Do Jews and Muslims Decide the Conditions for the Recognition of the SSPX?

(Rome) The news platform Vatican Insider  has allowed the American Jewish Comittee (AJC) to say, "what is negotiable and what is not" on the way to "the Reconciliation of the Lefebvrians with the Catholic Church". The "conditions" are significantly different from those named by he who is in charge of the talks, Curial Archbishop Guido Pozzo.

The article, signed by Lisa Palmieri-Billig, the "representative of the American Jewish Comittee to the Holy See," was published on 28 July. The American Jewish Comittee and Islam representative, Yahya Pallavicini, explained the conditions under which the Catholic Church could recognize the Society of St. Pius X.

The ecumenical [diabolical?] intervention was provoked by an interview by Curia Archbishop Guido Pozzo included in Christ und Welt (issue 32/2016). Archbishop Pozzo is officially entrusted with the talks with the SSPX as secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei.

If the Vatican will "sacrifice" Conciliar Documents for SSPX?

The author summarizes what is clear from the interview that the "Society is no longer excommunicated, but has not yet been reintegrated canonically, and despite some initial concessions, continues to reject some important documents of Vatican II."  This raises  "more questions", say Palmieri-Billig. The "obvious", but so far unasked questions are:

"On what specific points is the Vatican willing to compromise?" And "If the Vatican is prepared to sacrifice the authoritative nature of some documents of the Second Vatican Council, which - although not a dogma - have become valuable tools for Interreligious Dialogue"

American Jewish Comittee

Two key areas are in play. The first area concerns the "Pope Francis' very strong desire for pastoral unity within the church and for reconciliation of theological breakthroughs." This precludes the second region, namely "the important impact on the future of basic documents of the Second Vatican Council". Palmieri-Billig explicitly names the document Nostra Aetate , particularly "the relationship of the Catholic Church and the Jewish people", and Dignitatis Humanae on religious freedom.

The authors complained in the statements about  Archbishop Guido Pozzo's "complete absence of any reference" to the historical roots of these documents of Vatican II and "thus the reasons why  John XXIII., Paul VI. and the Council Fathers felt it was important." Specifically,  Palmieri-Billig referred to  "Paragraph 4 of Nostra Aetate on relations between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people". This "omission" was all the more serious because of the "seemingly entrenched theological anti-Semitism" of the SSPX.

"Distorted indoctrination" and "ingrained theological anti-Semitism"

The representative of the American Jewish Comittee  then insists that Nostra Aetate of John XXIII. was intended finally to "extinguish the distorted indoctrination" of the charges of "deicide", an accusation that "had already been declared false and absurd by  the Council of Trent." The "need for this decision" by John XXIII. was beause he had "become aware through an encounter with Jules Isaac, a survivor of the Holocaust" where Isaac had convinced the pope from the fact that "this rhetoric circulating in Europe had created a suitable environment for the development of wild anti-Semitic stereotypes, which in turn fueled the hatred that made ​​the Shoah possible."

AJC demands conditions for the canonical recognition of the SSPX

Then the American Jewish Commitee comes to the point: If the SSPX can be canonically recognized "before" talks "about the validity" of Nostra Aetate found a "satisfactory solution", it "would create serious questions".

Palmieri-Billig  extensively cites Chief Rabbi David Rosen, the international director of the American Jewish Comittee for interreligious relations with the words:

"I have every confidence in the declaration of Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, who explained that the adoption of Nostra Aetate as a binding document by the SSPX, is a necessary step to ensure that the members of the Society may be formally recognized by the Holy See; and I can not believe that Pope Francis could accept less than that. In addition, I hope that the Holy See, regarding Judaism and the Jewish people, insists in the addition to recognition of the teaching of the Magisterium, on the denial of anti-Semitism that was part of the culture of the SSPX. It was not just about Bishop 'Williamson and a couple other people: The website of the organization has been full of anti-Jewish rhetoric in the past. I want to hope that there is a formal recognition of the statement of Pope Francis in line with his predecessors, which states that it is impossible to be a true Christian if you have anti-Semitic opinions." [David Rosen gets to decide who's Christian.]

The Crux: SSPX or Dominus Iesus ?

Palmieri-Billig shows themselves further concerned about the differing levels of dogmatic binding, which is applied to the various conciliar documents, as Archbishop Curia Pozzo explained in his interview. Pozzo appealed to the will of the Council Fathers on this issue. On November 18, 1964, the secretary for Christian Unity on Nostra Aetate explained that his secretariat had no intention of adopting dogmatic declarations about non-Christian religions but only practical and pastoral norms, which is why Nostra Aetate has no dogmatic commitment. It is therefore, says Archbishop Curia Pozzo, not possible to ask someone, to recognize this document as "binding."

