{"id":3842,"date":"2006-12-20T08:51:43","date_gmt":"2006-12-20T08:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/ruini-speaks.html"},"modified":"2006-12-20T08:51:43","modified_gmt":"2006-12-20T08:51:43","slug":"ruini-speaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/ruini-speaks.html","title":{"rendered":"Ruini speaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is good. If you don’t have time to read it today, file it, save it and keep it in your head to send it on to folks who still don’t get what this pontificate is all about, who are clinging to the Rottweiler imagery or, on the other hand, who are summarizing 2006-the-Year-in-Pope as "An encyclical on love <\/em>(snort) and an ill-conceived speech by a Pope who obviously really <\/em>needs some better handlers."<\/p>\n

Sandro Magister reports on a talk Cardinal Ruini gave last week to the priests of Rome<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the pope\u2019s vicar for the diocese of Rome, periodically meets with his priests to present and discuss pastoral projects, liturgical questions, catechesis, etc. <\/p>\n

But on Thursday, December 14, he made a spectacular break from the program. <\/p>\n

He convened the priests behind closed doors in the main hall of the Pontifical Lateran University, to give them a lecture on nothing less than the \u201cheart\u201d of the teaching of Benedict XVI. <\/p>\n

snip<\/em><\/p>\n

In concluding his lecture, Ruini recognized that Ratzinger \u201ccertainly holds no illusions about the current state of health of the Catholic Church, and of Christianity more in general.\u201d <\/p>\n

But he faces the greatness of his task \u2013 which is even \u201cexcessive\u201d \u2013 with the certainty that \u201che who believes is never alone.\u201d <\/p>\n

Cardinal Ruini delivered his lecture and responded to questions with a zest and a measure of optimism that greatly impressed those present. <\/p>\n

Next February he will turn 76 years old, the canonical age that normally leads to retirement. <\/p>\n

But while leaving the hall, some of his priests commented: \u201cA lecture like that is not a goodbye. It is a new beginning.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He includes the entire text of the Cardinal’s talk. Some excerpts:<\/a><\/p>\n

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Having taught fundamental theology at first and later dogmatic theology, he has an approach to issues in which theoretical and philosophical exploration is placed within a perspective that is above all historical and concrete. <\/p>\n

Furthermore, his formation is essentially biblical, patristic, and liturgical, and he confronts current problems in the light of this. His attitude toward these problems certainly denotes acute critical capacities, but it is marked above all by the desire to be constructive, by openness, and by friendliness. His autographical book, \u201cMy Life,\u201d is of particular interest for gaining an idea of how he himself views his formation and his work as a theologian. <\/p>\n

Coming now to our topic, I think it\u2019s right to take as our point of departure the conviction, expressed by cardinal Ratzinger, that \u201cat the end of the second millennium, Christianity finds itself, precisely in the place of its original diffusion, Europe, in a profound crisis, based upon the crisis over its claim to truth\u201d (\u201cFaith,\u201d p. 170). <\/p>\n

This crisis has a twofold dimension: mistrust toward man\u2019s ability to grasp the truth about God and about divine things, and the doubts that the modern natural and historical sciences have raised about the tenets and origins of Christianity.<\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What follows is a restatement and reflection on much of what was said in the Regensburg speech and so, consequently, the aspects of Ratzinger’s thought which was expressed in that speech: the role of reason, the relationship between Christianity and other faiths, etc. But why Jesus? Why the focus on Jesus?<\/p>\n

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At this point, we are able to understand better Benedict XVI\u2019s theological and pastoral approach. <\/p>\n

He devotes great attention to the relationship between faith and reason, and to the assertion of the truth of Christianity. <\/p>\n

But he does this in a way that is not at all rationalistic. On the contrary, he views as a failure the Neo\u2013Scholastic attempt to demonstrate the truths of the premises of faith (the \u201cpraeambula fidei\u201d) through a form of reasoning rigorously separated from the faith itself, and he maintains that similar attempts are also destined to fail, as failure has met the contrary attempt by Karl Barth to present the faith as a pure paradox, which can subsist only in total independence from reason (cf. \u201cFaith,\u201d pp. 141-142). <\/p>\n

So in concrete terms, the way that leads to God is Jesus Christ, not only because it is only in Him that we can know the face of God, his attitude toward us, and the mystery of his intimate life itself, of the one and absolute God who exists in three Persons totally \u201cinterrelated\u201d \u2013 all of the implications of this mystery for our lives and our understanding of God, man, and the world have yet to be elaborated \u2013 but also because it is only in the cross of the Son, in which God\u2019s merciful and steadfast love for us is displayed in its most radical form, that a mysterious but convincing response can be found for the problem of evil and suffering, which has always been \u2013 although it has new power in our humanistic age \u2013 the source of the most serious doubts about the existence of God. For this reason prayer, the adoration that opens us to the gift of the Spirit and frees our hearts and minds, is an essential dimension not only of the Christian life, but also of the believer\u2019s understanding and the theologian\u2019s work (cf. the Verona address; \u201cIntroduction,\u201d pp. 135-146; and the 1959 inaugural address at the University of Bonn). <\/p>\n

It is not out of mere personal taste, therefore, that Benedict XVI is using \u201call his free moments\u201d to carry forward his book \u201cJesus of Nazareth,\u201d the first part of which will be published soon, and portions of the preface and introduction of which have already been released. <\/p>\n

The separation between the \u201cChrist of faith\u201d and the real \u201chistorical Jesus,\u201d which exegesis based upon the historical-critical method seems to have deepened more and more, constitutes a \u201cdramatic\u201d situation for the faith, because \u201cit brings uncertainty to its authentic point of reference.\u201d <\/p>\n

For this reason, J. Ratzinger\/Benedict XVI has dedicated himself to demonstrating that the Jesus of the Gospels and of the Church\u2019s faith is, in reality, the true \u201chistorical Jesus,\u201d and he does this by employing the historical-critical method. He willingly acknowledges the many positive results of this, but he also goes beyond it, taking a broader perspective that permits a properly theological interpretation of Scripture, and which thus requires faith without dispelling the need for historical seriousness (cf. the published sections of the preface).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

BTW, Michael’s rather moving memory of seeing Cardinal Ruini in Rome this past February.<\/a> <\/p>\n

\n
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…. I attended a Mass that he said in the Clementine Chapel one morning that included a priest, three Italian women and me.  More.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is good. If you don’t have time to read it today, file it, save it and keep it in your head to send it on to folks who still don’t get what this pontificate is all about, who are clinging to the Rottweiler imagery or, on the other hand, who are summarizing 2006-the-Year-in-Pope as…<\/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-3842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nRuini speaks - 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\/2006\/12\/ruini-speaks.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ruini speaks - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is good. 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If you don’t have time to read it today, file it, save it and keep it in your head to send it on to folks who still don’t get what this pontificate is all about, who are clinging to the Rottweiler imagery or, on the other hand, who are summarizing 2006-the-Year-in-Pope as…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/ruini-speaks.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-12-20T08:51:43+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/ruini-speaks.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/ruini-speaks.html","name":"Ruini speaks - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-12-20T08:51:43+00:00","dateModified":"2006-12-20T08:51:43+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/ruini-speaks.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/ruini-speaks.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/ruini-speaks.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Ruini speaks"}]},{"@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\/3842","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=3842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}