Damian Thompson has written one of the best commentaries I have read so far on LOTW, despite some initial statements that I disagree with.
One truly welcomes and appreciates what he is capable of whenever he sets aside his usual 'ferret'approach.
Benedict XVI has put the Church's penance
for sex abuse at the heart of his pontificate
December 1st, 2010
The controversy over condoms has overshadowed many extraordinary things Benedict XVI says in
Light of the World. Earlier this week I read the book from cover to cover and it didn’t change my view that the Pope is prepared to tolerate – let’s put it no stronger than that – the use of condoms to prevent the spread of disease. If I’d encountered the relevant passage without warning but in context, my jaw would still have dropped open. But enough on that subject. There are other surprises.
Let me offer a specific observation about
Light of the World and a general one. No doubt I’ll get my throat ripped out again, especially by traditionalists, but perhaps that’s inevitable. Pope Benedict’s interview with Peter Seewald is an unsettling document, and not just because the concept of the Supreme Pontiff “in conversation with…” is intrinsically strange.
[Why? That's part of Benedict XVI's personal daring, which rests on his quiet confidence that to the best of his ability, he can answer anyone, from a six-year-old kid puzzled about how Jesus can be present in the Eucharist, to Germany's leading contemporary philosopher, on his interlocutor's terms.]
First, the specific point. The Holy Father has done more than take to heart the horrified outrage created by Catholic child abuse scandals, much of it directed at him. He has placed this crisis at the heart of his pontificate.
He is aware, of course, of the malice of commentators who tried to frame him for other people’s crimes, but doesn’t dwell on it. He is more robust in defending Church authorities who did institute effective guidelines against abuse; he also speaks up for innocent priests and faithful burdened with collective guilt.
But when Seewald throws a bunch of statistics at him demonstrating that paedophilia is statistically rare among Catholic clergy, he says: “If you look at the real statistics, that does not authorise us to look away from the problem or to minimise it.”
Far from looking away from the problem, Benedict takes Light of the World as an opportunity to stare it in the face. He realises that his pontificate has been damaged by the scandals and takes a step back to survey that damage unflinchingly.
He observes that “evil will always be part of the mystery of the Church” – a statement so disturbing that, if a parish priest were to drop it into the middle of his Sunday sermon, folk in the pews might think he had gone mad or was playing with heresy.
[Why? The Church has always taught that we are all sinners, and that is why we must continually try to avoid sin or atone for it and try to 'sin no more'.]
The Pope doesn’t promise to solve this mystery for us, but he outlines a possible interpretation of a sickening coincidence: that the revelations of “filth” reached their peak during the Year for Priests. He wants to help Catholics understand God’s purpose in allowing the Church to appear contemptible even in the eyes of well-meaning people. Here’s the key quote:
One might think that the devil could not stand the Year for Priests and therefore threw this filth in our faces. As it wanted to show the world how much filth there was, even and precisely among priests.
On the other hand, one could say that the Lord wanted to test us and to call us to a deeper purification, so that we would not celebrate the Year for Priests in a triumphalist way, as self-glorification, but rather as a year of purification, of interior renewal, transformation, and above all penance.
This isn’t a self-exculpatory message. Rightly, Benedict does not accept responsibility – personally, or on behalf of the Church – for imaginary crimes of omission: the fact that the media ignored the Church’s condemnations of sex abuse, publication of guidelines and legal proceedings against errant clergy does not mean that these measures were never taken.
What he does acknowledge is responsibility for failures to act against crimes that occurred on his watch, as it were, when his remit at the CDF had been expanded to cover these cases.
“Unfortunately we addressed these things very slowly and too late,” he says of Marcial Maciel, the abusive and sexually incontinent founder of the Legionaries of Christ.
There’s a wider point, though, which is that the exposure of disgusting acts, most of which took place decades ago, is a humiliation that God is inflicting on the Church in order to purify it.
