The following is a positive evaluation of Benedict XVI from another angle, although it begins, unfortunately, by buying into all the 'public opinion' commonplaces that most commentators have used to interpret and thereby further promote the wildly disproportionate hype over the leaked documents from the Vatican Secretariat of State. None of those documents objectively constituted or indicated any high crimes or genuine scandal. To any objective view, they represent, at best, the interplay of conflicting interests inherent and normal in any human institution, especially bureaucracies (the Vatican bureaucracy is obviously no exception)* (NB: Il Regno is a twice-monthly publication out of the Bologna-based Centro Editoriale Dehnoniano run by the Congregation of Priests of the Sacred Heart founded by the late French priest Leon Dehon, whose cause for beatification has been stalled because of accusations that he was anti-Semitic.]
Benedict XVI:
Spiritual renewal in the face
of worldliness in the Church
by Gianfranco Brunelli
Translated from
March 8, 2012
The kindness of his gaze, the elegance of his manners, the calmness of tone that distinguish Benedict XVI did not veil the firmness of his words.
In his series of interventions during his fourth consistory to name new cardinals, he assembled a collection of unequivocal spiritual and doctrinal references following a recent spate of poison allegations aimed at the Vatican.
It could not be otherwise. The media clamor that had been generated first around the confidential letters written by the ex-secretary-general of the Vatican City Governatorate, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, now Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, to the Pope and to Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone regarding questionable financial transactions at the Governatorate. Then a couple of internal memoranda on the new anti-money-laundering laws to be enforced at the Vatican 'bank' IOR: and finally the 'delirious' anonymous memorandum inferring a supposed assassination plot against the Pope within this year - all had created great perplexity in the Church and in international public opinion.
The fact that some parties had resorted to leaking confidential documents, of various levels of importance, in order to feed any existing conflicts within the Roman Curia but most of all, calling to question the role and the ability of the Secretary of State, offered the image of a moral and institutional crisis within the Church's principal organ of governance.
[That was obviously the general impression that the leakers intended to create - namely, for public opinion to think the worst, that unimaginable crimes have been happening inside the Vatican, even if the incidents reported did not include any really major 'scandal' and merely reflected normal internal rivalries within any bureaucracy. But for an informed 'analyst to simply echo that intended impression as the actual outcome of the leaks is lazy and almost irresponsible.]
In a consistory in which a number of Curial officials were made cardinals,
the Curia was therefore under scrutiny both in terms of image and of substance.
[I beg to disagree. In fairness to the media, practically no one projected the negatives created by the leaks to the Curial officials who became cardinals - perhaps because, even if most reports kept referring to the 'revelations' as affecting 'the Curia', the targets, as well as the leakers, were clearly all within the Secretariat of State, which is by no means the entire Curia.
The running beef was that yes, the Pope had elevated more curial officials than metropolitan bishops to cardinal in this consistory but that's an argument that has been discussed several times on this thread. But it must also be noted that no one, not even the Italian media, faulted any of the Curial officials for lack of qualification or competency for the jobs that Benedict XVI named them to. Even if some of them may be proteges or friends of Cardinal Bertone, that does not make them less competent or qualified; surely, no one could say Benedict XVI named some cardinals to their positions of responsibility if he did not think they were the best men for mostly administrative and technical responsibilities.]
But whoever wanted Cardinal Bertone replaced has failed at least for now, but he is expected to set everything straight in his own department. In fact, this kind of crisis affects the Pope by implying a crisis of authority in the Church.
[Again, that was the kneejerk conclusion drawn by run-of-the-mill commentary, echoing the main criticism by the Pope's detractors who claim that he takes no part and no interest at all in the actual government of the Church. Detractors like Marco Politi deliberately ignore that the Pope holds weekly meetings with his chief Curial collaborators - the heads of CDF, of Bishops and of the Evangelization of Peoples, who head the curial offices with the greatest direct impact on churches around the world; and that every afternoon, he sits down with Bertone and/or his two deputies to discuss administrative issues. But gullible members of the public will simply take their cue from what the commentators say and do not question any of their (very faulty) premises.]
It is not accidental that the latter stages of the controversy also brought forth the hypothesis that the Pope may resign.
[It really is a non sequitur, because the resignation hypothesis has been floated since last year, not however because of any controversies or administrative issues, but because of alleged health problems! And it is bound to be brought up more often, as the Pope gets older, since in Light of the World, Benedict XVI said clearly that he felt a Pope should resign if he was no longer physically, psychologically and mentally capable of carrying out the Petrine ministry.]
