Although it is a stressful time in terms of one’s theological and cultural awareness and affinity for Catholicism, what we are seeing is Vatican II’s two major schools developed in the late 1960’s still playing out today and with basically the same people, now aging dinosaurs.
These two schools are represented by two popes only ten years different in age, a so called “emeritus” Pope, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Pope Present Francis I.
The two schools of the vision for the post Vatican II Church could not be clearer as embodied by these two pontiffs both of whom are still living at the age of 95 and 85 respectively.
The advantage that the 95 year old has is that he actually was present at Vatican II, had been a progressive throughout the 1960’s but soured on that around 1968 when he saw what the unbridled spirit of Vatican II unleashed in Germany and elsewhere in the world, laying the foundation for the malaise we experience now with only about 5% to 20% of Catholics actually being Catholics.
The 85 year old, ordained a Jesuit in 1969 (seven years before I entered the seminary, btw) was imbued with the school of rupture which Latin American Jesuits embraced with gusto and mixed liberal politics, usually of a Marxist tinge, to their mission. It caused violence and death against many in Latin America including Jesuits, many of whom were disappeared by more conservative military regimes there.
Both of these two men are on borrowed time and about to expire in their mortal bodies.
Who will be elected the next pope? Someone of the 85 year old’s school of theological thought, or someone of the 95 year old’s school of theological thought?
And will that person be of a third school not fully articulated yet, but a blend of the popes since 1978?
Might the next pope take the name, Pope Benedict Francis I? That would send a clear message about that new pope’s perspective, no? And I kind of like that double name and it flows from the tongue relatively easily.
If one truly believes the Holy Spirit leads and corrects the Church over the period of decades and centuries, what kind of pope do you think will be elected after the current papacy and what changes might the Church experience especially on the parochial level?
Time will tell.
3 comments:
Are 2/3 of the electors Catholic? If yes, you get your wish Father.
The School of Rupture has devastated the Church. Only a contumacious fool would think otherwise
The Catholic Church is no longer focused on the salvation of souls.
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