Link Roundup: May 16, 2016

First up, today the United States Supreme Court issued a decision of sorts in the Little Sisters of the Poor case, remanding the case to the circuit courts in light of the parties apparent agreement regarding the workaround the high court had proposed earlier this year.

The National Catholic Register has some early reporting and analysis. Lyle Denniston also has some analysis—geared, of course, in a more legal direction—at SCOTUSBlog.

At Slate, Ruth Graham asks whether the Christian left can emerge as a more potent, coherent political force as Donald Trump’s ascendancy in the Republican Party has thrown some of the traditional coalitions on the right into disarray.

Fr. John Hunwicke has a very interesting post about the Octave of Pentecost—no, not the old story about Paul VI’s dismay upon learning that he had suppressed it—focusing on whether one may licitly observe the octave in reciting the Liturgia Horarum. (One must observe the octave in the Roman Breviary of 1960, of course.) Obviously, after Summorum Pontificum, a priest can just say his office according to the Breviary, though for one reason or another he may prefer not to.

Next, also at the National Catholic Register, there is some more coverage of Cardinal Müller’s recent discussion of Amoris laetitia and its place within the recent papal magisterium.

Pater Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist., has a couple of very splendid posts well worth your time. First, he discusses Christianity’s long-held hope for a universal temporal order in the context of the European Union. Then, he discusses in a very long, very fascinating essay desire, deicide, and atonement through the lens of René Girard. This second post is really one of the best things we’ve read in quite some time.

You’ll remember you belong to me

At First Things, George Weigel has decided that what America really needs is a return to authentic Catholic social teaching (he has also decided that the voters have made a colossal mistake, but we could have guessed that):

It’s become a cliché to say that “no candidate and no party fully embraces the vision of Catholic social doctrine.” True enough. But previous election cycles gave Catholic voters a prudential choice between candidates who embodied at least some of the major themes of the social doctrine. What is the thoughtful Catholic voter to do when neither of the presidential candidates is even minimally committed to human dignity, the common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity, as the social doctrine understands those concepts? When one party has elevated lifestyle libertinism to the first of constitutional principles (and is prepared to kill unborn children, jettison free speech, and traduce religious freedom in service to hedonism), while the other is prepared to nominate a fantasist who spun grotesque fairy tales about an alleged connection between an opponent’s family and Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before he closed the deal?

(Emphasis supplied.) However, Weigel’s point would be more interesting, we suppose, if we were not pretty sure that by “Catholic social doctrine,” Weigel means, more or less, pre-Trump Republican orthodoxy.

Remember Weigel’s March statement against Trump in National Review (co-written by Robert George and co-signed by all the best Catholic Republicans)? The one where he said:

In recent decades, the Republican party has been a vehicle — imperfect, like all human institutions, but serviceable — for promoting causes at the center of Catholic social concern in the United States: (1) providing legal protection for unborn children, the physically disabled and cognitively handicapped, the frail elderly, and other victims of what Saint John Paul II branded “the culture of death”; (2) defending religious freedom in the face of unprecedented assaults by officials at every level of government who have made themselves the enemies of conscience; (3) rebuilding our marriage culture, based on a sound understanding of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife; and (4) re-establishing constitutional and limited government, according to the core Catholic social-ethical principle of subsidiarity. There have been frustrations along the way, to be sure; no political party perfectly embodies Catholic social doctrine. But there have also been successes, and at the beginning of the current presidential electoral cycle, it seemed possible that further progress in defending and advancing these noble causes was possible through the instrument of the Republican party.

That possibility is now in grave danger. And so are those causes.

(Emphasis supplied.) We pause, of course, to note that religious freedom and subsidiarity-as-limited-government are perhaps not the most traditional causes at the center of Catholic social concern, not least because, well, religious freedom remains a live controversy and John Paul’s notion of subsidiarity departed in some interesting ways from Leo XIII’s and Pius XI’s. But those are discussions we have had elsewhere. The point is that Weigel plainly identifies Catholic social teaching with policies that are entirely consonant and compatible with mainstream Republican orthodoxy.

Our question (comment?) is this: what if Catholic social teaching is not entirely consonant and compatible with mainstream Republican orthodoxy? What if it’s not even a little compatible? 

Then Weigel (and the other neocon, neo-Cath thought leaders) are in real trouble.

Link Roundup: May 8, 2016

First up, at The Josias, Timothy Wilson has a new translation of Ireneo González Moral, S.J., on relations between the Church and state. (We know that Wilson is currently preparing a blockbuster translation of another seminal work, but we won’t spoil the surprise. Keep your eyes peeled, though.)

Edward Pentin reports on a talk that Gerhard Ludwig Cardinal Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, gave in Spain recently, touching upon Amoris laetitia, arguing that the Holy Father’s post-Synodal exhortation has left Familiaris consortio and Sacramentum caritatis untouched. His particular arguments are worth reading and considering.

On the other hand, Rorate Caeli has a translation of a very long speech by Roberto de Mattei about the “crisis in the Church.” It touches upon many topics, but ultimately expresses a negative judgment, as you could have guessed, on Amoris laetitia.

