Benedict, Off-the-Cuff
April 15, 2010
Elizabeth Scalia
Rocco Palmo has early excerpts of some spontaneous remarks made by Pope Benedict XVI at mass, today:
We must rather have the courage, the joy, the great hope that there is eternal life, that eternal life is real life and that from this real life comes the light that illuminates this world as well.
The Pope noted that, when we look at things this way, penitence is a grace—even though of late we have sought to avoid this word, too.
Now, under the attacks of the world, which speak to us of our sins, we see that to be able to do penance is a grace—and we see how necessary it is to do penance, that is, to recognize what is wrong in our lives: to recognize one’s sin, to open oneself to forgiveness, to prepare for pardon, to allow oneself to be transformed.
The pain of penance, the pain of purification and transformation—this pain is grace, because it is renewal—it is the work of the Divine Mercy.
Pope Benedict concluded his homily with a prayer that our lives might become true life, eternal life, love and truth.
The story is only just breaking and it will be interesting to see how the press excerpts and interprets his remarks, the full text of which is not yet transcribed and released.
I suggest we wait for a chance to read the complete text, before jumping anywhere, pro or con.
Reading further into the excerpts at Rocco’s (as we await the whole transcript) I am struck by something that is rather exciting: Benedict is daring—and many will say how dare he—to teach at this moment. He is daring to dive into the deep waters, here, and talk about the salvific effect of doing penance, and the graces found therein.
It’s staggering, when you think of it. It’s up there with Paul saying, “I rejoice in this suffering” except that Benedict talks about rejoicing in penance, which—by its very definition—takes upon it shame, humiliation, guilt and works to transform all of that, by the grace of God, into something finer; a penitential mindset is the most optimistic and trusting mindset in the world, because it says “I know this stinking compost heap is going to bring sustenance and beauty into the strained garden of world.”
Beneath the sorrow and the pain, there lies the stuff that builds us up; the stuff of joy.
Even out of all of this misery, all of this slow-learning, all of this bald stupidity, penance is and will be transformative: “See, I make all things new.”
Elizabeth Scalia is a contributing writer for First Things. She blogs at The Anchoress.
Comments:
4.15.2010 | 9:34pm
Krakow says:
And to think that only a few months ago the Pope was preoccupied with the formation of a 'true world political authority'.
4.16.2010 | 3:32am
The Laughing Peasant says:
Dont he always get it right, though, dont he? That Pope sure can pope.
4.16.2010 | 11:03am
John Cummins says:
"And to think that only a few months ago the Pope was preoccupied with the formation of a 'true world political authority'."
In that encyclical, he simply reminded everyone of morals and principles that they already know and which many of them willfully violate.
The pope is more socialist than Obama.
In that encyclical, he simply reminded everyone of morals and principles that they already know and which many of them willfully violate.
The pope is more socialist than Obama.
4.16.2010 | 11:08am
John Cummins says:
Pope Urges Forming New World Economic Order to Work for the ‘Common Good’
http://tinyurl.com/pope-common-good-nyt
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/world/europe/08pope.html)
CARITAS IN VERITATE
http://tinyurl.com/caritas-in-veritate-bxvi
(http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html)
http://tinyurl.com/pope-common-good-nyt
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/world/europe/08pope.html)
CARITAS IN VERITATE
http://tinyurl.com/caritas-in-veritate-bxvi
(http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html)
4.16.2010 | 11:53am
Paul says:
I should like only to point out that an international political authority and socialism aren't the same thing. One is the question about how comprehensive should be in terms of who it includes. The other is a question about how goods should be distributed and involves an assumption that all goods should be treated as collective goods. In other words, socialism, for all its ills, is not about who should be included within a political regime but a question about how a regime should be organized. So, to reiterate, you can't call someone a socialist just because they think there should be an international authority of some sort charged with some kind of jurisdiction or other. Moreover, I seriously doubt the pope is suggesting that all the powers of the nation state be entrusted to an international authority. At any rate, we should be careful about how we employ terms and careful to understand the words of others in the way the speaker understands it and not so as to say something we would like to attribute to them or something that already confirms our prejudices for or against the person.
