Tuesday, June 19, 2007
The spirit of a sissy
Pope Benedict, after an ever-so-brief flirtation with courage at Regensburg, has fallen back into standard modern multiculturalism, touting the "Spirit of Assisi". In direct terms, he is surrendering to Mecca on behalf of Rome.
As part of his pilgrimage to Assisi, Benedict paid tribute to Francis, who essentially converted to Mohammedanism and tried to mix the two religions.
Benedict issued "an urgent and heartfelt appeal for all the armed conflicts bloodying the earth to cease, for arms to fall silent and everywhere for hatred to give way to love, offense to forgiveness and discord to union. ... Our thoughts go out particularly to the Holy Land, so beloved by St. Francis, to Iraq, to Lebanon, to the entire Middle East." He urged international efforts to stop "the horrors of combat, of terrorism, of blind violence" there and in other trouble spots.
Kumbaya to you too, Bro Bennie. Wanna toke?
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For comparison:
Here's Pius XII in October 1939, in his very first encyclical. At that point Hitler had just started all-out war. Catholic Poland had already been swallowed, Catholic France was getting ready to fight, and Episcopal Britain was wavering.
Who among "the Soldiers of Christ" -- ecclesiastic or layman -- does not feel himself incited and spurred on to a greater vigilance, to a more determined resistance, by the sight of the ever-increasing host of Christ's enemies; as he perceives the spokesmen of these tendencies deny or in practice neglect the vivifying truths and the values inherent in belief in God and in Christ; as he perceives them wantonly break the Tables of God's Commandments to substitute other tables and other standards stripped of the ethical content of the Revelation on Sinai, standards in which the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount and of the Cross has no place?
Who could observe without profound grief the tragic harvest of such desertions among those who in days of calm and security were numbered among the followers of Christ, but who -- Christians unfortunately more in name than in fact -- in the hour that called for endurance, for effort, for suffering, for a stout heart in face of hidden or open persecution, fell victims of cowardice, weakness, uncertainty; who, terror-stricken before the sacrifices entailed by a profession of their Christian Faith, could not steel themselves to drink the bitter chalice awaiting those faithful to Christ?
Soldiers of Christ ... incited and spurred on to vigilance ... we have now rediscovered the fact, well-known at the time but distorted by Stalinist propaganda, that Pius was deadly serious about "determined resistance", and Hitler knew it.
Seems to me that Pius is speaking across the decades to his successor, when he talks about desertions. ¶ 8:18 PM
Pope Benedict, after an ever-so-brief flirtation with courage at Regensburg, has fallen back into standard modern multiculturalism, touting the "Spirit of Assisi". In direct terms, he is surrendering to Mecca on behalf of Rome.
As part of his pilgrimage to Assisi, Benedict paid tribute to Francis, who essentially converted to Mohammedanism and tried to mix the two religions.
Benedict issued "an urgent and heartfelt appeal for all the armed conflicts bloodying the earth to cease, for arms to fall silent and everywhere for hatred to give way to love, offense to forgiveness and discord to union. ... Our thoughts go out particularly to the Holy Land, so beloved by St. Francis, to Iraq, to Lebanon, to the entire Middle East." He urged international efforts to stop "the horrors of combat, of terrorism, of blind violence" there and in other trouble spots.
Kumbaya to you too, Bro Bennie. Wanna toke?
= = = = =
For comparison:
Here's Pius XII in October 1939, in his very first encyclical. At that point Hitler had just started all-out war. Catholic Poland had already been swallowed, Catholic France was getting ready to fight, and Episcopal Britain was wavering.
Who among "the Soldiers of Christ" -- ecclesiastic or layman -- does not feel himself incited and spurred on to a greater vigilance, to a more determined resistance, by the sight of the ever-increasing host of Christ's enemies; as he perceives the spokesmen of these tendencies deny or in practice neglect the vivifying truths and the values inherent in belief in God and in Christ; as he perceives them wantonly break the Tables of God's Commandments to substitute other tables and other standards stripped of the ethical content of the Revelation on Sinai, standards in which the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount and of the Cross has no place?
Who could observe without profound grief the tragic harvest of such desertions among those who in days of calm and security were numbered among the followers of Christ, but who -- Christians unfortunately more in name than in fact -- in the hour that called for endurance, for effort, for suffering, for a stout heart in face of hidden or open persecution, fell victims of cowardice, weakness, uncertainty; who, terror-stricken before the sacrifices entailed by a profession of their Christian Faith, could not steel themselves to drink the bitter chalice awaiting those faithful to Christ?
Soldiers of Christ ... incited and spurred on to vigilance ... we have now rediscovered the fact, well-known at the time but distorted by Stalinist propaganda, that Pius was deadly serious about "determined resistance", and Hitler knew it.
Seems to me that Pius is speaking across the decades to his successor, when he talks about desertions. ¶ 8:18 PM
