Monday, August 23, 2010

The Church Has Always Weathered the Storms!

Born in 1971, Fabrice Hadjadj, a young French intellectual of the Jewish faith, converted to Catholicism 12 years ago. Here is part of his interview in Le Figaro newspaper in France on August 20.

LE FIGARO: The Catholic Church is going through a crisis without precedent, how [would you] describe the morale of Catholics?

Fabrice HADJADJ: First of all, this crisis is not without precedent. There have been others, probably worse: the Arian crisis of the IVth Century, the great western schism of the fourteenth [century], the scandalous moral behaviour of certain popes such as Alexander VI Borgia: assassin, keeper of concubines, trader in religious offices and preferments, to take only some prominent examples. So it’s as well that we are obliged to recognize that the Church never stops going through crises. It is in its nature, in some way. When you look at the facts without prejudice, and the events seem almost incredible, all the other institutions have been swept aside by the winds of history: but here through over 2,000 years, ‘Peter’s boat’ follows its route, with an uninterrupted apostolic succession and a mission which essentially has developed without self-contradiction.

This exceptional longevity suggests strongly an exceptional ability to weather the storms.

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