Saturday, March 16, 2013

Father Ratzinger on the Future of the Church

http://i.imgur.com/JJt3u.jpg“From today’s crisis, a Church will emerge tomorrow that will have lost a great deal. She will be small and … will have to start from the beginning. She no longer will be able to fill many of the buildings created in her period of great splendour … Contrary to what has happened until now, she will present herself much more as a community of volunteers …
 
As a small community, she will demand much more from the initiative of each of her members, and she will also certainly acknowledge new forms of ministry and raise up proven Christians who have a calling to the priesthood. The normal care of souls will be made by smaller communities, in social groups with some affinity. …
 
This will be achieved with effort. The process of crystallisation and clarification will demand a great effort. It will make her a poor Church and a Church of the little people … All this will require time. The process will be slow and painful.” 

Joseph Ratzinger, Faith and Future (Glaube und Zukunft), 1971, pp. 76-77.

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