Benedict XVI on traditionalism

[Ourladyofconsolation06]

Ratzinger against Traditionalists:
Denouncing those who oppose Vatican II: "We must be on guard against minimizing these movements. Without a doubt, they represent a sectarian zealotry that is the antithesis of Catholicity. We cannot resist them too firmly."
(Citation Info: Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, Ignatius Press, 1987, pp. 389-90; German original: Katholische Prinzipienlehre, 1982)

[lumengentleman]

Ratzinger against Liturgical Modernists:

 

"As I see it, the problem with a large part of modern liturgiology is that it tends to recognize only antiquity as a source, and therefore normative, and to regard everything developed later, in the Middle Ages and through the Council of Trent, as decadent. And so one ends up with dubious reconstructions of the most ancient practice, fluctuating criteria, and never-ending suggestions for reform, which lead ultimately to the disintegration of the liturgy that has evolved in a living way." (Cardinal Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, chpt. 3)

 

"In reality what happened [after the Second Vatican Council] was that an unprecedented clericalization came on the scene. Now the priest – the 'presider,' as they now prefer to call him – becomes the real point of reference for the whole liturgy. Everything depends on him. We have to see him, to respond to him, to be involved in what he is doing. His creativity sustains the whole thing. Not surprisingly, people try to reduce this newly created role by assigning all kinds of liturgical functions to different individuals and entrusting the 'creative' planning of the liturgy to groups of people who like to, and are supposed to, 'make their own contribution.' Less and less is God in the picture. More and more important is what is done by the human beings who meet here and do not like to subject themselves to a 'pre-determined pattern.'" (Cardinal Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, chpt. 3)

[Kephapaulos]

Bishop Fellay said that the Pope's heart is indeed Catholic, but it is his mind that is not sadly. I can see how that is here with these quotes given from him as then-Cardinal Ratzinger. He disapproves of traditionalist groups, but on the other hand, he attacks the liturgical modernistic innovators. He has seemed to have adhered to historical relativism (historicism) as well, and that is not good because it trivializes the Church's past teachings concerning its relationship to the state. Supposedly, the Church must change with the times as that is what progessivism, or a false sense of Tradition, advocates.

Also, there is the Hegelian influence on our Pope that is not so great. It is that thesis and antithesis argument where in the end neither the thesis nor the antithesis will win. Both are to somehow come together and compromise to form a synthesis. Well, that just does not work with the Catholic faith period. Either Catholicism or Modernism must win. And we know which one will win in the end.

Maybe one could try to argue that Catholicism and the Roman Empire fused together to form some kind of "sythesis," but then again the Church won because she put herself above the power of the Roman Empire.  

 

EDIT: I do not mean to veer off topic, but I am just trying to express what I have gathered from what our Pope has said and wrote in the past, which especially concerns the actual nature of Catholic Tradition.

[Ceildric]

Having been reading then Cardinal Ratzinger's "Introduction to Christianity" recently, it would be difficult for me to agree that, at least in statement, he supports some form of relativism.  He does seem to be in favour of some changes, but not to the core doctrine so as to accomodate modernism.  From my perspective it seems like he is struggling to emphasize a different aspect of the Truth, which has been overlooked by some in the past, in an effort to counter-balance the traditional emphasis to the contrary, and so as to better challenge the deceptions and lies of the imperfect false religions that are growing in popularity outside the Church.