Posted on 02/28/2007 6:28:51 PM PST by NYer
Preacher Draws On Work of V.S. Solovyov
VATICAN CITY, FEB. 28, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The Antichrist is the reduction of Christianity to an ideology, instead of a personal encounter with the Savior, says the cardinal directing the retreat which Benedict XVI is attending.
Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, retired archbishop of Bologna, delivered that message during a meditation Tuesday, drawing on the work of Russian philosopher Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov.
The cardinal's meditation came during the weeklong Spiritual Exercises being attended by the Pope and members of the Roman Curia. The retreat ends this Saturday. The Holy Father suspended his usual meetings, including the general audience, in these days.
According to Vatican Radio's summary of his preaching, the cardinal explained that "the teaching that the great Russian philosopher left us is that Christianity cannot be reduced to a set of values. At the center of being a Christian is, in fact, the personal encounter with Jesus Christ."
Quoting the work "Three Dialogues on War, Progress and the End of History," Cardinal Biffi told his listeners that "the Antichrist presents himself as pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist."
"He will convoke an ecumenical council and will seek the consensus of all the Christian confessions, granting something to each one. The masses will follow him, with the exception of small groups of Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants," he said.
The cardinal added that Solovyov says in that work: "Days will come in Christianity in which they will try to reduce the salvific event to a mere series of values."
No cross
In his "Tale of the Antichrist" Solovyov foresees that a small group of Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants will resist and will say to the Antichrist: "You give us everything, except what interests us, Jesus Christ."
For Cardinal Biffi, this narrative is a warning: "Today, in fact, we run the risk of having a Christianity which puts aside Jesus with his cross and resurrection."
The 78-year-old cardinal said that if Christians "limited themselves to speaking of shared values they would be more accepted on television programs and in social groups. But in this way, they will have renounced Jesus, the overwhelming reality of the resurrection."
The cardinal said he believes that this is "the danger that Christians face in our days … the Son of God cannot be reduced to a series of good projects sanctioned by the prevailing worldly mentality."
However, "this does not mean a condemnation of values, but their careful discernment. There are absolute values, such as goodness, truth, beauty," Cardinal Biffi said. "Those who perceive and love them, also love Christ, even if they don't know it, because he is Truth, Beauty and Justice."
The preacher of the Spiritual Exercises added that "there are relative values, such as solidarity, love of peace and respect for nature. If these become absolute, uprooting or even opposing the proclamation of the event of salvation, then these values become an instigation to idolatry and obstacles on the way of salvation."
Cardinal Biffi affirmed that "if Christianity -- on opening itself to the world and dialoguing with all -- dilutes the salvific event, it closes itself to a personal relationship with Jesus and places itself on the side of the Antichrist."
BTTT
A worthy read and worth discussing, imho.
BTTT
A worthy read and worth discussing, imho.
Thanks for the ping!
I think he means the UN Millenium Development Goals.
I was in Assisi a couple of weeks ago. I went with great dread because I thought it was going to be like going to an encampment of the "Rainbow Nation" or some other hippie flake-fest. But whatever BXVI has done to improve it has worked.
The place struck me as totally orthodox, St. Francis was correctly portrayed as someone on fire with the love of God and wishing to make conversions and suffer to do so, there were lines at the confessionals, etc. We even stumbled into the Vespers of a small new community of (young) TOR brothers and sisters, and they were all in habits, singing the psalms, and I didn't see a single peace sign in the place. Nor did I see what I was really fearing, non-Christian symbols or worship in the churches or other Franciscan holy places.
I don't know what has happened to the Franciscans, who were an order that really went down hill (I read that they had the highest AIDS rate of any order). Possibly because there are so many Franciscan orders or variants thereof, the bad ones have dwindled and good ones have been encouraged to come forward and take their places. But while I didn't have any in-depth conversations with any of them, I didn't get the impression that there was much weirdness going on, and Sunday Mass was orthodox, carefully celebrated and had a very sound sermon (unless my Italian is so bad that I completely misunderstood it!).
