A Philosopher, a Mystic, and a Theologian Sound an Alarm for the Church

They are Romano Amerio, Divo Barsotti and Inos Biffi. Though widely different from each other, they agree in recalling the Church to its foundations – that it not disappear "in the fog of the faith"

ROMA, February 7, 2005 – Almost during the very same days when the frailty of John Paul II filled the Church with apprehension, two books and a conference focused attention on three important Christian authors who have expressed, and still do, a radical critique of the weaknesses of today's Church, even though they love it and obey it wholeheartedly.

These three are Romano Amerio, a philosopher, Divo Barsotti, a mystic, and Inos Biffi, a theologian. The first is Swiss, the other two Italian.

A conference on Amerio, who died in 1997 at the age of 92, was held in Lugano on January 29, in the main hall of the University of Italian Switzerland, under the sponsorship of the local theological faculty and with the participation of the bishop, Pier Giacomo Grampa.

As for Divo Barsotti (in the photo), the community he founded, the Community of the Children of God, has published on the occasion of his 90th birthday a biographical profile composed in large part of his previously unpublished manuscripts.

Inos Biffi has seen the publication of a book with an eloquent title: "Christian Truths in the Fog of the Faith."

Here are some news on the conference, the two books, and the three personalities.

The conference on Romano Amerio dealt above all with his work in philology and philosophy. Still memorable are his critical editions, in thirty-four volumes, of the writings of the great 16th century thinker Tommaso Campanella, the three volumes dedicated to the "Observations of Catholic Morality" by Alessandro Manzoni, and his studies on Epicurus, Paolo Sarpi, and Giacomo Leopardi.

But Amerio – who was a consultant for the bishop of Lugano at Vatican Council II – also wrote two important books on the Church of today. The first, "Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the XXth Century," edited by Riccardo Ricciardi in 1985, 658 pages, can be considered the masterpiece of the so-called "traditionalist" critique of the contemporary Church: the "tradition" to which Amerio appeals being that accumulated by the Church over almost two millennia before the contemporary period, with its summit in the philosophy and theology of St. Thomas Aquinas.

The second volume is a continuation of the preceding one. It was also edited by Ricciardi, in 1997, shortly after the death of its author, and is entitled: "Stat Veritas. The Sequel to 'Iota Unum'." And its object is an analysis of "Tertio Millennio Adveniente," the apostolic letter of 1994 which epitomizes the vision of John Paul II.

Both of the volumes converge in identifying as the major "disorder" of today's Church the primacy accorded to "Caritas" instead of "Veritas," with the consequent "wounding" of the proper Christian conception of the trinitarian God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amerio was a staunchly faithful Christian. But in spite of that, both the official Church and almost the entirety of the Catholic world shrouded these two books, especially "Iota Unum," with a silence that was sometimes tinged with contempt.

The convention in Lugano last January 29 was the first ever to be dedicated to Amerio. This leads to the thought that the taboo has fallen away from him and his analysis of the Church.

In the following months a book will be published about the Swiss thinker, written by his disciple Enrico Maria Radaelli, a professor of the philosophy of esthetics at the Ambrosian University of Milan.

The first is by Fr. Antonio Livi, a priest of Opus Dei, president of the philosophy faculty at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. He was also one of the speakers at the conference in Lugano.

Fr. Divo Barsotti, born in 1914 in Palaia, in Tuscany, is one of the most prominent and respected figures of Italian Catholicism in the last century. He has written many books, especially meditations on the Bible and the liturgy. He founded a spiritual community, the Community of the Children of God, which includes the most various lifestyles: men and women who embrace monastic vows, parish priests, married couples with children. Today its community numbers about 2,000 persons, in Italy and various other countries: Australia, Colombia, Croatia, Benin, Sri Lanka. One of its members is the present bishop of Monreale, in Sicily, Cataldo Naro, probably the future archbishop of Palermo.

But Fr. Barsotti was also the spiritual director for numerous Catholics of varying outlooks, some of whom are influential in their turn, both in the Church and in the fields of culture and politics. For example, Giorgio La Pira, the mayor of Florence during the 1950's, whose beatification is underway, belonged secretly to the Community of the Children of God. Even Fr. Giuseppe Dossetti wanted Barsotti as his own spiritual director, from 1952 until his death in 1996.

And yet Dossetti's and Barsotti's visions were frequently different. Dossetti was the linchpin of "conciliar" Catholicism in Italy, a proponent of a radical reform of the Church from a monarchical to a democratic model, of a rejection of "Constantinian" Christianity, of an abandonment of the great theology of the Middle Ages in the name of a return to the Fathers of the first centuries, especially the Eastern ones.