The Holy Father has received the Charlemagne Prize and he has taken the opportunity to set forth his vision for Europe. It is an interesting comment on the decrepit state of the Continent in 2016, and in many ways he continues the line of thought most clearly articulated in Laudato si’.

At the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof has a very interesting op-ed piece about liberal intolerance—that is, leftist intolerance—especially at universities. There are those who attribute the rise of Donald Trump as, in part, a reaction to this leftist intolerance, and, therefore, Kristof’s piece is more than merely an exploration of why some professors have to sit alone at the faculty club.

Gregory DiPippo has an interesting essay at New Liturgical Movement about the feast of St. John at the Latin Gate. It is especially interesting given the information on St. John’s martyrdom, which was, well, not traditional. Under Domitian, John was thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, and he emerged unharmed, which is why he was exiled to Patmos. By repute, the church of St. John at the Latin Gate was set up where Domitian had set up his cauldron.

The SSPX declaration on “Amoris laetitia”

The Society of St. Pius X has issued a very, very subtle statement on Amoris laetitia. Before quoting the interesting bit, we observe that this document has essentially dispelled whatever doubt we had that the SSPX is on a trajectory toward canonical regularity. And soon.

We note first that the Society’s declaration, while being perhaps slightly—very slightly—stringently worded, comes down on the line that Amoris laetitia has created unnecessary confusion. But note the subtle maneuver here: the Society argues that the Church’s duty is to proclaim general rules, the concrete application of which in individual cases is left to pastors, confessors, and Catholics with well-formed consciences:

3. The question concerning admission of divorced-and-“remarried” persons to Holy Communion has already been addressed several times by the Church, whose clear answer has been repeated even recently. A new discussion of the Church’s constant teaching and practice could therefore only be detrimental and likely to confuse matters instead of clarifying them. And that is what happened.

4. In a papal document one expects to find a clear presentation of the Church’s magisterial teaching and the Christian manner of living. Now, as others have correctly noted, Amoris Laetitia is rather “a treatise on psychology, pedagogy, moral and pastoral theology and spirituality”. The Church has the mission of proclaiming the teaching of Jesus Christ in season and out of season and of drawing from it the necessary conclusions, all for the good of souls. It is incumbent upon her to remind men of God’s Law and not to minimize it or explain how it might not apply in some cases. The Church has the obligation of stating principles, the concrete application of which she leaves to pastors of souls, to confessors, and also to the conscience that has been enlightened by faith, the proximate rule of human action.

(Emphasis supplied and slightly reformatted.) Forgive us for being dense, but this does not seem like a root-and-branch condemnation of Amoris laetitia. It does not even seem like much of a condemnation of the fundamental innovation of Amoris laetitia. (We will assume that the Society did not intend to fully endorse the fundamental innovation, notwithstanding that last sentence.) Remember what the Holy Father said in paragraph 300:

If we consider the immense variety of concrete situations such as those I have mentioned, it is understandable that neither the Synod nor this Exhortation could be expected to provide a new set of general rules, canonical in nature and applicable to all cases. What is possible is simply a renewed encouragement to undertake a responsible personal and pastoral discernment of particular cases, one which would recognize that, since “the degree of responsibility is not equal in all cases”, the consequences or effects of a rule need not necessarily always be the same. Priests have the duty to “accompany [the divorced and remarried] in helping them to understand their situation according to the teaching of the Church and the guidelines of the bishop. Useful in this process is an examination of conscience through moments of reflection and repentance. The divorced and remarried should ask themselves: how did they act towards their children when the conjugal union entered into crisis; whether or not they made attempts at reconciliation; what has become of the abandoned party; what consequences the new relationship has on the rest of the family and the community of the faithful; and what example is being set for young people who are preparing for marriage. A sincere reflection can strengthen trust in the mercy of God which is not denied anyone”. What we are speaking of is a process of accompaniment and discernment which “guides the faithful to an awareness of their situation before God. Conversation with the priest, in the internal forum, contributes to the formation of a correct judgment on what hinders the possibility of a fuller participation in the life of the Church and on what steps can foster it and make it grow. Given that gradualness is not in the law itself (cf. Familiaris Consortio, 34), this discernment can never prescind from the Gospel demands of truth and charity, as proposed by the Church. For this discernment to happen, the following conditions must necessarily be present: humility, discretion and love for the Church and her teaching, in a sincere search for God’s will and a desire to make a more perfect response to it”. These attitudes are essential for avoiding the grave danger of misunderstandings, such as the notion that any priest can quickly grant “exceptions”, or that some people can obtain sacramental privileges in exchange for favours. When a responsible and tactful person, who does not presume to put his or her own desires ahead of the common good of the Church, meets with a pastor capable of acknowledging the seriousness of the matter before him, there can be no risk that a specific discernment may lead people to think that the Church maintains a double standard.

