Newly published excerpts from Benedict’s private letters reveal his concern over Church crisis Diane Montagna https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/benedict-private-letters ROME, September 20, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — A German newspaper today has published excerpts of two private letters Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote less than one year ago, that give insight into how he views his resignation, and his deep concern for the state of the Church following his departure from the papacy. Bild newspaper has reported that the two letters bearing Benedict’s signature — and which independent sources have authenticated — were written to a German cardinal in November 2017, in response to his charge that Benedict’s resignation was the catalyst for a major crisis in the Church. The prelate also alleged that such an unprecedented act had seriously harmed the Church. In his response to the cardinal, Benedict — who retreated to a quiet life of prayer and study since stepping down in February 2013 — reveals his awareness of the discord in the Church since his resignation, but also his concern that the understandable pain that people feel is being turned against his own person and the legacy of his papacy. He writes: “I can very well understand the deep-seated pain that the end of my papacy has inflicted on you and many others. However, for some people and – it seems to me – also for you, the pain has turned into an anger that no longer merely concerns my resignation, but increasingly also my person and my papacy as a whole. By this, a papacy itself is now being devalued and melted into the sorrow about the situation in which the Church currently finds itself.” Benedict then abrubtly says to the cardinal: “If you know a better way (referring to the resignation, ed.) and therefore think that you can judge the one chosen by me, please tell me.” In the letter, Benedict further defends his decision by pointing to Pope Pius XII’s (1876-1958) contingency plan to resign from the papacy to avoid being “arrested by the Nazis.” Observing the comparison, Bild asks, “Who did Benedict feel threatened by?” Recalling Benedict XVI’s ominous words at his inaugural Mass: “Pray for me that I may not flee for fear of the wolves,” the German newspaper asks: “Who are the wolves?” “By ‘the wolves,’ he probably meant the network of high-ranking Church dignitaries who have created a system of power, and abuse of power, in the Vatican, and whom he felt unable to cope with,” Vatican expert, Armin Schwibach, told Bild. In a follow-up letter, the German cardinal responds to Benedict, writing: “May the Lord help his Church.” Benedict replies with a second letter. Highlighting the cardinal’s impassioned entreaty, he writes: “Let us rather pray, as you did at the end of your letter, that the Lord will come to the aid of his Church.” “Did the former Pope think that the Church had entered a crisis under his successor, and that only praying would help in this crisis?” Bild asks. Bild has not yet published the letters in full, but the editor-in-chief of the Katholische Nachrichtenagentur (Catholic News Agency, KNA), Ludwig Ring Eifel, told the German agency: “The letters allow for fascinating insights into Benedict XVI’s thinking – he is obviously very concerned about the state of the Church.” Bild reports that Benedict’s private secretary, Archbishop Bishop Georg Gänswein, did not wish to comment on the letters. Ganswein recently compared the current crisis in the Church — brought on by sexual abuse scandals and systematic cover-up by the hierarchy — to the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11. The Church, he said, is currently experiencing “its own 9/11.” The publication of excerpts from Benedict’s private letters is already being stretched and spun by the main stream media. A New York Times article headline reads, “In Private letters, Benedict rebukes critics of Pope Francis,” with author Jason Horowitz tweeting out: Sources have confirmed to LifeSiteNews that the letters contain no such rebuke. If and when Bild decides to publish the private letters in full, the truth will be more fully known. Pope Benedict XVI sent shockwaves through the Catholic world on February 11, 2013, when he announced his decision to resign the papacy. He reliquished the ministry of Bishop of Rome at 8:00 p.m. on February 28 of the same year. In his resignation speech, Benedict said he come to the “certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.” “I am well aware,” he added, “that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering.” “However,” he said, “in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the barque of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.”
