This article, from the London Times, is a very interesting take on the American Catholic Church.
April 15, 2008
American Catholics must stop and listen to the Pope
American Dwight Longenecker lived in England for 25 years. After 10 years working as an Anglican vicar he converted to Catholicism and in 2006 returned to America to become a Catholic priest. As a newcomer to the American Catholic Church, he gives his personal impressions of the Church as it prepares to greet its shepherd
by Dwight Longenecker
The American Catholic Church is big, rich and powerful. Compared to the marginalised Catholic Church in England, American Catholicism is a global force to be reckoned with. Time magazine, in a recent feature on the Pope's visit to the US, recognises that Benedict XVI understands and is intrigued by America’s "totally modern, yet totally religious" worldview.
The American Catholic Church is also highly polarised. At one extreme are the ‘rad traddies’. They argue for the Latin Mass and support schismatic groups opposed to modernising the Church. These radical traditionalists want to turn back the clock to some golden age before the Second Vatican Council. They live in a black and white world where anyone outside their group is a damnable moderniser. They come across as angry, self-righteous kooks.
At the other end of the spectrum are the ‘rad trendies’. These ‘Spirit of Vatican 2’ Catholics mistake every politically correct cause for the teaching of the Catholic faith. They seem oblivious to any traditional aspects of Catholicism, and feel compelled to reinvent the faith according to the latest ideas of popular culture. With their liturgical dance, ecology stations of the cross and encouragement of sexual ‘diversity’, they come across as wounded, angry victims who, like their opposite numbers, seem to be self- righteous kooks.
In between the ‘rad traddies’ and ‘rad trendies’ are the largest group which my friends refer to as ‘AmChurch.’ These bishops, clergy and laity do not take particularly radical views either in the ‘traddy’ or ‘trendy’ directions. Instead they follow a bland, comfortable kind of American Catholicism with a mix of traditional devotions, parish social events, mediocre modern music and social action. Moving here from England, this in between ‘AmChurch’ seems cut off from any real sense of the historical and cultural continuity of the Catholic faith. In a country separated geographically from the rest of the world, AmChurch Catholics also seem distanced from the traditions of the Catholicism, which would give their faith depth and universality.
At the end of the 19th century, the Catholic Church was highly suspicious of all things American, and even coined a name for a new heresy called 'Americanism.' Pope Leo XIII’s analysis rings true: In his 1899 encyclical, Testem benevolentiae nostrae, Leo criticised Catholics who would, in order to “attract those who differ from her…shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions.”
This pretty much sums up the problem of AmChurch: It reveals the extreme position of the ‘rad trendies’ and the extreme reaction against it evidenced by the ‘rad traddies’, but is left in the mushy situation of most in between Catholics.
The answer to the problem is the present Pope’s emphasis on the “hermeneutic of continuity”. It is a splendid sounding phrase, but what does it mean? “Hermeneutic” refers to a perspective, a method of interpretation. A "hermeneutic of continuity," means that the past informs the present and guides us into the future. Benedict wishes our understanding of the Catholic faith to be guided by that continuity.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Pope Benedict
During the visit there will be much written about him, and this is one of the good ones, from National Review.
April 15, 2008, 6:00 a.m.
Ratzinger Road Map
Meeting the pope.
By Delia Gallagher
Rome — Pope Benedict suffers a very basic image problem; there is a wide gap between who he is and who he is perceived to be. If he were a candidate in the U.S. elections, someone would be running to get the pope an image consultant. But he is at the Vatican and here, what the world thinks is not a top concern. On the eve of his visit to the U.S., a “road map” to the pope might be useful: the first part a personal portrait of who Joseph Ratzinger is; and the second, one aspect of the pope’s larger vision of the Catholic Church that is often overlooked.
Reluctantly Pontiff
Less than a week after being elected pope, Benedict XVI revealed to a German audience at the Vatican what he had felt that morning in the Sistine Chapel:
“When, little by little, the trend of the voting led me to understand that, to say it simply, the axe was going to fall on me, my head began to spin. I was convinced that I had already carried out my life’s work and could look forward to ending my days peacefully. With profound conviction I said to the Lord: Do not do this to me!”
At every major step in his rise through the Catholic hierarchy, the pope admits he was reluctant. “I felt called to a life of study,” he says in his memoirs, Milestones, “I never had anything else in mind.”
In the same memoirs, he recalls St. Augustine, who was also called from a life of study to become bishop of Hippo: “He had chosen the life of a scholar, but God had chosen to make him into a ‘draft animal’ — a good, sturdy ox to pull God’s cart in this world. How often did he protest vehemently against all the trifles that continually blocked his path and kept him from the great spiritual and intellectual work he knew to be his deepest calling!”
