HOW THE POPE IS RESCUING VATICAN-II FROM ITS HIJACKERS
Magister is revisiting the MP and the CDF statement together but cops out and leaves the 'analysis' to others without offering a synthesis commensurate to the potential historical magnitude of Pope Benedict's recent series of actions. Also, he leaves out the China letter which he has never commented on - he published the Vatican's explanatory note is what he did at the time. He hasn't had a real analytical-synthetic piece in months! What's with him?????
Liturgy and Ecumenism:
How to Apply Vatican Council II
For Benedict XVI, there must not be rupture between the Church's past and present, but rather continuity.
He has given proof of this with his latest decisions - receiving less criticism than foreseen, and much more agreement.
The comments of Ruini, Amato, De Marco
by Sandro Magister
ROMA, July 16, 2007 - Just a few months ago, the French bishops were extremely concerned about the news that Benedict XVI was preparing to liberalize the celebration of the Mass labeled as that of Pius V.
"Such a decision endangers the Church's unity," wrote the most alarmed of them.
Benedict XVI went ahead and released his motu proprio on July 7. But there was no reaction of rejection from the French bishops. Nor was there from the bishops of the touchiest countries: Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain.
On the contrary, their most authoritative leaders hailed the Pope's decision with positive comments: from the German Cardinal Karl Lehmann to the English Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, both ranked among the progressives.
The same happened with the document released on July 10 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which nails down some firm points of doctrine about the Church. There was no comparison with the criticisms that in the summer of 2000 were hurled - even by high-ranking churchmen - against the declaration
Dominus Iesus, signed by then-cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, which to a great extent dealt with the same points of doctrine.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, one of the critics back then, decisively supported the Vatican document this time: "Clearly stating one's own positions does not limit ecumenical dialogue, but fosters it." And from Moscow, metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk, president of the department for external relations at the Russian Orthodox patriarchate, described the text as "an honest declaration, because sincere dialogue requires a clear vision of the respective positions."
Criticisms did arrive, naturally, against both of these promulgations, from within and outside of the Church, and especially from Protestants and Jews. But in the Catholic camp the protests were limited to confined sectors, mostly Italian: the sectors of the liturgists and of the intellectuals who interpret Vatican Council II as a 'rupture' and a 'new beginning'.
Among the liturgists, the one most pained in contesting the papal motu proprio was Luca Brandolini, bishop of Sora, Aquino, and Pontecorvo, and a member of the liturgical commission of the Italian bishops' conference, in an interview with the newspaper
La Repubblica:
"I cannot hold back my tears; I am living through the saddest moment of my life as a bishop and as a man. This is a day of mourning not only for me, but for the many who have lived and worked for Vatican Council II. What has been negated is a reform for which many worked at the cost of great sacrifices, motivated solely by the desire to renew the Church."
[I am sorry - but every time I see this quotation, I want to throw up! It is so stupid and senseless, an operatic parody!]
Among the theorists of Vatican II as a 'rupture' and a 'new beginning', the most explicit against the papal provisions were the founder and prior of the monastery of Bose, Enzo Bianchi, and the historian of Christianity Alberto Melloni, co-author of the most widely read History of Vatican Council II in the world.[
Perhaps because it is the only one available as an academic tract?]
For Melloni, the objective of pope Ratzinger is nothing less than that of 'deriding' and 'demolishing' Vatican Council II.
But we know that Benedict XVI's clear objective - plainly enunciated and argued in the memorable discourse to the Roman curia on December 22, 2005 - is to rid the Council of the wrong interpretation: precisely the interpretation of 'rupture' and 'new beginning' dear to Bianchi and Melloni.
"The hermeneutic of discontinuity," the pope said in this address, "risks ending in a split between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church."
While instead the correct interpretation of Vatican Council II, in the view of Benedict XVI, is this:
"... the hermeneutic of reform, of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us. She is a subject which increases in time and develops, yet always remaining the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God."
