Acton adjuct scholar Alejandro Chafuen argues that the new pope places the concept of freedom centrally to his thinking. And “with freedom comes an incalculability — and thus the world can never be reduced to mathematical logic,” writes Chafuen.
Religion (general)
Maureen Dowd: “The Cafeteria is closed”
From the Touchstone Blog:
Maureen Dowd from her column in today’s editions of The New York Times on the election of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI:
“For American Catholics – especially women and Democratic pro-choice Catholic pols – the cafeteria is officially closed.”
While good Christians will disagree with Ms. Dowd about the exclusion of “women” during the new papacy (do any of the women in this AP photo‹nuns, teenagers, mothers, etc.‹seem left out to you?), so far as the closing of the American Catholic Cafeteria, pan-orthodox Christians (whether Protestant, Orthodox or Catholic) can respond with a hearty “Amen.” We never liked the food from that joint anyway.
“The Cafeteria is Closed” might serve as the new motto for the Ratzinger Fan Club.
–Kenneth Tanner
Benedict XVI: A theologian succeeds a philosopher at the Vatican
Wall Street Opinion Journal Kenneth L. Woodward
The great surprise of yesterday’s papal election is that the new pope is no surprise. As the long-time Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was the best-known figure at the Vatican apart from John Paul II himself. In American political terms, his elevation to the papacy is much like a highly visible vice president replacing a president. Clearly, the conclave that elected him wanted continuity rather than change. That is the only surprise.
Like his predecessor, the new pope is a genuine intellectual. But where John Paul II was a professional philosopher, Benedict XVI is a theologian. And although the two men worked closely together, the differences showed.
Religion under a secular assault
By Julia Duin THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Oral arguments were to begin before the U.S. Supreme Court on one of the most litigated questions in American law: Should the Ten Commandments be displayed on government property?
Outside, protesters sang hymns and held up signs proclaiming “The 10 Commandments: The way to live your life.” A few feet away, a larger group clustered around Ellen Birch, a member of American Atheists, who describes herself as a descendant of Thomas Jefferson.
‘The Cube and the Cathedral’: Why Europe’s great churches are empty
Wall Street Opinion Journal BRIAN M. CARNEY Thursday, April 14, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT
At Mass last Sunday, Amiens’s gothic cathedral, the largest in France, was virtually empty. Not just sparsely filled–it was, except for a handful of tourists, vacant. Mass was being conducted in a side chapel fit for the couple dozen worshipers who showed up for it (I among them).
Amiens is hardly the exception. Europe’s largest churches are often unused these days, reduced to monuments for tourists to admire. And there is a reason for this neglect. In “The Cube and the Cathedral,” George Weigel describes a European culture that has become not only increasingly secular but in many cases downright hostile to Christianity. The cathedral in his title is Notre Dame, now overshadowed in cultural importance by the Arc de la Defense, the ultramodernist “cube” that dominates an office complex outside Paris. “European man has convinced himself that in order to be modern and free, he must be radically secular,” Mr. Weigel writes. “That conviction and its public consequences are at the root of Europe’s contemporary crisis of civilizational morale.”
The evangelical pope?
The Boston Globe By Mark Noll | April 10, 2005
No one would mistake John Paul II for an evangelical Protestant. But he contributed to a dramatic warming of relations between evangelicals and Catholics that may mark a turning point not only in American politics but in the history of Christianity.
DURING THE 1960 presidential campaign, leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals – including Harold John Ockenga of Boston’s historic Park Street Church – joined other Protestants in warning the nation about the danger of electing a Catholic, John F. Kennedy. Last year, the conservative evangelical spokesman Gary L. Bauer saw the matter very differently.
”When John F. Kennedy made his famous speech that the Vatican would not tell him what to do,” Bauer told USA Today, ”evangelicals and Southern Baptists breathed a sigh of relief. But today evangelicals and Southern Baptists are hoping that the Vatican will tell Catholic politicians what to do.”
How the Pope Fought Communism
Article available seven days only.
Wall Street Journal ANNE APPLEBAUM The Washington Post April 7, 2005
We keep hearing that the late Pope John Paul II helped “defeat” communism. Most descriptions of the pope’s role in the collapse of communism are vague and there is much confusion. An acquaintance fielded a reporter’s call about how the pope secretly negotiated the end of communism with Mikhail Gorbachev. The pope’s actual role in the end of the communist regime was far less conspiratorial, but no less significant.
In essence, the pope made two contributions to the defeat of totalitarian communism, a system in which the state both claimed ownership of all or most physical property and also held a monopoly on intellectual life. No one was allowed to own a private business, and no one was allowed to express belief in any philosophy besides Marxism. The church, first in Poland and then elsewhere, broke both monopolies, physically offering people a safe place to meet and intellectually offering an alternative way of thinking about the world.
Bishop Hilarion on Pope John Paul II
VIENNA, Austria, APRIL 5, 2005 (Zenit.org).- At least one Russian Orthodox Church official thinks John Paul II will soon be beatified and canonized by the Catholic Church.
Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev of Vienna and Austria, representative of the Russian Orthodox Church to the European Institutions, delivered to ZENIT a comment on the late Pope.
“He was a great Pope, perhaps one of the greatest in the entire history of the Roman Catholic Church,” Bishop Hilarion wrote. “There is no doubt that he will soon be beatified and canonized by the Church to which he dedicated his entire life.”
“He was the most influential religious leader of modernity, and he made an impact on the entire human civilization,” he added. “Indeed, his influence went far beyond the Roman Catholic Church, which he headed for more than a quarter of a century.
“His message was heard and appreciated by millions of people all over the world, not only Catholics, but also Orthodox, Protestants, Anglicans, Jews, Muslims, people of other faiths and, what is perhaps even more remarkable, by people of no faith.”
[Read more…]
When John Paul II went to Poland, communism didn’t have a prayer
Wall Street Opinion Journal ‘We Want God’, Thursday, April 7, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT
Everyone has spoken this past week of John Paul II’s role in the defeat of Soviet communism and the liberation of Eastern Europe. We don’t know everything, or even a lot, about the quiet diplomatic moves–what happened in private, what kind of communications the pope had with the other great lions of the 1980s, Reagan and Thatcher. And others, including Bill Casey, the tough old fox of the CIA, and Lech Walesa of Solidarity.
But I think I know the moment Soviet communism began its fall. It happened in public. Anyone could see it. It was one of the great spiritual moments of the 20th century, maybe the greatest.
It was the first week in June 1979. Europe was split in two between east and west, the democracies and the communist bloc–police states controlled by the Soviet Union and run by local communist parties and secret police.
John Paul was a new pope, raised to the papacy just eight months before. The day after he became pope he made it clear he would like to return as pope to his native Poland to see his people.
A Man for All Seasons
Wall Street Journal The very modern papacy of John Paul II. April 2, 2005
When the white smoke curled up from the Sistine Chapel on that October evening back in 1978, it signaled that a new Pope had been chosen. His name was Karol Wojtyla. He came, as he said, from a distant land, and as he looked upon the faithful who had gathered on St. Peter’s Square he offered words that would sum up his pastoral mission: “Be not afraid.”
[Read more…]