Posted on

217. “Kidnapped,” the movie by Marco Bellocchio and Roman Catholic sacramentalism

Kidnapped (“Rapito,” 2023) is the latest film by movie director Marco Bellocchio that was presented at the 2023 Cannes Festival. It tells the true story of Edgardo Mortara, a Jewish boy from Bologna, who was kidnapped from his family in 1858 when he was six years old and taken to a Catholic boarding school by order of the Inquisition court, under the mandate of Pope Pius IX,  who proclaimed the 1854 dogma of the immaculate conception of Mary and the 1870 dogma of papal infallibility. At that time, Bologna was still under the Pontifical State. The reason for this abduction lies in the fact that, when he was still a newborn, the nurse who looked after him, seeing him sick and feverish, baptized him in secret from his parents out of fear that he would die without the sacrament and therefore be lost. For six years, she had kept the secret, only to then reveal it to the ecclesiastical authorities in exchange for financial aid. At that point, the court decreed the removal of the child from the family because he was a “Christian”: the Roman Catholic church considered him its “son” and had the responsibility of educating him in a Catholic way. Edgardo was taken by force to Rome to a boarding school in close contact with Pius IX. The family’s attempts to bring him home were in vain. In 1870, when the Pontifical State ended and Rome became the capital city of the Italian kingdom, the family managed to see Edgardo again, now eighteen, only bitterly to note that their son had not only abandoned Judaism but was on the road to becoming a Catholic priest. Indeed, the baptized Jew became a priest and remained so until his death in 1940.

The film tells this dramatic story: the violence of the kidnapping, the trauma of the child torn from his parents, the suffering of the family, the clash of identities, the solidarity of the Jewish communities of Bologna and Rome, the abuse of the Roman Catholic Church, the authoritarian regime of the Pontifical State and the submission of the Jewish minority, the complex personality of Pius IX, etc. To all this complex interweaving, we also add the choice of Edgardo who, having become an adult, marries the Roman Catholic identity of the time and, instead of returning to Judaism and his community of origin, embraces the Catholic priesthood.

Many critics have underlined the film’s negative charge against the Roman Catholic Church: the intransigence of its dogmas, the authoritarianism of its culture, the intolerance of its practices, and the abuses of its institutions. The traditionalist Catholic press has highlighted the director’s anticlerical prejudices, arguing that, net of the violence of the kidnapping, Edgardo made a “free” and “adult” choice towards the priesthood. Everyone can see the film and draw their own conclusions.

That said, a theological comment has gone almost unnoticed but deserves to be mentioned. It has to do with the Roman Catholic doctrine of the sacrament of baptism. According to this doctrine, baptism is effective ex opere operato, by the very fact of being administered. According to the Roman Catholic understanding, God’s grace is infused through the rite of baptism. There is an automatism, a mechanism that works, in the sacrament. From this point of view, once baptized, Edgardo became a Christian, regardless of the faith he and his parents professed. Since the sacrament had been activated, it brought about an objective change in the baby’s life that necessitated follow-up. At that point, the Roman Catholic Church felt compelled to act accordingly. Baptism should have been followed by the other sacraments, by necessity, without hesitation, whatever the cost. What is at stake is the causative conception of baptism that permeates Roman Catholic sacramentalism, to the point of leading it to carry out the kidnapping of a Jewish child baptized by a nurse. Since baptism caused grace, everything else followed consequently.

The power of Roman Catholic sacramentalism is so forceful that Edgardo himself, who became a priest, is imbued with it. In fact, the film ends with the scene in which he visits his mother on her deathbed and tries to secretly baptize her because he is convinced that by administering the rite, he would save her. In addition to the ideological criticism against the Roman Catholic system of which Bellocchio’s film is woven, it would be useful to question the theological reasons that made Roman Catholicism an authoritarian system which, under Pius IX, led the Roman church to orchestrate the kidnapping of a child. The doctrine of the sacrament ex opere operato is part of them.

One final point. The story of Kidnapped portrays a face of Roman Catholicism that is very different from what most people perceive it to be today. Pope Pius IX ordered the kidnapping of the Jew Edgardo because of an administered baptism, while today, Pope Francis calls “all brothers” Muslims, Hindus, and even atheists, without them being baptized according to Canon Law. In between, there is the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) where Rome embraced the principle of religious freedom (e.g. Dignitatis Humanae, 1965), a positive view of world religions, and a hopeful expectation that all will be saved. The doctrine of baptism ex opere operato is still the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, but there are no practical consequences for those who don’t receive it.

