Pope's speech in Munich

[Maureen_Fiore]

Today I was unable to reply back to my boss on something that the Pope said in a speech he made in Munich.
He said this:
Benedict, on the second day of a visit to his native Bavaria, said that spreading the word of Jesus Christ was more important than all the emergency and development aid that rich churches like those in Germany gave to poor countries.

Of course, my boss (anti-Catholic) that he is made a comment that this was a stupid thing to say and now dislikes the Pope. I did not hear this and I don’t think the Pope meant that spreading the word of Jesus Christ is more important than feed the poor. I think my boss is confused and I was mad that I was unable to reply quickly. Can anyone decipher what the Pope really meant?

 

[Black_Knight_MI]

Papal Homily at Munich’s Fairgrounds
“Heal Our Hardness of Hearing for God’s Presence”

MUNICH, Germany, SEPT. 10, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the homily Benedict XVI delivered in German today during the Mass celebrated at Munich’s fairgrounds Neue-Messe.

---

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

First, I would like to offer all of you an affectionate greeting. I am happy to be among you once again and to celebrate Holy Mass with you. I am also happy to revisit familiar places which had a decisive influence on my life, shaping my thoughts and feelings: places where I learned how to believe and how to live. This is a time to say thanks to all those – living and deceased – who guided and accompanied me along the way. I thank God for this beautiful country and for all the persons who have made it truly my homeland.

We have just listened to the three biblical readings which the Church’s liturgy has chosen for this Sunday. All three develop a double theme which is ultimately one, bringing out – as circumstances dictate – one or another of its aspects. All three readings speak of God as the center of all reality and the center of our personal life.

“Here is your God!” exclaims the prophet Isaiah (35:4). In their own way, the Letter of James and the Gospel passage say the very same thing. They want to lead us to God, to set us on the right path. But to speak of “God” is also to speak of society: of our shared responsibility for the triumph of justice and love in the world. This is powerfully expressed in the second reading, in which James, a close relative of Jesus, speaks to us.

He is addressing a community beginning to be marked by pride, since it included affluent and distinguished persons, and consequently the risk of indifference to the rights of the poor. The words of James give us a glimpse of Jesus, of that God who became man. Though he was of Davidic, and thus royal, stock, he became a simple man in the midst of simple men and women. He did not sit on a throne, but died in the ultimate poverty of the cross.

Love of neighbor, which is primarily a commitment to justice, is the touchstone for faith and love of God. James calls it “the royal law” (cf. 2:8), echoing the words which Jesus used so often: the reign of God, God’s kingship. This does not refer to just any kingdom, coming at any time; it means that God must become the force shaping our lives and actions.

This is what we ask for when we pray: “Thy Kingdom come!” We are not asking for something off in the distance, something we may not even want to experience. Rather, we pray that God’s will may here and now determine our own will, and that in this way God can reign in the world. We pray that justice and love may become the decisive forces affecting our world. A prayer like this is surely addressed first to God, but it is also unsettling for us. Really, is this what we want? Is this the direction in which we want our lives to move?

For James, “the royal law,” the law of God’s kingship, is also “the law of freedom”: If we follow God in all that we think and do, then we draw closer together, we gain freedom and thus true fraternity is born. When Isaiah, in the first reading, speaks about God, he goes on to speak about salvation for the suffering, and when James speaks of the social order as a necessary expression of our faith, he logically goes on to speak of God, whose children we are.
(Cont’d)

 

[Black_Knight_MI]

But now we must turn our attention to the Gospel, which speaks of Jesus’ healing of a man born deaf and mute. Here too we encounter the two aspects of this one theme. Jesus is concerned for the suffering, for those pushed to the margins of society. He heals them and, by enabling them to live and work together, he brings them to equality and fraternity.

This obviously has something to say to all of us: Jesus points out the goal of all our activity. Yet the whole story has a deeper dimension, one which the fathers of the Church constantly brought out, one which particularly speaks to us today. The fathers were speaking to and about the men and women of their time. But their message also has new meaning for us modern men and women.

