A few days ago, Sandro Magister posted an Italian translation on his blog of a June 17 article in the German Catholic newsdaily, Die Tagespost,
by German philosopher-theologian Robert Spaemann. Antonio Socci quoted amply from it in his column about Pope Francis's recent verbal
'whoppers',but I would like to provide a full translation of the article in English for the record.
It is remarkable in that Spaemann, 89, has the intellectual honesty to walk back a conclusion he expressed in an April 28 interview he gave
to CNA's German correspondent in which he used the word 'rupture' to indicate his criticism of the pope's AL.
In it, he also refers to an apparently recent critique of Pope Francis by Alexander Kissler, a major Catholic journalist in Germany, and says Kissler
should not have written of the pope as 'an object of polemic and irony'. A rebuke which I think is rather out of place, because I believe
it is right and legitimate for any writer to report or comment on the questionable things that this pope says, as he deems it proper, provided
he does not descend to unfounded ad-hominem attacks...
'There is a limit to what
is bearable in the Church'
by Robert Spaemann
Translated from the Italian translation by CNA
June 17, 2016
My critical observations in my conversation with the Catholic News Agency on the Apostolic Exhortation
Amoris laetitia led to lively reactions, some of enthusiastic assent, some of rejection.
The rejection has to do first of all with my statement that Footnote 351 in AL represents 'a rupture in the Magisterial tradition of the Catholic Church'. What I meant was that
some of the Holy Father's statements are in clear contradiction to the words of Jesus, the words of the apostles, and with the traditional doctrine of the Church.
One should speak of rupture only when a pope, laying claim unequivocally and explicitly to his apostolic power - therefore, not incidentally, not in a footnote to a document - teaches something that is in contradiction with the traditional Magisterium. It is not the case here, if only because Pope Francis is no fan of unequivocal clarity.
When recently he declared that Christianity does not recognize any 'aut aut' (either-or), it evidently does not bother him that Christ said, " Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one"
(Mt 5,37). The letters of St. Paul are full of 'aut aut'. And finally, from Christ himself, "Whoever is not with me is against me"
(Mt 12,30).
But Pope Francis only wants to 'propose'. And to contradict propositions is not forbidden. In my opinion, he ought to be contradicted vigorously when in AL he maintains that Jesus had "proposed a demanding ideal". No, Jesus commanded "as one with authority, and not like the scribes and Pharisees"
(Mt 7,29).
When he speaks with the rich young man, for example, he refers to the intimate consequence of following him by observing the ten commandments
(Lk 8,18-23). Jesus was not preaching an ideal, but establishing a new reality, the kingdom of God on earth.
Jesus does not propose - he invite and commands: "I am giving you a new commandment". This new reality and this new commandment are closely compatible with human nature and knowable through reason.
If what the Holy Father asserts hardly fits with what I read in Scriptures, or what comes to me from the Gospels, this is still not sufficient to speak of 'rupture' nor is it a reason to make the pope the object of polemic and irony, as Alexander Kissler has done.
When St. Paul found himself before the Sanhedrin to defend himself, and the High Priest ordered that he be struck in the face. Paul responded, "God will strike you, whited wall!" When he was told that he was addressing the High Priest, he said: "Brothers, I did not know that. It is written 'You shall not insult the ruler of your people'"
(Acts 23,3-5).
Kissler, when he wrote about the pope, should have moderated his tone, even if a large part of his criticism is justified. Because of sarcastic polemic, his intervention ended up being less effective than it could have been.
The Pope has complained that, incited by the media, his numerous exhortations about the alarming situation of the family today has not been grasped because of all the focus on a footnote about admitting remarried divorcees to communion. But the public discussions before and during the family synods all revolved about this question which, in fact, ought to be resolved Yes or No.
[But it has long been 'resolved', except he does not accept that resolution! Hence the tremendous waste of time and effort on the two synods! Isn't it time to puncture the hypocrisy of the entire exercise once and for all?]
And the debate will continue because the pope refuses to cite the very clear declarations made by his predecessors, and because his own answer is manifestly so ambiguous so that it can be interpreted any way according to one's opinion. "If the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle?"
(1Cor 14,8).
If meanwhile, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is constrained to openly accuse the pope's closest adviser and ghostwriter of heresy, it means that the situation has really gotten out of hand.
