{"id":2351,"date":"2008-03-12T10:34:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-12T10:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/03\/some-great-thoughts-on-preparing-for-the-pope.html"},"modified":"2008-03-12T10:34:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-12T10:34:00","slug":"some-great-thoughts-on-preparing-for-the-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/03\/some-great-thoughts-on-preparing-for-the-pope.html","title":{"rendered":"Some great thoughts on preparing for the pope"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> If you’re looking for a little context on the upcoming papal visit, you’ll do no better than to drop by Amy Welborn’s superlative blog<\/a>, where she offers us this pearl of great price<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Over the next two months, before the Pope arrives in our country, there is going to be a constant battle, it seems to me, to communicate clearly and authentically what this man is all about. There are a great number of commentors – even Catholic commentors – who are taking the stage with their own certain proclamations about what Americans should \u201clook for\u201d or what Americans \u201chope to hear\u201d or what the Pope will \u201chave to say\u201d to us when he comes.<\/p>\n

Most of those proclamations are about \u201cclear Catholic identity\u201d or involve metaphors that evoke closed doors, tightening reins and battening hatches.<\/p>\n

Their paradigms are severely limited, it seems to me, because they can\u2019t get out of adolescence – even the Catholics – in their relationship to the Church. Even the \u201cthinking Catholics\u201d see the Church as a fierce parent handing down arbitrary rules, so when Benedict comes along talking about Christ, they don\u2019t know what to, well \u201cthink\u201d anymore and they spend (waste) a lot of time trying to twist his words into, first their own definition of Church, and secondly their own pre-conceptions of Benedict.<\/p>\n

So what we see is a lot of head-nodding, invariable commentary about Benedict \u201csoftening his image,\u201d a little bit of sneering that faced with the problems of the Church Benedict will be content to tell us just to \u201cpray more\u201d or even to encourage the malcontents to get out.<\/p>\n

What they don\u2019t seem to grasp is that Benedict really believes this stuff. He believes that Christ instituted a Church through which He would teach and sanctify until the end of time and that this is it. And that the heart of the Christian faith is, well – faith – a deep personal faith in Christ that is marked by total trust, intimacy and love for the One who saves us from darkness, sin and death. And that it is through the Church, we meet Christ and we nourish that faith relationship. And this faith relationship – this orientation to God – is the most important thing in our lives and the most important thing we can can share with the world and the most important thing that the Church is called to share with the world.<\/p>\n

And that what Benedict sees as the great tragedy of the modern age, both in and outside of othe Church, is not that people are \u201cless faithful\u201d to the institution of the Church or have \u201cstrayed\u201d from doctrines or dogmas, but simply that innumerable forces both in and outside the Church have worked to sow doubt – real, serious doubt – in the reality of Christ and the redemptive love and mercy he offers, and that brings us back to full, flourishing life in God. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s much more. Read the rest<\/a>. You can thank me later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re looking for a little context on the upcoming papal visit, you’ll do no better than to drop by Amy Welborn’s superlative blog, where she offers us this pearl of great price: Over the next two months, before the Pope arrives in our country, there is going to be a constant battle, it seems…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-r-us"],"yoast_head":"\nSome great thoughts on preparing for the pope - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/03\/some-great-thoughts-on-preparing-for-the-pope.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Some great thoughts on preparing for the pope - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you’re looking for a little context on the upcoming papal visit, you’ll do no better than to drop by Amy Welborn’s superlative blog, where she offers us this pearl of great price: Over the next two months, before the Pope arrives in our country, there is going to be a constant battle, it seems…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/03\/some-great-thoughts-on-preparing-for-the-pope.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-03-12T10:34:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/R9fr_B9YdwI\/AAAAAAAACIc\/xXNyaiVN-M0\/s320\/pope_benedict%5B1%5D.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"deacon greg kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Some great thoughts on preparing for the pope - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/03\/some-great-thoughts-on-preparing-for-the-pope.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Some great thoughts on preparing for the pope - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"If you’re looking for a little context on the upcoming papal visit, you’ll do no better than to drop by Amy Welborn’s superlative blog, where she offers us this pearl of great price: Over the next two months, before the Pope arrives in our country, there is going to be a constant battle, it seems…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/03\/some-great-thoughts-on-preparing-for-the-pope.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2008-03-12T10:34:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/R9fr_B9YdwI\/AAAAAAAACIc\/xXNyaiVN-M0\/s320\/pope_benedict%5B1%5D.jpg"}],"author":"deacon greg kandra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/03\/some-great-thoughts-on-preparing-for-the-pope.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/03\/some-great-thoughts-on-preparing-for-the-pope.html","name":"Some great thoughts on preparing for the pope - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/03\/some-great-thoughts-on-preparing-for-the-pope.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/03\/some-great-thoughts-on-preparing-for-the-pope.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/R9fr_B9YdwI\/AAAAAAAACIc\/xXNyaiVN-M0\/s320\/pope_benedict%5B1%5D.jpg","datePublished":"2008-03-12T10:34:00+00:00","dateModified":"2008-03-12T10:34:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/03\/some-great-thoughts-on-preparing-for-the-pope.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/03\/some-great-thoughts-on-preparing-for-the-pope.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/03\/some-great-thoughts-on-preparing-for-the-pope.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/R9fr_B9YdwI\/AAAAAAAACIc\/xXNyaiVN-M0\/s320\/pope_benedict%5B1%5D.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/R9fr_B9YdwI\/AAAAAAAACIc\/xXNyaiVN-M0\/s320\/pope_benedict%5B1%5D.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/03\/some-great-thoughts-on-preparing-for-the-pope.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Some great thoughts on preparing for the pope"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10","name":"deacon greg kandra","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","caption":"deacon greg kandra"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/deacon-greg-kandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/365"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}