Woo-Hoo! New Pope Book!

Jesus_of_nazareth

The English edition of the pope’s new book came out while I was gone, and I came home to find a copy waiting for me.

I’m reading it now.

You can guess how good it is!

I ADDED IT TO MY aSTORE.

It’s also available on CD for those who prefer audiobooks.

THAT VERSION IS HERE.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

150 thoughts on “Woo-Hoo! New Pope Book!”

  1. I read it last week and it is impressive. His insights mixed with his prudent use of modern biblical scholarship is the perfect antidote to all the “real Jesus” junk.

  2. Hello Jimmy, et al.:
    The following books are in Amazon’s nonfiction category and its associated bestseller listing:
    God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
    by Christopher Hitchens
    Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment
    by Deepak Chopra
    Letter to a Christian Nation
    by Sam Harris
    The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)
    by Don Miguel Ruiz
    I Am a Strange Loop
    by Douglas Hofstadter
    God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist
    by Victor J Stenger
    The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
    by Sam Harris
    And the following is not in that category:
    Jesus of Nazareth
    by Joseph Ratzinger
    (Note also their renaming of the author.)
    Peace in Christ,
    Joe

  3. I just started in on “Jesus of Nazareth” last night. I do not wish to take anything away from John Paul II, who is truly a saint, but Benedict XVI’s insights as compared to John Paul II’s are as the laser is to the sun. This is something extraordinary.

  4. Joe, do you know what criteria Amazon uses to determine which best-selling non-fiction books it highlights? For example I recognize most of those books as having been on the New York Times bestseller list while Jesus of Nazareth hasn’t (yet). I wouldn’t want to raise a stink before I had all my facts straight.
    The author thing does raise a red flag, but his other books which Amazon sells correctly list Pope Benedict XVI as the author. And this new book does say Joseph Ratzinger on the cover (and its at the top very top, before Pope Benedict XVI). It may just be a mistake. It’s hard to show from the evidence we have that there’s any systematic anti-Catholicism at Amazon.

  5. For those who have started reading the book, is it something that would generally appeal to all Christians? I’ve only read the part about Jesus’ baptism which was published in Newsweek, but it seemed like it might be something any Christian could read.

  6. Benedict’s Jesus is only 24th on the USA today top seller list. What are the millions of faithful doing in this country ?

  7. Oliver, I work for a company who rents books through the mail kind of like Netflix does with movies so part of my job is keeping an eye on best seller lists. Jesus of Nazareth was released on the 15th, which was the middle of last week. I think next week’s best seller lists, which will have a full week’s worth of sales data to work with, will be a more accurate reflection of how much it’s actually selling.
    Also, it seems to me that non-fiction books usually take longer to get on the best seller lists than fiction books do. Maybe they rely more on word of mouth to generate sales. But once they get on the lists, they tend to stay there longer.

  8. Oh, one more thing. I just checked Ingram’s stock – they’re the nation’s largest book distributor supplying most book stores. They don’t have any copies left in stock and are waiting for the publisher to print more. Their site says the original printing was 100,000 copies (I don’t know if that’s for all English speaking countries or only the US). So go buy your copy now, it looks like it whatever stores currently have in their warehouses is all that’s available (don’t panic though, I’m sure the large booksellers bought enough copies to last until the next batch comes out).

  9. //Benedict’s Jesus is only 24th on the USA today top seller list. What are the millions of faithful doing in this country ?//
    Sigh. I have about 100 “must read” books that I don’t have time to get to as it is. So maybe someone could fill me in: Should I read “Introduction to the Devout Life” by St. Francis de Sales first, or should I read “Jesus of Nazareth” first?
    It takes considerable time for us mere mortals to read a 300-400 page book of non-skimmable material.

  10. I’m just hoping Pope Benedict XVI will be able to complete the series.
    On a sidenote, I wonder what Realist thinks about the book.

  11. As far as the audiobook is concerned: Does the narrator have a German accent? I can’t imagine listening to anything by the Pope that doesn’t have a German accent to really make me feel like I’m listening to him.
    The same goes for audiobooks by JPII, I’d want them to have his Polish accent. 🙂

  12. I’m just hoping Pope Benedict XVI will be able to complete the series.
    Is it planned to be a two-book series, or more than that? Also does anyone know how long it took to write this first one or if Benedict has done any work on the second book yet?

  13. “Woo-Hoo?”
    I thought Jimmy’s catch phrase was “Yee-Haw!!!”
    What gives?
    Did he really write this or does he have a ghost writer? 😉

  14. Is it planned to be a two-book series, or more than that?
    This one only goes up to the Transfiguration.
    Therefore, I would imagine that there’ll be more to the series than merely one or even two books at that.
    What I worry about is the Pope’s advanced age and increasing worry that due to the various ways in which he has been exerting himself, his health is ever at risk.
    You need to keep in mind that Pope John Paul II was significantly younger than Pope B XVI when he became Pope. John Paul II was only 58!
    Benedict XVI was 78 years old when he became Pope and had just turned 80.

  15. Did he really write this or does he have a ghost writer? 😉
    Just reading the very few pages of the Introduction, it’s distinctly “Ratzinger”.
    The guy is just amazing and his mastery of the Scriptures is simply incredible.
    I can see why even Protestants had invited him to lecture at their academic institutions when he was Cardinal Ratz.
    The same goes for audiobooks by JPII, I’d want them to have his Polish accent. 🙂
    Due to my long commutes, I had actually purchased a CD version of the “Crossing the Threshold of Hope”. (I would’ve actually purchased a CD version of this one as well but oh well.)
    Interestingly enough, it seemed the voice actor doing the voice of Pope John Paul II seemed to affect a Polish accent.
    It does give some ‘authenticity’ in that, as you had said, really make me feel like I’m listening to him.

  16. Esau,
    Grandma Moses didn’t start painting until she was 80!
    Multos Annos!
    Mnohaja Lita!
    Viva Il Papa!

  17. Esau,
    The ghost writer part was about Jimmy.
    The caption says “Woo-Hoo!”
    Jimmy says “Yee-Haw!”

  18. The caption says “Woo-Hoo!”
    Jimmy says “Yee-Haw!”

    Maybe Homer Simpson is Jimmy’s ghost writer.

  19. Grandma Moses didn’t start painting until she was 80!
    Yeah, but I doubt that she exerted herself to the extent that B16 does, travelling around the world, performing various papal functions not just at Rome but elsewhere in the world, subjected to the various stresses and duties of the present papal office.
    Before, it seemed popes just kept to themselves and didn’t quite have the same sort of demanding schedule and responsibiltiies that our two recent popes, JP II and B16, have where they’ve set the bar even higher.

  20. To Brian, you are correct: yes, it’s something any Christian who is interested in theology can read.

  21. FYI: B XVI asked to have the book published as “Joseph Ratzinger” so as to make it clear it is NOT an infallible statement.
    Whatta ya say we all kick $1 in and mail a copy to Realist?

  22. FYI: B XVI asked to have the book published as “Joseph Ratzinger” so as to make it clear it is NOT an infallible statement.
    Nice thought, but what of those publications published under the name of Pope John Paul II?
    I don’t think that the personal views/scholarship of Popes should even be considered infallible. Those should only pertain to ex cathedra statements.
    Perhaps, as you are thinking here, it might be good in order to make such a distinction for those Catholics who may be ignorant of exactly what “infallible” means and when it actually applies.
    Whatta ya say we all kick $1 in and mail a copy to Realist
    Sounds like an interesting idea.

  23. “Whatta ya say we all kick $1 in and mail a copy to Realist”
    You can show Realist all the reasoning, all of the facts, the logic, etc., but he can’t be forced to accept it. God can’t do that either. There is a difference between knowing and believing.

