Edit: in light of recent events with Bishop Tebartz van Elst and the German Bishop's complicity in distributing pornography with Catholic's donations, enforced through the church-tax, this statement by philosopher Robert Spaemann on September 9th of 2011 really cuts to the quick.
(Gloria.tv / KNA) The philosopher Robert Spaemann has criticized the church tax. "It is scandalous in our church tax, that he who pays no more church tax, is excommunicated," the Catholic said this for the newspaper "Die Welt" (Friday). "You can deny the resurrection of Jesus, but then you are not suspended as a priest. Yet when it comes to money, it gets serious. This coupling of church membership and church tax must fall. "[How about suspending heretical priests, instead?]
Spaemann also welcomed the speeches held by the Pope on his visit to Germany and his plea for the Church's detachment from the world. "As Archbishop of Munich, Joseph Ratzinger once told me on a walk: You know, what the biggest problem of the Church in Germany is? She has too much money."
Link to Gloria.tv...
Bless him +
ReplyDeleteWhat Spaemann is describing in Germany, may well be accentuated by the tax system but it is also essentially happening elsewhere. In Holland the Church is down to a remnant and in Belgium there is just confusion. In the UK, a better face is preserved, but the story is basically the same, a profound split in the Church. I have more hope for the USA. At least the remaining orthodox Catholics there speak out!
ReplyDeleteMore and more, it seems to me that the analogy of another Reformation, this time a Modernist Reformation applies, and if so we are about half way into it. It was, after all, about a hundred years before the Protestant Reformation was fully recognised as such. Benedict has predicted a smaller Church for a while anyway? However, no one needs worry about religious wars breaking out. That would be taking the analogy too far. In any case it would be against Health and Safety Regulations.
Pope Francis 1 has got off to a poor start, not surprising given his need to adjust from remote Buenos Aires suburbs where I’m sure he did a very good job.
He is essentially orthodox and when it sinks in with him, just how devious the wider world is, I’m sure he will improve and start to bind confused but intuitive Catholics together again.
But to continue the earlier analogy, we have two or three Popes and another General Council to go, before the Barque is on course again.
"Pope Francis 1 has got off to a poor start, not surprising given his need to adjust from remote Buenos Aires suburbs where I’m sure he did a very good job. He is essentially orthodox and when it sinks in with him, just how devious the wider world is, I’m sure he will improve and start to bind confused but intuitive Catholics together again."
ReplyDeleteYour bitter sarcasm is savage!