On how the First Tenant of Casa Santa Marta would fail three rules for a Barnabite Superior-General...
An old wisdom
Applying the centuries-old rule
of a religious congregation
Translated from
August 4, 2017
After having published the Italian edition of the Constitutions of the Barnabites from 1579 (Barnabiti Stidi, N. 31/2014), I am now engaged in the translation of the
Regulae officiorum, namely, the practical norms that regulate the daily life of a community of the Barnabites, or Clerics Regular of St. Paul. These, too, were formulated between the 16th and 17th centuries, and later reviewed and adapted many times afterwards (the last edition was in 1950).
If my work on the Constitutions was extremely interesting, because it revealed to me the riches of what had been the fundamental code for the Barnabites for 400 years (1579-1976), my work on the
Regulae officiorum promises to be even more fascinating because, other than finding in them the spirit of our Congregation, I also find myself confronting the concrete life of day to day, with its positive and negative injunctions and its precise intstructions on how one must behave.
I stand, mouth agape, at so much wisdom which was certainly not improvised but the result of long and suffered experience. It is this that strikes me most: Our elders did not claim to 'invent' or re-invent their lives every day, as we are led to – and often invited by our superiors – these days. Our elders treasured the lessons from earlier tradition (for the Barnabites, the magisterium of the 'Fathers of the desert'), to which over the decades, they added their own lived experiences, transforming everything into valuable directives for themselves and those who would come after them.
It is something we have completely lost in the world today. We are convinced that everyday we must start from zero. That whatever is from the past is
ipso facto, old, superseded, and therefore, has nothing to say to us. We must decide day to day how to behave. Based on what? On whatever seems to be most useful at the moment. Not realizing that this is the best way of heading to certain failure.
Just to make one example, look at what is happening in the legislative field: The laws that are approved are generally the product of compromises among divergent ideological views, usually remote from reality, and often the result of 'low culture' and of improvisation. And are therefore already obsolete even before they have been approved, and after a few years, must be replaced with other laws that have the same defects.
I wish to ask you take part in the spirit that animated the life of a religious order until up to a few years ago (unfortunately, for some time now, the dominant mentality in the world has been introduced into the Church and into religious life). To give you an idea, I need to cite just three of the almost one hundred norms that regulated the office of the order's Superior-General.
The first is taken from the Constitutions (Book IV, chap. 12, sec.14): "
Quemadmodum in ea cura diligens esse debet, ut quae constituta vel decreta sunt, observentur; ita ipse in ordinationibus faciendis parcus sit, et a rebus novis alienus (n. 48). (As he must be scrupulous in his commitment to enforce observance of the Constitutions and the Decrees [of the Chapter-General], so must he be moderate in issuing new dispositions and alien from novelty)".
This invitation to be moderate in laying down laws is striking: Because laws exist, and are usually sufficient and adequate – but they must be observed. It is useless to add new laws, even knowing in advance that they would be most likely ignored as the laws that already exist.
But that which leaves most people today rather astonished is that last exhortation to be 'alien from novelty'. Really? When today, it seems that the value of a person lies in his ability to provide a novelty everyday, why would a Superior-General be called on to be 'alien from novelty'? It is true that times change.
The second norm I wish to use as an example is one that is inspired by Scripture:
"Neque item facile, aut sine admodum gravi necessitate, quae Praedecessor eius legitime fecerit, ipse immutet, aut immutare pertentet; quod et ab aliis Praepositis omnino servari curet. Ex eiusmodi namque mutationibus graves animorum perturbationes oriri possunt, et sancta illa cordium unanimitas non leviter offendi, quam in tota Congregatione ipse in primis fovere, conservare atque augere tenetur, ut unanimes uno ore honorificemus Deum, et non sint in nobis schismata (n. 51). (Nor should you change or try to change easily, or without any very serious necessity, whatever your predecessor has legitimately done. And make sure that this rule is observed in general even by other superiors. Because such changes can give rise to a great turmoil of spirit, and can considerably offend that sacred unanimity of hearts that the Superior is especially bound to nourish, conserve and augment throughout the whole Congregation, because only with one spirit and one voice can we give glory to God (Rom 16:6) and that there be no divisions among us) (1Cor 1:10).]
Does it seem to you that today anyone feels obliged at all by decisions made by their predecessors? Rather, it often seems that it is felt to be a duty to place everything under discussion all over, as if the predecessor had made his decisions without good reason.
Is anyone today concerned about the turmoil caused in people by constant changes? "That's their problem," we are told when we raise this difficulty. "It is they who must open their minds and open up to new things, and if they can't do that, they better learn to".
And 'unanimity of hearts'? What's that? Today, it would be confused easily with the never sufficiently detested 'uniformity'. Make way instead for diversity and pluralism! And if such pluralism then leads to conflict, someone is always ready to defend it. Conflict as a value!
So we come to the third rule which I wished to cite:
Cum autem aliquid semel atque iterum de Assistentium consensu legitime decisum est, caveat, ne deinceps alio quovis quaesito colore idem denuo in deliberationem vocet; ut non tam quod factum est emendare, quam aliorum consensum ad proprium sensum extorquere velle videatur (n. 85). (When something has been legitimately decided more than once with the consensus of those present, avoid going back to raise the same question on whatever pretext – because that way, you give the impression that you wish not so much to amend what has been done but rather to extort the consensus of others to your own opinion.)