I am touched by all this. I admit I tended to judge Pope Benedict very harshly for having resnnged. But in truth I did not and do not know all the circumstances behind all this. I had no idea whatsoever he faced such total wolves. At the sma etime the questions keep coming up. OK if he had to resing he had to resing why the continuing silence ? Why did he and does he not speak out? Why does he not say in public what he did in private....in these letters? To be honest I still have the gravest doubts about if he should have resigned in the first place. At the end of the day the wolves are not only in the sheepfold ; they control the sheepfold and he is the shephern who left the sheepfold with the gate wide open for these beasts to walk right on in. If he can write these things in private why can he not say them in public? But I try to be chariatble and presume the best. I would just love to believe he did everything for the best in all these things, but these doubts and questions keep rising. Why? Why? Why?
Well, my point is still that God has not left his Church. And that we must continue to pray for it. Didn’t the Blessed Mother guide us through to this point? I must not feel the urgency to ask why in the face of this danger, as maybe we are not supposed to know everything just now. For those who wish to carry on with posting anything you can find to bolster up your views, may you be blessed on your journey. But you can’t take away all the vitriol. It’s there.
We must never loose Faith in God no matter how bad things look. It's His Church and He will take care of it. He already won the Victory on Calvery. This is just mop up stuff. But we must also be careful not to loose Faith in each other. I think this is part of the devil's plan too. If we do not trust then how can we love? ..and if cannot love?
Thank you for this link, Sg. I will read it in its entirety. I have tremendous respect for Cardinal Sarah. What he writes is worth meditating on in much the same way as the works of Pope Benedict have been for me. Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!
Missed you ,Brian Honestly I’m just glad that I can see my point if no one else will Do you have a vitriol meter
Love is not always mushy and warm and fuzzy It can consist of respect and understanding which is sometimes lacking Respect for the Church however it has been infiltrated God is purifying His Church, I believe And He knows what to do I honestly find all of the Steve Skojec-type posts very unsettling He is not a happy camper I happen to be a happy camper Seems like people are disgruntled with that As Bob Dylan said, people got a lotta knives and a lotta forks, and they gotta cut something That’s how I see this Just imho
What´s the matter with Michael Brown? In his site he chose to reproduce the very New York Times article which is obviously spinning the truth. There is no rebuke of Pope Francis critics in the excerpts published! Didn´t he care to READ what´s been published? Doesn´t he think whatever is published by the NYT should be verified? https://spiritdailyblog.com/news/benedict-rebukes-critics-of-pope-francis
THE GREAT BETRAYAL Very good interview imo. If you go to the 2:55 mark you will see good Cardinal Zen being interviewed. The poor man sounds almost desperate. I can´t help think that the good man hasn´t really understood the great evil he´s up against. The Vatican-China Deal William McGurn with Raymond Arroyo
HH, I am only trying to get the Truth out there. And I have not employed any vitriol. Mark 4:22 For there is nothing hidden which will not be revealed, nor has anything been kept secret but that it should come to light.