The pope, then cardinal, called Augustine’s meditation on this predicament, “a portrayal of my own destiny.”
The pope has a little white house in Regensburg, Germany, bought in the hopes of retirement. He had it built in the seventies for himself and his sister Maria. He was teaching at the University of Regensburg; Maria helped him transcribe his writings. His brother, Georg, an important director of music in the same town, came by often. He transferred the graves of his parents to the nearby cemetery.
He describes his years in Regensburg as some of his happiest. He was teaching and surrounded by his family. “We were once again together,” he says, “in our own home.”
No one now lives in the house in Regensburg. His sister Maria has died; the pope’s cat Chico wanders in the garden and is looked after by the neighbors, Rupert and Terese Hofbauer, who also send jars of honey to the pope in the Vatican from the honeycombs in his garden. The calendar in the house is stopped at Friday, January 7, 2005, the last time the Joseph Ratzinger slept there, just a few months before becoming pope.
This frank portrait the pope paints of himself shows Benedict to be a sort of everyman; every man who thought his life might turn out differently.
It is a very different image than the one circulated in the media at the time of his election: that he wanted the job and indeed campaigned for it.
April 15, 2008, 6:00 a.m.
Ratzinger Road Map
Meeting the pope.
By Delia Gallagher
Rome — Pope Benedict suffers a very basic image problem; there is a wide gap between who he is and who he is perceived to be. If he were a candidate in the U.S. elections, someone would be running to get the pope an image consultant. But he is at the Vatican and here, what the world thinks is not a top concern. On the eve of his visit to the U.S., a “road map” to the pope might be useful: the first part a personal portrait of who Joseph Ratzinger is; and the second, one aspect of the pope’s larger vision of the Catholic Church that is often overlooked.
Reluctantly Pontiff
Less than a week after being elected pope, Benedict XVI revealed to a German audience at the Vatican what he had felt that morning in the Sistine Chapel:
“When, little by little, the trend of the voting led me to understand that, to say it simply, the axe was going to fall on me, my head began to spin. I was convinced that I had already carried out my life’s work and could look forward to ending my days peacefully. With profound conviction I said to the Lord: Do not do this to me!”
At every major step in his rise through the Catholic hierarchy, the pope admits he was reluctant. “I felt called to a life of study,” he says in his memoirs, Milestones, “I never had anything else in mind.”
In the same memoirs, he recalls St. Augustine, who was also called from a life of study to become bishop of Hippo: “He had chosen the life of a scholar, but God had chosen to make him into a ‘draft animal’ — a good, sturdy ox to pull God’s cart in this world. How often did he protest vehemently against all the trifles that continually blocked his path and kept him from the great spiritual and intellectual work he knew to be his deepest calling!”
The pope, then cardinal, called Augustine’s meditation on this predicament, “a portrayal of my own destiny.”
The pope has a little white house in Regensburg, Germany, bought in the hopes of retirement. He had it built in the seventies for himself and his sister Maria. He was teaching at the University of Regensburg; Maria helped him transcribe his writings. His brother, Georg, an important director of music in the same town, came by often. He transferred the graves of his parents to the nearby cemetery.
He describes his years in Regensburg as some of his happiest. He was teaching and surrounded by his family. “We were once again together,” he says, “in our own home.”
No one now lives in the house in Regensburg. His sister Maria has died; the pope’s cat Chico wanders in the garden and is looked after by the neighbors, Rupert and Terese Hofbauer, who also send jars of honey to the pope in the Vatican from the honeycombs in his garden. The calendar in the house is stopped at Friday, January 7, 2005, the last time the Joseph Ratzinger slept there, just a few months before becoming pope.
This frank portrait the pope paints of himself shows Benedict to be a sort of everyman; every man who thought his life might turn out differently.
It is a very different image than the one circulated in the media at the time of his election: that he wanted the job and indeed campaigned for it.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
President Bush a Closet Catholic?
This article validates what many in the Catholic community who were unaware of the back story, have felt for some time. President Bush acts often in congruence with Catholic social teaching and it makes sense that he was interacting with many Catholics around the intellectual and faith issues involved.
I began this blog shortly after reading the book Heroic Conservatism by a presiential speech writer, which made the claim that Catholic social teaching was one of the most deeply studied intellectual currents in conservative Republican circles.
Now, after reading this article, excerpted here, that seems even more accurate.
A Catholic Wind in the White House
By Daniel Burke
Sunday, April 13, 2008; B02
Shortly after Pope Benedict XVI's election in 2005, President Bush met with a small circle of advisers in the Oval Office. As some mentioned their own religious backgrounds, the president remarked that he had read one of the new pontiff's books about faith and culture in Western Europe.
