{"id":98097,"date":"2022-12-31T18:04:55","date_gmt":"2023-01-01T01:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=98097"},"modified":"2023-01-01T21:36:51","modified_gmt":"2023-01-02T04:36:51","slug":"the-passing-of-a-pope-and-of-a-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/12\/the-passing-of-a-pope-and-of-a-year.html","title":{"rendered":"The Passing of a Pope, and of a Year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"In<\/a>
In St. Peter\u2019s Square, Vatican City, looking toward St. Peter\u2019s Basilica with the papal apartments on the right hand side\u00a0 (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been out of view for quite a while now, but this is still a big story in the world of religion and beyond:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Deseret News<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201cThe former pope has died. What will happen next?\u00a0 Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died Saturday at age 95\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

And here are some short items from a politically conservative and conservative Catholic point of view:<\/p>\n

\u201cPope Benedict XVI Dies at 95\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBenedict\u2019s Legacy:\u00a0Dominus Ieusus\u201d<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBenedict\u2019s Legacy:\u00a0Jesus of Nazareth\u201d<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBenedict\u2019s Legacy:\u00a0Introduction to Christianity\u201d<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cNo Love without Truth: Benedict XVI\u2019s Message to the World: Scholar Tracey Rowland reflects on the late pope\u2019s life and legacy.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

(Parenthetically, the notion of \u201cno love without the truth\u201d really resonates with me.\u00a0 Some seem to imagine that it\u2019s so important to be loving that we should mute the truth when it seems to be difficult.\u00a0 I think, here, of John Gee\u2019s recent essay in Public Square Magazine<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201cMisusing Eunuchs: Even the best of motives do not allow us to change the commandments or remove the crosses of others.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy Future Generations Will Celebrate Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI: Centuries hence, he\u2019ll be recognized for having buried the \u2018dictatorship of relativism\u2019 that so menaced the world in his time.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe piety of Pope Benedict XVI and his passion for the truth\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

I once participated in a meeting in Rome, \u00a0over which St. Pope John Paul II presided.\u00a0 But, so far as I\u2019m aware, I was never in the presence of his successor, Benedict XVI. (I don\u2019t think that the then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was present for that meeting in the Papal Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls [San Paolo fuori le<\/i> Mura].)\u00a0 \u00a0But I did have one interesting experience that involved Pope Benedict:<\/p>\n

In early September 2006, I was over, with my wife, in Australia and New Zealand on behalf of the local area presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a>.\u00a0 My tour involved multiple radio interviews and public lectures on Islam, as well as meetings with a number of regional and national Australian political leaders (including Kevin Rudd<\/a>, who was at the time the shadow foreign minister for the Australian Labour Party but who began his first term as prime minister of Australia somewhat more than a year after our visit).<\/p>\n

Anyway, while I was going about lecturing, Pope Benedict XVI, a former professor himself, gave a notable lecture<\/a> at the University of Regensburg, in Germany, where he had once taught theology.\u00a0 It\u2019s actually a very serious talk.\u00a0 But he seems, I think, to have forgotten that he was no longer merely an obscure academic, and a portion of his remarks caused enormous offense among many Muslims and, sadly, provoked violence and even a few murders (of nuns, as I recall).\u00a0 So I began to be asked about what he had said and, at first, I could only respond based upon what was appearing in the newspapers and in the broadcast media.\u00a0 Finally, I managed to get onto the Vatican website and to find an official English transcript of what he had said, as well as, most helpfully, the actual text of the remarks that he had delivered in German at Regensburg.\u00a0 Thereafter, during at least two and maybe three radio interviews, I found myself defending the Pope, arguing that the passage that had offended Muslims had been taken out of context and that he had by no means intended to anger Muslims or to insult Islam.\u00a0 He had been making a subtle theological or philosophical point that did not lend itself to sensationalistic and sometimes rather unscrupulous media attention.\u00a0 I found it ironic that I, a Latter-day Saint on a lecture tour for Church leaders in the Pacific, was spending not insignificant time defending the head of the Roman Catholic Church against irresponsible misreadings that sought to portray him as an enemy of the faith of hundreds of millions of Muslims.\u00a0 My one criticism of the Pope regarding this incident was that, sadly, he should have been politically savvy enough, or sufficiently cynical, to foresee that a completely reasonable and substantive academic discussion would inevitably be demagogued by irresponsible journalists and unscrupulous agitators.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Where<\/a>
A public domain view of San Paolo fuori le Mura (St. Paul Outside the Walls) from Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Finally, this is the night, alone of all the nights in the year, when it\u2019s clearly most appropriate to post \u201cIn Memoriam,\u201d by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), a poem that, set to music, is familiar to Latter-day Saints from the Church\u2019s official hymnbook<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The flying cloud, the frosty light:<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The year is dying in the night;<\/span>
\nRing out, wild bells, and let him die.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ring out the old, ring in the new,<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ring, happy bells, across the snow:<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The year is going, let him go;<\/span>
\nRing out the false, ring in the true.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ring out the grief that saps the mind<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For those that here we see no more;<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ring out the feud of rich and poor,<\/span>
\nRing in redress to all mankind.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ring out a slowly dying cause,<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And ancient forms of party strife;<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ring in the nobler modes of life,<\/span>
\nWith sweeter manners, purer laws.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The faithless coldness of the times;<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes<\/span>
\nBut ring the fuller minstrel in.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ring out false pride in place and blood,<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The civic slander and the spite;<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ring in the love of truth and right,<\/span>
\nRing in the common love of good.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ring out the thousand wars of old,<\/span>
\nRing in the thousand years of peace.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ring in the valiant man and free,<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The larger heart, the kindlier hand;<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ring out the darkness of the land,<\/span>
\nRing in the Christ that is to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is a time of endings, of course.\u00a0 But, soon, it will be a time of new beginnings, as well.\u00a0 The New Year is about to begin.\u00a0 And, I firmly believe, Joseph Ratzinger has now entered into a new life after decades of attempting to serve God in the best way he could.\u00a0Requiescat in pace<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 He\u2019s been out of view for quite a while now, but this is still a big story in the world of religion and beyond: \u00a0 Deseret News:\u00a0 \u201cThe former pope has died. What will happen next?\u00a0 Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died Saturday at age 95\u201d And here are some short items from a 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