There is not only a physical deafness which largely cuts people off from social life; there is also a “hardness of hearing” where God is concerned, and this is something from which we particularly suffer in our own time. Put simply, we are no longer able to hear God – there are too many different frequencies filling our ears. What is said about God strikes us as pre-scientific, no longer suited to our age.

Along with this hardness of hearing or outright deafness where God is concerned, we naturally lose our ability to speak with him and to him. And so we end up losing a decisive capacity for perception. We risk losing our inner senses. This weakening of our capacity for perception drastically and dangerously curtails the range of our relationship with reality. The horizon of our life is disturbingly foreshortened.

The Gospel tells us that Jesus put his fingers in the ears of the deaf-mute, touched the sick man’s tongue with spittle and said “Ephphatha” – “Be opened.” The evangelist has preserved for us the original Aramaic word which Jesus spoke, and thus he brings us back to that very moment. What happened then was unique, but it does not belong to a distant past: Jesus continues to do the same thing anew, even today.

At our baptism he touched each of us and said “Ephphatha” – “Be opened” – thus enabling us to hear God’s voice and to be able to talk to him. There is nothing magical about what takes place in the sacrament of baptism. Baptism opens up a path before us. It makes us part of the community of those who are able to hear and speak; it brings us into fellowship with Jesus himself, who alone has seen God and is thus able to speak of him (cf. John 1:18): Through faith, Jesus wants to share with us his seeing God, his hearing the Father and his conversation with him. The path upon which we set out at baptism is meant to be a process of increasing development, by which we grow in the life of communion with God, and acquire a different way of looking at man and creation.

The Gospel invites us to realize that we have a “deficit” in our capacity for perception – initially, we do not notice this deficiency as such, since everything else seems so urgent and logical; since everything seems to proceed normally, even when we no longer have eyes and ears for God and we live without him. But it is true that everything goes on as usual when God no longer is a part of our lives and our world? Before raising any further questions, I would like to share some of my experience in meeting bishops from throughout the world.

The Catholic Church in Germany is outstanding for its social activities, for its readiness to help wherever help is needed. During their visits “ad limina,” the bishops, most recently those of Africa, have always mentioned with gratitude the generosity of German Catholics and ask me to convey that gratitude. Just recently, the bishops of the Baltic countries told me about how German Catholics assisted them greatly in rebuilding their churches, which were badly in need of repair after decades of Communist rule.

Every now and then, however, some African bishop will say: “If I come to Germany and present social projects, suddenly every door opens. But if I come with a plan for evangelization, I meet with reservations.” Clearly some people have the idea that social projects should be urgently undertaken, while anything dealing with God or even the Catholic faith is of limited and lesser importance.

Yet the experience of those bishops is that evangelization itself should be foremost, that the God of Jesus Christ must be known, believed in and loved, and that hearts must be converted if progress is to be made on social issues and reconciliation is to begin, and if – for example – AIDS is to be combated by realistically facing its deeper causes and the sick are to be given the loving care they need. Social issues and the Gospel are inseparable.
(Cont’d)

 

[Black_Knight_MI]

When we bring people only knowledge, ability, technical competence and tools, we bring them too little. All too quickly the mechanisms of violence take over: The capacity to destroy and to kill becomes the dominant way to gain power – a power which at some point should bring law, but which will never be able to do so.

Reconciliation, and a shared commitment to justice and love, recede into the distance. The criteria by which technology is placed at the service of law and love are no longer clear: Yet it is precisely on these criteria that everything depends: Criteria which are not only theories, but which enlighten the heart and thus set reason and action on the right path.

People in Africa and Asia admire our scientific and technical prowess, but at the same time they are frightened by a form of rationality which totally excludes God from man’s vision, as if this were the highest form of reason, and one to be imposed on their cultures too. They do not see the real threat to their identity in the Christian faith, but in the contempt for God and the cynicism that considers mockery of the sacred to be an exercise of freedom and that holds up utility as the supreme moral criterion for the future of scientific research.

Dear friends, this cynicism is not the kind of tolerance and cultural openness that the world’s peoples are looking for and that all of us want! The tolerance which we urgently need includes the fear of God – respect for what others hold sacred. This respect for what others hold sacred demands that we ourselves learn once more the fear of God. This sense of respect can be reborn in the Western world only if faith in God is reborn, if God becomes once more present to us and in us.