(Emphasis supplied.) Despite the Society’s (presumed) resistance, it is awfully hard to see much daylight between Amoris laetitia 300 and the Society’s position. It is true, of course, that the Holy Father could have spent more time setting forth the perennial general rules as formulated by St. John Paul II and the Pope Emeritus before articulating his ideas about specific culpability. However, given the tendentious attitude toward Familiaris consortio 84 that was exhibited throughout the Synodal process, we were not hugely surprised to see it breezed past and glossed over. Nonetheless, at the end of the day, the Pope seems to be saying, albeit with many more words, something not all that far removed from the Society’s position.

The strongest criticism of the SSPX’s declaration is essentially that Amoris laetitia establishes the primacy of conscience, with all the problems that entails. That is, of course, a fair criticism not only of Amoris laetitia but the mindset that emerged during the Synod, not least given some of the comments by Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich during the Synod. (And one is kidding oneself, in our view, if this primacy of conscience business was designed to stop at communion for bigamists; it was not.) However, it seems to us that their criticism also encompasses John Paul’s personalist “theology of the body” and the Council’s understanding of marriage. In other words, the SSPX is criticizing essentially the direction of the Church as a whole over the last fifty years on these issues:

5. Because of its search for a pastoral practice based on mercy, the document is in some places marred by subjectivism and moral relativism. Objective rules are replaced, in Protestant fashion, by the individual’s conscience. This poison is in part attributable to personalism, which, in the matter of pastoral care of families, no longer places the gift of life and the good of the family first and foremost, but rather the personal fulfillment and spiritual development of the spouses. On this subject we can only deplore once again the inversion of the ends of marriage sketched out in the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes of the Second Vatican Council, an inversion that is found again in Amoris Laetitia. The so-called “law of gradualness” turns Catholic morality upside down.

(Emphasis supplied and slightly reformatted.) Certainly, to our reading, the declaration does not single out Amoris laetitia for special criticism; if anything, the declaration prescinds from special criticism of Amoris laetitia in favor of criticism of broader theological trends.

Certainly the declaration ratifies some of the comments by Society priests that express a stronger attitude toward Amoris laetitia than the declaration itself does, but it seems to us, as is the case with Amoris laetitia, you cannot take a soft line and a hard line simultaneously. On the other hand, the Society shows itself once again to be very astute and very reasonable about these issues. Compared to some of the stringent—not to say hysterical—interpretations of Amoris laetitia, the Society sounds downright placid.

A final comment on St. Joseph the Workman

That these blessings may be abundant and lasting in Christian society, it is necessary that the kingship of our Savior should be as widely as possible recognized and understood, and to the end nothing would serve better than the institution of a special feast in honor of the Kingship of Christ. For people are instructed in the truths of faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any official pronouncement of the teaching of the Church. Such pronouncements usually reach only a few and the more learned among the faithful; feasts reach them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year – in fact, forever. The church’s teaching affects the mind primarily; her feasts affect both mind and heart, and have a salutary effect upon the whole of man’s nature. Man is composed of body and soul, and he needs these external festivities so that the sacred rites, in all their beauty and variety, may stimulate him to drink more deeply of the fountain of God’s teaching, that he may make it a part of himself, and use it with profit for his spiritual life. 

History, in fact, tells us that in the course of ages these festivals have been instituted one after another according as the needs or the advantage of the people of Christ seemed to demand: as when they needed strength to face a common danger, when they were attacked by insidious heresies, when they needed to be urged to the pious consideration of some mystery of faith or of some divine blessing. Thus in the earliest days of the Christian era, when the people of Christ were suffering cruel persecution, the cult of the martyrs was begun in order, says St. Augustine, “that the feasts of the martyrs might incite men to martyrdom.” The liturgical honors paid to confessors, virgins and widows produced wonderful results in an increased zest for virtue, necessary even in times of peace. But more fruitful still were the feasts instituted in honor of the Blessed Virgin. As a result of these men grew not only in their devotion to the Mother of God as an ever-present advocate, but also in their love of her as a mother bequeathed to them by their Redeemer. Not least among the blessings which have resulted from the public and legitimate honor paid to the Blessed Virgin and the saints is the perfect and perpetual immunity of the Church from error and heresy. We may well admire in this the admirable wisdom of the Providence of God, who, ever bringing good out of evil, has from time to time suffered the faith and piety of men to grow weak, and allowed Catholic truth to be attacked by false doctrines, but always with the result that truth has afterwards shone out with greater splendor, and that men’s faith, aroused from its lethargy, has shown itself more vigorous than before. 

The festivals that have been introduced into the liturgy in more recent years have had a similar origin, and have been attended with similar results. When reverence and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament had grown cold, the feast of Corpus Christi was instituted, so that by means of solemn processions and prayer of eight days’ duration, men might be brought once more to render public homage to Christ. So, too, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was instituted at a time when men were oppressed by the sad and gloomy severity of Jansenism, which had made their hearts grow cold, and shut them out from the love of God and the hope of salvation.

Pius XI, Encyclical on the Feast of Christ the King Quas primas (Dec. 11, 1925) (emphasis supplied and footnote omitted). 