The motu proprio that liberalizes the ancient rite of the Mass and the successive document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are both applications of this stated aim.
The pope explained this in the letter to the bishops that accompanied the motu proprio. But he also had the foresight to expound and discuss his reasons on June 27, ten days before the publication of the motu proprio, with a select group of bishops from various countries, including the Cardinals Lehmann, Murphy O'Connor, and Jean-Pierre Ricard, Philippe Barbarin, and André Vingt-Trois of France. This preliminary meeting with the pope contributed to the later positive welcome of the provision on the part of all of these.
Among the participants at the meeting there was also, for Italy, cardinal Camillo Ruini. On July 8, the day after the publication of the motu proprio, he published in the newspaper of the Italian bishops conference,
Avvenire, the editorial reproduced below.
Just after it, also on this page, is presented an interview with the secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Angelo Amato, co-author of the document released the previous day.
In it, he responds to some criticisms of the two latest papal proclamations, including the one in relation to the prayer for the conversion of the Jews in the rite of Holy Thursday in the missal attributed to Saint Pius V. The interview, released in
Avvenire on July 11, was conducted by Gianni Cardinale.
Finally, as a third commentary written expressly for
www.chiesa, there is a note by Pietro De Marco, professor at the University of Florence and at the Theological Faculty of Central Italy.
Solicitude for the Unity of the Church
by Cardinal Camillo Ruini
Ten days ago, at the end of the meeting dedicated to the motu proprio on the use of the Roman liturgy before Vatican Council II, Benedict XVI wanted to illustrate personally the motives that prompted him to promulgate this text.
As the first and foremost of these motives, the pope indicated concern for the unity of the Church, a unity that subsists not only in space, but also in time, and which is incompatible with fractures and opposition among the various phases of its historical development.
This means that Pope Benedict has taken up again the central message of his address to the Roman curia on December 22, 2005, in which, forty years after the Council, he proposed as the key for interpreting Vatican II, not "the hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture," but rather that "of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church."
He is not in this way bringing to bear his own personal point of view or theological preference, but rather fulfilling the essential duty of the successor of Peter, who, as the Council itself says (
Lumen Gentium no. 23), "is
the perpetual and visible principle and foundation of unity of both the bishops and of the faithful."
[Apparently Council 'historians' like Melloni and Bianchi choose to ignore Council statements when it does not suit their views. They certainly have never behaved as though they believed the Pope has any authority at all! They don't recognize his Magisterium and they don't recognize his decrees.]
At the same time, in the letter to bishops with which he accompanies and puts into their hands the motu proprio, Pope Benedict writes that the positive reason that induced him to publish it is that of reaching an internal reconciliation within the bosom of the Church.
He expressly recalls how, looking to the divisions that have wounded the Body of Christ over the centuries, "one continually has the impression that, at critical moments when divisions were coming about, not enough was done by the Church's leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity."
From here, the pope continues, we receive the "obligation . . . to make every effort to enable for all those who truly desire unity to remain in that unity or to attain it anew."
It is only by putting ourselves on this wavelength that we can truly grasp the meaning of the motu proprio, and put it into practice in a positive an fruitful way.
In reality, as the pope explains abundantly in his letter, there is no foundation to the fear that the Council's authority will be compromised and that the liturgical reform will be brought into doubt, or that the work of Paul VI and John Paul II will be discredited.
The missal of Paul VI remains, in fact, the 'normal' and 'ordinary' form of the Eucharistic liturgy, while the Roman missal from before the Council can be used as an 'extraordinary form'.
This is not - the pope clarifies - about 'two rites', but of a twofold use of one and the same Roman rite. John Paul II, moreover, first in 1984 and then in 1988, had permitted the use of the missal from before the Council, for the same reasons that are now prompting Benedict XVI to take a further step in this direction.
Besides, such a further step is not one-way. It requires constructive will and sincere sharing of the intention that guided Benedict XVI: not only for the overwhelming majority of the priests and faithful who are comfortable with the reform that followed Vatican II, but also for those who remain deeply attached to the previous form of the Roman rite.
