What Does Pope Francis Think of the Council? -- Put Cardinal Sarah in Prison?

What does Pope Francis Think of the Council?

(Rome)  what does Pope Francis think of the Second Vatican Council? It was recently the topic at Il sismografo (The seismograph), an unofficial press review of  the Vatican Secretariat of State on the Internet. The "Seismograph" provokes "little earthquakes" wrote the Vatican expert Sandro Magister. The recent "earthquake" relates to "nothing less than the hermeneutics of the Second Vatican Council, as interpreted  and applied by   Pope Francis."

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The people involved in the matter are:
Luis Badilla Morales, the chief editor of Il sismografo, a Chilean who "was a Minister of the Allende government and since 1973 in political exile in Europe" (Terred'America) and has worked for many years at Vatican Radio; 

Massimo Faggioli, church historian and a leader of the progressive "School of Bologna" along with Giuseppe Alberigo, for whom  the  Second Vatican Council was a positive "break" and "new beginning" in the Church's history; 

Agostino Marchetto is a Curial Archbishop, former diplomat and weighty critic of the "school of Bologna" - and longtime friend of Pope Francis. Marchetto is a representative of the "hermeneutic of continuity" within the understanding of Pope Benedict XVI.

"The pope knows no uncertainty, how the Council is to be interpreted"

Luis Morales Badilla, Minister under Allende, since 1973 under "political asylum" in Rome

On January 14  Il sismografo  published an enthusiastic interview with Faggioli, which Badilla and the editor of the website, Francesco Gagliano led.

Faggioli herein alleged, Pope Francis "speaks very little of the Council," because "he makes it,  continuously transforms it, and the most amazing thing is that he has never shown an interest in the question of hermeneutics of the Council". Rather  Francis was "the first pope, who has no uncertainties about how the Council is to be interpreted." The conclusion, therefore, is that the Pope, accordingly as Faggioli follows his thinking about the Council: "We have it now in hand and we interpret it, without undergoing recurrent disputes from the previous  30 or 40 years".

The enthusiasm of Faggioli and his two interviewers "is explained because they equate the 'School of Bologna' equate with the interpretation of the Second Vatican Council by Pope Francis,'" says Vatican expert Sandro Magister.

"Not true," that Pope Francis has no interest in the issue of Council-Hermeneutics

Curial Archbishop Marchetto, who had undertaken a systematic review of the "school of Bologna" and their interpretation of Vatican II promptly reacted. Only three hours after the publication of the interview, the editorial board of sismografo received a reply from Msgr. Marchetto, which was published without comment.

Curial Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, hermeneutics of continuity and friend of Pope Francis

Their representatives ignored the letter, however, and continue to claim Pope Francis as one of their own and thus when it comes to things of the Council see a congruency of papal thinking with that of the "school".

The website Il sismografo seems not to be among the official media of the Holy See, but that is its direct foundation. It is managed and operated by journalists of Radio Vatican and is under the supervision of the State Secretariat, from the new communications secretary under Prefect Dario Viganò, to the former director of the Vatican television channel CTV, are ready to be of use.

Abandoned neutrality in favor of partisanship

The task of the sismografo established  at the end of January 2012,  is fully incorporated to take and disseminate articles from other media about Pope Francis and the Holy See in five languages ​. Until recently, this was done without their own contributions and without comment.

"But for   several months, things have changed.   Luis Morales Badilla, the main figure responsible for the page,  intervenes  increasingly with his comments which are anything but not neutral," says Magister.

He was commissioned from the start to lead the site and is omnipresent for several months at TV2000, the television channel of the Italian Bishops' Conference. He was appeared especially industrious as he was present during the Synod of Bishops last October. He makes no mystery about which side of the barricade he stands.

On the other hand, however, he spread the "unveiling" by the papal house Vaticanist,  Andrea Tornielli, of an alleged "conspiracy" against Pope Francis. He portrayed the "thirteen cardinals" as "conspirators" who presented Pope Francis with a letter, questioning the rules of procedure of the Synod of Bishops  and the against the impression, that they were only  waving aside the "fabricated results."   They told  the head of the Church, that the Synod of Bishops was being manipulated.

Faggioli may demand prison for Cardinal Sarah in the Vatican media

Massimo Faggiolis book on Pope Francis: Tradition in Transition

As Sandro Magister insists,  as the alleged "conspiracy" position was revealed, the wrath of the Pope's entire entourage came to a massive explosion, because the Cardinals had brought the original synod's plan basis.  Even Badilla could not hold back any longer and wrote several personal, "very polemical" comments against the Cardinals, who signed the letter to the pope, and who belonged to the voting Synod fathers, who were opposed to  the admission of remarried divorcees to communion and the acceptance of homosexuality.