Even in the Roman Catholic Church, there is a limit to what is bearable. [A statement that does not seem applicable to the case of Mons. Fernandez, whom Cardinal Mueller accuses of heresy for his capricious but ultimately trivial because stupid remark that the pope, any pope, can live anywhere and does not have to reside in Rome. A pope is pope because he is Bishop of Rome - he cannot live elsewhere! But c'mon, sheer stupidity is not heresy!]
Pope Francis likes to compare critics of his policies to those "seated on the throne of Moses". But even in this case, the accusation has boomeranged. It was the scribes who defended divorce and passed laws about it. Whereas the disciples of Jesus were disconcerted by his severe prohibition of divorce by their Master: “If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry"
(Mt 19,10). Like the people who went away when the Lord announced that he would become their food: “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”
(Jn 6,60).
The Lord had compassion for the people but he was not a populist. "Do you also want to leave?"
(Jn 6,67) This question addressed to the apostles was his only reaction to the fact that those who had listened to him had gone away.
So, I googled Alexander Kissler for what he had written about Pope Francis, and this is what I found first:
'The pope has neglected
his primary mission and his flock'
Interview with Alexander Kissler
by Tobias Armbrüster
Translated from
June 7, 2016
Pope Francis has been in office for three years, during which time he has brought not a few changes - some say, perhaps too many to this 2000-year-old institution that has survived by making as few changes as possible.
Recently we learned that the Pope can now reasonably dismiss bishops for reasons like failing to deal with sexual abuse cases properly. That is the latest public initiative by which Francis wishes to 'renew' the Church.
We spoke to someone whose commentaries have always been clearly critical of Francis - Alexander Kissler, managing editor of Cicero magazine.
Francis has neglected the spiritual core of the Church's mission, says Kissler to summarize his criticism of the Pope.
He says too much on too many things on too many occasions, so that he has rightly been nicknamed the 'Ad hoc Pope' or 'Spontifex'.
"The Church needs someone who can be understood clearly and who does not hide behind meaningless verbiage", because that, Kissler says, is the problem with Francis.
For example, although he does not rule out changes like female deacons, he does not say how this could possibly come about.
Catholics today do not know, "What is it that the pope wants from me?"
[Which is the wrong question! We ought to be concerned not about what the pope wants from us, but what God wants of us.]
Francis seeks to reach his flock and bridge the distance between them through simple speech. But he follows a lurching course. And simple folk just want to know just what does he stand for?
He may have the bishops of Western Europe on his side, but the African Church is almost completely in opposition to him, and the Asian Church is split.
"The mood in the Vatican is terrible. There is a problem of loyalty to Francis everywhere, and how that will turn out is quite open-ended", says Kissler.
Here is the full interview:
Mr Kissler, what exactly troubles you about the Pope?
Wbat troubles me? I have taken note of what many observers have remarked for some time, and not just in Germany. Criticism of this pope is stronger in Italy than here, and I will not even talk about Africa and Asia.
The complaints are twofold: first, that he has neglected the spiritual core of his task, thereby also neglecting his core constituency, the Catholics; and also, that he simply says too much about too many things on too many occasions, and therefore,
it is very very difficult to identify the line of this Pontificate. [I DISAGREE MOST EMPHATICALLY. As scattershot as his verbal fusillades are, his line has always been clear! He does not like the Church and the faith as they are, so he wants to impose his own church with his own Protestantoid Catholic-extra-lite doctrine and practice!]
He shakes things up, he is in a certain way an 'ad-hoc pope', one we might call a Spontifex, so that sustainability, a word dear to him, has not been manifested so far in his pontificate.
But isn't that what the Catholic Church needs exactly, a man who can clean it up, and have some spontaneous initiatives as well?
The Church certainly needs someone who can speak understandably, who is open to people, who does not hide behind verbiage, one who can also give the Church a friendly face. But I think, that both the left and the right, conservatives and progressivists, would like to know where he's at, but with this pope, one does not know in most cases.
For example, he says that certain rules should be relaxed in dealing with remarried divorcees but he does not say how exactly. He says perhaps steps should be taken to allow interfaith communion sooner rather than later, but he does not say how. He also says that the possibility of female deacons must be looked into, and proposes a commission to look into Church history on this matter, but a commission did study the question and made its report ten years ago.
Perhaps the Pope is simply following the line that has always succeeded in the Church - not to carry out anything right away but first to announce something then wait to see what comes of it.
Still, the danger that many observers see, and which I cannot discard from consideration, is that he will stick to making ad-hoc responses. He recently evoked an image of himself as being like a goalkeeper who stands there waiting to see which way the ball goes.