Today, Rome extends her arms around all, regardless of the administration of the sacrament. The transition from Pius IX’s authoritarian sacramentalism to Pope Francis’s inclusivist universalism is a sign of a swing of the pendulum of Roman Catholicism from being a predominantly “Roman” religion to having become a massively “Catholic” one, without changing its ideological basis which keeps the “Roman” structure and the “Catholic” inspiration in constant tension. Since it is not the gospel that shapes its deepest commitments, it can at times be more Roman or more Catholic without ceasing to be Roman Catholicism.

Posted on

208. The End of the Tridentine Paradigm (or Where Is the Roman Catholic Church Going)?

It was the historian Paolo Prodi (1932-2016) who coined the expression “Tridentine paradigm” to indicate the set of identity markers that emerged from the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and which shaped the Catholic Church for centuries, at least until the second half of the 20th century. In one of his most famous books, Il paradigma tridentino (2010), Prodi explored the self-understanding of the institutional church of Rome which, in the wake of and in response to the “threat” of the Protestant Reformation, closed hierarchical and pyramidal ranks up to the primacy of the Pope. The church consolidated its sacramental system, regimented the church in rigorous canonical forms and parochial territories, and disciplined folk devotions and the control of consciences. It relaunched its mission to counter the spread of the Reformation and to anticipate the Protestant states in an attempt to arrive first in countries not yet “evangelized.” It promoted models of holiness to involve the laity emotionally and inspired artists to celebrate the new vitality of the church of Rome in a memorable form.

The Tridentine paradigm produced the Roman Catechism of Pius V (1566) as a dogmatic synthesis of the Catholic faith to which Catholics scrupulously had to abide, the controversial theology of Robert Bellarmine to support anti-Protestant apologetic action, and the great baroque creations by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (like the majestic colonnade of St. Peter’s) to represent the church as the winner over its adversaries and new patron of artists and intellectuals.

The Tridentine paradigm has withstood the challenge of the Protestant Reformation and more. With the same paradigm, Rome also faced a second push coming from the modern world: that of the Enlightenment (on the cultural side) and the French Revolution (on the political side) between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With the same set of institutional, sacramental, and hierarchical markers that emerged from the Council of Trent, Rome defended itself from the attack of modernity and counterattacked. With the dogmas of the immaculate conception of Mary (1854) and papal infallibility (1870), which are children of the Tridentine paradigm, Rome elevated Mariology and the papacy to identity markers of modern Roman Catholicism. With Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors (1864), Rome condemned the modern world, just as the Council of Trent had anathematized Protestants. With the encyclical Aeterni Patris (1879), Leo XIII elevated Thomism to a system of Catholic thought against all the drifts of modern culture.

The Tridentine paradigm exalted the church of Rome and condemned its enemies. It established who was in and who was out. It defined Roman Catholic doctrine and rejected “Protestant” and “Modernist” heresies. It solidified Roman Catholic teaching and consolidated practices. It authorized controlled forms of pluralism but within the compact structure of the central organization. According to the Tridentine paradigm, it was clear who Catholics were, what they believed, how they were expected to behave, and how the church functioned.

Then, the world changed, and Roman Catholicism changed with it. The Tridentine paradigm gradually eroded with the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), not in a frontal and direct way, but following the path of “development” and “aggiornamento” that Vatican II promoted. Of course, Rome does not make any U-turns or swerves sharply. Trent is still there, and the dogmatic and institutional structures of the Tridentine paradigm are standing. The Roman Catholic Church has begun to see its limits, wishing to overcome them by embracing a new posture in the world. Even if Paul VI immediately saw the risks of abandoning it, John Paul II tried to make the Tridentine paradigm elastic by extending it to the universal church. Benedict XVI coined the expression “reform-in-continuity” to try to explain the Catholic dynamic of change without breaking with the past.

The pope who seems to perceive the Tridentine paradigm in negative terms is Pope Francis. His invectives against “clericalism” are directed at Roman Catholic people and practices nourished by the Tridentine spirit. The typical distinctions of the Tridentine paradigm are rendered fluid and are progressively dissolved: clergy/laity, man/woman, Catholic/non-Catholic, heterosexual/homosexual, married/divorced, etc. If the Tridentine paradigm distinguished and selected things and people, Francis wants to unite everything and everyone. The first paradigm separated Roman Catholicism from the rest; this pope wants to mix everything. The first worked with the pair white/black, inside/outside, faithful/infidel. Francis sees the world in different shades of gray and welcomes everyone into the “field hospital” that is the church.