Badilla received help from Faggioli, who teaches history of Christianity [sic] as the  University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis and teaches theology at the Villanova University  of Philadelphia. Faggioli attacked the Synod Cardinals   even more sharply and went so far as to suggest that one of the thirteen signatories,  Cardinal Robert Sarah, the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, should be sent screaming into prison. Faggioli presented himself with foaming at the mouth as an informer, claiming the African cardinal had told him things privately in the Synod Hall things,  "which are criminally relevant in some Western democracies."

Faggioli fired his broadside from the columns of the Huffington Post. Badilla assumed the underhanded demand to throw a cardinal of the Church and Prefect of the Roman Curia, for making  a non-public statement in defense of the Church's moral teaching, in jail without comment in sismografo, an unofficial site of the State Secretariat.

Slugfest: Liturgist Grillo mocks Pope's letters

Faggioli should have thus actually discredited himself for any cooperation with religious institutions. But at Badilla he is still a welcome guest and interviewee, as recently a few days ago. A common sentiment welded together.

Attention was drawn to the relationship between Pope Francis the Second Vatican Council through the interview. The day after the slugfest between Faggioli and curia Archbishop Marchetto  an article published in sismografo without comment concerning the opinion of Andrea Grillo, a well-known theologian and professor of liturgy at the Roman Academy of Sciences at the Benedictine House of Sant'Anselmo.

Grillo rushed to Faggioli for help and went beyond to make jokes about Pope Francis'  two letters, which he dismissed as mere curial products. Pope Francis was "not a traditionalist," said Grillo, but a "post-liberal". Specifically, the liturgist meant that the hermeneutic of continuity as represented by Marchetto and Benedict XVI., was a "traditionalist" interpretation of the Council.  But to bring Francis in connection with "traditionalism" is, after all, really ridiculous.

Francis: Second Vatican Council states, "to read the Gospel in the light of contemporary culture newly"

"In fact, it is easy to find clues in the words and gestures of Francis  that rather place him rather closely to the theses of the School of Bologna," said Magister.

An explicit clue is afforded in an interview of Francis in the Civilta Cattolica of September 2013. In it, he described the Council as "a service to the people", which consists in "re-reading the Gospel in the light of contemporary culture."

"After this interview was published, the Pope  confidentially noted that the abbreviation  of the Council on such an understanding is at least, imprecise, if not  'false'," says Magister. This anecdote of  the Pope came from Curial Archbishop Marchetto, who was in fact the "Immigration Minister" of the Vatican earlier and therefore had to deal with immigration issues.  It's an issue that Jorge Mario Bergoglio already found important and so the two got to know each other. "The two became friends in mutual esteem," says Magister.   Marchetto lives in the Roman clergy house in Via della Scrofa in room 204. Bergoglio earlier took  the number 203, when he was in Rome.

Francis had  explained for his friend, the criticism of his interview statement. From that followed the letter to Marchetto, with which the Pope revised his September statement, allowing the publication of the letter, which Marchetto did on 13 November-2013.

Fight for the  right of interpretation of the Council

March to the left: Don Dossetti with the subsequent EU Commission President Romano Prodi

But the "School of Bologna" does not give up. After all, it is about the interpretative authority of the Council, which was earned with years of elbow grease. Only through the election of Benedict XVI. was it   opposed by the highest authority and put their monopoly into question.  It was a monopoly which was not insignificantly enjoyed the support of the German Bishops' Conference.

The letter to Marchetto was a clearly written statement, but precludes a number of other words and gestures. Thus, the ambivalence of Pope Francis was not resolved in dealing with the Council. The "School of Bologna" can in turn refer to papal gestures in their favor. This includes the recent appointment of Corrado Lorefice, a representative of the "School of Bologna",  as the new archbishop of Palermo.

Lorefice wrote a book about Don Giuseppe Dossetti and Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro. Dossetti was a former left Catholic politician who then became a priest and at the Council, was a technical organizer of the progressive "Rhenish Alliance."  Due to his party political and parliamentary experience, he tried to control the Council on the Rules of Procedure. One aspect was that the vast majority of Council Fathers were so unfamiliar with it that he was not even perceived by them.

Cardinal Lercaro was archbishop of Milan and the Italian chief representative of the "Rhenish Alliance".  Lercaro was one of the four council presenters and from 1964-1957, President of Consilium ad exsequendam constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia, the Council on the implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. The Secretary of the Council who is responsible for the liturgy reforms of 1965 and 1969, was Father Annibale Bugnini. Lercaro was indeed in 1967 after a speech about the Vietnam War, due to international diplomatic complications with the USA, dissmissed by Pope Paul VI.  as President, but remained as an advising member.

Paul VI., Giuseppe Dossetti and the "Rheinische Alliance"

Pope Paul VI. with Council Secretary Pericle Felici

Church historian Alberto Melloni and current head of the "School of Bologna" had recently made ​​a new slogan. Even Pope Paul VI. had apprised Dossetti and his way of voting until the last vote to create a new "synodal" Church. Previously, Paul VI. was an object of hate by the "school".  Pope Montini is alleged to have got stuck halfway in  the radical reconstruction of the church and a "restorative" phase under John Paul II.  and Benedict XVI. had become possible.  Moreover, Paul VI. had  already  taken a path in a "restorative" direction, slowed the reforms and consummated a "throwback" with the encyclical Humanae Vitae.  

As Melloni, two days after the conclusion of the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on 21 October 2014  constructed this thesis for  Corriere della Sera , Msgr. Marchetto disagreed with him even then. The Curial Archbishop quoted from the unpublished diary of Curial Archbishop Pericle Felici,  General Secretary of the Council, who because of Paul VI's undoubted animosity proceeded  against Dossetti's maneuvers. Felici, later elevated to cardinal, on 16 October 1978, proclaimed the election of Pope John Paul II to the world as cardinal deacon. 

 Marchetto's diary  was published  in November 2015 by  the Vatican Publishing. This is an important new source, documenting  a comprehensive history of the Council.  Magister quoted it to underline three points.

The Council Moderators I

"As the moderators were selected in the persons of  Agagianan, Lercaro, Döpfner and Suenens, I was permitted by  the Cardinal Secretary of State (Amleto Cicognani) to point out that this was avowedly being handed to partisan men who were, therefore, not very suitable to act as moderators.' The Secretary of State replied with a certain resentment. Ultimately, and after bitter experiences, he was the first who recognized the mistakes made in the choice of people."

The Council Moderators II

"Unfortunately, the moderators have gone their little clever more than once. They have begun to act on their own, they went by the General Secretariat and to serve the work of Don Dossetti , presenting Cardinal Lercaro as secretary of the moderators. I  granted this until the problems  became evident  ... Then I protested to Cardinal Agagianan and recalled that the Secretary of the moderators, according to the Rules of Procedure, is the Secretary-General and I would allow no substitute, except if the pope wants it, and that I consider to be null and void what had previously been done by Don Dossetti.  I said the same to Cardinal Döpfner. The Pope, informed by me about it, said categorically that he did not want to post  Don Dossetti anywhere, even less so that he should return to Bologna."

The Council Moderators III

"It is worthwhile to remember how much I had to work, thus referring to the approval of formulations of the decrees by the pope,  not those concepts of false collegiality that were included, which were the subject of the vote from 30 October. They wanted to reduce the Pope with the already decided vote.The Pope, to whom I reported the matter, commented: 'It is they who must be in accordance  with me, not me with them!' Optime dictum."

The "School of Bologna" in private audience with the Pope

On June 23, 2015 Alberto Melloni was received together with a representative of the Institute headed by him in Bologna a private audience with  Pope Francis, "letting them to again to believe, that he stands on their side," said Magister.

A few months later, on November 9, Francis wrote yet a second letter to the Curial Archbishop Marchetto, which begins with a warm praise for his edition of the Council Diary of Cardinal Pericle Felici and thus giving to the "most radical contradiction to  the theories of a 'break' and  'new beginning'  of   the Second Vatican Council," said Magister.

To calm things, Luis Badilla and Francesco Gagliano also offered Archbishop Marchetto an interview  about the "interpretation and implementation" of the Council. The five questions and answers were published on January 18 by Il sismografo.

But what really does Pope Francis think about the Council?

Less clear than ever is the attitude of Pope Francis about the Second Vatican Council. According to the letters and statements of Curial Archbishop Marchetto Francis would reject the hermeneutics of rupture and is instead decided on the line of the hermeneutic of continuity of Benedict XVI. This impression is conveyed, however, only in the two letters to Marchetto, otherwise neither by his statements or actions nor is it confirmed  in his assurances to the representatives of the "School of Bologna." 

Ultimately, one could get the impression that the Pope wanted his respective interlocutors to "like" him and make them happy. Is Archbishop Marchetto, who  praises him and stands at his side. Are they the representatives of the "School of Bologna", he praises them and stands at  their side. Is it just a form, a way to  get a  disturbing discussion out of the way? Or is the Council for Francis simply "water under the bridge" as a progressive Vaticanist mentioned in the sense that the progressive agenda can no longer be stopped?

So what does the pope really think about a key issue of recent Church history, about which the opinions could hardly be more contrasting. An event,  which one side sees only "half" implemented, while the other  claims  "no alternative" and speaks of the "fruit of the Council", the others despite effort nowhere to be found and some consider it even as the accelerant of the Church Crisis An event ,

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Picture: CR / TV2000 / vatican.va / Romano Prodi (screenshots)
Katholisches..
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG

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