The Ratzinger Reader: Mapping a Theological Journey
Hat tip to StCeciliasGirl for mentioning this excellent book (see
her quote from it pertaining to Ratzinger and the liturgy), not that the "theology" expressed therein is traditional, but that it really shows Ratzinger was (is?) a Modernist:
‘Ecuмenical’ and ‘Catholic’ in their very etymology say the same thing. Therefore, to be a Catholic is not to become entangled in separatism, but to be open to the fullness of Christianity.
Wow, so, viz., Catholicism isn't the fullness of Christianity‽
It was precisely this attitude which the fathers had to assert against the proposed text ["Schema Constitutionis Dogmaticae de Fontibus Revelationis" of the preparatory commission, which was rejected by a simple majority on Nov. 20, 1962, and replaced with a text that would become Dei Verbum]. The texts almost exclusively relied upon the Latin theology of the last hundred years in continuation of the fight against Modernism, and in so doing, these texts were obviously threatened by a narrowness in which the wide scope of Catholicism could scarcely be detected.
Wow, this is the hardest attack on scholasticism i've seen him ever give. Essentially, he's saying scholasticism (= Thomism; cf.
Pascendi §45: "let it be clearly understood above all things that the scholastic philosophy We prescribe is that which the Angelic Doctor has bequeathed to us") isn't Catholic.
He concludes this section on how John XXIII accepted the "positive" schema that would become
Dei Verbum over the "negative" one:
It was a turning point, too, in the sense that, in contrast to Trent and Vatican Council I, the pope had rejected curial dominance and sided with the Council.
This section (pp. 259 ff.) makes it so obvious that John XXIII forged a new, "non-anti-Modernist" way. It also is the most interesting ∵ he discusses
Pascendi, Pius IX's
Syllabus,
Humani Generis, and St. Pius X's
Oath Against Modernism:
This same [anti-Modernist] anxiety persisted until its last reverberation sounded in the encyclical Humani generis of Pius XII. This docuмent pursued once more the line of thought of Pius IX and Pius X. The schemata of the theological commission, the first of which now lay before the fathers for consideration, breathed this same spirit.
The same cramped thinking, once so necessary as a line of defence, impregnated the text and informed it with a theology of negations and prohibitions; although in themselves they might well have been valid, they certainly could not produce that positive note which was now to be expected from the Council.
"in themselves they might well have been valid"? He doubts a Magisterial docuмent‽ And "cramped thinking"‽
‘Pastoral’ should not mean something vague and imprecise, but rather something free from wrangling, and free also from entanglement in questions that concern scholars alone.
He's speaking of
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange and other Thomists, obviously. Apparently, the contents of St. Thomas's
Summa "concern[s ] scholars alone"?
Pascendi completely refutes this:
For amongst the chief points of their [the Modernists'] teaching is this which they deduce from the principle of vital immanence [related to the redefinition of truth as "conformitas mentis et vitae"]; that religious formulas, to be really religious and not merely theological speculations, ought to be living and to live the life of the religious sentiment.
Pp. 57 ff., his conception of salvation, is an excellent example of the Modernists' doctrine described by the above-quoted passage of
Pascendi:
it might have seemed like an escape to seek to simply explain redemption using the traditional vocabulary of theology, which was certainly once a verbal and conceptual expression of religious experience, but which today no longer reveals these experiences, so that its words have become, for a start, doctrinal formulae that must first be reopened to the experiences that they contain
(cf. Bp. Tissier's "
Faith Imperiled by Reason: Benedict XVI's Hermeneutics")
Also, it's as if he hasn't even read
Trent or
Vatican I. Both are not mostly "written in a spirit of condemnation and negation", as Ratzinger says. They're both pretty balanced; they both have sections with
anathema sits (the canons) and positive ones in prose (the chapters).
There's a section of
Ratzinger Reader (pp. 131 ff.) where he extols the Enlightenment's worship of reason, just like we worship Logos, yet he doesn't mention the manifold errors of the Enlightenment: denial of original sin, naturalism, hatred of faith (since supposedly it contradicts reason), atheism, etc. His attack on relativism and pluralism (pp. 134 ff.) is very weak; he essentially sees relativism as a way to be ecuмenical with the relativist/pluralist/pantheist sects, like those in India.
Ratzinger Reader has other sections on whether there's a "Ratzinger I" and a "Ratzinger II" (pp. 11 ff.), on the Magisterium and the bishops' relation to the pope (pp. 187 ff.), on
extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (pp. 154 ff.), and on
subsistit in (pp. 108-12). He says:
the idea that the subsistit could be multiplied fails to grasp precisely the notion that is being intended. With the word subsistit, the Council wished to explain the unicity of the Catholic Church and the fact of her inability to be multiplied
Yet he continues:
Although the Church is only one and ‘subsists’ in a unique subject, there are also ecclesial realities beyond this subject – true local Churches and different ecclesial communities.
"true local Churches", as if the Catholic Church is "multiplied" and exists outside Herself?
the existence of an ecclesial reality beyond the one subject, reflects the contradictory nature of human sin and division
So, sin is in the Church Herself, not just in the individual members that comprise Her? The Church isn't one and holy‽
Topic: Ratzinger Reader (Read 1327 times)