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Apparently these guys are onto me exposing them.
In my Post Office [physical mail] I received their newspaper of hate-mail.
Probably because I wrote that time to Gabriel Garnica!!!
Called "The Remnant", it is full of HATE LITERATURE!
Wherever he is referenced to, they call him "The Anti-Pope Benedict XVI" !!!!
And I cannot believe that "The Latin Mass" magazine teamed up with them, as they are claiming now!!!!
Maybe "Latin-Mass" magazine is not aware of their great MISTAKE!!!! if they really are ?

All of you who are subscibers of the beautiful "Latin Mass" magazine, please write to them in protest. We know "Latin Mass" magazine loves Our Papa; because they have made special issues on him alone, and have written beautiful things concerning him. They MUST NOT affilliate themselves with this group of ULTRA-TRADS and support their ugly newspaper "The Remnant".
The following is the E-Mail address for "The Latin Mass":
jwblewett@msn.com

Apparently there is a large Italian group putting out the same ugly mess, on the opposite end of the spectrum in Italy ! according to our Italian sister, "Sihayabxvi247"....
We have to be concerned!
www.anticlericale.net

and
www.radicali.it

Here is an excellent story on Papa:
early life of Ratzinger

and:
Ratzinger and the Nazis

WHY JOSEPH RATZINGER ALWAYS DESPISED NAZISM, POLITICS AND NATIONAL RELIGION

Kln was not Ratzinger's first encounter with people of Judaic heritage. The world, media, and the Press forget too quickly.
His whole life has been one of exemplifying and proclaiming the true meaning of Love, with an heart-felt empathy with all of mankind.

In an address following the screening of the film "Karol un uomo diventato Papa" (Karol, A Man Who Became Pope) on the 20th of May 2005, Pope Benedict XVI commented how the first half of the film "highlighted what happened in Poland under Nazi occupation," and he referred to the "repression of the Polish people and the genocide of the Jews. These were atrocious crimes which demonstrate all the evil contained in Nazi ideology. Shaken by so much pain and so much violence, the young Karol decided to transform his own life, responding to the divine call to the priesthood."
Benedict XVI indicated that the film contained scenes that, "in their crudity, give rise to an instinctive feeling of horror in viewers, bringing them to reflect on the depths of iniquity that can be hidden in the human soul. At the same time, evoking such aberrations cannot but give rise in all right-thinking people to a commitment to do all they can to ensure that such acts of inhuman barbarity are never repeated again."
"May 8, 1945 marked the end of that immense tragedy that sowed destruction and death in Europe and the world at a level never known before. ... Every time a totalitarian ideology crushes man underfoot, all humanity is seriously threatened.
"Memories must not pale with the passing of time," said the Pope, "rather they should remain as a strict lesson for our own and future generations. We have the duty to remind ourselves and others, especially the young, what forms of unprecedented violence can be reached by scorn for human beings and violation of their rights."
How, Benedict asked, can we not see "a providential divine plan in the fact that on the Chair of Peter a Polish Pope was succeeded by a citizen of Germany, where the Nazi regime affirmed itself with particular virulence, before attacking its neighbors, in particular Poland? Both these Popes in their youth - though on different sides and in different situations - were forced to experience the barbarism of the Second World War and the senseless violence of man against man, of peoples against peoples."
The Pope stressed how "nothing can improve in the world, if evil is not overcome; and evil can be overcome only through forgiveness. May the shared and sincere condemnation of Nazism and of atheist Communism serve as a commitment for everyone in building reconciliation and peace on the basis of forgiveness."
From Papa's short, but mind-opening book: "Called to Communion" we read:

"Peter is cast into a rle parallel to Abraham" as the rock for his ecclesia. Here lies a function of duality. "It was not by flesh and blood, but by revelation of the Father that he had confessed Christ in the name of the 12."..."Subsequently" he is also the stumbling block (skandalon) for Jesus [Matt.16:22/23]"Left to his own resources the one who by God's grace is permitted to be the bedrock is a stone on the path that makes the foot stumble."

"Peter received a promise for the time-transcendent gathering of the new people--a gathering that stretches beyond his own lifetime"...:"the rock will not be overcome because God does not abandon his eclesia to the powers of destruction."...

Concerning "the power of the keys"..."helps us to comprehend the content of this commission logion. As the faithful steward of Jesus' messsage, Peter opens the door to the kingom of Heaven, his is the function of doorkeeper who has to judge concerning admission and rejection"..."the keys
clearly approximates the meaning of binding and loosing"...."it stands primarily for the authority to make doctrinal decisions and...a further discipinary power. That is the right to impose or to lift the ban. The parallelism 'on earth and in heaven' implies that Peter's decisions for the Church also have validity before God"..."the power to bind and the power to loose means the authority to FORGIVE sins, an authority that in Peter is commited to the Church."

"...the new commission, which robs the forces of destruction of their power, is the grace of forgiveness. It constitutes the Church. The Church is founded upon forgiveness. Peter himself is the personal embodiment of this truth, for he is permitted to be the bearer of the keys after having stumbled, confessed and received the grace of pardon; and it is thus that chaos is banished from within her. She is held together by forgiveness, and Peter is the PERPETUAL living reminder of this reality: She is not a communion of the perfect but a communion of sinners who need and seek forgiveness. Behind the talk of authority, God's power appears as mercy and thus as the foundation stone of the Church..."

"The Church can come into being only where man finds his way to the truth about himself; and the truth is that he needs grace. Wherever pride closes him to this insight, man cannot find the way to Jesus. The Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven are the words of FORGIVENESS, which man cannot speak of himself but are granted by God's power alone"....
by His death Jesus has rolled the stone over the mouth of death, WHICH IS THE POWER OF HELL, so that from his death the power of FORGIVENESS flows without cease."