The “synodal” church dear to Francis seems to overturn the traditional pyramidal structure. The direction of the church is determined by the “holy people of God” made up of migrants, the marginalized, the poor, the laity, and people in irregular life situations. Before there were heretics, pagans, and excommunicated, now we are “all brothers.” It is no longer the center that drives, but the peripheries. It is not sin, judgment, and salvation that occupy the discourse of the church, but its message today touches on themes such as peace, human rights, and the environment. The church no longer wants to present itself as a “magistra” (teacher) but only as a “mater” (mother).

With its calls for the extension of the priesthood to women and the blessing of same-sex couples, the German “synodal path” is effectively striking the Tridentine paradigm. The first results of the “synodal process” in European dioceses are attacks on the Tridentine paradigm. It is true that there are conservative circles (in the USA in particular) who claim the Tridentine paradigm and would like to revive it. However, the point is that Roman Catholicism globally is at a crossroads. Has the Tridentine paradigm reached the end of its journey? If so, what will be the face of Roman Catholicism tomorrow? Neither the Tridentine paradigm nor the various synodal paths dear to Pope Francis indicate an evangelical turning point in the Church of Rome. The Church of Rome was and remains distant from the claims of the biblical gospel.

Posted on

184. Pope Francis, the Chaplain of the United Nations?

The pandemic hit hard in 2020. Disruption broke in at all levels. The Vatican, as the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church, was no exception. Programs in Rome were canceled or held in a low-key form. Was it then a stand-by or – even worse – a wasted year? Not at all.

2020 was a year of intense activity behind the scenes, especially in the area of expanding the borders of Rome’s “catholicity”. The catholicity of Roman Catholicism is one of the two pillars of the whole system: while it is “Roman” – i.e. centered on Rome’s hierarchical institution, focused on Rome’s catechism and canon law, based on its sacramental machinery– it is also “Catholic” – i.e. ever-expanding its synthesis, assimilating trends and movements, aiming at becoming more fully universal through absorbing the world. Outside of the spotlight of media attention, it was the catholicity of Rome that gained a great deal from the COVID year.

While its ordinary events were negatively impacted, the long-term, “catholic” vision of the Roman Church was fueled with impressive consequences. Pope Francis was the architect and proactive director of all these moves. In observing the recent global activities of the pope, the Argentinian philosopher Rubén Peretó Rivas compared them with those of an international organization and asked whether Pope Francis aims at becoming the “Chaplain of the United Nations”. His 2020 “universal” initiatives indeed look like those of the United Nations in language, scope and content. Three projects deserve to be mentioned in this respect.

“All Brothers”
It has been rightly called the “political manifesto” of Pope Francis’s pontificate. In fact, there is a lot of politics and a lot of sociology in the latest encyclical “All Brothers” (3rd October 2020). In it, Francis wants to plead the cause of universal fraternity and social friendship. To do this, he speaks of borders to be broken down, of waste to be avoided, of human rights that are not sufficiently universal, of unjust globalization, of burdensome pandemics, of migrants to be welcomed, of open societies, of solidarity, of peoples’ rights, of local and global exchanges, of the limits of the liberal political vision, of world governance, of political love, of the recognition of the other, of the injustice of any war, of the abolition of the death penalty. These are all interesting “political” themes which, were it not for some comments on the parable of the Good Samaritan that intersperse the chapters, could have been written by a group of sociologists and humanitarian workers from some international organization. The vision proposed by “All Brothers” is the way in which Rome sees globalization with the eye of a Jesuit and South American pope.

Its basic message is sufficiently clear: we are all brothers as children of the same God. This is Pope Francis’ theological truth. When “All Brothers” talks about God, it does so in general terms that can fit Muslim, Hindu, and other religions’ accounts of god, as well as the Masonic reference to the Watchmaker. To further confirm this, “All Brothers” ends with a “Prayer to the Creator” that could be used both in a mosque and in a Masonic temple. Having removed the “stumbling block” of Jesus Christ, everyone can turn to an unspecified Divinity to experiment with what it means to be “brothers” – brothers in a Divinity made in the image and likeness of humanity, not brothers and sisters on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ who has died and risen for sinners. “All Brothers” has genetically modified the biblically understood meaning of fraternity by transferring it to common humanity. In doing so, it has lost the biblical boundaries of the word and replaced them with pan-religious traits and contents. The papal document is deist, at best theistic, but not in line with biblical and Trinitarian Christianity.

“All Brothers” shows that the mission that Pope Francis has in mind is not the preaching of the Gospel in words and deeds, but the extension to all of a message of universal fraternity. This is the theological framework of the pope as he stretches the boundaries of the catholicity of his church.

