BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Jan 23 - 01:27 PM

I don't think there were any other Pope Benedicts born in 1927 and died in 2022 :-D

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 Jan 23 - 01:09 PM

The thread title ought to have
a roman numeral XVI
after the pontiff's name.

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jan 23 - 10:55 AM

In this crowd, this will be the only reference to MLK day.

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jan 23 - 07:45 AM

Pope Benedict did reference MLK while in DC regarding King's nonviolent struggle against slavery and racism.
Today on MLK day RACIAL AND RELIGIOUS intolerance has grown to 85% of Americans harboring a hatred trope of some kind and a 35% rise in violent acts. With or without Trump the white evangelical Protestant churches are going full-throttle anti-Semitic. I will remind them that Jesus Christ was killed as a Jewish person of color agitating against the corporate dictatorship of Rome.
Even if you are an evangelical WASP I remind you that you have skin in the game and will have to choose between Proud Boys authority or Federal forces guided by the Constitution.
As America will be shaped by the changing electorate, the new minority can not rely on obstructionism or eliminating voting fairness forever.
If you feel raw about this I suggest you start learning Russian.

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jan 23 - 04:02 AM

I was also brought up in Catholicism (there ya go...words!) and I was aware of it, mainly because of the protestations of non-Roman Catholic Christians. Falling asleep in the pope's little red book lessons - oops, sorry, catechism lessons - very likely protected you from harm, Dave, considering that the answer to the very first question therein is a big fib...

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Jan 23 - 12:02 AM

I was brought up Roman Catholic and did not know full well. Maybe I just fell asleep during catechism classes or was never that interested. Or maybe I am just uneducated! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Jan 23 - 06:32 PM

Nigel says: "The fact that the Roman Catholics think 'catholic' (with or without an initial capital) refers only to them"

Educated Roman Catholics know full well that the "catholic" in the Creed does not refer only to their denomination. This is explained clearly in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Jan 23 - 09:39 AM

Thanks Nigel. I didn't realise that!

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 12 Jan 23 - 08:23 AM

Bonzo
The relevance of being Church of England is that thank Clapton, I'm not catholic!!!

The Anglican creed is that we believe in 'one holy, catholic, and apostolic church'.
The fact that the Roman Catholics think 'catholic' (with or without an initial capital) refers only to them is mistaken.
'Catholic' merely means 'universal.

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: keberoxu
Date: 11 Jan 23 - 06:55 PM

Does anyone else remember how he used to wear red shoes?

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jan 23 - 04:33 AM

I like it when you keep it short and pithy, Dick! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Jan 23 - 03:36 AM

B

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Jan 23 - 02:53 AM

Thanks all for your views and insights. Some very interesting stuff up there!

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Jan 23 - 09:34 PM

All religions.
Don’t throw stones at others lest they become boomerangs.

Benedict was an academic, and a good one. He was not CEO or even a good manager, and I suspect he knew it.

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jan 23 - 07:20 PM

Mrs Steve, a non-Catholic, and I got married in the Catholic Church in 1976. We would not agree to the proviso that any future children must be brought up as Catholics. We had a meeting with the East End bishop, Victor Guazzelli, who gave us a severe grilling before deciding that our arguments were heartfelt and genuine, and he gave us dispensation to marry in the Church and that we could decide between us how our children should be brought up. Bishop Victor was an exceptionally fine man, a real champion of the poor in Stepney and Poplar. Of course, my views on Catholicism and religion in general have have changed since then. I remember Bishop Victor coming to our school staff meeting ('twas a Catholic school) and warning us in no uncertain terms, in his gravelly voice and with aggressive hand gestures, of the severe danger of the threat of "militant ex-Catholics." Hardly a man of the hard left, then, but battling Bishop Victor, born and bred in the East End, had the fight for social justice in his heart. He opposed the Falklands war and championed the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. When he retired he went back to live at Pope John House in Poplar with the nuns, where I once had to pretend to live in order to qualify for a council flat in Poplar (with the connivance of Sister Theresa and the other nuns!)

