It's always heartening to hear stories like this, which you rarely do amidst all the attacks on the Pope for the things he may be doing wrong. So here's one for the people who recognize that the glass is half full, too...

Some tradition is in there somewhere

good point, Gladius.  And after reading the article, I don't know what to think of it.  As a sedevacantist, I am inclined to reject everything he does as bad, but these things are good (dare I say, hopeful?) things.  

I read the story.  If that makes a man "take heart", he must be truly desperate.  Grasp at all the straws you can find, folks.  That article shows NOTHING about him that we did not already know.

okay Simon...

The practice of mixing truth with lies is known as Cabala or Ying-Yang. In other words the heretical  oriental concept that God is 1/2 good and 1/2 bad

Just a bit of advice:

Learn to phrase things accurately.  

ALL sedevacantists "recognize the Pope"; they do not recognize Benedict's claim to be such.  So, it would be better to say, "...to all who recognize Benedict XVI/Ratzinger as Pope..."

God speed, my lady.

If I say anything other than "the pope" then I myself would be denying him, in however a roundabout way. But since I don't deny him, I won't.

I would also like to point out that between night and dawn, there is about a half hour of "in between". In order for the pope to quit thinking and acting like a complete liberal... or "convert" if you prefer to put it like that... it's not going to be an overnight process. It's like recovering from poison or something... it doesn't leave your system all at once and immediately. There will be a 'detox' period.

Whoever wants to admit it or no, this man can... if he gets the contents of his head set aright... change for the better. If freemasons can convert to Catholicism, then there is yet hope for the Pope. (No, I don't mean to say he's a freemason.) But it may not be with all the speed and immediate change that everyone would like. It may be... like most natural processes are... a gradual growth in the right direction.

Or to put it another way... there are probably dozens of men around the Pope, who would not, even under the pain of torture say some of the things he said in that article. The fact that he HAS said them is a good sign, even if it doesn't mean an overnight change.

I agree with Dulcamara about 'the pope." I wouldn't expect someone writing on a mainstream Traditional message board to have to call the present so-called pope the so-called pope. Or words to that effect.

Of course, I don't agree about the "pope."

The basic idea of the papacy is that the pope keeps the Catholic Faith and maintains all Godly traditions WHOLE AND ENTIRE.

Half-way doesn't cut it. Two out of three IS bad.

I don't care if Charles Manson is very strong on every Commandment besides Thou Shalt Not Kill. The weakness he shows on that one is enough to put him in prison.

The ways in which Josef Ratzinger nullifies and deconstructs Christian faith are so devastatingly radical that it's an injustice to the likes of Nestorius and Timothy the Cat and Jansen to speak of him as a mere "heretic."

He offers NOTHING that is good. Because he offers nothing real. It's all empty words. EVERYTHING with a post-Modernist pseudo-orthodox doubletalker like that is false and pernicious.

St Athanasius asked, "What do I care if Arius believes in the Resurrection if he rejects the Godhood?" But he believed that Arius believed in the Resurrection. With these neo-orthodox double agents you can't be sure they believe anything. Not that that matters when the question is whether or not they are popes. All it takes for them not to be popes is the holding of one heresy.

I have the funny feeling sometimes that I am the only one in the Traditional world who has actually read any of his books. The truth is that Josef Ratzinger has a dismissive attitude towards Jesus Christ and kind of rolls his eyes at the primitive naivete of the whole "Savior of Mankind" proposition as applied to the historical figure of the Galilean Jesus. He holds that Christians have made too much of Christ throughout the ages. He condemns this as "Christological triumphalism."

Actual Christians know, of course, that only his neo-orthodox penchant for mealy-mouthed obfuscation makes him refrain from saying what his little bud Hans Kung does say: that the Jesus of the Gospels made too much of Himself.

And after this we care that he pretends to want more Latin Masses in the world?

Quote from: trent13

As a sedevacantist, I am inclined to reject everything he does as bad...

I do not reject everything he does as bad.  No one is so bad that they do not do some good, however occasionally.  That is not the point or the measuring stick.

Everything he says and does as a "pope" is bad. He has no business pretending to be pope. If he writes an encyclical in which he says that all must be kind to their mothers it is bad. It is bad that he dares to write "encyclicals." It is bad that he dares to say anything to anyone as though he were a pope and not just some snazzily if oddly clad Bavarian Mozart fan who once acted as a priest.

Of course, the proposition "Be nice to Mom" would not be bad.

If he visits a hospital as "pope" it is bad.

If he gives bread to the hungry as "pope" it is bad. "Ah, such a good Christian can't be a heretic! He must be pope!" That's one reason why it's bad.

I suppose that I would argue that if he kindly said, "That's okay" if the papal steward spilled hot soup in his lap, that would be good. Even though he has no business being served soup by a papal steward to begin with.