  24. Whatta ya say we all kick $1 in and mail a copy to Realist?
    I’m in, but I don’t have much hope that it’ll work. To Realist the Jesus Seminar is infallible, but Pope Benedict stated himself that his book isn’t. [sarcasm]How can the personal musings of the Pope possibly compete with the charts and statistal analysis of the Jesus Seminar?[/sarcasm]

  25. Thanks Brian for these precisions !
    JohnD : what if you read first St. Francis but however buy His Holiness’ book ?
    In the beginning of his book the pope says he too hopes to publish a second book. He says also that he has already written the chapters on Jesus’ childhood. The book was ended nearly a year ago, so I think our pope will be able, as he takes every free moment to work on that, to give us another one ! even it isn’t the major priority for the Church…

  26. He says also that he has already written the chapters on Jesus’ childhood. The book was ended nearly a year ago, so I think our pope will be able, as he takes every free moment to work on that, to give us another one ! even it isn’t the major priority for the Church…
    Thanks for the info, Oliver. I think what you’ve said kind of sums up Esau’s concerns. Benedict’s main priority is all his obligations as pope. He has to write the books during the few moments of free time that he has. Esau, and I think many others, worry that at the Pope’s age he won’t be able to handle such a busy schedule. You see the glass half full, Esau see’s it half empty.

  27. Is wish the Holy Father would get the heck up off his arse: less book-writing, more pontificating!
    Please, Holy Father, DO SOMETHING about the Modernist/liturgical crisis for the Church; depose our bishops!
    Otherwise, the Holy Father should do us all a favor and resign; let someone with cojones do what he can’t or won’t. We don’t need a repeat of JP2 Pontificate.
    http://www.riteofsodomy.com

  28. FYI: B XVI asked to have the book published as “Joseph Ratzinger” so as to make it clear it is NOT an infallible statement.
    I don’t think this makes any difference on that regard. A pope can’t disable infallibility just because he wants to. Is he teaching in his role as shepherd of the church? If you read the book it seems like he is. He refers to some errors as serious problems in the church.
    I know he does not want to stifle critique of his writing so he is trying downplay the magesterial side of this. Those who hold these doctrines don’t respect authority much anyway. Still he is the pope. When he makes a definitive statement about theology it carries weight. He never explicitly compells all the faithful to follow a certain teaching but he does make it pretty plain that he does not respect certain doctrines.

  29. Please, Holy Father, DO SOMETHING about the Modernist/liturgical crisis for the Church; depose our bishops!
    Otherwise, the Holy Father should do us all a favor and resign; let someone with cojones do what he can’t or won’t.

    If the bishops are as bad as you claim, then wouldn’t Pope Benedict’s resignation only open up the Chair of Peter for one of the very men you would like to see deposed?
    By the way, Eric G, what do you think of the book itself? Book writing and pontificating are not in opposition to each other. If the book meets your standards there’s no reason the Pope can’t continue to write the series while increasing his pontifications as you desire.

  30. Amazon updates its book rankings daily, even hourly for a popular book. I just checked, and JESUS OF NAZARETH is currently ranked number 21 out of ALL books. And it has four and a half out of five stars.

  31. I wish people would stop pontificating about what the Pope should do and start doing something to make a difference in their own parish.
    We need examples of holiness not constant complaining.
    Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society. – Saint Francis of Assisi
    Take care and God bless,
    Inocencio
    J+M+J

  32. “I wish people would stop pontificating about what the Pope should do and start doing something to make a difference in their own parish.”
    Innocencio, let me be the first to say a big “AAAY-men”!

  33. The pope’s job is too preach the truth of God, not to micromanage bureaucrats.

  34. “FYI: B XVI asked to have the book published as “Joseph Ratzinger” so as to make it clear it is NOT an infallible statement.”
    I don’t think this makes any difference on that regard. A pope can’t disable infallibility just because he wants to. Is he teaching in his role as shepherd of the church? If you read the book it seems like he is. He refers to some errors as serious problems in the church.

    Randy, Pope Benedict didn’t disable infallibility when he wrote the book – in a strict sense he never had it. The Pope is only infallible when making ex cathedra statements. When he mentions teachings of the Magisterium in his book they already are infallible; no Catholic, not even the Pope, can disagree with them. Yes Catholics should always receive the Pope’s words with a great deal of weight, but I think Benedict wanted to reinforce that his book isn’t dogma. It’s a distinction that many today don’t understand.
    It’s really not possible for this book to be official doctrine. It’s not so much a book of definition as it is meditation. For example, Pope Benedict assigns several meanings to Jesus’ plunge into the Jordan during his baptism. These aren’t concrete definitions of baptism but reflections which help us better understand the mystery of the sacrament. This freedom is actually the beauty of the Catholic Faith. The Magisterium kind of marks off a safe area for us to stay within. As long as we do that we have an infinite mystery to explore.

  35. FYI,
    My surname does not begin with a G.
    I always sign my posts with Dr. Eric.
    Just so there is no confusion.

  36. Randy, Pope Benedict didn’t disable infallibility …
    AND the book was written BEFORE he was Pope.
    I read a great remark by St. Francis DeSales (clearly before infallibility was infallible but apropos anyway)
    He compared a Pope’s statements to a King’s. Every word that falls from a King’s mouth is not an edict. Every statement from the Pope’s mouth is not “the last word”.

  37. . I just checked, and JESUS OF NAZARETH is currently ranked number 21 out of ALL books.
    I just checked it this minute — it’s rank is #18 now!!
    A potential #1 in the future???
    Who knows?!
    Jesus of Nazareth (Hardcover)
    I hope Jimmy Akin posts his thoughts on the book soon!
    It has a lotta MEAT!
    MMMM — GOOD!!!

  38. A pope has to specifically engage infallibility in order to exercise it.
    It isn’t something that’s always humming in the background unless he somehow “disables” it.
    Heh. If a pope’s every utterance were infallible… then it would be infallible that “everyone is free to disagree with me,” as the pope says in the introduction. 🙂
    In other nonsensical news, the sentence that I am now writing is false.

  39. “The pope’s job is too preach the truth of God, not to micromanage bureaucrats.”
    Removing a bad bishop is not “micromanaging”. It’s doing your job; heck, doing WHAT WE PAY YOU FOR as Pope.
    Pope Ratzinger may get an A+ with regards to teaching and sanctifying, but an F- when it comes to governing.
    God willing, he has major plans in the works, and I’ll be proved wrong.
    I won’t be satisfied till my sodomite Archbishop is removed (before “retirement age’).

  40. Eric G.,
    As much as many of us would like to see dissident bishops’ heads roll, we have to keep in mind that the Pope is just a man. And an 80-year-old man at that. What can he realistically do if these men do not obey him? Sadly, they often just ignore him. And I think there is a very real and grave fear that these dissident bishops would start a parallel hierarchy and cause a massive schism. Sodano is STILL in the office of the Secretary of State though he was relieved of the position some time ago. The Holy Father has a lot of resistance in the Curia itself; he is truly a “general without troops.” Maybe he should build a prison in the Vatican and get the Swiss Guard to start throwing some of these guys in!

  41. “Pope Ratzinger may get an A+ with regards to teaching and sanctifying, but an F- when it comes to governing.”
    Call me stupid, but isn’t the Pope SUPPOSED to be ‘teaching and sanctifying’ instead of governing? He is the successor of Peter for Bob’s sake!
    I’d MUCH rather have a saintly Pope (like Benedict), who does everything he can to teach and sanctify his flock that a Pope who is simply a good administrator, governor and/or inquisitor.

  42. A pope has to specifically engage infallibility in order to exercise it.
    I don’t think so. Vatican I talked about a few conditions. The Pope needs to be acting in his role as shepherd of the church. He needs to be teaching on faith and morals. He needs to make a definitive pronouncment, something that will compell all the faithful to accept the teaching.
    John Paul II explicitly filled these conditions in his declaration on the impossibility of female ordination. He used almost the exact words from Vatican I. Still the conditions could be met implicitly. The point is the grace of infallibility has not been relaxed for this book. Sure much of it was written before he was pope. So what? It was published by the pope. Much of it is not definitive at all. But some of it is. It probably does not rise to the level of definitiveness referred to in Vatican I but I havn’t read it all yet and certainly not that close. He does make some strongly negative statements about some teachings.
    It is a bit like a tree falling in the forest. If nobody recognized something as infallible then is it really infallible? That is another issue.

