What Does Growing Older Bring About?

A friend, working in Guinea, Africa, forwarded me a copy of an article about the divisions in our Church.  Surely the author, a Bishop from South Africa, expresses the pain that "where we are today" brings to his heart.  Ordained a Redemptoris priest, Bishop Kevin Dowling, has taken quite a risk in writing and publishing as he did.  His article appears in the National Catholic Reporter.  Most interesting was a quote the Bishop incorporated into his article as a conclusion.

Photo:  National Catholic Reporter 

Please note that these following words were written by Fr Josef Ratzinger, just after the conclusion of Vatican Council II.  They provided very interesting and intriguing thoughts.

"Over the pope as expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there stands one's own conscience which must be obeyed before all else, even if necessary against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. This emphasis on the individual, whose conscience confronts him with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even the official church, also establishes a principle in opposition to increasing totalitarianism". (Joseph Ratzinger in: Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II ,Vol. V., pg. 134 (Ed) H. Vorgrimler, New York, Herder and Herder, 1967).