My hopes for Benedict XVI

Will his pontificate move the Church closer to its more traditional roots? I’m a cradle Catholic who has known nothing but the post Second Vatican Council church. I don’t know the answer to that question.

But I have over the past couple of years become very concerned for my church. I have had uncomfortable feelings of a church more concerned with not offending anyone, more concerned with loving the sinner but ignoring the sin. As the father of two children I have been pained by the lukewarm passion for the beauty and reverence of the Mass. Our churches social institutions have been co-opted by the state. Our dioceses schools are no better than public schools with a crucifix on the wall.

My hope for this pontificate is that our Church can be healed from within. I don’t want to see the dissenters leave, but I cannot understand why they believe that the Church needs to modernize. I am not convinced that modernization has given us much to look forward too.

Habemus Papem