Church no, Christ maybe, the Pope yes:  the Sense of the Laical Church

Old and New Dicotamies

 Those of us who lived through the protests of the 1970's or through the echoes of their aftermath, will well remember the slogan that circulated even in theological circles: Christ - yes, Church - no! A dichotomy which in reality is theologically unfounded but that has ancient resonance in the heresies of all times. Such a dichotomy has produced figures such as Hans Kung who like other "theologians" has intensified the impossible split between faith and reason, as between the real presence of Christ in history and the ideal Christ, present only in such a way as to confirm one's own theories and personal sentiments.
  Even the early communities experienced such dichotomies and dramatic tensions if St. Paul allowed himself to write about the marvelous comparison to the body in his first letter to the Corinthians in Chapter twelve. The supporters of this split have always maintained that the ecclesiastical hierarchy had placed them in such a situation. Even if it were considered as partly true from the sociological/relational point of view, in reality, we can attest to a scarce amount of faith in Christ and in His Words. We can in fact say that at the basis of the great schisms with the Catholic Church, there has been and there still is substantially a lack of Faith in Christ and in His will which are historical Spirit and Power. It is interesting to point out that the advocates for "Faith alone" and for the authority of the Sacred Scriptures are the very same who -before any others- betray both Faith and Scripture. But we will affront this matter later on. This virulent feeling has been diffused in a pseudo/intellectual conscience starting from a humanistic one which is actually hardly human.

Already the split between experience and reason, between ontological being and perception is hypothesized by Decartes and finds its parable in Kant's moral duty and in the historical reason of Illuministic thought. Luther's great error was that of reforming the Church without an objective pretext, but because it was ‘necessary', the church was not reformed but re-founded upon the criteria of Scripture alone and Luther's own conscience. We won't divulge upon the complexity and the problematic scenario that deals with Luther's psychological structure which would have needed today, as then, a good therapeutic recovery, but upon the fact that to base a Christian feeling upon the Word of God alone, aided by the tradition that had generated it, produced unrepeatable ecclesiological errors visible even on a social level in these modern times. It is a significant epistomologic error to base objectivity on the Word of God alone, because it would be to betray the same Word, both its immediate and profound definition and give primacy to the conscience, which despite good will, is sometimes blatantly erroneous.
 The very same Protestant biblical scholars have arrived at the necessary conclusion that the New Testament is, in this, totally Catholic, precisely due to its inseparable connection with tradition from which it was born. We read, "For R. Bultmann, Catholicism begins even earlier: it already exists in the modern New Testament, with its various recognizable elements, such as for example, in the pastoral letters (1 and 2 Tim, Tt.) of transition from "Charismatic office" to "Institutional". E. Kaseman, H. Conzelmann, H. Braun, and W. Marxsen carry the Bultmannian argument to its ultimate consequence - having found such protocatholic elements in Luke's Gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles besides those in the abovementioned pastoral letters."(Vd. Ispirazione Biblica) Such is the commitment of the Protestant biblical scholars to purge the New Testament of those protocatholic elements that would bring mighty contradictions to the Biblical Canon, which had already begun to appear in the subjective formulation and Luther's re-foundation. Who in fact has said that the Scripture is indeed the Word of God? Never will one find wholly objective proof of this within the same Scripture, but only from the tradition which generated it. There is no Church without an objective foundation! However, while the Catholic Church is equally based upon the primacy of Peter, on the apostolic succession the Word of God and Tradition, Luther sought in vain for a foundation and he placed his own there where it is impossible to place one, that is on the Word of God alone, separated from the Tradition that generated, sustained, diffused, and explained it throughout all times.
 Before the contradictions that he witnessed in the Church during his time, Luther decided to enact a reform on an objective point of view and without discord... unfortunately, he was unable to overcome such difficulties and at the same time, he didn't know how to make a legitimate distinction between Fundamental Theology and pastoral procedure. If he had in fact recognized a discordance between pastoral action - on a few of the Church's questions in that period and the Word of God, he did not know however, how to make the leap of reason and faith -which probably might have been only contingent and necessarily required a humble interior turn of action more than a schism with Rome. The political questions didn't conduce to Luther's needed personal conversion. He found himself enticed into a blind spot having to objectively re-define the Christian faith without Tradition and thus, consequently fell into the deceit of not pursuing a reformation but a re-foundation - the which, from a purely scriptural point of view is a biblical, theological and ecclesial absurdity. This evolved in bringing the Reformation to successively shatter into thousands of groups, interpretations, and sects as numerous as the human imagination can possibly fathom when it roams without the Church. This fragmentation resulted in a degeneration which entirely dissolved the apostolic "data", as has happened for the Jehovah's Witnesses, who having derived from the Avventist Church, is the most picturesque of extremes.
It is therefore better considered to be a re-foundation than a reformation, which gradually implied a series of self justifications for this way of thinking, derived from the Canon to Christian anthropology, from confusion about the doctrine of Justification to the removal of all those traditional practices (and not so called traditionalistic) such as devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary which under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has always been a part of the Church's devotion. The most beautiful ‘Sub Tuum Praesidium' already originates from the third century and testifies to the  very ancient devotion that the people of God, clergy and laity, all had towards the Mother of God. This re-foundation could not but find another ‘absolute' of dialogue than that of personal conscience, thereby cutting away from the connection with objectivity which the faithful possessed with Peter and therefore with Christ. In the adolescent dynamics of the developing humanism and its guru, this dynamism has played around with "it's good for me", "it's true for me", "ethical relativism", and all the psycho-spiritual and psycho-social nonsense with which we are continuously bombarded by the mass-media. The Massonic culture has enjoyed - for its own purposes - riding this current by feeding into its aversion towards the Civitas Christiana, and by infiltrating into every tenet of society and the political arena up to its actual climax in today's radical political party.  Despite this, the Holy Spirit works, and how!! Even in the Protestant circles, He has created splendid men and women of God and prepared the way for the Churches towards the important document on the Doctrine of Justification. The road however, remains long and laborious, actually impossible without the constant work of Christ's grace, which grants faith and enlightens the minds. What a shame that Luther hadn't known more deeply the poor saint of Assisi... he would have better understood how to act upon his own doubts and all of the human, spiritual, and psychological contradictions.

