Earlier posts for 10/16/09 on the preceding page.
Robert Moynihan, who edits INSIDE THE VATICAN magazine, has changed the format of his Newsflash to a more flexible blog called THE MOYNIHAN REPORT.
And so it begins...
Formal theological discussions on Vatican II will begin later this month:
Why Benedict XVI is allowing this new debate on the most vexed questions of Vatican-II
By Robert Moynihan, reporting from Rome
"The first real task of the Council was to overcome the indolent, euphoric feeling that all was well with the Church, and to bring into the open the problems smoldering within."
— Father Joseph Ratzinger, in a talk on the Second Vatican Council, Oct. 1964, while the Council was still in session (he was then 37 years old and a peritus or "expert" at the Council; see www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=935)
"What has happened since the Second Vatican Council can, according to Cardinal Ratzinger, be described as a cultural revolution, considering the false zeal with which the churches were emptied of their traditional furnishings, and the way that clergy and religious orders put on a new face. That 'rashness' is already regretted by many, the cardinal contends. There was, he believes, a 'widening gulf' between the Council Fathers, who wanted aggiornamento, updating, and 'those who saw reform in terms of discarding ballast, a more diluted faith rather than a more radical one...'"
— The Tablet, April 19, 1997, reviewing the book Salt of the Earth, a book-length interview with German writer Peter Seewald (conducted when Ratzinger was in his late 60s)
"After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the Pope really could do anything in liturgical matters, especially if he were acting on the mandate of an Ecumenical Council. Eventually, the idea of the givenness of the liturgy, the fact that one cannot do with it what one will, faded from the public consciousness of the West.
"In fact, the First Vatican Council had in no way defined the Pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The Pope's authority is bound to the Tradition of faith..."
— Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, 2000 (published when Ratzinger was 73 years old)
Pope Benedict XVI has just made a dramatic choice, one which will certainly be numbered among the major decisions of his pontificate.
He has decided, in effect, to reopen formal debate on the Second Vatican Council and its teaching.
The new dialogue, which will take place in Rome between the leaders of the Fraternity of St. Pius X (the followers of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre) and Vatican experts will take place on October 26 at the Vatican, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said today.
(Here is a link to a full report on the announcement:http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0904605.htm.)
====================================
For the Pope's critics, the decision is unwise, as it seems likely to open a large can of worms.
These critics have argued that the lid on this can should be kept tightly closed. In essence, they have advised the Pope not to "dignify" the Society's objections to certain conciliar teachings -- or to the interpretations of those teachings -- by granting such a formal dialogue.
But Benedict has decided to let the dialogue begin.
For the Pope's supporters, the decision is an occasion for praise.
Why?
Because the Pope, almost five years into his pontificate, has finally decided to face head on and "bring into the open" the doctrinal problems "smoldering" (to cite his own words of 45 years ago) just beneath the surface of Church life throughout the entire post-conciliar period (1965 to the present, or 44 years).
So, with this decision to engage in a dialogue about the Council, a very significant phase of Benedict's pontificate begins.
Because this dialogue will inevitably come to grips, more than a generation after the close of the Council, with profoundly important doctrinal issues -- issues which seriously divided the Council Fathers at the time of the Council, and which eventually, and tragically, led:
(1) to a
formal schism* between those whom we may call "traditionalists" and "progressives" (though the two terms are woefully inadequate) when in 1988 the bishops of the Society of St. Pius X (the Lefebvrists) were excommunicated, and
(2) to widespread confusion among the Catholic faithful, to many exaggerated and erroneous interpretations of Christian and Catholic identity, and even to the formal or de facto abandonment of the Catholic faith by many.
*[But there never was a formal schism! And in any case, there cannot be a schism between two groups that coth consider themselves still within the Church - schism is usually a breaking away from the main Church by a dissident faction.]
With Benedict's decision, the Second Vatican Council is, in a certain sense, as it were, being called in "for further questioning" -- for an new examination and cross-examination, like a witness in a trial, to determine what the Council actually said, and intended.
And this means that theology, the strong point of this "theologian-Pope" (his career before he was consecrated a bishop was as a professor of theology in Germany), is about to take center stage in Benedict's pontificate.
