Photo pinched from here.
Now that the Pope's homily is up (in
some languages, with excerpts
here in English). I wanted to give Cardinal Lopez-Trujillo a full post.
This is probably the best tribute I've seen, even if it's intended as an insult:
For many liberal Catholics Trujillo's uncompromising stance on sexual ethics was an embarrassment. "When they label Pope Benedict as Cardinal Rottweiler, his critics miss his subtlety and do him a disservice," one unnamed theologian remarked recently.
"It is López Trujillo who is the real Rottweiler at the Vatican."
In 1975, when much of the Church in Latin America was falling prey to the charismatic appeal of Liberation Theology, he saw through it. That was the year
he published Liberation or Revolution, in which he accused liberation theologians of practising a "clericalism of Savonarola" which started with good intentions but would end in terror "comparable to the manner in which an octopus imprisons its victim with its tentacles softly and flexibly and finally in a vicelike [sic] grip."
In his homily, the Pope said in part:
How could we fail to note […] the zeal and the passion with which he worked during these almost 18 years, carrying forward tireless activity in protecting and promoting the family and Christian matrimony," the Pontiff said. "How could we fail to thank him for the courage with which he defended the non-negotiable values of human life. All of us have admired his tireless activity.
"We cannot fail to be thankful for the tenacious battle that he waged in defense of the 'truth' of family love and the spreading of the 'Gospel of the family.'"
But I also liked this more personal memory.
His moving intervention during the Assembly at the 1997 Synod of Bishops is sealed in all of our memories: it was a true hymn to life.
And the Pope suggested we take the late Cardinal as a model:
To fulfill the mission that Jesus has given us, we mustn't be either lazy or cowardly," the Pope continued. "May the generosity of the cardinal we mourn, multiplied in many works of charity especially benefiting children in various parts of the world, nourish us in spending all of our physical and spiritual resources for the cause of the Gospel; may it move us to act in defense of human life; may it help us to constantly keep our eyes fixed on the goal of our earthly pilgrimage."
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord.
Now that the Pope's homily is up (in some languages, with excerpts here in English). I wanted to give Cardinal Lopez-Trujillo a full post. This is probably the best tribute I've seen, even if it's intended as an insult:
