Sentire Cum Ecclesia

As one commentator described Tracey Rowland’s “Inside the Vatican” article, “The Pope and the Philistines”: “This is the best succinct account of Ratzinger/Benedict’s life work and of why so many of us love him.”

Our Tracey is at her rhetorical best in this article. I loved her description of the current challenges:

the Church is attacked by sexual perverts from within and militant atheists from without…while…still contending with loopy interpretations of the Second Vatican Council

Her main contention, and I agree with her, is that the next pope will need

the strength and ability to deal with the administrative side of the office of the papacy while retaining at least some of the intellectual flair and imagination of Benedict and his predecessor

I also agree with her assessments about Benedict’s ecumenical achievements:

He has also had some significant achievements on the ecumenical front and in so many ways one can say that his was a papacy dedicated to Christian unity.   Since the divisions within Christianity often occur precisely because of bureaucratic heavy-handedness and intellectual narrowness it takes someone like a Ratzinger/Benedict with a deep sense of history and nose for cultural sensitivities to set about mending the bridges.  It would be an interesting exercise to collect a list of names of prominent Protestant scholars who converted during this pontificate precisely because they could relate to Benedict intellectually.  He spoke their Christocentric dialect and was equally at home with them in the field of Scripture studies.  He broke the mould of the Catholic leader who cites dogma more often than Scripture. 

She summarises the achievements of Pope Benedict in terms of his teaching, and opines:

Given the successive waves of intellectual combat he has endured in the service of the Church he loves, a future pope may well declare Benedict XVI a Doctor of the Church. If that happens, I think he should also be honored as the patron saint of people who are oppressed by bureaucracy, especially bureaucracies run by philistines.

It is hard not to agree with this opinion.

Anyway, go and read the whole thing for yourself.

I do wish the Princes of the Church would be a little more careful about how they say things.

One could have every sympathy with the opinion of Cardinal Keith O’Brien reported in the Herald Sun, but it is entirely false to claim, as he is reported to have done, that:

“There was a time when priests got married, and of course we know at the present time in some branches of the church – in some branches of the Catholic church – priests can get married,” he added.

There was, as far as we know, never a time when “priests got married”, either in the Church of the West or of the East. We know what Cardinal O’Brien thinks he is saying, but even today, no ordained priest of the Catholic Church (or deacon for that matter) can “get married”.

What the Church is completely free to do is to choose to change the law regarding the ordination of married laymen. But once they are ordained, that’s it. The unmarried must stay unmarried, and the married, if widowed, cannot remarry. That has always been the law of the Church, and (while it is true to say that we have no record of Jesus himself giving any such command in the Scriptures) it is an unbroken tradition as long and as solid as the tradition that women cannot be ordained to the priesthood.

So, there you have it. After 8:00pm Rome time on February 28, Benedict XVI will

1) still be addressed by the honorific he held before his retirement, ie. “Your Holiness”
2) retain the name he took at his election, ie. “Benedict XVI”
3) have the status of “Bishop-emeritus of Rome”.

All these points require just a few comments:

1) Retaining the honorific is sensible. Retired bishops are still “My Lord” and retired archbishops are still “Your Grace” (or, outside the British Empire: “Your Excellency”). In fact, I think that even where Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to abdicate in favour of her son, she would still be called “Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II”. I wonder if this has any bearing on the colour of the soutane that His Holiness will wear after February 28…?

2) Retaining the name “Benedict XVI” is also important. A name is not the same thing as an office. A name is a personal identity. Joseph Ratzinger’s personal identity changed for all time when he took a new name on April 19, 2005. Sandro Magister had an interesting column a few days back from some critics of the abdication. In particular, “the philosopher and theologian Enrico Maria Radaelli” said:

“Not considering these facts is in my view a murderous blow to dogma. Resigning means losing the universal name of Peter and going back to the private being of Simon, but this cannot be, because the name of Peter, of Cephas, of Rock, is given on a divine plane to a man who, in receiving it, no longer makes only himself, but ‘makes Church.’ Without counting the fact that since the self-removed pope cannot in reality resign, the incoming pope, despite himself, will be nothing but an antipope. And reigning will be he, the antipope, not the true pope.”

