Benedict XVI and Rock Music

[Guest Eremite]

[quote]"Three developments in recent music epitomize the problems that the Church has to face when she is considering liturgical music. First of all, there is the cultural universalization that the Church has to undertake if she wants to get beyond the boundaries of the European mind. This is the question of what inculturation should look like in the realm of sacred music if, on the one hand, the identity of Christianity is to be preserved and, on the other, its universality is to be expressed in local forms. Then there are two developments in music itself that have their origins primarily in the West but that for a long time have affected the whole of mankind in the world culture that is being formed. Modern so-called "classical" music has maneuvered itself, with some exceptions, into an elitist ghetto, which only specialists may enter---and even they do so with what may sometimes be mixed feelings. The music of the masses has broken loose from this and treads a very different path. On the one hand, there is pop music, which is certainly no longer supported by the people in the ancient sense (pop[i]ulus[/i]). It is aimed at the phenomenon of the masses, is industrially produced, and ultimately has to be described as a cult of the banal. "Rock", on the other hand, is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe. The music of the Holy Spirit's sober inebriation seems to have little chance when self has become a prison, the mind is a shackle, and breaking out from both appears as a true promise of redemption that can be tasted at least for a few moments

(The Spirit of the Liturgy, 147-148)[/quote]

Edited April 22, 2005 by Eremite

[MC Just]

wow!

[conservativecatholic]

I have read numerous excerpts from Benedict's [i]Spirit of the Liturgy.[/i] He emphasizes the fact that Rock music has been a factor in the moral decay of today's society as well as the diminishing quality of music in the Mass. I pray that Benedict stands firm in what he believes regarding the Liturgy and I pray that he implements needed liturgical reforms that he has addressed in the past.

We love you Benedict XVI!

[Guest Eremite]

Apparantly, he published an article in 1986 called "Liturgie und Kirchenmusik" where he addresses rock music. I couldn't find an English version of this text, but I did find this article which provides relevant citations:

[quote]In it, the head of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith described rock music as "the secularized variation" of an age-old type of religion in which man uses music -- and drugs and alcohol -- to lower "the barriers of individuality and personality," to liberate "himself from the burden of consciousness. Music becomes ecstasy ... amalgamation with the universe." This, Ratzinger told the Eighth International Church Music Congress in Rome in 1986, "is the complete antithesis of the Christian faith in the redemption."[/quote]

[url="http://www.losangelesmission.com/ed/articles/1999/1199jm.htm"]http://www.losangelesmission.com/ed/articles/1999/1199jm.htm[/url]

Edited April 22, 2005 by Eremite

[001]

The idea that any type of music leads to moral decay is an outdated idea left behind from the 70's. Still addressing it is distraction from more important topics. I still feel as though I can't get behind this new Pope after what he did in his younger years. No doubt this will help seperate the Catholic and Jewish faiths after his 'wild years' as a youth in Germany. I means if there's one thing people need, its another cause to hate and discriminate.

[Guest Eremite]

What he did in his younger days?

What, may I ask, did he do in his younger days?

And this was written in 1986. A long way from 1979.

[001]

Benedict was part of the Nazi party in hi9s youth.

[001]

Ratzinger was a nazi.

[conservativecatholic]

[quote name='001' date='Apr 22 2005, 07:04 PM'] Ratzinger was a nazi. [/quote]
It is sad to see such ignorance... -_-

Listen here.

#1 Benedict abandoned the vicious German Army never firing a shot
#2 Enrollment in Hitler's Youth was forced by German armed forces
#3 Benedict constantly attacks facism, nazism, and marxism
#4 Benedict has always slammed the Nazis and their unjust slaughter of Jews.
#5 Benedict has invited the head Rabbi of Rome to attend his Papal Inaguration this Sunday.

I recommend that you truly research Benedict XVI through credible sources.

Edited April 23, 2005 by conservativecatholic

[001]

The fact remains, he was still a Nazi. Those other things are just a front for his real agenda.

[conservativecatholic]

[quote name='001' date='Apr 22 2005, 07:14 PM'] The fact remains, he was still a Nazi. Those other things are just a front for his real agenda. [/quote]
Here is an analogy of what you are saying.

