{"id":2502,"date":"2007-03-16T10:24:30","date_gmt":"2007-03-16T10:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/03\/blessed-are-the-meek-1.html"},"modified":"2007-03-16T10:24:30","modified_gmt":"2007-03-16T10:24:30","slug":"blessed-are-the-meek-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/03\/blessed-are-the-meek-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Blessed are the Meek"},"content":{"rendered":"

Full text isn’t out, but John Allen reports on this morning’s homily from the Preacher of the Papal Household, Capuchin Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Friedrich Nietzsche espoused a pagan lust for power \u201cirreducibly\u201d opposed to Christian non-violence, the Preacher of the Papal Household told the pope this morning, and it\u2019s difficult not to see a connection between Nietzsche\u2019s thought and the Nazi Holocaust. <\/p>\n

Capuchin Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, the pope\u2019s official preacher since 1980, addressed Benedict XVI during the weekly retreat he offers for the pope and senior Vatican officials each Lent. His subject was the promise of the Beatitudes in the New Testament: \u201cBlessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the land.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Capuchin recalled that Nietzsche scorned the vision of humility and non-violence offered by Jesus in the Beatitudes, styling it a \u201cmorality of slavery.\u201d <\/p>\n

In the last half-century, Cantalamessa observed, it\u2019s been fashionable to try to reconcile Nietzsche and Christianity, arguing that it was only an excessively abstemious and tee-totaling brand of religion to which he objected. Thus when Adolph Hitler invoked Nietzsche to justify the Nazi regime, according to this theory, he was betraying Nietzsche\u2019s intent.<\/p>\n

Only one voice, Cantalamessa said, has held out against this revisionist approach: the French Catholic thinker Ren\u00e9 Girard (today an emeritus professor at Standord). Girard, according to Cantalamessa, saw clearly in Nietzsche\u2019s reaction to the Beatitudes a microcosm of the \u201cirreducible alternative between Christianity and paganism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPaganism exalts the sacrifice of the weak in favor of the strong and the advancement of life; Christianity exalts the sacrifice of the strong in the favor of the weak,\u201d Cantalamessa said. <\/p>\n

In that regard, he said, Hitler did not misread Nietzsche.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s difficult not to see an objective connection between the proposal of Nietzsche, and the Hitlerian program of the elimination of entire human groups for the advancement of civilization and the purity of the race,\u201d Cantalamessa said.<\/p>\n

\u201cChristianity was not the philosopher\u2019s only target, but Christ,\u201d Cantalamessa said. \u201c\u2018Dionysus against the Crucified: Behold the antithesis,\u2019 he exclaimed in one of his posthumous fragments.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, Cantalamessa said, the widespread modern conviction that society is obligated to defend the powerless is a direct result of Christianity\u2019s influence.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Full text isn’t out, but John Allen reports on this morning’s homily from the Preacher of the Papal Household, Capuchin Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa: Friedrich Nietzsche espoused a pagan lust for power \u201cirreducibly\u201d opposed to Christian non-violence, the Preacher of the Papal Household told the pope this morning, and it\u2019s difficult not to see a connection…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nBlessed are the Meek - Via Media<\/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\/viamedia\/2007\/03\/blessed-are-the-meek-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Blessed are the Meek - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Full text isn’t out, but John Allen reports on this morning’s homily from the Preacher of the Papal Household, Capuchin Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa: Friedrich Nietzsche espoused a pagan lust for power \u201cirreducibly\u201d opposed to Christian non-violence, the Preacher of the Papal Household told the pope this morning, and it\u2019s difficult not to see a connection…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/03\/blessed-are-the-meek-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-03-16T10:24:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Blessed are the Meek - Via Media","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\/viamedia\/2007\/03\/blessed-are-the-meek-1.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Blessed are the Meek - Via Media","og_description":"Full text isn’t out, but John Allen reports on this morning’s homily from the Preacher of the Papal Household, Capuchin Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa: Friedrich Nietzsche espoused a pagan lust for power \u201cirreducibly\u201d opposed to Christian non-violence, the Preacher of the Papal Household told the pope this morning, and it\u2019s difficult not to see a connection…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/03\/blessed-are-the-meek-1.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2007-03-16T10:24:30+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/03\/blessed-are-the-meek-1.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/03\/blessed-are-the-meek-1.html","name":"Blessed are the Meek - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-03-16T10:24:30+00:00","dateModified":"2007-03-16T10:24:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/03\/blessed-are-the-meek-1.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/03\/blessed-are-the-meek-1.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/03\/blessed-are-the-meek-1.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Blessed are the Meek"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?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\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}