  43. “…doing WHAT WE PAY YOU FOR as Pope”
    For a Catholic you speak with great ignorance and disrespect regarding your Pope.
    The Holy Father is not your hireling. If all Catholics would render to him the respect proper to a Father (rather than an errand boy), these problems would take care of themselves.
    He is also not referred to as “Pope Ratzinger”. He is Pope Benedict XVI.
    At the judgement, you will not be called to account for the Pope’s shortcomings, or those of your Archbishop, but for your own.

  44. FYI, I ordered the CD for my mom in early May from Amazon. It’s not supposed to arrive till mid June. 🙁

  45. “A pope has to specifically engage infallibility in order to exercise it.”
    I don’t think so. Vatican I talked about a few conditions. The Pope needs to be acting in his role as shepherd of the church. He needs to be teaching on faith and morals. He needs to make a definitive pronouncment, something that will compell all the faithful to accept the teaching.

    Randy, meeting these conditions is how the Pope engages infallibility. The rest of the time he’s not infallible unless he’s saying something already defined by the Magisterium (but I think you or I would also be infallible in that instance).
    Besides, how did Pope Benedict meet the conditions you set forth in his book?

  46. People on both sides of the “Pope Benedict should do X argument” are making the logical fallacy that he must either teach or knock heads around, but in reality he can do both. I’m personally not going to call out Benedict for not doing enough at this time, but I do think there’s plenty of room for discussion of the issue if we can use the appropriate level of respect in our language.

  47. Inocencio, your post of 5/24/07 at 12:30PM nailed it. Unfortunately, whining is easier than actually doing something.

  48. Randy, meeting these conditions is how the Pope engages infallibility
    Yes, but those conditions do not include a proclaimation of “This is infallible”. That is my point. I even don’t think a denial of infalliblity is relevent at all. I didn’t say the pope met the conditions in the book. Just that the statement he makes in the preface does not impact that question.

  49. “I even don’t think a denial of infalliblity is relevent at all”
    I would HAVE to disagree. The standard for any particular teaching meeting the requirements of infallibility is very high. A specific DENIAL of infallibility attached to any Papal teaching would have to be given as much Papal authority as the statement itself.
    In other words, if ANYONE would know authoritatively whether a certain teaching is infallibly declared, it would be the Pope doing the teaching. Whether he says it’s infallible or not infallible, he is correct and not to be second guessed.

  50. In fact, I would say that IF ANY statement by a Pope would engage infallibility, it would be along the lines of “this is infallible” or “this is not infallible”. That would be the very essence of the charism.

  51. Is wish the Holy Father would get the heck up off his arse: less book-writing, more pontificating!
    Dr. Eric G. and those of you complaining about the Pope not doing a lot as Pope are some of the most short-sighted, narrow-minded freaks I’ve ever encountered.
    If you played enough chess, you’d know that Pope B16 is of such strategic mind, ever cleverly working a way, moving his pieces, if you will, in bringing the Catholic world back sanity, back to Christ!
    Check out this little diddy from another website:
    The Pope and his Bishops Take On the World
    God bless the Pope!

  52. As regards Infallible Teachings:
    There is a kind of language that he (the Pope) must use. That is, he must make clear a number of facts and declare he is speaking with his supreme authority (i.e., ex cathedra) and that he’s intending to settle a question on Faith and Morals for all of the Faithful, period — there is no more dispute.
    Now, of course, that’s a very uncommon thing for Popes to do — at least, in making doctrinal statements. Incidentally, saint canonizations are infallible, too. Therefore, you actually have had a significant number of infallible statements made regarding saint canonizations; but beyond that, in terms of purely doctrinal statements or pure moral statements, it hasn’t been that common.
    Over the centuries, there has arisen a form of language that Popes use when they do declare something as being infallible and they actually tend to pile on a lot of really flowery language when they’re building up to a certain definition in order to set the stage and make it clear that they’re really invoking all of their authority here. They’ll even specifically say, “By my authority as the Successor of Peter who confirms his brethren in the Faith” and stuff like that.
    Two obvious ones that devout Catholics know of are the definitions of “Immaculate Conception” and “The Assumption of Mary”, which are in documents called “INEFFABILIS DEUS” and “MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS”.
    The “money” word that you look for in such infallible documents is “I define”. If a Pope says, “I define” something — this becomes a statement, by definition, that brings all controversies to an end forever. If the papal statement demonstrates words to that effect, “I define”, then you’ve got an infallible statement by a Pope. However, as mentioned, those aren’t that common outside of saint canonizations.
    Thus, not every product of a Pope carries this feature of “infallibility”.
    Take, for example, the Ordinary Teaching of the Church.
    Everything in an encyclical letter is not necessarily ex cathedra. A Pope, as previously indicated, would have to say that he is defining something for Catholics for all time in order for a document to be declared infallible, among other things (e.g., those already mentioned).
    Of course, when a Pope teaches something in an encyclical letter, it is no longer up for grabs. It’s no longer a matter for open season that we can reject and so forth because that becomes a teaching of the Church on what we call the Ordinary level.
    Yet, the ordinary teaching authority of the Pope is not infallible and, therefore, it can be changed by a future Pope and such. However, I would emphasize that doesn’t mean we’re free to reject what a Pope teaches on the Ordinary level.

  53. “I’m personally not going to call out Benedict for not doing enough at this time, but I do think there’s plenty of room for discussion of the issue…”
    Agreed. Personally, I would love to see the “Catholic” deignation yanked from some major universities, some bishops unceremoniously sacked, and some seminaries publicly cleaned out from top to bottom, but what do I know? When the Pope starts making decisions based on newspaper headlines, then we will all know we’re in trouble. There is a REASON that the wheels of the Church grind so slowly. To borrow an old phrase… “Act in haste, repent at leisure”.
    I am reminded of the parable of the Wheat and the Tares. Maybe the Pope doesn’t want to uproot the good with the bad. The bad – the modernist, Western, false “Spirit of Vatican II” fever dream – is dying on the vine. It may seem frustratingly slow, but it is happening.
    The West, being in no shape to evangelize anyone, is in fact being evangelized by orthodox, faithful third-world clergy. The seminaries, colleges and religious communities that are growing here are the more orthodox and faithful ones.
    The knocking of a few heads would be a great encouragement to millions of truly devout Catholics, but it would also be widely misunderstood and mischaracterized. The press would spin it so hard they would all have vertigo for a year.
    I trust the Pope. If he really needs MY advice, we’re all doomed.

  54. Yes, but those conditions do not include a proclaimation of “This is infallible”. That is my point. I even don’t think a denial of infalliblity is relevent at all. I didn’t say the pope met the conditions in the book. Just that the statement he makes in the preface does not impact that question.
    In a sense you’re right. The Pope’s book never was infallible and therefore his statement didn’t cause any change in its status. But he didn’t write that he wasn’t speaking infallibly to make the book even more fallible or anything like that. He did it so all the people who don’t understand how infallibility works would know that’s he’s not defining official doctrine. He also probably did it so no one could wrongly argue that the book is infallible, but I guess that’s the flip side of the people not understanding how infallibility works coin.

  55. Hmmm,
    (previous thread comments about B16’s new book)
    With respect to your gift offer, “only if B16 addresses the issues of Limbo and the historical Jesus movement to include presenting the true story of X-mas. i.e. There was no trip to Bethlehem (Professor Chilton says the real Bethlehem was right “down” the street from Nazareth). Also there was no slaughter of the Holy Innocents and no flight into Egypt as per most contemporay NT exegetes.
    “Did B16 include the books referenced at this website in his references?? http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html
    “And Father Raymond Brown would say (about B16’s “new” book”), “Been there, done that” with my 878 page “imprimatured” review entitled “An Introduction to the NEW Testament”.
    Ditto for Luke Johnson with his, The Real Jesus and NT Wright with his three volume set, The New Testament and the People of God, Jesus and the Victory of God, and The Resurrection and the Son of God.
    Or as some would say, “the Bible is true because it says it is”.