He’s been a real disappointment for a while now, regarding his grasp (or lack thereof) of the peril we face during this regime.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...r-to-resign-over-china-dealings-idUSKCN1M025C THE GREAT BETRAYAL Leading Asian cardinal calls for Vatican foreign minister to resign over China dealings James Pomfret, Anne Marie Roantree HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Hong Kong cardinal who has spearheaded opposition to the Vatican’s rapprochement with China called on Thursday for the Pope’s secretary of state to step down, saying any deal with Beijing would amount to a betrayal of the Catholic faith. FILE PHOTO: Former head of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong, Cardinal Joseph Zen, 86, attends a news conference in Hong Kong, China February 9, 2018. REUTERS/Bobby Yip/File Photo The Vatican and China have been in advanced talks this year to forge what would be an historic breakthrough and precursor to a resumption in diplomatic relations after 70 years, with Secretary of State Pietro Parolin among the chief negotiators. The Vatican may send a delegation to China before the end of this month. If the meeting goes well, the two could reach an agreement on the appointment of bishops, a Chinese state-run newspaper reported earlier this week. Cardinal Joseph Zen, the most senior Catholic cleric on Chinese soil, said he believed the two sides were making a “secret deal”, although he acknowledged he had no connection with the Vatican and was “completely in the dark”. “They’re giving the flock into the mouths of the wolves. It’s an incredible betrayal,” he said. He described Parolin, the highest ranking diplomat in the Vatican, as someone who despised heroes of faith. “He should resign,” Zen told Reuters at his home on a wooded hillside on Hong Kong island. “I don’t think he has faith. He is just a good diplomat in a very secular, mundane meaning.” Zen, who at times knocked his knuckles on the table to make a point, stopped short of calling on Pope Francis to step down, saying: “I would not come out to fight the Holy Father, that is my bottom line.” The Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Zen’s remarks. At a time when the Vatican is also under pressure for purportedly covering up a sex abuse scandal in the United States, with one archbishop even calling for the Pope to resign, Zen suggested this China deal would further add to the Church’s vulnerability. “The consequences will be tragic and long lasting, not only for the church in China but for the whole church because it damages the credibility. Maybe that’s why they might keep the agreement secret.” China’s roughly 12 million Catholics are split between an underground Church that swears loyalty to the Vatican, and the state-supervised Catholic Patriotic Association. The potential deal has divided communities of Catholics across China, some of whom fear greater suppression should the Vatican cede greater control to Beijing, but others want to see rapprochement. Zen said he believed only half the underground church in China would accept a deal and was concerned how the remainder might react. “I’m afraid they may do something irrational, they may make rebellion,” said 86-year-old Zen, a former bishop of Hong Kong and the most outspoken critic of the Pope’s China strategy. Pope Francis has rejected criticism that the Holy See may be selling out Catholics to Beijing’s communist government. Zen said he believed any deal with atheist China would deal a significant blow to Pope Francis’ credibility. “It’s a complete surrender. It’s a betrayal (of our faith). I have no other words, said Zen. Reporting by James Pomfret and Anne Marie Roantree; Additional reporting by Philip Pullella in Rome; Editing by Richard Balmforth
Well there is bound to be vitriol. It is in the circumstances quite understandable. I imagine if you found someone had hijacked your house and they had your spouse children and even your pets inside and were taking them all to goodness know's where. I would expect you, after you got over the shock of it all, to feel more than a little vitriolic. In this case something even worse then the family home and family that has been hijacked but our Holy Mother the Church itself. I would under the circumstances be much more concerned with someone who did not feel a very , real anger or even rage about this theft. ..and very,very grim feelings towards the perpetrators. This is perfectly normal in the circumstances. I don't personally feel any great push to be nice about it all myself. Although having said this I have found keeping deep emotions under control is a much better way of dealing with problems myself. I think it is the more Marian way. But having said this I am not a happy camper by any means and can sympathise with folks who pretty well explode. The people who really get to me at the minute really are the, 'Carry on as normal and stay quiet folks'; these I think are the people to really, really be concerned about to be honest.
This will hopefully be my last post in this vein. Hopefully lol I don’t think there is a single person on the forum who has not been harmed in some way by VII. We need to heal from this.
Two thoughts: 1) The Truth can be wielded like a two by four, especially when it is repeatedly advanced towards an unreceptive audience. That makes it no less true, but to that audience, it may then be perceived (and often rightly so!) as, frankly, less than charitable. In that case one needs to back off and just pray because 2) Sometimes you can think you’re leading a horse to water, but unable to make them drink, not realizing you have the bridle too tight for them to swallow. (And I’m more guilty of this than anyone.) And an addendum: Sometimes that which we are utterly convinced is true, simply isn’t. And that is no more true than in our present crisis.
No, we all learn from each other. But my own reading is that we are on the start of a very,very long dark journey as regards all this. Or to put it another way , we ain't seen nothing yet. They have hijacked the Church and driven it away, wait until we see exactly where they are taking it to, then we'll see. I have a fair idea myself where they are taking it and by they time they are finsihed with it it won't be the Catholic Church anymore. It will be a very large Masonic Temple.
