Tag: Ross Douthat

The Catholic Moment is over … where does hope exist?

The news media is hot to assess the Church and her legacy in the wake of Benedict XVIs abdication announcement on February 11, 2013. And, to be honest, much of the assessment is tedious and lacking substance, even from veteran and well-known and reliable Catholic thinkers. No shortage of prattle. Pick up the daily paper or turn on the TV/radio news and you will be treated to comparisons and rumination between the still current papacy (the Pope is not gone yet) and the previous one but too often with secular criteria and interests. Judging the pope and the Church with criteria other than a focus on God and the proclamation of the Gospel is not faithful. The media, we have to recognize, is not too conversant in matters of Catholic faith. In fact, they generally so very little and merely repeat clichés. Far more people are interested in questions of power, authority, the teaching, the numbers of faithful, “successes” and “failures,” the position of “the pope who resigned” and the like than they are in matters pertaining to the Word of God, the salvation of souls and to eternal life. 

Perhaps in the days to come we can come to a new and vital interest in the substance of the faith than in power.

Ross Douthat’s editorial, “The End of a Catholic Moment,” is correct and sad but true. His final thought is interesting and I with curiosity to see how and who will lead us both in the Church universal and in America….

Douthat evaluates Benedict’s resignation

Ross Douthat “conservative columnist” of The NY Times writes about Pope Benedict’s resignation yesterday. He pinpoints how in recent years, in many ways very recent years, how the ministry of the Bishop of Rome has changed. And not for the better.

In The Pope Abdicates, he puts his finger on things Benedict tried to minimize: the cult of papal personality, a globe-trotting bishop, a world-powerful CEO, an international voice of reason, etc. The real power of the Pontiff is work of unity among all peoples and teaching and living the truth: Jesus Christ is true for all people because He is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
There are beautiful and positive lessons to be learned with Benedict’s resignation. God knows what he did when he gave Ratzinger the responsibility of being the Bishop of Rome. The challenges of a global Church worshiping the One, Triune God, preaching salvation, dispensing forgiveness of sins, being an example of love for the other, living according to the Magisterium, and the like, led by an 85 year old are very burdensome today. The humility of Benedict, who in good conscience likely did as much in 7 years as John Paul did in 26 is amazing. But you have to read this work to know this. His homilies and his talks are crucial to know his current thinking and direction. Take for example, Benedict’s 2005 address to the Roman Curia. 
A lesson to study is how focussed are we on God? Is God our true center? Do we believe that Jesus is the center of our Church, or is the real head a man in nice clothes? Sentimental we can’t afford to be: there is something important at stake here: salvation.
Even without the office, Benedict remains a true Father of the Faith.

Liberal Christianity on the decline

The NY Times op-ed columnist and author Ross Douthat writes about the decline of “liberal Christianity.”  I found Douthat’s “Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?” a good article to ponder, even good enough to take to prayer, because Ross asks what within the tradition of modern Christianity is worth saving and what definitely needs to be jettisoned. Douthat, for me, reminds me of days not long ago when a prominent religious order of men adopted a form of liberal Christian thinking on all maters but the truth, even to the point of a several members saying they relished being post-Christian. Gone are the days –at least one hopes the days are gone– when we are theologically shallow, lacking the biblical narrative and true theology.

Ross Douthat recently published the provocative Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (Free Press, 2012).