Do Liberals Dream Of Condom Popes? Truth To Honour Benedict XVI

::The Facts::

Pope Benedict XVI is not an ultra-conservative, he is not a hardliner, he is not even the Panzer Cardinal if such a thing means he has behaved in a manner that is in any way foreign to Catholicism.

The Pope is Catholic!

Pope Benedict XVI, rather, is merely and magnificently Catholic.

::Strange Voices::

Most of the coverage of this Papal election has been predominantly positive. It has included, however, the voices of those identified as 'liberal Catholics', people who were never Catholic and sometimes not even Christian, people who are militantly anti-Christian and an unidentified number of random Roman tourists who fall variously into either of the categories. The opinions of these people were taken as authoritative merely because they were standing in St Peter's Square when the Pope was announced.

::Speaking the Truth in Love::

These voices are troublingly shrill for a group who have for the most part rejected Christ and certainly Catholic teaching. It has come time to state openly that any man who supports euthanasia or any woman who encourages abortion, any person indeed who publicly and unrepentently rejects the fundamental tenets of the Catholic faith is simply no longer a Catholic. Not a 'liberal' or a 'progressive' Catholic, but not any kind of Catholic at all. The views of such people, properly called apostates, heretics and perhaps diabolical, are just not worthy of our consideration. Indeed, it does them no good to go on pretending they are in any way faithful. Only by pointing out error, as the Holy Father has said, can we come at last to full fraternal communio, can we begin to speak as one in love.

::A Timely Analogy::

It's like being ejected from a hotel because of bad behaviour and standing out the front sniping about the state of the place. It might prove therapeutic to the one who has been expelled, it might ensure that those who expect something different from their experience in the hotel do not enter flippantly, but it does not do the hotelier any good to listen to the drunks in the gutter.

::Former Nothing::

Nor does it help the one who has voluntarily left an establishment to go on and on complaining about why he left. If one has truly rejected something it is broken off and dead. The fact that so many 'former' Catholics constantly worry over the Church, trying to 'fix it' or 'mould it' according to some arbitrary but ultimately selfish agenda, belies the fact that it still has meaning in their lives. Never believe someone who drafts pages and pages of anti-Catholic rubbish, she is like a petulant child with a loose tooth.

The Face of the Future: Catholic Youth Jubilant

Only by paternal intervention - knocking the bastard out with a firm but finally loving blow - can she come to an adult faith free from the demands of the fat relentless ego. We see here the mystery and glory of the Petrine ministry. We also see why people like Hitler and the Soviets often want to remove Popes.

::The Lessons of Love::

Of course this does not mean that all non-Catholics are idiots. The Church rightly listens to the counsel of our elder brothers in faith, the beautiful Jewish people, and it confers when necessary for the peace of the world with the other monotheistic religions, namely Mohammedanism and increasingly Sikhism.

::The Lessons of Truth::

There comes a time, however, when the opinions of those who reject Christ outright can no longer influence the decisions of His Church. By some extraordinary facility that we do not understand, Catholics as Church are incorporated into Christ. Christ did not change the Father's laws to suit the Pharisees. He did not sell His mission to buy personal freedom/popularity. Just as His witness was a sign of love, an awesome moment when the human joined with the Divine and participated in the Trinity, so too is the Pope's teaching power and the Church's example part of a profoundly compassionate witness to a world of strife.

::The Lessons of History::

This is not some new idea, some radical conservativism concocted by Opus Dei and slavishly followed by evil Popes. This is the fact of Catholic history. For twenty centuries the Catholic Church has operated, not the twenty years that seem to constitute the collective memory of the liberal ignorati nor even the twenty minutes of the modern news segment. John Paul the Great did not advocate a conservative line on moral issues that was in any manner inconsistent with his predecessors.

Succession, Continuity, Truth

As Pope, he courageously advocated the Catholic line. As Pope, Benedict XVI will do the same, just as he served faithfully in the same manner at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. To do otherwise would be unthinkable, not in a political sense, but in a theological, historical and doctrinal sense. Contemporary assertions to the contrary and the vain dreams of the aged sixties liberal set for a 'new Pope' must surely fail.

As ridiculous as it is to have to state the obvious, it appears DREADNOUGHT needs to say that Pope must be Catholic.

::One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic::

I am also getting more than a little frustrated with comments to the effect that my Catholicism when viewed over/against my homosexuality is a novelty or somehow remarkable. I am a Catholic. I attempt with all of my will, my meagre intellect and whatever strength is in my body to be a good Catholic. I am not going to have some retro-Pauline experience and suddenly cast off the faith. Nor am I alone, there are literally millions of gay Catholics, working as best they can to achieve immortality.

::No Gay Holocaust::

I completely reject the idea that homosexuals are somehow outside the ambit of salvation. This is the truly hateful position, here one finds the most serious deficiencies in human thinking. Those who'd claim that the Catholic Church rejects her homosexual sons, hates them and wishes them harm are either foolish and need to be brought to light, duped and in need of healing or wilfully directed towards the destruction of the Rock. We Catholics know how to deal with these last.

::A New Pope for a New World::

Benedict XVI is not an aberration, not a freak choice and certainly not an error. He represents two thousand years of Christian wisdom, he owns an intimidating intellect and he's characterised by a profound holiness. These things cannot but frighten hedonists, heretics and homoactivists from 'Frisco to Sydney. John Paul the Great was a saint and he placed Benedict XVI at his right hand for decades. As we prepare to learn from this new Pope, let us contemplate the actions of the late Pope. Rather than accepting unquestioningly the understandable objections of Christ-haters, we could do worse than to learn from someone on our side and in the know.

::Resources::

Bizarrely, the New York Times agrees that Catholics alone should discuss the intricacies of the Catholic faith.

The Pope on Nazism:

"The Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Ratzinger recalled, was his bulwark against the Nazi regime, "a citadel of truth and righteousness against the realm of atheism and deceit.""

One of the priests/seminarians in the pic above is a Melbourne boy, if DREADNOUGHT is not mistaken, from Corpus Christi Seminary.

Oh, and I finally bought the new Fischerspooner album. German name, highly evolved ideas, very Ratzinger!