I would submit that Radaelli needs to check his philosophy a bit closer, and his theology too. While in many parallel cases, a new name is taken when a person enters a new office, the office and the name are not the same thing. The office can be held by another person, the name can never be held by another. The name is personal, the office is not. Peter cannot go back to Simon, nor can Benedict XVI go back to being Joseph Ratzinger. But this is not the same thing as a pope ceasing to be pope. And for the sticklers, I will point out that Peter did not become “the first pope” that day in Caesarea Philippi – such an office could not theologically come into being until the Church herself came into being at Pentecost, nor could it historically come into being before the Church of Rome was established. Both happened after the name change.

3) And, since (as John Paul II famously said) “there is no place in the Church for an emeritus pope”, Benedict XVI will have the status of “Bishop Emeritus of Rome”, not “Pope Emeritus”. This too is a good distinction. There is only one pope, and no such thing as a “retired pope”. We should, however, distinguish the office of the Papacy from the office of the Bishop of Rome, even though this office is held by the same person. (It is an interesting question whether or not we could ever imagine a time when the Petrine Ministry might be given to a bishop who is not also the Bishop of the Church of Rome – but I think not, given that the Petrine Ministry in early centuries grew out of the pre-eminence of the Church of Rome among all the churches.) Thus “Bishop Emeritus of Rome” is just right.

Mind you, I did have one other naughty thought with regard to how the retired Benedict XVI could be styled. You may recall the odd removal from the Vatican Yearbook at the start of Benedict’s papacy of the papal title “Patriarch of the West”. Since this title is no longer in use by the Pope, maybe it could be given to the “Bishop Emeritus of Rome”?

I am ever thankful for my rich heritage as a Lutheran. In my country parish as I was growing up, I worshipped in a modern gothic church, with a bell in the steeple, stained glass windows, candles, crucifix, pipe organ, anglican chant psalms, and hymns galore. It wasn’t “high church” – it was just good Lutheranism.

In 1972, the Lutheran Church in Australia published the “Lutheran Hymnal” – affectionately known as “the Black Book”. The Service with Holy Communion had a fully sung accompaniment. It is a setting that would not be out of place with the new translation of the Roman Missal, as there isn’t much difference in the translation of the texts.

Unfortunately, as far a I know, no one ever wrote a commentary on the new hymnal. I know that many of the old hymn and chorale tunes were worked over to restore them to their original form. So, for instance, where the Catholic Worship Book has J.S. Bach’s version of Philipp Nicolai’s “Wake, Awake!”, the Lutheran Hymnal has the much more rhythmically interesting original version of the tune by Nicolai himself, dating approximately one hundred and twenty years earlier. Unfortunately, as far as I know, a commentary on the Australian Lutheran Hymnal of 1972 was never written, and I don’t think there is anyone alive today who was on the editorial board, so the story of the sourcing of the music may be forever lost (Nb. there may still be papers in the Archives in North Adelaide from the committee – this could be a good job for a budding Lutheran musician seeking a PhD).

Where is all this heading, I hear you ask. Well, last Sunday, as I mentioned in the previous post, we were merrily belting out the gregorian Sanctus from Mass XVII, and suddenly I had a deja vu moment – it was all eerily familiar. Surely I’d sung this before? (Click on the pictures for a clearer view)

When I returned home, I confirmed my suspicions. I pulled out my old copy of the Lutheran Hymnal and turned to the Sanctus in the Service with Communion.

You can be fairly certain that this came from a German source, so the music would have been altered to fit the English. What that German source was, I don’t know, but note the date at the top: Neuenrade, 1524.

Now compare it to the Sanctus of Mass XVII. It might be easier if you have it in modern notation.

The similarity is too close to be a coincidence. Wherever or whoever or whatever Neuenrade was in 1524, they were using the Sanctus of Mass XVII as the basis of their tune. Or perhaps, the Lutheran Sanctus preserves an older version of the Sanctus of Mass XVII? If the original can be found, it would through some very interesting light on the history of this setting.