4.16.2010 | 12:24pm
Michael Bender says:
To be a true socialist you must be willing to deny liberty: "the right to act on one's own judgment, free from coercion".
It's a slippery slope to be sure but I doubt that this Pope will ever venture far enough to slide down it.is
It's a slippery slope to be sure but I doubt that this Pope will ever venture far enough to slide down it.is
4.16.2010 | 1:32pm
John Cummins says:
"To be a true socialist you must be willing to deny liberty: 'the right to act on one's own judgment, free from coercion'. "
There has never, ever been nor will there ever be, a human society without some socialist structures, where the maintenance of the traditional and/or agreed-upon common good is the source of coercions upon individual actions. The family/tribe/clan is a socialist structure. The Trinity is likened to a family. The Kingdom of Heaven is the perfect socialist structure, the yearning for which has given rise to the attempts at all the others. Do you recall the picture of the early church at the end of Acts 2?
"All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people."
In light of this, every man under his own vine and fig tree looks so OT.
There's a reason God set the Torah, an echo and delineation of his nature and of a perfect world, in a tribal society instead of in the contemporaneous Egyptian Kingdom, Troy or Crete, or later in the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the 20th century USA. There's a reason he set it in one of the scrawniest, nastiest ones (which didn't even have its own language, but took it from the Canaanites and first wrote it in Canaanite script) instead of among the sprawling Celts. Nation-states are in order to achieve what tribes can't, and because nation-states don't ultimately work either, the only hope is the Kingdom of Heaven, which, originally and finally, is one tribe, one family, with one head, the only way humanity will ever have the unity it thinks it wants but doesn't know why.
It's been said repeatedly: capitalism works because it's in accord with human greed; communism/socialism doesn't because it presumes human goodness. The coercions of the merchants of the earth upon ordinary people in the last days, foreshadowed by those of the present, unfettered financial institutions and their perpetual, serpentine efforts to avoid coercions of regulation will compel a longing for something like socialism as never before.
There has never, ever been nor will there ever be, a human society without some socialist structures, where the maintenance of the traditional and/or agreed-upon common good is the source of coercions upon individual actions. The family/tribe/clan is a socialist structure. The Trinity is likened to a family. The Kingdom of Heaven is the perfect socialist structure, the yearning for which has given rise to the attempts at all the others. Do you recall the picture of the early church at the end of Acts 2?
"All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people."
In light of this, every man under his own vine and fig tree looks so OT.
There's a reason God set the Torah, an echo and delineation of his nature and of a perfect world, in a tribal society instead of in the contemporaneous Egyptian Kingdom, Troy or Crete, or later in the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the 20th century USA. There's a reason he set it in one of the scrawniest, nastiest ones (which didn't even have its own language, but took it from the Canaanites and first wrote it in Canaanite script) instead of among the sprawling Celts. Nation-states are in order to achieve what tribes can't, and because nation-states don't ultimately work either, the only hope is the Kingdom of Heaven, which, originally and finally, is one tribe, one family, with one head, the only way humanity will ever have the unity it thinks it wants but doesn't know why.
It's been said repeatedly: capitalism works because it's in accord with human greed; communism/socialism doesn't because it presumes human goodness. The coercions of the merchants of the earth upon ordinary people in the last days, foreshadowed by those of the present, unfettered financial institutions and their perpetual, serpentine efforts to avoid coercions of regulation will compel a longing for something like socialism as never before.
4.16.2010 | 1:53pm
John Cummins says:
"I seriously doubt the pope is suggesting that all the powers of the nation state be entrusted to an international authority."
Paul, absolutely; he's just telling to do the right thing, and with such factual, conceptual, moral and expressive aplomb, that they should be embarrassed upon reading it.
Paul, absolutely; he's just telling to do the right thing, and with such factual, conceptual, moral and expressive aplomb, that they should be embarrassed upon reading it.