In concrete terms, the former are asked not to indulge, in the celebrations, in those abuses that unfortunately have not been lacking, and which obscure the spiritual richness and theological profundity of the missal of Paul VI.
The latter are asked not to exclude in principle the celebration according to this new missal, thus manifesting concretely their acceptance of the Council.
In this way, the risk will be averted that a motu proprio released in order to better unite the Christian community will instead be used to divide it.
In his letter the pope, addressing the bishops, emphasizes that these new norms "do not diminish in any way" their authority and responsibility for the liturgy and for the pastoral care of their faithful.
As Vatican II teaches (
Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 22), every bishop is in fact
"the moderator of the liturgy in his diocese", in communion with the pope and under his authority.
[Now, where do the liberal bishops get their idea that they are autonomous of the Pope and do not owe him obedience?]
This, too, is a criterion of the highest importance, in order that the motu proprio may bear the productive results for which it was written.
Knowing Who We Are
Aids Dialogue
An interview with Archbishop Angelo Amato,
Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Q:
Your Excellency, the first of the responses published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the faith reaffirms that Vatican Council II did not change the previous doctrine on the Church. But shouldnt this be obvious?
A: It should. But unfortunately it isn't. There are interpretations which, from opposite sides, would like the last Council to have been a rupture with the tradition of the Catholic Church. Some identify this presumptive fact as a glory of the Council, others as a disaster.
But that's not how it is. And it was fitting to reaffirm this in a clear and unequivocal manner, recalling also what Blessed John XXIII affirmed clearly in his allocution on September 11, 1962, at the beginning of the Council:
"the Council . . . wishes to transmit the doctrine, pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion . . ."][Melloni and other Council historians have also conveninently forgotten this.] This sure and unchangeable doctrine, to which faithful obedience is due, must be explored and presented in the manner required by our era.
The substance of the
depositum fidei, or the truths contained in our venerable doctrine, is one thing, while the way in which these are expressed, though always with the same sense and meaning, is another.
Q:
The second response, which is the central one, takes in hand the question of the phrase 'subsistit in'. How then should this assertion of the Council be interpreted, according to which the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church?
A: In effect, this affirmation has undergone various interpretations, and not all of these are consistent with the conciliar doctrine on the Church.
The congregations reply, based on the Council documents and also on the annals of the Councils work, which are cited in the footnotes, reaffirm that
subsistence indicates the perennial historical continuity and the endurance of all the elements instituted by Christ in the Catholic Church, in which the Church of Christ is found concretely on this earth.
It is not correct, therefore, to think that the Church of Christ today no longer exists anywhere, or that it exists only theoretically, or
in fieri, under formation, in a future convergence or reunification of the different sister Churches, hoped for or promoted by ecumenical dialogue. No. The Church of Christ, one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, exists in history in the Catholic Church.
Q: But why then - and this is the topic of the third response - didnt the Council affirm precisely that the Catholic Church
is the Church of Christ, and instead used the term
subsists?
A: This change of terms is not, and cannot be interpreted as, a rupture with the past. In Latin,
subsistit in is a stronger form of
est. The continuity of subsistence entails a substantial identity of essence between the Church of Christ and the Catholic Church.
With the expression
subsistit in, the Council intended to express
the singular and unrepeatable nature of the Church of Christ. The Church exists as a unique subject in historical reality.
But at the same time, the phrase
subsistit in also expresses the fact that outside of the structure of the Catholic Church, there is not an absolute ecclesiastical void, but there can be found "numerous elements of sanctification and of truth . . . which as gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, impel towards catholic unity."
Q:
The fourth response concerns the ecumenical implications of what has been affirmed so far. And it clarifies the reason why Vatican Council II attributes the name of 'Churches' to the Eastern Churches, Orthodox and pre-Chalcedonian, that are separated from full communion with Rome.
