Cardinal Ravasi: His Faithful Are the Unfaithful
He cites Benedict XVI as a negative example, because Benedict called him to ask him to celebrate a Mass in his place and told him that he was going to resign, insisting that Ravasi not say anything in his homily: "You can't preach about what the Church of the future will be like, etc. etc.". So Ravasi preached "ignoring what others had been saying for a whole week".
The Cardinal boasts that he is concerned with what he calls "the new digital culture".
He is dedicated to communication, "but not only on matters close to religion, I am always in contact with the outside world". This formulation reveals that he feels trapped in a kind of "inner world".
Now he uses his "colleagues in the Roman Curia" as a negative example, because they are "not like that".
Ravasi loves being on the border with what he calls "the agnostic world", "the secular world" and "the non-believing world".
He also believes that "he must continue to research and study in fields such as genetics - DNA interventions, neuroscience and artificial intelligence" [where nobody needs his incompetent opinion].
At the moment he is preparing a Cortile dei Gentili - his personal playground consisting of a lot of discussions - a meeting on mental illness: "We will also have one on food and another on travel".
The role of the Cortile dei Gentile is not to convert non-believers into believers, says Ravasi.
Nevertheless, he wants to be "missionary" and criticises a "tendency within the Church to be happy with those who are faithful and nothing more". At the same time, he doesn't want to be missionary: "The missionary aspect does not mean that we have to go out to conquer, it means that we have to go out to communicate, to give a message".
Contrary to Ravasi, the regime's media are out to conquer, while the Novus Ordo Church has capitulated.
Ravasi blames "the Church" for "not being able to keep up with the current language [of deception]" and believes that "we must be present on social networks". He says that "catechesis should no longer be done as it used to be". The fact is that catechesis isn't done at all in the Novus Ordo Church.
During the decadent Sanremo 'music' festival, Ravasi was in a frenzy, tweeting twice a day about the [rubbish] songs and the third-rate singers. Now he complains that "the conservatives" criticised him for it.
But Ravasi is proud of himself: "I also talked to rappers". He seems to believe that the false glamour of show business is a real world.
The cardinal is also proud that people he calls "social influencers" seek him out: "They come to talk to me and tell me their personal things in confidence, and they want to know his views", but "they don't want to be converted". OK, and then what?
Ravasi's next negative example is parish priests: "Many people have a great spirituality and cannot find anyone who can adapt to what they are looking for or want. They talk to the priest, they tell him what they have done, the priest listens to them but does not give them concrete solutions". Does Ravasi?
For him, the public expression of religiosity "is manifested in the elderly person who lights candles". This "must be respected", he says condescendingly.
He believes that "the number of believers cannot be calculated by counting those who go to church on Sundays", implying that going to church on Sundays is irrelevant to him.
When asked how faith can be measured, he rambles: "This is a problem that transcends geographical and cultural boundaries." He describes faith as an "intangible dimension" that is expressed in different and personal ways [which means everything and nothing].
According to him, "Faith cannot be measured simply by attendance at religious services, but by the depth of the spiritual connection that each individual feels and experiences in his or her daily life". If this is so, then Ravasi's Novus Ordo Church is useless.
The prelate naively stressed the importance of being an "open" and "unprejudiced" interlocutor, "willing to listen and dialogue with people of all beliefs and levels of faith".
This openness has led public figures and influential people to turn to the Cardinal, finding in him a figure of support and advice, he boasts.
The "most important moment that Ravasi has experienced in all these years within the Roman Curia" have been "the conventions that I have created on sensitive issues". More blabber...
Picture: Gianfranco Ravasi © Mazur, CC BY-NC-SA, #newsXlipkacnod