Posted on 01/26/2009 10:00:08 AM PST by NYer
Fifty years ago today, Sunday, January 25, 1959, "Good" Pope John XXIII anounced to a small group of cardinals at a prayer service in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls to close the week of prayer for Christian unity that he would convene an Ecumenical Council--a gathering as rare as it is authortiative, able to shift the direction of the church in a way not even a pope can do. At dotCommonweal, church historian Fr. Joseph Komonchak paints the scene. And at NCR, Jason Petosa provides context for this earthquake in the life of the Church--what Jesuit historian John O'Malley in his new book calls "quite possibly the biggest meeting in the history of the world."
The Second Vatican Council, as it would come to be known, ran from 1962-65, and the aftershocks have continued ever since. The Council fathers--2,400 bishops and thousands of aides an experts from around the world--were able to circumvent initial plans by the conservative Roman curia, or Vatican bureaucracy, to thwart any reform and instead set in motion a council that would upend the church in many ways.
Not surprisingly, the backlash has been going on ever since, under John Paul II to some degree, and with a persistence that has begun to attract the notice of a wider public, to an even greater degree by Benedict XVI.
That was made clearer than ever this weekend when Pope Benedict lifted the excommunications of four Traditionalist, right-wing bishops who are part of the schismatic Society of Saint Pius X, the brainchild of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebrve. (The CNS story is here.)
[Rorate-caeli has all the relevant documents.]
This group vehemently rejects the teachings and reforms of Vatican II--such as on religious freedom, ecumenism, or mass in the vernacular--and apart from viewing popes since Pius XII as heretics, there is a deep strain of anti-Semitism running through their ranks. One of the restored bishops, Richard Williamson, is an outright Holocaust denier, as this video shows:
Wait, it gets worse: Williamson has also written that "The Sound of Music"--yes, the musical--is "soul-rotting slush" and that "all the elements of pornography are there, just waiting to break out. One remembers the media sensation when a few years later Julie Andrews appeared topless in another film. That was no sensation, just a natural development for one rolling canine female." (It gets better; read the whole letter.)
They are an odd crew, to be charitable, and Benedict has done everything possible to court them, both as Cardinal Ratzinger and as Pope. That was clear to me as I wrote my book, "The Rule of Benedict," in which I try to make it clear that Ratzinger did not get a personality transplant when he became pope--just a different job.
But these decisions by the pope continue to surprise many. What surprises me is how little Benedict seems to have gotten for all his efforts. Part of the rationale for restoring the old Latin Rite mass was to bring the Lefebvrists into the fold, and yet at every turn they rejected any hint of compromise. Last summer, after the Lefebvrists rejected a four-point "ultimatum" ffrom Rome--giving them most everything they wanted, asking mainly that they refrain from attacking the Pope--Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, the Vatican official incharge of trying to bring them back into the fold as a priority for his boss got fed up. He called them "insatiable, incredible."
Yet Benedict went ahead and brought them back into the fold, and allowed them to more or less claim victory. Even some conservatives were scratching their heads. As George Weigel told The Times:
"It is not easy to see how the unity of the Church will be enhanced unless the Lefebvrists accept Vatican II's teaching on the nature of the Church, on religious freedom, and on the evil of anti-Semitism, explicitly and without qualification; otherwise, you get cafeteria Catholicism on the far right, as we already have on the left."
Well, George is half-right, in that the Catholic right bellied up to the cafeteria hot table a long time ago. And with this decision, Benedict--who was elected as an opponent of "the dictatorship of relativism"--is throwing open the cafeteria line rightward while closing it to the left. Not to mention of course, how this--and many other things--threatens to undo 50 years of Jewish-Catholic dialogue at a time of rising anti-Semitism in the world. More on that another time.
What is Benedict doing?
Well, as the Italians say, "Quel che un papa puo' fare, un papa puo' disfare." Or, "That which a pope can do, a pope can undo." The trick will be for the Vatican to show that this is not an arbitrary judgment by Benedict, someting that appears difficult to do, at least so far.
The simplest explanation often being the best, I think it's clear Benedict has much sympathy for the Traditionalists, and hence has always been very solicitous of them.
But Benedict is also a realist, and a friend I spoke with this weekend made the astute observation that by bringing the Lefebvrist bishops back into the fold in some capacity, he can hopefully stop the cancer from metasizing (ugly metaphor, sorry) in that these bishops could have gone on to ordain more bishops validly yet illicitly, and they more priests and bishops and so on. If the movement had indeed continued to grow, it could have been impossible to sort it all out. In this way, at least, the Vatican has some say over who they ordain, though they seem happy to let them ordain anyone they want. And of course, they could bolt the fold if Rome says "no" on something.
On another level, I think Beendict is using the outreach to the far-right as a way to further his project of retrenchment. By extending the boundaries of what is acceptable to a group that rejects Vatican II, Benedict can legitimize some of those views while moving the goalposts--and thus still keeping himself at "the new center." This is another strategem in the ongoing battle over the Council.
Benedict set out his view of this debate in his first address as Pope to the Roman Curia, in December 2005, when he caricatured those who saw Vatican II as a reforning council as advocating the view that the church was breaking with its past, while those sober, sane souls like himself saw it as in perfect "continuity" with past church teachings--despite the obvious evidence to the contrary on a host of issues.
The debate gets almost Orwellian at times, but the damage to the church is all too real.