Save for one other soul, Bush was the only non-Catholic in the room. But his interest in the pope's writings was no surprise to those around him. As the White House prepares to welcome Benedict on Tuesday, many in Bush's inner circle expect the pontiff to find a kindred spirit in the president. Because if Bill Clinton can be called America's first black president, some say, then George W. Bush could well be the nation's first Catholic president.
This isn't as strange a notion as it sounds. Yes, there was John F. Kennedy. But where Kennedy sought to divorce his religion from his office, Bush has welcomed Roman Catholic doctrine and teachings into the White House and based many important domestic policy decisions on them.
"I don't think there's any question about it," says Rick Santorum, former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and a devout Catholic, who was the first to give Bush the "Catholic president" label. "He's certainly much more Catholic than Kennedy."
Bush attends an Episcopal church in Washington and belongs to a Methodist church in Texas, and his political base is solidly evangelical. Yet this Protestant president has surrounded himself with Roman Catholic intellectuals, speechwriters, professors, priests, bishops and politicians. These Catholics -- and thus Catholic social teaching -- have for the past eight years been shaping Bush's speeches, policies and legacy to a degree perhaps unprecedented in U.S. history.
"I used to say that there are more Catholics on President Bush's speechwriting team than on any Notre Dame starting lineup in the past half-century," said former Bush scribe -- and Catholic -- William McGurn.
Bush has also placed Catholics in prominent roles in the federal government and relied on Catholic tradition to make a public case for everything from his faith-based initiative to antiabortion legislation. He has wedded Catholic intellectualism with evangelical political savvy to forge a powerful electoral coalition.
"There is an awareness in the White House that the rich Catholic intellectual tradition is a resource for making the links between Christian faith, religiously grounded moral judgments and public policy," says Richard John Neuhaus, a Catholic priest and editor of the journal First Things who has tutored Bush in the church's social doctrines for nearly a decade.
In the late 1950s, Kennedy's Catholicism was a political albatross, and he labored to distance himself from his church. Accepting the Democratic nomination in 1960, he declared his religion "not relevant."
Bush and his administration, by contrast, have had no such qualms about their Catholic connections. At times, they've even seemed to brandish them for political purposes. Even before he got to the White House, Bush and his political guru Karl Rove invited Catholic intellectuals to Texas to instruct the candidate on the church's social teachings. In January 2001, Bush's first public outing as president in the nation's capital was a dinner with Washington's then-archbishop, Theodore McCarrick. A few months later, Rove (an Episcopalian) asked former White House Catholic adviser Deal Hudson to find a priest to bless his West Wing office.
I began this blog shortly after reading the book Heroic Conservatism by a presiential speech writer, which made the claim that Catholic social teaching was one of the most deeply studied intellectual currents in conservative Republican circles.
Now, after reading this article, excerpted here, that seems even more accurate.
A Catholic Wind in the White House
By Daniel Burke
Sunday, April 13, 2008; B02
Shortly after Pope Benedict XVI's election in 2005, President Bush met with a small circle of advisers in the Oval Office. As some mentioned their own religious backgrounds, the president remarked that he had read one of the new pontiff's books about faith and culture in Western Europe.
Save for one other soul, Bush was the only non-Catholic in the room. But his interest in the pope's writings was no surprise to those around him. As the White House prepares to welcome Benedict on Tuesday, many in Bush's inner circle expect the pontiff to find a kindred spirit in the president. Because if Bill Clinton can be called America's first black president, some say, then George W. Bush could well be the nation's first Catholic president.
This isn't as strange a notion as it sounds. Yes, there was John F. Kennedy. But where Kennedy sought to divorce his religion from his office, Bush has welcomed Roman Catholic doctrine and teachings into the White House and based many important domestic policy decisions on them.
"I don't think there's any question about it," says Rick Santorum, former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and a devout Catholic, who was the first to give Bush the "Catholic president" label. "He's certainly much more Catholic than Kennedy."
Bush attends an Episcopal church in Washington and belongs to a Methodist church in Texas, and his political base is solidly evangelical. Yet this Protestant president has surrounded himself with Roman Catholic intellectuals, speechwriters, professors, priests, bishops and politicians. These Catholics -- and thus Catholic social teaching -- have for the past eight years been shaping Bush's speeches, policies and legacy to a degree perhaps unprecedented in U.S. history.
"I used to say that there are more Catholics on President Bush's speechwriting team than on any Notre Dame starting lineup in the past half-century," said former Bush scribe -- and Catholic -- William McGurn.
Bush has also placed Catholics in prominent roles in the federal government and relied on Catholic tradition to make a public case for everything from his faith-based initiative to antiabortion legislation. He has wedded Catholic intellectualism with evangelical political savvy to forge a powerful electoral coalition.
