The
Catholic Weekly
Online
Sydney
21 September 2003
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Heaven
scent floral feast
Welcome
strangers’ call
Bishops:
Fight racism
Bishop
Mayne dies at 75
Senate
‘yes’ to gay bid
Benedictine
nuns gather in Sydney
Tears
of joy at Marriage Sunday Mass
Donor
club
His
Holiness, the poet
Concert
to mark Pope’s jubilee
It’s
‘weakness of faith’
Still
a need for Catholic voice: Dr Pell
Editorial:
Spectre of fear
Letters:
Christian values
Conversation:
Amanda McKenna, Catholic singer and songwriter - ‘God’s messenger’ on a journey
of faith
Opintion:
‘Good mother of all ...’
Voice
of Youth: ‘Most wonderful day’
Insights:
Biblical ancestors?
Religious:
Spirit-ualities are everywhere
North
American, Irish, Australian sisters in historic Loreto reunion
Education:
Decade a day at school
Social
Work degree course at Strathfield
Balmain
kids hit right note
Catechism:
Daytime course
New
bishops ‘help God’s light shine in darkness’
Capacity
to forgive ...
‘Heroic
witness’ to the Gospel of hope
‘Kids
worth dying for’
Inspirations:
‘Schoolies’ faith patrol
It’s ‘weakness of faith’
The root cause of the sexual abuse crisis in the US Church is “weakness of faith”, says Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
In an interview aired on the US-based Eternal Word Television Network, the cardinal said priests share in the weakness of all human beings.
And if their faith is just an idea or hypothesis rather than a deep personal friendship with the Lord, they may give in to their weaknesses, he said.
Cardinal Ratzinger said a lack of “conviction of the clear moral teachings of the Church” in recent decades had also contributed to the clergy sexual abuse problem.
The Church must do what it can to assure that such abuse does not happen again, he said.
But, he warned, the Church will always have sinners in its midst.
“In the fields of the Church, there is not only wheat but chaff,” he said. “This is the essence of the Church. The Lord sits at the table with sinners.”
From a historical perspective, he said in the interview for The World Over program, “there have been other times at least as difficult as ours”. He cited the scandals in the papacy during the Renaissance as an example.
When asked about current challenges to Church teaching on sexuality, including movements for same-sex marriages and the use of IVF (in vitro fertilisation), separating procreation from the conjugal act, Cardinal Ratzinger said: “It is always essential that the nature of the human being is given ... God created man and woman to be one.”
He called attitudes of relativism among Catholics a significant problem for pastoral work and said the Catechism of the Catholic Church is a great help for renewing catechesis and evangelisation.
“The school of prayer is very essential” to the renewal of faith, he added.
He sees signs of a new springtime in the Church in “really convinced communities”, including young people, who embrace their faith with joy.
He cited Catholic renewal movements such as Communion and Liberation, the Focolare movement and the Catholic Charismatic Renewal as “a sign of the springtime and of the presence of the Holy Spirit today”.
He said Pope John Paul II’s own “deep faith and love for the Lord” and his evident prayer life are encouraging young people to a deeper faith and spiritual renewal. CNS