Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 01:34:50 -0500
From: tom kunesh
Subject: CatholicChurch: we are already -past- the year 2000
ROME, Dec 14 (AFP) - As Romans put the last spin on preparations for the night ushering the third millennium, medieval fears of the future that abounded 1000 years ago are strikingly absent from the baggage they will carry into the next century.
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Milan psychotherapist Luciano Di Gregorio organized a workshop on millennium angst in Tuscany earlier this month but, with only five people attending, its purpose was obviously lost on potential patients.
"Maybe there will be more fears of the future as we get closer to the date," Di Gregorio said.
But given a more laid-back Church attitude before the end of the second millennium, "people appear to be reassured," he added. "The Church handles the change of the century like a collective rite, producing calm and peace."
Not so in 999 when, historians agree, the Church exploited doomsday fears as Europe was in the midst of the Dark Ages with widespread anarchy, brutal warlords fighting for dominance, famines and epidemics.
For today's Vatican, the impact of doomsday cults on millennium preparations can practically be disregarded.
"Let's not exaggerate," Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Sacred Congreation for the Doctrine said as early as 1996. "In fact, we are already past the year 2000.
"Monk Dionysius Exiguus made a mistake when he calculated the Christian calendar. Therefore we should not exaggerate or mystify the millenarians," he said, referring to historical studies that the year 2000 will in fact be 2006 as Jesus was born six years earlier than Christian tradition has it.
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Tuesday, December 28th, 1999 danlyke@flutterby.com