"There is an awareness in the White House that the rich Catholic intellectual tradition is a resource for making the links between Christian faith, religiously grounded moral judgments and public policy," says Richard John Neuhaus, a Catholic priest and editor of the journal First Things who has tutored Bush in the church's social doctrines for nearly a decade.
In the late 1950s, Kennedy's Catholicism was a political albatross, and he labored to distance himself from his church. Accepting the Democratic nomination in 1960, he declared his religion "not relevant."
Bush and his administration, by contrast, have had no such qualms about their Catholic connections. At times, they've even seemed to brandish them for political purposes. Even before he got to the White House, Bush and his political guru Karl Rove invited Catholic intellectuals to Texas to instruct the candidate on the church's social teachings. In January 2001, Bush's first public outing as president in the nation's capital was a dinner with Washington's then-archbishop, Theodore McCarrick. A few months later, Rove (an Episcopalian) asked former White House Catholic adviser Deal Hudson to find a priest to bless his West Wing office.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Pope Will Arrive Tomorrow
This is one of the better stories from the mainstream press regarding his visit (the Boston Globe) and here’s an excerpt.
A critical visit for Benedict, US flock
A chance for Americans to 'take the cut of his jib'
By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff | April 13, 2008
Pope Benedict XVI, who has praised the United States for its religious freedom but rued its increasing secularization, arrives this week for a six-day, two-city visit in which he will introduce himself to a nation enamored of his predecessor but largely unsure what to make of the new pontiff.
He will discuss public policy at the White House and the United Nations, will preach the Gospel at Yankee Stadium and Nationals Park, will roll through the streets of Washington and New York in his bulletproof Mercedes-Benz popemobile, and will kneel in silent prayer at ground zero.
But mostly, he will offer Americans and, in particular, American Catholics, a chance to take the measure of this spiritual leader, who despite three years in office remains a relative unknown. Those who follow him closely, eager to find quirks of humanity in this stern-seeming man, have fixed on a handful of colorful details - his fondness for cats, his skill at the piano, the fluffy fur-trimmed hat, and the striking red loafers that may or may not have been styled by Prada. He is dogged by his reputation as a doctrinaire hatchet man for John Paul II, but most often described by those closest to him as a brilliant and prolific theologian seeking to inspire, not chastise, his large but troubled flock.
"The pope is coming to the church in the US at a time when American Catholicism is in a very serious crisis," said Russell Shaw, an author and commentator who is the former communications director for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. "Some people would say it's too late, that the church is in an irreversible downward spiral in the United States. I think it can be turned around, but we've suffered enormous losses in numbers and commitment over the last 40 years. The pope is not going to turn it around by magic, but I hope what he will do is begin to address these problems seriously."
The Catholic Church, with 67 million adherents in the United States, is the nation's largest religious denomination. But it is hemorrhaging members - 10 percent of the American adult population is made up of former Catholics - and its overall population level is stable only because of immigration, according to a Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey released in February. The church is also reeling from the effects of the clergy sexual abuse crisis, which has harmed Mass attendance, financial contributions, and seminary enrollments in Boston and beyond.
Benedict anticipated the demographic quandary in 2004, writing in a book, "One cannot hide the fact that in the United States, also, the Christian heritage is falling apart at an incessant pace, while at the same time the rapid increase in the Hispanic population and the presence of religious traditions from all over the world have altered the picture." Benedict has made several gestures in the direction of the growing Hispanic population, which now makes up about one-third of the nation's Catholics; he appointed the first cardinal in Texas, an area of considerable Hispanic growth, and his video greeting to the United States, released last week, included a section in Spanish.
A critical visit for Benedict, US flock
A chance for Americans to 'take the cut of his jib'
By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff | April 13, 2008
Pope Benedict XVI, who has praised the United States for its religious freedom but rued its increasing secularization, arrives this week for a six-day, two-city visit in which he will introduce himself to a nation enamored of his predecessor but largely unsure what to make of the new pontiff.
He will discuss public policy at the White House and the United Nations, will preach the Gospel at Yankee Stadium and Nationals Park, will roll through the streets of Washington and New York in his bulletproof Mercedes-Benz popemobile, and will kneel in silent prayer at ground zero.
But mostly, he will offer Americans and, in particular, American Catholics, a chance to take the measure of this spiritual leader, who despite three years in office remains a relative unknown. Those who follow him closely, eager to find quirks of humanity in this stern-seeming man, have fixed on a handful of colorful details - his fondness for cats, his skill at the piano, the fluffy fur-trimmed hat, and the striking red loafers that may or may not have been styled by Prada. He is dogged by his reputation as a doctrinaire hatchet man for John Paul II, but most often described by those closest to him as a brilliant and prolific theologian seeking to inspire, not chastise, his large but troubled flock.
