Date Posted:14:48:45 04/19/05 Tue Author: Chris Subject: Habemus Papam
"Habemus Papam!" - it is the German Ratzinger. I don't have great expectations. He's a typical conservative hardliner and organization man who knew how to curry favor with the highest leaders; he was a personal friend of Carel Voytila. It was clear that the Roman Catholic church would elect a hardliner and not a reformer. "Reform" is something they rejected for hundreds of years already. In this, it is very similar to UBF.
"Habemus Papam" means "we have a father." Already the first words with which the pope is announced are directly in discrepancy and disobedient to Jesus' teaching: "And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." But also in this, UBF is very similar. They have a "Mother."
I want to remind you that Mr. Ratzinger was the one who suspended the German Catholic Priest Gotthold Hasenhuettel for the big "crime" of celebrating a common Holy Communion together with Protestants. This was of course in line with the guidelines of the former pope, a pope who demonstrated solidarity with Jews and Muslims, but separation from his Christian brothers, the Protestants.
Some say that Mr. Ratzinger is misunderstood and is in reality not such a hardliner. But the above act speaks louder than these voices. Yes, Mr. Ratzinger may be liberal and appear as reformer, but when it gets crucial, when it comes to the true reform that is necessary in the Catholic church, he will be stubborn and keep to the traditions.
May the future prove me to be wrong. But as I said, I have not much expectations. I heard the other German cardinals were against Mr. Ratzinger as pope. They know him.
I really would have liked to see an African pope or Ivan Dias from India. Currently the Catholic church has great problems to find enough priests in Germany. They invited priests from Africa who do a tremendously good job and bring much life, spirit, freshness and Christian content into the moribund Catholic churches. If anybody could have brought life to the even more moribund Vatican, it would have been an African.