______________________________________________
I am now adding the complete discussion ensued today under the misplaced subject of "Benedict XVI in the News":

Benodette
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(5/12/06 1:19 pm)
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A German pope's duty at Auschwitz
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International Herald Tribune
By Tim Ryback

Les Combes surfaces again.

The Vatican recently announced that Pope Benedict XVI will visit Auschwitz on his scheduled trip to Poland later this month. This will be his second Auschwitz visit. In 1979, when Joseph Ratzinger was archbishop of Munich, he accompanied Pope John Paul II to the former Nazi death camp, where they celebrated Holy Communion.

"It was a moving idea and a moving moment to look across these horrific fields of death in which four million human beings lost their lives, and to experience the resurrection as the only true and only adequate response," he told a group of German priests afterward. There was no talk of personal remorse, no mention of German guilt. It was a singularly Catholic experience.

When Benedict attended the 60th anniversary commemoration two years ago of the D-Day landings in Normandy, he cast aside his Vatican identity to bare his German soul. The day before he appeared with Queen Elizabeth II, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schrder and George W. Bush for the official events on the beach at Arromanches, he visited a German military cemetery at La Cambe, where 21,000 German soldiers are buried, among them several hundred former members of the notorious Waffen SS, some of whom participated in the massacre of hundreds of men, women and children in the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane.

"As Germans we cannot help but be moved to realize that their idealism and their duty to the state was misused by an unjust government," Benedict said of the war dead at La Cambe. He expressed regret that the Germanic virtue of obedience - Pflicht - had been exploited and misused by the Nazis, and said that this did nothing to diminish their honor or service to the Fatherland.

As with Auschwitz, there was no talk of personal culpability, not a word about German guilt. "They simply tried to do their duty - even during times of terrible self-doubt, and inner conflict," he said, noting that it was not his place to judge the dead of La Cambe "into whose conscience only God can see."

Last year, when Ratzinger became the Vatican's first German pontiff in several centuries, there was much talk about "God's Rottweiler," the "Panzer Cardinal" and Ratzinger's brief stint as a German soldier and a Hitler Youth. Since then, the sniping has ceased. Benedict XVI has shown himself to be a pontiff who embraces the global community of Roman Catholics, transcending national identity and political borders with his eloquence, intelligence and compassion. He set the tone for his papacy earlier this year with the opening words of his first encyclical letter: "God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him"...

Let's hope Benedict XVI brings his full moral authority, his eloquence and his insight, to help us better understand the historical and moral responsibilities of the German people 60 years after the Holocaust. If he was able to speak as a German to the dead Waffen SS soldiers in La Cambe two years ago, let's hope he can do the same for Germany's victims at Auschwitz this spring.

www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/12/opinion/edryback.php


mag6nideum
Member
Posts: 314
(5/12/06 5:25 pm)
Reply Re: A German pope's duty at Auschwitz
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I sometimes get the crazy idea that Ryback won't be satisfied before Pope Benedict declares that as a young teenager, he was personally responsible for the Holocaust..... Mr Ryback hopes that Benedict will succeed in helping us to "better understand the historical and moral responsibilities of the German people 60 years after the Holocaust" (Ryback). What does Ryback mean by this sentence? For the past 60 years the media, films, TV-documentaries, books, academical studies etc. have made it more than clear that the Germans as a people had guilt in this, although many Germans still swear that they were not conscious/didn't know about the atrocities or even the existence of the concentration camps. Others did know and show no guilt feelings.

I don't know if the Pope is going to fall to his knees like the secular German leaders had done, as described by Ryback. He will probably speak of the German guilt this time; I somehow never got the idea that he has ever denied it. But one wonders if, at Les Combes cemetry, relatives of the German soldiers had been present. People who perhaps still miss their dead loved ones, old people who in the War had lost everything, including husbands or fathers at whose graves they stood with Cardinal Ratzinger. Would that be the right time to deliver a dramatic mea culpa-like confession of the terrible moral guilt of the dead ones as well as those around their graves? People who had, in one way or another, been relentlessly reminded of that for the past 60 years and had to live with it daily? I don't know IF there had been relatives, but had there been, the normal pastoral practise wouldn't ask for the rubbing in of more salt in the wounds.

Ryback mentions that Ratzinger appeared the next day with Queen Elizabeth II and other leaders. This is an interesting coincidence. It is perhaps not as well-known that Adolf Hitler got the idea for the infamous concentration camps from the people who had first used it in a war situation:Britain. (Has Ryback ever expected the Queen to do something at least a little similar as to what he expects from Ratzinger, the ex-child Nazi-"soldier"?)

The British concentration camps in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War at the turn of the 19th-20th century succeeded where the armies of the British Empire after nearly three years could not. They completely broke the spirit of the Afrikaner/Boer soldiers because their wives and children who tended the farms and small villages were carted to concentration camps where they died in their thousands from ilnesses, hunger, cold or excessive heat. They were not housed in buildings, but in tents.

My grandmother (whose name I carry) must have been a tough child. She didn't die. Others of our family were not so fortunate. Pictures taken in those camps show the same emaciated skeletons that we all got to know from the Nazi-camps. Especially the faces and eyes of the living-dead children are haunting and profoundly sad. These were also my people, my family.

Did "the English" population know about this? Yes.
They were made fully conscious of the atrocities by an English woman, Emily Hobhouse - an angel.

