Pope Benedict XVI Speaks Out Against Changes In Dogma

[steve49]

Pope Benedict XVI speaks out on Out Side The Church There is No Salvation and indifferentism.

God Bless Pope Benedict XVI.

catholicnewslive.com/story/568849

“He also speaks of a “profound evolution of Dogma” with respect to the Dogma that there is no salvation outside the Church. This purported change of dogma has led, in the pope’s eyes, to a loss of the missionary zeal in the Church – “any motivation for a future missionary commitment was removed.” Pope Benedict asks the piercing question that arose after this palpable change of attitude of the Church: “Why you should try to convince the people to accept the Christian faith when they can be saved even without it?” [Indifferentism is pernicious and corrosive! I will add that our identity is undermined through liturgical worship which is not sufficiently focused on the transcendent, not aimed at an encounter with Mystery, not helpful in our dealing with our fear of death.] As to the other consequences of this new attitude in the Church, the Catholics themselves, in Benedict’s eyes, were less attached to their Faith: If there are those who can save their souls with other means, “why should the the Christian be bound to the necessity of the Christian Faith and its morality?” asked the pope. And he concludes: “But if Faith and Salvation are not any more interdependent, even Faith becomes less motivating.””

 

[graciew]

He was a theological consultant at Vatican 2, was he not?

Is he saying that he and the other two popes present for the duration of the 3-year council…and the 2,625 bishops and “council fathers” present…made mistakes with the amendments they made?

I totally disagree with him on his position re the “anonymous Christian”.
Without that, IMO the Catholic church would lose many members.

.

Try and read this full interview, Daddy Girl. It is always better to read it all if you can…

catholicnewsagency.com/news/full-text-of-benedict-xvis-recent-rare-and-lengthy-interview-26142/

Peace and Happy Easter!

 

[anon67074017]

I believe that Pope Benedict has it wrong here. The dogma is still the same, it just has a different interpretation based on what God would truly want. God is kind and loving. He sent His only Son to die for us. The old Catholic Church committed horrible abuses under the old interpretation of the dogma. Vatican II improved the Church for the better. We wouldn’t want people like Claude Frollo running the Church today and twisting the message of Christ.

 

[ProVobis]

I totally disagree with him on his position re the “anonymous Christian”.
Without that, IMO the Catholic church would lose many members.

Maybe but in the end what matters is how many are saved.

 

[sticknstring73]

I tend to agree with him a bit. But then ecumenism sometimes sounds like relativism to me.

 

[steve49]

He was a theological consultant at Vatican 2, was he not?

Is he saying that he and the other two popes present for the duration of the 3-year council…and the 2,625 bishops and “council fathers” present…made mistakes with the amendments they made?

I totally disagree with him on his position re the “anonymous Christian”.
Without that, IMO the Catholic church would lose many members.

.

The council is considered pastoral. Because it was a pastoral council one can have a different opinion of the pastoral direction taken by the council having seen the result over the past 50 years. IMO the Catholic Church has already lost many members, two generations worth.

We need to start looking at the deposit of faith and what Christ has given us. Baptism has salvation value, Reconciliation has salvation value. And when we eat His Flesh and Drink His Blood it has salvation value. To deny Sacramental salvation value for any human is to truly deny what we have been given in Christ.

 

[Roger_Buck]

A key point in this interview is crisis, terrible deep crisis in the Church.

A crisis, where in many places in the so-called first world, at least, there won’t be a Catholic church left in a few decades, the way things are going.

(For example, I once lived in France where I knew a priest who was responsible for 40 parishes …)

No one has mentioned the crisis yet in this thread …

But Benedict XVI knows it all-too-well.

 

[Thorolfr]

A key point in this interview is crisis, terrible deep crisis in the Church.

A crisis, where in many places in the so-called first world, at least, there won’t be a Catholic church left in a few decades, the way things are going.

(For example, I once lived in France where I knew a priest who was responsible for 40 parishes …)

No one has mentioned the crisis yet in this thread …

But Benedict XVI knows it all-too-well.

I doubt that going back to the old approach would change the trend you are describing.

 

[SuperLuigi]

He was a theological consultant at Vatican 2, was he not?

Is he saying that he and the other two popes present for the duration of the 3-year council…and the 2,625 bishops and “council fathers” present…made mistakes with the amendments they made?

I totally disagree with him on his position re the “anonymous Christian”.
Without that, IMO the Catholic church would lose many members.

.

Well, first of all, the Catholic Church is not a popularity contest. People say/think “I’d be Catholic if only they’d XYZ” probably quite often. Won’t happen. We aren’t Western politicians desperate for votes, in short.

Secondly, I very much doubt that any mistake was made.

 

[JackVk]

He was a theological consultant at Vatican 2, was he not?

Is he saying that he and the other two popes present for the duration of the 3-year council…and the 2,625 bishops and “council fathers” present…made mistakes with the amendments they made?

I totally disagree with him on his position re the “anonymous Christian”.
Without that, IMO the Catholic church would lose many members.

.

He was a raging theological liberal during Vatican II. When he saw things going haywire, he became more conservative.