The relationship between the two was even at the breaking point at times. In the book that the Community of the Children of God has just published for his 90th birthday, it says that one day Fr. Barsotti "threatened to dissolve his ties with Dossetti if Dossetti would not stop keeping company with Giuseppe Alberigo," whose presence Barsotti considered "a danger." Dossetti replied to his spiritual director with a letter, reproduced in the book, in which he wrote: "Even if you wanted to detach yourself from me, I would not detach myself from you." Alberigo, a Church historian, was still the head of the Institute for Religious Studies in Bologna founded by Dossetti.

This is how Fr. Barsotti's vision of Vatican Council II is represented in the book published by his community:

"Since the first session [of the Council] it was obvious where things would end up, with the scornful leveling of all prepared schemes. Furthermore, the bishops said immediately that they did not intend to condemn anyone: but this meant renouncing their service as guardians of the faith, as the keepers of divine Revelation. The bishops should not take the place of the theologians; they have another function: the episcopate should tell us what we must believe and what we must reject. [...] Because the bishops did not put in first place their function of approving or condemning, the documents of Vatican II have a language that is more theological than doctrinal. For example, in certain pages of 'Gaudium et Spes,' there is a reasoning almost like that of a sociologist, or a journalist. Moreover, the documents are a mixture of three or four different theologies. For example: the first document [of the Council], the one on the liturgy, has an entirely mystagogic vision; the last, the one on the relations between the Church and the world, is marked by a certain 'Teilhardism'. We are still waiting for a theological genius who can make a synthesis of these differences. So was Vatican II a mistake? Of course not: the Church needed to face the culture of the world, and the Holy Spirit prevented error from being introduced into the documents; but even if everything in Vatican II is correct, that doesn't mean that everything was opportune."

"I have written to the pope, twice, that I did not have a favorable impression of the interreligious meeting in Assisi in October of 1986. I told him: 'Your Holiness, I don't have a television at home, not even a radio, but the day after the conference in Assisi I saw on the front page of 'Avvenire' a photograph showing Catholics venerating the Dalai Lama, as they do Your Holiness.' There is a danger of losing distinctions: the Dalai Lama is like the pope for many believers, so the people can no longer tell the difference or recognize what is specific to Christianity."

Barsotti has never made any secret of his vision of the current state of the Church. But that does not prevent him from enjoying universal respect.

He is, in fact, primarily a man of great spirituality, a mystic, with supernatural flashes that sometimes illuminate his daily life. He has a particular sensitivity for Eastern mysticism: Serge of Radonez, a Russian, is the saint after whom he named his house in Settignano, on the outskirts of Florence.

One of his closest friends is former Bologna archbishop Cardinal Giacomo Biffi. He, in Barsotti's judgment, would be ideal as the next pope.

Biffi is in turn close friends with – though unrelated to – the almost homonymous Inos Biffi.

Fr. Inos Biffi, of the diocese of Milan, is an emeritus professor of theology at the Theological Faculty of Northern Italy, and director of the Institute of the History of Theology in Lugano, the Swiss city where Amerio lived.

He is one of the greatest specialists in medieval theology. Among other things, he is responsible for the complete critical edition of the works of Saint Anselm of Aosta.

The Jaca Book publishing house in Milan, the one that published the complete works of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Henri De Lubac in Italy, publishes both his studies of medieval theology and his writings that are more focused on the current theological debate.

The latest collection of his essays, a volume of 350 pages entitled "Christian Truths in the Fog of the Faith," released very recently, is introduced by a preface which expresses the meaning of the book in the very first lines:

"The essays gathered here [...] were born of a unique impression and preoccupation: that the truths from which the Christian creed receives its identity and strength are becoming, as it were, befogged and enfeebled, through the widespread encroachment of a weak faith."

In Biffi's judgment, one symptom of the current "befogging" of the faith is the ideology of dialogue, “aggiornamento” (updating), ecumenism:

"This ideology has infected everyone to some extent: even the guardians of the faith, among whom the words 'dialogue' and 'aggiornamento' recur with excruciating monotony, habitually and obsessively coupled with the language of solidarity, welcoming, peace, the promotion of man, the preferential option for the ‘last’, the forgiveness to be asked for past sins within the Church, ecumenism, and, lately, even utopia. On the other hand, it is not so easy to find reminders of grace, the sacraments, the final end of man, what the loving vision of the Trinity is, hell and paradise, sin, and above all the wonderful divine mystery that is Jesus Christ, in whom every man has been foreordained from eternity."

"Ecumenism has frequently degenerated into a desire for harmony which has obscured the Catholic character of the creed. Even through imprudent or questionable actions, a widespread and practical conviction of the equivalence, or near equivalence, of the Christian confessions and the other religions is being created. One thing that contributes to this is the frequently repeated, equivocal appeal to the 'one God', who supposedly unifies the great monotheistic religions. Nothing could be more erroneous: the one true God is the God of Jesus Christ: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Christian Trinity, which, for example, is blasphemy for Muslims, an extremely serious offense against God."