When Queen Elizabeth visited South Africa decades later she declined visiting the Vroue-monument (Monument for the thousands of women and children who died in the British concentration camps in S. Africa.) May I add here that, as in the case of Germany later, Britain was the aggressor in this war - after gold had been found in the Johannesburg area...

I may be very wrong, and will make doubly sure about this, but Britain, or more specific the British people, had not shown any mea culpa- behaviour in this regard. Queen Elizabeth's refusal to show her face at the monument is a reminder of this. But from our side there is no lingering rancour against England, no expectation that the British as a nation should accept moral responsibility and guilt for the fact that especially the small Afrikaner nation's population and subsequent population growth after the Anglo-Boer War had been stinted for decades. Granted, the British didn't build gas ovens to systematically murder people! But the idea of concentration camps originated from the British generals and one feels they are the culprits, not the whole British nation.

In a recent BBC-documentary on the Holocaust the interviewer spoke to an English historian about the terrible effectiveness of the Nazi-camps thought out by Hitler and company. The Brit bowled me over with his honest and somewhat shame-faced answer: "Hitler got the idea of concentration camps from us. He knew we used it in South Africa." (Quotation perhaps not in this exact word sequence).

History is in many ways a mirror of the "fallen" state of mankind. I wonder if there is a nation on earth without guilt of some sort. Skeletons will come tumbling out of every nation's cupboard if we dare open the door. What happened in Nazi-Germany will never be completely understood. Many historians have written about the complex reasons for that tragic part of humankind's history. Most of them also admit that in the last analysis an element of total incomprehensibility remains. Some things cannot be fully explained or understood by mere mortals.

If Benedict's words at Auschwitz succeed in satisfying mr. Ryback's expectations as to this mystery, he will probably have to use the word "evil" or "sin". If Benedict should happen to admit the comprehensive guilt of his own people, it may just for a second flit through mr. Ryback's mind that this guilt he longs to hear expressed by the German pope, is shared in some form by every nation - and perhaps by every breathing soul on this planet, including himself.

Edited by: mag6nideum at: 5/12/06 6:35 pm

galantarie
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(5/13/06 3:15 pm)
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"German" pope's "duty" at Auschwitz !
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Firstly, "COLLECTIVE-GUILT" is an unRoman-Catholic Principle....

"Mag6nidium" I can also relate to you accurate stories of British atrocities done to the French in Canada during the 17th and 18th Centuries, so unbelievable...there is no way anyone could perceive of human beings doing such things "en mass" to other helpless humans by the plural thousands...And if my notations are not to be believed by fellow board members here, recently (2005) a book has been written with full documented accounts by John Mack Faragher, entitled " A Great and Noble Scheme: The tragic story of the expulsion of the French Acadians from their American Homeland"....
Why should Our Papa be guilty of Nazi atrocities committed by Nazis, just because of his German background?
Roman Catholics do not believe in culmative collective-guilt just by association. Each individual will be judged separately, NOT AS A GROUP; and justly so for Christ's winning atonement for man.
...And, why should Ryback be telling Our Holy Father what he MUST atone for as as individual? Who is Ryback to be judging? Why should the truly innocent be condemned collectively with the evil just because of nationality? He apparently also cannot perceive the true principle , so very important, of forgiveness!

Writing on forgiveness, in the same "Called to Communion" [pp.148-152] as I quoted from above, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote:

Quote:

---

It is certainly no accident that the forgiveness of sins plays an essential rle in the birth of the Church....The first episode is the consignment of the keys to Peter. The bestowel of the power to bind and loose, to open and to shut,...is in its core an authority to let in, to bring home, to forgive. ...We find the same reality again at The Last Supper
which inaugurates the new communion from and in the Body of Christ. This communion is made possible by the Lord's shedding His blood "for many for the forgiveness of sins....Finally the risen Lord establishes the communion of His peace when He first appears to the Eleven. He does so by giving them full authority to forgive....
There is nothing magical about forgiveness. But neither is it a fictitious forgetting, a refusal to accept the truth, but an entirely real process of change carried out by the Sculptor*. The removal of guilt truly 'gets rid' of something; the proof of that forgiveness has come in(to) us is that penance springs up from us. Forgiveness is in this sense an active-passive event: the creative word of power that God speaks to us produces the pain of conversion and thus becomes an active transformation. Forgiveness and penance, grace and personal conversion are not contradictions but two sides of one and the same event. This fusion of activity and passivity expresses the essential form of human existence, for all of our creativity begins with or having been created, with our participation in God's creative activity.
HERE WE HAVE REACHED A VERY ESSENTIAL POINT: I BELIEVE THAT THE CORE OF THE SPIRITUAL CRISIS OF OUR TIME HAS ITS BASIS IN THE OBSCURATION OF THE GRACE OF FORGIVENESS....

---

Then, speaking about the modern morality, Cardinal Ratzinger says:

Quote:

---

But the call for morality untimately remains without effect, because the criteria are veiled in a fog of discussions. In fact, man cannot bear sheer morality, he cannot live by it: it becomes a "law" for him that provokes contradiction and engenders sin. For this reason, where forgiveness--true forgiveness guaranteed by authority--is not recognized or believed, morality must be cut down to size, so that the conditions of sinful action can never actually occur for the individual....liberating man from guilt by procluding the occurance of the conditions that make it possible.

