This year, Corriere della Sera gave ultra-liberal Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini a readymade weekly platform for propagating his views, with a Sunday column in which he responds to questions from readers. After months in which he has apparently not said anything controversial, Lella on her blog
calls attention to his column last Oct. 21 in which he evokes that so-called 'spirit' of the Council which runs very much contrary to what both the Council initiator John XXIII and the Council's primary implementor Paul VI have said in various statements... In this column, he cops out by citing a 5th-century bishop's argument, without committing himself to saying exactly what 'novelties' the Church can allow after many centuries. Not that we aren't familiar with his views on contraception, assisted reproduction, euthanasia. homosexuality, and married priests.
To rediscover the spirit of the Council
by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, S.J.
Translated from
Oct. 21, 2010
There is much discussion about how to interpret the Second Vatican Council. Continuity or discontinuity with tradition? I maintain that this is a sterile controversy. Don't you think that the true key to reading Vatican II, almost 50 years after, is to reread the Christian experience in the light of its original contents in the New Testament?
- Antonio Meli, Messina
It's true! Almost 50 years since Vatican-II, its interpretation is still being argued.
[Only because the advocates of a false interpretation on the basis of their dubious 'spirit of the Council' insist that theirs is the right one! The fact that at least they have never claimed to equate that 'spirit' to the Holy Spirit would seem to indicate that they really are not all that certain about their ground!]
I agree with you that it is, at least in part, a sterile controversy but the controversy was somewhat inevitable.
I remember those days quite well because,
although I was not a member of the Council [he would have been the same age as Joseph Ratzinger who did take part in the Council as a theological expert], I was living in Rome at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, where the discussions by the council bishops resonated in many ways.
It was feared that the Council would promote some literal or symbolic interpretations of Scripture which would systematically reject every reading according to the historico-critical method. Some bishops indeed claimed outright that such critical methodology would lead to loss of faith.
Actually, many exegetes supported an interpretation of Biblical texts that would nourish the faith but would also be attentive to historico-critical studies.
Thus, their joy was great when, after long and heated discussions, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation
[Dei verbum] was approved.
[NB: This was the Vatican-II document to which theology expert Joseph Ratzinger directly contributed most, and about which he has always expressed great satisfaction, often citing from it, especially during the 2008 Synodal Assembly on the Word of God.]
But for many, there was an even greater cause for joy. The documents approved by the Council Fathers altogether demonstrated the intention of the Church to get in touch with all men of good will and
to listen respectfully to the voices and desires of everyone.
[Yes, but listening does not always mean agreeing or accepting such voices and desires if they contradict what the Church has held to be true for 2000 years!]
Of course, it is not in such enthusiasm that we can find the spirit of the Council. If only because at that time, in an atmosphere of enthusiasm and even some naivete, so many plans were circulating for the future of the Church.
[Yes, many enthusiasts - most of them sophisticated and not naive! - considered Vatican II as an 'open sesame' to reconstitute the Church, each according to his preference, forgetting that Jesus Christ had instituted the Church that has withstood all kinds of devastating crises through two millennia and survived substantially as it has always been!]
What then belongs or not to the spirit of the Council? The distinction between continuity and discontinuity with tradition is timely.
[Martini egregiously ignores Benedict XVI's careful formulation of Vatican II as a 'renewal in continuity with Tradition.]
The supporters of a rigid interpretation, who look suspiciously on any novelty, do not admit that there can be novelty in the Church.
[Such closed traditionalists do exist but they are in a very tiny minority - almost infinitesimal - even if we include the Lefebvrians, who are the largest group among them.]
The Church is a living organism which was born small, but in time, grew and developed like the human body that grows and in doing so, appears as new.
This view of Church history was sustained since the fifth century by Saint Vincent of Lerino. He affirmed that in the Church, there will certainly be progress in the course of years, progress that would be visible - and that it should not frighten anyone. Only when an organism is transformed into another can we speak of changes that must be rejected forcefully.
[As when the 'spiritists' would turn the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church into an evangelical Protestant clone!]
As St. Vincent wrote: "It is therefore necessary that with time, there should be as much growth and progress as possible in understanding, knowledge and wisdom, of single things and of everything, in all of the Church".
[And that has been obvious in the Magisterium as it has adapted itself to the times - even if not always promptly - without sacrificing any of the essentials of the faith... Also, not having heard of St. Vincent of Lerino before today, I cannot know if he is being quoted in context, instead of just being partially quoted to bolster the argument that change or 'progress' should come with time, without qualifying what kind of change or progress is allowable by the faith as it has been handed down since apostolic times!]
The reader's suggestion to 're-read the Christian experience in the light of its origins as contained in the New Testament' seems to me to conform with what I have said about what novelty the Church can express in the source of centuries.
[The reader has obviously not been following Benedict XVI's statements, in which he is constantly doing just that! And doing so in both directions: He never cites Scripture without applying it to the situation today, and he never comments on contemporary issues without referring back to what the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, says that throws light on the issue.]
Lella also notes this about Corriere's editorial bias in today's issue:
While the Pope's encounter with a hundred thousand children and teens of Italian Catholic Action was reduced by Corriere to a couple of paragraphs in the inside pages within a commentary on the reactions of Famiglia Cristiana and Avvenire to the moral conduct of the Prime Minister (Berlusconi), Cardinal Martini, as always, rates Page 1.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 01/11/2010 17:25]