Category: Vatican Files English

Assessing a pontificate is no easy task. Assessing Benedict’s pontificate (2005-2013) is even more difficult. The caliber of Ratzinger as a theologian, the muddy state of present-day Vatican affairs, and the complexity of global religious and moral trends, … these are all factors that call for careful consideration, although his pontificate will perhaps be remembered more for the shocking way it

ended than for what it achieved. Our task here will be more modest. It will take as parameters the main bullet points that characterized Evangelical perceptions of Benedict’s pontificate. It will be an exercise to see to what extent they match reality.

Orthodox

A recurring comment is that Benedict XVI has been an “orthodox” pope. In this case, orthodox means maintaining Nicene Christianity, i.e. the Trinitarian and Christological confession of faith of the early church. In itself, being orthodox is not a distinct feature of any single Pope because it is part of his service. The pope, or any pope, is to be orthodox. Bonifacius VIII, the pope that

introduced the papal tiara in 1300 (indicative of the temporal power), was orthodox. Pope Leo X, the one who excommunicated Martin Luther in 1521, was orthodox. The best and the worst popes were orthodox. Indeed, all 265 Popes since Peter have been orthodox. The business of the Pope is to be orthodox in this Nicene sense.

It may be true that Benedict put a special emphasis on orthodoxy, but he has interpreted his orthodoxy in a Roman Catholic way, like all previous Popes. He has been praying daily to Mary, he has granted indulgences, he has canonized new saints, he has maintained the church-state profile of the Vatican, etc. Contrary to what C.S. Lewis believed, there is no “mere orthodoxy” out there. Nicene Christianity is always colored by subsequent developments in Christian doctrine and practice. It never stands in isolation nor does it exist in an abstract way. Benedict’s pontificate has been a peak of Roman Catholic orthodoxy.

Biblical

It is true that in his catechetical efforts, Benedict has been dealing with the Bible much more than his immediate predecessors. His speeches have largely been Biblical meditations and his recent writings on Jesus have defended the historicity of the Gospel accounts. Much of his reading of Scripture, however, was driven by post-biblical presuppositions that come out of ecclesiastical tradition rather than Scripture itself. The heavily sacramental interpretations of Gospel stories and the over-arching interpretive grid that sees the relationship between Biblical teaching and Roman Catholic practices in terms of linear continuity, are only two examples of “how” Biblical Benedict’s magisterium has been. During his pontificate, the point that distinguished Roman Catholicism from the Protestant tradition was no longer whether or not the Bible is accessible to the people, but “how” it is to be read and lived out.

There is still another aspect to bear in mind. The Pope’s most famous (and criticized) speech, i.e. the 2006 Regensburg lecture, was not about Islam, but revolved around the need to keep the Hellenized combination of “faith and reason” which Thomas Aquinas refined at its best and which the Roman Catholic Church holds onto. In denouncing the threats to the “classic” synthesis, Benedict indicated the “sola Scriptura” of the Reformation as a major breach that eventually caused theological liberalism and present-day relativism. It is interesting that a “Biblical” Pope would have such a low view of the Reformation’s formal principle that brought the Bible back to the center of the life of the Church.

Public Truth

Benedict has courageously stood for basic Judeo-Christian convictions about life, the family, and the welfare of society characterized by freedom and solidarity, even in the midst of criticism from secular intellectual circles. Like his predecessor, John Paul II, Benedict was commended by Muslim and other religious leaders for his tenacious defense of traditional morality in the global world. His Church, however, did not perform well in terms of public transparency and integrity with regards to the sexual abuses scandals, the opaque financial maneuvers, and the appalling intrigues within the Vatican. During Benedict’s reign the distinction between the standards of the official Church and those of the world has been thin if not impalpable. He is not to blame for all this, yet this poor “public” performance sheds light on the overall picture. This is perhaps one of the reasons why Benedict came to the almost unprecedented conclusion to resign from the papal office.