Countering the consensus against St. Joseph the Workman

At Opus Publicum, Gabriel Sanchez has an interesting comment about the feast of St. Joseph the Workman, which begins, in relevant part:

The author’s latest target is the Latin feast of St. Joseph the Worker (San Giuseppe Comunista!), a mid-1950s invention which most traditional Catholics today regard as either imprudent or unnecessary. Those who have been exposed to the Gregorian hymns for this occasion know full well that they fall pretty darn short of “the mark” when it comes to the beauty and richness of the Roman Rite and some of the propers are not exactly inspiring. However, to howl on about the feast being a “modernist invention” is a bridge too far, particularly when one understands that the primary intent and purpose behind the feast was to dislodge May Day as an exclusively secularist (and communistic) holiday. Did it work? Well, of course not, but not because the liturgical texts themselves are riddled with theological error or bumped the feast Ss. Phillip and James (a feast many Catholics have all but forgotten about). Let’s not forget, however, that the feast was introduced during a period of time when the great 19th and 20th century popes took it upon themselves to speak forcefully on matters concerning labor, economics, and society, with stern reminders being issued by the likes of Leo XIII, St. Pius X, and Pius XI on the justice due to laborers. In fact, this teaching is captured nicely in the feast’s introit: “Wisdom rendered to the just the wages of their labors, and conducted them in a wonderful way: and she was to them for a covert by day, and for the light of stars by night, allelúja, allelúja.”

(Emphasis supplied and quotation marks reformatted.) And the author Sanchez discusses is not the only author to criticize at great length the feast of St. Joseph the Workman. Fr. John Hunwicke, for example, has had several lengthy posts in the last couple of weeks, mostly directed to the fact that the new feast of St. Joseph the Workman replaced the feast of Ss. Phillip and James. (Or, more precisely, displaced, since Phillip and James were moved to May 11.) And Fr. Hunwicke is not alone in his distaste for St. Joseph the Workman. Part of the low regard in which the feast is held is, we think, a function of the fact that a broader sense is emerging that the liturgical reform that culminated in the Novus Ordo really began in earnest under Pius XII. (Though that attitude fails to take into account that the Breviary was reformed almost constantly from the moment Quod a nobis was signed.) And St. Joseph the Workman is seen as part and parcel of that reform.

But Sanchez makes a point that—we confess—had not occurred to us before; that is, the feast of St. Joseph the Workman fits into the broader context of the great pronouncements of Leo XIII and Pius XI on social-justice issues. And, aside from the twin pillars of Rerum novarum and Quadragesimo anno, these issues were very much in the Church’s mind in the first half of the twentieth century, the two world wars notwithstanding. The Church’s developing social teaching was very much present in Pius X’s Notre Charge Apostolique, though that encyclical was directed to more concrete circumstances in France. And, of course, Pius XII himself made significant contributions to the Church’s social teaching with his radio address, La solennità della Pentecoste, some of which found its way into his document on migrants, Exsul Familia Nazarethana. All of this is to say that the question of workers and justice for workers was very much a live question for the Church in the first half of the twentieth century. And, certainly, one cannot remove Pius XII from this context. And, therefore, it makes sense, as Sanchez suggests, that Pius XII would introduce a major feast addressing in a liturgical way the issues that he and his immediate predecessor had grappled with.

Now, it is an open question whether the implementation of St. Joseph the Workman was well done. One of the comboxers at Sanchez’s site points out that the readings at Matins are not uniformly hugely edifying. And it is true that one of the three nocturns consists of the acta of Pius XII regarding the implementation of the feast, though the other two nocturns seem more or less okay, especially the readings from Genesis. But, setting that to one side, is the office of St. Joseph the Workman worse in any objective sense than the offices of any of the important saints whose third-class feasts consist of the psalms and antiphons of the day, the usual hymns, chapters, and antiphons from the common, and one reading at Matins unique to the saint (with the bulk of Matins being given over to the occurring readings)? We have a hard time seeing that it is, especially since, when one gets into a long run of confessors-not-bishops as one is apt to do in tempus per annum, the offices blend together. One does not necessarily excuse the other, of course, but let us not, out of condemnatory zeal, act as though St. Joseph the Workman is a blight on an otherwise traditional Breviary. By 1960 the trajectory toward Pope Paul’s Liturgia Horarum, with its horror of repetition and its strong (almost unalterable) presumption in favor of the occurring psalmody, was largely marked out.

With the chummy relations between the Holy See and the Society of St. Pius X, we are, of course, hopeful that full canonical regularity will be established, ideally in the form of a personal prelature or some other juridical structure that preserves, insofar as possible and desirable, the independence of the SSPX. But one of the issues that will have to be addressed at some point is the question of the liturgical books. Lefebvre’s choice of the 1960/1962 books was not necessarily a deeply ideological decision, as we understand it, and there may well be little reason to cling to them once the SSPX is regularized. Perhaps at that time, with so much in the air, a complete overhaul of the calendar would be in order. The differences between the 1960/1962 calendar and the current calendar are especially acute on this subject: St. Joseph the Workman is not a solemnity in the new calendar (having been drastically downgraded to an optional memorial), and Ss. Phillip and James are no longer celebrated on May 11, but May 3.

