should be offered prior to every weekday Mass and with a larger time slot on saturdays dedicated to the sacrament of confession…Only men/young men should serve on or around the Altar…We also need the priest to start giving homilies that speak against the dangers and horrors of abortion, drugs, pre-marital sex, contraception, not being modest, secularism, radical feminism, the importance of making it to every Sunday Mass and Holy Days, the importance of confession, etc…Catholics need solid catechesis…not this cookie cutter, feel good, faux theology being taught to most Catholics and converts today…that is why we have a lot of problems we have today…The Church should be more vocal against society and the world…be principled and stand firm, never waivering on all important issues…just like we stand firm on abortion, we should stand firm on all the hot topic issues…we need to remove a lot of rectors of seminaries and put really good, orthodox priest in charge of them…all women should be removed from admissions boards to seminaries (don’t care if they work in other capacities) but women and Nuns have no business deciding on who will make a good candidate to the priesthood…bring back perpetual adoration in all parishes…How can you fall in Love with God if you don’t spend time with him? Increase devotions…I could go on and on, but this is a short list of changes that need to be made

 

[Mrs_Sally]

It will require good priest and Bishops to make the necessary changes in their diocese and respective parishes…There should be at least one Latin Mass offered at every parish (not mission Churches)…but every main parish should have one offered…There needs to be daily mass offered throughout the week…at least one time a day, and confession should be offered prior to every weekday Mass and with a larger time slot on saturdays dedicated to the sacrament of confession…Only men/young men should serve on or around the Altar…We also need the priest to start giving homilies that speak against the dangers and horrors of abortion, drugs, pre-marital sex, contraception, not being modest, secularism, radical feminism, the importance of making it to every Sunday Mass and Holy Days, the importance of confession, etc…Catholics need solid catechesis…not this cookie cutter, feel good, faux theology being taught to most Catholics and converts today…that is why we have a lot of problems we have today…The Church should be more vocal against society and the world…be principled and stand firm, never waivering on all important issues…just like we stand firm on abortion, we should stand firm on all the hot topic issues…we need to remove a lot of rectors of seminaries and put really good, orthodox priest in charge of them…all women should be removed from admissions boards to seminaries (don’t care if they work in other capacities) but women and Nuns have no business deciding on who will make a good candidate to the priesthood…bring back perpetual adoration in all parishes…How can you fall in Love with God if you don’t spend time with him? Increase devotions…I could go on and on, but this is a short list of changes that need to be made

Praise God that we see many of these items already at my parish. We do not have a EF Mass, but it is available at quite a few parishes in my diocese. Our Adoration chapel is open during ‘daylight’ hours and could be perpetual if we had a secure door. (The next parish over does have perpetual Adoration because of their physical set up.) We thank God every day for our priests and our bishop and pray that their example may spread to other diocese around the country and the world who do not have those strong witnesses to Christ.

 

[michaeldaniels]

Amen to that!!!

Praise God that we see many of these items already at my parish. We do not have a EF Mass, but it is available at quite a few parishes in my diocese. Our Adoration chapel is open during ‘daylight’ hours and could be perpetual if we had a secure door. (The next parish over does have perpetual Adoration because of their physical set up.) We thank God every day for our priests and our bishop and pray that their example may spread to other diocese around the country and the world who do not have those strong witnesses to Christ.