And here we do glimpse the uncompromising toughness of Joseph Ratzinger’s earlier writings, and indeed his earlier conversations with Seewald. For one of the things that God is purifying the Church from, he suggests, is the moral relativism that encouraged priests with abusive urges to express them – and persuaded the Church authorities that the “loving” response to outrages was to hush things up.
This liberal mindset led to “an odd darkening of the mind, even in very good people”. (Intriguingly, Pope Benedict implies that this explanation for what went wrong was offered to him by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, who is notably more liberal than many of his episcopal colleagues.)
There’s a certain bravery, I think, in presenting the exposure of “filth” as a heaven-sent opportunity to reform the Church: the message could easily be misinterpreted by the secular world.
Also, are Catholic liberals – who still dominate the bishops’ conferences of Europe – really prepared to implement the precise “purification” that Benedict envisages?
The Pope uses
Light of the World to reiterate the ruling that homosexual orientation should be a bar to ordination: he doesn’t say so, but the very high proportion of scandals involving gay clergy seems to have confirmed his belief that the risk of ordaining even the most patently holy homosexual is too great.
That is not the view of most European bishops or seminary directors, who may be persuaded to tighten screening but aren’t prepared to act as thought police (as they might put it); also, they won’t like the depiction of homosexuality as a “contrary to the essence of what God originally willed”.
Viewed as a whole,
Light of the World is a dazzling synthesis of the Pope’s own thought, that of his beloved predecessor John Paul II, and of course the Magisterium.
This is an 83-year-old man troubled by some of the failures of his pontificate but as intellectually and spiritually confident as he has ever been. There are startling moments of
aggiornamento, such as the apparent clarification of the morality of using condoms to prevent disease; but the changes to Catholic teaching on birth control, homosexuality and women’s ordination that were so plausible to liberals in the 1970s now seem unthinkable.
Also, this Pope understands that he doesn’t have the authority to change his own authority, as it were – the papal claims aren’t bargaining chips. Nor can he turn Anglicanism into a Church as Rome understands the concept: as he points out, the phrase “ecclesial community” comes from Vatican II.
Yet, if the Pope isn’t willing to gloss over hard truths in order to win liberal approval, he’s also careful not to throw bouquets in the direction of his long-standing admirers.
And that’s my more general observation about
Light of the World: that, in a number of places, Benedict XVI distances himself from the Papa Ratzinger of traditionalist legend. Scattered throughout the book are phrases that will make certain conservatives wince while they applaud its overall message.
Summorum Pontificum is affirmed, but there’s no sense of it as a foundation for wider liturgical reform: when the Pope talks about why he changed the “offensive” Good Friday prayer for the Jews, he reminds us that it only affected “the small circle of people who use the old missal”.
And, on the subject of Richard Williamson, the Pope points out that because he was “an Anglican and then went over directly to Lefebvre” this means that he had “never lived in the great Church” – indeed, was “never Catholic in the proper sense”.
Traditionalists who admire the SSPX won’t like that choice of words at all. Nor will they appreciate the inspiration Benedict XVI clearly derives from the figure of Paul VI.
Still, at least
Light of the World is untouched by the despair verging on self-pity that coloured many of Pope Paul’s later utterances. He famously watched the “smoke of Satan” drifting into the sanctuary and wondered what he’d done wrong.
Benedict sees “filth” but decides to approach it as a challenge sent by God rather than as a trick of the Devil’s. Such optimism in the face of horrible crimes will offend some people;
I think it’s evidence of courage and spiritual greatness.
The fact of Joseph Ratzinger's spirituality and personal holiness is hardly ever acknowledged or even factored in by most Vatican reporters and commentators. And yet, if one reads through the testimonials of the cardinals who took part in the 2005 Conclave and voted for him, his 'unquestionale personal holiness' was one of the main factors they thought qualified him to be Pope.
Even his students from his early days as a professor recall that unlike other theology professors who seem to have stopped being priests, he said daily Mass and performed his priestly office 'religiously'.... And of course, he can speak so well about Jesus and relating to him because he speaks from experience. Or as Peter Seewald put it, "he has seen the Light of the world, and he reflects his light".
