Good for Cardinal Pell: His Eminence gets Trump!
I think Hans Urs von Balthasar, back in 1952, was quite mistaken to see the demolition of the bastions of Catholicism — the secondary structures and patterns that the Church has built up throughout the ages — as a long-overdue task. Some, perhaps many, bastions are gone forever, but we need all the sociological supports we can find or construct. The contributions of Trump, or Orban, of the Fratelli d’Italia are not to be rejected, small as they might be, just as some of us remain grateful for Constantine and Charles V. It is not a mortal sin to dream of a Chinese Constantine or tolerate the status of the Anglicans in England.
5 comments:
The Guardian, 16 December 2020: "George Pell: Trump is a barbarian, but 'in some important ways' he's our barbarian"
"During the virtual press conference, Pell said Christians had an obligation to bring their values to the public sphere and said Trump had made a “positive contribution” particularly with his three supreme court picks, two of whom are Catholic."
Pell's vision is far too narrow. Simply because a person is pro-life does not qualify him or her for positions of public office. The "strict Constructionist" approach to interpreting/applying that Trump's appointees hold is not, in the short or long run, beneficial.
By overlooking Trump's adultery, his lies, his brute tactics and behavior, among his many other faults, Pell's praise rings hollow.
"In other areas, I’m not sure that he’s (Trump) been sufficiently respectful of the political process and it’s important that people believe they’re getting a fair go,” Pell said. “And if that’s not the case, it needs to be established very, very clearly because it’s no small thing to weaken trust in great public institutions.”
I, for one, am quite sure that Trump has not been "sufficiently respectful of the political process." The weakening of trust that Trump has engaged in for years threatens to tear our political process to shreds. Trump will be remembered for his faults and none, if any, of his pseudo-virtues.
Cardinal Pell: "I think Hans Urs von Balthasar, back in 1952, was quite mistaken to see the demolition of the bastions of Catholicism — the secondary structures and patterns that the Church has built up throughout the ages — as a long-overdue task."
Conversely...Then-Cardinal Ratzinger, 1982 A.D.
From his book Principles of Catholic Theology:
Cardinal Ratzinger: The Church Must Raze Her Bastions and Never Again Return to the Syllabus
"The task is not, therefore, to suppress the Council [Vatican II] but to discover the real Council and to deepen its true intention in the light of present experience.
"That means there can be no return to the Syllabus, which may have marked the first stage in the confrontation with liberalism and a newly conceived Marxism but cannot be the last stage…."
"The fact is, as Hans Urs von Balthasar pointed out as early as 1952, that the ‘demolition of the bastions’ is a long-overdue task."
"The Church cannot choose the times in which she will live….She must relinquish many of the things that have hitherto spelled security for her and that she has taken for granted."
"She must demolish longstanding bastions and trust solely to the shield of faith."
Pax.
Mark Thomas
Couldn't help but notice that the first (and swiftest) comment rebuking your post came from guess who?
Of course, now that this priest has corrected me, I wouldn't dare say that he hated President Trump. Heaven's no!
Oh sure, he can't abide ANYTHING positive being written about Trump. He will have the last word in EVERY post when Trump's name comes up. He will demonstrate an obsessive need to make sure everyone knows that Trump is wrong about everything while all of his detractors are right. He will make sure that the last word is always critical and vitriolic. He has no problem quoting the name-callers--after all, this priest would not call names...would he?
But of course, he doesn't "hate" Trump. That word is exclusively for the whining left to damn all who disagree with them by labeling them as "haters" and creating new "hate crimes".
Nope. No hate here! Just, pure, logical, dispassionate, clinical, and unbiased observations.
Seamus - So, Cardinal Pell refers to Trump as a "barbarian," but you ignore that.
Cardinal Pell refers to Trump's lack of respect for the political process, but you ignore that.
Cardinal Pell refers to the great damage Trump has done by weakening trust in great public institutions, but you ignore that, too.
I see a pattern here. You can recognize it too if you remove the wool that the Trump phenomenon has pulled over your eyes, a move aided and abetted by your desire to be like Trump in his many faults.
The Golden Calf was no more attractive to the Israelites at the foot of Mt. Sinai than Trump and his devious schemes and behavior are to you. Remember, when that idolatry was exposed, the golden calf was smashed.
Seamus Malone,
The first commenter is a Democrat operative masquerading as a Catholic priest and a hardline leftwing ideologue to boot. He can’t stanf the fact that the World was at relative peace during the Trump years and the working and middle clasd were doing well until now. Ideologues like him never admit error. He stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the manifest evils in his party like infanticide and their new perversion du jour: transgenderism and the grooming of children. Those are no biggies to him. He also ignores the enormous wealth his heroes, the Clintons, the Obamas and the Bidens have made off of public service. The like him are like the Bourbons, learned nothing, forgotten nothing. Instead of focusing on a failing Church he focuses on the political world, his true religion.
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