A: The response is clear. These Churches, although separated from Rome, have true sacraments, and above all by virtue of apostolic succession have the priesthood and the Eucharist. Thus they deserve the title of particular or local Churches, and are called sisters of the particular Catholic Churches.
But to this it must be added that these sister Churches are affected by a lack, by a
vulnus, in that they are not in communion with the visible head of the one Catholic Church who is the pope, the successor of Peter. And this is not an accessory matter, but one of the constitutive principles within every particular Church.
Q:
The last response repeats that the title of 'Church' cannot be attributed to the Christian communities born from the Reformation in the sixteenth century.
A: This is a painful matter, I know, but as the Council affirms, these communities have not maintained apostolic succession in the sacrament of Orders, thus depriving themselves of an essential constitutive element of the Church's being. Because of the lack of the ministerial priesthood, these communities have not preserved the genuine and complete substance of the Eucharistic mystery. For this reason, according to Catholic doctrine, they cannot be called 'Churches' in the true sense.
Q:
Is this also true of the Anglican communion?
A: Yes.
Q:
Your Excellency, what is the value of these responses?
A:
They have an authoritative theological character. Authoritative. They are a clarification, formulated by our Congregation and approved expressly by the Pope, of the Councils meaning.
Q:
These texts were published a few days after the motu proprio that liberalizes the so-called Mass of Saint Pius V. Some might think that this was not a coincidence, but a precise strategy . . .
A: This is no ecclesiastical or media strategy. Our documents are published when they are ready. And that's all. Otherwise, if we had to pay attention to these kinds of problems that have nothing to do with us we would risk, for one reason or another, never publishing these texts awaited by the bishops and many of the faithful.
Q:
In any case, these two events were interpreted - by some - as an offensive directed against Vatican Council II.
A: Thats not the way it is. In both cases there is an authoritative and orthodox development, obviously in the Catholic sense, of the Council. The Holy Father, and our congregation together with him, does not use the hermeneutic of rupture, of opposition between pre- and post-conciliar realities.
For the Pope and for us, what applies instead is the hermeneutic of continuity and of development within the tradition. There should be an end to considering the second millennium of the Catholic Churchs life as an unfortunate parenthesis that the Vatican Council, or rather its spirit, removed at a single stroke.
Q:
And yet fears remain that these events are harmful to ecumenical dialogue.
A: What is affirmed in these responses has already been stated by the Council itself, and has been restated by a number of post-conciliar documents and by the declaration
Dominus Iesus in particular.
In practice, this is nothing other than restating what the Catholic identity is, in order to face ecumenical dialogue serenely and more effectively. When your interlocutor knows your identity, he is led to dialogue in a more sincere way and without creating further confusion.
Q:
Your Excellency, there are those who accuse the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum of being anti-conciliar, because it offers full citizenship to a missal in which there is a prayer for the conversion of the Jews. Is it truly contrary to the letter and spirit of the Council to formulate this prayer?
A: Certainly not. In the Mass, we Catholics pray always and in the first place for our conversion. And we strike our breasts for our sins. And then we pray for the conversion of all Christians and all non-Christians. The Gospel is for all.
Q:
But the objection is raised that the prayer for the conversion of the Jews was definitively surpassed by the one in which the Lord is asked to help them to progress in fidelity to his covenant.
A: Jesus himself affirms, in the Gospel of Saint Mark: "Repent, and believe in the Gospel," and his first interlocutors were his Jewish confreres. We Christians can do nothing other than re-propose what Jesus taught us. In freedom and without imposition, obviously, but also without self-censorship.
Q:
A while ago, you announced the publication of an updated instruction, a second Donum Vitae, on the most burning topics related to bioethics and biotechnology. At what point is this?
A: This is a very delicate document that requires great care. I think it will still take a good bit of work before it can be released.
Q:
And the other document announced, on the natural law?
A: We are still collecting the materials produced by various international conferences on this topic, which, at our suggestion, were held in various pontifical universities and Catholic institutions throughout the world.