"The pope is coming to the church in the US at a time when American Catholicism is in a very serious crisis," said Russell Shaw, an author and commentator who is the former communications director for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. "Some people would say it's too late, that the church is in an irreversible downward spiral in the United States. I think it can be turned around, but we've suffered enormous losses in numbers and commitment over the last 40 years. The pope is not going to turn it around by magic, but I hope what he will do is begin to address these problems seriously."
The Catholic Church, with 67 million adherents in the United States, is the nation's largest religious denomination. But it is hemorrhaging members - 10 percent of the American adult population is made up of former Catholics - and its overall population level is stable only because of immigration, according to a Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey released in February. The church is also reeling from the effects of the clergy sexual abuse crisis, which has harmed Mass attendance, financial contributions, and seminary enrollments in Boston and beyond.
Benedict anticipated the demographic quandary in 2004, writing in a book, "One cannot hide the fact that in the United States, also, the Christian heritage is falling apart at an incessant pace, while at the same time the rapid increase in the Hispanic population and the presence of religious traditions from all over the world have altered the picture." Benedict has made several gestures in the direction of the growing Hispanic population, which now makes up about one-third of the nation's Catholics; he appointed the first cardinal in Texas, an area of considerable Hispanic growth, and his video greeting to the United States, released last week, included a section in Spanish.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Pope Benedict & America
A very nice reflection by John Allen on Pope Benedict’s existing relation with America—on the eve of Benedict’s visit—beginning with when he was an American prisoner of war during the Second World War.
Benedict on America: In his own words
By John L Allen Jr Weekly
Created Apr 11 2008 - 09:16
As Pope Benedict XVI's arrival in the United States approaches, the media is chock full of pieces outlining the challenges the pope faces in America, and trying to anticipate what he might do or say to address them. Perhaps it's fitting that the last word before the curtain goes up, however, should belong to Benedict himself.
By that, I'm not referring to the brief video message to the American people from the pope released by the Vatican this week. Instead, I have in mind the various reflections on the United States offered by Joseph Ratzinger over the years, much of which dates from the period before his election to the papacy.
Despite protesting in 1996 that he has "little knowledge of America," in truth Benedict XVI probably came into office with more direct insight into the United States than any other pope in history. For one thing, he is the first pope ever to have been an American prisoner of war. After deserting from the German army in May 1945, Ratzinger was sent to an American POW camp in Ulm, Germany, until his release on June 15, 1945. (By the way, the future pope filled his days by penning Greek hexameters in a notebook.)
In his role as the Vatican's top doctrinal official, Ratzinger visited the United States five times. Over the course of more than 20 years in Rome, he also met the a wide cross section of American bishops, clergy and religious, theologians, politicians, social activists, and ordinary people. Predictably, the pope has also read widely about America, developing a special fondness for Alexis de Tocqueville.
As a footnote, from 2001 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has had canonical responsibility for reviewing allegations of sexual abuse against priests, which means that over four years Ratzinger became deeply familiar with the contours of the American crisis.
Among the best sources for gaining a sense of Benedict XVI's attitudes towards the United States:
• The 2004 book Without Roots, which reproduces a lecture Ratzinger delivered to the Italian Senate in May 2004, followed by an exchange of correspondence with Italian politician Marcello Pera;
• A 1996 interview with German journalist Peter Seewald that became the book Salt of the Earth;
• The 2002 book God and the World, another lengthy interview with Seewald;
• The pope's Feb. 29 address to Mary Ann Glendon, the new Ambassador of the United States to the Holy See.
The following represent some of the highlights from that material.
Religious Vitality
Probably the top note of Benedict's thought is appreciation that the United States remains a deeply religious society. Despite the inroads of secularism, it still has a lively appreciation for the public contribution of religion. The pope quotes de Tocqueville as epitomizing the American spirit: "Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot."
Also following de Tocqueville, Ratzinger wrote in 2004 that democracy in the United States is based on moral and religious values derived from Christianity.
"No one prescribed or defined these convictions, but everyone assumed them as the obvious spiritual foundation," he wrote. "The recognition of this basic religious and moral orientation, which went beyond the single denominations and defined the society from within, reinforced the corpus of the law. It defined the limits on individual freedoms from within, thereby creating the conditions for a shared, common freedom."
The pope believes this basic consensus is fragile today, but intact.
"One could say, at least in my opinion, that in the United States there is still a Christian civil religion, although it is besieged and its contents have become uncertain," he wrote.
In Benedict's mind, the appreciation for religion in America stands in sharp contrast with contemporary Europe.
