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The
Enlightenment
Pope?
Notes on the
recent book
by Benedict XVI |
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An
commentary by Fr. Nicolas Portail on the book, Light of the
World: The Pope, the Church, and the Signs of the Times
(Ignatius Press, 2010) that provides a deeper analysis than
previous commentaries offered by the SSPX.
5-19-2011 |
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This
article proves that the following quotation from Bishop
Fellay's
Superior General's Letter #78:
The few reassuring
developments of the past few years are not enough to allow
us to say that things have really changed fundamentally [as
shown by the commentary below—Ed.]. |
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They give
us great hopes for the future, but like the light that one
perceives while still in the depths of the tunnel. And so with all our hearts let us ask our Heavenly
Mother to intervene so that this terrible
trial may be cut short, that the Modernist cape muffling
the Church—at least since Vatican II—may be torn in two,
and that the Authorities may perform their salvific duties
for souls, that the Church may regain her spiritual
splendor and beauty, that souls throughout the world may
hear the Good News that converts, receive the Sacraments
that save, and find the one sheepfold. Ah! How we would
love to be able to use less dramatic language, but it
would be a lie and culpable negligence on our part to
soothe you by letting you hope that things will improve by
themselves. |
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Interest in the
interviews of Benedict XVI with Peter Seewald in July 2010 at
Castel Gandolfo, published as, quickly subsided; that is a shame,
because the book provides a very interesting retrospect on the
pontificate of Benedict XVI.
A few reading
notes:
The literary genre
“Never
before has a pope decided to open his heart to all, not setting
any question aside,” the book cover of the French edition
announces. This is not correct, since Paul VI, in The Pope
Speaks: Dialogues of Paul VI with Jean Guitton (1968; original
French edition 1967), and John Paul II, in Be Not Afraid!
by Andre Frossard (1982; original French edition 1982), and
Crossing the Threshold of Hope by Vittorio Messori (1994;
original Italian edition 1993), already submitted to such
interviews. Yet although Light of the World is not really
innovative, it again raises a question as to the authority of the
pope’s answers: Is it part of the Magisterium or not? Benedict XVI
speaks about the faith, theology, morality, ecclesiastical
discipline—all eminently Catholic subjects, but outside of any
papal framework. Hence there is a certain uneasiness: is it right
for the Vicar of Christ to let himself be quizzed like a pop
singer? The book suffers from the start from this structural
ambiguity.
But Benedict
XVI is “in top form”. This is the impression that one gets from
the “Curriculum Vitae and a Brief Chronicle of the Pontificate”
in Light of the World (pp. 195-219). How many “firsts” are
explicitly mentioned in it! This insistence is not inadvertent, of
course: for the pontificate of Benedict XVI very much resembles
that of John Paul II (20 international journeys, a dozen visits to
non-Catholic places of worship, ecumenical meetings, J.M.J.), but
the novelties also allow us to say that Benedict XVI is not an
understudy of Karol Wojtyla. |
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Pope Benedict's
coat of arms
with tiara in the Vatican Gardens |
What are these avant-garde acts?
The reader
will remember his removal of the tiara from the papal coat of
arms, “which among other things is a symbol of the secular
power of the Church,” replacing it with a simple bishop’s
[Light of the World, p. 200] (May 2005), and his
suppression of the title “Patriarch of the West” (March
2006). Now using only the simple pallium of
Metropolitan Archbishops, the pope has reduced himself to a
simple Bishop of Rome as an “expression of sympathy”
(p. 201).1 |
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An unheard-of
number of ecumenical meetings: with the Mennonites (who had been
forgotten by John Paul II) on October 19, 2007; with the king of
Saudi Arabia, Abdullah, “protector of the holy places of Islam”
(November 6, 2007); for a joint declaration of rapprochement with
Bartholomew I (November 21, 2006); with King Abdullah of Jordan
(May 8, 2009), the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (May 12, 2009)…. “First
papal visit to a Jewish house of prayer in Germany” in Cologne
(August 19, 2005), or in Jerusalem for the Muslim Dome of the Rock
(May 12, 2009); “the second papal visit ever to an Islamic
house of prayer,” the mosque in Istanbul (November 30, 2006);
and in Westminster for an ecumenical celebration (September 17,
2010)…
The same can be
said of his diplomatic activity: resumption of official relations
with Medvedev’s Russia (December 3, 2009), the obliteration of a
twenty-year chill with the Italian government (June 24, 2005), two
first public Masses in Jerusalem and Nazareth (May 2009), a
motu proprio visit to the Auschwitz concentration camp in
Poland because “It was impossible for me not to come here as
Pope” (May 28, 2006), and granting an audience to President
Shimon Peres who assured him that [Israeli] relations with the
Holy See are “the best since the time of Jesus Christ”
(September 2, 2010), then to Mahmoud Abbas, who invited him to the
Palestinian Territories (December 3, 2005)…. These are courageous
feats the pope is accomplishing.