Church no, Christ maybe, Pope yes

 In this error's path, a spiritual style of the ‘politically correct' has developed (among today's laity) by which to: not believe in the Church, to believe in Christ in a ‘watered down' way, and to possess a strong Papism for devotion and pious sentiment. In the person of John Paul II, we did not see only the objective manifestation of a great Shepherd, a man of God and an exceptional ‘saint' but we were able to also note how crowds of people desired to have more a mother than a father, to be received into the nest (ovatta) than to be nested upon, and yet, at the same time, desired to justify their own consciences with a slimy, political, and perilous ‘goodness'.
 That doesn't mean to stifle the smoldering flame! We know very well that the Spirit of the Most High is pure and not puritan, that God ‘begs' constantly at man's heart, for which He gave Himself to the end. We also well know that God doesn't ask where you come from but rather where you are going. Therefore, there is no reason to pass judgment on the personal feelings of millions of pilgrims who visited and venerated John Paul II, because we too were and are among them. However, the judgment is aimed at an attitude that renders honor to John Paul II and even now to Benedict XVI, but which refuses their teachings, which are the same as those of Christ and His Church.
 How can one praise John Paul II without joining him in the fight against ethical relativism? Without battling against  laical ethics that want to manipulate all life? How can we be moved by the Holy Father without being moved by that which urged him to the last drop, that is in the name of a total and unconditioned love for Christ and His Church? How can we call ourselves Christians, and even more Catholics, if we are not on the same side as the weakest against every totalitarianism which is in act, especially today, in the field of ethics from the embryo to the person who slowly dies on a hospital bed? How can we let ourselves be moved by the fiction ‘Karol' and then debate over abortion and euthanasia? How can one follow the Holy Father and not understand that the Europe which forgets its roots will never have wings?
 Quoting Pope John Paul II, "It is inadmissible in as far as it is contrary to the Gospel, the presumption to circumscribe religion to the strict private sphere, forgetting paradoxically the essentially public and social dimensions of the human person." (Spain, June 1993) Capezzone not blaspheme... don't invoke the coming of the Holy Spirit ironically for the coming of Pope Benedict XVI, but rather for oneself because, as everyone else, there is urgent need for a conversion to Christ and to life. Invoke Him for one's most radical neighbors, for those who shout in the squares at those who fast and who are idle for sickness' sake. Invoke Him and one will see that which is now not yet seen, rather than sew error which brings about man's true destruction and unfortunately perpetrates the damage upon many, many weak souls.
 Every baptized both far and near should know therefore, that Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever and that to render honor to John Paul II and currently to Benedict XVI means to follow Christ as Church and in the Church. There are no other roads... and who proposes others is a thief or brigand. A thief because, he does not pass through the door and, like the serpent (arum, in Hebrew - astute/thief), slides along in search of other short-cuts which lead to the loss of oneself and to the infernal fire, even here and now. John Paul II was in reality Peter, Benedict XVI is in reality Peter... that is, the rock laid soundly upon the cornerstone that is Christ and upon which Peter had lain his whole self to the point of becoming another Christ for the Church and the world. In the Bible, the assignment of a vocation, and even more so, that which was given exclusively to Peter is "reality that doesn't change", it is Dabar, "transforming word" and gives the strength to maintain the task of "custodian" beyond personal merit or lack of merit, limits or human glories, and pastoral perfectibility.
 The Petrine primate is an institution-vocation, gift of the Father to Christ and of Christ to us through the person of Peter. Never in its history has the Catholic Church fallen into a contradiction within her deposit of the faith despite the Church's own poverty and that, we can say, of some of her popes.
 