Imam Yahya Pallavicini

The American Jewish Comittee representatives were also offended at the finding of Archbishop Pozzo, that any interpretation of Nostra Aetate, must include the Declaration Dominus Iesus , on the unicity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church 2000, which is "without foundation and should therefore be rejected." The Secretary of Ecclesia Dei warned explicitly in this context against a false  interpretation of the "Spirit of Assisi".

Palmieri-Billig represented the statements of Imam Yahya Pallavicini, vice-president of the Italian Islamic Religious Community (COREIS) to the contrary, who is considered to be the "internationally recognized representative of a temperate 'traditional Islam'." Pallavicini had in turn warned the Vatican:

"The international Islamic community follows closely the development of this convergence process of the SSPX for reintegration into the Catholic Church. It is about the sensitivity to find a coherence regarding the pastoral implications of the outcome of the Council and of the document Nostra Aetate. While Pope Francis and the Catholic Church, together with the spiritual authorities of many other religious denominations, celebrate the prophetic value of this Council that initiated the historical cycle of 50 intense years of inter-religious and ecumenical dialogue on providential way, the SSPX appears to downplay at least the  this path and this orientation  to maintain a traditionalist interpretation that actually denies the spiritual need of respect and fellowship with believers and other confessions believing in a God. In a moment of dramatic international crisis in which the manipulation of religion becomes a hostage of some fundamentalist groups, there seems to arise a claim of 'legitimate violence' against Muslims, Christians and Jews, concerns us and the anachronism and the lack of sensitivity of movements that the Society even wants to force the Church  or  to teach a different hierarchy of values, than   the Council and obedience to the saints and the popes."

"Vilification and delegitimization of the 'Aggiornamento'- John XXIII's Will."

Although the AJC representative noted that Society, representing 70 countrieswith 750Mass locations  in the "enormous Catholic world" has only a "relatively small influence" ... "but nothing that happens in this world without effect". Concessions to the SSPX "could easily" lead to a "return of the old prejudices" against other confessions and to "transform to the militant conviction of possessing the only true way to God".

Pallavicini has already been received several times by Pope Francis in the past three years

That would be a further step towards the "insulting and delegitimization of the burning desire of John XXIII. according to the 'aggiornamento' of the Catholic Church and to return to the pseudo-religious, anti-Semitic stereotypes that  provoked immense suffering of many centuries and ultimately led to the diabolical persecutions and genocides of the 20th century. "

After the authors  thundered against SSPX , using the Antisemitism club, they praised "the deeply meaningful silence" of Pope Francis in Auschwitz as "deafening".

Director of Vatican Insider, the papal house vaticanist  Andrea Tornielli,  explains why his articles and products published by his platform are of particular attention. This also applies to this article by the AJC representatives to the Holy See, where Tornielli allows Jews and Muslims to designate the conditions about which the Holy See should conduct a canonical recognition of the SSPX. Vice versa this means: Should these conditions not be met, it would open up "serious questions". It's a statement in the article of the American Jewish Comittee that someone could read as a threat. Anyway,  Tornielli offered the American Jewish Comittee and the Islamic Religious Council the opportunity to be the warning sign for the Vatican.  It's an "unusual procedure", because they revolve "around internal Church matters" which are also to be clarified within the Church. It's an "interference" from the outside which must be "considerations rejected in principle" ipso facto, so Messa in Latino .

It is also dubious indeed that the American Jewish Comittee and the Islamic Religious Council  are pulling  together, to warn the Catholic Church of a "return" to their traditional claim that it was entrusted by Jesus Christ as the "only way to salvation."

Lisa Palmieri-Billig and Yahya Pallavicini

Lisa Palmieri-Billig was born in Vienna. With her ​​Jewish family, she emigrated in 1938 as a small child to New York. During the Second Vatican Council, she worked in the Roman branch of the World Jewish Congress (WJC). She was 25 years, Deputy Chairman of the European section of the World Conference of Religions for Peace, based in New York, founded in 1961 and is today Chairman of the Italian section of this organization. Since 2005, she is the Jewish Vatican expert AJC representative  in Italy and the Holy See.