When a decision has been made, it has been made. It is useless to return to it again as if the decision was made without any awareness of what was decided. Above all, because to do so would be an insult to those who had made the decision (in the case of the Congregation, the assistants who are the advisers to the Superior General).
I confess that while I was translating these rules, I do not know why I was reminded of the last two 'family synods'...
[Of course, Fr . S is ironizing (there is such a word, I checked), but the three rules he chose as examples don't really apply directly to the 'family synods' as they do to the man – the 'Superior General', in effect – who called those synods precisely to overturn/'update' what had been decided by his predecessor, and the consensus of a duly constituted and convened synodal assembly in 1980, all for the sake of introducing a novelty to the Church, as anti-Catholic as that novelty is - in one fell swoop, violating all three rules cited by Father S.... I know, I know. He's the pope and is supposed to be the supreme authority in the Church. And he thinks that means he can legislate better than Christ's Word... ]
Father S had a post in late July reacting to an OR article accusing the world's clergy of hostility to the Bergoglian revolution (So that's the perception they have at the Vatican? Oooohhh, 'Bergoglio backlash', is it?...
'Pasdaran' and refractory clergy
Translated from
July 25, 2016
Every self-respecting revolution has its 'pasdaran' [Iranian term for its 'Revolutionary Guards'] and its refractory clergy. The 'revolution' that has been going in the Church for a few years now cannot be an exception. So it is not surprising that the Bergoglian pasdaran on duty, one Giulio Cirignano, in
L'Osservatore Romano, has taken on
a 'refractory clergy' which, he claims, is not just guilty of lack of enthusiasm for the 'extraordinary moment' that the Church is living, but have even taken on 'an attitude that is often one of closedness if not of hostility".
There are those of us who would be offended by hearing ourselves called "disciples who are sleeping" or "unenlightened pastors" who keep their faithful hemmed in "within an old horizon, the horizon of habitual practices, of outmoded language, of thought that is repetitive and without vitality",and as "Sanhedrin rich with devout obsequies to the past… (but) poor in prophesy".
But we have become used to this, our shoulders are broad, and we carry out our work certainly not in search of praise but only to serve the Lord who has chosen us with all our limitations and imperfections, and who has sent us like sheep among wolves.
And surely, after having taken so many beatings along the way in many parts of the world, it would be nice when returning home to hear a word of encouragement and comfort. But for the past few years, the preferred sport in the Church seems to be skeet shooting, where the targets are priests who are thought not to be doing anything right. But that's all right. It's another reason for not getting a big head, and to play a part, however, tiny, in the passion of our Lord.
It's also a bit funny to hear someone who appears to be perfectly integrated with the Church establishment call us the Sanhedrin [Jewish council that acted as a court and had full authority over the people of Israel]. And the accusation that the cultural level of the refractory clergy is 'modest', their theological culture sparse, and their Biblical preparation even more deficient, is generic (though circumscribed to priests), gratuitous, and something that has to be proven.
We might ask whether it is intelligent – for the triumph of the 'revolution' – to attack the clergy who, after all, along with the faithful, constitute the 'base' of the Church. If this 'revolution' is to make a breach among the faithful, it should at least be friendly. But I don't think it does anything for its cause to to accuse the clergy of all the worst vilenesses at every turn.
But what really leaves me thunderstruck is the total inability, on the part of some minds mired in ideology, to read the situation. It would seem that revolutionaries, once they gain power, lose their perception of reality.
How can they say, for example, that "most of the faithful are celebrating" [this pontificate and its revolution]? Even if one concedes that the statement is not absolutized, still, some statements must be documented. One cannot go by what the mainstream media say. Because they do not really report facts. We know very well that much of what they write or transmit is pure propaganda.
Where is the data that shows "most of the faithful are celebrating"? And yet unfortunately, those who, during the preceding pontificate, were so diligent in providing us with all the information about attendance at papal events in the Vatican seem to have gone into lethargy.
[Perhaps because the numbers have been in precipitous decline!]
Still and all, some data emerge occasionally. Even if they are accompanied by rather improbable explanations. The Italian bishops' conference has released the data from 2015 on how many Italian Catholics paid the Church tax (that eventually goes back to the Church from the Italian government). Yet even before the tabulation was released, explanations wree already being given. If there's a decline, it's because of the sex abuses committed by priests.
Well, if we were to identify the
annus horribilis from this viewpoint, it would be 2010, the Year for Priests designated by Benedict XVI – during which an unprecedented campaign peaked to discredit the Church
[and to force Benedict to resign] because of such abuses.
But just look at the tabulation for how many paid the Church tax that year – it was the largest in the last decade.
[One might think it was their way of showing support for the Church and the Pope at a time when both were truly beleaguered.] So how can the sex abuses explain the decline in Italians declaring themselves Catholic by paying the Church tax?
If the clergy is accused of being refractory to 'new things', if the Italian faithful are showing their disaffection for the Church by not paying the Church tax (they simply don't declare themselves Catholic so they do not have to), I would say the Church in Italy ought to ask hard questions of themselves. (It would be interesting to find out a similar tabulation regarding Peter's Pence.)
[That's the annual contributions made by individual faithful for the fund that the pope uses to finance certain charities and projects of his choice.]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/08/2017 07:03]