Papism at Home

 Even among Catholics, a form of Papism is apparent, which is everything other than ecclesiastic faith, but rather a justification of personal hysterics. It is curious to note how many are the movements that heed constantly to the Pope, searching to bypass the visibility of Christ within the Diocese (that is, the Bishop). Another curiosity worth mentioning is how only a short while ago, someone among the Catholics in the doubt of abstaining from voting for the Referendum - which was according to the Holy Father's indications through the mouth of Cardinal Ruini and the CEI - was caught by a plague of scruples and sought out the Pope for advice. Those such as these, as on one side the integralists and on the other the progressionists, are enemies of Christ and the Church with their patalogical illnesses which lead into error. As was aforementioned here, even those such as these hide a scarse amount of faith and an erroneous ecclesiology but above all a wounded nature on the limits of pathology. Love for John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI will be shown, for example, by the solidarity of Catholics around the Referendum on Assisted Fecondation; sign of how many Catholics follow, albeit with difficulty, the way of Jesus Christ, died and risen!

The Primacy of Peter

 From the one side, liberalism and from the other, the authoritarianisms have discredited the authentic meaning of authority and obbedience, seeking to undermine that which God has given us in Christ to Peter and through Peter. Let us not forget that John Paul II's true name was that of Peter, and the true name of Benedict XVI is now Peter! The dogmatic definition of Vatican I (1870) confirmed that which the Church has always and unerroneously believed from the time of Peter to the present. The dogmatic definition is, above all, an anchor of salvation for all those who in history, detaching themselves from Peter, have sought to inoculate the worm of misunderstanding. Primacy of honor and jurisdiction which finds its justification in an apostolic succession-tradition and in the vocational gift. The document,  Pastor Aeternus says at Chapter Two: "Therefore whoever succeeds to the chair of Peter obtains by the institution of Christ himself, the primacy of Peter over the whole church." It is this same close and inseparable union between the Apostolic succession and the vocational call, in virtue of the Word of Christ the Lord, that legitimizes, be it the aspect of being, be it that of each Pope's operating with full authority, and not due to formal tradition, but rather through living grace in the presence of Christ -Rock, Shepherd, and Head of the Church. Full, entire, and immediate authority, which is exercised even in an ordinary manner every time that it is deemed as opportune, without delegation. In the Gospel light, correctly understood, it isn't sufficient that "two or three be united in Christ's name" in order to guarentee the Church's being; it is infact fundamental that the "two or more", and actually even in the single person in prayer, pray as the entire Church in the primacy of Peter, in the present Pope. There is no liturgy, public or personal that is accomplished without this real bond with the Pope who God gives to His Church. This bond with the Holy Father guarentees objectively in the faith, the ‘being one' in Christ, yesterday, today, and always. An ontological, communional, and metastorical bond, founded on the Rock that is Christ and in Peter through Christ. The document Pastor Aeternus recites at Chapter Two, "It was always necessary that every other Church, that is to say, that the faithful of every part of the world, might gather with the Roman Church in virtue of its highest primacy, so that with that Chair from which are promulgated in all, the rights of the venerable communion, all as unite members to the head, all might come to form a single body". It is difficult to recognize the Petrine papacy for those who have always moved along their own lines like, "we are the church". These, more than at Vatican II - which on the basis of the primacy of Peter and ecclesiology, is perfectly in continuity with all of the Church's tradition - anchor themselves rather in a "Vatican II according to me!" warmly supporting with their ethical, pastoral, and ecclesiological positions, Luther's thought of re-foundation more than that of reformation and, what is even worse, they legitimize that systematic operation of disgregation and destruction of the apostolic patrimony which Christ had consigned to history and to the world. Not far from them are the "unavox", the traditionalists - even if from the other side of the fence - who live entirely by their own sense of the Church and conception of the papacy, artistically elaborated to legitimize their psycho-sociological needs before maintaining the right faith. It's precisely within the grounds of Ecclesiology (other than on the psycho-emotional level) that both currents form the waters and together legitimize the dictatorship of soggetivism and relativism. The confusion in the faithful derives precisely from the resulting Ecclesiology from which amass in clusters a whole series of errors.