I wonder what he would have thought about the stasis in the Church regarding the sex abuse allegations, sat on for decades by John Paul II and Benedict. The latter will doubtless be sainted soon, along with Pius XII ("Hitler's Pope" - dunno why I'm using speech marks...) and the aforementioned John Paul II. When I was a little Catholic lad I always thought that the saints were perfect, immaculate examples of the highest order of humanity. Our hero was St Dominic Savio, protégé of St John Bosco, who founded the order that ran the secondary school I went to. Had I still been a fervent believer, though with my eyes wide open, I think I'd have been severely disillusioned by the goings-on in the Church in the last half-century. Or a lot longer than that even, now that I've looked into it.

Bishop Victor is worth a google if you're that way inclined. He was a different kind of Catholic.

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Jan 23 - 06:42 PM

(Corrected post) Of course there are plenty of people in the Church of England who can get very indignant if anyone suggests that they are NOT Catholic.

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 Jan 23 - 03:49 PM

The relevance of being Church of England is that thank Clapton, I'm not catholic!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Jan 23 - 12:38 PM

was there a Pope called Alexander?

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Jan 23 - 08:00 AM

Everybody singing "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"?

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: BobL
Date: 05 Jan 23 - 04:53 AM

Regarding caninization: I'd never come across the term "God's Rottweiler", but in some circles he was known as the German Shepherd.

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Jan 23 - 04:07 AM

I do not understand the relevance of you being C OF E.
I thought your form of worship took place in the dog house,of course i understand the necessity of not being dogmatic but doggerel about your religious beliefs is reminiscent of a dog with a bone

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 Jan 23 - 02:05 AM

Thank goodness I'm Church of England !!!

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict (1927-2022)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Jan 23 - 12:22 AM

I'm the child of a lapsed Catholic - so there is no appreciation for the church as an entity. But the fact that this indivdual resigned made an impression, that he was choosing to do what he felt was right.

To paraphrase Martha Stewart - "This was a good thing."

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Jan 23 - 10:31 PM

I was really apprehensive about God's Rottweiler becoming Pope, but I had an acquaintance (now an archbishop) who was working in Rome under Ratzinger as the highest-ranking American in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly The Holy Inquisition). He told me to stop and pay attention. He promised that if Ratzinger became Pope, I was going to like him. So, I reserved judgment. I took the time to read what he wrote as Pope, and I had to admit that I really liked what he had to say.
Benedict receives a lot of blame for the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, but as Cardinal Ratzinger he was the first in the administration of Pope John Paul II to take action against priests who sexually abused children. John Paul's negligence in this matter was disgraceful, but Cardinal Ratzinger did a lot to push John Paul II into finally doing something - and when Ratzinger became Pope Benedict, he continued to deal sternly with priests who abused children. John Paul II was guilty as sin and I am appalled that he was named a saint, but Benedict actually did a pretty good job.
But Benedict was a professor, and he was a very good professor. As a student of Theology, I have a lot of respect for what he taught and wrote. But he wasn't much of a leader, and I think that's why he resigned from the papacy. He recognized his shortcomings, and he had the courage to resign and to go back to the work in which he excelled.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Jan 23 - 08:32 PM

"Pius XII tried to come to accommodations with Hitler and Mussolini"

To correct myself slightly, some of this took place before he became Pope in 1939 but while he was papal nuncio and the Cardinal Secretary of State in the 20s and 30s.

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Jan 23 - 07:52 PM

This fellow perpetuated the outrage of the non-investigation and cover-up of institutional child sexual abuse that had gone on for so long under the wicked John Paul II. Pius XII tried to come to accommodations with Hitler and Mussolini and may have overseen the removal of Jews from the Vatican to death camps, not to speak of easing the path to South America for Nazi war criminals. So they sainted him. John Paul II's ultra-conservative and expedient approach to the sex abuse scandals was legendary, so he's been sainted too. Watch this space.

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Jan 23 - 06:41 PM

You'll only find out how bad he was when he gets canonised.

Subject: RE: BS: Pope Benedict
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Jan 23 - 06:36 PM

By resigning he avoided prosecution in a Vatican Bank scandal.
Other than being an anti-aircraft gunner in the Hitler Youth ranks I suppose he was a normal human being.

Subject: BS: Pope Benedict
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Jan 23 - 05:28 PM

I'm quite surprised that no one has started a thread on the deceased ex pontif. I used to be a Catholic until I was old enough to make my own mind up so I do have a bit of interest.

I cannot really say I did not like Benedict because I never met him but I certainly did not like his policies. Francis seems a more forward thinking pope but it does not look like he will be about long.

Anyone have any further thoughts or maybe even insights?