Myabe BXVI has "rescued" St. Francis.
I think they probably make it loud to cover up the gasps of horror from the congregation. I agree, not all modern church music is bad and I have actually heard some very nice things with good, orthodox lyrics, and they don't sound like advertising jingles, either. So maybe there's hope that someday we won't have to grit our teeth every time the music starts up!
Now the J*suits I'm familiar with! They somehow went from being the most militant and rightwing order (so militant they were suppressed for a while) to being "secretly behind Communism."
We are seeing that right now. Look at the PDL founder, and the havoc it is causing across confessional lines. Most Christians today in the West do know Christ.
Come Lord Jesus.
Oops, see you already found this.
To say "the Franciscans" as though they were a monolithic group isn't really accurate. More so than any other Founders that I can think of, Sts. Francis and Clare spawned a multiplicity of more or less independent orders. Some have more nuts, fruits and flakes than the entire State of California, whilst others are quite sane and orthodox. I'm not sure the tendencies of the Franciscan community in charge of the Holy Land places, but trying to extrapolate either from the nutters that were once in charge at Assisi OR from a group like the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal in New York isn't going to be very useful.
The Jesuits, as you note, are a different matter ... even so there are still a few sane men in that order.
Al Gore?
---"if Christianity -- on opening itself to the world and dialoguing with all -- dilutes the salvific event, it closes itself to a personal relationship with Jesus and places itself on the side of the Antichrist."---
Sounds like more than one liberal church.
There's been a tendency in modernist circles to do just that for decades. In fact, I think that's what modernism is all about ... deny the supernatural, deny the Divine, just try to make everything happy, warm and fuzzy. It's nauseating.
The cardinal said he believes that this is "the danger that Christians face in our days … the Son of God cannot be reduced to a series of good projects sanctioned by the prevailing worldly mentality."
I believe he is referring to organizations and programs sponsored by the likes of the UN or WHO, etc.
What is shocking to me isn't that this is happening, but that it is happening everywhere. It isn't just a "fringe" movement or limited to the nuts and fruits of Christianity, but in every Church, Synod, and Confession you can see the same pull for Christianity lite. I am not a Roman Catholic, and you are not a Lutheran, but on a great many things we do agree. What is shocking today, is that those very things we DO agree (the Incarnation, the Cross, Salvation, etc) have become what many are trying hard to jettison.
The Franciscans really went nutz after VatII. Structurally, "Franciscan" is a very loose designation (that is, there are many orders in the "Franciscan family") and there are some good ones, and most of the bad ones are withering up and dying off.
Incidentally, I visited the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, where there is a reliquary containing things such as fragments of the Crib, etc. These were relics that were kept in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem until the Muslims took over the Holy Land in 640 A.D. (the fall of Caesarea). This was just after Islam was founded, which shows how aggressive and hostile to Christianity it was from the very beginning.
The relics were brought to Rome for safekeeping. Then, after the brief period when the Crusaders managed to drive the Muslims out, when Acre fell in 1291 and the Muslims took over the area again, more relics were concentrated in Rome because Christians were excluded from the Christian holy sites by the Muslim invaders. A pilgrim who made the trip to the relics in Rome would be considered to have made a pilgrimage to Bethlehem, since visiting the actual place itself was no longer possible.
So you can see how long problems with the holy sites have been going on (since the inception of Islam, essentially).
I don't know if you read First Things (a magazine that one might describe as "ecumenical orthodoxy"), but there's a good article in this issue about the "metaphysical religion" that many Americans have adopted - including many churches, whether formally or informally. Someone has written a book about the history of this aspect of American religion, and Fr. Neuhaus' review of it is very interesting.
Many people continue to go to creedal churches but their actual beliefs are entirely different. This ranges from things like viewing Jesus as a great philosopher to believing in reincarnation (something like 30% of self-identified Christians say they believe in reincarnation!). It's an article worth reading.
Satan is attacking the truth. He'll fail, of course, but many will be deceived.
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