Yahya Pallavicini, born in 1965, is the Imam al-Wahid Mosque of Milan. His mother is Japanese, his father, Felice Pallavicini is from Milan, descendant of a branch of a famous Italian noble family [With strong Masonic connections, fighting against the Church in the 1860s], converted in 1951 at the age of 25 years in Lausanne to Islam. He prefers to speak of a "convergence" and "realignment". Since then, he calls himself Abd al-Wahid and has traveled 30 years in the Islamic world, where he was in Istanbul, Jerusalem and finally introduced in Singapore to Islamic Sufism. In 1980, he himself became a Sheikh (Master) and as such, head of the Sufi brotherhood, Ahamadiyyah Idrissiyyah Shadhiliyyah in Europe. Abd al-Wahid Pallavicini represents a syncretic religious view that all religions lead to "a god". In a chronological sequence have revealed this, the Hinduism, according to Pallavicini, the first link in this  chain of revelation that leads to  the three monotheistic "Abrahamic" religions, whose perfection is Islam.
In 1986 he took part in the  very controversial Assisi Meeting for Peace as the Islam representative, which was organized by the Community Sant'Egidi  with the participation of Pope John Paul II.. His son was counted among the 500 most influential Muslims in the world of 2009. In 1998 father and son negotiated as Islamic representatives for the recognition of the Islamic religious community by the Republic of Italy. In 2000 he created the organization called the Islamic Religious Community (COREIS). He is a member of the State Islamic Council of the Italian Ministry of Interior.

Both are part of the elite interreligious establishment.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: SSPX / ajc / coreis (screenshots)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
Link to Katholisches....
AMDG

Cardinal Laments the Silence Over the Persecution of Christians

Four out of five were Christians persecuted for religious reasons.

  Vatican City (kath.net/CBA)  I think we are silent too much," Koch said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper "Osservatore Romano" (Sunday).  An estimated 80 percent of those persecuted for religious reasons are Christians, said the Swiss cardinal. There are now more Christians suffering persecution than in the days of the early church.

At the same time the Vatican Ecumenical Minister emphasized the importance of Christian martyrs for a rapprochement between the Christian denominations. They are "the seeds of ecumenism and the future unity". The "ecumenism of suffering" will form the deepest foundation for the conversation between the confessions. 

Link to kath.net...

Vatican Downplays Expectation of a Papal Visit on Reformation 2017

Cardinal: Francis has been no response to the invitation EKD

Rome (kath.net / idea ) The expectation that Pope Francis is to come to the 500-year anniversary of the Reformation in 2017 in Germany has been downplayed by the President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch. The Pope had given no reply to the invitation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany Council Chairman, President i.R. Nikolaus Schneider (Berlin), said the Swiss Cardinal in an interview with Vatican Radio. In a private audience on 8 April Schneider had invited the head of the Roman Catholic Church, to participate in Wittenberg in the events commemorating the theses of the reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546) 31 October 1517. The Vatican sees, among other things, no reason to “celebrate" the Reformation, its following schism and the religious wars of the 16th and 17th Centuries, but wishes only “recollect” it.

Schneider: It's about a Feast for Christ

The ELCG Council stressed that it was not the anniversary of the Reformation to go about celebrating "the birth of the Protestant church." Luther did not want to found a new church, but to reform the Catholic. It would also not hide the dark side of the Reformation and the Reformer. Rather, the anniversary should be designed as a Christian festival that every Christian can celebrate.

Koch: the Vatican is not a contact person for the ELCG

Koch also pointed out to Vatican Radio different responsibilities. The Vatican is not the actual contact person for the ELCG, but the German Bishops' Conference. Lutheranism, by contrast, has a “worldwide presence," said Koch. The Vatican engages in theological conversations especially with the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). They had agreed together in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in1999. Koch himself took part last November while participating in the General Synod of the United Lutheran Church of Germany (VELKD) Timmendorfer Strand in Luebeck, but not at the subsequent ELCG Synod. The Lutheran Evangelical Church doesn’t understand itself as an autonomous church, but as a community of 20, United and Reformed churches.

Paper completed on Reformation Commemoration

As Koch said in the current interview further in view of discussions between the Catholic and the Lutheran church, the competent International Commission has prepared a document to commemorate 2017th year of the Reformation. It is expressed in the English title "From Conflict to Communion" (From Conflict to Community). The paper is finished, but is to be released only after the German translation is complete. Worldwide, the Roman Catholic Church has about 1.2 billion members. The number of Lutherans is [merely] about 74 million, which includes nearly 71 million to the LWF member churches.

Pope Francis receives EKD Church President Nikolaus Schneider - Pope meets with Francis first Protestant leader (Rome Reports)

Frontal Attack: "Dominus Jesus" is "Unfortunately Formulated"

Kardinal Kurt Koch
© +ecumenix, Flickr, CC BY-NC

Cardinal Kurt Koch

Fidelity to the Pope and to the Conciliar Magisterium is only expected of the Society of St Pius X -- not Old Liberal Curial Cardinals, who are undermining the Faith.

