Someone should tell them that past popes have suffered death for less.

Dear Sunbeam...whatever!

Interesting read on his encyclical he was going to publicize lots we dont know

Enjoy!!

Pope Benedict's resignation and the mystery of the missing encyclical


(CNS/Paul Haring)

 
By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI's historic decision to resign at the end of February has astonished and perplexed the world in many ways, not least because of what might be called the mystery of the missing encyclical.

In December, the Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, said that Pope Benedict's fourth encyclical would be released in the first half of 2013. Treating the subject of faith, the encyclical would complete a trilogy on the three "theological virtues," following "Deus Caritas Est" (2005) on charity, and "Spe Salvi" (2007) on hope.

Then, on the day after the pope's announcement, Father Lombardi announced that Pope Benedict would not issue another encyclical after all.

The news was surprising because it suggested that Pope Benedict, a former professor who has placed a priority on his teaching role as pope, had abandoned the most prominent teaching project of his pontificate just before its completion. This, even though Father Lombardi said that the pope had pondered resignation for several months, and the Vatican newspaper reported that he first considered the move in March 2012.

It was hardly plausible that so prolific an author might be suffering from writer's block, even given the deteriorating "strength of mind and body" he cited in announcing his resignation. Three days after that announcement, Pope Benedict delivered a highly structured, 46-minute long public talk, without a prepared text and only occasionally consulting his notes.

But unlike an off-the-cuff speech, papal encyclicals are not one-man productions. Though the pope ultimately determines their content, they are typically the fruit of much behind-the-scenes collaboration with Vatican officials and often with outside consultants as well. Pope Benedict's last encyclical, "Caritas in Veritate" (2009), appeared more than a year after its expected date, reportedly because of complications in this process. It is likely that such was the case again this time.

Father Lombardi has suggested that the former Pope Benedict might eventually publish the docuмent under his own name, in which case it would not rank as part of the papal magisterium. But it is at least as likely that his successor will take up and finish the task.

Popes tend to honor their predecessors' commitments, which is why everyone assumes that the next pope will travel to Rio de Janeiro for World Youth Day in July. Indeed, Pope Benedict's own first encyclical, "Deus Caritas Est," was started by his predecessor, Blessed John Paul II.

If the next pope does finish the encyclical on faith, there is reason to think that his predecessor will be happy to have left it incomplete.

A major papal docuмent whose production bridged the transition between the two pontificates could serve as a reassuring sign of continuity after Pope Benedict's practically unprecedented move. At the same time, since the next pope would undoubtedly stamp the encyclical with his distinctive priorities and style, it would exemplify Pope Benedict's ideal of reform as "innovation in continuity" with church tradition.

Pope Benedict has been careful throughout his pontificate to distinguish his personal writings from his papal docuмents, by publishing his bestselling series of "Jesus of Nazareth" books under the name Joseph Ratzinger. The knowledge that the next encyclical was the work of more than one pope would further underscore its impersonal character and reinforce the idea, which Pope Benedict has conveyed so dramatically through his resignation, that the papacy is an office distinct from any individual who might hold it.

Only three days before he announced he would step down, the outgoing pope said something that has acquired a more personal meaning in light of that historic event. Commenting on the First Letter of Peter to an audience of seminarians, Pope Benedict noted internal evidence that the apostle and first pope was not the epistle's sole author.

"He does not write alone, an isolated individual, he writes with the help of the church," Pope Benedict said. "Peter does not speak as an individual, he speaks 'ex persona Ecclesiae,' he speaks as a man of the church ... He does not want to say only his word, but truly carries in himself the waters of the faith, the waters of all the church, and precisely this way gives fertility, gives fecundity and is a personal witness who opens himself to the Lord."

END

The current pope complains that Vatican II has not been properly implemented and understood, now 50 years later. If that is so, then the popes are at fault, for they are the absolute teachers. See EVERYTHING bad that has happened since Vatican, and anything good that could have been done, and you will find people, and the ones doing EVERYTHING bad were put there and promoted by the pope, and the few doing anything good were demoted and even excommunicated.

Make no mistake about it: "what does the pope have to do with revolution? In the case of the Roman Catholic Church, everything". The conciliarist disaster ALL falls squarely on the Vatican II popes.

Quote

So the Power of the Keys hangs on the wall, untouched for 50 years since John XXIII took over, and counting.

This is a view long put out there by the neo-conservatives like EWTN, The Wanderer, and even The Remnant, and recently by Bp. Fellay. They say "The pope is a prisoner of those around him, he has no real control".


It is hogwash.

From another CI thread BXVI Blames Media for Council Failures:

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Bowler said: Talk about the Church moving slow, 50 years and the council has not been properly applied or understood by all of the bishops chosen by Paul VI, JPII, and B16.

Anyone that knows how the Vatican works, knows that no novel theology ever gets to the laity unless it is promoted by the pope. Nothing and no one gets to a position to influence anything, unless it/he is promoted by the pope. That IS the way it IS.

These popes have either lost the faith or they have lost their marbles (maybe both?)

The neo-cons don't want to lose their subscribers, so they use this "The pope is a prisoner of those around him, he has no real control".

One may ask, what does the pope have to do with revolution? In the case of the Roman Catholic Church, everything. While it would be hard to find a guerrilla movement, be it the Italian Red Brigades or the Peruvian Shining Path that was not inspired and directed by university students and professors, in the Church with its unbudgeable hierarchical structure, the intellectual top, the level at which theologians move, is not high enough. Any mutation in doctrine or practice must come from the very top, from the papacy itself. There is no other way.

While the Vatican II popes were the dominant figures in the undermining process they was not alone, they were assisted by those that they placed in power during their 50+year reign. What they accomplished was the transformation of the single largest religious body in the world, a body which had gone virtually unchanged for nearly two thousand years. Unchanged, it had weathered the great break away four hundred years before, even gaining from the blow a certain strength through forced redefinition of its own identity. The Protestant shock had been a severing. What has happened in our day has been no break but rather an inside turnover, something altogether more drastic. Measured against what had been taken to be the Catholic identity for nineteen centuries the  unprecedented undermining from within of the Church of today is something totally incomparable with anything that came before.

Quote from: Sede Catholic

I did not know that Ratzinger had claimed Saint Peter did not write one of Saint Peter's own Epistles.

Where did you hear this?

Dear Stevus,

this heresy by Ratzinger, is mentioned in the last 2 paragraphs of the post before my post, which you quoted.

I already knew that in Ratzinger's heresy-filled work, which he blasphemously called "Jesus of Nazareth" (Vol.I), Ratzinger had falsely claimed that Saint John did not write Saint John's Gospel.

He did that because in A.D. 1907, the Biblical Commission of Pope Saint Pius X, had pronounced the obvious truth: that SAINT JOHN DID WRITE SAINT JOHN'S GOSPEL.

The first volume of Ratzinger’s book came out in A.D 2007.
So because it was the 100th Anniversary of the Biblical Commission’s good and true decision in A.D. 1907, Ratzinger tried to discredit Saint John's Gospel.

The Church has always believed that Saint John wrote Saints John’s Gospel.
The Church has always believed that Saint Peter wrote Saint Peter’s Letters.

How dare this hellish apostate Ratzinger try to deprive Catholics of the Faith by his condemned heresies and lies.

The Biblical Commission of Pope St. Pius X taught that Saint John was the only author of Saint John’s Gospel.

The Catholic Church taught that the other books of the Bible are genuine as well.