We impose this faith upon no one. Such proselytism is contrary to Christianity. Faith can develop only in freedom. But we do appeal to the freedom of men and women to be open to God, to seek him, to hear his voice. As we gather here, let us here ask the Lord with all our hearts to speak anew his “Ephphatha,” to heal our hardness of hearing for God’s presence, activity and word, and to give us sight and hearing. Let us ask his help in rediscovering prayer, to which he invites us in the liturgy and whose essential formula he has given us in the Our Father.

The world needs God. We need God. But what God? In the first reading, the prophet tells a people suffering oppression that: “He will come with vengeance” (Isaiah 35:4). We can easily suppose how the people imagined that vengeance. But the prophet himself goes on to reveal what it really is: the healing goodness of God. The definitive explanation of the prophet’s word is to be found in the one who died on the cross: in Jesus, the Son of God incarnate. His “vengeance” is the cross: a “no” to violence and a “love to the end.” This is the God we need.

We do not fail to show respect for other religions and cultures, profound respect for their faith, when we proclaim clearly and uncompromisingly the God who counters violence with his own suffering; who in the face of the power of evil exalts his mercy, in order that evil may be limited and overcome. To him we now lift up our prayer, that he may remain with us and help us to be credible witnesses to himself. Amen!

[Translation issued by the Holy See; adapted]

© Copyright 2006 – Libreria Editrice Vaticana
ZE06091003 LINK

You might print that out and take it to him and ask just what part of that says what he alleges. Try not to grin when he’s blushes…
Blackie

 

[puzzleannie]

Christ himself gave the apostles the explicit command to first evangelize, then to baptize, celebrate the Eucharist and the sacraments. The source of all good works undertaken by the Church in the name of Christ is the Eucharist. If anyone who hears the Pope’s message is offended by it, they are also offended by the clear teaching of Christ.

 

[Maureen_Fiore]

Christ himself gave the apostles the explicit command to first evangelize, then to baptize, celebrate the Eucharist and the sacraments. The source of all good works undertaken by the Church in the name of Christ is the Eucharist. If anyone who hears the Pope’s message is offended by it, they are also offended by the clear teaching of Christ.

I knew after my boss made this comment I had to find the exact words that the Holy Father actually said. When I read his speech I understood it as Jesus as the center and focus. I don’t think he meant it in a literal sense the way my boss perceived it. My boss told me that he heard this speech and said that the Pope said that he would rather these poor countries be poor with Christ than have any help. How ridicules my boss is

 

[Liberian]

Maureen,

The answer to your boss’s comment itself is that if you only give somebody development aid, he will live for some decades and then die, most likely spending eternity in Hell, while if you give him the word of Jesus Christ he will most likely spend eternity in Heaven. Of the two, the latter is by far the better deal.

What His Holiness actually said (thank you, Black Knight!) was quite different. He said, “When we bring people only knowledge, ability, technical competence and tools, we bring them too little. All too quickly the mechanisms of violence take over: The capacity to destroy and to kill becomes the dominant way to gain power – a power which at some point should bring law, but which will never be able to do so.”

So your boss is wrong on two points. First, the Pope did not actually say what he attributed to the Pope, and second, even if he had said it, he would have been right.

• Liberian

 

[Maureen_Fiore]

Thank you Liberian, I don’t like to discuss religion with my boss. He is very opinionated and has a deep rooted dislike for my faith. He is a good boss though, and I like him as a person but I don’t like it when he makes statements such as this one. What really annoyed me was that I was helpless. I could not answer him by saying you are wrong because I did not know the full speech.
I try to avoid discussing any news regarding the Catholic faith. My boss tries to engage me into a dialogue but I have to bite my tongue and walk away.
He does not even practice his own faith (Methodist) and he feels that Catholics try to push their religion down the throats of others. He is so far off base, but I need a job.