(kreuz.net) The statement in 'Dominus Jesus" that Protestants are not churches in the proper sense, is a stumbling block and an "unfortunate formulation".

This is what Old Liberal Cardinal Kurt Koch -- President of the Pontifical Office for Unity said at an event of the Old Liberal 'Focolare Movement' in Bern according to reports by the Swiss weekly 'Reformierte Press'.

'Dominus Jesus' is a declaration by the Congregation of Doctrine and the Faith in August of 2000.  It was signed by then Cardinal Ratzinger.

A Piece of Bread

Cardinal Koch answered in the negative, if he found it correct to refuse Reformed Christians Communion.

"I would never refuse this to anyone who came to Communion.  I've never personally done this."

For the Reformed their Supper is a piece of bread, that recalls Holy Thursday.

A Charter for Hocus Pocus Communion?

Cardinal Koch only wants to "speak" to the Reformed Christians who snap up Communion.

The 'Reformed Press" asked if this statement by the Cardinal is a "charter for Swiss priests", to give their hocus pocus Communion to people who don't believe in it?

Link to kreuz.net...

Is this Benedict XVI's Reform Cardinal?

Vatican. [kreuz.net] The President of the Pontifical Council For Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch, sees apparent anti-Jewish tendencies in the Church. He told the Jewish weekly magazine 'Tacheles'. The chief Cardinal see anti-Jewish tendencies in Traditionalists or theologians who teach that the Old Testament has been abolished by the New Testament. The teaching criticized by the Cardinal corresponds to the teaching of Jesus Christ, the New Testament and the faith of the Catholic Church.

Edit: He's made other statements regarding Jewish-Catholic relations that are controversial, which points decisively to a powerful incompatibility between those who are in positions of power and those in the periphery or in some cases, out in the cold. Here he implicates the Catholic Church in the German persecution of the Jews during World War II:

On the Catholic side, the Declaration of the Second Vatican Council on the relationship of the church to the non–Christian religions, “Nostra aetate”, can be considered the beginning of a systematic dialogue with the Jews. Still today it is considered the “foundation document” and the “Magna Charta” of the dialogue of the Roman Catholic Church with Judaism, so my tour d’horizon of the Jewish–Catholic conversation must begin there. It did not develop in a vacuum, since on the Christian side there had already been approaches to Judaism both within and outside the Catholic Church before the Council. But after the unprecedented crime of the Shoah above all, an effort was made in the post–War period towards a theologically reflected re–definition of the relationship with Judaism. Following the mass murder of the European Jews planned and executed by the National Socialists with industrial perfection, a profound examination of conscience was initiated about how such a barbaric scenario was possible in the Christian–oriented West. Must we assume that anti–Jewish tendencies present within Christianity for centuries were complicit in the anti–Semitism of the Nazis, racially motivated and led astray by a godless and neo–pagan ideology, or simply allowing it to run its course? Among Christians too there were both perpetrators and victims; but the broad masses surely consisted of passive spectators who kept their eyes closed in the face of this brutal reality. The Shoah therefore became a question and an accusation against Christianity: Why did Christian resistance against the boundless brutality of the Nazi crimes not demonstrate that measure and that clarity which one should rightfully have expected? Have Christians and Jews today the will and the strength for conciliation and reconciliation on the common foundation of faith in the one and only God of Israel? What significance does Judaism have in the future for churches and ecclesial communities, and in what theological relationship do we stand today in connection with Judaism?

Is Cardinal Kurt Koch Intentionally Leading People Into Error?

The Joker- President of the Office for Unity has compared the Society of St. Pius X with Martin Luther -- the Church Father of the Conciliar Church -- of all things.

Kardinal Kurt Koch
© +ecumenix, Flickr, CC

(kreuz.net)  There is "not a hermeneutic of pure continuity" in the interpretation of the Second Vatican Council by the Pope.

This oft repeated expression was made by the Old Liberal curial Cardinal Kurt Koch -- who is the President of the Pontifical Council for Unity -- to the German 'Katholischen Nachrichtenagentur'.

Empty Mist Instead of Catholic Doctrine


An interpretation of the "hermeneutic of pure continuity" would apparently be a substitution by the Traditionalists -- maundered the Cardinal.

In reality the Old Believers have maintained that the Pastoral Council represents a break with the Doctrine of the Church.

The Cardinal made a lot of mist:  The Pope sees "a connection of renewal and continuity in the sense that the Council desired and needed a renewal of the Church but not a new Church."

