The Pope Speaks

Found this interesting snippet from Mystery Achievement on the Pope's homily last Sunday. Apparently the Pope said:

I greet you, men and women religious, witnesses of the transfiguring presence of God. I greet you, members of the lay faithful, immersed in the great task of building up the Kingdom of God which spreads throughout the world, in every area of life.

With great affection I also greet all those who have been reborn in the sacrament of Baptism but are not yet in full communion with us; and you, my brothers and sisters of the Jewish people, to whom we are joined by a great shared spiritual heritage, one rooted in God's irrevocable promises.

Finally, like a wave gathering force, my thoughts go out to all men and women of today, to believers and non-believers alike.

"Someguy", the writer at Mystery Achievement, points out:

Stop. Notice to whom the new Pope extends his greetings and affection:

1. The Catholic ordained, religious, and lay faithful.

2. Other Christians.

3. Our Jewish brothers and sisters to whom God's promises are irrevocable.

Anybody missing? I'll give you a hint: They are the adherents of a religion who are usually called by a word beginning with the letter "M." (No, not "mass murderers." That's two words.)

In other words, Benedict explicity acknowledged the living bond between the Church and the Jews--a bond which is realized in the spiritual heritage we share, in the Jewish flesh of our Lord and his Mother, and in the common salvation towards which we strive with God's help.

What he tacitly denied is any such connection with the followers of the false prophet, Mohammed.

This is very good. Very, very good.

This war is a war of memes, and must be fought on the religious plane as well.

Symbolism, I predict, will be vitally important.

The whole homily can be found here.

I also liked this part, a slam against fascism:

The symbol of the lamb also has a deeper meaning. In the ancient near East, it was customary for kings to style themselves shepherds of their people. This was an image of their power, a cynical image: to them their subjects were like sheep, which the shepherd could dispose of as he wished.

When the shepherd of all humanity, the living God, himself became a lamb, he stood on the side of the lambs, with those who are downtrodden and killed. This is how he reveals himself to be the true shepherd: "I am the Good Shepherd . . . I lay down my life for the sheep", Jesus says of himself (Jn 10:14).

It is not power, but love that redeems us! This is God's sign: he himself is love. How often we wish that God would make show himself stronger, that he would strike decisively, defeating evil and creating a better world.

All ideologies of power justify themselves in exactly this way, they justify the destruction of whatever would stand in the way of progress and the liberation of humanity. We suffer on account of God's patience.

And yet, we need his patience. God, who became a lamb, tells us that the world is saved by the Crucified One, not by those who crucified him. The world is redeemed by the patience of God. It is destroyed by the impatience of man.