"In the United States, secularization is proceeding at an accelerated pace, and the confluence of many different cultures disrupts the basic Christian consensus. However, there is a much clearer and more implicit sense in America than in Europe that the religious and moral foundation bequeathed by Christianity is greater than that of any single denomination. Europe, unlike America, is on a collision course with its own history. Often it voices an almost visceral denial of any possible public dimension for Christian values."
Benedict on America: In his own words
By John L Allen Jr Weekly
Created Apr 11 2008 - 09:16
As Pope Benedict XVI's arrival in the United States approaches, the media is chock full of pieces outlining the challenges the pope faces in America, and trying to anticipate what he might do or say to address them. Perhaps it's fitting that the last word before the curtain goes up, however, should belong to Benedict himself.
By that, I'm not referring to the brief video message to the American people from the pope released by the Vatican this week. Instead, I have in mind the various reflections on the United States offered by Joseph Ratzinger over the years, much of which dates from the period before his election to the papacy.
Despite protesting in 1996 that he has "little knowledge of America," in truth Benedict XVI probably came into office with more direct insight into the United States than any other pope in history. For one thing, he is the first pope ever to have been an American prisoner of war. After deserting from the German army in May 1945, Ratzinger was sent to an American POW camp in Ulm, Germany, until his release on June 15, 1945. (By the way, the future pope filled his days by penning Greek hexameters in a notebook.)
In his role as the Vatican's top doctrinal official, Ratzinger visited the United States five times. Over the course of more than 20 years in Rome, he also met the a wide cross section of American bishops, clergy and religious, theologians, politicians, social activists, and ordinary people. Predictably, the pope has also read widely about America, developing a special fondness for Alexis de Tocqueville.
As a footnote, from 2001 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has had canonical responsibility for reviewing allegations of sexual abuse against priests, which means that over four years Ratzinger became deeply familiar with the contours of the American crisis.
Among the best sources for gaining a sense of Benedict XVI's attitudes towards the United States:
• The 2004 book Without Roots, which reproduces a lecture Ratzinger delivered to the Italian Senate in May 2004, followed by an exchange of correspondence with Italian politician Marcello Pera;
• A 1996 interview with German journalist Peter Seewald that became the book Salt of the Earth;
• The 2002 book God and the World, another lengthy interview with Seewald;
• The pope's Feb. 29 address to Mary Ann Glendon, the new Ambassador of the United States to the Holy See.
The following represent some of the highlights from that material.
Religious Vitality
Probably the top note of Benedict's thought is appreciation that the United States remains a deeply religious society. Despite the inroads of secularism, it still has a lively appreciation for the public contribution of religion. The pope quotes de Tocqueville as epitomizing the American spirit: "Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot."
Also following de Tocqueville, Ratzinger wrote in 2004 that democracy in the United States is based on moral and religious values derived from Christianity.
"No one prescribed or defined these convictions, but everyone assumed them as the obvious spiritual foundation," he wrote. "The recognition of this basic religious and moral orientation, which went beyond the single denominations and defined the society from within, reinforced the corpus of the law. It defined the limits on individual freedoms from within, thereby creating the conditions for a shared, common freedom."
The pope believes this basic consensus is fragile today, but intact.
"One could say, at least in my opinion, that in the United States there is still a Christian civil religion, although it is besieged and its contents have become uncertain," he wrote.
In Benedict's mind, the appreciation for religion in America stands in sharp contrast with contemporary Europe.
"In the United States, secularization is proceeding at an accelerated pace, and the confluence of many different cultures disrupts the basic Christian consensus. However, there is a much clearer and more implicit sense in America than in Europe that the religious and moral foundation bequeathed by Christianity is greater than that of any single denomination. Europe, unlike America, is on a collision course with its own history. Often it voices an almost visceral denial of any possible public dimension for Christian values."
Saturday, April 12, 2008
200 Years Later
The Catholic Church, though having a strong early presence in the western United States, when it was still Mexico, is only about 200 years old in the east and Phillip Lawler, an important Catholic thinker, (see his absolutely-must-have latest book, The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston’s Catholic Culture, which, while focusing on Boston where he has personal knowledge, is really about the nation as a whole), notes it in this excerpt from Catholic World News, also founded by Lawler.
The Forum: Today's somber 200th anniversary
by Phil Lawler
special to CWNews.com
Boston, Apr. 8, 2008 (CWNews.com)
- April 8 should be a festival day for Catholic Americans. But America's oldest Catholic communities aren't really in a mood for celebration.
On this date in 1808, the Vatican established three new dioceses to serve the growing Catholic communities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The Baltimore diocese, already in existence, was elevated to the rank of archdiocese on the same date; and a fourth new diocese was set up in Bardstown (now Louisville), Kentucky, for Catholics on the western frontier.
Throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th, those young Catholic communities prospered. Immigrant families poured into the East Coast cities, gained a foothold, and quickly began the massive project of building parishes, parochial schools, convents, and seminaries. Once viewed with suspicion by nativists as an alien presence, Catholics won grudging acceptance into the American mainstream. The grandchildren of illiterate immigrants who had huddled on Ellis Island now sat in corporate board rooms and city-council chambers. Soon the Catholic presence was indelibly stamped on the culture of each city.
But after all those decades of spectacular successes, East Coast archdioceses face their bicentennial celebrations with a somber frame of mind. Catholic influence is visibly waning. Parochial schools are being closed; parish churches shuttered and sold. Attendance at Sunday Mass has been dropping for years. If Catholic politicians call attention to their faith, it is frequently by defying the teachings of their Church; if clergymen are in the headlines, it is usually because of their scandalous behavior.
The sex-abuse crisis has rocked the Church in America, and made it possible once again, for the first time in a century, for "respectable" critics to voice anti-Catholic sentiments in public. But the downward trend in Catholic influence was visible long before the eruption of this scandal. For more than a generation-- since the 1960s, when a period of radical social change coincided with widespread doctrinal and disciplinary uncertainty following the Second Vatican Council-- Catholic influence has been on the ebb.
Early in March, the Pew Forum's comprehensive "US Religious Landscape Survey" confirmed what perceptive observers already knew: "No other major faith in the US has experienced greater net losses over the last few decades as a result of changes in religious affiliation than the Catholic Church." One-third of the adult Americans who were raised as Catholics have left the Church, the Pew survey found. Former Catholics now account for 10% of the nation's adult population.
Thanks to the large number of Hispanic Catholic immigrants, the Catholic proportion of overall US population has held steady in recent years, the Pew Forum found. But apart from those immigrants, for every adult convert who enters the Catholic community, four "cradle Catholics" leave. In other words the Church is hemorrhaging believers, with the effects only masked by constant transfusions. This is not the portrait of a healthy community.
So the 200th-anniversary festivities will be muted, if there are festivities at all. A celebration of the past invites comparisons with the present. It is all too painfully evident today that the engine of growth that propelled American Catholicism for some many decades is now sputtering. Investment bankers and corporate lawyers are somehow unable-- or rather unwilling-- to keep open the suburban parishes that were built with the nickels and dimes sacrificed by bricklayers and housemaids.
Yet the future of American Catholicism need not be grim. Indeed when Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) arrives on these shores later in April he will bring a message of hope for the future, as well as guidance on how that hope can be fulfilled.
The Forum: Today's somber 200th anniversary
by Phil Lawler
special to CWNews.com
Boston, Apr. 8, 2008 (CWNews.com)
- April 8 should be a festival day for Catholic Americans. But America's oldest Catholic communities aren't really in a mood for celebration.
On this date in 1808, the Vatican established three new dioceses to serve the growing Catholic communities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The Baltimore diocese, already in existence, was elevated to the rank of archdiocese on the same date; and a fourth new diocese was set up in Bardstown (now Louisville), Kentucky, for Catholics on the western frontier.
Throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th, those young Catholic communities prospered. Immigrant families poured into the East Coast cities, gained a foothold, and quickly began the massive project of building parishes, parochial schools, convents, and seminaries. Once viewed with suspicion by nativists as an alien presence, Catholics won grudging acceptance into the American mainstream. The grandchildren of illiterate immigrants who had huddled on Ellis Island now sat in corporate board rooms and city-council chambers. Soon the Catholic presence was indelibly stamped on the culture of each city.
But after all those decades of spectacular successes, East Coast archdioceses face their bicentennial celebrations with a somber frame of mind. Catholic influence is visibly waning. Parochial schools are being closed; parish churches shuttered and sold. Attendance at Sunday Mass has been dropping for years. If Catholic politicians call attention to their faith, it is frequently by defying the teachings of their Church; if clergymen are in the headlines, it is usually because of their scandalous behavior.
The sex-abuse crisis has rocked the Church in America, and made it possible once again, for the first time in a century, for "respectable" critics to voice anti-Catholic sentiments in public. But the downward trend in Catholic influence was visible long before the eruption of this scandal. For more than a generation-- since the 1960s, when a period of radical social change coincided with widespread doctrinal and disciplinary uncertainty following the Second Vatican Council-- Catholic influence has been on the ebb.
Early in March, the Pew Forum's comprehensive "US Religious Landscape Survey" confirmed what perceptive observers already knew: "No other major faith in the US has experienced greater net losses over the last few decades as a result of changes in religious affiliation than the Catholic Church." One-third of the adult Americans who were raised as Catholics have left the Church, the Pew survey found. Former Catholics now account for 10% of the nation's adult population.
