The Wisdom of Pope Benedict XVI*

The Wisdom of Pope Benedict XVI*
On the family, faith, Church and being wise – www.cinopsbegone.com – May 26, 2011

“The original cell of all human society is the family. That is where we learn the fundamental relationships of human society and, consequently, also the ability to relate to God. Only in the family can togetherness of love overcome the opposition of otherness to true community. It is there that the generations learn to understand one another.

“On the preservation of the family depends a nation’s capacity for peace? When the family no longer brings together male and female, old and young, the basic human relationships are changed into a battle of all against all.

“That is why the transmission from fathers to children is the prerequisite for the beginning of the Messianic peace. And the destruction of the family is therefore the most certain sign of the Antichrist, the disturber of the peace, disguised as one who brings freedom and peace.” May 23rd

“Faith makes demands on our comfort, on what we plan, what we propose for ourselves. The sickness of our time is a false idea of freedom that confuses freedom with preference and thinks that life is rich, familiar, and beautiful only when we act and live in a way that gives pleasure to ourselves and conform to our desires.
“Psychologists tell us that it is the absence of demands, of challenges, of opposition that runs counter to human nature that makes us sick, and causes us to confront another with hostility.” 22nd

“If the Church were to accommodate herself to the world in any way that would entail a turning away from the Cross, this would not lead to a renewal of the Church, but only to her death…
“In other words, the Christian Faith is a scandal for people of every age. That the eternal God takes an interest in human beings and knows us; that the Incomprehensible became comprehensible in the name of Jesus; that he who is immortal suffered on the Cross; that resurrection and eternal life have been promised to us mortals – to believe all this is a disturbing challenge for mankind.” May 21st

“Cardinal Newman: “Being wise with someone else’s head … is, to be sure, inferior to being wise oneself, but it is infinitely superior to the sterile pride of one who does not achieve the independence of being wise himself, yet at the same time despises the dependence of the one who believes on the word of another.”… But the individual who thus makes himself lord of the truth deceives himself, for truth shuns the arrogant and reveals itself only to those who approach it in an attitude of reverence, of respectful humility.” May 20

George H. Kubeck, *Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Co-Workers of the Truth, Meditations Each Day, Ignatius - 1992