The pope also blessed the sick, then waved to the crowd as he took a spin through the square in an opened-topped vehicle, after delivering a homily that offered “fear of God” as an antidote to the world’s ills.
Benedict also warned against a secular view of history in his homily based on biblical texts.
“History is not in the hands of dark powers, of chance or mere human choices,” Benedict said.
Rather, he said, “the Lord is the supreme arbitrator of history.”
In an off-the-cuff remark, Benedict recommended “fear of God” as a way to deal with the difficulties of the world.
“It is through the fear of God that we are not afraid of the world and its problems, we are not afraid of men because God is stronger,” Benedict said.
Read it all here.
Oh man. Why would anyone want to be Catholic under those dark-age paternalistic circumstances?
Turning my back on Catholicism years ago was one of the smartest things I ever did.
My nemesis (Rage Boy who blogs more frequently as Chief Blogging Officer) adds fuel to my fiery attitude about the subject.
I’ve been meaning to post about RB/Chris Locke’s latest transformation, in which he walks the talk in showing how you can use your blog to sustain your writing life. Underwrittn by High Beam research, Chris uses that research capacity to continue drafting his “book-in-progress,” while also following strands of related topics as he picks them up through his research. And then he blogs it all and links to the High Beam articles that inform his writing. Everybody wins. He should be getting more visibility for what he’s doing and what he’s writing.
While I’m not a big fan of RB/Chris Locke, it seems to me he deserves lots of credit for this one.