Read Sanchez’s whole post. A couple parts we did not quote are well worth thinking about.

 

Link Roundup: St. Joseph the Workman 2016

Fr. John Hunwicke has a couple of posts about the creation, in 1956, of the first class feast of St. Joseph Opifex (St. Joseph the Workman), which was intended, more or less, to take May Day back from the Communists. The first post deals with some Easter feasts that were suppressed or translated under Pius XII and John XXIII. The second offers some suggestions for priests inclined to celebrate SS. Philip and James on May 1, as was done before 1956.

John Allen has a lengthy piece at Crux about the Holy Father’s Curial appointments, noting clearly the Holy Father’s preference for liberal appointments. Allen notes that Pope Francis seems to prefer the sort of administrators that helped Paul VI govern the Church. (We think we’ll say some extra prayers after that revelation.) It would have been interesting to see Allen discourse on the rise of the Sodano party under this pope after being cast into the wilderness somewhat under Benedict and Bertone.

Also at Crux, a long piece about the status of Holy See-SSPX negotiations after the release of Fr. Schmidberger’s memorandum.

At Sancrucensis, Pater Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist., has a great meditation on “light” penances. For our part, we suspect that many Catholics have had a that’s all? moment when their confessor hands down a light penance. Pater Waldstein’s piece ought to give them a little pause next time.

New Liturgical Movement has a splendid photo-post of some very ancient churches in northern Italy (some distance outside Milan, in fact).

Elliot Milco has a “a brief note” (very brief!) on the meaning of Amoris laetitia, and, as usual, he gets right to the heart of the matter. Whether the Holy Father intended to legitimize Cardinal Kasper’s penitential path (or Cardinal Marx’s forum internum solution), Milco makes the point that there is now little legal authority to stand against such a proposal.

 

A problem confronting the builder of bridges

News has broken in the last several days that Fr. Franz Schmidberger, former superior general of the Society of St. Pius X and rector of the Society’s “Herz Jesu” seminary in Zaitzkofen, Germany, has written a lengthy memorandum for the consideration of other Society leaders regarding the (increasingly likely) prospect of full regularity in its relations with Rome. (We say “full regularity” for lack of a more euphonious term: it is plain that the Holy Father does not view the SSPX as schismatic, though he acknowledges some canonical irregularity.) Richard Chonak, at New Liturgical Movement, has prepared a translation of Fr. Schmidberger’s memorandum. While Fr. Schmidberger’s memorandum was originally prepared as a private brief, Chonak’s translation has been approved by Fr. Schmidberger. Rorate Caeli has provided the French original.

There has already been some media coverage of Fr. Schmidberger’s memorandum. At the National Catholic Register, a news story notes that Fr. Schmidberger’s memorandum comes in the wake of Archbishop Guido Pozzo’s extraordinary recent interview, in which the secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei suggested in very strong terms that complete acceptance of the various documents of the Second Vatican Council was not a precondition for full union. And, of course, Bishop Fellay recently met privately with the Holy Father in Rome. Plainly, things are happening.

For our part, the collapse of negotiations in 2012 was a bitter event, not least since full union—or full regularity—between Rome and the Society was plainly a project of immense personal significance to Benedict XVI. However, it certainly appears that Pope Francis has picked up where his predecessor left off, and made a commitment this time to take concrete steps to regularize the Society one way or another.

We were particularly struck by a couple of points that Fr. Schmidberger made, which seems especially apt in the wake of Amoris laetitia, and the reactions in some quarters to some responses to that exhortation. First, Fr. Schmidberger emphasizes the distinction between the papacy as a divinely ordained institution and any particular pope:

The Church is infallible in her divine nature, but she is led by human beings who can go astray and also be burdened with failings. An office should be distinguished from the person in it at a given moment. The latter holds office for a certain time and then steps down—either through death or through other circumstances; the office remains. Today Pope Francis is the holder of the papal office with the power of the primacy. At some hour that we do not know, he will step down and another Pope will be elected. As long as he occupies the papal throne, we recognize him as such and pray for him. We are not saying that he is a good Pope. On the contrary, through his liberal ideas and his administration he causes much confusion in the Church. But when Christ established the papacy, He foresaw the whole line of popes throughout Church history, including Pope Francis. And nonetheless He permitted the latter’s ascent to the papal throne. Analogously, the Lord instituted the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar with the Real Presence, although He foresaw many sacrileges over the course of history.

