Saturday, April 23, 2005
Our Lord told us: ¨Within the fields of the Church, there will be not only wheat but chaff – from the seas of the world you will take not only fish but also unacceptable things’. Therefore, He announces to us a community, a Church in which scandals and sinners will be present. We must remember that St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, was a great sinner, and yet the Lord wanted precisely the sinner Peter as the rock of the Church. Thus He has already indicated to us not to expect great saints of all the Popes – we must also expect there to be sinners among them. He announces to us that in the fields of the Church there will be much chaff. This sense should not surprise us if we consider all of Church history. There have been other times at least as difficult as ours with scandals, etc. All we have to do is think of the ninth century, the tenth century, the Renaissance. Therefore, looking at the words of the Lord, at the history of the Church, we can relativize today’s scandals. We suffer. We must suffer because they – that is the scandals – made so many people suffer, and here we are thinking of the victims. Certainly we must do all we can to avoid that these things happen in the future. But on the other hand, we know that the Lord – and this is the essence of the Church – the Lord sat at the table with sinners. This is the definition of the Church: The Lord sits at the table with sinners. Therefore, we cannot be amazed if it is like this. We cannot despair. On the contrary, the Lord said: “I AM not here only for the just, but for sinners.” We must feel certain that the Lord truly - even today – seeks sinners in order to save us.
--Benedict XVI, speaking to Raymond Arroyo while still Cardinal Ratzinger
--Benedict XVI, speaking to Raymond Arroyo while still Cardinal Ratzinger
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