A goalkeeper pope who must react spontaneously - that leaves his flock, especially priests, in doubt about what exactly the pope expects of them. If everyone, in principle, can do as he pleases, each in his own way, then where are the boundaries for his much-touted mercy?
You have referred more than once to the simple folk. Is that not a sign that the Church is trying, in the circumstances of the 21st century, to bring people closer to the Church again?
Certainly this pope is trying, through simple speaking, through a warm outreach - in which he succeeds, you can't deny that - to bridge the distance between his office and with the faithful. On the other hand - and with him, there is always this on the one hand/on the other hand - he has had a lurching course, and you can see this whatever side you are on.
But the simple folk - those who do not get into debates, nor into the essentials of dogma - just want to know what the pope really stands for, yet he often says, for example on interfaith communion, "Talk to the Lord then do what you have to do. I cannot say more". What does that mean? That everyone must do as he wants? It is quite dangerous when [a pastor] counts too much on the individual to make his own decision and take responsibility for it.
Can this policy be dangerous for him?
Well yes. Danger is always the question, from any angle. In the universal Church, one must see that the African bishops are almost all against him. The Asian bishops are split. But he has most of the Western European bishops on his side.
I think we must get rid of the idea that the Western Church represents the universal Church. Africa and Asia are the boom regions for the Church, and there, he has a huge loyalty problem after the family synods, and how that will turn out is an open question.
Then do you expect that when this pontificate comes to its natural end, the Church will correct this error, so to speak?
It would be very cynical for me to speculate on the demise of the pope, nor would I say that he is an 'error'. He is the reigning pope, the legitimately elected pope, with his own particular charism that distinguishes him from other popes.
However, we cannot dismiss the risk that more and more regions [of the Church] and even more and more collaborators ready to cooperate with him are slipping away. One hears that the mood in the Vatican right now is terrible.
But if the universal Church should doubt whether this pope should continue to be taken seriously, because he is a light-hearted goalkeeper who wants to come across as a cheerful man, then he has a problem. We shall see. Because he also has to consider that some quarters find him very very hard to take.
Does this also show a change in the Catholic Church that now it is all right to criticize the pope openly, from within the Church itself?
Of course, the pope has always been criticized. Think of the controversy over John Paul II in Germany, even if it was always a bit like a whispering campaign, or at least, it was clear that the criticism was coming from those who have always criticized the popes.
[And what about criticism of Benedict XVI, who, for the most part was treated by the German media as the proverbial 'prophet without honor in his own country' after the short-lived 'Wir sind Papst' enthusiasm?]
But now, criticism of this pope is coming from both sides in the Church, which he himself has set into motion by saying, 'think it over and let us talk about it'.
P.S. It turns out, thanks to Beatrice, that Kissler did write a critique of Pope Francis in Cicero on May 13, 2016, entitled - I suppose with the irony Spaemann objects to - 'A relatively Catholic pope'.
And I am glad that more and more commentators are calling attention to Bergoglian relativism, because that is what he is all about, relativism - which, for all the normalists, but especially for Mons. Gaenswein who should stop talking about continuity, is also spelled DISCONTINUITY. There is no way one can argue a continuity between this pope and all his predecessors who punctiliously crossed their doctrinal t's and minded their pastoral i's.
The title of Kissler's article indirectly answers the age-old question which was once purely rhetorical but which has become a practical major concern today, "Is the Pope Catholic?"
'Relatively Catholic' avoids having to answer NO directly. But if one agrees with Kissler's premise, then Jorge Mario Bergoglio is no better than all the cafeteria Catholics and Catholics-in-name-only that abound in the Church: they are all 'relatively Catholic', which is to say they are also correspondingly 'relatively Protestant' or 'relatively Muslim' or 'relatively atheist' depending on what their other spiritual 'choices' are. In the case of JMB, I would say he is not just 'relatively Catholic' but even more 'relatively Christian'...
A relatively Catholic pope
Francis practices a garrulous relativism. Thereby,
he is harming the Church and confounds the world
by ALEXANDER KISSLER
Translated from
Maybe all is not what it seems. Maybe the Pontificate of Pope Francis is actually the practical joke that some well-meaning people think it is. Perhaps after #Varoufake and #Verafake, there is a #Popefake, and Jan Böhmermann has somehow planted an Argentine stand-up comedian in the Vatican. Or perhaps Roberto Benigni has a hand in this game.
