[Telesphorus]

http://www.sspxasia.com/Docuмents/SiSiNoNo/1994_June/They_Think_Theyve_Won_PartVI.htm

CARDINAL RATZINGER: A PREFECT WITHOUT FAITH
AT THE CONGREGATION FOR THE FAITH

 

CARDINAL RATZINGER THE "THEOLOGIAN"

Pope Paul VI's discretion and persistence most effectively handed over supreme control and power to the "new theology" in the Catholic world. There is absolutely no room for doubt on this score. However, the triumph of this "new theology" has not meant a triumph for the Catholic Faith. The German theologian Dormann, referring to the last Council (The Theological Way of John Paul II and the Spirit of Assisi) writes, "Never before has a Papal encyclical, written barely fifteen years previously, been repudiated in so short a time and so completely by those very persons whom it condemns, as Humani Generis (1950)." The Jesuit and "new theologian" Henrici has given us a portrait of the present situation:

"Nowadays, when theological professorships are in the hands of our Concilium colleagues, almost all of the theologians who have been named bishops in the last few years have come from the ranks of Communio (a more moderately progressive journal)…Balthasar, De Lubac, and Ratzinger, the founders [of Communio], have all become cardinals" (30 Days, December 1991).

Presently, in the Church-affiliated universities, including Pontifical universities, the founding fathers of the "new theology" are being studied; doctoral theses are being prepared on Blondel, De Lubac, and Von Balthasar. The Osservatore Romano as well as Civilta Cattolica praise these modernists and their ways of "thought" and the Catholic press falls in line: Everyone falls into line with the one occupying Peter's throne.

At the present time, a "new theologian" holds the exalted position of President of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

For convenience's sake, let us distinguish between Ratzinger the "theologian" and Ratzinger the Prefect. Actually, in this case, such a distinction is not valid; for we are not dealing here with debatable questions, but with matters of Faith. On the other hand, a Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith who doesn't have the Faith himself would simply go against common sense, besides the fact that Ratzinger the Prefect is in complete accord with Ratzinger the "theologian."

Ratzinger the "theologian's" work, Einfuhrung in das Christentum, which was published in France under the title La Foi Chretienne, hier et aujourd'hui (The Christian Faith, Yesterday and Today) is considered to be his fundamental work. Its Italian version (Introduzione al Christianismolezioni sul Simbolo Apostolico), which is already in its eighth printing, is on sale in Catholic bookstores. It was edited at the Queriniana de Brescia, exclusive editors of the "new theology" literature.

Here is how Ratzinger's fundamental work is presented in his The Ratzinger Report: with Vittorio Messori: "A kind of school book, continually re-edited, which has formed a whole generation of clergy and laity, drawn as they were, by absolutely "Catholic" thinking while also being absolutely open to the new climate of Vatican II." We must, at this point, stop to consider some fundamental notions, enough at any rate to get an exact idea of the "theology" of the present Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

 

A FRIGHTFUL PROBLEM

It is of Divine and Catholic Truth, that God became man and more precisely, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, Who is God as is the Father and the Holy Ghost; that He (the Second Person) took on a human nature and that therefore, in Our Lord Jesus Christ, there are two natures (the human and the divine) united in one Divine Person. This union is called the hypostatic union. Which the Church has always and everywhere put forward for our belief and which She has defended against heresy (for example in the Councils of Ephesus, Chalcedon, and Constantinople V).

What are we to say, therefore, when we are obliged to face the fact that the present Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith professes quite the contrary in his books of theology - that in Jesus, it is not God Who became man, but rather, man who became God? As a matter of fact, in Ratzinger's mind, just who is Jesus Christ? He is that "man in whom the definitive reality of man's being is manifested, and who, by that very fact, is God at the same time."

What does this mean - if not that man, in his "definitive reality" is God and that Christ is a man, who is, or better yet, became God by the sole fact that in Him has come to light that "definitive reality of man's being"? (La Foi Chretienne, hier et aujourd'hui p.126).

 

GOD IS MAN AND MAN IS GOD

Moreover, the problem is put clearly before us and is affirmatively resolved by Ratzinger himself who asks: "Do we, then, still have the right to re-absorb Christology [that part of theology devoted to the study of Christ and His work] into theology [the methodical study of those truths revealed by God]? Must we not rather passionately acclaim Jesus as man and consider Christology as [a form of] Humanism, an Anthropology? Or could authentic man, simply because of the fact of being completely and authentically man, be God and could God be, precisely, authentic man? Could it be possible that the most radical humanism and the Faith in the God of Revelation merge together here to become one and the same thing?" (p.130).