(Emphasis supplied.) Setting to one side the tricky question of the extent to which the Holy Spirit participates in the selection of a particular man as pope at a particular time, Fr. Schmidberger’s second point there (or the second point we emphasized) is something that traditionally minded Catholics should repeat to themselves whenever they are troubled by this or that coming out of Rome. Fr. Schmidberger went on to note:

We have already pointed out the necessary distinction between office and officeholder. No doubt the current Pope has the God-given task of showing everyone plainly what the Council really was and what its ultimate consequences are doing to the Church: confusion, the dictatorship of relativism, setting pastoral concerns above doctrine, friendship with the enemies of God and the opponents of Christianity. But precisely because of this, people here and there are coming to understand the errors of the Council and to infer the cause from the effects. Furthermore, those who relied too much on Benedict XVI personally, instead of putting the papal office first and its holder second, were left out in the rain by the resignation of the Pope emeritus. Let us not make the same mistake again of relying too much on the specific person, instead of on the divine institution! Maybe, too, Pope Francis is precisely the one who, with his unpredictability and improvisation, is capable of taking this step. The mass media may forgive him for this expedient, whereas they would never ever have forgiven Benedict XVI. In his authoritarian, not to mention tyrannical style of governance, he would probably be capable of carrying out such a measure even against opposition.

(Emphasis supplied.) This, too, is a point that ought to be considered very seriously, especially as traditionally minded Catholics seem to be looking to other prelates than the Holy Father for guidance and reassurance.

Link Roundup: Apr. 24, 2016

Fr. Gerald E. Murray has a lengthy essay at The Catholic Thing, arguing that Amoris laetitia did change the Church’s teaching about communion for bigamists and, pace Cardinal Burke, was a magisterial act.

Speaking of Amoris laetitia—despite our best intentions not to—Edward Pentin has an enormous piece collecting various reactions to the exhortation.

Yesterday, if you said the 1960 Breviary, you might have noted that a commemoration of St. George was made at lauds (it was otherwise the Saturday Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary). Gregory DiPippo has a fascinating essay at New Liturgical Movement, pointing out that there has long been skepticism in the West to St. George’s historicity.

Fr. John Hunwicke has a fascinating post about the circumstances under which Archbishop George Errington was removed as Cardinal Wiseman’s coadjutor archbishop of Westminster by the great Pius IX.

Pater Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist., has decided to tantalize his readers horribly by giving us the abstract from a paper of his titled: The Dialectics of Individualism and Totalitarianism in Charles de Koninck, David Foster Wallace, and Michel Houellebecq. We hope that he’ll make the whole paper—or at least lengthy excerpts—available soon.

At Rorate Caeli, there is a new, exclusive interview of Bishop Athanasius Schneider by Dániel Fülep of the John Henry Newman Center of Higher Education in Hungary. (Note that the interview took place before the release of Amoris laetitia, though it touches upon some of the issues raised by that document.)

 

The other revolution of “Amoris laetitia”

In the furor over Amoris laetitia, one point, we think, has escaped wider notice: what are we to make of the Holy Father’s frequent quotation of aspects of the Relatio finalis of the Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops? For example, various paragraphs in the hugely contentious chapter eight consist primarily of quotations of the Relatio finalis (e.g., ¶¶ 294, 299–300). And at least one commentator—we can’t remember who just now, but we definitely recall that someone has—has observed that this wholesale quotation of the Relatio finalis is a factor that ought to be considered when determining the magisterial weight of Amoris laetitia. Certainly, Familiaris consortio did not consist of repeating vast excerpts of the Synod’s report. Neither, for that matter, did Evangelii gaudium, which, in addition to being the Holy Father’s “party program,” was supposed to be a post-synodal exhortation following a synod on the “new evangelization.” (Remember that? Us neither.)

Notwithstanding Cardinal Burke’s lengthy, learned argument to the contrary, there is a broad consensus that Amoris laetitia has done something. The Pope’s close collaborator, Fr. Antonio Spadaro, a likely contributor to Amoris laetitia, contends that it’s magisterial. (If we had written it, we would say it’s magisterial, too.) And traditionalist commentators have been, frankly, as aggressive in articulating this view as those pleased by Amoris laetitia. (Why this is so, we daren’t guess.) Now, we are not especially convinced, not least because Amoris laetitia explicitly did not change the Church’s law (¶300)—but we have seen where legalism has gotten Cardinal Burke. But let’s set aside for the moment whether or not Amoris laetitia did anything and assume that it did. If that’s the case, then we’ve witnessed a revolution bigger than anything regarding communion for bigamists. We have witnessed the Synod take on the appearance of legislative authority without a formal papal act granting it such authority.

The Synod process was not explicitly legislative. Recall what happened. Questionnaires were circulated and an instrumentum laboris was prepared based upon those questionnaires. (Cardinal Erdö tried to corral the debate envisioned by the instrumentum laboris with his initial presentation, but that plan was shot down pretty quickly.) Small groups issued their own reports and made suggestions for a final report. A final report was prepared and voted upon and passages that received the necessary majority (all the important passages, at any rate, even if only just) were included in the final report. And that final report was not in the nature of a decree or other juridical document settling questions of doctrine and practice. It was, essentially, an extended discussion of issues, some of which fell into the “Some Synod fathers say X, but others say not-X” mode of reporting. The report was then forwarded to the Holy Father, who responded to it with Amoris laetitia.