The Pope spoke of Christians as a “minority” and encouraged the Church to re-think its identity accordingly. The fact that he did not take any action to move his Church beyond the privileged status it has in many countries where Catholics are majority puts his record as a “public truth” teller in perspective. Would it not be a “public truth” argument to say that the Church wants to be the church only and not a religious agency with a built in state with its own politics, bank, army, etc., like any other state of the world?

New Evangelization

The New Evangelization was an idea of John Paul II, but Benedict XVI started implementing it by creating a Vatican office dedicated to it and by making it the central theme of the 2012 Synod of Bishops. Pope Ratzinger has come to terms with the idea that the West is largely post-Christian and is in need of being evangelized again by a reinvigorated Church.

The future will tell what the New Evangelization will bring about in terms of spiritual renewal. Yet, so far there has been little self-criticism on the Church’s part as to why the West became more secularized. Does the Church have any responsibility in the secular “schism” that has taken place? No clear answer has come from Pope Ratzinger who has instead blamed the modern world for it.

In the meantime, Benedict has continued calling “sects” those that are engaged in evangelism, including Evangelicals in the Global South, not making the distinction between New Religious movements and Evangelical Christianity.

Beyond extremely positive assessments based on selected aspects of Benedict’s pontificate, Evangelicals have food for thought in order to come to a more nuanced and perhaps realistic view of his office as a Pope.

Leonardo De Chirico

leonardo.dechirico@ifeditalia.org

Rome, 25th February 2013

Benedict XVI shocked the whole world announcing his resignation from being the reigning Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. For centuries, no Pope had resigned but has instead waited for his death while still holding the office. His announcement was in Latin, not exactly the lingua franca of today’s world. Before getting the attention of the media, journalists had to rush to experts in Latin to be sure of what was going on. In doing something remarkably new, Pope Ratzinger did it in a very old-fashioned way. Even in one of his last acts as Pope, he was both modern and traditional. In a way, he reflected the Roman Catholic way of doing things by maintaining tradition, yet at the same time constantly changing.

            There will certainly be other occasions to assess the trajectory of Ratzinger’s pontificate. Suffice it for now to draw attention to the last lectio he gave to a group of seminarians in Rome on February 8^th. This was not his last speech as Pope, but it was his last theologically engaging talk prior to his resignation. In a certain sense, this lectio is a kind of a prism where his Biblical teaching can be seen in a nutshell.

            The text was 1 Peter 1:3-5, a highly dense text full of theological richness, and Benedict XVI applied all his catechetical skills to expound it. His comment was profound as one might expect from a first class theologian. Yet it is also revealing of the particular Roman Catholic blend of his Biblical teaching.

1 Peter as the First Encyclical?

In introducing the letter, Ratzinger said that it was the “first encyclical” sent by the vicar of Christ to the Church. Let’s pause for a moment. An encyclical is – generally speaking – a circulating letter, but – technically speaking – is a letter sent by the Roman Catholic Pope to bishops, clergy, the faithful and the people of good will of his time dealing with doctrinal and/or pastoral issues.

            Historically, encyclicals have been regularly sent by Popes from 1740 onwards. At the very least it is not historically appropriate to give 1 Peter a papal term that wouldn’t be put into use for another 1700 years. Even if we take the more general meaning of encyclical (i.e. a circulating letter), 1 Peter is not the first NT text of the canon in terms of the chronology of its composition. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians is the earliest document of the New Testament. So, even if the adjective “first” referred to the chronological priority of Peter’s letter, this is not the case in that other apostolic letters were written before Peter wrote his first one.

            Beyond historical details, the message that Benedict wanted to convey was that of an on-going continuity between Peter writing his letter and future Popes writing their encyclicals. The Pope linked this Biblical letter to modern encyclicals and Peter with modern Popes. This claim is hermeneutically loaded with the Roman Catholic understanding of Peter’s office and succession, but does not stand out from the text of Scripture itself.

Peter as the Vicar of Christ?