Q:
So will it be a while before we have new documents from your congregation?
A: No, there will be two texts soon. The first is on a specific question touching on bioethics. The other concerns a problem relating to the missions. But it would be premature to say any more.
Pope Benedict's Cure
by Pietro De Marco
In
Summorum Pontificum, Benedict XVI firmly indicated in the Missale Romanum, promulgated by Pius V and revised by John XXIII in 1962, a completely valid and current expression of the
lex orandi - the rule of prayer - and of the
lex credendi - the rule of faith.
Along with the Missal promulgated by Paul VI in 1970, this represents a distinct use of the one rite of the Latin Church. Although it was marginalized, in fact, through the adoption of modern languages in the liturgy, the Missal of 1962 was never 'replaced' nor could it have been, much less 'abrogated'. It has remained in effect, being itself 'a living expression of the Church'.
The new legitimization of the Missale Romanum decreed by
Summorum Pontificum brings Catholic life back to its essential nature of
complexio. The pope proposes Catholic history prior to Vatican Council II as the living context of the 'spirit' of the Council itself, and of its realization: a realization that many extremists have instead interpreted as incompatible with the past.
Thus the objective of 'internal reconciliation in the bosom of the Church' becomes part of a wider curative intervention for the universal Church, even independent of local tensions with schismatic minorities.
The same rare but virulent negative reactions to the motu proprio confirm, without meaning to do so, the urgency of this curative action by Pope Benedict. Two serious accusations have been raised against
Summorum Pontificum.
1. It is thought to impinge on episcopal authority, because the Pope's decision is said to take away from 'the liturgist of his church' - the bishop - the authority to discipline the liturgical styles and intentions of the priests who minister according to his delegation.
2. It is thought to introduce a paradoxical form of liturgical relativism, liturgy a la carte, according to the subjective preferences of the faithful.
The second objection is decidedly out of place. If anything has offered, for decades, a dangerously à la carte spectacle of liturgical styles, it is the rampant (and early - appearing right after the Council) abuse of the 'interpretation' or 'inculturation of the Mass rite.
Who can forget the arbitrary suppression of prayers and gestures, and the illegitimate introduction of new liturgical texts, actors, and places? This led to an exodus of believers looking for styles of celebration more in keeping with their taste. This problem has been known for some time, and Benedict XVI's recent motu proprio waspreceded by many warnings - above all by the instruction
Redemptoris Sacramentum of April, 2004 - condemning the excessive 'arbitrary deformations' of the Mass.
The recovery of the ancient rite could, contrary to what is objected, act as a paradigm for stabilizing the variable liturgies in the modern languages. As Cardinal Karl Lehmann, president of the German bishops, has noted, the motu proprio is a good occasion to promote with new attentiveness a fitting 'ordinary' celebration of the Eucharist and of the other rites.
As for the first objection, the authority of the bishop is the subject of the accompanying letter by Benedict XVI to his 'dear brothers in the episcopate'. In it, there is a reminder that the ancient rite is not a different rite, that its presence in the Christian people is a constructive memory, and that its celebration is legitimate and opportune.
The historical-traditional richness of Christian worship is, therefore, the primary reality to be drawn upon; and the authority exercised by the bishop-liturgist should be understood accordingly.
The bishop does not generate autonomously, much less by inclination, neither the fact of the rite, which has its center in Christ, nor its form, which belongs above all to the one and universal Church.
Besides, the pope explains in the letter to the bishops, the very men responsible for the unity of the Church have often failed, even in the recent past, to fulfill their primary task of avoiding or healing divisions.
So in what perspective should Benedict XVI's motu proprio, as an act of governance, be understood?
Above all, the new freedom to celebrate the Mass improperly called 'pre-conciliar' will act as a corrective, if not as reparation, for the unwarranted practical and ideological fracture effected during the post-conciliar years. It was a fracture with the tradition of the modern Church, from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, and with regard to language, practically with the entire tradition.