  56. Would you all have taken this uncritical eye of the Papacy if we were living under the “Pornacracy” or the Borgias?
    Unbelievable . . .
    And no, Veronica: the office of pastor entails three functions: teaching, governing, AND sanctifying.
    Governing is included in that.
    And the last several Popes have been piss-ass governors.
    The fact that *we’re* am not infallible does not mean we can’t make out views known to our pastors (and other Catholics) on these matters. We are not called to blindly obey and approve and accept each and everything our pastors do.
    THE POPE IS NOT ABOVE CRITICISM.
    We wouldn’t stand for this incopetency from parents or secular leaders; why do we do so for God’s representatives?!

  57. Realist:
    How remarkable a thinker you are that you are able to refute a book that you’ve not even read!
    Were you able to achieve such a feat by your ever incredible logic “Well, since it’ll go against my infallible Jesus Seminar brain-washed mind, then I’ll not read it!”
    Why Realsist???
    Are you so afraid that it may challange your beliefs to the extent that (God forbid!) might cause doubts about them?
    Or some would say, “the Jesus Seminar folks are right because they say so!”

  58. And the last several Popes have been piss-ass governors.
    The fact that *we’re* am not infallible does not mean we can’t make out views known to our pastors (and other Catholics) on these matters

    Eric G:
    Yes, indeed, with a mouth like yours, why shouldn’t the Clergy listen to it as it clearly speaks the Gospel as Christ would have it!
    Also, have you even read about what B16 has been doing or are you simply keeping your head in the sand, only believing what you want to believe?
    You haven’t even considered what he and JP II has accomplished for the Church and the conversion of many who have become Catholics because of what they’ve done for the greater glory of Christ’s Church!

  59. Personally, I would love to see the “Catholic” deignation yanked from some major universities, some bishops unceremoniously sacked, and some seminaries publicly cleaned out from top to bottom, but what do I know?
    As long as we’re wishing… I’d personally throw a party if Josh Hood’s sarcastic request that “Maybe [Benedict] should build a prison in the Vatican and get the Swiss Guard to start throwing some of these [dissident bishops] in!” actually happened. Being shackled up with remains of the early saints in Rome’s catacombs might knock some faith into them. Benedict could call it a “retreat” and invite all the bishops of a certain ilk.

  60. Or as some would say, “the Bible is true because it says it is”.
    Contrary to what many Protestants (and apparently Jesus Seminarians) would like to believe, the bible doesn’t say it’s true. The Catholic Church guided by the Holy Spirit says that the bible is true.

  61. Eric G.,
    In your understanding of holiness where does your offensive language fit in?
    We are called to do as they (our pastors) say and not as they do. Period.
    Yes, we should make our views known but if we do not do it in humility and respectful obedience then we are the problem and not the solution.
    Take care and God bless,
    Inocencio
    J+M+J

  62. Brian,
    Your last two comments are the epitome of why I enjoy reading them: funny and insightful.
    Keep it up.

  63. We wouldn’t stand for this incopetency from parents or secular leaders; why do we do so for God’s representatives?!
    Eric G., as Tim J. and I have said, there’s lots of room for discussion on this issue. But going off on tirades isn’t the way to do it. You can criticize the Pope while still giving him the respect he deserves. In fact if you did that and made a nuanced argument that shows you’re able to consider some good Benedict might be doing against the bad, I think the people reading this thread would be much more interested in interacting you.

