On the death of a Pope

Rather than start afresh, I really don't see much reason to revise anything I said about Pope Benedict on his retirement in 2013.   Please read, if you are interested.

I see that Phillipa Martyr, the likeable lay catholic who was wise enough to stop hanging out at Catallaxy, has written this about the late Pope:

Then came the magisterial The Spirit of the Liturgy (2000). 

A cosmic theology

This was truly revolutionary for my own spirituality. I’ve never been able to look at the Book of Exodus in the same way since. You’ll need to read it for yourself to see why I say that. 

I freely admit that I am only ever about two stiff drinks away from total paganism. This is why I am so very down on the current trend towards eco-consciousness as a substitute for most of the other Christian virtues. 

But thankfully Ratzinger taught me how and why the whole cosmos, seasons, moon, stars, sun, and earthly cycles are drawn into the Redemption. It’s no more than I would have expected from someone deeply steeped in the mind of the Church – but also an unrepentant cat lover.

This reminded me, as is noted in my 2013 post, that Benedict had commented sympathetically about Teilhard de Chardin, and I thought that was encouraging.  That pathway towards a theological modernising of the Church has gone nowhere, though, under Francis.  And if anything, the concern is that the only people willing to go into the Church as priests in recent years are social conservatives who will not care that their ideology will make for an increasingly isolated, and internally fraught, club.   

I also, by happenstance, watched a good Ted talk video by a sociologist recently about the increase in secularisation in the world, and how it was (in his view) irreversible.  I will add that to this post later.

 

Update:  here is the video, which is from 7 years ago, but I am sure that, if anything, surveys since then have further confirmed the secularisation process: