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How Benedict XVI Will Make History

 

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Another youngster asked why the church urged frequent confession. Benedict answered: "It's very helpful to confess with a certain regularity. It is true: our sins are always the same, but we clean our homes, our rooms, at least once a week, even if the dirt is always the same … Otherwise the dirt might not be seen, but it builds up. Something similar can be said about the soul, about me: if I never go to confession, my soul is neglected and in the end I'm always pleased with myself and no longer understand that I must work hard to improve …"

What the pope can say so winsomely to children, he will likely say to adults during his American pilgrimage: "Look again at the basics of Catholic faith and practice. They exist for a reason. They just may satisfy the hungers of the human heart. Give them a chance."

Popes matter in ways that challenge our conventional thinking about the way the world works. Popes no longer claim the power to bring penitent princes to their knees in the snow, as Gregory VII did with Henry IV; the modern papacy deploys a greater power, the power to propose and persuade, religiously and morally. Popes matter by changing lives and changing history.

Which, as it happens, was the only power Saint Peter had.

Read a different view on the pope's visit from NEWSWEEK's Lisa Miller.

Weigel, a NEWSWEEK contributor, is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

© 2008

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  • Posted By: THE RAVEN @ 04/21/2008 11:17:32 AM

    Hey, tired and old--I won't say much except--I LIKE YOUR WAY OF THINKING! I agree with your views and comments 100%! This behavior has been going on for CENTURIES! Priests moved around from church to church. Victims paid off, or dismissed as being pocessed by the DEVIL...What the HELL is going on in the cathilic church?

  • Posted By: ellegra @ 04/20/2008 1:15:22 AM

    Why is the Pope called father and priests also, when Jesus said to call no man father on the earth (which was not reffering to the father in your family, but from a religious standpoint?
    Matthew 23:9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.

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