His critique applies to both the theology and the pastoral governance of the Church:

"One thinks of the contents of certain episcopal programs, which are frequently reduced to plans of 'welcoming,' in which Jesus Christ – who is the First – is an occasion to speak above all of the 'last'. One thinks also of episcopates understood as a measure of the success of 'movements', or considered as rewards and honorific offices. [... One thinks] of the clamorous misinterpretations the world makes in trying to understand the Church, and also of the sometimes unacceptable, sometimes questionable historical blame accorded to the Church, which have elicited a vain and deleterious emphasis on forgiveness, and have created an image of the Church as sinful."

Cardinal Giacomo Biffi wrote of an earlier book by Inos Biffi, "Christian Culture," written from the same outlook: "Few publications in our time are as provocative and illuminating as this."

Romano Amerio, “Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the Xxth Century”, Sarto House.

Romano Amerio, “Stat Veritas. Seguito a ‘Iota unum’”, Riccardo Ricciardi Editore, Milano-Napoli, 1997, pp. 176.

“Una Comunità e il suo fondatore. Don Divo Barsotti e la Comunità dei Figli di Dio”, Comunità dei Figli di Dio, Via Crocifissalto 2, 50135 Settignano (Fi). To buy it, write to: > segreteriacfd@cheapnet.it

Inos Biffi, “Verità cristiane nella nebbia della fede”, Jaca Book, Milano, 2004, pp. 350, euro 24,00.

Fascinating. I try to read www.chiesa as often as possible. The content of this reads almost like a litany of complaints from the traditionalists who are in irregular relation to Rome. But it's not. We're talking about people "on the inside" with the same complaints.

It seems like many of those in the know think the time has come to start preparing for the next conclave; the battle has been joined.

The content of this reads almost like a litany of complaints from the traditionalists who are in irregular relation to Rome. But it's not. We're talking about people "on the inside" with the same complaints.

That's what struck me as well. In the English-speaking world, traditionalists are often maligned as if they were Holocaust deniers, whose arguments have no respectability in the Church. It's heartening to hear of traditionalists in Italy, who are in respected circles making the same criticisms that we are being told Faithful Catholics™ cannot make.

It's heartening to hear of traditionalists in Italy, who are in respected circles making the same criticisms that we are being told Faithful Catholics™ cannot make.

Dialogue is healthy and is required for a vital, living Church, if it is done inside the Church.

Seeking refuge in the SSPX and taking potshots at the validity of the Mass of Paul VI marginalize those who might otherwise make valid points.

nick, this is an excellent read, thanks for posting it.

k and H, thought you might find it interesting too, so I pinged, hope that's ok.

It has indeed been the Great Befogging, IMO.

"Since cause and effect cannot be seen with the naked eye, and there remains, therefore, conjecture on the matter of cause, I believe it legitimate for Catholics to be able to debate the nature of the cause(s), which have produced the effects in the Church of the present time--many of which are documented. If all aspects of a council are precluded from any such discussion, on the assumption that all aspects of all councils are somehow sacrosanct and divinely inspired, then we do a disservice to the pursuit of truth and a remedy, in my opinion. There are ambiguities and omissions in, and false translations of, documents of the recent council which have been used and misused by certain elements within the Church, with devastating results. Similarly, things never envisioned or commented upon by the council have been carried out, in the name of the council—the radical changes to the Sacred Liturgy, for instance. This has now gone on for four decades; one wonders if this will continue for centuries. It will, if we label those who raise the question as unfaithful, or those who object as dissenters." - Father Echert

EWTN Experts Forum

"Seeking refuge in the SSPX and taking potshots at the validity of the Mass of Paul VI marginalize those who might otherwise make valid points."

Why should anybody care about being "marginalized"? Truth is truth. We take refuge in the SSPX because that is where the truth is found, not in the Novus Ordo Church.

You know, I think sometimes you instigate these arguments. Now, this thread along with almost any other has to turn into an SSPX/anti-SSPX ad infinitum argument. I don't know about anyone else, but I am sick of it. I want to be able to discuss the good merits of these philosophers/theologians without getting into SSPX bashing. And, I am not a fan of the SSPX, mind you.

Can't we appreciate the subject matter in the article for what it is? Do we always have to bring up and denounce the SSPX on every thread that hints of tradition?

BTW, I sent you a private mailing to which you never replied.

Definitely not a weekend read for me. My wife, OTOH, could probably finish it in about 4 hours. I will certainly be purchasing it, but it will have to take a back seat to some of the spiritual reading I have planned for Lent.

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