Mark Gavreau Judges central point is a misinterpretation of Ratzingers memories in "salt on Earth":
A students paper was overwritten: "Jesus the Lord -- partisan Käsemann"
Judge explains Kasemann is a German colloquialism meaning "nonsense, rubish, balderdash." This is nonsense...
Käsemann is the name of the well known protestant theologian Ernst Käsemann and means nothing else in German. (I am German)
Many thanks -- I'm blessed to have such readers and stand corrected. =)
As you can see I've modified the post to reflect your observation.
Dear Mr. Blosser,
Thank you for clarifying in your father's blog that you and I are not the same -- I just wish I were as bright and wise as you are, but I will leave that for when we enjoy, God willing, the Beatific Vision.
Anyway, I did not deny the mad vicar's assertion only because I have decided not to post any new comments there while he still infects what used to be a very pleasant blog.
---
As always, thank you for the roundup.
Paging Mark Shea, Amy Welborn and Jimmy Akin (the latter recommending John Granger's Looking for God in Harry Potter).
Considering that all we have of the letter is a very short quote, we don't know why then-Cardinal Ratzinger thought the Potter books corrupted the young. I'm doubtful that forming an opinion about His then-Emminence's personal judgement is possible with the paucity of data - unless we were to adopt the position of ultra-ultramontanism which would teach that once a man becomes pope, every opinion that he ever held becomes morally binding. I know Christopher doesn't think that, but I have run into people who have suggested just that and accused me of being a liberal for daring to not to assent to a one sentence soundbyte that has zero ecclesiastical authority without knowing the argument behind it.
And to be fair, it was not Jimmy Akin who recommended Granger's book, but Michelle Arnold, who frequently posts on his blog...
Publius,
Thanks for your comment. I had read LifeSiteNews' article on the subject with great humor for that very reason -- my quip about "here is an issue with potential for division on an international scale" wasn't meant to be taken seriously. Perhaps I didn't adequately convey my amusement?
(Alan -- thanks as well, I've given Michelle Arnold proper credit).
Greetings in the Name of the Lord,
Today is the Feast of the great abbot St. Benedict of Nursia and is a great occasion to remember why our New Holy Father chose the name “Benedict.”
I wrote an article for the occasion that I’d invite you to refer others to in your blogging. It reviews the reasons for the Pope’s name (St. Benedict of Nursia and Pope Benedict XV) and contains links to bios of those two great men as well as to the Rule of St. Benedict, his life by St. Gregory, and a list of Pope Benedict XV’s writings.
Click here to read why the new Pope chose the name "Benedict."
You can cut and paste the above link or create your own using the url of the article which is http://
www.crossroadsinitiative....in_a_Name_.html
Thanks so much! Let’s pray for our Holy Father today, and for each other as well!
Yours in His service,
Dr. Marcellino D’Ambrosio
The Crossroads Initiative
www.crossroadsinitiative.com
The problem I have with this "What made Ratzinger change?" stuff is that I don't know exactly in what sense it's supposed to be true that he changed.
Christopher,
I wasn't intending my comment to be adversarial to your post so much as to state my opinion on the matter generally, though I see quoting from your post in the beginning of my comment gave that impression.
Yes, I think Gavreau is going to have to come up with a cite to a dictionary. I can't find it either. And we have to know whether the sign had an umlaut over the "a" (the two dots) (Käsemann as opposed to Kasemann)as the name of the Professor does and whether the cited colloquial term (if any) also has an umlaut.
"A" with and without an umlaut is two different letters in German.
If I had to guess, I would guess that Etienne (the German? sounds French) is right and Gauvreau wrong, simply because "--mann" at the end of a name means, "man." So, for example, Grossmann would mean, "Big Man." Why would a term for a qualitative noun have "--mann" on the end of it? Suppose someone said that there was an English term, "Fat Boy" that meant, "anger." It wouldn't sound right, would it? "An angry person," maybe, but not "anger." "Käsemann" literally means "Cheese-man." Now why would "Cheese-man" mean "nonsense"? Something smells wrong.
"Jesus is Lord--Partisan Käsemann" might well mean, "Jesus is Lord, Käsemann is just a partisan," meaning "Professor Käsemann is just a partisan Marxist, and obscures the fact that Jesus, not he himself or the followers of Marx, is the true Lord." This would be the exact opposite of the meaning ascribed to it by Gavreau.
Or it could mean "Käsemann and his noble Marxist brothers are partisans or guerillas in the struggle to recapture the true meaning of the Lordship of Jesus." We would have to know a great deal more about this pamphlet and its title; somebody, Gauvreau or Beyerhaus, is being obscure about it.
In any case, anyone on that campus would have to know who Käsemann was, he was not an obscure figure. No one could have written that pamphlet title without knowing that the name would have at least a double meaning. So what would the "punning" meaning about Professor Käsemann have been?
Gauvreau *could* be right. But he has a lot of explaining to do.
Happy Feast day to all! Thank you for your posts - I enjoyed reading Katie Grant's article about being blown away by Benedict for we truly see here the action of the Holy Spirit! The dwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Vicar of Christ is irrefutable (And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." -John 20:22-23).
How much more will we blown away when Jesus comes again! How can one stand such Love!
Whether it's Käse or Käsemann, you definitely need two dots over the A. You're allowed to write Kaese on the Internet etc., but you're not supposed to make that substitution with proper names.
Well, sadly for Gouvreau, I guess that means that the central thesis of his article is just gone! He's a man of integrity for admitting as much, but I hope he will withdraw the article, so people don't continue to be confused.
To tell the truth, the idea that Ratzinger was pushed over the edge by a pamphlet title seemed completely far-fetched to me from the beginning. He was a "liberal" in that he was willing to challenge the dominant schools of thought of the Church of his day. But he was a Believer and when forms of questioning that cut the heart out of the Faith became predominant, he was shocked at them and rejected them. Naturally!
The real question is why so many Questioners were willing to gut the Faith of its meaning, not why Ratzinger managed to keep being a Catholic.
I'm with Kevin... Ratzinger has always said that the essence of his theology has remained unchanged, and I have never seen anything to dispute that.
Ratzinger has always said that the essence of his theology has remained unchanged, and I have never seen anything to dispute that. -- John Allen Jr. addressed this issue in a chapter of his biography The Vatican Enforcer ("An Erstwhile Liberal?"), in which he compared/contrasted Ratzinger's stance on various issues at the time of Vatican II and the present. As he demonstrates, even some of Ratzinger's recollections in his later memoirs of the council (Milestones) apparently contradict his specific statements and actions at Vatican II (at a time when he was a little more chummy with Karl Rahner, Hans Kung, et al. than he is today). =)
Despite his liberal bias, I thought the content of Allen's argument was enough to demonstrate that some kind of shift in Ratzinger's perspective occurred. I'd have to re-read the chapter -- it's been four years since I read it?
Perhaps one can say Ratzinger's opinions on various (pastoral) issues have changed over the years and his essential theology remains unchanged. -- Anyway, I think it is an interesting issue and one worth exploring, probably in a later post, when I have some time to research the topic.
(Also, I have yet to read Allen's subsequent book on Benedict XVI post-election, and I would be interested to learn whether he has revised his original positions).
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