And the goal in all this will be to arrive at clarity and a common understanding of the faith which will allow the reunion of the Lefbevrists with Rome, and so end of
the only formal schism since Vatican II.
[I do not know why Dr. Moynihan repeats this error. The strongest term used by the CDF and by Ecclesia Dei to describe Mons. Lefebvre's movement was to call if 'schismatic', always qualifying it to say there was no formal schism.]
But we will not be able to observe this crucial theological debate. It will take place behind closed doors.
[Moynihan then quotes Fr. Lombardi's announcement yesterday of the start of talks and the simultaneous bulletin from the FSSPX officially naming the members of their counterpart theological commission for the discussions.]
Some Additional Background
In a recent interview granted to an FSSPX magazine in South Africa and picked up by Reuters, Bishop Fellay spelled out his view of the issues to be raised during the upcoming dialogue.
“The solution to the crisis is a return to the past,” Fellay said.
He said Pope Benedict agrees with the FSSPX on the need to maintain the Church’s links to the past, but still wants to keep some reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).
“This is one of the most sensitive problems,” he said. “We hope the discussions will allow us to dispel the grave ambiguities that have spread through the Catholic Church since (the Council), as John Paul II himself recognised.”
Here is a fuller report on the interview, with some interesting comments attached:http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2009/10/13/return-to-past-is-sspx-motto-for-doctrinal-talks-with-vatican
One Issue: The "Subsistit" Clause
(Note: I draw most of the following material, which I condense and edit here, from an article by Anthony Grafton published in The New Yorker, July 25, 2005, which may be found here: www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-134469260/reading-ratzinger-cardinal-jose... The point Grafton focuses on below will certainly be among the points discussed in the upcoming dialogue.)
In May, 1984, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger summoned the Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff to Rome.
At the time, Ratzinger was the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
When Boff arrived, Ratzinger questioned him on relations between the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations.
Boff replied by citing Chapter 1, No. 8 of
Lumen Gentium ("Light of the Nations"), one of the key documents of Vatican II, which sets forth the Church's understanding of her own nature.
Lumen Gentium in one well-known passage of considerable importance for ecumenical dialogue with Protestant Christians, teaches that the true Church "subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him. Nevertheless, many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside its visible confines."
Boff -- like many others before him and after him -- interpreted this passage as teaching that the traditional teaching that the Catholic Church is the "one true Church" founded by Jesus Christ had been qualified by the Council and so, in effect, slightly altered.
Did those who drafted the document have this view? That is a vexed question.
For the first two years of the Council, the draft document stated simply and directly that the mystical body of Christ "is" the Catholic Church.
But in the fall of 1964 the word "subsists" ("subsistit" in Latin) was added, along with the passage about elements of truth being present outside the Church.
The official commentary explained that the change was meant to make the text "more harmonious with the affirmation of ecclesial elements which are elsewhere."
The Dominican theologian Yves Congar seemed to interpret the passage the same way Boff did: "Vatican II acknowledges, in sum, that non-Catholic Christians are members of the mystical body."
Yet Cardinal Ratzinger read this text in a different way.
To understand the chapter, he said, one must bear in mind a noun --
substantia -- closely related to subsistit, the verb that the Council Fathers had used.
Substantia, meaning "substance," refers to the essence of a thing (as in "transubstantiation").
According to Ratzinger, when the Council used the verb "subsists," it was stating that the true Church "both is, and can only be, fully present" in the Roman Church, with all its hierarchies.
After Boff returned to Brazil, the Congregation published a formal critique of his work stating that Boff had drawn from
Lumen Gentium "a thesis which is exactly the contrary to the authentic meaning of the Council text."
[But wasn't this question settled in the June 2007 Clarification by the CDF
www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070629_responsa-quaestiones...
"REGARDING CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE DOCTRINE ON THE CHURCH" which deals explicitly and definitively with the 'subsistit' question.
It is an important document, issued relatively early in the Ratzinger Pontificate - and somethign that must have been reassuring to teh Lefebvrians. Since then, however, the clarification has been apparently ignored by many commentators, and Moynihan himself fails to refer to it here. Perhaps because although it drew some flak from the Protestant churches initially, the reaction was relatively minor compared to the uproar that greeted DOMINUS IESUS in 2000.]
Considering this incident, it seems clear that the upcoming dialogue of Vatican officials with the representaives of the Lefebvrists, occurring in almost exactly the same spot as Boff's encounter with Ratzinger, may have considerable importance for the future of ecumenism, that is, of efforts to reunite all Christians in one visible Church.
But we should keep in mind that a clarification of the actual intent of the Council Fathers when they drew up and approved the documents of Vatican II cannot in any case do harm to ecumenical dialogue: clarification of the truth of the Church's teaching must always be viewed as positive and freeing, and as helping to lead, in the long run, to authentic progress toward that Church unity desired and prayed for by Christ himself on the night before he died.
And that is why Benedict is allowing this dialogue:
because he wants to clarify the true teaching of the Council, in the face of many erroneous claims, and after decades of real hope, yet hope marred by real confusion.
On October 26, this process of clarification will formally begin.
========================================
Let us not forget that the three main issues the Lefebvrians want clarified are the Vatican-II statements regarding religious freedom, ecumenism and inter-religious dialog.
It seems obivous their primary concern is to guard against dilution or the risk of dilution of Catholic dogma that the Roman Catholic Church is the 'unam, sanctam, cattolicam et apostolicam' Church of Christ. In that, they have their strongest ally in Benedict XVI.
Apropos, Ignatius Insight today featured the ff excerpt from Fr. Maximilian Heim's book on Joswph Ratzinger's ecclesiology.
Oct. 16, 2009
We cannot return to the past, nor have we any desire to do so. But we must be ready to reflect anew on that which, in the lapse of time, has remained the one constant. To seek it without distraction and to dare to accept, with joyful heart and without diminution, the foolishness of truth — this, I think, is the task for today and for tomorrow. [1]
- Joseph Ratzinger
Joseph Ratzinger is considered by some to be the representative of a "petrified theology", [2] whereas for others [3] he is a voice that claims to speak the truth and makes it possible to perceive "the whole in its depth dimension" [4]
This dissertation places him — amid the tensions of present-day disputes within the Church about the patrimony of the Second Vatican Council—as an ecclesiologist at the center of this discourse, by setting forth his statements about the Church as a central aspect of an existential theology.
Because theology and ecclesial life have been melded into one in an unusual way in Ratzinger's work, his theological thought can be characterized as "existential", without thereby relegating it to the realm of the merely subjective.
Ratzinger is in fact concerned about a theology that proceeds, not from a private being, but rather from an existence that has surrendered itself to the Church, [5] in other words, "a theology of
ex-sistere, of that exodus by which the human individual goes out from himself and through which alone he can find himself", [6] a theology, therefore, that seeks God in the Church and through the Church as its preexisting center. Consequently, its task consists of "keeping what is earthly and human so that it is trans- parent toward the truly fundamental reality, the divine reality that opens itself to us through Christ in the Holy Spirit". [7]
If we understand theology this way, it becomes clear that Ratzinger's thought, in keeping with the patristic tradition, is defined, not by an opposition [8] between salvation history and its ontological unfolding, [9] but rather by a mutual ordering of the two that constantly adheres to the "prae [logical and temporal priority] of God's action". [10] This means that "faith in an
actio Dei is antecedent to all other declarations of faith", because for God, it is precisely relationship and action that are the essential marks; creation and revelation are the two basic statements about him, and when revelation is fulfilled in the Resurrection, it is thus confirmed once again that he is not just one who is timeless but also one who is above time, whose existence is known to us only through his action. [11]
Defending this "primacy of God" [12] brings about a development in Ratzinger's theology — as Dorothee Kaes explains — from a theology that originally had a more pronounced orientation toward salvation history [13] to thinking that is more characteristically metaphysical, [14] and this development occurs as a response to the intellectual debates of a given time period. [15]
Since my dissertation on Ratzinger's ecclesiology is situated within the context of the postconciiar developments in the Church, I was confronted with the question about an adequate reception of that image of the Church that the Second Vatican Council had outlined.