  64. Maybe “Joseph Ratzinger” should take a little less time writing books and note that “Rome is Burning” with his priesthood and seminaries infiltrated with homosexuals
    As printed in todays Washington Post and in Spriit Daily, do the Bishops, Cardinals and Popes not even care?
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A38093-2002Jul20
    At Seminary, Unease Over Gay Priests
    Unspoken Issue Created Atmosphere of Tension
    By Hanna Rosin
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Sunday, July 21, 2002; Page A01
    Several things struck Andrew Krzmarzick during orientation week for his class of aspiring priests in the late summer of 1997: how brainy everyone seemed, how they weren’t ostentatiously pious, and one other thing. Midway through a tour of the library at Theological College in Northeast Washington, he noticed another student “definitely checking me out.” So he ditched the tour and asked the one friend he’d made so far: “Hey — are we the only straight guys here or what?”
    For David Kucharski, that same realization came as a pleasant surprise. Walking back from a movie after his first week of classes, he asked some fellow students how they thought gay people were treated in their parishes. At least a couple seemed sympathetic. “I knew I would need a friend for later,” he said.
    Andy Krzmarzick and David Kucharski, right, both left the Theological College at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. (Andrea Bruce Woodall – The Post)
    _____News on Religion_____
    • Catholics Divided On Role Of Laity (The Washington Post, Apr 10, 2005)
    • Catholic Stance on Tube-Feeding Is Evolving (The Washington Post, Mar 27, 2005)
    • In 2004, 1,000 Alleged Abuse by Priests (The Washington Post, Feb 19, 2005)
    • More Coverage
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    They were two young seminarians from the diocese of Dubuque, Iowa — one straight and one gay. They arrived in Washington one year apart, and both would have been Roman Catholic priests by now, classes of 2001 and 2002, respectively, at the elite national seminary affiliated with Catholic University. But both left when what they noticed those early weeks came to dominate their seminary experience in a way they found unnerving — something “known by everyone but never really acknowledged,” said Kucharski.
    It was not the presence of gay men that bothered either of them — both wound up working at the Whitman-Walker Clinic, doing outreach to people with AIDS, many of them gay. It was the skittishness surrounding the whole issue of homosexuality at the seminary. Gay or not seemed to define social cliques, political camps and many a classmate’s wrenching personal struggles. Yet being gay was never mentioned by the faculty except as an abstract possibility.
    “It’s not like guys were walking around holding hands,” Krzmarzick said, “but there was just this huge undercurrent that was not addressed.”
    In some ways that silence is hardly surprising. Until now, the church’s position on ordaining gay priests has remained ambiguous. Pope John Paul II’s spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, recently said of gays: “People with these inclinations just cannot be ordained.” But it was an offhand response to a question, and generated much controversy because in fact church policy does not forbid ordaining gay men.
    For some conservative Catholics, however, the priest sex abuse scandal has made the issue unavoidable. Much of their anger is directed at the seminaries, gatekeepers of the priesthood. In “Goodbye, Good Men: How Liberals Brought Corruption Into the Catholic Church,” published this year, Michael S. Rose described the schools as havens for “homosexual dilettantes” who alienate heterosexual candidates, ridicule the orthodox ones and make a mockery of the church’s moral teachings.
    Catholic liberals attribute the sex abuse scandal to the requirement of celibacy or the absence of female priests. To them, the focus on gay priests is just a witch hunt, and many would prefer not to open the subject at all.
    Somewhere between them is Donald B. Cozzens, a former seminary rector. In “The Changing Face of the Priesthood,” Cozzens wrote that the presence of a “gay subculture” is self-evident, as are the costs of ignoring it. The answer is simply to open up the debate, he wrote: Is the priesthood “becoming a gay profession. . . . Does it matter?”
    The last time the Vatican dealt with the issue was in the 1980s, when it sent a committee of bishops to investigate whether the 200 American seminaries were complying with the church’s moral teachings. At the time, many of the schools had a reputation for being lax in enforcing their traditional ban on sex. Next year, as part of its response to the sexual abuse scandal, Rome plans to dispatch another Apostolic Visitation focusing on questions of celibacy.
    It is generally agreed that sexual activity at the seminaries is less flagrant now, so this time the questions are more murky than they were in the ’80s. The debate centers on the mere presence of a significant number of gay students.
    TC, as Theological College is known, was one of the seminaries investigated in the ’80s, when the “gay subculture was a fairly significant element” and the faculty was not strict, said the Rev. Bill Parent, outgoing vocations director for the Archdiocese of Washington and a TC student at the time.
    Many of the two dozen present and former TC students who were interviewed for this article described participating in, or witnessing, some sexual activity, sometimes in the dorms and sometimes off campus. But mostly what they described was the “weirdness,” as several called it, meaning the gay undercurrent that Krzmarzick described — ubiquitous yet unacknowledged.
    The Rev. Lee Purcell, president of Krzmarzick’s class in 1997 and now a priest in Indiana, said about 20 seminarians in a class of 80 told him they were gay — some who “were almost flaunting it,” some who had never admitted it to anyone else. He guessed about the same number were clearly heterosexual and the rest were “struggling.”
    No members of the TC administration would discuss these numbers or the issue of gay students. But the Rev. Jon O’Brien, a priest and psychiatrist who has counseled students at the school, described in general what the seminary is looking for in its students. “The men we take are ‘regular guys,’ ” he said. “The ultimate question I ask myself is, would he be able to make a good marriage? The seminary is not for men who would not make good husbands.”
    ‘Why Do I Feel So Uncomfortable?’
    When Krzmarzick arrived at TC in August 1997, the place looked a bit worn, at least from the inside, with its peeling paint and cinder block walls. But he had no doubts about his choice.
    It was a national seminary, with the smartest men from dioceses all over the country. The students lived and ate in the seminary building but took classes across the road at Catholic University with lay students, men and women. They were free to skip any meal and head to a restaurant or a movie in downtown Washington, a short Metro ride away.
    At 22, he was one of the youngest in his class, and, compared with the accomplishments of his fellow seminarians, his degree in philosophy paled. The list of 80 in the house included educators, business people, an astrophysicist.
    Like most of the freshmen, Krzmarzick was “on fire to serve the Lord,” a zeal confirmed by a personal moment of revelation: a message from his earthly angel, a woman he met who had dreamed that the Virgin Mary gave him a rose.
    Krzmarzick’s previous experience of living in dormitory life was his fraternity at Iowa State. It was a dry fraternity full of guys like him, high achievers who 10 years down the road would be heading some agribusiness, “wearing their Number One Dad apron, flipping burgers with one hand and throwing a ball with the other.”
    But at TC he couldn’t quite find his place. “Why do I feel so uncomfortable in social situations here at seminary?” he wrote in his diary at the time. “I went up to another seminarian’s room where several candidates were gathered and I felt really uncomfortable . . . as if there were inside jokes going on, conversations that made no sense to me.”
    Often he and a couple of buddies would skip out of these gatherings and go play football, or head for Colonel Brooks’ Tavern, a local bar, for some beers.
    Krzmarzick had grown up in a Catholic family in a few Midwest towns of under 1,000, but he was no rube. In college, he attended a rally for a gay student who was beaten up, and even wrote a letter to the paper calling it a “travesty.” Still, he was not prepared for what he found at TC.
    First, there was the stare at the library. Then Krzmarzick walked into a seminarian’s room and saw him kissing another student. No one mentioned it; Krzmarzick just asked his question and left.
    “It was starting to hit me: This was a place where a lot of the guys are gay,” he recalled. “But I wasn’t sure what to make of it, who to talk to. There was no public forum where we could talk openly about it.”
    In some ways, faculty members did address the issue, even tried to confront students about addressing it honestly. In the weekly Monday night talks about some thorny aspect of priesthood, faculty members referred separately to issues faced by the gay students and the straight students.
    One seminarian recorded in his notes that the Rev. Tom Hurst, now the TC rector, advised the students once to “stand in front of the mirror and say, ‘Hello, my name is Bob and I’m straight, gay, bisexual, confused but working on it,’ ” and talked about sexual orientation existing on a continuum, with men falling on all points along the line.
    But many students said they could not imagine asking a follow-up question in these sessions, discussing being gay with the group or mentioning their own personal struggles.
    “We didn’t talk about it,” Krzmarzick said. “It was talked about to us.”
    The effect was to deepen the mystery, like announcing someone was having an affair but not saying who. Some nights after dinner, Krzmarzick and a couple of friends would sit in their rooms and run through the list of men in the house and label them: “Gay. Gay. Gay, but doesn’t know it. Gay, knows it, but won’t admit it.”
    Anyone who was slightly strange or overly sociable or even too conservative was gay. The “parafaculty,” or students who planned alumni days, bishops’ visits, cocktail hours — gay. The DOTS, the guys on the fourth floor named after a very rigid order, the Daughters of Trent, who wore cassocks to class or did the 5 a.m. devotions in chapel — gay, but “praying to the Virgin to take it away.”
    No one was exempt. “At one point I started wondering about myself,” Krzmarzick said.
    Purcell, the class president, had sort of adopted Krzmarzick, becoming his mentor, lending him his car, taking him on trips. Toward the end of the first semester, Krzmarzick was feeling homesick and went to him for comfort. They disagree on what happened next, beyond a hug, but Krzmarzick left feeling uncomfortable.
    Krzmarzick told his formation adviser about the incident, but the advice he received made him uneasy. The adviser kept pressing him on why he was so offended by the incident, kept pushing him in a direction he did not want to go.
    “I felt like if I would have said, ‘I’m gay, Father — I’ve come to accept it,’ he would have said, ‘That’s great, congratulations,’ and left me alone,” Krzmarzick said.
    At Christmas break, Krzmarzick told his parents about the confusion. His father gave him this advice: “Make sure this is a natural lake and not a man-made one.”
    When Krzmarzick returned, he and Purcell clashed a bit over planning an antiabortion rally, and for a while the tension just hung there. A few nights before the event, Krzmarzick’s closest friend was walking down the hall in search of a cigar and a TV to watch the debate over President Bill Clinton’s impeachment. Suddenly he heard yelling. He dropped his jacket on the ground and ran down the hall to see Purcell physically threatening Krzmarzick.
    That night, Krzmarzick slept on the floor in his friend’s room because Purcell, trusted by faculty, had a master key to all the rooms.
    Purcell said he had been “sucked into a co-dependent relationship. . . . In these very, very bizarre circumstances, you frequently get these intimacy issues,” he said. But the experience taught him “to create boundaries and limits” — a lesson crucial to becoming an effective pastor.
    For Krzmarzick, the incident began to taint his view of the place. “If you could address this thing, openly gay men might mature, develop normally,” he said. “But instead it gets dysfunctional.” He began to view his classmates as “people who’d come there not out of some noble calling, but who’d come there to hide.”
    Krzmarzick said his friends dealt with the strangeness in different ways.
    “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink,” said the Rev. John McDonough, an informal class leader who is now a priest in Arizona. “Some people just don’t want to deal with it.”
    But another friend sounded increasingly bitter. “If you’re hetero, it’s a different card you were played,” he would say. “But if you come out, you’re golden, the whole system helps you.” Eventually, he dropped out.
    Krzmarzick made his decision that summer away from his friends. He’d gone out to San Diego to take a clinical pastoral education class, a kind of group therapy in which aspiring priests minister at a hospital and then write “verbatims” hyper-analyzing what they felt during those interactions. The leader was a Unitarian Universalist minister who was openly gay.
    To Krzmarzick, the minister seemed so much more “healthy” than the “atmosphere of suffocating sexual repression” he had just lived through in Washington.
    “Here’s the problem,” he thought to himself. “You need to create a space where people can be who they are. Being gay is not the problem, but when it’s all underground it’s no good.”
    One night while watching the sun set on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific, he thought, “I wish I had a companion to share this moment with me.” He thought: “I still love God with every fiber of my being.” But the priesthood was something he just couldn’t do.
    Both Hopeful and Anxious
    In the summer of 1998, six weeks before he was headed to TC, David Kucharski received an e-mail from Krzmarzick saying he wouldn’t be going back. Kucharski was disappointed to hear it.
    He had just gone through a difficult year. Once he had almost asked a girlfriend to marry him, then changed his mind. So without any lightning moment of revelation, he’d decided to enter the seminary. “It did not seem likely I would ever have a very fulfilling relationship, so celibacy just didn’t seem like a big deal, which I suspect is fairly common,” he said.
    First, Kucharski had to complete a two-year course in pre-theology at a Catholic college in Dubuque. During his final semester, in the spring of 1997, Kucharski picked up a copy of Time magazine with Ellen DeGeneres (“Yep, I’m gay”) on the cover and “it was like, click, that’s me.” He was 32.
    Kucharski kept it to himself for a couple of weeks and then decided to tell his vocations director, figuring that “for sure I’d get kicked out.” But in fact the vocations director was fairly encouraging. So he was a little bit hopeful about TC, but mostly anxious.
    His diary from the orientation week reflects a lot of worrying. “I wish I knew who to trust” is a phrase that recurs often. But after a few months Kucharski relaxed and began to thrive. “The most striking thing for me was the intense self-examination,” he recalled. “You really got to know who you are, what your desires are. In that way, seminary was a complete success for me.”
    Seminary turned out to be a “great place to come out,” he said. “There were other guys there in the same building going through the same struggles, and faculty members who didn’t throw it up in your face.”
    He became comfortable saying the sentence “I am a gay man” and used it selectively, with people he trusted. In seminary, each candidate is assigned a spiritual director who acts as part mentor, part confessor and part psychiatrist. His office is like a confession booth, a safe place to discuss anything with no repercussions. He repeated the sentence to each of his possible advisers to gauge their reactions.
    One was “really mean,” he recalls, and cut him off. Another appeared to stiffen and become silent. Another seemed completely comfortable, so Kucharski chose him.
    By March, he had found friends he could confide in. It began with two guys who he talked to that day after the movies and who gave responses he liked, then grew into a larger group. It’s not like it was a “gay club or anything,” or even a network — “that sounds so conspiratorial,” he said.
    But these were men who liked to do the same things: buy group tickets to the Shakespeare Theatre, see French films at the Dupont Circle movie theater, drink wine out of real glasses, eat somewhere other than Colonel Brooks’.
    For a while he was taken with the bliss of finding, for the first time in his life, somewhere he fit in. But by the end of the first year he realized he was blooming in a very tight space. Sure, people were supportive, but the subtext of their message was: Don’t talk about it out loud, and never outside the walls of this building.
    Yes, the rectors referred separately in the Monday night talks to the gay and straight students. But it was impossible to imagine raising your hand and saying, “As a gay student . . .” and proceeding with your question.
    Honesty was encouraged, but only to a point. On the periodic psychological self-evaluations the students had to write, neither Kucharski nor any of his friends would mention that they were gay. “No one ever came out and said you can’t be a priest because you’re gay, but they made it clear that you should be careful in case your bishop didn’t approve.”
    Once, in a moment of what he now realizes was almost willful naivete, Kucharski asked a faculty member if he could start a kind of gay support group. The school advised him against it.
    “It was the classic case of the elephant in the room,” he said. “Here was this big and very important issue that they would only deal with in the most oblique ways.”
    Later that year, he developed a crush on a lay student in one of his classes but kept himself in a state of suspended frustration. “There was never any improper activity,” he said. “I never would have considered such a thing.”
    Kucharski came back for a second year, but reluctantly. At Christmas he went to a retreat and took some prayer books and a copy of Andrew Sullivan’s “Love Undetectable,” about gay friendship, AIDS and homophobia. There he made his decision.
    “I realized I was not willing to go through priestly life keeping something that important a secret,” he said. “Not that I expect to go up to every parishioner and say “Hi, I’m Father Dave and I’m gay,’ but I want to be in an environment where it’s considered okay to talk about it.”
    As a parting act of low-grade defiance, he wrote a semi-autobiographical paper on spiritual practices for gay men and read it out loud to his class. After he left, Kucharski got an apartment near Dupont Circle and a job at Whitman-Walker.
    His closest friend is convinced Kucharski would have made a good priest, but he has no regrets. Last month, when he went back to visit his parents in Iowa and attended the ordination ceremony for the 2002 class of priests in his diocese, all he felt was relief that he was in the back, clapping.
    Occasionally, he says, he still asks God, ” ‘Why, why am I gay?’ And to this day I don’t have an answer. But I have the unshakable feeling that God made me this way, and since then I’ve never felt alone.”
    The Aftermath
    Krzmarzick and his friends have formed an informal club of almost-were-priests. Every once in a while they get together for beers and trade rumors: who stayed, who dropped out, who was having affairs — and who is gay.
    After a few beers the other night, Krzmarzick’s friend, the bitter one, who also dropped out, conceded that some of the gay guys are “the most pastoral guys.”
    “They are the ones I would want on my deathbed by my side saying, ‘God loves you,’ ” he said. “Even though I’m bitter they made me leave, I know they’re the only ones who can do it.”
    Krzmarzick, too, has sorted out his feelings about homosexuality. Through a fraternity brother, he also got a job at Whitman-Walker, and after a few months there became convinced that “it’s an ontological part of a person. They don’t choose it.” Now he thinks his calling is to be a sort of bridge between the gay and straight communities.
    One of his friends was married this summer, and Krzmarzick, who now has a girlfriend, is sure it will happen to him, too. But he’s also sure he’ll never feel quite satisfied, stuck in a state he names after his favorite book, “The Holy Longing.”
    “I know I am called to the very depths of my being,” he said, “and I will be restless until I can call myself ‘priest.’ ”