It is not by chance that in his lectio Benedict XVI talked about Peter as being the “vicar of Christ”. After rightly recalling the way in which Peter introduces himself as an “apostle”, he went on to say that Peter was commissioned to be “the first apostle, the vicar of Christ”. He makes the case that Peter writes from Rome (the Babylon quoted in 5:13) and that his being in Rome has theological significance. As vicar of Christ, and in view of his universal office, Peter had to preside over the Jewish church (Jerusalem) first and eventually the Gentile church (Rome).

            The “vicar” title does not come from Peter himself. The apostle rather talks of himself as an “elder” (5:1) in the company of other elders, thus a fellow-elder. There is no hint in the text that Peter has received the title of “vicar”, whatever the term may mean. Peter does not think of himself as being someone or something that other fellow-elders are not. Moreover, it is rather the case that Peter calls the whole people of God as “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” called to declare the praises of God (2:9). The fact that Peter defines Rome as Babylon may have apocalyptic significance, rather than being a reference to his universal first papacy. Again, Ratzinger’s interpretation is loaded with meanings that belong to the Roman Catholic tradition but cannot be found in the text of Scripture.

            There is much wisdom in Benedict’s last lectio on 1 Peter. Yet it is a wisdom driven by certain Roman Catholic presuppositions that govern his reading rather than being governed by Scripture itself. It is curious that his last theological speech as Pope revolved around Peter, the first Pope according to Benedict XVI.

Leonardo De Chirico

leonardo.dechirico@ifeditalia.org

Rome, 12^th February 2013

Between the 18^th and 25^th of January, the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches organized the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Since 1958, the Week of Prayer has been a yearly exercise of “spiritual ecumenism” (i.e. joint prayer) that involves both the official ecclesiastical bodies of and the grassroots ecumenical movements. Its main theological premise is a call to common prayer for the unity of those who are “baptized”.[1]

At the end of the week, Benedict XVI presided over the final liturgy at St Paul’s basilica in Rome. In his homily, the Pope stressed the fact that unity is both given by God and a responsibility for all Christians. In their efforts towards unity, the doctrinal issues that cause the division between the Roman Catholic Church and other non-Catholic Christians should not be “neglected or minimized”. In this occasion too, Pope Ratzinger insisted on the fact that ecumenism is not a watered down, sentimental unity but is unity in the profession of the same faith, in the celebration of the same Eucharist, and united under the same sacramental ministry in apostolic succession.

            As the Week of Prayer was about to commence, however, a curios event provided another perspective on the big picture of Roman Catholic ecumenism.

A Way Forward for “LutheRomans”?

In presenting his latest book on the main themes of Pope Ratzinger’s thought in a Roman bookshop next to the Vatican, Archbishop Gerhard Müller, who is Prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, made a comment on a possible prospect for the ecumenical process. Imagining a future scenario in which significant numbers of Lutherans would want to come in full fellowship with the Roman Church, Müller said that a specific “ordinariate” for them could be created in order to facilitate the transition. An ordinariate is a special diocese which allows full integration into the Roman Church while, at the same time, granting the acceptance of some aspects of the previous liturgical and spiritual tradition.

            The pattern of the ordinariate has been already envisioned and implemented. In 2009 Pope Ratzinger provided for the constitution of “personal ordinariates for Anglicans entering into full communion with the Catholic Church”. In this case, the former Anglicans that are now Roman Catholics can celebrate the sacraments according “to the liturgical books proper to the Anglican tradition”. The ordinariate achieves the integration in the Roman system while paying tribute to its “catholicity” that is able to accommodate different traditions.

Archbishop Müller conceded that “the Lutheran world is a bit different from the Anglican one, because among Anglicans there has always been a sector closer to Catholicism.” However, he said, some Lutherans hope for a restoration of full communion with Rome, and the Church should be ready to receive them. He suggested that, as with Anglicans, the Catholic Church might allow Lutherans to preserve “the legitimate traditions they have developed” while becoming members of the Catholic Church. The idea was severely criticized by Lutheran officials.