In the three days associated with the consistory, the Pope touched all the necessary themes. Starting with what he considers decisive for the Church in this historical moment.
He reads this last critical development as a confirmation and an acceleration of what he called 'a crisis of faith' in his address to the Roman Curia last December. A crisis that cuts across all Christianity. But especially European Christianity.
And alongside the sex abuses by priests, supposed financial scandals, and rivalries for power, there is the more significant testimony of Christians in places where the Church is now persecution what it believes.It is this reality that concerns the Pope most.
In his allocution to the cardinals before the rites that actually made them cardinals, the Pope spoke the 'mundanization' of the Church, and to the logic of power pursued by some of her members. A logic that is directly anti-evangelical.
Thus he told the new cardinals that following the example of Christ, they are called on "to serve the Church with love and vigor, with the limpidity and wisdom of teachers, with the energy and firmness of pastors, with the fidelity and courage of martyrs".
Then, commenting on the account of St. Mark regarding the request made to Jesus by the sons of Zebedee, James and John, about sitting next to him in his glory, to the right and left of him.
Benedict XVI quoted the words of Jesus: "You do not know what you are asking".
"James and John, with their request, showed that they did not yet understand the logic of life that ought to characterize the disciple, in his spirit and in his actions". But he pointed out that such erroneous logic did not just well in James and John, but "according to the Evangelist, it contaminated even 'the other ten' apostles, who "started to be indignant with James and John. They were indignant because it is not easy to enter into the logic of the Gospel, and to leave that of power and glory".
The episode narrated by St. Mark (cf Mk 16,37-45) ends with the admonition to all his disciples that "they may be servants" and 'slave to all'. An unequivocal admonition on the day of the consistory. To stigmatize an evil that has once again taken grip of the Church.
"Dominion and service, egoism and altruism, possession and gift, self-interest and gratuitousness - these profoundly contrasting approaches have confronted each other in every age and place", the Pope concluded.
"There is no doubt about the path chosen by Jesus. He does not merely indicate it with words to the disciples of then and today, but he lives it in his own flesh. He explains, in fact, 'For the Son of man also came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many' (Mk 10,45).
"These words shed light on today's public Consistory with a particular intensity. They resound in the depths of the soul and represent an invitation and a reminder, a commission and an encouragement, especially for you".
The Pope calls on the Curia in general and to the various internal factions to stop their infighting. One doubts that his message will be heard at all.
Extending this admonition to pastors to the entire Church, on his homily of February 19, feats of the Chair of St. Peter, the Pope recalled:
"Everything in the Church rests upon faith: the sacraments, the liturgy, evangelization, charity. Likewise the law and the Church's authority rest upon faith. The Church is not self-regulating, she does not determine her own structure but receives it from the Word of God, to which she listens in faith as she seeks to understand it and to live it.
"The Fathers of the Church fulfill the function of guaranteeing fidelity to Sacred Scripture. They ensure that the Church receives reliable and solid exegesis, capable of forming within the Chair of Peter a stable and consistent whole.
"The Sacred Scriptures, authoritatively interpreted in the Magisterium in the light of the Fathers, shed light upon the Church's journey through time, providing her with a stable foundation amid the vicissitudes of history".
Summarizing symbolically the various elements of the Chair of Peter, and looking at the ensemble of the Bernini Altar of the Chair, the Pope underscored the simultaneous presence of a twofold = ascending and descending.
"This is the reciprocity between faith and love. The Chair is placed in a prominent position in this place, because this is where Saint Peter’s tomb is located, but this too tends towards the love of God. Indeed, faith is oriented towards love. A selfish faith would be an unreal faith.
"Whoever believes in Jesus Christ and enters into the dynamic of love that finds its source in the Eucharist, discovers true joy and becomes capable in turn of living according to the logic this gift. T
"True faith is illumined by love and leads towards love, leads on high, just as the altar of the Chair points upwards towards the luminous window, the glory of the Holy Spirit, which constitutes the true focus for the pilgrim’s gaze as he crosses the threshold of the Vatican Basilica".
"Pray that I may be able to keep my hand on the tiller with gentle firmness". This was Benedict XVI's response to the speculation about his possible resignation.
He knows how this debate over the resignation of a Pope, occasionally aired by the media, can in fact weaken the exercise of the Papal role, since he had experienced this as an involuntary protagonist alongside John Paul II.
