BTW, I think it is time the PCPCU replaces its 'logo' of Saints Peter and Andrew, which depicts Catholic-Orthodox fraternity, but does not include the idea of the Reformed Churches.
Formal change-over at
Christian Unity Council
The Holy Father has accepted the resignation, for having reached canonical retirement age, of Cardinal Walter Kasper as president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and has named Mons. Kurt Koch, until now Bishop of Basel, to succeed him, elevating Mons. Koch at the same time to the rank of Archbishop.
I was getting set to translate a long letter written by Mons. Koch to his diocesan flock which was posted on the diocesan webcite yesterday - which says a great deal about the kind of bishop he is and his thoughts about ecumenism, but CNS has a story that incorporates some of the letter, so here it is first....
Swiss bishop now heads
'Christian unity' council
as Cardinal Kasper retires
By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY, July 1 (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has chosen Swiss Bishop Kurt Koch of Basel to be the new president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews.
Bishop Koch, 60, succeeds German Cardinal Walter Kasper, 77, who has been at the council for 11 years -- first as secretary, then as president since 2001.
The Vatican announced Bishop Koch's appointment July 1. It said the Pope had also named him an archbishop.
[Koch says in his diocesan letter that the Pope has also named him concurrently Apostolic Administrator of Basel until a new bishop is named.]
In a letter to Catholics in Basel June 30, Bishop Koch said the Pope had asked him in February if he would take the job, stressing that he wanted someone who had both theological knowledge and practical experience in living and working alongside Protestant communities.
Pope Benedict's words, Bishop Koch said, demonstrate that improved relations with the Orthodox are not the Pope's only concern, but that relations with Protestants are just as important, since the unity of all Christians as the will of Jesus.
Bishop Koch has served as a member since 2002 of the Council he now heads, and is on both the international Catholic-Orthodox theological commission and the international Catholic-Lutheran dialogue commission.
In his farewell letter, the bishop -- a past president of the Swiss bishops' conference and a former professor of dogmatic theology and liturgy -- said that when he became bishop, he promised to personally answer every letter Catholics in Basel sent him.
"In recent years, however, so many new areas of work have been added and the time-consuming internal Church conflicts and polarizations have grown, so it increasingly became impossible for me to honor my resolution. For that I apologize," he said.
Born March 15, 1950, in Emmebrucke, he was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Basel in 1982. He studied at Lucerne University and at the University of Munich. After three years' service in a parish in Bern, he began teaching at Lucerne, eventually becoming rector of the theological faculty in 1995.
Following special traditional procedures, he was elected bishop of Basel by the priests of the cathedral chapter in August 1995 and Pope John Paul II confirmed the election four months later.
As president of the Swiss bishops' conference, Bishop Koch was called upon to help smooth tensions with Protestants in 2007 when the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a document reaffirming Catholic teaching that the Catholic Church is the one, true church of Christ, even if elements of truth and Christ's saving grace can be found in separated churches and communities.
Bishop Koch said at the time that he understood how the document could be confusing or even hurtful to Protestants and to Catholics who usually refer to the Protestant communities as churches.
The document, he said, was looking at the term in a "strictly theological" way, explaining that if the Catholic Church believes apostolic succession and valid sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, are essential aspects of the church established by Christ, it cannot recognize as "church" those communities who do not have them.
The Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, issued a statement June 30 saying the ecumenical organization rejoices at Bishop Koch's appointment.
"Bishop Koch is well known for his openness and deep ecumenical commitment. His book
That All May Be One: Ecumenical Perspectives is an excellent summary of the present state of ecumenical dialogue and relations," Rev. Tveit said.
Meeting reporters June 25, Cardinal Kasper said that a challenge he faced repeatedly in his 11 years at the pontifical council was clarifying the Church's position when the wording of certain documents -- from the Vatican as well as from Orthodox and Protestant churches -- offended the other partner in ecumenical dialogue.
Particularly with the Anglicans and Protestants, he said, since the year 2000 there has been a noticeable loss of "the great enthusiasm" for the possibility of Christian unity that marked the years immediately after the Second Vatican Council.
"Errors, or better, imprudence in formulating the truth have been committed by both sides, including our own," he said.
