Berger: Ever since Pope Benedict XVI, at the latest, you have to be
anti-modern to have a career in the Catholic Church. I criticized the
relatively progressive theology and left-wing church policy of Karl Rahner.
That is how people noticed me. Because I was an expert on the medieval
thinker Thomas Aquinas, I was invited by almost all right-wing conservative
groups to give lectures. I was in touch with the Sedevacantists, the
Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, the Society for the Defense of Tradition,
Family and Property, Una Voce, Opus Dei and the Servants of Jesus and Mary.

SPIEGEL: What went on at the meetings?

Berger: These groups are very careful about who they invite. They meet in
very high-class venues, sometimes in former aristocratic residences or in
luxury hotels. Old men smoke fat cigars, drink expensive red wine and eat
well. It is a parallel world whose inhabitants seek to defy the modern
world.

SPIEGEL: And what do they discuss?

Berger: They talk about a supposed Jewish global conspiracy or about how to
keep emancipators, freemasons and gays out of the church. For many years,
there were "gentlemen's evenings" in Düsseldorf that were organized by a
tax consultant. They increasingly became a focal point for a right-wing
Catholic network. At one of the meetings, which were regularly visited by
senior clerics, the man sitting next to me, a retired university professor,
was railing against the gay parades on Christopher Street Day (in Germany):
"Instead of standing in a corner, being ashamed of themselves and just
shutting up, they behave like pigs gone wild." http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,730520,00.html#ref=rss


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"Tylko nie wołajcie Miśka!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpGKZE4TBa0