Benedict XVI:
Back to being professor
for two days this August
by Massimo Donaddio
Translated from
July 30, 2010
A summer of rest - and work nonetheless - like Popes' summers always are. Except that for Benedict XVI this year, he is spending the entire summer in Castel Gandolfo. No holiday in the mountains as his predecessor always had, and as he had himself in the previous five summers of his Pontificate so far.
For Benedict XVI, summer 'holidays' mean relaxation from his Vatican routine and long walks outdoors, but also a chance to do more reading, studying and writing, a scholarly regimen that the theologian Pope has always kept up.
Having finished the second volume of his JESUS OF NAZARETH, dedicated to the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, he has started working on a third volume - not previously planned - dealing with the stories of the young pre-public Jesus.
He is also reviewing the next volumes due for publication of his 16-volume
Gesammelte Schriften(Collected Works) of his writings before he became Pope.
At the end of August (8/29-8/29), the Pope will have his annual reunion with the Ratzinger Schuelerkreis, ex-students of his at the universities of Bonn, Muenster, Tuebingen and Regensburg, who have met annually with him since 1977.
It is an occasion that ex-Professor Ratzinger has never missed, not even the summer after he was elected Pope. An indication of how much inter-personal relations and intellectual companionship continue to be important for Joseph Ratzinger, even now that he is the Pastor of the Universal Church.
The annual meeting itself was originally patterned after the bimonthly meeting that Prof. Ratzinger used to have with all of his current doctoral students. It was an occasion for the students to freely discuss their respective doctoral subjects with each other under the supervision of their thesis adviser, according to Gianni Valente in his 2008 book
Ratzinger professore.
The first summer reunion of the Schuelerkreis took place the summer after the Regensburg professor was named Archbishop of Freising and Munich in early 1977, and they have continued uninterrupted during his 23 years at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The format changed, in that the ex-students decide beforehand, in consultation with their ex-professor, on a specific topic for discussion for a seminar-type reunion, as well as the resource persons to be invited to lecture on the chosen topic.
However, since he became Pope, Papa Ratzinger has generally attended only one of the two seminar days, at the end of which he delivers a summary of what he has learned from the discussions. He generally has breakfast or lunch with them on this day, and then he celebrates Mass to close the seminar.
But who exactly are those who make up the Ratzinger Schuelerkreis? They are not necessarily bishops or ranking prelates. Many of them have remained simple priests or partish priests, and others are theologians. About 40 of them have been coming to Castel Gandolfo for the seminars.
[Two years ago, they started to be joined by young theology students from German universities who are specializing in studying Joseph Ratzionger's work.]
The most prominent in the Schuelerkreis is the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, who was not a doctoral student of Ratzinger [He obtained his doctorate in theology from the Sorbonne] but attended some courses under him in Regensburg for two semesters.
The man who keeps the Schuelerkreis togather is the Salvatorian priest Stephan Horn, 72, who had been Prof. Ratzinger's last student assistant in Regensburg.
Other key persons are
- Peter Kuhn, a scholar of Judaism, who was a student assistant to Prof. Ratzinger in Tuebingen;
- Fr. Vincent Toomey, the Irish theologian who has written a biography of the Pope, and who studied under him in Regensburg;
- Fr. Joseph Fessio, SJ, founder of Ignatius Press which publishes the Ratzinger/Benedict XVI books in English; and
- Fr. Barthélémy Adoukonou, whom the Pope named a few months back to be the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Culture.
[He was the African student from Benin whom the professor and his sister were honoring at lunch in their Regensburg home (for having passed his oral defense of his doctoral dissertation) on the day they got the news of his appointment to Munich.]
The testimonials of his former students bring forth some specific features of their sessions with Prof. Ratzinger. First of all, his obvious joy to be back with his students, and the atmosphere of freedom that has always characterized their theological and cultural discussions.
"Joseph Ratzinger's classes were an arena for diverse opinions, in which the teacher did not impose himself and did not confine ideas to a specific thought system, but he guaranteed his accessibility to each one and their right to raise objections or criticism," writes Gianni Valente.