Cardinal Kasper said his service at the council involved a lot of hard work, but the experience has left a deep mark on his life and his theological thought.
While he said he's ready at 77 to retire and get back to theological writing, he also said he will miss daily involvement in ecumenism, "which I always have considered to be the construction site of the Church of the future."
Despite some continuing misunderstandings and new difficulties caused by differences over key moral and ethical issues, the cardinal said he is confident that he is leaving behind "a solid network of human, Christian relationships," which is essential for finding the truth together.
"Passing the torch" to his successor and to a new generation of ecumenists, Cardinal Kasper said he is confident that ecumenism will continue to move forward because in an increasingly secular, increasingly globalized world, Christians have to work together.
Good personal relationships also existed with leaders of the Jewish community involved in dialogues sponsored by the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, he said.
"At first, as a German I was afraid to take on this task, given the history of Germany and the Jews, but I must say our partners never mentioned this. I found not only partners, but many friends," he said.
When difficult moments arose -- including Pope Benedict's rewriting of a Good Friday prayer for the conversion of the Jews and his lifting the excommunication of a traditionalist bishop who denied the extent of the Holocaust
[It must be repeated: The bishop's personal opinions, no matter how erroneous, have nothing to do with the reason for the excommunication!] -- the cardinal said the good personal relationships helped ensure the problems were clarified quickly.
"For us, this dialogue with the Jewish community is fundamental because the Church has its roots in the Jewish world. The relationship is essential for the Church," he said.
I cannot find any photograph online of Mons. Koch except the small picture that appears on the site of the Diocese of Basel, below left, and on the cover of a biography written about him in 2001, Un eveque pur notre temps (A bishop for our time).
It also turns out that Mons. Koch has written at least two other books besides the title mentioned above, two of them written in 2004, Chretiens en Europe: Nouvelle evangelisation et transmission des valeurs, and Nouvel Age et Foi Chretienne (New Age and Christian Faith) written around the time Cardinal Ratzinger was sounding the call for a re-Christianization of Europe.
P.S. I apologize - I erroneously posted here earlier some book titles by 'Kurt E. Koch' which turned up in my Google search for books by 'Mons. Kurt Koch'. It turns out 'Kurt E. Koch' was a Protestant evangelist who wrote many books about occultism and Satan and how to fight their various forms. Not our Mons. Koch at all. Totally 'my bad'!
Two other pictures have now turned up of the Pope's new 'minister for ecumenism':
And here is a translation of Mons. Koch's pastoral letter to the Diocese of Basel about his new assignment. It is a most unusual letter, expecially in the part that Mons. Koch devotes to the intentions of the Holy Father.
PASTORAL LETTER TO
THE DIOCESE OF BASEL
by Mons. Kurt Koch
Dear brothers in the Episcopate, the Priesthood and the Diaconate,
Dear pastoral workers,
Dear faithful:
The Vatican will be announcing the news of my appointment by Pope Benedict XVI to be the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
Last February, the Pope asked me if I would be ready to undertake that responsibility. He underscored how it was important to him that the position be entrusted once again to someone who knows the churches and ecclesial communities born after the Reformation not only through books but through direct experience.
The Pope showeed yet again how much he has ecumenism at heart, not only with the Orthodox but also with the Protestants. The unity of Christians is a mission mandated by Jesus Christ himself, and the urgency for it as well as its difficulties are evident today.
I am aware of the great honor and responsibility that the Pope is entrusting to me. I thank him for the confidence that he has thus shown me.
I am equally grateful for the important and decisive work done in the past several years by Cardinal Walter Kasper, whom I am succeeding. I have always believed in credible and sincere ecumenical dialog - both on the theological and spiritual level as well as in actual experience.
In 2002, Pope John Paul II named me a member of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and as such, I was also a member of the international commission for theological dialog between the Catholic and orthodox Churches, and the international Catholic-Lutheran commission for unity.
With the task now given to me, I will be responsible for the ecumenical dialogs in which our Church is engaged. I will also be responsible for religious relations with Judaism, to which our Church is linked in a special way. I rejoice at this assignment and I hope to be able to serve, with all the forces at my disposal, to meet these challenges that have become so important since the Second Vatican Council.