  65. Now we’ve come full circle:
    What do you get when you have a brain-washed Jesus Seminar-ian, a Foul-Mouthed faultfinder, and a Schismatic Rad Trad?

  66. From Da Rulz:
    3. Also because of the format restrictions, everyone must be concise. Don’t go on at length about things. Pasting large amounts of text into the combox also counts as going on at length. Going on at length constitutes rudeness.
    John, please try to limit the length of your posts.

  67. IMO, it’s time for the meat-axe on that last (predictable cut-and-paste) comment from John.
    Also, John should be banned.

  68. Sure
    ban anyone that does not fall in behind your warped sense of Catholicism
    I guess homosexuality in the priesthood and the closing of the church’s, money in the basket that we give to the poor going to pay out for their unchecked sins are all fine with you Tim!!
    When one can not defend their side, ban them!!

  69. I’ll take Realist over John any day.
    John’s post is either a cut-and-paste of a long newspaper article or something from a schismatic website, but never one containing his own original thoughts on the matter.

  70. Tim J.,
    Unfortunately Jimmy doesn’t have the time to police the comments. We know that the honor systems does not work with those who have none.
    I do not doubt that he would ban John, who has already been warned twice, if he read his comments and saw all the cut and pasting.
    Take care and God bless,
    Inocencio
    J+M+J

  71. John,
    We have defended our postion over and over.
    We cannot help it if you have poor reading comprehension or refuse to think for yourself.
    Take care and God bless,
    Inocencio
    J+M+J

  72. No wonder John never visits the Catholic.com forums any more.
    He must’ve been banned there so he comes here instead to get the attention he so desperately craves.

  73. Holy golden calf!
    Anyway, in the interest of discussion, this line made me think:
    One seminarian recorded in his notes that the Rev. Tom Hurst, now the TC rector, advised the students once to “stand in front of the mirror and say, ‘Hello, my name is Bob and I’m straight, gay, bisexual, confused but working on it,’ ” and talked about sexual orientation existing on a continuum, with men falling on all points along the line.
    Why isn’t this figured out before they’re admitted to seminary? If you’re not confidently heterosexual and ready to accept the responsibility that goes along with it, you’re not ready for seminary. I think this same type of thing happens with marriage today, everyone gets married without wanting to be sexually mature and then half of us get divorced. If you’re not ready to be a husband to the Church you shouldn’t enter seminary and if you’re not ready to be husband to your wife you shouldn’t get engaged.

  74. Brain,
    Could we not go too off-topic?
    I’d prefer to get people’s responses concerning B16’s book.

  75. Cut and paste?
    I provided the link but figured with such an important topic as the gay priesthood with like Vatican II vague vague and more vague-all goes unchecked as the Vatican II church needs liberal open minded priests and who more open minded than someone who is gay??
    Perfect fit

  76. and who more open minded than someone who is gay??
    John:
    WOW!
    So YOU ARE GAY!!!
    Does your family know???
    I feel SO SORRY for them!!!
    Finally, the cat is out of the bag — or, better yet, the rad trad is out of the closet!!!

  77. Vatican II church needs liberal open minded priests and who more open minded than someone who is gay??
    Actually gay priests are usually incredibly close-minded. No matter what the Pope or the Church or anyone else tells them they refuse to listen to the Truth. Hmmm… who does that sound like?

