Why Are Conservatives Obscurantists, Lord Cardinal?

Walter Cardinal Brandmüller in an interview with "Bild am Sonntag" about cruelty, sin and madness.   

by Paul Badde.

Rome (kath.net/ BILDamSONNTAG)
The revolution will not take place in the Vatican. Attempts to establish a reform of the life world of sexuality in Catholic doctrine are thwarted by the opposition of conservative cardinals. For the time being. Behind the St Peter I meet Walter Cardinal Brandmüller (85), a prominent representative of the counter-revolutionary wing of the Roman Curia. He drinks his coffee black. 

Bild am Sonntag: Why are conservatives so hard and merciless, Your Eminence? 

Are they? I have not seen a man who was merciless because he is conservative. There are compassionate and ruthless liberals and conservatives. But  is the doctor is merciful, who saves a patient saving surgery and allowed him alcohol and nicotine will? The a diabetic mitgibt a Sacher Torte? 

But don't conservatives usually talk more about sin, and liberals more about forgiveness and mercy?

This is new to me. How do you know? From the Newspaper? Even liberals talk of sin. But they usually understand something else underneath that's right.  For them there are more parking offenders and diet sins. So what is sin? 

Please say it.

Sin is a morally inferior attitude or action, with which people harm themselves and others. But we had all been told that we feel bad when we do evil and act falsely. That fraud, adultery, murder, etc. has not yet made ​​people really happy. Dostoevsky wrote whole novels about this dark secret. 

But aren't conservatives are rather more about fear, where liberals are brave?

Where is that? Let's talk perhaps of the elephant who bravely trudges here in the china shop? Caution in dealing with precious vessels, I would never be confused with fearfulness. 

How did conservatives get the reputation of being the obscurantist - in contrast to the liberal luminaries

Should I laugh? Obscurantists are shooting gallery figures brought out of mothballs of the so-called Enlightenment. There are prejudices that are without any reasonable justification.  200 years ago, everyone who opposed that obsession with progress and modernity were slandered as obscurantists. The Jacobins, however,  liked to stylize themselves as she heads rolled for progress. 

Why are many liberals so fascinated with the concept of revolution 200 years later?

You have to ask the Liberals. I shiver at the notion. Let us not forget, the great revolutions have brought upon the people so much blood and tears! The Nazis saw themselves as revolutionaries. Revolutionaries are arsonists. 

But conservatives do not like to look back, while liberals actually look forward and to the future? Why? 

I am a historian. The past is the stuff of experience and very concrete. The future is the realm of dreams and seducers. It is untested and one can easily say and promise anything. Only on the basis of historical experience can a secure future be built. 

Why has the dispute between conservatives and liberals today erupted because of the topic of family?

Ideologues who want to change people and society, starting at the family and its destruction. That was the same with Marx and Lenin. Families are the primordial cells of every community. That is why they are so vulnerable. They should not be experimented with. I will not speak of the latest insanity of "social freezing" of female ova here. Anyway, an incredible fight has broken out about families in which  unfortunately none has defended so  much  as the Church. That's what   Pope Paul VI. .. and John Paul II decades ago pointed out so prophetically?  

How do you interpret the fact  that  Cardinal Müller and Cardinal Kasper. the biggest opponents, are German in this debate between conservatives and liberals in the Catholic Church? 

I have to respond with Goethe: "Two souls dwell, alas! in my chest."  This is true somehow also of Germany, particularly since the Reformation, in which the Germans have split into two camps. This cleavage even now has penetrated the Catholic Church in Germany. 

The Catholic Church was in conflict over the indissolubility of marriage in conflict with Henry VIII. 1535, which led to the separation of the Anglican Church. Was it worth the price?

The question is wrongly put. No pope and no council can pass over  the words of Jesus about marriage. "What God has joined together, man must not separate." Fidelity to the Word of God was something  Pope Clement VII held more weighty than the political threat of the English king. The Church is not entitled to modify the sacraments. The apostle Paul says that we are only managers and that a manager must be faithful. The Church is a foundation, since it the founder's will is what matters. 

Do we understand the Word of God today better with today's theologians than earlier ones. 

God's Word is inexhaustible in form and content. Therefore, there is very probably an advance in knowledge. But it is inconceivable that later findings contradict those previously the known. Two times two is four. Truth does not change. And the Spirit of God does not contradict itself. 

Doesn't a healthy Church really need this dispute? 

A certain ferment of unrest does each community well. Even conservatives need surface friction where they can light their matches. The error has its importance for the progress of knowledge. 

Should  we not  fear a Church that consists only of conservatives? 

That depends on what you mean by conservative. 

What is conservative, Eminence? 

Conservative means in the culture and  in religion something else than in politics.  Social relations or forms of government like perhaps the monarchy to be maintained under all circumstances is not conservative. So it is in life. The lizard can lose the tail to save himself. The true conservatives understand it, dismissing things of secondary importance to obtain essentials. To preserve worthless things  is not conservative. It is not conservative to preserve the ashes, John XXIII. said, but to guard the embers. In dentistry it is conservative to preserve the root, and not to pull the tooth. We need tined food: blood products, canned foods. What would be the art of the world without conservators? The fire department is conservative - when it comes time! Photo: Walter Cardinal Brandmüller © Paul Badde

Link to Kath.net...

Trans: Tancred vekron99@homtail.com
AMDG