Comments on: “Man needs God, even without realizing it.”

By: Kenneth Hynek

Kenneth Hynek — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:01:36 +0000

I rather especially like your fourth paragraph, above. Actually, you hit the nail on the head, so to speak, in several places. Congratulations, first and foremost, are in order for your return to the Church, and for your many discoveries about both yourself and the world you grew up in.

May your faith continue to grow and be enriched by your participation in the Sacramental Life of the Church!

I admit to being pleasantly surprised by the good Pope. My initial impression of him was that he thought of himself as a kind of caretaker, a short-term placeholder Pope that would continue in the footsteps of John Paul II for a little while, before himself departing the papal seat, if not this mortal coil as well.

Yet in this grandfatherly old man, there is something of steel and iron — he is absolutely, as you note, not afraid to bring everything back to Church teaching and to Christ, the Word Made Flesh. And he is absolutely not afraid to speak the hard truths, whether that be about the dwindling moral sense of the West or the barbarism that so closely follows in the footsteps of Islam.

And the best part is that his resolve, his steel, and his courageous thirst for speaking that which is true is beginning to trickle down through the rest of the Church as well, bit by bit. Even I’ve noticed the slow but steady shift in tone of sermons at Mass over the last few years…and the parish I go to can hardly be called lax or liberal in the first place.

By: Pesky Pundit

Pesky Pundit — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 11:21:56 +0000

Darn it! That Pope Benedict sure has the knack of hitting the nail on the head, doesn’t he? As a lifelong non-practicing Catholic, I have spent a good chunk of the last five decades navigating my way through the moral and ethical dilemmas with which life confronts most of us. In hindsight, I’ve navigated my course successfully; I sleep the sleep of the innocent, as they say. I always put that down to my parents’ “good parenting” practices. Later, I came to understand that I had been shaped by a Judeo-Christian cultural context which would not exist without – ka-ching! – Christianity and Judaism. At the age of 57, I’ve come to realize that I’ve lived a more Catholic life than have most practicing Catholics.

But it took His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to make me re-evaluate my “disconnect” with the Church.

His Holiness’ words continue to – dare I say it? – ROCK MY WORLD! His intellect seems curiously capable of bringing EVERYTHING back to God’s Word and the Christian (Catholic?) way. Certainly, no other Christian spokesperson possesses the gravitas or the intellectual acuity of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. And certainly, no other public figure’s words CUT THROUGH to the CORE ISSUE quite as incisively.

Life throws us all some peculiar curves, but I could never have predicted that my addiction to news media and current affairs would eventually lead me back to my faith. God indeed does work in mysterious ways.

Few commentators have remarked upon how BRAVE His Holiness has been in making many of his pronouncements. May God bless and protect His Holiness Pope Benedict in these dangerous times.

By: Steynian 293 « Free Canuckistan!

Steynian 293 « Free Canuckistan! — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:29:05 +0000

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