In any case, finding a relic of Lutheranism’s Catholic past in the Lutheran Hymnal of 1972 just goes to show how rich my heritage in Lutheranism was.

I am very proud of the parish in which I am currently worshipping, St Philip’s Blackburn North, and of our parish priest, Fr Nicholas Dillon. Here he is demonstrating the new Cornopean stop on the organ. In fact, we probably won’t be hearing a lot of it tomorrow, as we are starting to use the chants from Mass XVII during lent – lots of unaccompanied plain song. I’m practicing up the proper entrance chant, and we will be finishing with the Ave Regina Caelorum. Should be fun! 10:30 at Junction Road in Blackburn North tomorrow morning.

The Catholic News Service has an article online called “The Mystery of the Missing Encyclical”. No, we are not talking Pius XI’s encyclical against Nazism here (although that too is a “mystery” of sorts), but the other problem of the “third boot” we have been waiting to fall: The Encyclical on Faith.

I think CNS has got it basically right. The Pope will still write and issue the encyclical on faith – they’re just not saying which pope.

Same goes for the other, fourth “boot” yet to fall (“he’s got two one-legged friends, Min”) – the Post-Synodical Exhortation on the New Evangelisation. If it is Pope Scola or Pope Ouellet who finishes these two documents off, I expect that we will find it harder to do the “source criticism” on it than it was with “Deus Caritas Est”.

Fr Z reblogged (with his own usual commentary) this powerful piece by Fr George Rutler. Read either with or without commentary, it is surely one of the more intelligent and wise reflections on recent events. I commend it to you.

Or, if you would rather watch something…

Within a month or so, one of the 117 Cardinal electors will be asked that question by the Dean of the Conclave. You can just bet some of them are already working out the answer they will give just in case. (They will deny this, of course, but if we are thinking about it, they will be too.) In the last few days there has been plenty of reflection on the significance of the name chosen by Joseph Ratzinger eight years ago (here is one example from L’osservatore Romano).

Josh’s post on this matter prompted me to post on the same subject.

I have been reading several pieces by George Weigel in the last few days (eg. here in First Things and here on the ABC Religion and Ethics Website). I have ordered his new book Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st Century Church. His thesis, broadly stated, is that John Paul II and Benedict XVI have completed an arc begun by Leo XIII, which is the rejection of an inward looking Counter-Reformation institutionalism in favour of the outward looking “Evangelical Catholicism” of the title.

I also read somewhere the comment that the new pope will need the strength of a whole pride of lions to face the challenges ahead (can’t find the source of that comment just now, but I think it was in L’osservatore Romano somewhere).

Anyway, putting all that together, and counting that we won’t get a brand new name or Peter II or some such thing, and at the same time discounting the idea that we will get another Pius, John, Paul, or Benedict – all of which have been rather done over in the last hundred years – my money is on “Leo XIV”. It would be a neat way of stating that the new pope ain’t going to be a pussy cat in the face of the huge challenges ahead, and at the same time drawing together the whole arc of the history of the modern papacy, don’t you think?

I haven’t seen anyone comment on this passage from the Holy Father’s Angelus address given just the day before the announcement that he was renouncing the ministry of Peter. It seems relevant to me. What do you think?

“The image of the catch,” the Pope emphasized, “recalls the Church’s mission … Peter’s experience, certainly unique, is also representative of the call of each Apostle in the Gospel, who should never lose heart in proclaiming Christ to all people, even to the ends of the earth. today’s text also brings us to reflect on the vocation to the priesthood and to consecrated life. This is God’s work. Human beings are not the authors of their own vocation, but respond to a divine call. Human weakness should not lead us to fear God’s call. It is necessary to be confident in His strength, which acts precisely in our weakness. We must trust ever more in the power of His mercy, which transforms and renews us.”

Many thoughtful answers have emerged to some of our questions about this unusual situation at Fr Lombardi’s most recent press interview:

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1300603.htm

And here is Rocco Palmo’s take on the date of the conclave which raises the problem of a Palm Sunday installation mass:

http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/and-now-vatishock.html