[These must be the statements Robert Spaemann objects to!]
Alas, no, it appears things are worse. Jorge Mario Bergoglio is most probably the power-conscious and talkative relativist who seems uninterested in things Catholic, that more and more, we are seeing him to be.
In the beginning, he was funny - when a corpulent charmer stepped onto the pontifical stage for the first time and greeted the world with 'Good evening', as he has then wished everyone 'Bon appetit' every Sunday. Someone always ready with a joke.
So we laughed when Bergoglio said he would defend his mother's honor by punching the face of whoever would insult her, or warned Catholics they must not breed like rabbits. He was saying unconventional things compared to the finely-chiselled reflections of his predecessor, the anti-relativist theologian-Pope Benedict XVI.
In his place, a Pontiff (bridge-builder) was chosen who has been described half-ironically as someone blessed with 'few theological lights'; someone who can tell folksy anecdotes from his Argentine experience, one after the other if he has to; someone who could be taken for a court jester, given to making sentences without a predicate, rhetorical questions that he answers himself, not just once but twice, with exclamation points (as in "That's out of the question! ... Respect each other! respect each other!).
[OK, now I see why Spaemann objected to Kissler's treatment. Kissler is not making things up, but the way he presents his observations of JMB does tend to make the pope seem ridiculous. Which, BTW, one can do by simply citing without comment some of the things he has said and done. I have to go back again and again to what I have decided to comment about him to make sure I am not untruthful or exaggerating, or God forbid, condescending or contemptuous.]
The jokes and the grammatical lapses continue, but they have become stale, and worse, harmful to him. His Pontificate threatens to damage the Church while pleasing to the world which remains skeptical of anything Catholic.
Francis knocks Catholics on their heads without finding any new faithful among non-Catholics. Defections from the Church remain high, the lack of priests is very obvious, and the extraordinary Holy Year of Mercy that he called has not drawn very many Catholics to Rome.
He loves to give interviews, he loves to talk, he loves to laugh. But interviews with the pope have been devalued from the sensational news they ought to be, to routine journalistic events. Even in this way, he has relativized the uniqueness of his office.
The interview he recently gave to the French newspaper
La Croix has cleared up all doubts:
This pope will spare no silliness or affront against his own Church. With his sparse knowledge, he courts applause from those tribunes of the world
that expect nothing from him.
[Oh yes, they do. They have been using him as a convenient tool because is more than eager to lend his moral authority as pope to their causes, and therefore help advance their secular schemes even if these often violate Catholic teaching. The tragedy, of course, is that he does not see how they are using him, because he labors under the illusion that he is the de facto 'lord of the world' and therefore the nominal leader of all the movements promoting the secular causes he advocates.]
He attributes a direct connection between the mass-murder terrorism of ISIS and their war of conquest, and Jesus's mandate to his apostles to 'make disciples of all nations', which according to him, has the same sense of conquest as Islam's. The Church as a potential terrorist organization - is this a derailment of reason, or what?
What would those Christians - who are running for their lives from fanatical Muslims - think of all this counter-factual comparison? Do they feel comforted by their Supreme Pastor, understood and uplifted - or do they feel they have been cynically left on their own?
Anyone for whom everything is 'equal' loses his grip and is off his own mark. What does it say of a Church when her own leader says nothing about the need for salvation through Christ?
Francis's equiparation, in the
La Croix interview - of the Cross and the burkah (one is a garment, the other a symbol of suffering and of Christianity), and his relativizing 'twist' of the Christian roots of Europe into "Europe also has Christian roots" empty the papal statements of any sense.
Francis cannot be more precise about the question of European roots. Vagueness is the hallmark of chatter and prattle, which generally obeys the rule that "nothing definite is known".
Naive at the very least, if not foolish, is the pope's hypotheses that wars happen "because there are arms manufacturers". As if wars had not been fought with fists and stones in earliest times, or as if jerrycans, clubs and spears had not sufficed to set into motion the Hutu tribe's genocide of the Tutsi in Africa. And so many other examples. The Pope's indiscriminate anti-capitalism leads him to such an error.
To the chatterer, everything is 'alike'. He lives in the situation, and every new situation requires a new technique to call attention Francis shows himself to be the protagonist of pure situation ethics,
Robert Spaemann has noted.
Thus he has opened a debate over the possibility of female deacons in the Roman Catholic Church. Once more, he showed his theological 'innocence' and suggested, to help his own lack of knowledge on the topic, to appoint a commission to study to find out what the status of female deacons was in the early Church.