  78. Once these posts turn into “The Post Vatican II Church is Evil/Bad/In Collusion with Satan” arguments, I stop reading them.
    *rolls eyes*

  79. Once these posts turn into “The Post Vatican II Church is Evil/Bad/In Collusion with Satan” arguments, I stop reading them.
    Indeed, Dr. Eric.
    Now, let’s get back to a topic that’s very worthwhile and, incidentally, what this thread is supposed to be about: B16’s book!!!

  80. Esau,
    On May 25, 2007 9:56:29 AM you referred to a Dr. Eric G.
    As I wrote before, my surname does not begin with G.
    I have been a Catholic long enough not to expect the Pope to micromanage our problems, he’s got bigger fish to fry.

  81. Esau,
    On May 25, 2007 9:56:29 AM you referred to a Dr. Eric G.

    My bad.
    Obviously, that comment was not directed towards you.
    I saw ‘Eric’ and though my comment was intended for ‘Eric G’; habit committed the mistake of associating ‘Dr. Eric’ into the final writing.

  82. Esau, come on, now… the insinuations of gay-ness don’t exactly elevate the converstion. I know John brings out the worst in people, but ease up.

  83. Esau, I know it’s in jest, but you shouldn’t call John Gay.
    Would it be better if I had implied it as in the comment somebody made:
    “Actually gay priests are usually incredibly close-minded. No matter what the Pope or the Church or anyone else tells them they refuse to listen to the Truth. Hmmm… who does that sound like?”

  84. No problemo, I’m just trying to distance myself from an opinion that I don’t share.

  85. Would it be better if I had implied it as in the comment somebody made:
    “Actually gay priests are usually incredibly close-minded. No matter what the Pope or the Church or anyone else tells them they refuse to listen to the Truth. Hmmm… who does that sound like?”
    I was calling John close-minded, not gay. If it appeared I was calling him gay I apologize.

  86. Ok, folks, back on the subject of B16’s book, PUHLEEZE!!!
    This is something WORTH talking about!

  87. John–why are you citing articles from the last years of the previous pontificate?

  88. As printed in todays Washington Post and in Spriit Daily, do the Bishops, Cardinals and Popes not even care?
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A38093-2002Jul20
    At Seminary, Unease Over Gay Priests
    Unspoken Issue Created Atmosphere of Tension
    By Hanna Rosin
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Sunday, July 21, 2002; Page A01

    Bolding mine.
    John… I was under the impression that it was May 25, 2007 and not Sunday, July 21, 2002. What is the date on your calendar?

  89. John should be banned for the sake of the common good.
    Think of all the time he’d have to solve the Church’s problems if he wasn’t spending all that time cutting and pasting articles from rad trad sites here (with or without attribution).
    And, in any event, one should have to display a modicum of reason, not to mention reasonableness, in order to participate.

  90. I have a copy but haven’t had a chance to read it yet. Can’t wait!!
    Thanks, JoAnna, for getting us right back on track!!
    I’m in the same situation.
    I’m hoping to get to it this Memorial Day Weekend! =^)
    Esquire =^)
    God bless you all!

  91. TODAYS SPIRIT DAILY
    http://www.spiritdaily.com/
    Daddy daddy Jimmy, the big bad Rad Trad is not falling in line behind the rest of us cafeteria catholics who love saying we are Catholic but really love the homosexuality, liberal reforms and liberal interpretations (aka Protestanism), please help me fend off this bully in the school yard and ban him or else I am going to take my ball home and not play!!
    You should read your responses to a concise and documented article on rampant homosexuality, like children calling for their daddy!!

  92. John,
    Your rambling style of dubious veracity always bearing little relation to the conversation being had reminds me of someone…by any chance is your last Ratzenberger?
    Take care and God bless,
    Inocencio
    J+M+J

  93. Esau,
    Father Brown and Bishop Wright are not members of the Jesus Seminar.
    No need to read B16’s book since by description it is just the Bible, Brown and Wright recycled.

  94. No need to read B16’s book since by description it is just the Bible, Brown and Wright recycled.

    I’m curious as to how you can know the contents of a book without reading it first.

  95. Joanna,
    If there was anything new in B16’s “new” book, it would be global news e.g. “my book was edited by God”. Maybe I missed the headlines??
    So I will save my $15 and wait for the headlines but without said headlines, the book is simply recycled/condensed Bible, Brown and Wright.

  96. My guess is that B16’s book undermines much of the unfounded speculation of Brown, et al…
    I can’t WAIT to read it!

  97. Tim J,
    Father Brown’s book is so very, very orthodox that he will probably be declared a saint some day. Based on “you get what you pay for” his book is much superior to B16’s i.e. $32.97 vs. $14.97 at http://www.amazon.com.

  98. “Father Brown’s book is so very, very orthodox that the will probably be declared a saint some day.”
    “And I am the Czar of all the Russians!” –Mr. Checkov, “Star Trek: Who Mourns for Adonais?”
    Hate to break this news to ya, but people aren’t canonized for their books; they are canonized because they lived lives of personal sanctity and/or heroic virtue.

  99. If there was anything new in B16’s “new” book, it would be global news e.g. “my book was edited by God”. Maybe I missed the headlines??
    So I will save my $15 and wait for the headlines but without said headlines, the book is simply recycled/condensed Bible, Brown and Wright.

    Do you honestly think that the secular media gives a darn about it?
    Unless the book contains something they can misconstrue as an excuse to Catholic-bash, they couldn’t care less.
    Regardless, you can’t make a definitive statement that “The book is just a recycled version of _______” unless you have first READ the book. Otherwise your opinion carries no credibility.
    It’d be like if Jimmy said, “Brown and Wright’s latest book is a piece of trash” and then admitted he’d never read it. No one would consider his review credible in that case since he didn’t have enough knowledge about the content of the book to make that judgement.
    So why would we consider your opinion credible?

  100. Johanna,
    OK, you have read the book so what is new and novel about it? Does it compare to Father Brown’s book? Does it address the significantly stupid concepts of limbo and original sin? How many biblical passages are copied and pasted into it? Does it address the issue of the physical resurrection that even many contemporary Catholic theologians are questioning? Does it mention/reference the thoughts of the contemporary Catholic theologian Father Edward Schillebeeckx? The attestation and stratum analyses of the NT by Professor JD Crossan and the Jesus Seminarians? Or is it more “Vatican speak” generalizing the needed specifics so that the “dues paying pew peasants” continue to wonder what we are paying our money for?
    And last but not least, what “pretty wingie talking thingie” acted as God’s messenger for the book’s inspiration? Joe Smith’s Moroni I heard was in the running for the job.

  101. Realist,
    I hope that you’re a stand up comedian in “real” life, because I can’t imagine you earning much of a living doing anything else.
    (That requires a brain, that is.)

  102. And that’s why Realist’s opinion is credible. His logic is impeccable. Take that, Joanna!

  103. “…continue to wonder what we are paying our money for.”
    Who is this “we” you are talking about?

  104. Bill912,
    Hmmm, I see the “Angel Moroni” continues calling your phone. Writing a book, are you???
    Considering the money we give to our Church, B16 should have provided his book for free.

  105. Realist,
    As I said in a previous post, I have not yet had the opportunity to read the book. That is why I am not making judgements about it. I’m going to wait until I have read it, and then formulate an opinion.

  106. JoAnna,
    After reading the book, please compare it to Father Brown’s book and give us your opinion about completeness, references used and cost effectiveness of the two books.

  107. Bill912,
    Hmmm, I just checked my itemized deductions for charitable contributions from 1970-2006 and yes indeed for the 36th straight year my Catholic “pew peasant” contributions has always been number one. In 2007 dollars, it would come to about $108,000. Based on that, B16 definitely should send me a free copy of his new book.

  108. This is like pulling teeth. When you say “we” do you mean “we Catholics”?

  109. After reading the book, please compare it to Father Brown’s book and give us your opinion about completeness, references used and cost effectiveness of the two books.

    I’m sorry, but I work full-time and have an energetic toddler to look after. I’m afraid I won’t have time to read a second book and then do an in-depth analysis of the two. But if you choose to do so, I’d be very interested in reading your analysis.
    Also, Realist – if you care to e-mail me your snail mail address, I will be more than happy to lend you my copy of the book (once I’m done reading it, of course). That way you can still read the book but won’t have to spend any money.
    You may want to see if your local library plans on purchasing a copy as well.