4.16.2010 | 2:11pm
Paul says:
John,
I wonder whether you aren't conflating socialism with the orientation of all just regimes towards the common good. Moreover, it seems to me concession to human greed is not the only justification proffered for free market economies. First, the Torah's injunction against not stealing presupposes that there is such a thing as that which we denominate by the phrase private property--one's own rightful holding (which is separate from the question as to whether all or any of one's holdings belong to a person by right). Moreover, the passage in Acts has always been taken by the church to be descriptive rather than normative. Or to the degree that any treated it as normative, it was never put on par with the primary or immediate precepts of the natural law--it was not taken to be a pattern both right for all persons or even all Christians at all times and in all places. Noteworthy is the fact that the Apostle Paul encourages those who are wealthy to be generous with their wealth. He does not prescribe the Acts 2 scenario. Moreover, given the story of Peter and Ananias and Sapphira suggests that the giving of individual property to the church was a voluntary behavior rather than an injunction or something mandatory in terms of charity (much less justice). Otherwise, part of Peter's rebuke makes no sense at all. The rebuke and punishment was not for withholding some of their property for themselves but, rather, for lying about it.
I wonder whether you aren't conflating socialism with the orientation of all just regimes towards the common good. Moreover, it seems to me concession to human greed is not the only justification proffered for free market economies. First, the Torah's injunction against not stealing presupposes that there is such a thing as that which we denominate by the phrase private property--one's own rightful holding (which is separate from the question as to whether all or any of one's holdings belong to a person by right). Moreover, the passage in Acts has always been taken by the church to be descriptive rather than normative. Or to the degree that any treated it as normative, it was never put on par with the primary or immediate precepts of the natural law--it was not taken to be a pattern both right for all persons or even all Christians at all times and in all places. Noteworthy is the fact that the Apostle Paul encourages those who are wealthy to be generous with their wealth. He does not prescribe the Acts 2 scenario. Moreover, given the story of Peter and Ananias and Sapphira suggests that the giving of individual property to the church was a voluntary behavior rather than an injunction or something mandatory in terms of charity (much less justice). Otherwise, part of Peter's rebuke makes no sense at all. The rebuke and punishment was not for withholding some of their property for themselves but, rather, for lying about it.
4.16.2010 | 5:49pm
Ars Artium says:
The image of each person under his and/or his family's own vine and fig tree while living in community with others in the same situation is a figure of peace and human contentment. Would that this could be so and that each would have enough. Those who are oriented to strive and struggle for much more than enough would have the freedom to create their wealth and to own it. This is not a zero-sum world. Certain persons are oriented toward wealth-creation and, as long as their wealth is honestly gained, should live as they see fit. Those of us who choose otherwise but have enough should try to avoid temptation to the cardinal sin of Envy.
4.16.2010 | 5:51pm
Leavitt Peter says:
Elizabeth. Scalia is talking about Benedict's excellent remark that penance is a form of grace. This is something that no Socialist that I'm aware of has ever done given the assorted historical disasters of this form of economic and political governance, including those of national socialism in Germany, Communist socialism the Soviet Union, and Castro's socialism in Cuba.
On the subject of priestly sodomite sex abuse, Benedict has done an excellent job of curtailing what he terms this "filth" in the church by a a tiny minority of priests who broke their vows of sexual abstinence.
George Weigel in a recent Ethics and Public Policy Center article remarked as follows,
"The sexual abuse of the young is a global plague. Portraying the Catholic Church as its epicenter is malicious and false. 40-60% of sexual abuse takes place within families. There were 290,000 reported cases of abuse in public schools in 1991-2000. There were six credible cases of sexual abuse reported in the Catholic Church in the United States in 2009: six, in a Church of some 65,000,000 members. Having learned the lessons of 2002, the Catholic Church in America today is likely the safest environment for children in the country. No institution working with the young -- not the public schools, not the teachers unions, not the Scouts -- has done as much to face its past failures in this area and to put in place policies to prevent such horrors in the future."
