The Church is Young!

Pope Uncle Benedict said those words in one of his first pronouncements as pope.

Gerald has a really nice, heartfelt look back at the biggest Catholic “events” of 2005.

And you can read the text of Benedict’s homily for the Midnight Mass of Christmas here. For an older gent, he comes across – I know I say this often – as a warm favorite uncle talking to us from the front porch. And he seems remarkably vigorous. I liked this part:

God has become one of us, so that we can be with him and become like him. As a sign, he chose the Child lying in the manger: This is how God is. This is how we come to know him. And on every child shines something of the splendor of that “today,” of that closeness of God which we ought to love and to which we must yield — it shines on every child, even on those still unborn.

and,

From Bethlehem a stream of light, love and truth spreads through the centuries. If we look to the saints — from Paul and Augustine to Francis and Dominic, from Francis Xavier and Teresa of Avila to Mother Teresa of Calcutta — we see this flood of goodness, this path of light kindled ever anew by the mystery of Bethlehem, by that God who became a Child. In that Child, God countered the violence of this world with his own goodness. He calls us to follow that Child.

and,

Among Christians, the word “peace” has taken on a very particular meaning: It has become a name for the Eucharist. There Christ’s peace is present. In all the places where the Eucharist is celebrated, a great network of peace spreads through the world. The communities gathered around the Eucharist make up a kingdom of peace as wide as the world itself. When we celebrate the Eucharist we find ourselves in Bethlehem, in the “house of bread.” Christ gives himself to us and, in doing so, gives us his peace. He gives it to us so that we can carry the light of peace within and give it to others. He gives it to us so that we can become peacemakers and builders of peace in the world. And so we pray: Lord, fulfill your promise! Where there is conflict, give birth to peace! Where there is hatred, make love spring up! Where darkness prevails, let light shine! Make us heralds of your peace! Amen.

We needed this pope at this time. Especially when fake Communion wafers are a new trendy snack. Anything, you know, to denigrate the Eucharist and to lessen its impact upon our hearts and minds. The forces of dark and light are at it, for certain. Amy Welborn has more.

Oh, and if you want a sense of what we’re up against, read this thread at the Huffington Post. First, note how the Pope’s Christmas message is spun. Very funny – as if the Pope was condemning intellectual and technological progress. And then proceed to the comments,which take the spin at face value, and combine that with virulent hatred. It is, as usual, a scary little corner of the world.

The more I think about it, the angrier this HuffPost business makes me. It is just like the stuff you find on Daily Kos, of course, but as risible as HuffPost is to a lot of us, it is widely linked and an official blog of Yahoo News, I think, featured there. Why should this bigotry be allowed to stand?

Ah, well. The world knows its own, and supports its own. Bigotry is only bigotry when they say it is. I recall Tina Brown’s overt bigotry upon Benedict’s election. She got away with it, too.

Some of the comments at HuffPo:

What a maroon. (Wow, quotes Bugs Bunny!)

And when he speaks of “spiritual barrenness and emptiness of heart” he speaks out of long personal experience. (Projecting, are we?)

This man’s opinions are irrelevent; the last gasps of a dying and decaying institution. The world needs this goon like a fish needs a bicycle. (Oh, look! I can quote Steinem! It’s still 1972, isn’t it?)

Bless you in the name of the holy nazi party, the hypocrisy, and bigotry. Thanks POOP Been A Dick.When do we bury this one; SOON? (God bless you too, honey.)

They go on like that. There are a few reasonable lefty folk there suggesting the pope has a point, but for the most part these comments are paranoid, small-minded, narrow, adolescent, often ignorant – they present sound evidence of intellectual vacancy, stagnant thought and a surprising (or unsurprising, considering most movies and tv shows) absence of creativity.

They lack nuance, too. :-)

But they’re smarter than this superbly-educated, linguistically-gifted, well-traveled, prolific writer and priest and the one that came before him, too, natch.

UPDATE: On a related note to the “Eucharist Snack” story, a reader mentions this site and a particular mp3 she’s downloaded, from Bishop Fulton Sheen on “recycling” (long before the enviros were using the word) and how uncannily he seemed to predict that the secular world would “recycle” sacred things in secular ways. I plan on downloading the talk later – perhaps this weekend – but it sounded interesting. H/T Klaire, who writes: I made a mistake in not mentioning that there is also a 2nd download on confession, it’s # 0686D-B, it’s from the same retreat and they “go together.” It’s actually in THIS tape that he talks about the recycyling, the denial of sin, and the “nakedness without shame”. Also he was right on on how the “guilt of abortion” would take it’s toll in the years to come.

That said, the Demonic Today is just as fascinating. You will really love it, being that Sheen says, “watch and see”, how the world will be absorbed by politics. He also indicates that in order for “theology” to be heard, it will only be listened to IF IS DONE IN POLITICAL DISCUSSION.