Archbishop laments widespread belief among Catholics that Church is “irrelevant”

Madrid, Spain, Jan 16, 2006 / 22:00 pm

Archbishop Braulio Rodriguez of Valladolid, Spain, said this week Catholics do not know what the Church is and that it was “sad” that many consider it to be an “old and irrelevant structure.”

In his weekly pastoral letter, the archbishop lamented that Catholics do not see the Church “as Mother, as the bosom that has given them life in Baptism and Confirmation and where they encounter the Eucharistic Christ.”  The Church “is the one that saves them from relativism and confusion,” he explained.

Referring to the personal theological contribution of Pope Benedict XVI to the analysis of Vatican II, Archbishop Rodriguez said it was “interesting, clarifying and of great service to the present-day Church.”  “Everything depends on the correct interpretation of the Council, the correct key to reading it,” he noted, since “two contrary interpretations have squared off, that of a rupture, on the one hand, and that of a renewal in the continuity of the only Church given by the Lord, on the other.”

In conclusion, the archbishop expressed concern at the effect interpretations of the Council as a rupture with the past have on the faithful, saying they do not lead to communion or evangelization.