Des profondeurs de nos coeurs

Bonjour mes amis, freres et soeurs au Seigneur Jesus-Christ. J'ai lu ce livre en francais parce que
c'est pas en anglais jusqu'a le mars. Je m'appelle Pere Bernard, et j'habite a l'etat de New York pres
de Montreal. Je lis des livres de la theologie catholique, et j'ecris pour les americains et aux anglophones.

Le Pape Benoit XVI, is he the co-author or just a contributor au Cardinal Sarah's book? Somewhere
in between. B16 wrote about 40 pages versus 95 for Cardinal Sarah. So it's longer than most articles in
a scholarly journal, more like an obnoxiously long introduction to a book. Sorry!

But it is definitely Ratzinger. We know that because of the references to the scholar Paul Hacker, an
expert on Judaism. Benedict focuses on the Old Testament, the Levites and the practice of ritual
purity, citing stories about King David from 1 Kings (1R en francais). He reads the Old Testament
in Christ, in the light of letter and spirit, as he learned early in his career from Origen of Alexandria
and Pere Henri de Lubac. Regarding his own work, Benedict refers most often to Jesus of Nazareth,
reminding us that the priesthood is all about le Seigneur Jesus.

Cardinal Sarah once again reiterates his loyalty au Pape Francois. This should be evident because
there's nothing in Querida Amazonia, the Pope's document on the Amazon, that is contradicted
here. "I'd rather die than change the law of celibacy", Sarah quotes Bergoglio with approval. There's
also a lot of reference to Sulpicien Cardinal Marc Ouellet's recent work, and St. Newman, long a favorite of Ratzinger and his school.

Sarah describes the witness, the testimony of the celibate missionaries and how it inspired him on
the peripheries in the dictator Sekou Toure's Guinea. He talks about the experience of Japan and
how the marks of Catholics were the cross, Mary, and celibate priests. Another triad is that priestly
spirituality has the Eucharist, the cross, and Mary. He is deeply offended at the idea that the
indigenous in the Amazon cannot understand celibacy. In an era where colonialism is everything
that is bad, it is shocking to see such condescension to those on the margins.

Sarah talks about the sexual abuse scandals and the need for prayer, loving to the end. Priests are not religious monks, but they need communal prayer. The ontological
sense of the priesthood is connected to the spousal relationship of Christ to the Church. Other topics include the vocation of women and clericalizing the laity. I don't necessarily agree with all of the arguments here. I'll have to catch the nuances en anglais. Some of my biggest influences included Byzantine priests and Lutheran
converts who were married. But I agree with Sarah that the exceptions are exceptions. Most Eastern Catholics
and Protestant converts want the Latin rite to be faithful to its own traditions, at this time when the world wants to throw everything away.