Pope Benedict XVI (7)

Um fenomeno engraçado e comum. Os seus criticos reagem e opinam com base em titulos de maus (pessimos) artigos. Alguns dos defensores, supostamente conservadores e direita (mesmo a liberal), deixam escapar uma dimensao e tom de liberalismo classico nos seus escritos (para alem da ninguem mencionar a sua oposicao a classificar o "Iraque" como "Guerra Justa" e nao tirarem as devidas reflexoes da sucessao do nome do Papa que tentou evitar (assumindo neutralidade e tomando iniciativas de paz - ignoradas por completo pelo Woodrow Wilson para tragedia de todos) o desastre - "suicidio da Europa" - da Primeira Guerra (e que como digo com frequencia, nos deu as republicas comunistas, fascistas, a guerra fria, e o Estado de centralismo social-democrata Moderno).

Um exemplo (via LRCBlog): Ok, so here we have Benedict XVI writing on conscience. He writes: "Only the absoluteness of conscience is the complete antithesis to tyranny; only the recognition of its inviolability protects human beings from each other and from themselves; only its rule guarantees freedom." Further: a ruler who "denies the inviolable space of the conscience" becomes the Beast of Revelation. The "freedom of the conscience...transcends all political systems. For this limitation Jesus went to his death; he bore witness to the limitation of power in his suffering."

Pretty clear, huh? One might think. Clear and radical. Thrilling even!

Now here is Andrew Sullivan: "Ratzinger's views on freedom of thought within the church are deeply authoritarian; his views on what conscience is are totalitarian; his conflation of his own views with the Holy Spirit are offensive."

On what basis does Sullivan say this? I read and read and followed link after link and found nothing. Nothing at all besides ever more evidence of Sullivan's own hallucinations and hysterias."

Para ler o original:

1. Biblical Aspects of the Question of Faith and Politics

[This is a homily that was delivered on 26 November 1981 in the course of a service for Catholic members of the Bundestag in the church of St. Wynfrith (Boniface) in Bonn. The readings provided for the day by the lectionary were 1 Peter 1:3–7 and John 14:1–6. At first sight they seemed to be out of keeping with the subject, but on closer inspection they showed themselves to be unexpectedly fruitful.]

2. Why Church and State Must Be Separate,

An excerpt from "Theology and the Church’s Political Stance" in Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger Church, Ecumenism and Politics: New Essays in Ecclesiology (NY: Crossroad, 1988).

3. Conscience in Its Age,

A lecture given to the Reinhold-Schneider-Gesellschaft, printed in Church, Ecumenism and Politics, by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (NY, Crossroads, 1987), pp. 165–79.