Rodari is, of course, being ironic in his title....
Wanted: A new CDF Prefect, preferably
someone like Joseph Ratzinger
by Paolo Rodari
Translated from
Dwcember 10, 2011
The news that in February 2012, Benedict XVI will most likely confer the beretta on a dozen new cardinals - at which time there would only be 108 cardinal electors of a possible 120 due to cardinals turning 80 - is not the only other important papal news for 2012 other than the trip to Mexico and Cuba.
There will also be a crucial change in the Roman Curia with the retirement of Cardinal William Joseph Levada as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He has decided to retire when he turns 75 and will go back to San Framcisco, where he was Archbishop from 1995 until Benedict XVI named him to succeed himself as the head of the Curia's most important congregation.
It was felt that Levada was called by the then new Pope principally to look after the 'disciplinary' section of the CDF which had been entrusted since 2001 with handling abuse cases against priests.
As Archbishop of San Francisco, Levada had firsthand experience of the crisis that erupted in the United States, and in 2006, he was called to give testimony to a US court on abuses committed by some priests in his previous diocese of Portland before he came to San Francisco.
It is believed Benedict XVI - who had worked with Levada for several years when the latter was on the staff of the CDF - felt that his experience with the crisis would be invaluable at the CDF.
The situation has by now been 'normalized', especially with the promulgation of new norms to update those issued with John Paul II's 2001
Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela that gave the CDF competence over the abuse cases.
Many believe that the CDF should pay more attention once more to its major function, which is to issue documents to explain or clarify Catholic doctrine, an invaluable activity that had augmented the influence of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in the previous PontificAte.
The name most observers have bruited about as the most probable succesor to Levada at CDF is the Bishop of Regensburg, Gerhard Ludwig Kueller. A member of the German commission for the doctrine of the faith from 1998-2002, Mueller is the president of the Regensburg-based Papst Benedikt XVI Institut, publisher of Joseph Ratzinger's
Collected Works.
That qualification has made him, along with Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne, the German prelate with the most access to the Pope.
But many are asking whether that association would suffice to bring him to the Curia. From what
Il Foglio can learn, nothing has yet been decided about Levada's successor.
A principal problem about Mueller is that he has openly acknowledged the Peruvian Dominican Gustavo Gutierrez, often called the father of liberation theology in Latin America, as his mentor. Twice in the 1980s, the CDF, under Cardinal Ratzinger, had to intervene publicly twice on doctrinal questions raised by Gutierrez and his followers.
In 1983, the future Pope asked Gutierrez for clarifications on the links between liberation theology and Marxism - positions which Mueller appears to assume in his repealed calls for the Church to commit herself to the struggle against 'neo-liberal capitalism'.
[I think the more important question is whether Mueller has the intellectual heft and Catholic orthodoxy to be the CDF Prefect. In this case, orthodoxy would seem to be more critical.]
Benedict XVI has decreed a Year of Faith that starts in 2012, to mark the 50th anniversary of the start of the Second Vatican Council.
"The Year of Faith should be considered one of the initiatives characteristic of this Pontificate", said Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi shortly after it was announced.
It means that for the Pope of the correct hermeneutic for Vatican II, clarity of the Magisterium, and therefore of the correct transmission of the faith, is an essential priority.
That is why the person who will be the next CDF Prefect will be decisive. And Vatican insiders summarize the ideal candidate briefly as 'not necessarily a theologian but a teacher of the Magisterium'.
[Cardinal Ratzinger was both! Benedict XVI's singular and obvious handicap with respect to John Paul II is, of course, that he does not have a Cardinal Ratzinger to partner with! But then, Cardinal Ratzinger was sui generis. What he brought to John Paul II was at once more fundamental and far-reaching than the diplomatic partnership that the future Pius XII provided his predecessor Pius XI, or that the future Paul VI provided Pius XII.]
These observers think that Benedict XVI is far more concerned about naming the right CDF prefect than about possible curial, metropolitan and geographical 'quotas' in the coming consistory (or consistories).
I can't think of any figure in the Roman Curia today who even comes close to being a Ratzinger figure for Benedict XVI. Cardinal Marc Ouellet at Bishops is probably closest to him philosophically, and I am glad that they have weekly meetings because of the nature of Cardinal Ouellet's job, but that is far from the Wojtyla-Ratzinger partnership. As for Cardinal Levada's successor, the two I can think of who are both theologians as well as great 'teachers of the Magisterium' and unquestionably orthodox, have both been recently named archbishops of very important and critical dioceses - Cardinal Scola in Milan, and Archbishop Chaput in Philadelphia. The Pope could play it safe and move Cardinal Amato back to CDF as its head and name someone else at Saints. Or he could elevate Mons. Luis Ladaria Ferrer, now CDF secretary, and by all accounts, a most impressive and orthodox theologian though he is Jesuit. This is all idle speculation, of course. The Pope knows all his bishops well, and I'm sure he will surprise us once again with his choice.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/12/2011 06:56]