Believe in the Holy Spirit 

 Believing in the Holy Spirit is a Christian duty and right. A right because He, the Spirit of God, is the first gift made to us at Baptism. The love of the Father and of the Son, incorporating us into the most Holy Trinity and into His intimate life enables us not only to be "alter christus" but to be "ecclesia". It is a duty because that which is impossible to man becomes possible with God within you (rm. 8, 1ss)... it is precisely here, we could say, where laity of the believer is founded as a person inhabited by God for a "mundane" transformation of existence according to Christ and according to God. Precisely with Baptism we become not only children of God but also, we become fully Church. We can't be sons and daughters of God without being Church and be Church without being sons and daughters of God. That is why every "distance" from Rome is not only a violence against Reason and against the Gift of God in Christ but also a profound betrayal of the ontology that is a part of the baptized person. This is why the baptized is "lay", in the sense that he/she is filled with the transcendent and called to live in the present, the dimension of already and not yet. Certainly this occurs with the proper and necessary ontological differences and ministries, of sensibilities and charisms, but everyone when it is proclaimed: "Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven", affirms that, for as much as it is possible, the earth should become a place where God is welcome. To be a lay person in such a sense coincides with being the people of God and it is the most profound sense of being missionaries. The Holy Father, John Paul II, entirely priest and Pope, shepherd of the whole Church, was in this sense, also profoundly ‘laical' in His Magisterium and in all of the radical and evangelical battles in favor of life as against every insolent and underground totalitarianism, from Comunism to Liberalism, from the Freemasons to ethical Relativism. Open the doors to Christ! He repeated yesterday and repeats again today from his place with God. Open the doors to Christ means to be in the world but not of the world. Here the laity is grounded. The difense, or better yet, the recognition of Europe's Christian Roots takes place upon this assumption of adherence to reality and from this mystical proposition: without Christian Roots, Europe is fleeing from itself and is denying its true profound lay state. It is a paradox! Precisely when Europe denies its Christian roots, so much more it therefore becomes less laical.  

Pope Benedict XVI

 Pope John Paul II sewed the seed which in continuity,  will be carried forward by means of "our" new gift from God. Fill with meaning, placed ‘a firm and decided point
' in the Christian Community, re-definition of one's identity on faith and tradition, liturgical and pastoral re-definition of initiation and vocational sacraments, clear and strong Ecclesiology, raise walls against ethical relativism, continue forward along the Ecumenical pathway and carry out the Inter-religious Dialogue, will all be, perhaps, some of the points which will be confronted by Benedict XVI's magisterium. A titanic task.
 But God is with him in the most mysterious sense of the Word and we support him with the faith, with prayer and obbedience. We are the people of God, clergy, religious, and lay people, and we are therefore a people that awaits and heeds (that is creates a tent, assembly, meeting place, ecclesia) to the voice of the father and shepherd, "sweet Christ on the earth". We are ready to hoist the sails to where God and His Vicar will lead us. Thank you Lord for this gift, thank you Joseph Ratzinger for having received it.