Good stuff Charles+
Thanks for posting this.
E+
----- Original Message -----
From: "charles scott" <crscottblu@...>
To: <faithandlife@...>
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2005 2:00 PM
Subject: [FaithandLife] PASS THE SALT SHAKER AGAIN -Ratzinger the
Augustinian Part II
>
> Guys, I'm not making this stuff up.
>
>
>
> On page 190 of "Salt of the Earth," Seewald, the lapsed Catholic asks his
eminence "Why must the Church continue to operate even today with
authoritarian methods and be organized according to "totalitarian"
structures?"
>
>
>
> I will post the full answer another day, but for the sake of the
Augustinians among us, I will quote from the second part of Cardinal
Ratzinger's answer.
>
>
>
> Charles+
>
>
>
>
> In 1997 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger said the following.
>
>
>
> Now to practical questions. Perhaps there really is too much decision
making and administration in the Church at the present time. In reality,
office by nature ought to be a service to ensure that the sacraments are
celebrated, that Christ can come in, and that the Word of God is proclaimed.
Everything else is only ordered to that. It ought not to be a standing
governing function but have a bond of obedience to the origin and a bond to
the life lived in this origin. The office-holder ought to accept
responsibility for the fact that he does not proclaim and produce things
himself but is a conduit for the Other and thereby ought to step back
himself-we have already touched on that. In this sense, he should be in the
very first place one who obeys, who does not say, "I would like to say this
now", but asks what Christ says and what our faith is and submit to that.
>
>
>
> And in the second place he ought to be who serves, who is available to the
people and who, in following Christ, keeps himself ready to wash their feet.
In Saint Augustine this is marvelously illustrated. We have already spoken
of the fact that he was really constantly busy with trivial affairs, with
foot washing, and that he was ready to spend his great life for the little
things, if you will, but in the knowledge that he wasn't squandering it by
doing so. That would, then, be the true image of the priesthood. When it
is lived correctly, it cannot mean finally getting one's hands on the levers
of power but, rather, renouncing one's own life project in order to give
oneself over to service.
>
>
>
> Part of that, of course-and here I am citing Augustine again - is to
reprimand and to rebuke and thereby, to cause problems for oneself.
Augustine illustrates this in a homily in the following terms: You want to
live badly; you want to perish. I, however, am not allowed to want this; I
have to rebuke you, even though it displeases you. He then uses the
example of the father with sleeping sickness whose son keeps waking him up,
because that is the only chance of his being cured. But the fathers says:
Let me sleep, I'm dead tired. And the son says: No, I'm not allowed to let
you sleep. And that, he says is precisely the function of the bishop. I am
not permitted to let you sleep. . . . .And in this sense the Church must
also raise her index finger and become irksome. But in all this it must
remain perceptible that the Church is not interested in harassing people but
that she herself is animated by the restless desire for the good. I must
not allow you to sleep, because
> sleep would be deadly. And in the exercise of this authority she must
also take Christ's suffering upon herself. What-let's put it in a purely
human way - gives Christ credibility is, in fact, that he suffered. And
that is also the credibility of the Church. For this reason she also
becomes most credible where she has martyrs and confessors. And where
things go comfortably, she loses credibility.
>
>
>
>
> charles scott <crscottblu@...> wrote:Erich+
>
> You beat me to the line! This little bit should have made Mike's day.
>
> Charles+
>
> "St. Mary's Church, Delray Beach" wrote:
> Mike+
>
> Why don't you send a note off and ask Benedict to join the SSA!!!!!!!!!!
>
> E+
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael L Ward"
> To:
> Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2005 10:44 AM
> Subject: RE: [FaithandLife] SALT SHAKER -Ratzinger the Augustinian
>
>
> > Oh boy, you've done it now.....
> >
> > MLW+
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: charles scott [mailto:crscottblu@...]
> > Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2005 10:42 AM
> > To: faith life
> > Subject: [FaithandLife] SALT SHAKER -Ratzinger the Augustinian
> >
> > SNIPPETS FROM "SALT OF THE EARTH" by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (1997)
> >
> >
> > PETER SEEWALD "Tertullian gave us the paradox 'I believe because it is
> > absurd.' Augustine believed 'in order to understand.' Why does
> > Cardinal Ratzinger believe?"
> >
> > RATZINGER "I am a decided Augustinian. Just as creation comes from
> > reason and is reasonable, faith is, so to speak, the fulfillment of
> > creation and thus the door to understanding. I am convinced of that.
> > Faith therefore is access to understanding and knowing. Turtuallian's
> > remark -- he loves exaggerated formulations -- naturally reflects the
> > sum of his thinking in general. He wanted to say that God shows himself
> > precisely in a paradoxical relation to what prevails in the world. And
> > in doing this God shows his divinity. But Tertullian was admittedly
> > somewhat hostile to philosophy. In that respect I don't share his
> > position but that of Saint Augustine."
> >
> > PETER SEEWALD "Have you also developed something like your own
> > expression for the core of the faith?"
> >
> > RATZINGER "I don't need any new motto here. It seems to me that
> > Augustine's statement, which Thomas, too, later adopted, really
> > describes the right direction. I believe! And already the act of faith
> > itself implies that this comes from him who is reason itself. And in
> > first submitting myself in faith to him, whom I do not understand, I
> > know that by this very act I am opening the door to understanding."
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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