Why Do Heretics Remain in the Church?

Michie

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The counterfactual optimism of heretics keeps them in the Church while working to destroy it.


Fifty years ago, then-Fr. Joseph Ratzinger and Ida Friederike Görres were watching their era’s equivalent of a livestream of the implosion of the Church in Europe. And they were asking the same questions about the “reformers” in the Church that many of us are asking today:

Why are they so optimistic about their efforts that are patently leading to a decline in the Church? And why do these people remain in a Church they so clearly despise? And, daring to utter the s-word, when will the powers that be finally pull out a red card and declare, “schism”?

In the early 1970s, Ratzinger was a rising young prelate and Görres was an elderly lay author near the end of her life. Their lives intersected. Ratzinger and Görres carried on a correspondence from the 1960s until her death in 1971, when Ratzinger gave the eulogy at her funeral.1

When it came to the destroyers in the 1970s, Ratzinger noticed that optimism was a central characteristic. He developed three hypotheses to explain their optimism. In a talk Ratzinger gave on “Hope” in 1986, he used the Church in Holland in the early 1970s as one of his case studies of hope’s incompatible counterpart, optimism.2 He described how the state of the Church in Holland was a much-discussed topic among his confrères at the time.

After a visit to Holland, one of them brought back a report of “empty seminaries, religious orders with no novices, priests and religious who in shoals were turning their backs on their vocation, the disappearance of confession, the dramatic decline in Mass attendance, and so on.” What came as “the real surprise,” said Ratzinger, was the prevalence of “optimism.” Ratzinger recounted how the returning visitor to Holland told them:

Continued below.
 
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WarriorAngel

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The counterfactual optimism of heretics keeps them in the Church while working to destroy it.


Fifty years ago, then-Fr. Joseph Ratzinger and Ida Friederike Görres were watching their era’s equivalent of a livestream of the implosion of the Church in Europe. And they were asking the same questions about the “reformers” in the Church that many of us are asking today:

Why are they so optimistic about their efforts that are patently leading to a decline in the Church? And why do these people remain in a Church they so clearly despise? And, daring to utter the s-word, when will the powers that be finally pull out a red card and declare, “schism”?

In the early 1970s, Ratzinger was a rising young prelate and Görres was an elderly lay author near the end of her life. Their lives intersected. Ratzinger and Görres carried on a correspondence from the 1960s until her death in 1971, when Ratzinger gave the eulogy at her funeral.1

When it came to the destroyers in the 1970s, Ratzinger noticed that optimism was a central characteristic. He developed three hypotheses to explain their optimism. In a talk Ratzinger gave on “Hope” in 1986, he used the Church in Holland in the early 1970s as one of his case studies of hope’s incompatible counterpart, optimism.2 He described how the state of the Church in Holland was a much-discussed topic among his confrères at the time.

After a visit to Holland, one of them brought back a report of “empty seminaries, religious orders with no novices, priests and religious who in shoals were turning their backs on their vocation, the disappearance of confession, the dramatic decline in Mass attendance, and so on.” What came as “the real surprise,” said Ratzinger, was the prevalence of “optimism.” Ratzinger recounted how the returning visitor to Holland told them:

Continued below.
Because schism denotes both not agreeing to truth.
Flat out heresy and excommunication card needs pulled out.
 
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Michie

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