In this regard, Ratzinger is not only a contemporary witness, but also a theologian who, as Thomas Weiler [16] has attempted to demonstrate, was himself able to exert influence on the Council's ecciesiology.
Although it is not my purpose simply to reverse Weiler's approach and to maintain that the Council influenced Ratzinger the theologian, it is still undeniable that there was a reciprocal effect [17] and that consequently Ratzinger must be understood not only as an expert in the conciiar ecclesiology, as one of those who helped to shape it, but at the same time also as one of its most resolute defenders and as someone who continues to interpret and apply it concretely in his writings.
Thus two sets of questions result for the development of my theme: first, an inquiry into the Church's understanding of herself in
Lumen gentium and, secondly, an investigation of Ratzinger's ecclesial life and the main lines of his ecciesiology; which has been shaped by his career.
The first part of the dissertation, about
Lumen gentium, will set out to provide the conceptual frame of reference for the discussion of Ratzinger's ecclesiological outline in the second part, whereby the fundamental themes of mystery, the People of God, and collegiality, which are structural elements of
Lumen gentium, serve as the main coordinates for the systematic development of the subject.
I have chosen them as guidelines for presenting Ratzinger's theology as well, because he himself associates them with the authority of the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the Church. [18]
In any case the second part does not intend to make a detailed comparison with
Lumen gentium; rather, it intends to show the importance of the main ecciesiological themes of the Constitution on the Church in Ratzinger's work, to note points of agreement or differences and modifications, and, where appropriate, to point out changes in Ratzinger's approach.
In this regard, the question of how and when Ratzinger articulated the ambiguities [19] in
Lumen gentium will serve as a litmus test for whether or not there was a change in his perspective. For this reason it is necessary to pay special attention to the historical factor in our discussions.
This is accomplished, on the one hand, by tracing the principal stages of development both for
Lumen gentium and for Ratzinger and, on the other hand, by explicitly examining the historical context at pivotal points of the systematic treatment of the subject. In this I am guided by the following suggestion of Weiler:
A thorough study of Ratzinger's postconciliar ecclesiological writings would of course have to investigate which of Ratzinger's ideas remained unchanged and where, if at all, a change can be noted. Why did that happen? And with regard to the ideas that remained the same, one should ask whether they, in being brought into a new historical and theological context, do not acquire a different significance. Finally:
Does the fact that Ratzinger's ideas remained the same really correspond thoroughly to the Second Vatican Council, which was, after all, in Ratzinger's view as well, "only the formulation of a task", which is to say, the beginning of a fundamental change, the accomplishment of which was (and is) still in the future? [20]
Before I outline the structure and division of my investigation, I should clarify why I take up
Lumen gentium and not
Gaudium et spes as the frame of reference for my discussion of Ratzinger's ecclesiology, even though the latter, in my opinion, would also be quite possible and reasonable. [21]
The answer is twofold: First, in keeping with Ratzinger's approach, I attempt to shed light on the Church's intrinsic nature. For this purpose
Lumen gentium is a suitable reference. Moreover, according to Wolfgang Beinert, the "other fifteen constitutions, decrees, and declarations lead to this Council document or are derived from it". [22]
The second reason for my decision is related to the first. It can be expressed precisely by means of a programmatic statement by Ratzinger of his position in the year 1975:
An interpretation of the Council that 0understands its dogmatic texts as mere preludes to a still unattained conciliar spirit, that regards the whole as just a preparation for Gaudium et spes and that looks upon the latter text as just the beginning of an unswerving course toward an ever greater union with what is called progress — such an interpretation is not only contrary to what the Council Fathers intended and meant, it has been reduced ad absurdum by the course of events.
