New papacy could blur religion, politics

[gilliam]

By Howard Fineman

WASHINGTON - The line between religion and politics isn’t clear, but the papacy of Benedict XVI could erase it altogether. Remember the nasty arguments over whether Sen. John Kerry — a Catholic supporter of abortion rights — was entitled to receive Communion? Some American bishops threatened to deny it to him. Well, in retrospect, those were merely opening skirmishes in the bitter war over the role of faith in public life. And the Vatican of this pope will play an out-front, aggressive role.

I should say first off that Catholics believe the choice of a new pope is divinely inspired — and that predictions about the papacy of the man once known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger need to be made with caution. He is a zealous defender of traditional church dogma — but that literally was his job description before he was elected pope. Now he has a broader role. New jobs can change people, even at the age of 78. Still, history is history. As prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he was not afraid to summon to Rome and officially silence wayward thinkers. As the man only half-jokingly referred to as “vice pope,” he diminished the independent power of bishops and encouraged (imposed) on the American conference a new militancy in political matters — at times turning the church into what amounted to the most powerful PAC on earth.

(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com …

 

[Elaine_s_Cross]

gilliam:

WASHINGTON - Well, in retrospect, those were merely opening skirmishes in the bitter war over the role of faith in public life. And the Vatican of this pope will play an out-front, aggressive role.

Let’s hope so.

 

[jimmy]

Lets hope he is as conservative as he can be.

 

[gilliam]

jimmy:

Lets hope he is as conservative as he can be.

Let’s hope he is as Catholic as he can be

 

[jdnation]

Another good article can be put here:

NEW POPE TARGETS…
‘LIBERALISM’ & ‘MARXISM’

Etherzone | April 24 2005

Beware liberals, Marxists, Communists, atheists, agnostics and relativists!

The new Pope, German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, challenges your ideology that “there are no absolute truths.”

That simply means the liberal-Marxist “relativists” and secularists do not believe that reality is black or white, right or wrong, good or bad. It’s just a gray, foggy world with no real “absolute truths.”

America has become a “relativist, secularist” society where faith, God or religion don’t really matter. Its “anything goes” and “do your own thing,” regardless of the consequences.

No consequences. No conscience. Everyone’s out for themselves.

It comes down to conservative “truths” versus meaningless “relativism.”

Pope Benedict XVI, the successor of popular Pope John Paul II, has warned the faithful about tendencies that he considers dangers to the their faiths.

“Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as ‘fundamentalism,’” Pope Benedict said upon his election as the Vicar, or Bishop of the Vatican.

“We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism, which does not recognize anything as definitive and has as its highest value in one’s own ego and one’s own desires,” the conservative Pope declared in his first speech to the public.

Ratzinger served Pope Jean Paul II since 1981 as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In that position, he has disciplined church dissidents and upheld church policy against attempts by “liberals for reform.” The new Pope turned 78 on April 16.

John Paul II was considered the most popular Pope since Jesus Christ selected his disciple, St. Peter, as the first Pope of the Catholic Church 2,000 years ago.

Pope Benedict XVI is expected to continue in the conservative tradition of Pope John Paul II. Benedict comes from the Latin for “blessing.”

Like John Paul II of Poland, Benedict XVI grew up under the heel of Adolph Hitler in Germany. Son of a Bavarian policeman, the young Catholic Joseph Ratzinger was forced in 1941 at the age of 14 to enroll in Hitler’s youth movement. Membership was compulsory under one of the world’s most destructive dictators. The teenager was soon let out because of his studies for the priesthood. Two years later, the future Pope was drafted into a Nazi anti-aircraft unit as a helper, a common fate for teenage boys too young to be soldiers.

Enrolled as a soldier at 18, in the last months of the war, Joseph barely finished basic training.

Joseph Ratzinger, who became Cardinal in Munich, knew what it was to live in a “Culture of Death.” As a priest, he knew what it was to experience the “Culture of Life.”

Therein lies the great divide between the conflict in America and socialist Europe today between the progressive, liberal “Culture of Death” and the conservative Catholic “Culture of Life,” beginning with “Life at Conception.”

Both Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict XVI believe in Jesus Christ’s mission in creating a “Culture of Life” for all humans, whether Christian, Hebrew or any religious denomination.

The liberal media and their liberal-socialist followers already have come down hard on Pope Benedict. They are opposed to the conservative Popes’ positions on abortion, same-sex marriage and their resisting the marriage of priests, or permitting women from becoming priests.

The Left wants to change the rules of a 2,000-year-old tradition of faith as set forth in the New Testament, or Bible.

The progressives want to rewrite the Christian Bible to satisfy their own modern desires to be free to do whatever they please.

The progressives are free to join any religious denomination they want. That’s why there’s atheism and agnosticism for those who don’t believe in a God and are incapable of comprehending life after death. Death died when Jesus was Resurrected three days after he was crucified.

Jesus and his followers are all about Life – not Death.

Like Pope John Paul, this will be the true test of Pope Benedict’s mission in the 21st Century: Jesus’ vision of a Culture of Life over the Culture of Death.

God Bless John Paul’s faithful friend and successor.