  110. I called my local library to see if they planned on purchasing a copy of the book.
    They hadn’t decided yet. (I live in a small town, and they don’t have a huge budget.)
    Needless to say, I encouraged them to do so.
    Thanks for suggesting that, JoAnna.

  111. Cajun, if you have the funds, why not purchase a copy and donate it to them? 🙂

  112. Father Brown’s book, An Introduction to the New Testament, is available in over 100 libraries in Pennsylvania. The Power Library website has an on-line book catalogue (http://205.247.101.15/) for all participating libraries in Pennsylvania. Most public and private libraries participate. If your library does not have a copy, get it on inter-library loan. You need a library card to access the database. Most states have similar library holdings’ databases.
    B16’s book is not yet available based on the catalogue only because it is a new book.

  113. Bill912,
    Of course “we Catholics”!!! As in the vein of many Catholic theology professors and Catholic NT exegetes. Our pastor knows my liberal views but never hesitates in taking my money :))

  114. JoAnna,
    Actually, our church parish has a pretty good library itself. If I could afford to donate books to a library, it would be to the church library.
    Unfortunately, even our church library is underused these days.

  115. Thank you, Realist. From the posts of yours that I have read over the years, I presumed you were a Catholic.

  116. Perhaps it would have sold better if it were retitled or in paperback.
    Popular books are always released in hardcover first – the paperback version usually comes out about year (give or take a few months) later. It’s kind of like how movies come out in theaters first and then are released on DVD later.
    Do you mean like a more sensational, newspaper-like headline. I’d pick something like: REPENT! Jesus Really is God. And the subtitle would be something like: And All of You Who’ve Transformed Him Into a Hippie Teacher/Shampoo Advertisement Model Will Experience a Worse Wrath Than Those Who Outright Call Him a Lunatic.
    It’s a little long, but it has a nice ring to it.
    P.S. This is why I wasn’t called to holy orders. I’d abuse my position.

  117. No need to read B16’s book since by description it is just the Bible, Brown and Wright recycled.
    Realist is just what I thought — A FRIGGIN’ SCARDY CAT!!!
    “WAH WAH, I DON’T WANNA READ B16’s BOOK BECAUSE IT MIGHT CHALLANGE MY JESUS SEMINAR FAIRY TALES AND CAUSE (GOD FORBID!) DOUBTS IN MY BRAIN-WASHED FOOLISHNESS!! I’M TOO SCARED TO EVEN READ THE COVER!! WAH WAH WAH!!!”
    Bernard the ‘REALIST’ Scardy Cat, Sitting on the Tree
    Repeating his brain-washed Mantra to himself —
    “Jesus Seminar is REAL, Jesus Seminar is Real”
    BECAUSE RE: B16’s Book — HE’S TOO AFRAID TO READ !!!!

  118. Sir Realist,
    Once you read Father Brown’s An Introduction to the New Testament you will again see the Light.

  119. How did this go from the Pope’s superlative book to the tedious dicussion on gays in the Church. For God’s sake. Does every damn discussion have to end with gays in the Church?

  120. Does every damn discussion have to end with gays in the Church?
    Because John has a big homo crush on Jimmy Akin and that’s why he keeps coming back on this blog even though he hates being here and that’s why he keeps bringing up such discussions in order to allay his secret homoerotic feelings!

  121. “…you have read the book so what is new and novel about it?”
    See, that’s the thing, Bernie… there’s probably nothing NOVEL about it. Your pseudo-intellectual heroes are the ones all agog over novelty. The Pope is more interested in presenting the real Catholic faith, which means presenting the ancient truths in a different way for a different age.
    The fixation on novelty is what drives pop music, pop psychology and pop theology. Schillebeeckx, et al, are just a bunch of gum-chewing teenyboppers compared to this Pope.

  122. Tim J,
    Thanks for verifying that there is nothing “new” in B16’s “new” book. Did he by chance reference any of Father Brown’s books? If he did not, might B16 have done a bit of plagiarizing?
    By the way, Father Schillebeeckx is older than the Pope.
    http://www.bookrags.com/biography/edward-schillebeeckx/
    And with few exceptions he is just as orthodox as B16.
    Are Father Schillebeeckx’s works referenced in B16’s “new” book???
    Oops, I forgot “Angel” Moroni relayed the inspiration and novelty for the book?

  123. Don’t worry, little Bernie ‘Realist’, B16 will leave you and your Jesus Seminar-based fantasy alone.
    No need to be scared!
    If you feel you’re that intimidated by his book, by all means, DON’T READ IT!!!

  124. Cajun Nick, if you want to draw Jimmy’s attention to a post, do it in email. You can’t count on his reading the comments.

  125. Esau,
    Basically I have read B16’s book in its previous forms, i.e. the Bible, Father Brown’s An Introduction to the New Testament, Luke T. Johnson’s The Real Jesus, and Father Schillebeeck’s Church: the Human Story of God. I hear Bishop NT Wright’s books are also more extensive the B16’s new book but he is an Anglican so he probably would not be considered a good reference.
    But in case you are interested:
    The Meaning of Jesus : Two Visions (Harper San Francisco 2000)
    The Challenge of Jesus (Intervarsity Pr 1999)
    What Saint Paul Really Said (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co 1997)
    The Original Jesus : The Life and Vision of a Revolutionary (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1997)
    Jesus and the Victory of God (Fortress Pr 1997)
    The New Testament and the People of God (Fortress Pr 1996)
    The Wright Quest for the Historical Jesus (online)
    Paul’s Gospel and Caesar’s Empire (online)
    One God, One Lord, One People (online)
    God’s Way of Acting (online)
    Jesus’ Resurrection and Christian Origins (online)
    Defending Nicea (online)

  126. Realist,
    With all of your “knowledge” you should be able to read Pope Benedict XVI’s book and point out where you disagree unless of course you are still afraid.
    Compared to what you have claimed to have read you should breeze through it. I look forward to “your” review. Of course we all know you will wait until some wacky “professor” tells you what you want to hear.
    Take care and God bless,
    Inocencio
    J+M+J

  127. Ahhh, another of the “Hatcheteers” responds!!! but to reiterate, B16’s book is simply recycled Bible and Brown. I know it to be so but of course “you all” have not read Brown. Read it and be overwhelmed!!!

  128. Actually, Moloney is referenced by the Pope (you know, co-writer of the Gospel of Judas, and a scholar who worked with Brown).
    While there are times where questions are raised about “the historical Jesus,” the work is mostly a meditation, and as such does not go into the details as a Wright or even an O’Collins would. It’s the wrong genre of theological writing for a comparison to be made.

  129. Sur-Realist,
    When I said that “Schillebeeckx et-al are like gum-chewing teenyboppers compered to this Pope”, I meant *intellectually*.
    Crossan and the lot are like intellectual adolescents.

  130. Tim J,
    And have you read any of Crossan’s 24 books? Or are you simply suffering from the “Googles”?

  131. Realist,
    And have you read B16’s books? Or are you still sufferring from “solipsista”?

  132. It’s amazing — Realist judges the credibility of an author and his ideas by the number of books they publish!
    Simply hilarious!
    In that case, tabloid writers must surely be some of the most credible people in the world by and large!

  133. I have heard Crossan say enough on the History Channel to know that I would rather have my fingernails pulled out than slog through an entire book of his delusions. In this brief life, a man only has so much time to waste.
    I would think that for a professed “Catholic”, the thoughts of the Pope might be of *some* interest, though.
    Come to think of it, a thorough fisking of Crossan would be great exercise, and might be very entertaining, to boot. Which of his books would you recommend I publicly shame in an upcoming post?

  134. Tim J,
    Professor Crossan’s The Historical Jesus is excellent. As is his Excavating Jesus co-authored by Professor Reed.
    Maybe Esau will also leap from the box of orthodoxy and join you in the “Googles” cure.

  135. Realist always sounds like a harem guard trying to sell a whole man on the advantages of being a eunuch.

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