Where the spirit of the Council is turned against the word of the Council and is vaguely regarded as a distillation from the development that evolved from the "Pastoral Constitution", this spirit becomes a specter and leads to meaninglessness. [23]
Ratzinger traces the cause of this subsequent influence of
Gaudium et spes, which he regards as problematic, back to the spirit of the preface. [24]
In his opinion, the text of the Pastoral Constitution serves as "a kind of countersyllabus" for many theologians, who imagine that it "represents, on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789". [25] But since "the world, in its modern form" cannot be regarded as a homogeneous entity, the Church's progress cannot consist of "a belated embrace of the modern world". [26]
From this insight Ratzinger derives the following basic rule, ten years after the end of the Council:
"We must interpret Vatican Council II as a whole and ... our interpretation must be oriented toward the central theological texts." [27]
The two reasons just outlined, Ratzinger's preference for an essential ecciesiology and his partiality for the dogmatic documents of the Council, led me to select
Lumen gentium as the background against which to present his ecclesiology.
This means simultaneously, however, that the "outward-looking" perspectives are considered only in passing in this dissertation. This is true, specifically, with regard to Ratzinger's statements on the complicated question of the relation between the Church and the world [28] and his writings concerning ecumenism [29] as well as inter-religious dialogue [30] and, last but not least, concerning the relation between the Church and Judaism. [31]
[Precisel the areas considered most problematic by the Lefebvrians!]
My subject is further limited by the fact that I concentrate above all on the initiatives Ratzinger has taken as a scholar, and not on the contributions he has made to theological discussion in his official, magisterial capacity, even though it was impossible to avoid some overlapping on certain questions.
After these preliminary remarks concerning methodology, I would like to define now more precisely the principal points of this dissertation and to explain its structure.
Part I, on the Church's self-understanding according to
Lumen gentium, comprises two sections, one historical and one systematic. The latter is subdivided, following the sequence of the first three chapters of
Lumen gentium, under the headings of "The Mystery of the Church", "The People of God", and "The Hierarchical Structure of the Church and in Particular the Episcopate".
Because of their intrinsic relatedness, the themes of chapters 4 through 8 of
Lumen gentium on the laity (4), on the universal call to holiness in the Church (5) on consecrated religious (6), on the eschatological character of the pilgrim Church and her union with the Church in heaven (7), and finally on the Blessed Virgin Mary; the Mother of God, in the mystery of Christ and of the Church (8) are considered in the chapter on the People of God.
In chapter I, on the mystery of the Church, an essential point is the aspect of communio; here the trinitarian communio is presented as the origin and purpose of Church unity. In chapter 2, in keeping with the Dogmatic Constitution, I will elaborate on the participation of the People of God in the priestly, prophetic, and kingly mission of Christ — an aspect that plays a relatively insignificant role in Ratzinger's ecclesiology In chapter 3, the college of bishops takes center stage in my discussion.
There I will examine above all the sacramental understanding of the episcopal ministry and inquire about how the "Preliminary Note of Explanation" added, to
Lumen gentium should be evaluated, both historically and with regard to its contents — a problem that was of decisive importance especially for Ratzinger as one of the theologians at the Council.
Part 2 of this book deals with Ratzinger's ecclesiology. It is structured along the lines of
Lumen gentium and treats in succession the principal themes of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. In it I intend to show which fundamental ideas Ratzinger adopts in his ecciesiology, which themes he prefers, and which ones he modifies in his presentation or does not take into account at all.
As in the first part of this dissertation, the systematic section is preceded by a historical section I, which discusses the "Outline of the Ecclesiological Plan from a Biographical Perspective". In this "prelude", the question of the consistency in Ratzinger's theological thought is especially explosive.
Section 2 deals at first, in chapter I, with the Church as sign of faith and mystery of faith. Three central concepts of Ratzinger's ecciesiology are examined therein, namely, Body of Christ, Eucharist, and communio. The chapter concludes with critical reflections on the question of the subsistence of the Catholic Church.
Chapter 2 is devoted to the Church as the People of God In it I will point out Ratzinger's references to rabbinical theology so as to demonstrate by means of concrete examples the ecciesiological consequences of the scriptural unity of the Old and New Testaments that he insists upon. In particular, this line of Ratzinger's reasoning is important also for the controversial question of the ontological priority of the universal Church.
The chapter goes on to deal with his oft-repeated claim that the term "People of God" has been misunderstood in a sociological sense, and the problem of democratic structures in the Church is discussed along with the themes of "relativism" and "majority rule". Comments on the section "The Universal Call to Holiness" conclude the chapter.
