Comments and Introduction by Br. Alexis Bugnolo
In an article whose title, in English, would read, “How Ratzinger prophesied the secularization of the Church,” Hinrich E. Bues recalls the foresight of the theologian Father Joseph Ratzinger, who more than a half century ago detailed the loss of the Faith in the West.
You can read the original German of the article by clicking the image above.
Many have commented on the future Pope’s “prophecy” about the Church in the future, but if we consider how intimately he “rubbed shoulders”, as it were, with the architects of ecclesial destruction, I think it would be more sober to conclude that he was not being prophetic, and that he was merely describing the future generations of malformed Catholics who would be raised up by the faithless clergy of his own day, who sat at and pushed the “Aggiornamento” in the most deleterious fashion possible.
Therefore, the progressivist current that is dominating the Church seems to be taking advantage of the priest shortage to reach two of its goals:
To finish with a priestly Church, and bring the laypeople to power;
To do away with large parishes and beautiful churches and try to reduce the meetings of the faithful to smaller numbers, moving in the direction of meetings in small, self-managed communities.
Regarding the second goal, shortly after the Council Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote these lines:
From todays crisis, a Church will emerge tomorrow that will have lost a great deal. She will be small and . will have to start from the beginning. She will no longer be able to fill many of the buildings created in her period of great splendor . Contrary to what has happened until now, she will present herself much more as a community of volunteers .
“As a small community, she will demand much more from the initiative of each of her members, and she will also certainly acknowledge new forms of ministry and raise up proven Christians who have a calling to the priesthood. The normal care of souls will be made by smaller communities, in social groups with some affinity. .
“This will be achieved with effort. The process of crystallization and clarification will demand a great exertion. It will make her a poor Church and a Church of the little people . All this will require time. The process will be slow and painful. (2)
2. J. Ratzinger, F e futuro (Petrpolis: Vozes, 1971), pp. 76-7.
See full article in https://www.traditioninaction.org/bev/048bev2-25-2004.htm#changing
Ratzinger neither “prophesied” nor “had the foresight” but rather he — actively participated — in the progressivistism of the Church.
See… The Plan of Ratzinger to Change the Face of the Church
https://www.traditioninaction.org/ProgressivistDoc/A_002_FutureChurchRatizinger.htm
You citation from his work is worth reading. But the link you provide, as well as your opinion, presumes guilt and bad will, but does not prove it. His desire to cleanse the Church of pedophilia, however, is what really enrages so many Modernists and Traddies. And that is why they hate him. — I will be the first to recognize that as a theologian he is one of the most confused, because he attempted to do theology without recognizing that the Scholastics were the flower of contemplation, not an abberation. But I would be the last to judge a man’s heart, since that is subject to the gaze of the Most High alone. As for Tradition in Action, have they ever told you that their admired founding thinker back in Brazil, Plinio — now deceased — taught his disciples that he was the reincarnation of the Immaculate Conception? Maybe they should do some exposes on him, rather than promote his hatred for the clergy and authority.