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Finally, the
earth-shaking declarations: first the Regensburg lecture on Islam
and human reason (September 12, 2006), then the “unjustifiable
crimes” of the Christian colonization of America (May 23,
2007), the call to a “profound solidarity with the Jewish world”
(November 9, 2008) for the 70th anniversary of the
Kristallnacht, and also the plea for forgiveness for the
sexual crimes of Catholic priests and religious (in Australia on
July 19, 2008, for Germany on January 15, 2010, or Ireland on
March 19 of that same year). Earth-shaking gestures, too: the
first meeting with victims of such abuse in the United States
(April 17, 2008), the lifting of the excommunications of the
Traditionalists (January 21, 2009), four hours with Hans Küng, who
had been condemned by his predecessor (September 24, 2005),
attending the largest global gathering of Catholic priests (June
10-11, 2010). |
Hans
Küng:
a leading Modernist
and notorious dissenter
of the Catholic Faith |
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If God grants
him many years, his pontificate could be even more “fruitful”
than that of a Paul VI or a John Paul II. In what direction? Let’s
quickly review several points.
Ecumenism: preferential field of the pontificate
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The
pope praying with Islamic leaders |
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The
pope with Orthodox
Patriarch Bartholomew I |
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The
pope and the Anglican
“Archbishop” of Canterbury |
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Islam, “a
great religious reality with which we must be in dialogue” (p.
98), gets preferential treatment from the pope, who carefully
distinguishes within it the religion from the political fact:
Benedict XVI believes in tolerant Islam. Back in the sixteenth
century, Islam had been used by the Ottoman Empire in its
conquests: then the Crusades were justified. Not today.
Furthermore contemporary Islamic intransigence is just a reaction
to the apostate West and, according to the pope, Islam is “the
defender… of religion against atheism and secularism” [p.
101]. An opportunity for Christianity, in other words. Perhaps the
current Arab ferment will enlighten the pope’s judgment…
Orthodoxy
is a priority of this pontificate, and the pope has already met
its principal leaders. But the obstacle of the pope’s universal
jurisdiction has not been overcome, far from it (pp. 202, 203).
Nevertheless for Benedict XVI, “in a globalized society, in our
need for the world community to have an interior unity, it is
becoming evident that these [centrifugal] tendencies [i.e.,
national Churches of the Orthodox and Anglican type] are
actually anachronisms” and that “the Church needs an organ
of unity” (p. 138-139). |
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Thus globalization must extend also to
Christianity, for since Vatican II it has been attentive to the “signs
of the times”. Church unity thus depends on current historical
conditions: it must follow the evolution of the world. How can she
who is essentially one and holy thus follow in the wake of the
world and secularize herself to that extent? A secularization
which, in other statements, Benedict XVI deplores.
The election of
Benedict XVI was greeted by Jewish organizations “with
an enthusiasm second to none” [p. 81, the interviewer’s
expression]. His first letter was to the Jewish community of Rome.
He has visited more synagogues than his predecessors (Cologne,
Manhattan, Rome) and had the Good Friday prayer for the Jews
modified. The theological reason? They are our “fathers in
faith” (p. 82). Hence this new relation between Israel and the
Church, “where each respects the being and distinctive mission
of the other”. Strictly speaking, there is no apostolate
planned with regard to Israel.
Similarly
vis-a-vis the Anglicans. The Apostolic Constitution
Anglicanorum coetibus (November
4, 2009) reintegrates them as an organized body, with a hierarchy
and parishes: hence the system of personal ordinariates. But we
must “examine to what extent they might be able to preserve
their own tradition, their own inherited form of life, with all of
the riches it contains” (p. 96). This is setting up a Church
within the Latin Church.
