**The process outlined by Ratzinger was a “long” one “but when all the suffering is past, a great power will emerge from a more spiritual and simple Church,” at which point humans will realise that they live in a world of “indescribable solitude” and having lost sight of God “they will perceive the horror of their poverty.”
Then and only then, Ratzinger concluded, will they see “that small flock of faithful as something completely new: they will see it as a source of hope for themselves, the answer they had always secretly been searching for.**
Ping!
Ratzingers books ‘The Faith and the Future’
This is a so so book, one that saw reprint recently because of Benedicts successful ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ series, as what it contains could have been properly digested down to a magazine length article with a near equivalent buildup and conclusion, at least for the general reader. The conclusion or last chapter ‘What Will the Church Look Like in 2000?’ elucidates of a smaller church and saints being necessary.
But philosophies(modernism,liberalism) have consequences and the great and conservative Catholic philosophers(Ratzinger/Benedict included) have been seeing the path that ‘modernism’ has been following as the final fulfillment of ‘The Great Enlightenment’ and there will be Catholic blood in the streets—again! Unfortunately, this book only elucidates on that previous sentence(my sentence/words) in only a poor or maybe fair(poor to fair) way with other materials in print, from that time and most certainly today, doing a much better job.
If Ratzinger was being prophetic in 69’, then everyone seeing the church fall apart in the 60’s and 70’s would be prophetic too. The books last chapter , titled:
‘What Will the Church Look Like in 2000?’ is a bit off the prophetic year mark.
The book contains a few quotable nuggets and he’s the Pope, and thats why people buzz and talk about it.
OMG!!! OMG!!! Add to it what Francis Cardinal George said about his successor will be imprisoned and that the next successor will be MARTYRED!!!
Whoa! Interesting....
This seems less a prophecy than a comforting, reassuring rationalization that offers the hope of a purer and better faith as consolation for the decline of the cultural strength of Roman Catholic Church and Christianity in general. Yet, in the meanwhile, multitudes will have been led astray, and there is no certainty that decline will be followed by renewal and a return to former strength.
Very interesting. I had come across that 1969 quotation a while back, and I found it to be a remarkable prognostication in light of the road the Ratzinger himself ended up traveling over the next 40+ years.