---

Therein Cardinal Ratzinger brings to our attention the "mordant aphorism" of Pascal.."Behold the fathers who take away the sins of the world..."; and he continues, in saying:

Quote:

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It goes without saying, however, that this method of freeing the world from guilt is all too cheap. In their heart of hearts, those who have been 'liberated' in this fashion, know perfectly well that the whole experience is untrue; they know that there is sin, that they themselves are sinners and that there must be a real way to overcome sin....Christ (only) calls those who know themselves to be sinners, and for this very reason are in need of him. Morality only retains its seriousness only where there is forgiveness--real forgiveness ensured by authority; otherwise it lapses back into pure empty conditional. But "true" forgiveness exists only when the "price", and the "equivalent value", is paid, when guilt is atoned by suffering, when there is expiation. The circular link between morality, forgiveness and expiation cannot be forced apart at any point; when one element is missing, everything else is ruined. Whether or not man can find redemption depends upon the undivided existence of this circle.

---

He then points to G~urres' essay on Sigmund Freud, the "new Messiah from Vienna", to illustrate his point in the footnotes herein...., emphasizing:

Quote:

---

Jesus, on the other hand, fulfilled the whole law, not a portion of it, and thus renewed it from the ground up: he himself, who suffered the whole tale of guilt, is at once expiation and forgiveness and is therefore also the only reliable and perennially valid basis of our morality. It is impossible to detach morality from Christology because it is impossible to separate it from expiation and forgiveness.
In Christ, the whole law is fulfilled, and morality has therby become a more concrete claim on us that it is now more possible to satisfy. From the core of faith, then, the way of renewal opens again and again for the individual, for the Church as a whole, and for humanity.

---

----------------------------------------------------------------
*This is in reference to Papa's allegory of the sculptor who sees an image in a lump of rock...and who only needs to clear away the excess, the extraneous, and the uneeded to bare the true image within it.

_________________________________________________
Benodette
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(5/13/06 7:51 pm)
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Re: "German" pope's "duty" at Auschwitz
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Mag6 Thank you for this very informative post. I did not know that the concentration camp was something first used by the British in the war in South Africa. All wars are terrible, and colonial wars are no exception. My country certainly did some terrible things in the fight for colonies, and the same is true of many other countries with a colonial past.

With regard to the Nazi use of concentration camps, I suppose the fundamental difference is that in this instance they were used with the express purpose of annihilating an entire race, not for any strategic military or territorial gains, but simply because the people were Jewish and deemed unfit to live. Millions died, treated worse than cattle. The two great European wars of the last century still reverberate down the generations because of the sheer magnitude of the loss of life. Even though I am part of a generation which is not directly touched by those wars, they are still part of my heritage. When I stand in Flanders and see the miles of white graves reaching the horizon, or look down from the heights of Monte Cassino and see endless waves of crosses spanning the hillside, the futility and horror of it all still strikes at my heart. In November, I always wear my poppy of remembrance for the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, when the carnage of the first Great War was halted.

There are still many people living who are part of the war generation. I have German friends in their early seventies who vividly remember the horror of those years. They were too young too fight, but old enough to remember. They still feel horror at what was done in the name of their nation. Eventually that will fade, but it will still be a while before it does. Someone like Joseph Ratzinger can help it to fade.

I have never been able to track down the full text of Cardinal Ratzinger's speech at Les Combes. I am pretty certain that it was a purely pastoral address which was entirely appropriate for the occasion. He has already visited Auschwitz twice. On his first visit in 1979 he said:

"I came especially to participate in this event because I think that we Germans have special reasons to do it. It should be a source of reconciliation and a warning that nothing of this kind can ever be repeated".

Again in 1980:

"Almighty God, the place we are standing in brings to memory the ruthless and severe power of lawlessness committed by the Germans. Gathered in prayer at the place of his sacrifice, we all confess to jointly make an effort to overcome the enmity and hatred between nations".

I am sure he will find the right words again which are appropriate for the occasion. I don't think for one moment that Ryback holds the Pope morally responsible in any way for the terrible events of World War II. He is expressing a hope that he will use his tremendous eloquence and his undoubted moral authority to finally heal the still painful wounds. I am confident that Pope Benedict will do that, and that we will all weep with emotion when he does so.

________________________________________________
NOW I SHALL CONTINUE, WITH THE FOLLOWING:
Paul Althaus, was a German Protestant of the 1930's. He was a follower of the teaching of the philosopher Origen!
To co-incide and find Nazism compatible with his mode of thinking, he presummed God placed his birth in a particular nation/country, therefore distinguishing his rights and "blood" from others. And so, with all those of "his" people of Teutonic origin...with a pre-set language and history. So, that in his line of thinking, there was intended to be peoples of superiority, and those of lower-castes. [Not only did this sound like the Vishnu/Hindu thinkings (which is totally anti-Christ-like) but it suited well the the German-Aryan way of contemplating the Order of Things! The only difference here, between this philosophy and Naziism, is that a Single Supreme Creator is involved, whereas Naziism is totally paganistic....men are their only gods: Man is capable of accomplishing anything he puts his mind to; and he need not be subject to any moralistic/antiqitated set of laws which would hinder his accomplishment. There is no need for penance; it is survival of the fittest...and that was how it all was intended to be.] In Althaus's warped view of "his" christianity, the "lower" castes were born to serve, others were born to rule.There is obviously a National pride in this thinking. His counrty/nation is a superior nation; he is meant to dominate, opress. Extreme "nationalism" makes the citizenry believe that their particular Nation/people's are SUPERIOR over all others. (Deutschland uber Alles). Their way is the only right way, they are of a higher intellect meant to Dominate the world. Others must come into subserviance to them. Man is degraded to a commodity, which can be expended in battle (WARS), testing for progress (MEDICAL "RESEARCH")...and when you get too old for these purposes of the State, your life can be expediated (and legally TERMINATED) at the will of/ and for the "betterment of the State". The State has/is the "Supreme Power": The only thing that one is answerable to. The weak, sick, or lame are only a hindrance to the State. (There is no such thing as "humanity".) This philosophical understanding is termed by Althaus as "Volk" ! (The absence of a terminology as "Volk" in New testament scripture was explained by saying that when the Documents of the Scriptures were written, "men had not of yet discovered the 'reality' of 'Volk'." The "reality" finally came throught the poets, scholars and thinkers, like Schiller, and Herder...the "Idealistic-Romantic" philosophers, like the later Nietsche and Hegel. He called it, "The Law of God as newly revealed for the modern German era."