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Traditionalism
The lifting of
the excommunications of the bishops of Tradition (January 21,
2009) makes Tradition comparable to… the schismatic Church of
China. And Benedict XVI explains that it was because “they
violated papal primacy”, that the Chinese and the
Traditionalists were excommunicated, although this “had nothing
to do with Vatican II” [pp. 22, 120]. |
Operation
Survival:
The 1988 Episcopal Consecrations |
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This abridged version of
the story ignores Ecclesia Dei adflicta (July 2, 1988)
condemning Archbishop Lefebvre, since “the root of this
schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory
notion of Tradition” opposed to that of the Council.
Moreover it is
impossible to compare with the Chinese Patriotic Church, which is
separated from Rome and on the payroll of Mao, with the
consecrations of 1988 which only bestowed the episcopal character,
without ordinary jurisdiction or the intention to form a parallel
Church. Archbishop Lefebvre said this explicitly, though. One
cannot help being astonished at such an oversight by a shrewd man
like the pope.
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Bishop Richard
Williamson |
But he
contradicts himself by declaring that once the four bishops had
recognized papal jurisdiction, the excommunication could only be
lifted, “justly,” and then answering that if he had known
about
Bishop Williamson’s statements,
it would have been necessary “to separate the Williamson case
from the others”. If we understand Benedict XVI correctly, it
is not enough to recognize the primacy of the pope, if one utters
some unfortunate words about the Holocaust. There is therefore the
Catholic faith, and more than the Catholic faith.
“Unfortunately,”
the pope continues, “none of us went on the Internet to find
out what sort of person we were dealing with.” These
admissions leave us perplexed about the present seriousness of the
Roman Curia, which is reduced to looking to the Internet for news
about its internal affairs; another symptom of the secularization
of the Church in the world’s tow. |
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And that is not
all. To finish washing his hands of this episcopal “Holocaust-denier”,
the pope explains that “Williamson is an atypical case, in that
he was… never Catholic in the proper sense. He was an Anglican and
then went over directly to Lefebvre” (pp. 121-122). Benedict
XVI is rewriting history.
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St. Pius X
International Seminary
in Econe, Switzerland |
In fact,
Richard Williamson renounced Anglicanism and applied to St.
Pius X Seminary in Econe, which at
that time was quite thoroughly recognized and encouraged by the
Roman Congregations. He made his first promise on December 8,
1973, more than two years
before the (illegal) suppression of the
Priestly Society of St. Pius X. To anyone who is trying to be
objective, these three pages in Light of the World are at
most conjectural and, alas, unfair. One would think that the pope
was better informed than that about Traditionalism. |
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Affidavit of failure
Courageously,
the pope allowed himself to be questioned about the wounds of the
Church in this never-ending post-conciliar crisis. A few topics:
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The crass ignorance of the youth after years of catechesis (9 to 13 years in
Germany): “How is it possible?” Answer: “This is a
question that I also ask myself, too…. [It] is
incomprehensible.” When the supreme leader of the Church,
which is “the teacher of truth” and infallible by the grace
of her Founder, admits his ignorance about the very purpose of
his mission—to transmit the faith which saves—then one may
reasonably conclude that the Holy Spirit has gone on a long
vacation. A solution? “The bishops must seriously reflect on ways to give
catechesis a new heart and a new face.” In the 1950’s, all the
little Catholics in the world knew their doctrine and had it at
their fingertips.
What if we readopted the good old methods? |
The Catechism
of the Council
of Trent (aka, The
Roman Catechism); available from
Angelus Press |
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Considering
those who are divorced and remarried, Benedict XVI upholds
“monogamous marriage” which “is indissoluble” [pp.
143-144]. But in today’s world, “divorce is supposedly normal”;
the validity of marriages is therefore called into question by the
pope, who is open to marriage annulments in our opinion.... As for
a man who was truly married, divorced, then entered a new civil
relationship, the pope recommends spiritual direction which
assures him of the love of Christ and tells him to think: “The
more I remain in the Church, the more I am sustained by Him”
(p. 145). To say, in a situation of cohabitation of adultery, that
one is “sustained” by the Savior is a serious illusion,
which encourages the sinner to remain one. And what about fidelity
to the vows of the first marriage?