Here is another commentary I appreciate - because the priest-writer sees clearly the distinction between, on the one hand, the pastoral content and intent of the Holy Father's remarks on condom use, and, on the other, Church teaching against artificial contraception. Seen this way, there is no way you could interpret what the Pope said as a 'maybe'... Most of the various explanations and clarifications so far, supposedly based on moral theology, and are so convoluted they end up being more confusing than clarifying.
The Pope’s condom comment
was pastoral insight, not permission
By Rev. Michael P. Orsi
Dec. 1, 2010
Pope Benedict’s comment in
Light of the World - that “there may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, or the way toward recognizing
an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants” - has caused some to perceive an opening in the Catholic Church’s long standing condemnation of condoms as a prophylactic against the spread of HIV AIDS.
It is, however, a pastoral insight into possible awareness on the part of a hypothetical “male prostitute,” or by extension, anyone involved in illicit sexual activity, that how the human body is employed has both personal and social consequences.
The use of a condom is judged by the Church to be evil because the intention of the persons sexually involved violates the natural law. In conjugal relations between a husband and wife it prevents conception which is the primary purpose of the marriage act.
In extra-marital sex, both heterosexual and homosexual, the use of a condom is in effect superfluous to the evil for which it is used.
Therefore, under no circumstances can the Church or the Pope give permission for their usage since it would implicitly condone the immoral act for which the condom is being used. And, to be sure, the Pope did not do so in his interview for the book.
Then, what did Benedict say?
As pastor of souls, the Pope realizes that a serious component in assessing a human action is the intention of the person. He also knows that personal righteousness is a process. Like any moral teacher, he looks for signs indicative of a growing awareness of an individual’s responsibility for their behavior. Sin, by its very nature, is self-centered.
Thus, while there is no doubt that the objective action of using a condom is always wrong, the use of a condom by a male prostitute to protect a client from a deadly disease may signal the beginning of a moral sense that goes beyond the self.
The Pope says that this may be “a first step on the road towards a more human sexuality.” The sought after end of this process in Benedict’s mind is fully moral behavior within marriage and abstaining from illicit sexual relations outside of marriage.
Some groups are touting the Pope’s remarks as a revolutionary shift in the Church’s approach to AIDS prevention. This is either wishful thinking or downright manipulation of his words to promote an agenda which advances a belief that human sexual activity is amoral or simply mechanistic and designed for pleasure.
The Pope has continually reiterated that the Church is opposed to widespread use of condoms
[dependence on condoms, in fact] to fight AIDS, because, as he says in the book, condoms imply "a banalization of sexuality.” Government and extra-governmental organizations such as UNAIDS, the United Nations’ AIDS relief agency that distribute condoms, do just this.
Further, the Pope’s words cannot be taken as a concession to those who believe that the spread of AIDS can be reduced by condom usage. Those who make these claims are using data which is at best tenuous if not wishful since they presume ideal conditions for effectiveness.
Reasonable people, like the Pope, recognize that all sex outside of marriage is irresponsible. It is often dangerous physically, harmful emotionally, and always deadly spiritually.
This being so, the Pope could never give permission for condom usage in any circumstance. Pope Benedict’s words, if anything, reflect the hope that a person’s concern for another human being may eventually develop into a fully moral way of living.
Sandro Magister has a chiesa article today that I will simply link to,
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1345793?eng=y
as I have absolutely no desire nor energy to interpose multiple objections to the premise for the article and all the specific examples it cites. I do not think it serves any purpose to stoke the intramurals that have developed among the Catholic chatterati who have diametrically opposed interpretations of the Pope's remarks. And I particularly find it distasteful to purvey the disrespectful statements against Benedict XVI by some who are more Popish than the sternest Pope you could think of. They ought to learn decorum from the FSSPX in the way the latter have chosen to comment on this issue.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 02/12/2010 01:37]