Cardinal Lehman Attacks Pope Benedict

Edit: Cardinal Lehman is jealously guarding his golden goose. Who hasn't met an employee of Catholic Charitable organizations who doesn't fit the description of a soulless bureaucrat who either doesn't understand or doesn't appreciate the spiritual dimension of the Church and charitable works?

The Cardinal is in Peacock Feathers

Cardinal Lehman feels that Pope Benedict's remarks about the seeking agnostic and the indifferent Catholic were striking a little too close to home. Here's the article from kath.net as translated:

Frankfurt (kath.net/KNA) The Cardinal of Mainz, Cardinal Karl Lehman had defended the Pope's call for a "detachment from the world in the Catholic Church, but also admonished caution. The Pope's invitation in Frieburg was met with "blank incomphrehension" said the Bishop of Mainz, where he wrote an article Tuesday for the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung". However, he stood behind his words that there must be a convictino that the Church must maintain its distance from "seductive powers", without relinquishing its responsibility. "You may face some objections to the speech and only marvel at how strange and unknown this understanding of the Church has become for many," said Lehman.

With a view to his debate on Church-tax the Cardinal recalled the historical roots of the levy. it was established in the 19th century not by the Church, but rather by the ruling powers, so that the Church and the State could better support charitable work. Previously, the Church had been "dirt poor" because of the secularization. Meanwhile, Benedict XVI had explained in his Freiburg speech that the appropriation of property to the Church has "contributed significantly to internal reform'. Lehman pointed out that instructions could be derived from this also, "for those who don't want to renew the benevolence of the Church, rather break it making it fundamentally weaker to reduce its capabilities."

Lehman is grateful that the Pope in his speech explicitly thanked those engaged in charitable works in the Church. He criticized, however, that Benedict XVI. then immediately declared those as agnostics who sincerely sought God, were closer to the Kingdom, "than the ecclesiastical old hands, who see only the institution, without being touched by the Faith". "To thank someone for such language would be foolish. For shame!" said Lehman.

Link to kath.net...

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