In this context the importance of the mariological declaration for Ratzinger's ecclesiology is stressed, but also the problem of the Church's sinfulness, with reference to the verse from the Song of Solomon "I am black but beautiful", [32] which has been applied to the Church, and with the assistance of the image of the
casta meretrix (chaste prostitute) .
The conclusion of the main part of my work is chapter 3, on Ratzinger's understanding of the hierarchical constitution of the Church and, especially, of episcopal collegiality.
By way of introduction, the latter is set forth as an ecumenical paradigm, and then it is examined with regard to its origin, to the inherent tension between collegiality and primacy, and to its pastoral implications.
The last part of this chapter is devoted to those emphases in Ratzinger's thought that have changed so much over the course of time that one can speak of an early and a later Ratzinger.
Specifically, from his judgments on the value of bishops' conferences and of the synod of bishops, it will become evident how the
later Ratzinger assigns a different theological weight to collegial formations than the earlier Ratzinger did.
Part 3 presents a "synoptic" overview. In summarizing, it compares the ecclesiology of
Lumen gentium with that of Ratzinger. My concluding essay on the problematic position of modernity in intellectual history, which is behind Ratzinger's ecclesiology, attempts to sketch an outline of his thought against this backdrop and to pave the way toward a more nuanced answer to the question of its continuity or discontinuity.
Finally, in a concluding remark,
the liturgy is depicted as the hermeneutic locus of theological ecclesiology, in keeping with the axiom lex orandi-lex credendi, so as the emphasize and reflect critically on what is distinctive about Ratzinger's markedly eucharistic theology of communio.
ENDNOTES:
[1] J. Ratzinger, "Der Weltdienst der Kirche: Aurwirkungen von Gaudium et spes im letzten Jahrzehnt", IKaZ 4 (1975):439-54. Reprinted in Principles, 373-93, as the epilogue, "Church and World: An Inquiry into the Reception of Vatican Council II". Citation at 393.
[2] Häring, Ideologie, 21.
[3] We should mention here, for example, Stephan Otto Horn and Vinzenz Pfnür as representatives of Ratzinger's "circle of students". The names of the members of this Schülerkreis ad of those who presented papers at their gatherings were published in Mitte, 316f.
[4] See Stephan Otto Horn and Vinzenz Pfnür, "Introduction", in Pilgrim Fellowship, 9-16, citation at 12.
[5] See the foreword of W. Baier et al., eds., Weisheit Gottes—Weisheit der Welt: Festschrift für Joseph Kardinal Ratzinger zum 60. Geburtstag (Sankt Ottilien: EOS-Verlag, 1987), I:v.
[6] Principles, 171-90, citation at 189.
[7] Horn and Pfnür, "Introduction", 9-14, citation at 10.
[8] In this way, Ratzinger decisively distances himself from Bultmann's thesis that "the word, the kerygma, is the real salvation-event, the 'eschatological event', that leads man from the alienation of his existence to its essence. This word is present wherever it makes itself heard; it is the always-present possibility of salvation for mankind. It is clear that, in the last analysis, this primacy of the word that, as such, can always be spoken and thus can be posited as always present, cancels the notion of a continuous series of salvation-historical events" (Principles, 176), in that it separates a theologically insignificant history from a theologically relevant "story". The latter remains, in Bultmann's scheme, a "word-event" unconnected with the historical events. Compare Kaes, 89f. Ratzinger sees in this opposition between salvation history and metaphysics a problem that did not come so acutely to the fore until after the Second Vatican Council. The reason for this may be explained by the fact that "Vatican Council II did not link its debate on salvation to the already existing patristic term dispositio (or dispensatio) but rather coined for itself, as a borrowing from the German, the expression historia salutis. Therewith we have also an indication of the source of the problem that, in our century, has entered Catholic theology by way of Protestant thought" (Principles, 572).
[9] See ibid.
[10] Ibid., 185.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Pilgrim Fellowship, 284-98, citation at 287.
