Vatican II: Benedict rewrites history
On 12 May Pope Benedict XVI spoke about truth, history and the church. His backdrop was the surreal and voluptuous Gothic of the Portuguese monastery of Belém, overlooking the great river-mouth of the Tagus, from which the first explorers of medieval Europe sailed to circle Africa and India and eventually to encompass the new world they called America.
It was an appropriate setting for this learned and subtle theologian to lay aside vexing stuff about sex scandals and say something about what the Catholic church is today. That turns out to be just what it always has been: no nonsense about lessons learned from the Enlightenment, still less the 16th-century Reformation.… Seguir leyendo »