How Does Visible Unity Work?

Apart from the technicalities of canonical law, what is worth considering is the overall picture that emerges from these comments. It is true that Archbishop Müller did not pronounce an official statement as if the decision was already made. Nevertheless, he expressed ideas that are given serious consideration in Vatican offices at both spectrums of the borders of the Roman Church. On her “right”, Rome is painstakingly trying to resolve the excommunication inflicted to the traditionalist Msgr Lefebvre and his followers in 1998. The means of achieving it is through an ordinariate whereby they could maintain their distinctive liturgical patterns while accepting that other Catholics would adhere to post-Vatican II developments. On her “left”, Rome is opening herself to former Anglicans and now, possibly, to groups of Lutherans wishing to embrace the Roman “catholicity” while keeping some of their Lutheran heritage. The ordinariate is the means by which the catholicity of the Roman Church can stretch itself on all sides while preserving the unity of the system around the sacramental institution.

            The fact that these ideas were publicly spoken of in the ecumenical week is intriguing, but perfectly legitimate if one understands what ecumenism is all about for Rome. On the one hand, the Roman Church prays with other Christians for unity and rejoices for the unity that already exists. On the other, she makes provisions so that the full unity will be achieved through the incorporation of other Christians into her fold. According to the Roman view of unity, there is no contradiction between the two moves. As recalled earlier, the Pope in his homily remembered that Christian unity is not a general “unity-in-diversity” type of union, but the full expression of Christian unity, i.e. professing the same faith, celebrating the same Eucharist, being governed by the same authorities. This full or perfect unity subsists in the Roman Catholic Church alone. Other churches and communities are in one way or another “defective” in some important respects. After the Anglicans, it is now the Lutherans turn to have a special provision made to enjoy a “fuller” Christian life.

Leonardo De Chirico

leonardo.dechirico@ifeditalia.org

Rome, 31^st January 2013

John 17, Cardinal Kurt Koch and Martyn Lloyd-Jones in Trialogue

The priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus in John 17 is unanimously recognized as one of the foundational texts, if not the text par excellence, in dealing with Christian unity. There our Lord prays to the Father for His disciples to be one and the pattern of their unity is the relational life of the Trinity. As Father and Son are one, so Christians are prayed for so that their unity will be “as” the Triune God is one.

            The consensus is shaken and eventually broken when different Christians spell out what this unity should be and how it should be lived out. One of the contentious issues revolves around this unity being “visible”. The fact that Christian unity should be somewhat visible is not what is at stake. What kind of “visibility” is required by the Lord’s prayer is where Christians begin to disagree.

In his address to participants at the plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (15^th November 2012), Pope Benedict XVI restated the basic Roman Catholic idea concerning the necessary visibility of Christian unity: “We must not forget that the goal of ecumenism is the visible unity among divided Christians”. The Pope later explained that “it is in full communion in faith, in the sacraments and in the ministry, that will become concretely evident the present and active power of God in the world”. Visibility is therefore a threefold achievement whereby there is unity in the profession of the faith, unity in the celebration of the sacraments, and unity in the recognition of the same ministerial order.

1. Does John 17 Support the Fully Orbed Roman Catholic View of Unity?

The same conviction was argued for by Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, in a recent public lecture at the Pontifical Lateran University (11^th December 2012) entitled “Unity: Illusion or Promise?”. The lecture was a learned commentary on John 17 which Cardinal Koch divided in six parts. According to John 17 as it was read by Koch, Christian unity has six dimensions: spiritual, visible, Trinitarian, eschatological, missional, and martyrological (i.e. the unity of Christian martyrs).