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Ultrasound of an
unborn baby |
Abortion
“is a huge question.” [Actually that remark refers to “premarital
sexuality”.] Benedict XVI proposes responding by reflecting
that “society robs itself of its greatest hopes when it kills
human beings through abortion. How many children are killed who
might one day have been geniuses, who could have given humanity
something new…? [G]reat human capacity…is being destroyed
here....” |
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And then “unborn children are human persons whose
dignity and right to life we have to respect” (p. 146). Such
humanistic or sociological reasons explain why the Church has lost
the fight against abortion everywhere. Should it not be
mentioned that God has inscribed in the soul of every human being
by natural law and by Revelation the fact that He has reserved to
Himself the right to make life-or-death decisions about a human
being and consequently has forbidden us to kill the innocent?
As for
contraception, Benedict XVI upholds the prohibitions by Paul
VI in Humanae vitae, but “Finding ways to enable people
to live the teaching, on the other hand, is a further question.”
Why should it be? The Church’s teaching is clear. Nevertheless
Benedict XVI wants “to express the teaching pastorally,
theologically, and intellectually in the context of today’s
studies of sexuality and anthropology so as to create the
conditions for understanding” (p. 147). And with that, we
don’t understand anything at all—unless it is that the Church is
afraid of telling the truth?
Pedophilia in the clergy: “Yes, it is a great crisis, we have to say that”
[p. 23]. But for ten years Rome has reacted with stronger norms
against those who are guilty and stricter requirements for future
priests. But the pope also admits: “We must examine thoroughly
how it was possible for that to happen” [p. 25]. When Peter
Seewald insists, “One wonders most of all how someone who reads
the Gospel every day… can go astray in this horrible way,”
Benedict XVI can only admit his incompetence: “It is a
mystery.... How can someone then fall so far? We do not know”
(pp. 35-36). So he does not know the reasons for such moral
deviancy among the clergy.
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Or rather, he does not perceive them, because on the next
page [sic] he reports the opinion of the Archbishop of
Dublin: “Ecclesiastical penal law functioned
until the late 1950s.... After the mid-sixties, however, it was
simply not applied any more. The prevailing mentality was that the
Church must not be a Church of laws but, rather, a Church of love;
she must not punish” (pp. 25-26). What event in the Sixties
could have changed the Church’s practice in such a serious matter
in this way? Thus it is still true: “They have eyes and see not”
(Psalm 113). |
The Sixties:
merely a social revolution?
Or was Vatican II a primary culprit for social unrest and
revolutionary ideas? |
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Finally, with
regard to cohabiting priests, the pope again appeals to the
“climate of the time”. “When a priest lives together
with a woman, one must examine whether a real will to marry is
present and whether they could build a good marriage. If that is
the case, they must follow that path.” So the priest should
break his vows?! And the pope adds that “The fundamental
problem is honesty.” But didn’t the priest embrace celibacy
for love of God and souls? Yes, but you have to keep in mind “respect
for the truth of the two individuals and of the children…”
[pp. 39-40]. And if there is no hope of a serious marriage, “one
must try to find paths of healing for him and for her.” It
seems that they have already been found: separation.
The quotations
given above are significant in more than one respect: they allow
us to gauge the disarray in which the highest authorities of the
Church find themselves, the loftiest authority on earth, behind a
discourse that purports to be reassuring. In comparison, the
affair that the media pounced on in November 2010 seems almost
secondary, even benign....
These few notes
show how the conciliar Church today has failed on all the
fundamental points of faith and morals. It has no concrete,
effective solution whatsoever to propose. And the reason is that
in the present crisis there is no other choice but to carry the
cross, and valiantly; now this is totally absent from the dialogue
in Light of the World. All told, never in her history has
the Church deserved that title less.
Footnote
1 There are five
patriarchates in the Church. After the Orthodox schism of 1054,
the four Eastern Patriarchs joined forces in opposing the
Patriarch of the West; then in 1589 a fifth schismatic
patriarchate was founded in Moscow, as a replacement for the one
in Rome. |
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