 

[ProVobis]

I doubt that going back to the old approach would change the trend you are describing.

You’re right, it’s not that simple. But first you have to recognize there is a problem and it’s growing. People who are happy with the reforms tend to deny any problem exists at all. Science doesn’t have all the answers but they do?

 

[commenter]

He was a raging theological liberal during Vatican II. When he saw things going haywire, he became more conservative.

More accurate to say he supported, and still supports, all the actual renewal of Vatican II itself. What he opposes is people who used the Council to promote their own agenda; as in this, which we used to hear a lot:

“If you believe Vatican II, you have to support my opinion (borrowed from the secular media); if you disagree with me, you are opposing Vatican II.”

 

[commenter]

I believe that Pope Benedict has it wrong here. The dogma is still the same, it just has a different interpretation based on what God would truly want. God is kind and loving. He sent His only Son to die for us. The old Catholic Church committed horrible abuses under the old interpretation of the dogma. Vatican II improved the Church for the better.

Without fixed dogma, there is no fixed standard against which you can measure whether anything is an “abuse” or “good”.

Would you really want to measure things with a yardstick with no permanent shape, made out of a material that could be expanded or shrunk to fit anything? Of course not. That is essentially what the mainline Protestant denominations have done with dogma. They constantly adapt it to fit the demands of the secular culture, expressed in the media. If you read the NY Times this month, you can guess the denominational positions and priorities next month.

We do not need a Church that can keep up with the times, we need a Church that can change the times.

 

[Pulvis]

We do not need a Church that can keep up with the times, we need a Church that can change the times.

 

[otjm]

I believe that Pope Benedict has it wrong here. The dogma is still the same, it just has a different interpretation based on what God would truly want. God is kind and loving. He sent His only Son to die for us. The old Catholic Church committed horrible abuses under the old interpretation of the dogma. Vatican II improved the Church for the better. We wouldn’t want people like Claude Frollo running the Church today and twisting the message of Christ.

He doesn’t have it wrong. One needs to read with a bit of understanding and discernment. Vatican 2 did not change dogma, but all too many “in the pews” and not a few professed religious have taken the statements of Vatican 2 and misinterpreted them, misapplied them, and come to conclusions the documents do not support.

 

[otjm]

I tend to agree with him a bit. But then ecumenism sometimes sounds like relativism to me.

Perhaps it would be helpful to define what ecumenism means, and according to whom.

There are groups which meet officially with other Protestant groups; generally most if not all are theologians, and they work on specific differences, in an attempt to heal the wounds of the last 500+ years; some of their work has been included in agreements, for example, between he Catholic Church and at least one branch of the Lutheran denomination. That work goes on in select meetings and most of us pew warmers see none of it until an announcement is jointly made.

Other work goes on within local communities, with shared prayer servvices on occasion. I would suspect that most, if anywhere similar to some I ahve attended, do not go off on theological tangents, but we all pray to the same God.

And one of the primary works of ecumenism is the joint efforts, for example, in providing food and shelter to the poor, and in pro life efforts.

None of which get into relativism.

 

[otjm]

The council is considered pastoral. Because it was a pastoral council one can have a different opinion of the pastoral direction taken by the council having seen the result over the past 50 years. IMO the Catholic Church has already lost many members, two generations worth.

Most of which has little or nothing to do with ecumenism, but rather has to do with two issues: 1) the extremely poor catechesis starting in the early 1970’s after the Baltimore Catechism got tossed out the window, to be replaced with pablum; and the rise in secularism, which the United States lagged behind Europe about 100 years, and which has been dished out 24/7/365 through the media, and in particular, by television.

 

[otjm]

A key point in this interview is crisis, terrible deep crisis in the Church.

A crisis, where in many places in the so-called first world, at least, there won’t be a Catholic church left in a few decades, the way things are going.

(For example, I once lived in France where I knew a priest who was responsible for 40 parishes …)

No one has mentioned the crisis yet in this thread …

But Benedict XVI knows it all-too-well.

That was the basis of his comment some years ago of a “remnant Church”. It has already arrived throughout Europe, where it is a rare area that has much more than 5% (if that) of Catholics attending Mass on a weekly basis. Coupled with that is the wholesale acceptance of 3 things: the Pill, shacking up instead of marriage coupled with late marriage, and the downsizing of the family or outright refusal to have children. How many countries in Europe are below replacement births (which generally is about 2.1 children average per family)?

 

[otjm]

He was a raging theological liberal during Vatican II. When he saw things going haywire, he became more conservative.

Raging? Where did you come up with that? He was a progressive (as was John Paul 2), but I ahve never seen him characterized as “raging”. He did see that there were elements within the Church who were simply ignoring the documents, and seeking to revise the Church in their own image and likeness; but he certainly never said that the bishops of the world were wrong in what they wrote.

 

[commenter]

Most of which has little or nothing to do with ecumenism, but rather has to do with two issues: 1) the extremely poor catechesis starting in the early 1970’s after the Baltimore Catechism got tossed out the window, to be replaced with pablum; and the rise in secularism, which the United States lagged behind Europe about 100 years, and which has been dished out 24/7/365 through the media, and in particular, by television.

This is true.