The Global Compact on Education
Soon after releasing “All Brothers”, there was another indication of Pope Francis’ universalist agenda. In a video message aired on 15th October 2020, he commended the “Global Compact on Education” (GCE), i.e. an ambitious plan in the field of education worldwide to bring about a “change of mentality”. The GCE is worked out with Mission 4.7, a U.N.-backed advisory group of civil and political leaders aiming to meet the educational target (numbered 4.7) of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

SDG number 4 strives for “quality education”, and within that goal, target 4.7 aims to “ensure all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including among others through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development”. 

This is the U.N.’s globalist language, but the Roman Catholic language significantly overlaps with it. GCE speaks of “human fraternity” regardless of and beyond religious beliefs. In the plan, the watchwords are wholly secular. The dominant formula is “new humanism”, explained in terms of “common home”, “universal solidarity”, “fraternity” (as it is defined in “All Brothers”), “convergence”, “welcome”, overcoming “division and antagonism” …  The “new humanism” is coupled with the “universal brotherhood” so as to embrace the whole of humanity in a human, common project. In the “new humanism” Rome reads its increased catholicity, the U.N. its globalist agenda.

In the video Francis also praised the U.N.’s role and contribution in offering a “unique opportunity” to create “a new kind of new education”, and quoted St. Paul VI’s 1965 message of appreciation of the U.N. in which he lauded the institution for “teaching men peace”. Francis is certain that this plan will bring about “the civilization of love, beauty and unity”. No explicit Christian reference is made and there is no indication that the root problem is human sin. It seems that as we will have better education opportunities for all, the “new humanism” will come. This is in line with the U.N. vision, but is it realistic from a Christian viewpoint? 

The Economy of Francesco
If “All Brothers” is the theological framework and GCE is the project in education, a third area that Pope Francis has strongly pushed forward is an initiative in the field of economics. Making reference to Francis of Assisi’s reconciled view between humanity and the earth and drawing inspiration from it, the initiative was called the “Economy of Francesco” (EF).

In a video broadcast on 21st November, the pope called young economists, entrepreneurs and business leaders “to take up the challenge of promoting and encouraging models of development, progress and sustainability in which people, especially the excluded (including our sister earth), will no longer be – at most – a merely nominal, technical or functional presence. Instead, they will become protagonists in their own lives and in the entire fabric of society”. The goal is to strive towards “a pact to change the current economy” and to “give a new soul to the global economy”, and indeed to radically overthrow it in the wake of the “popular movements”.

Again, this project is another extension of the catholicity of the Roman Catholic Church, with no explicit reference to a Christian framework, but falling in line with an apparently globalist view of an economic reality marked by the “new humanism”.

As Francis promoted EF, he also included as partner in the initiative the “Council for Inclusive Capitalism”, meaning the magnates of the Ford Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, Mastercard, Bank of America, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the like. The Council is formed by around 500 companies, which together represent 10.5 trillion dollars in assets under management and 200 million workers in over 163 countries. This is to say that simply painting Rome’s catholicity as anti-capitalist is wrong. Pope Francis aims at including all parties in his “new humanism”. In these relationships with the global companies there are also strategic opportunities for funding the initiatives of the Roman Catholic Church. It’s a win-win relationship.

As already mentioned, Francis’s activism on the global scene in 2020 prompted someone to label him as “Chaplain of the United Nations” because of the striking convergence between the “new humanism” that he has been advocating in the areas of fraternity, education and the economy and the goals of the U.N. In doing what the pope does, the impression is not to be given that Francis is awkwardly operating outside of Roman Catholic principles and convictions. While there are apparent similarities with the ethos of an international organization such as the U.N., what the pope did in 2020 is an attempt to implement the vision cast at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).

In one of its foundational documents on the church, Vatican II argues that the church is a “sacrament”. Here is how it explains what this means: the church is a “sacrament” because she is “a sign and instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and of the unity of the whole human race” (Lumen Gentium 1). The idea of the global “human fraternity” and the Roman Church being a sign and instrument of it is embedded in the self-understanding of Rome. With these recent projects, Pope Francis is making it plain what it means for the Roman Catholic Church to be a “sacrament” in the world in the realms of global politics, education and economy, i.e. uniting the whole of humanity around itself.

In his 2013 document “Evangelii Gaudium”, Francis wrote that “initiating processes rather than possessing spaces” (n. 223) is what he wanted to achieve. “All brothers”, GCE and EF are all processes initiated by the expansion of Rome’s catholicity. Those who are used to think of Roman Catholicism as a “Roman” system (e.g. dogmatic, rigid, locked-in) and not as a “Catholic” project (e.g. open-ended, absorbing and expanding) may be surprised and even puzzled. But Roman Catholicism demands that its Roman-centered institution be unceasingly fertilized by its evermore Catholic horizon, and vice versa.