God's "Rotty" Ascends

As the white smoke rose above Saint Peter’s Square the College of Cardinals spokesman proclaimed “Habemus Papam,” we have a pope! The Cardinals picked a new skipper, German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, known variously as the Panzer Cardinal, God’s Rottweiler and now Pope Benedict XVI.

As head of the College of Cardinals, Ratzinger was the right hand man and close friend of Pope John Paul II. The two men were of one mind on all matters of Church doctrine. The choice of Ratzinger sends a message to the world that the Catholic Church will remain faithful to its traditional values.

Cardinal Ratzinger's recent homily "Dictatorship of Relativism” provides a clear expression of his principles.

We should not remain infants in faith, in a state of minority. And what does it mean to be an infant in faith? Saint Paul answers: it means “tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching arising from human trickery” (Eph 4, 14). This description is very relevant today!

How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking… The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves – thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth.

Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and “swept along by every wind of teaching”, looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today’s standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.

However, we have a different goal: the Son of God, true man. He is the measure of true humanism. Being an “Adult” means having a faith which does not follow the waves of today’s fashions or the latest novelties. A faith which is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ is adult and mature. It is this friendship which opens us up to all that is good and gives us the knowledge to judge true from false, and deceit from truth.

Good friend Pamela Cleveland yesterday wrote that Ratzinger "was Pope John Paul's 'enforcer of orthodoxy' and 'one of the most personal choices of his pontificate'. Christianity is thriving/growing in Africa. Europe is spiritually dead. A German as pope might have some influence in reviving Europe!"

I'm not confident in the revivability of Europe from its deadly secularism but I do agree that what the world needs most of all is a Catholic Church that stands for something, for right over wrong, for good over evil.

Benedict XVI is the man for the job!