This fracture was not intended by the constitution on the liturgy promulgated by Vatican Council II. The fracture consisted in the de facto negation of the spirit of the liturgy prior to the reform, implying or letting it be understood that the traditional liturgy was inadequate in itself.
The initiative of Pope Benedict is thus directed against the
ideological and substantially 'revolutionary' interpretation made of the Council by the Catholic theological and pastoral elites, an interpretation unfortunately that slowly spread among the clergy and the parishes.
The renewed legitimacy of a Eucharist celebrated in the Latin language and according to the Roman Missal of 1962 would bring back balance to current excesses in ritual, language, and architecture, and to the frequent tendency to rid the Mass of sacramentality - with worrying implications for the faith.
It is claimed that the Missal promulgated on March 26, 1970 - formed on a 'traditional foundation' through 'mature liturgical study' - would have been sufficient to achieve these effects.
No one is unaware of the enormous work done by the Congregation for Divine Worship over the decades, nor of John Paul II's passion for the liturgical life of the Church: especially if one reads his letter
Dominicae Cenae of February, 1980.
But has all that richness translated into practice? There has been no apparent capacity to provide direction, nor containment of the the 'liturgical renewal' carried out through daily dilettantisms, often extraneous to the very idea of the sacredness of the Eucharist and of the sacrifice? One must reflect on this proven impossibility to found 'great works' on the sand of post-conciliar rhetoric.
How could the Tridentine rite serve to restore a balance?
1. The Latin language fosters the perception of the ancient quality of the rite. Even occasional participation in the ancient rite in Latin will help to understand that tradition and innovation have a necessary relationship and a mutual power of moderation. This is well-known to those who have attended Latin liturgies in the monasteries these past decades, more than just the liturgies celebrated by non-monastic traditionalist groups.
2. The ritual form and discipline of the ancient Mass teach faith precisely through their way of teaching prayer. The celebrant facing the Lord - not 'turning his back' to the people, as many senselessly repeat - together with the whole assembly, as well as the position of the altar with respect to those around it, lead to a reflection on sacred space and time, on their meaning and foundation.
Neither the gathered community, nor its sentiments, nor its social company are the focus of the
sacrificium missae. The actions of the praying community are governed by the norms of the sacramental sacrifice - action is at the service of the
divina mysteria. The Divine Priest, Christ, sacrifices himself to the Father - the celebrant and the assembly must be drawn into this sascrifice.
Symbolically, everything is clearer for the faithful when they are permitted to look 'beyond the altar', toward the Lord. The idea of facing the Lord does away with the temptation to think of the altar as a 'spectaculum' at the center of the assembly.
Is the offering to the Father from the One Priest adequately manifested in the current 'direct conversation' between celebrant and people? In the New Mass, the assembly appears predominantly turned toward the celebrant, and the celebrant toward the assembly, fostering the impression that the assembly is the sacrament, not the Trinitarian 'mystery of the faith' at work in the liturgical action,
3. The traditional liturgy "has at its center the Most Holy Sacrament that shines with vibrant light" (as the great liturgist Josef A. Jungmann put it). It implies a catechesis and a preaching of the real presence of Jesus in the bread and wine, of the 'God with us' dear to Joseph Ratzinger the theologian. In short, the traditional liturgy will bring renewed attention to the sacrament as a proclamation of Eucharistic reality, beyond just the undeniable but secondary value of communal 'participation' by the assembly.
It seems to me this is the hope implicit in the Pope's decision: that a meaningful and deeply felt sense of tradition may channel the
disorientation of so many faithful.
The hope of a 'christifidelis laicus' such as myself is that, with the consent of the bishop, our parish priests may make possible the celebration of the Mass at least once a week, best if on a Sunday or feast day, according to the Missale Romanum of John XXIII, thus helping all to recover the deep meaning of the ancient liturgical tradition, and bring reconciliation to cultures, generations, and spiritualities within the Church.