There’s much in Ratzinger’s work that speaks to the need for a popular Catholicism and would be fruitful to read together with Francis’s actions

In Praise of Popular Catholicism

By Robert Royal 

At least 100,000 people came to see and hear Pope Francis yesterday, which means about 1,000 times the number who turned up in Miami last weekend to protest the Trayvon Martin verdict. Numbers alone don’t necessarily mean anything. A million people who believe 2 + 2 = 5 do not change the facts – or outweigh even one person who gets things right.

But large numbers of people, it’s been said, do make aconstituency in modern societies. Or at least some do. Aparecida, where the pope said Mass, draws 10 million people a year (the most of any Marian shrine). Yet is all but unknown outside the region. It would be something to see what the reaction would be if 10 or 20 million Catholics showed up in NYC or DC every year for Catholic devotions.

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