For now, resignation is out of the question. His health allows him to govern the Church fully even if he is about to turn 85. But his response was not - as John Paul II's was in2 003 - inherent to his state of health but rather to the route and handling of the ship of the Church. That 'gentle firmness' says everything about his will to exercise pastoral direction and governance of the Church.
It is not accidental that he has placed before himself and the universal Church a demanding biennial on the symbolic and doctrinal levels: the Year of Faith which will open in October on the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, and will conclude towards the end of 2013.
It will be, in fact, a new Great Jubilee [marked by the Church in 2000 to celebrate the first 2000 years of Christianity). This Conciliar Jubilee configures itself symbolically as a landing stage in his Pontificate.
All the points of reform in his Pontificate coalesce around the Year of Faith: a new season of evangelization, reinforced by a spiritual renewal to clean out all behavior that constitutes a continual counter-testimony to the message of the Gospel.
Nor was it accidental that at the pre-consistory assembly of the College of Cardinals on February 17, the Pope asked incoming Cardinal Timothy Colan, Archbishop of New York, and president of the US bishops' conference, to introduce the subject of New Evangelization, and on Mons. Rino Fisichella , president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization, to present the initiatives programmed at various levels of the Church during the Year of Faith.
In this, the Pope calls on the universal Church to make an examination of conscience on the reception thus far of the teachings from the Second Vatican Council according to that hermeneutic of continuity that he has so often cited.
Along this line, Benedict XVI hopes to bring the Church out of the ruts of scandal and internal power conflicts.
Along this line, he hopes to lead the Church to a new season of faithful witness. It is a plan strongly characterized by the personal vision of the theologian Pope but which remains, at the same time, quite open.
[Open to what? To tactical adjustments, perhaps, but not to strategic or substantial change!]
POST-SCRIPT TO THE VIGANO CASE
*
Continuing my introductory remarks above, I must address the Vigano case which media have virtually abandoned though it ought not to be, It ought to be followed up for logical reasons that are both pragmatic and ethical.
Mons. Vigano's scattershot accusations constituted the 'worst' of the leaked documents so far. And yet, they can be seen for what they are: the desperate flailings of an ambitious man whose path to glory has been thwarted, and therefore feels wronged to the point of seeking to inflict as much harm as he can on those he perceives to have thwarted him, principally Cardinal Bertone and the persons, lay and ecclesiastical, whom Vigano considers to be Bertone's 'enforcers'.
Let us take just one example. Recall that Vigano said in one of the letters that if no administrative action was taken against one of his targets, Mons. Paolo Nicolini of the Vatican Museums, he would then proceed to take judicial action himself against Nicolini. The Vatican has said that an internal inquiry ordered by the Holy Father found Vigano's various concrete accusations against specific individuals 'unfounded' - a rather awkward situation, to say the least, for the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States who, in effect, has been shown to make false accusations (a violation of the Eighth Commandment).
It would be unseemly, of course, for the Apostolic Nuncio to the US to now file any suit in Italy against Mons. Nicolini. But then, the concrete accusations of financial misdeeds he attributed to Nicolini were allegedly committed when Nicolini was working at the Lateran University, for which Vigano has absolutely no competence to sue. (And one must ask why that the Lateran itself did not sue Nicolini at all if he did indeed falsify invoices and failed to account for a financial shortfall, as Vigano accused him of.)
At the Vatican, Nicolini was and is in charge of the financial administration of the Vatican Museums, which during Vigano's short stay at the Governatorate, registered a major increase in revenues unprecedented in the history of the Museums - always the major income-getter for the Governatorate. Yet Vigano never accused Nicolini of fudging the Museum's finances, let alone of finagling them. His beef against Nicolini at the Vatican was that the latter gossiped about him!
The pettiness of Vigano's attitude is almost sickening, and yet, no one in the Italian media has bothered to follow up the various accusations he flung with abandon in those two letters to the Pope and to Cardinal Bertone. Normally, the media would have investigated with chop-licking alacrity.
That they have not indicates either that they find the accusations laughable, to begin with; or they really have no interest in investigating his accusations, and/or they are willing to accept the results of the internal Vatican inquiry. About which I wonder why no one has bothered to ask the Vatican for a summary of the accusations investigated and the corresponding conclusions reached.
I have been greatly exercised about the Vigano case because I find it anomalous and inexplicable that he is allowed to get away with the conduct he has shown. Forgiving him for his all-too-human sins is understandable and Christian, but letting someone of his character represent the Pope anywhere is unconscionable. The Pope has valid reasons, I am sure, for making the appointment. but IMHO, that does not make the situation less anomalous.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 09/03/2012 17:53]