            What is of interest here is that Koch insisted on the visible dimension of the unity for which Jesus prayed and which he rooted in the Trinitarian life. Since the Church is “the icon of the Trinity” so her unity reflects the unity of the Trinity. Koch underlined the fact that Christian unity cannot be “invisible” but should always be recognizable in the usual threefold way: common profession of faith, common sacraments, common ministry. In other words, in order for unity to be Trinitarian unity you need the Roman Catholic Church that has kept the sacraments in their integrity and has transmitted the ministry in the proper apostolic succession. The visibility of the Trinitarian unity requires and demands the institutional (Roman Catholic) church, its hierarchy, and its sacramental life. In this view, other visible forms of Christian unity are imperfect and partial because they lack the (Roman Catholic) sacraments and ministry. According to this view, the visibility of unity will be achieved when other churches and ecclesial communions embrace not only the common profession of faith, but also the Roman Catholic sacraments and priesthood.

Does this understanding of the visibility of unity derive from Trinitarian life as it is found in John 17? It is hard to read this chapter and conclude that the reference to the Trinity as the pattern for Christian unity refers to a hierarchical and sacramental ministry. The latter seem added dimensions which are quintessential to the Roman Catholic understanding of unity, but are difficult to trace back to Trinitarian life per se.[1]

2. A More Biblically Realist View of Visible Unity?

As I was listening to Cardinal Koch, another reading of John 17 as the basis of Christian unity came to my mind. I recalled the 1962 sermons on the passage by Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) which were later published.[2] The contexts between Koch and Lloyd-Jones are very different, yet the comparison is evocative. From Jesus’ priestly prayer, Lloyd-Jones argues that unity embraces those who are given to Jesus by the Father by believing in Him. First and foremost, unity is unity of those who are believers in Jesus Christ (17:6-10), not unity of the baptized as the ecumenical understanding would suggest. One can be baptized and yet not be a believer. Christian unity applies to the latter, not necessarily to the former.

            According to Lloyd-Jones’ reading of the passage, Christian unity starts within and then works outward. It is primarily unseen and internal, although it manifests itself visibly. The Trinitarian foundation speaks about the depth and scope of this union, but it does not spell out any given institutional path in which it is bound to express itself.

This interpretation of the text indicates that neither a particular form of apostolic succession nor a particular sacramental and hierarchical system can be derived from the Trinity itself as if it were the only or the absolute or the perfect pattern for Christian unity. Unity is based on the truth of the Word of God (17:16) and is aimed at witnessing to the world (17:21). The visibility of the unity, as important as it is, depends on the spiritual reality which is a reflection of the Trinitarian life and is above all a gift for the believers in Jesus Christ so that others too would come to Him.

As an aside, Cardinal Koch’s lecture was followed by a prayer for Christian unity with a final intercession to Mary and by a song entitled “Mary, You Are our Mother” which said “… you (Mary) are our Advocate … Queen of Peace”. Even in this ecumenical event, there was no apology for deeply felt convictions. Roman Catholic ecumenism is not about reducing the claims of Catholicism but is a way of implementing them.

Leonardo De Chirico

leonardo.dechirico@ifeditalia.org

Rome, 12^th December 2012

One million copies published in 29 languages and distributed in 73 countries. These are the row figures on the last book about Jesus recently published by Pope Benedict XVI. The new volume ends the series that Ratzinger began projecting before his election to the papacy, and now it finally comes to fruition, when he is 85 years old and presides over a complex state, i.e. the Vatican, and the Roman Catholic Church, which of course is a global institution.

            The new volume follows the 2007 one that touched on the story of Jesus from his baptism to the Transfiguration, and the 2011 one which dealt with the Passion and the Resurrection. The new book focuses on the Infancy Narratives, i.e. the 180 verses that Matthew and Luke wrote to publicize the events preceding and following Jesus’ birth up to when he was twelve years old.