From the begining it was thus. As Notre Dame church historian, Fr. Richard McBrien notes, in his announcement 50 years ago, Pope John (he called his decision, just 100 days after his election as an elderly "transitional" pope, "a little holy madness") was changed in the official record to reflect a more conservative vision:
His speech to the cardinals on January 25, 1959, mentioned two specific goals of the council: "the enlightenment, edification, and joy of the entire Christian people," and "a renewed cordial invitation to the faithful of the separated Churches to participate with us in this feast of grace and brotherhood [sic], for which so many souls long in all parts of the world."
Significantly, the pope's actual words on that occasion were watered down in the official edition of the address. The non-Catholic Churches were reduced to "communities," and they were not to "participate with us in this feast of grace and brotherhood" but to "follow us in the search for unity and grace."
It has ever been thus that Vatican officials sometimes take it upon themselves to "correct" the words of a reigning pope, without his knowledge or approval. It may be why John XXIII once complained that he was "in a bag," not always free to act on his own, according to his own best pastoral and theological insights.
Benedict XVI seems to be acting on his own, even though he often chides the rest of us to sentire cum ecclesia, "to think (and act) with the church." Sources say he took this step--as he did the restoration of the Latin Mass--against the strong and express advice of some of his closest collaborators.
Another Italian saying: Roma locuta, causa finita.
An effort to provide ‘fair and balanced’ views in the forum ;-)
I read the whole Sound of Music article and it does read like satire. Williamson seems truly nuts, although I know that has nothing to so with anything.
Agree 100% with LeoOshkosh. Old Benedictine motto: ‘When pruned, it grows.”
THANK GOD FOR PAPPA BENEDICTO!!!
As for cleanness, many films may be worse than the Sound of Music, but stop and think - are youth, physical attractiveness and being in love the essence of marriage? Can you imagine this Julie Andrews staying with the Captain if "the romance went out of their marriage"? Would she not divorce him and grab his children from him to be her toys? Such romance is not actually pornographic but it is virtually so, in other words all the elements of pornography are there, just waiting to break out. One remembers the media sensation when a few years later Julie Andrews appeared topless in another film. That was no sensation, just a natural development for one rolling canine female.As for being a family film, by glorifying that romance which is essentially self-centred, The Sound of Music puts selfishness in the place of selflessness between husband and wife, and by putting friendliness and fun in the place of authority and rules, it invites disorder between parents and children. This is a new model family which in short order will be no family at all, its liberated members flying off in all different directions.
Finally as for edification, in The Sound of Music the Lord God is mere decoration. True, His Austrian mountains are beautiful (beautiful decoration), but His nuns are valued only for their sweetness towards the world and their understanding of its ways, while His ex-nun is wholly oriented towards the world.
Bull's eye. Of course The Sounds of Music is sweet and entertaining and PG-rated, and it is perhaps a bit too doctrinaire to demand depth from a Hollywood musical in the first place. But the elements of modern despiritualized neo-paganism are all there. The bishop is correct.
Harsh language.
The author is obviously deserving of the awards give by the various press groups. He is so typical of the ignorance of Catholic tradition that they so frequently display.
His talk of SSPX schism is so phony. He wouldn’t recognize a schism if it hit him over the head, which I am sure it did many times while working for Commonweal and America magazines.
His attempt to equate the political and social ramblings of the eccentric old Bishop Williamson with the positions of the other SSPX bishops, priests, and the faithful, who attend their chapels, is comparable to asserting that the ramblings of the old Kluxer Kleagle Byrd (Democrat, West Virginia) represent the views of the Senate and the American people.
Are we to worship Councils? Without looking at the madness that followed Vatican II, where liberal clerics basically ignored the texts produced by the Council and went off on a binge of unrelated reforms, this gentleman wonders why Pope Benedict —who lived through all this—should now try to undo the harm that was done by clerics in the Church who it is hard to think of as believers in anything except the god of this world, or more charitably, as dupes.
Maria von Trapp said after she saw the film, that its Maria was not her. She meant not simply what most people who see themselves depicted on screen would say, but that it was a distortion of reality.
Written by someone who doesn't understand His Awesomeness B16...
And if the writer had a clue, he would see that B16 IS thinking with the Church (and the Church Triumphant, as well).
The author really meant that the Lefebvrists were not interested in compromise with him and his ilk, whom he believes to be the true Church. Benedict is just a figurehead to him.
Hey, David Gibson - nobody cares what Fr. Richard McBrien says or thinks anymore. Well, nobody that counts anyhow.
Yes, it is harsh language. But nothing is as harsh as 50 million babies thrown into garbage dumpsters and you have half of the Catholic church members saying NOTHING about it.
Again, when the General Intercessions are dominated by criticizing the US, promoting pluralism, and saving the environment, then it is high time that Pope Ratzinger try to get the Catholic church under control.
Stats: Jews killed in WWII = 3 million according to Red Cross
Babies thrown into Garbage Dumpsters in the U.S. to date: 50 million.
Yes -- not only the personal reality of Maria von Trapp, but the reality the Christian anthropology has taught for two thousand years. The musical is one of the long line of modern romantic fiction products that put people in top physical shape driven by frivolity as a model of love.
Which is why I like the recent mini-series on John Adams. The leads are both good looking people, but apparently have no professional vanity. The love displayed by each toward the other is palpable, as is the mutual respect. As an aside, the actor who plays Jefferson in this film comes very close to the Jefferson I have always imagined: the shyness, the hesitancy of speech matched with fluency in conversation, the mixture of candor and deception.
Well, John is shown a bit vain, or at least of vulnerable pride. I agree though, these were very well done, and showed men, and especially women, of strong character.
I didn’t make myself clear. I mean the actors, especially Linney.
We need more harsh language today. Too many of us are afraid to speak up for what is right in order to be PC.
As it has been said: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do [or say] nothing.
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