…well, this will get people talking….
Today Pope Benedict spoke to the priests of Rome. He spoke extemporaneously. There will probably be a cleaner copy at some point, but here is Vatican Radio’s summary and transcript.
It’s about the Second Vatican Council – his experience of it, his memories, and his take
The AP’s version of what he said, includes:
[He nailed that point home on Thursday, blaming botched media reporting of the council's deliberations for having reduced the work to "political power struggles between various currents in the church."
Because the media's interpretation was dominant and "accessible to all," it fueled the popular understanding of what the council was all about, he said. That led in the years that followed to "so many calamities, so many problems, really so many miseries: Seminaries that closed, convents that closed, the liturgy that was banalized."]
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/pope-said-speak-about-vatican-ii-experiences
The NY Times has an article on it but interested me rather on little things: that he has had a heart pacemaker for awhile since he was Cardinal and it’s batteries were charged three months ago and that his attendant nuns will continue with him to cook etc. and that he will be hidden but his papal secretary will also still attend him. Loneliness will not be a problem then.
Physical condition in old age has a bizarrely wide spectrum from the marathon runners to the very fragile.
I felt both he and John Paul II were very influenced by the historico-critical school themselves in Old Testament issues wherein both men tended to see OT violence as not from God even when Scripture said it was…cf section 42 of Verbum Domini of Benedict as to the massacres and section 40 of Evangelium Vitae for John Paul II as to death penalties. Thus both were united against capital punishment de facto though Rom.13:4 curtailed them somewhat when writing the catechism as a printed document.
But back to the heart pacemaker. My family never had anyone with one.
That is some work load he carried at an advanced age with one. Scarey stuff to me.
My grandfather outlived his first pacemaker by a few years. It wasn’t treated as a bid deal when it needed to be replaced because he had had it for something like 15 years.