1. Historical Facts Theologically Interpreted

It is important to appreciate the background of Ratzinger’s books. Why is he writing on the life of Jesus according to the Gospels? In the late XIX century, different “lives” of Jesus were written in the attempt to separate the “Jesus of history” from the “Christ of faith”. The main assumption was that Christology had little if nothing to do with what really happened to Jesus, which is something that went beyond historical research and belonged to the realm of faith only. Liberal scholars argued that we know nearly nothing of the historical Jesus, yet we have a highly developed Christology that is not based on the historical records of the facts of Jesus’ life, but on the faith of subsequent communities. Therefore, the Gospels were considered as accounts driven by what the first Christians believed, not necessarily by what really happened. These views were and are still widely accepted among Catholic Biblical scholarship.

            Ratzinger writes to readdress this whole issue. The way he does it is through his own effort to comment on the Gospels. His goal is to affirm the basic historicity of the Gospel accounts and therefore the historical nature of the Christian faith which is centered on the historical Jesus. Benedict XVI argues that, in the Gospels, faith and history, facts and their theological interpretation, internal Biblical evidence and external historical evidence are intertwined. Yet, the theological significance of Jesus’ life is based on what really happened, not at the expense of it or even not interfering with history. So, in the case of the Infancy Narratives, we are confronted with a reliable account of what really happened (including the star and the Magi), coupled with a theological explanation of the birth of Jesus, His Person and work.

2. A Change of Mind?

It is interesting to note a shift of emphasis here. In the 1993 document on “The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church”, the Pontifical Biblical Commission (whose chairman was Raztinger himself) tended to overlook the relationship between faith and history in the Biblical text. It assumed that the historical-critical methods were just neutral scholarly tools without any pre-conceived assumption as far as the historical reliability of the Bible was concerned.

            Historically, this is not true. Historical-critical methods were the chosen weapons to try to dismantle the trustworthiness of the Written Word of God. Moreover, the reality is that most Catholic academic Biblical scholars do have skeptical views about the historicity of Scripture and carry their skepticism under the banner of the historical-critical methods.

            In 1993 Ratzinger seemed to be rather naive about the dangers of separating faith from history and of considering the Bible a book stemming from faith but not rooted in history. Now he seems to be more aware of the issues and wants to provide an example of Biblical interpretation that takes the historicity of the Bible seriously. Will his books of Jesus stir a debate in Catholic exegetical circles? Will they readdress the confidence in the historical reliability of the Bible in Catholic academia and the wider public?

3. A Commendation and a Couple of Reservations

Ratzinger’s book on the Infancy Narratives is not a technical piece of exegesis. It is rather a spiritual commentary on the Gospel narratives which speak about how the Son of God became a man. They are long meditations following the synoptic order of events of Jesus’ life, with some questions and applications for the contemporary reader.

            The final book is even better than the previous one. The latter portrayed Jesus as if he were a priest going around celebrating Masses everywhere he turned. Ratzinger’s sacramental reading of the Gospels heavily influenced his interpretation of the Passion. This book is a more straightforward and canonical reading of Jesus’ story firmly rooted in the OT and linked to subsequent NT teachings. It is perhaps the best of the series, with two reservations.

            Commenting on the fact that various details of the Infancy Narratives originated in the accounts given by Mary herself (who was the only witness present), the Pope also infers that other Marian traditions which are not found in the NT derive from the same source. The issue, then, is: why didn’t Luke or Matthew add them to their Gospels? More fundamentally, why didn’t the Holy Spirit inspire the Evangelists to insert them in the canonical texts? What is in Scripture and has become Scripture has an all together different status than other traditions claiming the same origin.

            The other perplexity has to do with Ratzinger’s comment on Luke 2:7: “She gave birth to her firstborn”. Here the Pope spends a couple of pages arguing that the reference to Jesus being the “firstborn” does not imply that Mary had other children. In fact, he affirms the perpetual virginity of Mary. But is this really what the text here is saying or suggesting? Is the later Roman Catholic doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity not a development that is based more on Marian elaborations rather than on what the Gospels say?

Leonardo De Chirico

leonardo.dechirico@ifeditalia.org

Rome, 30^th November 2012