Thanks to the large number of Hispanic Catholic immigrants, the Catholic proportion of overall US population has held steady in recent years, the Pew Forum found. But apart from those immigrants, for every adult convert who enters the Catholic community, four "cradle Catholics" leave. In other words the Church is hemorrhaging believers, with the effects only masked by constant transfusions. This is not the portrait of a healthy community.
So the 200th-anniversary festivities will be muted, if there are festivities at all. A celebration of the past invites comparisons with the present. It is all too painfully evident today that the engine of growth that propelled American Catholicism for some many decades is now sputtering. Investment bankers and corporate lawyers are somehow unable-- or rather unwilling-- to keep open the suburban parishes that were built with the nickels and dimes sacrificed by bricklayers and housemaids.
Yet the future of American Catholicism need not be grim. Indeed when Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) arrives on these shores later in April he will bring a message of hope for the future, as well as guidance on how that hope can be fulfilled.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Iraq War & Just War
One of the benchmarks for meeting the criteria for a just war—blogged about here—under Catholic teaching is: “there must be serious prospects of success”.
One of the major benchmarks of success for our going to war in Iraq is the growth of a democratic government able to handle its own affairs and serve as a stable democracy in the often turbulent Middle East.
According to this remarkable article by the Iraqi ambassador to the US, that is occurring, and we should feel the same great sense of pride as he does, in the work of the Iraqi people.
OPINION
Iraq's National Identity Is Alive and Growing
By SAMIR SUMAIDA'IE
April 10, 2008; Page A15
Five years after Saddam Hussein was toppled from power, Iraq and the U.S. face important choices for their future relationship – choices that will have profound long-term ramifications for both countries.
Iraq, freed from a ruthless dictatorship, has chosen plurality, democracy and federalism as a system of government. It is struggling to implement them against a formidable set of internal and external challenges. The leaders of the new Iraq must further demonstrate resolve to defend their choices and rise above parochial interests.
Having intervened and committed itself so deeply, the U.S. is debating the level and cost of its engagement. I submit that it cannot afford to lose this fight to its enemies. The destinies of the U.S. and Iraq have become intertwined and their national interests very closely linked.
The big test for Iraq is to find the necessary internal accommodations between competing political interests, enabling the country to keep outside interference at bay and ensure its internal cohesion and national unity. The big test for the U.S. is to maintain its resolve while adjusting its tactics and policies to achieve success in Iraq.
Those who see only serious problems within the Iraqi government and society miss the point. Iraqis are the first to admit to their shortcomings. What is important is that they are determined to overcome them. They also know it will be a long and painful process of incremental progress, punctuated by setbacks.
Those who argue that Iraq is fractured and hopelessly broken – a Humpty Dumpty that can never be put together again – are wrong. Many countries have experienced great difficulties and emerged united and strong. Iraqi national identity has been weakened, but it is alive and kicking, and will embarrass all of those who rushed to write its obituary.
One of the major benchmarks of success for our going to war in Iraq is the growth of a democratic government able to handle its own affairs and serve as a stable democracy in the often turbulent Middle East.
According to this remarkable article by the Iraqi ambassador to the US, that is occurring, and we should feel the same great sense of pride as he does, in the work of the Iraqi people.
OPINION
Iraq's National Identity Is Alive and Growing
By SAMIR SUMAIDA'IE
April 10, 2008; Page A15
Five years after Saddam Hussein was toppled from power, Iraq and the U.S. face important choices for their future relationship – choices that will have profound long-term ramifications for both countries.
Iraq, freed from a ruthless dictatorship, has chosen plurality, democracy and federalism as a system of government. It is struggling to implement them against a formidable set of internal and external challenges. The leaders of the new Iraq must further demonstrate resolve to defend their choices and rise above parochial interests.
Having intervened and committed itself so deeply, the U.S. is debating the level and cost of its engagement. I submit that it cannot afford to lose this fight to its enemies. The destinies of the U.S. and Iraq have become intertwined and their national interests very closely linked.
The big test for Iraq is to find the necessary internal accommodations between competing political interests, enabling the country to keep outside interference at bay and ensure its internal cohesion and national unity. The big test for the U.S. is to maintain its resolve while adjusting its tactics and policies to achieve success in Iraq.
Those who see only serious problems within the Iraqi government and society miss the point. Iraqis are the first to admit to their shortcomings. What is important is that they are determined to overcome them. They also know it will be a long and painful process of incremental progress, punctuated by setbacks.
Those who argue that Iraq is fractured and hopelessly broken – a Humpty Dumpty that can never be put together again – are wrong. Many countries have experienced great difficulties and emerged united and strong. Iraqi national identity has been weakened, but it is alive and kicking, and will embarrass all of those who rushed to write its obituary.
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