Former Pope Attacks Gay Marriage, Implies He’s Being Silenced Because of His Anti-Semitism

Pope Benedict XVI

This really shows you how fast the Church has changed its position on important issues, and its attitude towards degeneration, in only a few years.

AFP:

Traditionalist former pope Benedict XVI accuses opponents of wanting to “silence” him while associating gay marriage with “the Antichrist” and attacking “humanist ideologies” in a new authorised biography published Monday in Germany.

The 93-year-old, whose original name is Joseph Ratzinger, claims in “Benedict XVI – A Life” that he has fallen victim to a “malignant distortion of reality” in reactions to his interventions in theological debates.

“The spectacle of reactions coming from German theology is so misguided and ill-willed that I would prefer not to speak of it,” he says.

The former pope — who dramatically resigned in 2013 — was especially criticised for a 2018 text that was seen as critical of the Jewish faith.

“I would rather not analyse the actual reasons why people want to silence my voice,” Benedict says.

The German branch of the Catholic Church has for years been led by clergy more disposed to reform than the stringent traditionalism associated with Ratzinger.

In office from 2005-13, Benedict has frequently been criticised for his attitudes to Islam or to social questions, and is accused of attempting to undermine the modernisation drive of his successor Pope Francis.

Ratzinger attempts to counter such claims in the biography, saying his “personal friendship with Pope Francis has not only endured, but grown”.

…

“A century ago, anyone would have thought it absurd to talk about homosexual marriage. Today those who oppose it are excommunicated from society,” Benedict says.

“It’s the same thing with abortion and creating human life in the laboratory,” he says, adding that it’s “only natural” for people to “fear the spiritual power of the Antichrist” — an evil force seeking to supplant Jesus Christ.

“The real threat to the Church… is in the global dictatorship of purportedly humanist ideologies,” he warns.

What a stark contrast.

Today, everyone celebrates gay marriage, abortion, the “human” rights ideology of self-hate and self-harm, and all kinds of degeneracy while “Pope” Francis attempts to appear hip and cool.

What is Francis’ statement here?

Here’s a bit on the 2018 controversy, from USA Today, August 3, 2018:

The central point of debate is Benedict’s denial the Catholic Church ever adopted “supersessionism,” the theological belief that God’s covenant through Christ replaced the covenant God made with the Jewish people, and his insistence at the same time that the Christian lens for reading the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) is the only valid one.

“Whoever describes the role of Judaism like this is building the foundation for a new anti-Semitism on a Christian basis,” said Rabbi Walter Homolka, executive director of the School of Jewish Theology at Potsdam University in Germany.

“Benedict’s suggestion that Christians should teach Jews how to read selected parts of the Hebrew Bible in a Christological way is very problematic,” said the Rev. Christian Rutishauser, head of the Jesuit order in Switzerland and an expert on Jewish-Christian relations.

Benedict pledged at his surprise 2013 resignation that he would remain “hidden from the world” and not get involved in church debates. He wrote his essay as a private text last fall and passed it on to Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, who read it and convinced him to publish it.

Critics say the recent essay seems to walk back efforts in the past half-century to undo the Catholic Church’s long history of anti-Semitism. After nearly two millennia of hostility, the Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) acknowledged Christianity’s close historical ties with Judaism and absolved Jews of the stereotype of being “Christ killers.”

…

An association of Christian-Jewish dialogue groups said Benedict’s essay undermines Vatican teaching since the 1960s and even contradicts declarations he had made as pope.

Ask yourself what weights more: two millennia of acknowledging that the Jews killed Jesus, or 60 years of corruption?

The answer should be clear to anyone not blinded by the Progress spell.