But first the papal Mass at Saint Joseph Church at 12 Noon on February 28 as reported on television!
The National Chismatic Reporter's journalist, who, sadly doesn't belong there, John Allen, because he's so good, describes the liberal/progressive side of the Church in their vitriol against Pope Benedict. Keep in mind most progressives are one step away from Gary Wills in their descent into a post-Catholic, non-Catholicism and they wish to bring many down with them.
John Allen writes: "Critics may acknowledge that Benedict was a gentle and sincere man, but generally insist he presided over a controversial and sometimes failed pontificate. That tends to be an especially popular verdict in more liberal circles. These observers cite crackdowns on nuns and liberal theologians on Benedict's watch, the pope's red carpet for traditionalist Anglicans and his outreach to the Lefebvrists without any similar overtures to progressive dissent, his resurrection of the old Latin Mass, and his repeated insistence on a "hermeneutic of reform ... in continuity" for understanding the Second Vatican Council (1962-65)."
Of course the holiness and strong Catholic identity of those who are truly Catholic, who haven't given into the deconstruction of the Catholic Church, John Allen points out their truly Catholic and holy attitude when he writes, "Fans say Benedict was a great "teaching pope" who also presided over a quiet cleansing of the church's Augean stables, promoting a financial glasnost, committing the church to reform in the fight against clerical sexual abuse, and challenging the careerist and self-aggrandizing culture in the Vatican -- most notably, of course, by being willing to renounce the pinnacle of power himself."
John Allen highlights the non-Catholicism of the liberals, those post-Catholic, Gary Wills, Hans Kung clones when he writes: "A legacy, of course, is partially in the eye of the beholder. For many feminists, gays, dissident theologians, liberal Catholics of various stripes, and victims of clerical abuse, Benedict simply wasn't the pope they wanted."
It begs the question, what kind of non-Catholic pope do the progressives want? Sad, so very, very sad!
You can read John Allen's article HERE.
1 comment:
John Allen wrote a biography of Ratzinger which was well researched but which on every issue implicitly endorsed the liberal-progressive critique of the then cardinal. It gave a list of reasons why there would probably not be a Ratzinger papacy. Allen believed the liberal-progressive post-V2 North American Church to be 'mainstream' (which of course it isn't, except in its own terms).
What sets Allen apart from most of his colleagues on the NCR was that he was prepared to listen to criticism (particularly the negative review of his book by the eminent ecclesiologist Dr Joseph Komanchuk)and resist the tendency (as he himself put it) "to veer off into judgement".
This is all very well, admirable even, but his weakness as a journalist is that he now tends to put two opposing points of view and then stand back, rather than telling us what he thinks and arguing his corner.
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