 

[Church_Militant]

Thank you Liberian, I don’t like to discuss religion with my boss. He is very opinionated and has a deep rooted dislike for my faith. He is a good boss though, and I like him as a person but I don’t like it when he makes statements such as this one. What really annoyed me was that I was helpless. I could not answer him by saying you are wrong because I did not know the full speech.
I try to avoid discussing any news regarding the Catholic faith. My boss tries to engage me into a dialogue but I have to bite my tongue and walk away.
He does not even practice his own faith (Methodist) and he feels that Catholics try to push their religion down the throats of others. He is so far off base, but I need a job.

So… what I always do is take the text back and give it to him and say. “I found the speech you mentioned and I’ve read it, but I can’t seem to find the part that you refer to, and it doesn’t seem to say what you told me it says. Can you show what you are talking about from the text here?” He’s going to eat crow when he realizes that he’s wrong, but maybe that will help break his “armor” and possibly get him off your case at least when he realizes that you take his attacks seriously. It’s worked that way for me before. In some cases, it opened the door for better dialog and in others it simply shut the person up because they knew that I wouldn’t just “take it”. Both results were okay with me. I’m at peace and I love my faith, and nothing they say has proved worthy of much consternation.

Try it. I bet you’ll knock his socks off!
Pax tecum,

 

[Philthy]

Today I was unable to reply back to my boss on something that the Pope said in a speech he made in Munich.
He said this:
Benedict, on the second day of a visit to his native Bavaria, said that spreading the word of Jesus Christ was more important than all the emergency and development aid that rich churches like those in Germany gave to poor countries.

Of course, my boss (anti-Catholic) that he is made a comment that this was a stupid thing to say and now dislikes the Pope. I did not hear this and I don’t think the Pope meant that spreading the word of Jesus Christ is more important than feed the poor. I think my boss is confused and I was mad that I was unable to reply quickly. Can anyone decipher what the Pope really meant?

I think spreading the faith is actually more important than providing material goods - don’t you? Fortunately, however, they are in no way mutually exclusive, and actually - from a Christian perspective - they are one and the same. Your boss, obviously disagrees with the fundamentals of Christianity: Love God and they neighbor.

 

[jimmy]

Today I was unable to reply back to my boss on something that the Pope said in a speech he made in Munich.
He said this:
Benedict, on the second day of a visit to his native Bavaria, said that spreading the word of Jesus Christ was more important than all the emergency and development aid that rich churches like those in Germany gave to poor countries.

Of course, my boss (anti-Catholic) that he is made a comment that this was a stupid thing to say and now dislikes the Pope. I did not hear this and I don’t think the Pope meant that spreading the word of Jesus Christ is more important than feed the poor. I think my boss is confused and I was mad that I was unable to reply quickly. Can anyone decipher what the Pope really meant?

Yes, he meant spreading the gospel is more important than feed the poor. Jesus gave the command to go out and spread the gospel to all of the world. His commmand was not to feed the poor. Being fed spiritually is greater than being fed in the flesh. The flesh will die but the spirit lives for ever. This idea that you must feed the poor first promotes an anti-Christian gospel, a social and atheistic gospel that has no expectation of the afterlife.

 

[Nullasalus]

Yes, he meant spreading the gospel is more important than feed the poor. Jesus gave the command to go out and spread the gospel to all of the world. His commmand was not to feed the poor. Being fed spiritually is greater than being fed in the flesh. The flesh will die but the spirit lives for ever. This idea that you must feed the poor first promotes an anti-Christian gospel, a social and atheistic gospel that has no expectation of the afterlife.

Actually, from my reading of the pope’s speech, he said that preaching to people about Christ is on par with providing for their basic material needs. There is no either-or proposition here - both are important. A christian cannot be charitable to the poor by exclusively providing needed goods, or by providing the faith alone.

 

[Liberian]

Militant,

I appreciate your advice to Maureen, but I would suggest caution. The tactic may backfire and the boss may lose his temper. And as Maureen said, she needs the job.

• Liberian

 

[Maureen_Fiore]

I think spreading the faith is actually more important than providing material goods - don’t you? Fortunately, however, they are in no way mutually exclusive, and actually - from a Christian perspective - they are one and the same. Your boss, obviously disagrees with the fundamentals of Christianity: Love God and they neighbor.

I believe spreading the faith is important, absolutely. But my boss took his speech literally. Meaning my boss felt that the Pope would rather people die of starvation then to feed them as long as Christ is in their lives. This is why I feel that my boss is totally wrong. There are so many Catholic Charities, and other Christian groups that go to poor countries. They feed them both spiritually and physically. My boss disagrees with us Catholics. He has a deep rooted hatred for Catholics because I think he feels that we Catholics feel as though we are superior to other religions. This is not true but I try to not engage in any conversations with him. I hate to have to stay quiet when he ridicules my faith.

 

[Reformed_Rob]

To add my 2 cents…

One of Ratzinger’s (I still call him that…sorry!!) central focal points is that technology and material goods are what so many people in this world live for. But in the pursuit of temporal happiness, they not only sell themselves short, but are actually holding humanity back from greatness.

So, there’s a ironic contradiction…while we are seeking to improve our technology to be better people, we are missing out on a great aspect of what it is to be human…communion with others around central truths of faith that move us to do good others and work for the good of society from a Gospel-oriented standpoint.

And Ratzinger is saying there…that when the German Churches provide domestic aid (health care, infrastructure, etc) to people in need, but tend to not be as open to assisting evangelism efforts, they are missing out on the opportunity to truly improve people’s lives. It didn’t come across at all like he was rebuking them, but he can be very clear and get his point across subtletly.

the God of Jesus Christ must be known, believed in and loved, and that hearts must be converted if progress is to be made on social issues and reconciliation is to begin

Social work is great, but if it does not lead people to appreciate the world they live in, and give those helped a reason (the Gospel and Catholic Social teaching) to maintain themselves and eventually help others, then it’s short-sited.

 

[Liberian]

Maureen,

If I may clarify a point or two, I think (based on what your boss said and what the Pope actually said) that your boss did NOT take the Pope’s speech literally; what your boss did was put his own interpretation (“spin”) on what the Pope said and then claim that this is what His Holiness meant.

If I may also clarify another statement in your post, while Catholics may not be superior to practitioners of other religions, our religion is most emphatically superior to theirs. Naturally it is not diplomatic to say this too loudly around practitioners of other religions, but it is nevertheless true.

If your boss is ridiculing your faith and creating a hostile working environment for you, you probably have grounds to complain to the Human Resources department if the place you work is of any size. I would start with a polite request to your boss not to harass you on the basis of your religion. But I have no real knowledge of your working environment.

• Liberian

 

[jimmy]

Actually, from my reading of the pope’s speech, he said that preaching to people about Christ is on par with providing for their basic material needs. There is no either-or proposition here - both are important. A christian cannot be charitable to the poor by exclusively providing needed goods, or by providing the faith alone.

Of course you can be charitable by providing the faith alone, otherwise a monk or nun could not be charitable because they have nothing to provide other than the faith. The faith is what matters, food and shelter will remain when we die.

 

[Maureen_Fiore]

Maureen,

If I may clarify a point or two, I think (based on what your boss said and what the Pope actually said) that your boss did NOT take the Pope’s speech literally; what your boss did was put his own interpretation (“spin”) on what the Pope said and then claim that this is what His Holiness meant.

If I may also clarify another statement in your post, while Catholics may not be superior to practitioners of other religions, our religion is most emphatically superior to theirs. Naturally it is not diplomatic to say this too loudly around practitioners of other religions, but it is nevertheless true.

If your boss is ridiculing your faith and creating a hostile working environment for you, you probably have grounds to complain to the Human Resources department if the place you work is of any size. I would start with a polite request to your boss not to harass you on the basis of your religion. But I have no real knowledge of your working environment.

• Liberian

Thanks, Liberian but unfortunately we don’t have an HR dept. it is a small office/shop and my boss is the owner. So, he can say whatever he wants to say because he is the boss. I try not to bring up any conversation regarding the Catholic faith because he has this terrible dislike for my faith. But, he is a very nice person and I respect him but I just hate that when he ridicules my faith I cannot do anything and I have to remain quiet. I hate having to do this but, I have a family and my income helps.

 

[PaulusRobertus]

A great speech, a thomist speech, against scotism