"THE KINGDOM OF GOD" aka Ratzinger:

The Kingdom of God/ The kingdom of Heaven [pp.37-60in "Eschatologie: Tod und ewiges Leben" Regensburg 1977]

Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom of God or "The Kingdom of Heaven" "is the true 'lietmotiv' [theme] of Jesus' preaching"....
'The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand' means "God is close."

I want to quote from and paraphrase Papa's lovely (1990/1)book for us, "Called to Communion" ["Zur Gemeinschaft gerufen: Kirche heute verstehen", HERDER VERLAG], particularly pp. 7-25:

From the very start of Our Lord's incarnation, man's perspective of God radically changed. Prior to the Birth, God was Unknown, Figureless, a deep Mystery not to be depicted or drawn....and praying to Him was not "personal". But with the advent of Our Lord into human-form, came the understanding of a compassionate God, a God who was like us, and felt like us, saw things just as we see, taste and hear! We could now communicate with him one on one. We could listen to Him, see Him and even possibly (with intentiveness) undertand his intentions for mankind.

Jesus left us men who could "interpret [His] Jesus' words and intentions themselves in the light of the great stream of the lived liturgy."

"In both her sacramental life and proclamation of the Word, the Church constitutes a distinctive subject whose memory preserves the seemingly past word and action of Jesus as a present reality." To be condemned are "interpretations" which "assail the identity of the Church's memory and replace it with a different mentality, a move that is tantamount to attempting its destruction as memory."

In the early hours of the 20th Century, where Western man was relying solely (as if enlightened) on science and technology, a Great War ensued, proving such a godless outlook fails as "a force of ethical order." And so arose a "yearning for communion in the sacred."...There was a growing awareness that the Messiah is unthinkable without the Church"....It was found that "The Last Supper was the origin of the Church and Her permanent rle"...."The Second Vatican council also came to exercise a powerful influence in Catholicism."

But then, unfortunately, the Post WW II world developed a very sick (but powerful) "Liberation-Theology" "This new version of Liberalism was quite suseptible to being converted into a Marxist-oriented interpretation of" the Bible. The following were their most FALSE interpretations: 1) "Jesus lost his life engaged in combat against the forces of oppression"...["the suffering and struggling prolateriat 'of the People'"]. 2) presumably there is an ongoing confict between the priest and the prophet, as they mis-perceived the Old Testament to be, "which comes to its final conclusion with the victory of the oppressed and with the emergence of the classless society. The fact that Jesus hardly mentioned the Church but spoke repeatedly of The Kingdom of God can be easily intergrated into this view. The 'Kingdom' is the classless society, which is held out as the objective toward which the downtrodden people struggle...." The bibical priests and prophets correlate with the Institutions and the people. The 'popular church' is pitted against the institutional or 'Official [Roman-Catholic] Church. This 'popular church' is ceaslessly born-out of the people and in this way carries forward Jesus' cause: his struggle against institutions and their oppressive power for the sake of a new and free society that will be the 'Kingdom'."

--------------------------------------------------------------

"...an historical reading of the texts reveals that the opposition of the Kingdom and" [clash with] "the Church has no factual basis."

Herein Papa cites Leonardo Boff's book "Chiesa, carisma e poter " [Rome, 1983] through which the media and public were drawn away from Church Truth "in the process of popularization."... "In postexilic prophecy, the coming of the Kingdom is proceded by the prophet Elijah or by the anonymous 'angel' who prepares the people for it."

Jeremias, in his book "New Testament Theology" [Gtersloh, 1971]1:167, formulates this conclusion:

Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We must reduce the question quite sharply to a single point: the 'sole' meaning of the entire activity of Jesus is the gathering of the eschatological people of God. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Jesus speaks of this people using many images, particularly in the parables having to do with growth. Yet, as he does so, it becomes apparent that the 'soon' of the imminent eschatology characteristic of John the Baptist and Qumran PASSES OVER WITH JESUS INTO THE 'NOW' OF CHRISTOLOGY. JESUS HIMSELF IS GOD'S ACTION, HIS COMING, HIS REIGNING. IN JESUS' MOUTH, 'KINGDOM OF GOD' DOES NOT MEAN SOMETHING OR PLACE BUT THE PRESENT ACTION OF GOD. One may therefore translate the programmatic declaration declaration of Mark 1:15, 'the Kingdom of God is near at hand', as 'God is Near'.*We perceive once more the connection with Jesus, with his person; He himself is God's nearness. Wherever he is, is the Kingdom....But Jesus is never alone. For He came in order to gather together what was dispersed...." Herein Papa gives us the beginnings of an understanding of what is the Church: an organized, institutionalized people who through His call, respond to His call and to His person. "Among the many images that Jesus utilzed for His new people---flock, wedding guests, plantation, God's building, God's city---one stands out as His favorite, that of the family of God. Jesus is the Master of the House, and it therefore stands to reason that He addresses the members of this people as children, even though they are adults; and that to gain true understanding of themselves, those who belong to this people, must first lay down their grown-up autonomy, and acknowlege themselves as children before God."