As we said, nothing about this process is necessarily legislative. (We’ll see here in a minute that the Synod can be imbued with legislative authority, albeit on an ad hoc basis.) Yet, throughout the synodal process there was a sense among observers that whatever the Synod voted, the Holy Father would ratify. The votes on the relationes were, therefore, hugely significant. (Remember the attention to and tension surrounding the 2014 and 2015 rounds of voting? We do.) The thinking went: if the bad paragraphs got into the final report—as, in fact, they did—then something bad would happen. While we would never denigrate the catastrophe of a broad cross-section of bishops and special papal appointees falling into error, there was a sense that the votes were more significant than that. In other words, the Synod had the air of a legislative assembly, even if it was not properly constituted as such.

And, certainly, the Holy Father’s response to the Synod’s final report confirms that sense of authority. While the Holy Father did not explicitly establish a penitential path or a forum internum solution, despite speculation that he would, he did put the stamp of papal approval on the final report by quoting vast sections of it and referring to it over and over (and over and over) in his footnotes. Thus, the concern that whatever the Synod voted, the Pope would ratify, was to some extent completely justified. The Pope did ratify whatever the Synod voted, with some exceptions; however, the Pope did not grant the Synod explicit legislative authority. It just sort of became a legislative body.

Of course, the possibility of a legislative synod has been present since the beginning. Paul VI, in his 1965 apostolic letter issued motu proprio, Apostolica sollicitudo, by which he established the Synod of Bishops, established:

The Synod of Bishops has, of its very nature, the function of providing information and offering advice. It can also enjoy the power of making decisions when such power is conferred upon it by the Roman Pontiff; in this case, it belongs to him to ratify the decisions of the Synod.

(Emphasis supplied.) So, Paul acknowledged the possibility of a legislative synod, but only if the pope conferred upon it legislative power and if he ratified the decisions. In a sense, therefore, a decision of a legislative synod is a decision of the pope: he gives the synod authority to decide and confirms its decisions. Yet one has the sense that Paul did not exactly believe in the idea of a legislative synod:

1. The general purpose of the Synod are:

a) to promote a closer union and greater cooperation between the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops of the whole world; 

b) to see to it that accurate and direct information is supplied on matters and situations that bear upon the internal life of the Church and upon the kind of action that should be carrying on in today’s world; 

c) to facilitate agreement, at least on essential matters of doctrine and on the course of action to be taken in the life of the Church.

2. Its special and immediate purposes are:

a) to provide mutually useful information;

b) to discuss the specific business for which the Synod is called into session on any given occasion.

(Emphasis supplied.) In other words, the primary purposes of the Synod of Bishops as Paul conceived of them were essentially advisory and communicative, not legislative. As an idle aside, one wonders what dear Papa Montini, so grieved by the changes that were unleashed in his name, would have made of the 2014–2015 Synod of Bishops, especially with respect of its stated purpose of “facilitat[ing] agreement, at least on essential matters of doctrine and on the course of action to be taken in the life of the Church.” Certainly no one thinks that there is more agreement on the question of communion for bigamists than before 2014. Certainly no one thinks even that there is more agreement on the framework to discuss the question than before 2014. Regardless of Amoris laetitia—and remember, we’re assuming, with the majority of leading voices in the traditionalist blogosphere, that it did something—no one can dispute that the 2014–2015 Synod is one of the most divisive events in the life of the Church since 1965. (And, even then, pretty much everyone signed the conciliar decrees, whatever happened in the aula. Even dear Cardinal Ottaviani. [Santo subito!])

Moreover, one of the complaints about the Synod under John Paul and Benedict is that the assemblies were low-risk, stage-managed affairs. That is, the interventions were thoroughly vetted, the final reports were carefully written by central authority, and the post-synodal exhortations, when they came out, were more of the same. The Holy Father has made it a priority to revitalize the Synod as a deliberative assembly. But, at the same time, it seems to us that there is something to be said for a quieter, low-risk approach; if Paul’s initial vision for the Synod was based upon closer union among the bishops of the world, exchanging information, and facilitating agreement, the high-stakes, high-conflict Synod is plainly at odds with that vision. Thus, it seems to us that John Paul and Benedict may well have been in greater continuity with Paul’s vision for the Synod than the Holy Father, who seems to like the idea of the Synod as a mini-Vatican II with all that entails. But we digress.

The Apostolica sollicitudo settlement found its way into John Paul’s 1983 Code of Canon Law, under canon 343:

It is for the synod of bishops to discuss the questions for consideration and express its wishes but not to resolve them or issue decrees about them unless in certain cases the Roman Pontiff has endowed it with deliberative power, in which case he ratifies the decisions of the synod.

(Emphasis supplied.) Thus, under the law currently governing the Synod, Paul’s intention remains: the Synod does not have authority to “resolve” issues, unless the pope gives it that authority and ratifies its decisions.