Sg, There is no mention of the Vatican II Council in that article, not even one single mention to it. At least you admitted your true motives for highlighting this article, your first post regarding this was not at all clear on your motives. I don't believe that you are truly happy unless the discussion on MOG leads to bashing everything in the Church since Vatican II. Again, my point was that some things that have occurred since Vatican II in the Church have in fact been good. In addition, I remember you questioning the validity of every pope since the Vatican II Council - this is damaging to the Church plain and simple.
Sg, I am grateful for Cardinal R. Sarah and anyone else who fights for positive changes to occur in the Church in a constructive way. Here are a two quotes that I believe that you left out from Cardinal R. Sarah's talk, Many priests testify that this is a stimulating task, because they are conscious of working for the liturgical renewal, of contributing their own efforts to the “liturgical movement” that we were just talking about, in other words, in reality, to this mystical and spiritual renewal that is therefore missionary in character, which was intended by the Second Vatican Council, to which Pope Francis is vigorously calling us. The liturgy must therefore always be reformed so as to be more faithful to its mystical essence. But most of the time, this “reform” that replaced the genuine “restoration” intended by the Second Vatican Council was carried out in a superficial spirit and on the basis of only one criterion: to suppress at all costs a heritage that must be perceived as totally negative and outmoded so as to excavate a gulf between the time before and the time after the Council. Now it is enough to pick up the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy again and to read it honestly, without betraying its meaning, to see that the true purpose of the Second Vatican Council was not to start a reform that could become the occasion for a break with Tradition, but quite the contrary, to rediscover and to confirm Tradition in its deepest meaning. In fact, what is called “the reform of the reform”, which perhaps ought to be called more precisely “the mutual enrichment of the rites”, to use an expression from the Magisterium of Benedict XVI, is a primarily spiritual necessity. In this “face-to-face encounter” with God, which the liturgy is, our heart must be pure of all enmity, which presupposes that everyone must be respected with his own sensibility. This means concretely that, although it must be reaffirmed that Vatican Council II never asked to make tabula rasa of the past and therefore to abandon the Missal said to be of Saint Pius V, which produced so many saints, not to mention three such admirable priests as Saint John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, Saint Pius of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio) and Saint Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, at the same time it is essential to promote the liturgical renewal intended by that same Council, and therefore the liturgical books were updated following the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, in particular the Missal said to be of Blessed Pope Paul VI. And I added that what is important above all, whether one is celebrating in the Ordinary or the Extraordinary Form, is to bring to the faithful something that they have a right to: the beauty of the liturgy, its sacrality, silence, recollection, the mystical dimension and adoration. The liturgy should put us face to face with God in a personal relationship of intense intimacy. Although Cardinal R. Sarah is very critical of the Vatican II Council, the above quote shows that he clearly supports the ordinary form of the mass and therefore, the Vatican II Council itself. This is something that I believe that you do not do. Again, I repeat myself that some good things have occurred in the Church since the Vatican II Council. In addition, Cardinal R. Sarah gives multiple examples of good things which have occurred in the Church since the Vatican II Council in this talk and the following quote includes an example of this, this is the complete paragraph of which you included only a portion of in your post, “No one can seriously deny the critical manifestations” and liturgy wars that Vatican Council II led to.5 Today they have gone on to fragment and demolish the sacred Missale Romanum by abandoning it to experiments in cultural diversity and compilers of liturgical texts. Here I am happy to congratulate the tremendous, marvelous work accomplished, through Vox Clara, by the English-language Episcopal Conferences, by the Spanish- and Korean-language Episcopal Conferences, etc., which have faithfully translated the Missale Romanum in perfect conformity with the guidelines and principles of Liturgiam authenticam, and the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has granted them the recognition.
