The new springtime for the Church hoped for by Blessed John Paul II has found its great advocate and defender in Benedict XVI. He has been an indefatigable defender of Tradition and renewal in the light of both the Second Vatican Council and the crisis that has been its aftermath. Perhaps one may call him a transitional pope. However, work that he has done will prove pivotal to future of the Church willed by Christ. Joseph Ratzinger was the guardian of the doctrine of the faith under Blessed John Paul II, and his resignation has given us the extraordinary conclave that elected Pope Francis. But what he did in this transition was to make clear once again to the naysayers that, even in crisis, the Church is the only viable future, just as it was at the beginning when it was small and persecuted.
Prophetically, Joseph Ratzinger pronounced the keynote of his coming pontificate at the Mass Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice just before the conclave that elected him began. He contrasted the relativism of our age, the “being carried about by every wind of doctrine,” with the standard by which the Church judges a truly humane society, namely, the person of Jesus Christ. Against what he famously called the “dictatorship of relativism” he pitted a faith fully embraced as a deep encounter with Christ:
Read Full Article »