Yet, despite these clear conceptual and juridical limits to the Synod’s authority, there was, as we say, a sense that the advisory report of the Synod would represent some victory (or defeat, depending on your position). We do not recall the Holy Father granting the Synod any specific legislative authority, as Apostolica sollicitudo and canon 343 would require. Yet everyone fairly quickly assumed that the Synod’s vote mattered. Indeed, everyone fairly quickly assumed that the Synod itself was a body that mattered, a body with authority. This is extraordinary, isn’t it?

Of course, this is, we think, a major point in the Holy Father’s program for the Church. Remember what he said as recently as last fall in Florence:

I prefer a restless Italian Church, ever closer to the abandoned, the forgotten, the imperfect. I would like a glad Church with a mother’s face, that understands, accompanies, caresses. You too dream of this Church, believe in her, innovate with freedom. The Christian humanism that you are called to live radically affirms the dignity of every person as a Child of God, it establishes among all human beings a fundamental fraternity, teaches one to understand work, to inhabit creation as a common home, to furnish reasons for optimism and humour, even in the middle of a life many times more difficult.

Although it is not for me to say how to accomplish this dream today, allow me to leave you just one indication for the coming years: in every community, in every parish and institution, in every diocese and circumscription, in every region, try to launch, in a synodal fashion, a deep reflection on the Evangelii Gaudium, to draw from it practical parameters and to launch its dispositions, especially on the three or four priorities that you will identify in this meeting. I am certain of your capacity to put yourselves into a creative movement in order to make this study practical. I am sure of it because you are an adult Church, age-old in the faith, firmly rooted and with an abundance of fruit. Therefore be creative in expressing the genius that your great ones, from Dante to Michelangelo, expressed in an incomparable way. Believe in the genius of Italian Christianity, which is neither a legacy of individuals nor of elites, but of the community, of the people of this extraordinary country.

(Hyperlink in original, but emphasis supplied.) And just a little before that, at the ceremony marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Synod, the Holy Father stated:

From the beginning of my ministry as Bishop of Rome, I sought to enhance the Synod, which is one of the most precious legacies of the Second Vatican Council. For Blessed Paul VI, the Synod of Bishops was meant to reproduce the image of the Ecumenical Council and reflect its spirit and method. Pope Paul foresaw that the organization of the Synod could “be improved upon with the passing of time”. Twenty years later, Saint John Paul II echoed that thought when he stated that “this instrument might be further improved. Perhaps collegial pastoral responsibility could be more fully expressed in the Synod”. In 2006, Benedict XVI approved several changes to the Ordo Synodi Episcoporum, especially in light of the provisions of the Code of Canon Law and the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, which had been promulgated in the meantime.

(Hyperlinks in original, but footnotes omitted and emphasis supplied.) He went on to observe in a lengthy passage:

In a synodal Church, the Synod of Bishops is only the most evident manifestation of a dynamism of communion which inspires all ecclesial decisions.

The first level of the exercise of synodality is had in the particular Churches. After mentioning the noble institution of the Diocesan Synod, in which priests and laity are called to cooperate with the bishop for the good of the whole ecclesial community…

[…]

The second level is that of Ecclesiastical Provinces and Ecclesiastical Regions, Particular Councils and, in a special way, Conferences of Bishops. We need to reflect on how better to bring about, through these bodies, intermediary instances of collegiality, perhaps by integrating and updating certain aspects of the ancient ecclesiastical organization. The hope expressed by the Council that such bodies would help increase the spirit of episcopal collegiality has not yet been fully realized. We are still on the way, part-way there. In a synodal Church, as I have said, “it is not advisable for the Pope to take the place of local Bishops in the discernment of every issue which arises in their territory. In this sense, I am conscious of the need to promote a sound ‘decentralization’”.

The last level is that of the universal Church. Here the Synod of Bishops, representing the Catholic episcopate, becomes an expression of episcopal collegiality within an entirely synodal Church. Two different phrases: “episcopal collegiality” and an “entirely synodal Church”. This level manifests the collegialitas affectiva, which can also become in certain circumstances “effective”, joining the Bishops among themselves and with the Pope in solicitude for the People God.

(Footnotes omitted and emphasis supplied.) It is therefore plain that the Holy Father has a clear vision of a synodal Church, which extends well beyond Paul’s vision for the Synod of Bishops, which was simply a closer union among the bishops of the world, an exchange of information, and a process of finding points of agreement. It is plain, furthermore, that the Holy Father may well think that the turbulence and disagreement of the 2014–2015 Synod was, after a fashion, desirable, insofar as it reflects restlessness (on the part of the progressives) and dynamism.

Thus, no one should be surprised that the Synod has just sort of become an important, legislative assembly without actually receiving that authority from the Holy Father. We would be surprised, in fact, if it were an accident. But it seems to us that once the door is open—and it is open—it will be difficult for future popes to shut it. If the 2014-2015 Synod is so significant, and the next Synod under the Holy Father will be similarly significant, then “John XXIV” or “Paul VII” will be at a serious disadvantage if they try to restore the Synod to something closer to what Paul VI imagined when he created it. And this constitutes, in our view, a very quiet revolution in Church governance.