terça-feira, 19 de abril de 2005

Habemus papam...mas estou inquieto!

Esperemos que este texto seja uma invenção delirante do seu autor ou que o Cardeal Ratzinger, agora Bento XVI, se revele uma pessoa diferente....

"After completing his doctorate on St Augustine in 1953 he made the rounds as a professor of ‘systematic theology’ before ascending to the position of Archbishop of Munich in 1977. From there John Paul II invited him to Rome, where he took up residence in 1981.

Once settled he was quick to make a mark with his old-fashioned dogmatism and conservative values. He was particularly upset by what he saw as destructive, liberalizing influences unleashed at the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). These ‘wild excesses’ extended to the introduction of a non-Latin Mass after Vatican II which Ratzinger characterized as a ‘tragic breach’ in tradition. But the Cardinal’s discomfort with modern life and yearning for the good old days also extended to the social realm, especially into the areas of gay rights and women.

In 1986 Ratzinger issued a letter to the Catholic Bishops in which he wrote that homosexuality was a ‘tendency’ towards an ‘intrinsic moral evil’. A few years later, in 1992, he rejected the notion of human rights for gays, stressing that their civil liberties could be ‘legitimately limited’. He followed up by remarking that ‘neither the church nor society should be surprised’ if ‘irrational and violent reactions increase’ when gays demand civil rights. Not a man to mince his words, Ratzinger urgently set to work to ferret out gay-sensitive clergy.

The good Cardinal also extended the Papal principle of ‘infallibility’ by declaring that the ordination of women was impossible because John Paul II said it was so. Ditto for the use of the word ‘priest’ by the Anglican Church: not on, said Joe, because Leo XIII in 1896 said it wasn’t allowed.

The Cardinal is also not happy mixing religion and politics – at least not the kind of politics which suggests the Church has an obligation to assist the poor in their fight for justice. So he set out to muzzle outspoken ‘liberation’ theologians including Brazil’s charismatic Leonardo Boff. He also replaced the now-deceased Archbishop of Recife, Dom Helder Camara, with Monsignor José Cardosa – a conservative right-winger – and warned the ex-Bishop of Chiapas in Mexico, Samuel Ruiz, to preach the Gospel ‘in its integrity without Marxist interpretations’.

As if that weren’t enough, the ever-busy Cardinal has used his privileged take on the Truth to set back inter-faith tolerance and religious pluralism a few decades. In 1997 Ratzinger annoyed Buddhists by calling their religion an ‘autoerotic spirituality’ [!!!!!] that offers ‘transcendence without imposing concrete religious obligations’ [sem comentários]. And Hinduism, he said, offers ‘false hope’; it guarantees ‘purification’ based on a ‘morally cruel’ concept of reincarnation resembling ‘a continuous circle of hell’. The Cardinal predicted Buddhism would replace Marxism as the Catholic Church’s main enemy this century [!!!!!!!].

So keep your eyes on those chimney pots when the contest for the next Pope begins. If Joe Ratzinger gets the nod progressive voices inside the Catholic Church will have an even harder time being heard. And it could happen. As Ratzinger himself has said: ‘No-one expected the present Pope to be elected either.’
http://www.newint.org/issue327/worldbeaters.htm

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