The BBC website is leading on the fact that Cardinal Carlo Martini gave an interview just before he died saying that the Church should get with the world and think a bit more (or a lot more) like the world. Wow! And… further shock…. lots of lapsed and liberal ‘Catholics’ agree with him. Errr even from an intra-Catholic perspective this isn’t news. How on earth does it end up as the lead story on the BBC website? The question is rhetorical of course. The world hates the Church because the Church is not of the world just as the world hated Jesus because He is not of the world. The world realises that the Church wishes to lead as many of the subjects of the world out of this world as she can before it is destroyed and that she does this through the Gospel and the Sacraments which perpetuate the power of the Cross. St Paul tells us that he did not preach the Gospel with persuasive words of worldly wisdom lest the Cross of Christ be emptied of its power. The world realises that the easiest way to frustrate the work of the Church and of Christ is to convince her children to embrace the wisdom of the world and preach that wisdom instead of the Gospel. They were rather hoping that a future Pope Martini would make this the official policy of the Holy See. He lost, and now they weep over his tomb. He who marries the spirit of the age is soon widowed.
September 1, 2012
Church 200 years behind – insignificant retired cardinal the BBC wanted for Pope
Posted by aelianus under cult of mediocrity, how tedious, Ludicrous To Pious Ears, Modernism[9] Comments
Laodicea 
September 1, 2012 at 11:35 pm
Yes, it’s all a bit silly. I wonder if some non-Catholic will condole with me this week on the loss of a really good, liberal, progressive Cardinal and say it’s a pity they’re not all like him or that he was not elected pope.
September 2, 2012 at 2:26 pm
Disrespectful of a Cardinal and Bishop well-regarded by the Pope and his Blessed predecessor.
A little humility might be in order, perhaps, whether one agreed with the deceased Prince of the Church, or not?
September 2, 2012 at 2:45 pm
Laodicia – I think your title was shameful and spiteful. There was nothing insignificant about Cardinal Martini, and the full text of his interview (which I have read) is lovely, especially where he talks of the importance of loving. He will be remembered with gratitude and love by millions of Catholics worldwide, especially the thousands of young people who benefited from his encouragement.
September 2, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Silvana and Pillsbury, would you agree with the late Cardinal’s statement “I disagree with the positions of those in the Church, that take issue with [homosexual] civil unions … It is not bad, instead of casual sex between men, that two people have a certain stability … [the] state could recognize them.”? Do you also share his opinion that destructive research on human embryos can be morally permissible? Do you applaud his view that legal abortion has positive aspects and that abortion should at least be decriminalised? Because statements of this kind would seem beyond the pale of Catholic orthodoxy to me. Such statements from a Catholic Bishop recall St Paul’s words to the bishops of Ephesus “Take heed to yourselves and to the whole flock, wherein the Holy Ghost has placed you bishops, to rule the Church of God which he has purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departure ravening wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock. And of your own selves shall arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.”
September 2, 2012 at 9:20 pm
I think the issue is less the Cardinal’s views (may he rest in peace) but the way it is being reported and the ‘ammunition’ it gives to people like this: http://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/356/17. Enjoy.
September 2, 2012 at 10:33 pm
I am sure Cardinal Martini would rejoice in being regarded as insignificant. His intellect and great knowledge of scripture never made him proud. Perhaps he was right? The more I see of the Church in England and Wales, some of the pomposity and thousands abandoning it make me wonder.
September 2, 2012 at 10:51 pm
There is a certain pride in feeling one can redefine the divinely instituted estate of matrimony and dispose of the lives of the innocent is there not?
September 2, 2012 at 11:07 pm
The Church should never try to keep up with the world (I’m with aelianus here — and with the Lord, St. Paul, the Fathers…).
How can you be a Cardinal and utter such worldly wisdom/folly?
Scary and sad.
September 3, 2012 at 3:13 am
May God show mercy to him, and may the ranks of his kind continue to thin. I can only be glad that I am too young to have known the time when his like really ran the show.