"His role was
maeiutic [from the Greek word for 'midwifery; it describes teaching based on the idea that the truth is latent in the mind of every human being due to his innate reason but has to be "given birth" by answering questions that are intelligently proposed]. He clarfied questions and he suggested take-off points or further paths for study, in the tradition of the great classic theologians, particularly St. Augustine".
His teaching, Valente continues, "confronted the pivotal issues of modern culture in relation to Sacred Scripture and the Tradition of the Church, and was distinguished by a richness of ideas and the breadth of discussions that arose".
Valenti cites Ratzinger's first Prefect of Studies at the seminary in Freising, Prof. Alfred Laepple, on the ultimate objective of Ratzinger the teacher, quoting what Prof. Ratzinger later told him:
The greatest satisfaction is when the students stop taking notes and just sit up and listen. If they take notes while you are lecturing, it means you are doing well, but you have not said anything to surprise them. But when they stop writing and look at you as you speak, then it means that perhaps you have touched their heart.
Fr. Adoukounou said in an interview with
L'Osservatore Romano:
When I came to Regensburg, I found a brilliant theologian who did not read a lecture he had prepared from the chair, but who gave the impression he was reading something from Heaven. He had a vision that was a panoramic historical synthesis - profound as one expects of a German and clear as befits Latin thought.
The Christocentrism of his thinking enchanted me: it was present in every argument he undertook, and with his rare ability to articulate his thoughts. He developed his thinking on the basis of achieving communion with his listeners, and was able to synthesize a multiplicity of elements which many teachers, including me, are not always able to do.
In Castel Gandolfo so far, the topics of the annual seminar have been
the concept of God in Islam (2005), cration and evolution (2006 and 2007), the historical Jesus and Jesus of the Gospels (2008), and mission in the Church (2009) - reflecting principal concerns of Benedict XVI's Pontificate.
As is the topic this year: the hermeneutic of Vatican II.
Principal guest and lecturer is the Pope's own new ecumenical minister, Mons. Kurt Koch, Bishop of Basel before he was named president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity last June, and a theologian himself.
Benedict XVI, of course, spoke about the proper interpretation of Vatican II in his Christmas address to the Roman Curia in 2005. This is an occasion which Popes generally use to indicate the programmatic lines of their Pontificate.
Having taken part in Vatican II as a theological consultant to Cardinal Frings of Cologne, he subsequently dedicated much of his intellectual energies to what he believes to be the correct reading of Vatican II, counteracting all the tendencies and practices that he considers a betrayal of the Council.
"Why has the implementation of the Coucil, in large parts of the Church herself, been so difficult thus far?", he asked in 2005 in his address to the Curia.
The problem arose from the fact that two contrary heremeutics came face to face, and quarreled with each other. One caused confusion; the other, silently but more and more visibly, has borne fruit.
He called the first a 'hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture', and the other, the 'hermeneutic of reform'. Clearly, the Pope takes the latter view: reform or renewal within Tradition - renewal in continuity - against those who claim that Vatican II had finally toppled centuries of anachronistic doctrine which is out of step with the times.
"The entire leitmotiv of this Pontificate," says Vaticanista Paolo Rodari, "can be summed up in a phrase, 'renewal without betrayal', which is Papa Ratzinger's interpetation of Vatican II. The Pope has been calling on the Church, even today, when the sex-abuse scandal peaked, to renew and regenerate itself, to look ahead but without forgetting the long Tradition of the Church - neither surrendering to the world, nor a sterile return to the past. The Pope is firmly taking the middle way."
"It is not I who changed [and betrayed the Council] - it is they," Cardinal Ratzinger told Vittorio Messori in the interview-book
Rapporto sulla Fede (1984), referring to 'progressivist' theologians such as his former colleague Hans Kueng.
Across the distance of decades, Joseph Ratzinger's beliefs about Vatican II and its correct interpretation have guided his governance of the Church. Even in his overtures to the Lefebvrians who have demanded that the Church denounce the 'errors' of Vatican II.