The next step, in defining the Church, Our Papa observes is prayer (the working force of the Community), as Jesus' diciples request of Jesus a special prayer for their communal group. It is their "badge". It is an awareness that their special source is Jesus. And instead of stone-clubs and pitchforks, their fire-brands are holy prayer and fasting. This is the first "cell of the Church"...."The Community of Jesus' diciples is not an amorphous mob." Papa then goes on to the actual structures within it, the twelve, seventys, 72's, etc...

It is not stuctured as a political arm; but rather as a moralistic and teaching device safeguarding His whole flock, so as to not melt back into the 'world'. Nowhere was it's intent to bring down the secular State, or to force personal agendas upon non-believers. But through its inspiration and ensuing beauty, love of life as a Sacred Conception, it would eventually truly move mountains and people unto itself, finally to encompass the entire earth, not just a small single nation.

(The Nationalism of the Jewish Revolt of 66AD against Rome in Jerusalem, was not any part of the Church's criteria; even though in the ensuing years, Christians would be the fodder of the Lions of the Roman's 'Circus Maximus'! Constantine safeguarded the Church; but was not a Pope.... Onward 'in time' Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the European State, by Pope Leo III, as 'protector of the Holy See', (much like the Swiss Guards of today). Even unto this very day, the Vatican wields only the position of 'moral-advisor' to the U.N and the World. It has, and desires, no political power.) and thus Our Motto can be: Jesus, I trust in You.... Jesus, I trust in You.... Jesus, I trust in You. ___________________________________________

so the meaning of Papa's book, "God is Near Us, The Eucharist, the Heart of Life".

This is prophetic-expectation, Ratzinger exclaims:
Quote:"This is nowhere clearer than in His promise of God's Kingdom to the poor, in the many meanings of that term, and His linking of the gift of the Kingdom, in dissoluble manner, with repentance.
Jesus may have taken-up Apocalyptic elements of the 'prototype-Rabbinic' strand; but basicly it was anew, this, [His] image of the Kingdom of Heaven.:
Quote:"The Kingdom is announced beneath the sounds of joy, festivity and beauty, as in the parables of the Wedding Feast and the Great Banquet, as well as through images of the powerlessness, as in the parables of the Mustard Seed, The Leaven, and the Haul of Good and Bad Fish, the Field of Wheat and Tares...The Victory of God, under the species of insignificance, of the Passion: This is His new Image of the Kingdom.

The "Lignes majeures" of His teachings converge upon Himself as the Eschatological Sign of God. 'The Kindom is among you' means "Entos humin" (as an ironic reference to the Person of the Preacher who He is): The Kingdom in Person. Within here, Ratzinger places a "logion": He casts out demons "by the finger of God". Jesus

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is the Kingdom, not simply by virtue of His physical presence, but through the Holy Spirit's radiant power flowing forth from Him. In His spirit-filled activity, smashing the demonic enslavement of man, the Kingdom of God becomes reality, God taking the government of this world into His own hands....Jesus' actions, words, sufferings break the power of that alienation
which lies so heavily on human life. In liberating people, they establish God's Kingdom.

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Jesus is therefore the Kingdom, as through Him, God's Spirit acts upon the world. This is the basis of the unity of the preaching of Jesus and the Church's preaching concerning Him. It is "Christological"; since it comes from Christ in that the Spirit [the Active Reign of God] comes.
Plurality is found in the Synoptic presentations of Jesus' Eschatological discourse found in Mark 13.

Jesus has proclaimed paraboliclally the Gospel of the Kingdom as a reality, at once present and yet to come.

"Kom, Jesu kom zu deiner Kirche," Johann Sabastien Bach [Cantata BWV #161]...

Jesus is proclaimed the Christ who acts in the Spirit, thus constituting Himself "the present Form of the Kingdom"....And yet, gazing upon the Risen Christ, (the Early Church) learns that a "Parousia" has taken place already. The Church knows no theology of hope; but, rather of a "now" in which the Promise was a Presense. But, this Presense was Itself hope...It was understood to bear the future within Itself. (This is Jesus' relation to The End of times.)
It is the "Theology of Hope" : the political theology of Johann Baptist Metz. "Here and there we find gleams of real gold" BUT, the Church founded on the Gospel must not only give people hope, but give them truly evangelical-hope!:

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The kingdom of God, not being itself a political concept, cannot serve as a political criterion, by which to construct in direct fashion a programme of political action and to criticise the political efforts of other people.

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Aidan Nichols paraphrases all this of Ratzinger, by saying, the transformation of eschatology into political messianism allows the distinctive content of Christian hope to drain-away, quoting Ratzinger:

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"leaving behind nothing but a deceptive surrogate."

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On the other hand, this is not to say that the Kingdom is irrevelent to politics: it is supremely revelent, but as an ETHICAL, NOT AN ESCHATOLOGICAL REALITY.
Ratzinger says:

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"The setting assunder of eschatology and politics is one of the fundamental tasks of Christian theology."