On the other hand, it is not easy for me to leave the Diocese of Basel. For the almost 15 years that I led the diocese, it has become ever dearer to me. During this time, I came to know the esteem of many faithful, of pastoral workers, consecrated persons, members of various ecclesial communities and representatives of public institution, for which I am very grateful. [He goes on to give thanks to all those who have worked with him and to his colleagues in the Swiss bishops' conference.] Without their help and their loyalty, a bishop would in many ways be lost.
Nonetheless, I am aware of my limitations and weaknesses, of which I have become increasingly conscious with the years. I sincerely ask forgiveness from all those who - without knowing or intending - I have somehow disappointed or offended...
Inasmuch as bishops may not retire until they reach 75, I have 15 years left of episcopal service. In the face of the conditions under which the Bishop of Basel has to carry out his mission, I have asked myself if I could continue to bear the responsibility for another 15 years without giving in to fatigue.
I therefore consider my new post as a favorable occasion for a new bishop to take charge with new strengths, even as I happily take on a new challenge with renewed ardour.
I also hope that by responding to the Holy Father's call, I can contribute to better relations between the churches in Switzerland, as well as to the Pope's responsibility for the universal Church.
During recent years, I have observed within the Church in Switzerland a climate that has increasingly become 'anti--Roman' as well as an increasingly distant attitude to benedict XVI.
The claim that Pope Benedict would like to turn back to the situation before Vatican-II has become widespread in public opinion, whether from ignorance or intentionally, on the part of some theologians who should know better how things really are but instead publicly proclaim the contrary.
This reproach is a serious misunderstanding. To whoever does not content himself with the information - largely selective and a distortion of reality - that the different media disseminate, but who gets to know what the Pope really says and does, it is evident that Pope Benedict in no way wishes to turn back the clock.
On the contrary, he wishes to lead our Church to know herself in depth. For him, it is not simply a matter of making isolated reforms, but of allowing the foundation and the heart of Christian faith and the Church to achieve a new radiance.
In the same way that the Pope, looking at the history of the Church, sees in the 'Franciscan reform' a model for successful reform, he is working for a 're-formatio' of the Church from within, so that the Church may find its authentic form as it did in the Second Vatican Council.
We should all share this concern of the Pope, especially in view of the great challenge today of transmitting the faith to the coming generations.
So I am glad to be able to suypport the Holy Father in the exercise of his responsibility in a more immediate way, and I hope that the true intentions of Benedict XVI will be increasingly understood and disseminated by Catholic media, with increasingly less prejudice.
I will start my new mission on July 1, 2010, at which time I will already be in Rome. This means that the episcopal seat will be vacant as of July 1. But with a decree signed on June 29, the Pope has named me administrator of the Diocese, a responsibility which I will assume along with my new assignment in Rome until a new Bishop of Basel is named.
Therefore it is not yet a definitive departure for me. I will be returning to the diocese to wind up unfinished business. Also, inasmuch as there was hardly any time between the formal announcement of my nomination and my assumption of the new position, I have been unable to organize moving out of the residence nor to close still pending files.
It is now up to the Cathedral chapter to prepare for the election of a new bishop which will then have to be confirmed by the Holy Father. I ask you, dear brothers and sisters, to offer your prayers now for the election and nomination of the new bishop.
I must express once more my great appreciation for all the assistance an advice, the compassion, esteem and recognition that I have received in abundance. I thank above all the numberless faithful who have promised me their prayers and who already accompanied by episcopal service with prayer.
The most beautiful gift that a bishop can get is the multitude of persons who pray for him - this is a most precious aid. I hope that this union in prayer continues: neither distance nor customs restrictions can be an obstacle!
In such gratitude, my best wishes go with you, and I wish you the blessings of God with all my heart. May the living and infinitely merciful God extend his blessings abundantly on the Diocese of Basel and its future bishop, and may God be with the Cathedral chapter so they may be aided in their grand responsibility by the Holy Spirit.
To each and everyone, my most heartfelt greetings!
+ Kurt Koch
Bishop of Basel
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 01/07/2010 22:42]