As much as he rejects the progressivist interpretation of Vatican-II, that is something Benedict XVI will never do. The problem, he has said over and over, is not what the Council decided, but in how its decisions have been interpreted.
Meanwhile, he is firmly in command of Peter's boat and, keeping to the center, seeking to navigate the best he can.
P.S. I just saw a most informative interview by a Spanish news agency dedicated to Catholic content, with Mons. Koch, the new president of the PCPCU, in which, among other things, he is asked about his being the principal lecturer at the Schuelerkreis seminar. For this post, I will excerpt what he says about it and Vatican II. I will translate the whole post for the ChURCH&VATICAN thread later.
Mons. Koch on his Schuelerkreis lecture:
'Like being asked to play for Mozart'
Excerpt from an interview
by Anna Artymiak
July 15, 2010
You were invited to present the main lecture at the Ratzinger Schuelerkreis seminar this August in the presence of the Holy Father...
I was very surprised by the invitation. I feel somewhat like having to play the piano in front of Mozart. Like being a piano student before Mozart himself.
But it is a great challenge that I take great pleasure in confronting, at which I shall experience the atmosphere among the disciples of Joseph Ratzinger.
The Pope is very open to discussion. But the great challenge is the conflict between the two interpretations of Vatican II. One says Tradition ended with Vatican II and that it brought a new era which is no longer linked to the past, to tradition.
I see the Council as a great event in the river of the Church's living tradition. The Council was open to the past as well as to the future. And I believe that was the thinking of the Council Fathers.
But we have had some instrumentalization of Vatican II in order for some theologians to advance their own ideas - they are not being sincere in presenting the Council.
Additionally, many people talk about 'the Council' and say the Pope should 'return to it' but they don't really know what they are talking about.
First of all, there is Lumen gentium, the Council's great dogmatic constitution on the Church in the modern world, with its eight chapters. Most people only know the title of Chapter 2, 'The Church and the People of God'. But you cannot understand Chapter 2 without first knowing Chapter 1, which is about the mystery of the Church.
Personally, I think that Chapter 5, on the vocation to holiness, is the fundamental theme of Lumen gentium.
The two interpretations of the Council also affect attitudes towards liturgy. How should we look at liturgy today?
Everything that people said was 'new' after Vatican II was not contained in its Constitution on Liturgy (Sacrosanctum concilium). For instance, celebrating the Mass facing the congregation was never part of tradition - it was always to celebrate Mass facing east, symbolizing the direction of the Resurrection. In St. Peter's Basilica, it has been celebrated at the main altar for some time 'facing the congregation' only because that is the east. [Also, The main altar of St. Peter's is open on all sides and does not have an altarpiece behind it.]
The second thing is about the use of the vernacular. The Council wanted Latin to remain as the language of liturgy. [Only Readings were intended to be in the vernacular.]
Moreover, the most fundamental and profound elements in the liturgical constitution are not known. [In fact, it is quite obvious, from the liturgical abuses and preposterously ignorant statements made by progressivist priests and bishops that most of them have probably not even bothered to read Sacrosanctum Concilium - which is relatively short, and has no equivocal language! How did it come about that practically the entire Church was conned into accepting the deliberately false and self-serving interpretations made by the progressivists about the liturgy - and that, outside of the Lefebvrians and a few good men like Joseph Ratzinger, no priest or bishop ever dared to say "But that is not what Sacrosanctum concilium says!" Yet even someone like Cardinal Ratzinger, being obedient and faithful to the Pope, had to follow the liturgical changes Paul VI decreed!]
All the fundamental and profound provisions of the liturgical constitution are little known to the public. How liturgy relates to the mystery of Christ's passion, death and resurrection. You cannot celebrate Mass without the idea of sacrifice, which is its very meaning in theology.
But then, even the constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei verbum, is not really known in the Church. [And one of the purposes of the 2009 Synodal Assembly on the Word of God was to make it better known through active implementation in the Church. It is also the major Vatican II document in which Joseph Ratzinger most had a hand.]
Truly, there is so much more to be done in order to make the Council work known and understood.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 30/07/2010 23:48]