20 July 2011

On guessing the future, and reading the past

With yesterday's appointment of His Excellency the Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. as Archbishop of Philadelphia many are speculating as to what how the Bishop-designate will govern his new Archdiocese.

Many attempted the same with the election of then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger to the Chair of Peter, but they failed miserably and, quite honestly, defamed him.  They called the cards wrongly, so to speak, becuase they never read anything of what he wrote.  Many were surprised when Pope Benedict's first encyclical letter, Deus caritas est, focused on theme of the love of God; those of us who had read his works were not surprised at all.  The passages often cited in the encyclical were the very passages often cited in all of his writings.

At any rate, if you want to know the mind of Archbishop Chaput, it would be wise to read what he has written.  To that end, Matthew Schmitz has compiled a list (with links) of the Archbishop's thoughts written for First Things.  Those would attempt to predict his moves would do well to read them first.

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