Pope Benedict XVI to the CINOP and Regular Christians

Pope Benedict XVI to the CINOP and Regular Christians
In pursuit of the truth – www.cinopsbegone.com – Sunday, September 26, 2010

“In the course of his sermon in Mainz on November 16, 1980, the Holy Father (J.P.II) spoke of the new dimensions of the Christian social doctrine and our social obligations: … A “solidarity” community is not a community for today alone; it includes yesterday and tomorrow as well… That is why the Pope emphasized in Mainz that “the social question has today a world-wide dimension.”… Only when we keep in mind the justice of the whole world can we rightfully discern what justice means for us here and now… As Christians, we must not sleep again in a time of crisis, as happened to some extent in the nineteenth century. “Sept. 21st {Co-Workers of the Truth – Meditations – Ignatius, 1992, p. 301}}

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations …” (Mt. 28:19). But the dynamism of this mission, this openness and breadth of the Gospel, cannot be revised to read: “Go into the world and become the world yourselves!” Go into the world and confirm it in its secularity!” The opposite is true. The holy mystery of God, the mustard seed of the Gospel, cannot be identified with the world but is rather destined to permeate the whole world. That is why we must find again the courage to embrace what is sacred, the courage to distinguish what is Christian – not in order to segregate it, but in order to transform it – the courage to be truly dynamic.” September 22nd

“A favorite complaint against Christianity is that …it has not succeeded in changing the world.., Heinrich Boll, on the other hand, declared he preferred even the worst Christian world to any non-Christian one: without Christianity there would be no care of the lame, the outcast, the incurable… Today, when the return of a world without Christ seems imminent, the declaration that Christ has not changed the world is enough to make one shiver… On the other hand … that ice-cold, deliberate contempt for humanity that Heisenberg foresaw when he said that concentration camps would be but the prelude to the far greater horrors if the light of Christian Faith were to be extinguished.” Sept. 23rd

“We must not cease, in practice, to live lives centered, in this Catholic world-open manner, on the Eucharist and on prayer – that is our permanent work for peace, which is more effective and more genuine than the new “marches” that no longer follow the crucified Christ in procession but only the slogans on their placards, that no longer wind their way through the streets in peaceful prayer but with a cry of anger that wants to create its own law…” Sept. 23rd

“For example, who can ever tell an enquirer comprehensibly and reasonably briefly what “being a Christian” really means… Theology is not measuring up to its task when it concentrates happily on itself and its own erudition; it is failing, even more radically when it invents “doctrines to its own taste” (2 Tim 4:3) {May it be “LIBERATION THEOLOGY” ghk} and thus offers stones instead of bread, its own talk instead of the word of God.”Sept. 25th

“…acceptance into the community has the form of a sacrament: Baptism and catechesis are inseparable…The Apostle {John} opposed to the arrogance of an intellectual elite the unsurpassability of simple faith and of the insight it bestows. The model of enlightened reason cannot assimilate the structure of faith. That is our problem today..."Sept. 26th + George H. Kubeck