On the subject of priestly sodomite sex abuse, Benedict has done an excellent job of curtailing what he terms this "filth" in the church by a a tiny minority of priests who broke their vows of sexual abstinence.
George Weigel in a recent Ethics and Public Policy Center article remarked as follows,
"The sexual abuse of the young is a global plague. Portraying the Catholic Church as its epicenter is malicious and false. 40-60% of sexual abuse takes place within families. There were 290,000 reported cases of abuse in public schools in 1991-2000. There were six credible cases of sexual abuse reported in the Catholic Church in the United States in 2009: six, in a Church of some 65,000,000 members. Having learned the lessons of 2002, the Catholic Church in America today is likely the safest environment for children in the country. No institution working with the young -- not the public schools, not the teachers unions, not the Scouts -- has done as much to face its past failures in this area and to put in place policies to prevent such horrors in the future."
4.16.2010 | 10:12pm
Ken says:
Now, under the attacks of the world, which speak to us of our sins, we see that to be able to do penance is a grace.
Wise and beautiful words, but who in the Vatican is doing penitence?
Wise and beautiful words, but who in the Vatican is doing penitence?
4.16.2010 | 11:09pm
amie says:
Socialism is coercive. As a socialist told me once as he led my youth group meeting, "I believe in the depravity of man and that is why the state must control people and business." But free markets allow the creativity, ingenuity, and altruism of the human person to create a better world. John Cummins, a state does need welfare, but not a welfare state. Greed can't ever be eradicated, whatever the type of government. "Everyone thinks of changing humanity; no one thinks of changing himself," said Eric Hoffer.
4.17.2010 | 12:49am
Mims Carter says:
Penance is all well and good. More is needed. Complete honesty about the abuses of those in the church, and the turning over of all who have broken laws to civil authorities is also called for. I dislike all the talk about the church being 'attacked' by outsiders. It smacks of false notions of persecution. Members of the church committed horrible crimes against innocent people. The church at the highest levels tried to cover this up. They were caught. That is not persecution.
4.17.2010 | 2:07am
Gordon says:
Benedict XVI is doing a unbelievable ministry as the secular world attempts to push and pull the Church to what they hope to be it's appropriate end. We all know that it is not going to go their way. If any of you doubt the current Pope, I suggest you pick up any of the numerous publications of his, ranging from books prior to his becoming Pope, and of course his encyclicals which he has written since becoming the Vicar of Christ. I thank God daily for the grace he gives me and the wisdom and grace my parents had in their decision to be or remain Catholic and to give the faith to their children.
Peace and God Bless! Alleluia, Alleluia!
Peace and God Bless! Alleluia, Alleluia!
4.20.2010 | 12:28am
Michae Joseph says:
As a revert, I think that's the term to describe a cradle Catholic who went wayword and has then came back home to Rome, I do find the news frightening to my faith. The media coverage here in New Zealand is,as it probably is everywhere, very much unbalanced and anti-Catholic. In 2005 I came to that wonderful truth that the Catholic Church is the Church that Christ had found but this is the first time that i have genuinely felt very frightened about the coverage circulating across the globe especially with the denigrating of the efforts that Pope Benedict has done to rid the church of its filth that has been allowed to fester for far too long. However there is somehting indeed that is holding up the Church throughout its two thousand year history. No man made institute could survive for that long, or even a quarter of that lengthy period, with a history of such internal dysfunction, kleptocracy, and outright sinful behaviour. I'm not implying some form of mighty prowress but I am inquisitive to know if there is a natural explanation for why the Catholic Church has outlived and outflourished empires and civilizations despite its anti-popes, crusades, inquisitions and other hisorical horrors, to give it a more personal perspective I am a proud New Zealander and the son of Samoan immigrants but the Catholic Church is older than my two nationalities. Personally, and you may disagree, one of the reasons why the Church has remained firm despite its myriad of atrocities is the prayers of many of our faithful as well as our elder family members in the faith who take our petitions to the throne of God and most importantly our lady, the most powerful of all intercessors. In my fear I can only pray for the Pope and for First Things. Mary mother of purity pray for us!
amen.