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In opposition to warped "crooked-cross-christianity", Ratzinger adores St. Augustine, who in his "City of God" * undertook an analysis of [and attacked] the concept of state "religion"...of which Nazism obvious is. Secondly, he proved [as Aiden Nichols, O.P put forth so accurately] "beyond the unreal gods of civil-religion stands the only too real power of the demons... It is an assault on the divinisation of the 'polis'."There is no such thing as a pure, ideal earthly community; there is no earthly-theocracy. The "City of God" is not upon this plane of earthly conception; but is of a Spiritual-Sphere of an existance totally real, but not of a material "this universe" concept. It reaches the "Beyond": The realm of God and Righteousness emmanating from Jesus. It is of the same sphere as the reality of the Holy Eucharist!
All states [or "The State"] upon this worldly earth, and despite all "chritianisations" remain foreign to God. The Holy Roman Catholic Church is an alien-community to all the states upon this earth: The Church may use (and certainly has to use) earthly-realities; but is never "at-home" herein. Still, as in a "republic State", that civil-state may use and have real Christians serving within that state (to balance a purely civil authority and moderate it with godly wisdom and purity: In this manner benefiting help the citizenry); it is till only PROVISIONAL to this world. Augustine argues that for this mortal world, only the Gospel itself points us to the One, Absolute God; and the Only Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ Our Lord, King of Kings, the Beginning and End of all Things seen and unseen, Eternal, not made and not passing-away (as all else is/does pass-away).
Dr.Jos Yulo has struck the hammer on the nail ! Compare this article with the end of Cardinal Ratzinger's D-Day speech made at Arramanches on 05 June 2004 where he says:
"There is yet a third element of Christian tradition that I wish to mention, that, in the afflictions of our time, is of fundamental importance. Christian belief - following in the way of Jesus - has negated the idea of political theocracy. It has - to express it in modern terms - produced the worldliness of states, wherein Christians along with the adherents of other convictions live together in peace. Thus is distinguished the Christian belief that the Kingdom of God does not exist as a political reality, and cannot so exist, but rather, through faith, hope and love is it attained, and the world transformed from within. But under the conditions of temporality, the Kingdom of God is no worldly empire, but rather, a call for the freedom of humanity and a support for reason that it may fulfill its own mission. The temptations of Jesus were ultimately about this distinction, about the rejection of political theocracy, about the relativity of states and reason's own law, as well as about the freedom to choose, which is meant for every person. In this sense, the secular state follows from of a fundamental Christian decision, even if it required a long struggle to understand this in all its consequences. This worldly, "secular" state incorporates, in its essence, the balance between reason and religion, which I have tried here to present. However, it stands against secularism as an ideology, which would, as it were, construct the state from pure reason, released from all historical roots, and which can thus recognize no moral foundations that are not discernable to reason. All that is left it, in the end, is the positivism of the greatest number, and with it the abasement of right; ultimately, it is to be governed by a statistic. If the countries of the West were to commit wholly to this path, they could not indefinitely withstand the press of the ideologues and political theocrats. Even a secular state may - indeed, must - find its support in the formative roots from which it grew, it may and must acknowledge the foundational values without which, it would not have come to be, and without which, it cannot survive. Upon an abstract, an a-historical reason, a state cannot endure."

The Witness given to Joseph Ratzinger, (by such men as Augustine*[A] and Bonaventure, in his early manhood) and his parental cultivation of his classical-musical-mindset, molded the industry and thinking of Joseph Ratzinger (to such holy, positive and true-conviction of the beauty, truth and eternal love of God for His Creation) that the circumstances of having to live under such a Nazi Totalitarian state, only, all the more, motivated him to obtain the Priesthood: That he might be mentally free from the oppression of National-Socialist State; and strive to become a member of the Community of the Body of Christ...(totally alien to this earth, but striving to overcome the greed and hardships endured by his fellow dwellers of this planet in its present state). To alleviate the pains and sufferings of his fellow men, give them eine Hoffnung...showing them the eternal love for them by God...Ratzinger himself became a "servant of servants" [as a messenger of Christ the Living and Only true Lord].
Please read the heart-rendering "D-Day" speeches Papa gave 5/6 June 2004 at the Caen, Arromanches and LaCambe Cemetaries found in: "Werte in Zeiten des Umburchs: Die Herausforderungen der Zukunft bestehen" ("Values in Time of Upheaval: The challenges of the future, pass", the Third Chapter: The Responsibility for Peace, Making the Right-Stand/Verantwortung fr den Frieden - Richtpunkte")HERDER 2005.
I bought the book last JUNE 2005. And what he says within it are a real treasure of love, deep-understanding and hope....A partial English translation is given here:
www.logosjournal.com/issue_4.2/ratzinger.htm
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*[A]: for one the best and finest understandings as of yet, of St. Augustine, and the similtude of J.R.R.Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" (concerning the misuse of power vs. the Heavely mandated/ordained exercise therof):
Jos Yulo
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: on another note, speaking on "art", Spengler summerized Our Papa's views on J.R.R.Tolkien as follows:
Of all the Catholic writers, J R R Tolkien understood this point perhaps the best. His high-Elven master smith Feanor created the Silmarils, three jewels of astonishing beauty, and went to war when they were stolen. His defect was exceeding pride in the work of his hands. The tragedy of the Elves to some extent is the tragedy of the artists. Ultimately it is the virtues of the humble Hobbits rather than the magnificence of the Elves that will prevail. Music, like science, offers mere potential for good; the good is sui generis. For art to serve the good, the artist must first be good. Benedict XVI, as noted, stated that "reverence, receptivity and humility" characterize the musician whose art exalts rather than confuses the listener. Religion can engage art as its servant only after it has converted the artist.
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Our Papa used also Tolkien's imagery of the tree, as an example of the heavenly ordained growth of the Church.
Tolkien elegantly put it this way:

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"...my Church was not intended by Our Lord to be static or remain in perpetual childhood; but to be a living organism...which developes and changes by interaction of its bequethed divine life and history....There is no resemblance between the 'mustard seed' and the full-grown tree....the tree is the thing....and the history of a divine thing is sacred. The wise may know it began with a seed, but it is vain to try and dig it up, for it no longer exists, and the virtue and powers that it had, now reside in the tree....The keepers of the tree must look after it...prune it, remove cankers, rid it of parasites, and so-forth....But they will certainly do harm, if they are obsessed with the desire of going back to the seed..." even if they IMAGINE it was then "pretty and unafflicted by evils."