The answer is that the struggle concerning these questions, and which continued throughout the first five centuries of the Church, "has, in the ecuмenical Councils of that period, resulted in an affirmative [sic!] answer to all these questions" (p.140).

The main question, without misrepresenting the author's idea, could be put in the following words: authentic man, precisely by the fact that he is fully such, is God, and consequently, God is an authentic man.

 

A COHERENT "CHRISTOLOGY" IN ITS HERESY

Ratzinger's entire Christology is developed in a coherent manner around this fundamental thesis. It would also be quite difficult to give a different explanation to those statements, which, in his book Christian Faith, Yesterday and Today, are to be found time after time, and amongst which we will now quote the following in fairness to the author as well as to our present study.

"The heart of this Christology [based on the Scriptural texts of St. John] of the Son would be as follows: 'The fact of being a servant is no longer presented as an action, behind which the person of Jesus would remain confined in itself; it penetrates the whole existence of Jesus so that His very being is service. And precisely because this whole being is service only, it is a filial being. In this sense, it is only here that the changes in value due to Christianity have come to term; only at this point does it become unmistakably clear that he who puts himself entirely at the service of others, who commits himself to total unselfishness as well as to voluntary self-deprivation, that is the true man, the man of the future, where man and God are at one" (p.152).

"The being of Jesus is pure actuality of relations 'from' and 'for.' And by the very fact that this being is no longer separable from its actuality, it coincides with God; it becomes at the same time exemplary man, man of the future through whom we are able to perceive just how little man has begun to be himself [that is to say, God]" (p.153).

It was the "primitive Christian community" which for the first time applied Psalm 2 to Jesus: "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me and I will give thee the gentiles to be thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." This application - Ratzinger tells us - was simply to explain the conviction that: "He who has placed the sense of human existence, not in a self-affirming power, but rather in an existence radically consecrated to others, as proven by the Cross, it is to Him alone that God has said: 'Thou art my son, this day - that is to say, in this situation [on the Cross] - I have begotten thee' and he concludes: "The notion of son of God...through the explanation of the resurrection and of the Cross through Psalm 2, came in this manner and under this form into the confession of Faith in Jesus of Nazareth" (p.147).

And that will be quite sufficient for us for the moment.

 

THE REVERSAL

To Ratzinger's way of thinking then, Jesus is not God because of His being the natural Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, "begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father," because His person shares from eternity the infinite Divine Nature and therefore possesses its infinite perfection. Ratzinger's concept of Jesus, on the contrary, is that of a man who "came to coincide with God" when on the Cross he incarnated "being for others," the "altruist by automasia."

What distinguishes Him, from other men, lies only in the degree of human development attained by Him and does not depend on that gulf separating man from God, the Creator from the Creature. Ratzinger rejects the Church's Christology, labelling it as "a triumphalist Christology having simply no use for the man [sic!] crucified and servant, ready to invent once again, in his place, the myth of an ontological God" (p.152).

To the "triumphalist Christology" which creates a "myth of an ontological God," Ratzinger opposes his "Christology of service" which he claims to have found in St. John and wherein the word "Son" would only convey the meaning of a "perfect servant."

On the other hand, the man Jesus, who by his perfect service, has come to "coincide with God" reveals to man that man is becoming God, and therefore there exists an essential identity between man and God.

 

UNMISTAKABLY CLEAR CONFIRMATION

Ratzinger's concept of Christ as the "last man," as we find confirmed in unmistakably clear terms (beginning on p.158), indeed represents the Cardinal's thought on the matter. Here Ratzinger falsifies or "twists" the interpretation of another passage of Holy Scripture (St. Paul to be exact), paying no heed whatsoever to Catholic exegesis in those passages concerning Dogma which must strictly adhere to the meaning always taught by Holy Mother Church:

"And on the other hand, what a difference in perspective is to be seen as we consider St. Paul's idea according to which Christ is the 'last man' [last Adam] (1 Cor.15: 4-5), the definitive or ultimate, who introduces man to that future which belongs to man, a future consisting in not simply being man, but to be one with God" (p.158).

