Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 12 — The Georgia Bulletin, June 6, 1985
Cardinal Ratzinger
Church Has Gone To "Self-Destruction” Since Council
BY AGOSTINO BONO
ROME (NC) - In the 20
years since the Second
Vatican Council, the
Catholic Church has passed
from “self-criticism to self-
destruction,” said Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger, head of
the Vatican Congregation
for the Doctrine of the
Faith.
“We hoped for a leap for
ward and instead we find
ourselves faced with a pro
gressive process of
decadence which has been
developed in large
measure under the slogan
of a so-called ‘spirit of the
council,’ ” he said in a book
titled “Report on the
Faith.”
The past two decades
have been “decidedly un
favorable for the Catholic
Church” because they have
not produced the unity ex
pected, he said.
The cardinal also
criticized U.S. Catholics —
saying some U.S. moralists
are blurring the distinction
between good and evil, and
some U.S. nuns have
adopted a “feminist men
tality” causing identity
crises in religious life.
The cardinal, in addition,
said he preferred the term
“Body of Christ” to that of
“People of God’’ to
describe the Catholic
Church. He also called the
Bible a “Catholic book.”
“Report on the Faithi,”
written by an Italian jour
nalist from a series of in
terviews with the cardinal
last August, was published
in Italian May 30 by Edi-
zioni Paoline, a Catholic
publishing house in Milan,
Italy.
At a press conference in
Rome the same day, Car
dinal Ratzinger said the
views in the book are
“completely personal” and
“in no way implicate the in
stitutions of the Holy See.”
In the book, the cardinal
defined the “spirit of the
council” as the belief that
“everything which is new
will always, and no matter
what, be better than that
which was or that which
is.” This is a “pernicious
anti-spirit” which discre
dits the council, he added.
The church must now
seek “a new equilibrium
after the exaggerations of
an indiscriminate opening
to the world and after too
many positive interpreta
tions of an agnostic and
atheistic world,” he said.
“Christians are not op
posed to the world. It is the
world which opposes them
when they proclaim the
truth about God, about
Christ, about man,” he ad
ded.
Regarding U.S. “mora
lists,” whom he did not
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identify, Cardinal Ratz
inger said their blurring of
good and evil results from
“consequentialism” and
‘ ‘ pr opor tionalism. ’ ’
In consequentialism
“nothing is good or bad in
itself,” he said. “The
goodness of an act depends
only on its ends and of its
foreseeable and calculable
consequences.”
That view is prevalent
“in the United States where
it is elaborated and diffus
ed more than anywhere
else,” the cardinal said.
Some moralists have
tried to soften ‘conse
quentialism’ by ‘propor-
tionalism,”’ The cardinal
said. In that view “the
morality of an act depends
on the evaluation and com
parison made by man
among the goods which are
at stake,” he Said.
“Once again it is an in
dividual calculation, this
time of the ‘proportion’ be
tween good and evil,” he
said.
The book does not include
one of the strong direct
criticisms of U.S. Catholics
that was contained in
magazine articles based on
the interviews.
In the articles, Cardinal
Ratzinger said many U.S.
Catholics dissent from the
church’s teaching authori
ty rather than from the
secular values of their
wealthy nation.
In his criticism of the life
of U.S. nuns, the cardinal
says that “a certain
feminist mentality has
entered even women’s
religious communities.
“This entrance is par
ticularly conspicuous, even
in its most extreme forms,
in the North American con
tinent,” he said.
“All this has brought
lacerating problems of
identity and the loss of suf
ficient motivation in many
women for continuing in
religious life,” he said.
The problem is confined
to non-cloistered religious
women, he added.
“Cloistered women, and
contemplative orders, have
resisted rather well” and
continue dedicating
themselves “to praise of
God, prayer, virginity and
separation from the
world,” said Cardinal Rat
zinger.
Non-cloistered religious
women, however, are “in
grave crisis,” he said,
which feminism has pro
moted by encouraging:
— “The discovery of pro
fessionalism.
— “The concept of ‘social
assistance’ which has
substituted that of
‘charity’.
— “The entrance,
sometimes without any
filtering, of psychology and
psychanalysis in every con
vent school.
— “the devotion of time
to practicing the techni
ques of yoga and Zen.”
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Renewal Generates
New Parish Needs
DAD’S DAY — Cayce Siehndel 7, of Kansas
City, Mo., ponders a move as her father Gary
watches the checkerboard. On Father’s Day,
June 16, it’s Dad’s turn to relax with his
children. (NC photo by Bets Anderson Bailly)
BY JERRY FILTEAU
CHICAGO (NC) - An in-
depth study of U.S.
Catholic parish life shows
that renewal since the
Second Vatican Council has
generated a wide range of
new needs, participants at
a national symposium in
Chicago were told May 29
and 30.
Parishes have undergone
“dramatic changes of
structure, dramatic
changes of leadership and
of practice” since Vatican
II, but at the same time
they have shown
“remarkable stability,”
said Father Philip Murnion
in a summation speech at
the end of the symposium.
The symposium was con
vened to discuss the Notre
Dame Study of Catholic
Parish Life, begun in 1981
to give the most extensive,
indepth data on U.S.
Catholic parish life ever
dfithprpH
The meeting, titled “The
American Catholic Parish
in Transition,” drew about
100 social scientists,
scholars from other fields,
leaders in pastoral plan
ning and ministry^ and
representatives of founda
tions that fund research in
religious fields.
Father Murnion, head of
the National Pastoral Life
Center in New York and
one of the originators of the
Notre Dame study, said in
reviewing major issues
raised by the meeting that
key problems he saw in
parishes were in
dividualism, lack of train
ing of parish leaders, and
poor quality in aspects of
parish life.
Key needs, he said, in
clude:
— Community. “A cor
porate notion of belong
ing...a corporate sense of
common worth is
something we ought to be
protecting and caring for”
in Catholic parishes.
— Leadership. “Consid
erable attention has to be
given to leadership train
ing for all,” and adequate
funding to pay full-time lay
professionals is needed.
— Liturgical music. “It
is the quality of our music
that shapes the environ
ment we live in.”
— Liturgical training for
all those involved in liturgy
planning or ministry.
“Typically, not every
where but all two common
ly, the diocesan liturgy of
fice is not interested in
training but in control.”
— Effective preaching. A
homilist should be “so
familiar” with the Bible
that its words are his own.