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[just by reading the admonitions of St. Paul we know that this was not true; for, even the Early Church had it's heretics and false lay teachers in dire need of apostolic correction!]

See also:
Ratzinger at Seminary for Priesthood at 19 with Alfred Lpple
Why Ratzinger/Benedict XVI became a Priest
which is part of his question and answer meeting with young collegial students in Rome:
Papa's Meeting with the young people of the Diocese of Rome 06April 2006
Here are the words Our Holy Father actually said (in Italian):

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I was born in a world very much different from today, but in the end, the situations are similar. On the one hand, there was still in those days a situation of "being Christian", in which it was normal to go to Church and accept the faith as a revelation of God, to seek to live according to that revelation. On the other hand, there was the Nazi regime, which declared loudly: "In the new Germany there will be no more priests, no longer a consecrated life", "we will no longer need any such persons. Find another profession."
But precisely in listening to these "strong" voices, and the brutality of that system that had an inhuman face, I understood that on the contrary, there was a great need for priests. This contrast "- seeing that anti-human culture - "confirmed my conviction that the Lord, the Gospel, the Faith, showed us the correct path and that we should commit ourselves to insure that this path survived. In this situation, the vocation to priesthood grew in me and with me naturally, without any great moments of conversion. Moreover, two things helped me on this path: even as a boy, aided by my parents and my parish priest, I discovered the beauty of liturgy and I always loved it more and more, because I felt that divine beauty appears to us through liturgy and it opens us up towards heaven. The second element was discovering the beauty of learning, to know God, and Sacred Scriptures, thanks to which I was introduced to the great adventure of dialog with God, which is what theology is. And so it was a joy to enter into the millenary work of theology, into the celebration of liturgy, in which God is with us and takes part in the feast along with us.
Of course, I didn't lack for difficulties. I asked myself if I really had the capacity to be celibate all my life. And being a man of theoretical rather than practical training, I also knew that it was not enough to love theology to be a good priest, but it was necessary to be always available and accessible to the young, to the old, to the sick and the poor, a need to be simple with the simple. Theology is beautiful, but one also needs the simplicity of words and (to live) a Christian life. So I asked myself: am I up to living all this and not being simply unilateral, just a theologian, for instance? But the Lord has helped me, above all through the company of friends, good priests and teachers.
Turning back to the question, I think it is important to be attentive to the signs from our Lord along the way. He talks to us through events, through persons, through encounters". "We just must pay attention.
Next, we must truly enter into friendship with Christ, into a personal relation with him, so we do not only know from others or from books who Jesus is, but that we may live a relationship of personal friendship with him that grows ever deeper, in which we can start to understand all that he asks of us.
Then, attention also to who I am, my possibilities: On the one hand, courage, on the other, humility, trust, openness, with the help of friends, the authority of the Church, the help of other priests and of family: what does the Lord want of me? Of course, this will always be a great adventure, but we succeed in life only if we have the courage of adventure, if I trust that the Lord will never leave me alone, that the Lord will be with me and will help me.

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"Frauenkirche, Munich 1944:
Corpus Christi, 31 May 1945:

Ratzinger, as Master of Ceremonies at age 20 in Partenkirchen, 06 JULY 1947:


From Peter Seewald we read:
The Pope is "not a politician," Seewald said. "He has no next election waiting in the wings, only the Last Judgment. And Benedict has no intention of distancing himself from the magnificent legacy of his predecessor. On the contrary, he wants to bring it to full fruition. And that is plenty to accomplish."

What governing style does Seewald observe in the present Pope?:
Ratzinger has found a quite distinctive, very subtle style. Reserved, calm, almost shy, and yet he very firmly goes his own way. There is an air of meekness that you recognize from the Gospels. The new Pope makes himself little-- and gives the impression of being that much greater, and as a result his office is all the more accessible. In a certain way Benedict is a born teacher, and what he has started with his new school of faith may be the greatest catechesis since the time of the apostles.
Since the papal election Ratzinger's image has changed radically. He is now "the most powerful German of all times. But he does not represent an imperialistic power or a misanthropic ideology; instead he stands exclusively for positive things like love, peace, and solidarity."

"Harroldean":
Thanks so much again.
Did you also know that the 12 stars on the emblem of the "European Union" stand for THE CROWN OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY! *?

Mary will prevail and protect the EU, despite Turkey and those who have forgotten her....
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*The Vatican plans to issue its first Euro coins bearing a bust of Benedict XVI , according to information from the Vatican's numismatic bureau.

Catholic World News reports that the Bureau will release a full set of coins, denominated in euros, bearing a bust of the Pope on one side, with the inscription "Citta del Vaticano" and 12 stars representing the European Union, symbolic of the crown of Mary.

The other side of the coin will be the same as the obverse of coins minted by other member-states of the European Union.

As a party to the EU agreement on currency, the Vatican has the right to mint its own distinctive coins; this will be the sixth set of euros printed since the agreement came into force in December 2000.

The Vatican coins, will be offered for sale in two different sets, with one special set including a commemorative medal of St Matthew the evangelist. These sets, bearing a cover price of $50 (30) and $232 (140).

The euros minted by the Vatican are legal tender in all of the countries adhering to the EU monetary accord.
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