And immediately after, he continues under the title "Christ, The Last Man": "And here we have reached the point where we may attempt to summarize the meaning of the Creed: ‘I believe in Christ Jesus, the only Son of God, our Lord.’ After all these reflections of ours, we should be able, first of all, to make this affirmation: the Christian Faith acknowledges the exemplary man in [the person of] Jesus of Nazareth. Here we have, so it seems, the best way of interpreting the Pauline concept of the 'last Adam' mentioned above [which on the contrary, simply signifies the 'second Adam' the head of redeemed humanity, in contrast to the 'first Adam']. But it is precisely in his condition or status as exemplary man, as a classic example of man, that he transcends human limitations. It is only by this fact that he is the truly exemplary man" (p.158).

And this would be the motive for his theory: "That which makes man is his open-mindedness, his opening on All, on the Infinite. Man is man by the fact that he tends to go infinitely beyond himself; consequently, he will be more man in the measure that he will be less withdrawn into himself, less 'limited' [beschrankt]. But then - let us repeat - that one is the most [perfect] man, truly man, he who is the most unlimited [ent-schrankt], who not only comes into contact with the infinite, but is one with it: Jesus Christ the Infinite Himself. In Him, the process of humanization (the evolutionary development of human characteristics) has truly reached its ultimate development" (p.159).

[Caminus]

I know you're a crypto-sede, but there's no need to be a smart ass.  

[Wessex]

I don't need to write a load of stuff proving that the new order was all about demoting God and promoting man. In time of course the real intention of those controling Rome's new order is for God to just float away and be replaced by a holy family of elites fronted by young, handsome, clever, rich and confident crowd-pullers. And we will worship them unreservedly. That is how the world will work.

[Telesphorus]

I know you're a crypto-sede, but there's no need to be a smart ass.  

That's a rash assertion.  You know nothing of the sort.

I think it's interesting that this article remains on an sspx website.

I believe I recall a similar post being pulled from Angelqueen, or at least the thread was locked, I believe the posters were banned, but not necessarily for that post in particular.

Anyway, while I understand that sede rhetoric goes overboard here, I think there is an attempt by certain people in the sspx to suppress comments very similar to the ones above.  It certainly seems like they are trying to move away from the rhetoric they used in the past.

[Roman Catholic]

I think it's interesting too, because they have "washed" many of their sites, resulting in information on how bad Ratzinger was before he got elected being removed.

It reminds me of the following written by Ferrara a couple months before Ratzinger was elected. Ferrara soon changed his tune after the election and flushed his assessments of Ratzinger down the memory hole.

"More and more it becomes apparent that this man is perhaps the most industrious ecclesial termite of the post-conciliar epoch, tearing down even as he makes busy with the appearance of building up. The longer Ratzinger “guards” Catholic doctrine, the more porous the barriers that protect it become."

[TheD]

I know you're a crypto-sede, but there's no need to be a smart ass.  

I believe I recall a similar post being pulled from Angelqueen, or at least the thread was locked, I believe the posters were banned, but not necessarily for that post in particular.

Anyway, while I understand that sede rhetoric goes overboard here, I think there is an attempt by certain people in the sspx to suppress comments very similar to the ones above.  It certainly seems like they are trying to move away from the rhetoric they used in the past.

AQ is a banning mill.  They ban people left and right.  That’s why the AQ is for the most part dead right now.
I agree, the SSPX seems like it is trying to 'move away' from it's old position.  We can even see that on forums like AQ.  If I remember correctly there was a thread on there not to long ago questioning the validity of the SSPX and the Latin Mass.

[ServusSpiritusSancti]

I know you're a crypto-sede, but there's no need to be a smart ass.  

I believe I recall a similar post being pulled from Angelqueen, or at least the thread was locked, I believe the posters were banned, but not necessarily for that post in particular.

Anyway, while I understand that sede rhetoric goes overboard here, I think there is an attempt by certain people in the sspx to suppress comments very similar to the ones above.  It certainly seems like they are trying to move away from the rhetoric they used in the past.

AQ is a banning mill.  They ban people left and right.  That’s why the AQ is for the most part dead right now.
I agree, the SSPX seems like it is trying to 'move away' from it's old position.  We can even see that on forums like AQ.  If I remember correctly there was a thread on there not to long ago questioning the validity of the SSPX and the Latin Mass.

CAF also bans alot of people, especially Traditionalists.