We are Americans and as Americans we permit the murder of innocent children. I believe that abortion is evil and is the sin of all sins. Are you saying that as an American I'm guilty of murder even when I totally disagree with the particular law that supports abortion? According to your ridiculous theory you are guily of murder as well!

The fact is that Benedict scolded the Nazi Party and cut all ties with the Nazis by abandoning the German Army. He never willingly supported Nazi Germany and as a result, he is not a Nazi and never was one.

Edited April 23, 2005 by conservativecatholic

[Ash Wednesday]

001,

If you are really an open minded person and not hopelessly ignorant, it would behoove you to do some more reading on the man. Are you really looking for discussion or being a troll? Many people here think trolls are delicious with a little tarragon sauce and white wine. But we choose to starve them to death before devouring them.

[quote]Ratzinger a Nazi? Don't believe it
Sam Ser, THE JERUSALEM POST  Apr. 18, 2005

London's Sunday Times would have us believe that one of the leading contenders for the papacy is a closet Nazi. In if-only-they-knew tones, the newspaper informs readers that German-born Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was a member of the Hitler Youth during World War II and suggests that, because of this, the "panzer cardinal" would be quite a contrast to his predecessor, John Paul II.

The article also classifies Ratzinger as a "theological anti-Semite" for believing in Jesus so strongly that – gasp! – he thinks that everyone, even Jews, should accept him as the messiah.

To all this we should say, "This is news?!"

As the Sunday Times article admits, Ratzinger's membership in the Hitler Youth was not voluntary but compulsory; also admitted are the facts that the cardinal – only a teenager during the period in question – was the son of an anti-Nazi policeman, that he was given a dispensation from Hitler Youth activities because of his religious studies, and that he deserted the German army.

Ratzinger has several times gone on record on his supposedly "problematic" past. In the 1997 book Salt of the Earth, Ratzinger is asked whether he was ever in the Hitler Youth.

"At first we weren't," he says, speaking of himself and his older brother, "but when the compulsory Hitler Youth was introduced in 1941, my brother was obliged to join. I was still too young, but later as a seminarian, I was registered in the Hitler Youth. As soon as I was out of the seminary, I never went back. And that was difficult because the tuition reduction, which I really needed, was tied to proof of attendance at the Hitler Youth.

"Thank goodness there was a very understanding mathematics professor. He himself was a Nazi, but an honest man, and said to me, 'Just go once to get the document so we have it...' When he saw that I simply didn't want to, he said, 'I understand, I'll take care of it' and so I was able to stay free of it."

Ratzinger says this again in his own memoirs, printed in 1998. In his 2002 biography of the cardinal, John Allen, Jr. of the National Catholic Reporter wrote in detail about those events.

The only significant complaint that the Times makes against Ratzinger's wartime conduct is that he resisted quietly and passively, rather than having done something drastic enough to earn him a trip to a concentration camp. Of course, whenever it is said that a German failed the exceptional-resistance-to-the-Nazis test, it would behoove us all to recognize that too many Jews failed it, as well.

If he were truly a Nazi sympathizer, then it would undoubtedly have become evident during the past 60 years. Yet throughout his service in the church, Ratzinger has distinguished himself in the field of Jewish-Catholic relations.

As prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger played an instrumental role in the Vatican's revolutionary reconciliation with the Jews under John Paul II. He personally prepared Memory and Reconciliation, the 2000 document outlining the church's historical "errors" in its treatment of Jews. And as president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Ratzinger oversaw the preparation of The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible, a milestone theological explanation for the Jews' rejection of Jesus.

If that's theological anti-Semitism, then we should only be so lucky to "suffer" more of the same.

As for the Hitler Youth issue, not even Yad Vashem has considered it worthy of further investigation. Why should we?[/quote]

[001]

Alright first off, abortion is no sin. It can be a miracle to many. Second of all, Ratzinger was a Nazi. The attacking of rock was just outdated. The last person to do so was nutjob Tipper Gore (she bent the law to suit her own strange agenda). Personally, I trust Ozzy, the Prince of Darkness, more than the Pope on this subject.
-RIP Randy Rhoades

[001]

By the way, not even my kindergarten brother uses 'troll' as an insult. Get some new words (try a thesaurus or a dictionary).

[Ash Wednesday]

Don't tell us you consider yourself to be a Catholic, too?