Word: vaticans
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...quit the priesthood); they also led to the removal of Charles Curran, a proponent of birth control, from teaching theology at the Catholic University of America. (He is now at Southern Methodist University.) In fact, Ratzinger sometimes seems to be turning his back -- literally -- on modern notions. The pre-Vatican II church, he said last April, was theologically correct in having priests "oriented toward the Lord," facing away from the congregation at Mass. He agreed, however, that a reversal would be impractical...
...early 1960s, no one would have thought Joseph Ratzinger would become the enforcer of conservatism. At the Second Vatican Council, from 1962 to 1965, Ratzinger and Kung were young theological stars advising the West German contingent. In those heady days, Ratzinger and Kung applauded from the sidelines as Joseph Cardinal Frings, the Archbishop of Cologne, electrified the council by calling the prosecutorial tactics of the very office Ratzinger now leads "a cause of scandal to the world." Ratzinger is said to have ghostwritten most of that speech...
...that religion was crucial to civilization. "Only the Christian faith had the possibility to heal these people and give a new beginning," he says. He was ordained a priest in 1951, and moved on to a brilliant career as a theologian that reached its first peak at the Second Vatican Council...
...needs prodding to come to that realization, Ratzinger is happy to prod. And if this means many church members must drop out, so be it. Does this not betray his past? "I see no break in my views as a theologian," he says. "It is absolute nonsense to say Vatican II left it up to the individual to decide which religious ideas he would adopt and which he would not." As a participant in the council, "I would be making a liar of myself" to say such a thing...
Today the Cardinal, who is into his third five-year term at the Congregation, is the longest-serving major official in John Paul's Vatican. Might he be elected Pope one day? Vatican watchers say no: he is too controversial, and his brief record in pastoral work -- as Archbishop of Munich -- is at best spotty. Meanwhile, his health, while good today, has been precarious in the past. In September 1991 he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage that affected his left field of vision. Then in August 1992 he fell against a radiator and was knocked unconscious, bleeding profusely. "Thank God, there...