[13] Along with G. Söhngen, Ratzinger stresses "emphatically that the truth of Christianity is not the truth of a universally accepted idea but the truth of a unique fact" (Principles, 174). Cf. G. Söhngen, Die Einheit in der Theologie (Munich: Zink, 1952), 347.
[14] For particulars, see Kaes, 86-88.
[15] Pt. 3, sec. 2, of this book, "Ratzinger's Ecciesiology against the Background of Issues in Intellectual History".
[16] Cf. Weiler, 151-283, esp. 281-83.
[17] See J. Ratzinger, "Geleitwort" [preface], in Weiler, xiii; similarly: G. Alberigo, "Die konziliare Erfahrung: Selbständig lernen", in Wittstadt, 2:679-98, esp. 688f.
[18] See Church 3-20; "Ecciesiology", 123-52.
[19] Cf. Pt. 2, sec. 2, chap. 3, § 4, "Aspects during the Council in Tension with the Later Perspective", and pt. 3, sec. I, "Comparison between the Main Lines of Lumen gentium and of Ratzinger's Ecclesiology".
[20] Weiler 315. In the same passage, Weiler cites J. Ratzinger, Die letzte Sitzungsperiode des Konzils (Cologne: Bachem, 1966), 73; cf. Highlights, 183. In 1996, Weiler declared (11f.) that, even though the theme of "Church" is an important focal point in Ratzinger's work as a whole, "it is astounding that so far relatively few publications have been dedicated to this important aspect .... A monograph on Ratzinger's ecclesiology has not yet appeared." Weiler did not consider the unpublished dissertation of K.-J. E. Jeon, Die Kirche bei Joseph Ratzinger: Unter- suchungen zum strukturierten Volk Gottes nach der Kirchenlehre Joseph Ratzingers (unpublished dissertation, Innsbruck, 1995). An extensive list of further publications on Ratzinger's theology can be found in Weiler, 11f. Worth noting also is the bibliography of secondary literature compiled by Helmut Moll under the title "Rezeption und Auseinandersetzung mit dem theologischen Werk von Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger", in Mitte, 309-15.
[21] It seems to me that Ratzinger's stance with regard to Gaudium et spes deserves separate study, since Ratzinger has grappled with this document on several occasions. He declared in 1975, for example, that Gaudium et spes is "the most difficult and, [along] with the 'Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy' and the 'Decree on Ecumenism', also the most [consequential]" Council document, on account of the problem of finding a suitable concept of "the world" (Principles, 378).
[22] Beinert, "Kirchenbilder in der Kirchengeschichte", in Kirchenbilder, Kirchenvisionen: Variationen über eine Wirklichkeit, ed. Beinert, 58-127, citation at III (Regensburg: Pustet, 1995).
[23] Principles, 390.
[24] Cf. ibid., 379. For a more detailed discussion, see t. 2, sec. I, chap. 3, § 1, Of this book, "The Council: 'The Beginning of the Beginning'?"
[25] Principles, 381, 382.
[26] Ibid., 390.
[27] Ibid.
[28] "See, for example, "Weltoffene Kirche? Überlegungen zur Struktur des Zweiten Vati- kanischen Konzils", in Volk Gottes, 107-28. Cf. also "Der Christ und die Welt von heute: Überlegungen zur Pastoralkonstitution des Zweiten Vatikamschen Konzils", in Dogma, 183-204, along with the commentary on articles 11-22 of Gaudium et spes, in LThK.E, vol. 3 (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1968), 313-54.
29 example is the striking essay entitled "Prognosen für die Zukunft des Ökumenismus", in Mitte, 181-94. It also contains the so-called Ratzinger formula, which states that "Rome must not demand more from the East by way of doctrine on the primacy than was formulated and practiced during the first millennium." We will treat this subject more thoroughly in this book in pt. 2, sec. 2, chap. 3, § 4.2, entitled "Concrete Forms of Episcopal Collegiality, as Variously Interpreted".
[30] See, for example, Salt of the Earth, 243-55.
[31] See the first volume of the Urfelder series, which especially promotes dialogue between Jews and Christians: J. Ratzinger, Many Religions-One Covenant, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999).
[32] Song 1:5.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 17/10/2009 10:01]