[I would call this example 'situational opportunism' not situation ethics.]
But should the pope not have known that the issue had already been studied for years by the International Theological Commission which gave an ample report in 2002 entitled "The Diaconate: Development and Perspectives"?
So, will Francis have his way for a new evaluation of the subject to replace the 2002 report?
[If he really wanted to, why not? After all, he had called two synodal assemblies to debate - primarily if not almost exclusively - the question of communion for remarried divorcees, even if St. John Paul II had already reconfirmed the continuing validity and need for the communion ban. A new commission to study the question of female deacons all over would be small change compared to the major effort and expense that the family synods were. One is almost tempted to formulate a general hypothesis: Watch out- when JMB says he wants to review anything, it means he intends to change it!] Or did he merely say what he said because it sounded right and nice to be able to say to the women religious?
Bergoglio knows his weaknesses but is unable to master them. There is a touch of the tragic around him. For instance, he has perhaps not given more attention to any other subject since his first day as pope as his constant warnings against chatter and gossip:
[I remarked once he must have been personally traumatized by 'chatter and gossip' that he has obsessively made them his personal betes noires]
- "How much chattering there is in the Church! How much chattering there is among Christians! Gossip - is that not like pulling off each other's skin?" (May 18, 2013)
- "Gossip splits the community, it destroys the community. They are the devil's weapons". (Jan 23, 2014)
- "Gossip and chatter is terrorism, because the person who gossips and chatters is like a terrorist who throws a bomb and then runs away, after having destroyed his target. A gossip destroys - he destroys with his tongue. (Sept. 4, 2015)
- "Gossip kills!" (Jan 21, 2016)
- "We wish to pray for the grace of unity for all Christians... and for the grace to bite our tongues", he said on May 12, 2016, in his morning homilette in Casa Santa Marta just before his meeting with the women religious.
There is one case in which Francis is not relativist, but absolute in what he says. When he scolds priests. One would not wish to be a priest in this pontificate. Because the Bishop of Rome is ever ready for them, flogging from in front, flogging from behind. Clericalism is the worst insult in his vocabulary, and he does not fail to denounce it in the
La Croix interview.
His idea of the priesthood is close to sadism, characterized by the raised index finger and threatening behavior, by ambition, and the use of the confessional as a torture chamber. One cannot find a shriller, unjust perception of pastoral reality - at least, not in the West where pastoral speech is largely cozy as a lullaby.
It is not therefore surprising that in the Vatican itself and even in the Italian bishops' conference, the mood among priests has not been as bad as it was since the Risorgimento. Hardly anyone does not feel aggrieved and put upon, groaning whenever this regime of whims springs new surprises.
Robert Spaemann's critique about the 'pure situation ethics' in this pontificate has to do with the recently published Apostolic Exhortation
Amoris laetitia, through which Francis breaks with tradition on the matter of marriage, family and divorce, with predictable consequences:
"Uncertainty and confusion in the bishops' conferences around the world to the humblest priest out in the jungles... Chaos has been elevated to a principle with the stroke of a pen. The pope had to know that with this step, he can split the Church and lead toward schism".
In Francis's mind, so goes Spaemann's interpretation,
the line separating what is 'objectively sinful' and 'behavior pleasing to God' is no longer absolute. But a pope who makes everything fluid is no rock at all.
Last April 24, as a surprise guest at a rally for social justice and the environment in Rome's Villa Borghese Park on the occasion of International Earth Day, the object of these reproaches declared spontaneously and 'situationally': "Whether one belongs to this religion or that religion does not matter. All together, let us go forward, working together. And respecting each other, respecting each other!"
The problem is not that anyone speaks as Francis does, but that a pope speaks as he does. As a result of which a pope, who ought not to go beyond the faith he has received from the apostles, has become indistinguishable among the ranks of world leaders.
When the 'High Priest of the Universal Church' chooses to be a Dalai Lama in white, or a UN Secretary-General with a pectoral cross, then the essential tasks of a pope - to pasture his flock and lead men to Christ - become nothing more than contingencies or options to be fulfilled depending on the situation.
But we cannot expect any advances by Francis in his core spiritual mission. Perseverance, humility, accountability and faith formation are not his thing. His successor will inherit a spiritually exhausted and insecure. This tragedy will survive, unfortunately, beyond the pontificate of 'the man from the other end of the world'.