Posted on 01/02/2023 3:09:23 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Upon hearing the news of Pope Benedict XVI’s death on Saturday morning, I immediately thought of a long road trip I took with my wife 10 years ago, from Alaska to Texas, and a lonely stretch of highway in central Wyoming where, trapped in a car with nothing else to do, I listened to hours and hours of interviews conducted in the ’90s with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the man destined to become Pope Benedict XVI.
I didn’t know it at the time, but those interviews planted seeds that would take years to bear fruit, which they did in 2018 when my wife and I were received into the Catholic Church.
Now of course recorded conversations about philosophy and theology aren’t usually what helps one stay awake on a long road trip. But after nearly a week on the road, we were totally burnt out on music, crime noir novels, and just about everything else we’d brought with us. I asked my wife, who was trying to nap in the passenger seat, if it would bother her if I listened to the Ratzinger interviews while I drove since that was all we had left (a gift from my brother, who had entered the Catholic Church years before). She assured me it wouldn’t stop her from nodding off.
Three hours later, somewhere in the vast expanse of the Wyoming Basin, we were both wide awake, listening with rapt attention to a man unlike any we’d encountered before. (The recordings, I should note, were not of Ratzinger himself, but English language readings of in-depth interviews he’d done with German journalist Peter Seewald in 1996. A six-disc set of the recordings in English was released after Benedict’s election as pope in 2005.)...
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
The Catholic Church was struggling to regain its relevancy when Benedict took over. His abdication, and the installation of Francis marked the final surrender to The World. The RCC just doesn’t have the confidence to be the RCC anymore.
That certainly is true regarding the overwhelming majority of bishops. Bergoglio is ... whatever it is that he is.
But there is a faithful remnant, both priests and laity. We (I flatter myself ...) may be difficult to see from the outside ... but we exist, our numbers are growing and the gates of hell will not prevail against us.
👍
Lovely.
You need to read some history. Pius X, Pius XII, and Leo XIII stand out as prophets from our past. Unfortunately, their warnings were not heeded.
Oh right Pacelli who became Pius the XII who signed the Concordat with the Nazis, right I forgot about him.
It was John Paul, together with Ronald Reagan who helped to bring down the Soviet Union. A far greater accomplishment than your ‘also ran’s’’ so learn some history yourself.
Your take on Pius XII is based on a hit piece, “Das Deputy”. You really should read some factual accounts. If Pius XII was such an anti-Semite, why did the leading rabbi convert after the war?
No my post is based on facts. I’d suggest you read “Pius The XII And The Holocaust Under His Very Windows’’ by Matthew Smalarz of La Salle University
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