Wants a Class of a Class

Cardinal Koch styled the documents of the Pastoral Council with the same comb, although they arranged are in four large Constitutions, nine decrees and three statutes.

On may -- apparently a "purely formal" -- distinction between the documents.

In any case the Cardinal fabricated then "a problem, as the Council of Trent (1545-1563) had only enacted decrees and no constitutions."

What the Cardinal didn't say:  The Council of Trent formulated "anathemas",  which condemned errors in sentences as clear as glass.

Dogmatically Unbinding


At the Pastoral Council Cardinal Koch saw "hardly any difference" in the "binding with regard to its content".

That means: the Pastoral Council  itself had imputed a lower dogmatic value binding character.

He attempted to enhance the Decree on Ecumenism that it apparently has its dogmatic formulations in the non-dogmatic Constitution of the Church.

The Ecumenism-Cardinal Insults the Protestants


As far as the reconciliation of the Society of St. Pius X, Cardinal Koch sees difficulties in that they see errors in the Pastoral Council.

"That Councils can also contain errors, is in any case an error which goes back to Martin Luther"  -- said the Cardinal critically on the fabrications of the Protestants.

The Old Believers must "really ask, where they actually stand" themselves -- as he leveled a broadside against the inventor of Protestantism.

Actually Cardinal Koch shows himself as more papal than the Pope.

Because the Pastoral Council did not avail itself of the infallibility of a dogmatic Council -- which Luther denied.

Take Care, Cardinal Koch


The Lefebrist website 'pius.info' posed the question today, "if the Cardinal is leading people with intention into error".

The hapless Cardinal needs remedial Catechism:  A Council is infallible, when it defines a doctrine of the Faith.

This is the point that Martin Luther contested.

On the contrary the Church has never insisted that "everything, which is within the text of a Council is infallible."

Dogmatized the Pastoral Council After the Fact


The Pastoral Council understands itself as a Pastoral Council.

For that reason it could "not raise the claim of binding character."

The founder of the Society, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (+1991),  had frequently pointed out that one said during the Council , that it wasn't necessary to express with dogmatic precision what would merely be treated as a Pastoral Council.

Actually:  "After the Council then one would begin to make the texts dogmatic, as Cardinal Koch had done."

The Conciliar Church is a Divided Kingdom


Cardinal Koch also contradicted a statement by Cardinal Walter Brandmueller in the past May.

The later attested that the Conciliar documents over inter-religious dialog and apparent religious freedom had  no "dogmatically binding content".

Link to kreuz.net...

Disagreements Between Cardinal Koch and Cardinal

Edit: There was a minor translation change in the statement by +Koch at his astonishment at the fixation about the SSPX after 50 years of dialog, rather than implying that he was thinking it would stall the talks.  Thanks to P-Hall.


What binding level t the texts of the 2nd Vatican Council have?  A decisive question.  How the media plays the Cardinals against each other::  "Divide et impera?"  by Armin Schwibach

Rome (kath.net/as)  The discussion of the forthcoming unification with the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X (FSSPX) driven some strange blood, which are in view of the interpretation of the texts of the 2nd Vatican Council.  So it happened in the last days that the media has played two Curial Cardinals who have expertise in the matter, against each other: a completely far fetched situation of a published opinion without foundation.

The play began after the President for the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity,  Kurt Cardinal Koch,  had held a lecture with the title "Building on 'Nostra Aetate -- 50 Years of Christian-Jewish Dialog" at the Papal University of St. Thomas (Angelicum) in the "John Paul II" center.   All questions in the concluding press conference resolved themselves  then, however, on the FSSPX and the negotiations in the Congregation for the Doctrine and the Faith:  it was a question of
the long expected 'feria quarta', on the meeting of the Congregation over the document presented by the FSSPX and being informed about the possible coming unification.

Cardinal Koch explained to the media concerned with this only that the discussions were in process and he could not say what they concerned till Pope Benedict's decision.   At the same time the Cardinal announced his surprise at this that over fifty years of dialog with Judaism would be fixated in such a way  by the Society of St. Pius X.

Journalists constructed from this statement the opposite.  It was loudly announced  that Cardinal Koch himself as the first according to the full committee of the Congregation of the Doctrine and the Faith had expressed himself about the unification with the Society, which wasn't the truth, because:  Koch had refused for that reason to  comment.

Cardinal Koch further explained that the Second Vatican Council and all its texts are binding for a Catholic, from which the journalists determined that it was a "mandatory obligation". In the sense of Pope Benedict XVI's called for Hermaneutic of Continuity with Tradition, Koch underlined, it is important to stress that it is the Magisterium which determines the authentic interpretations with respect to Catholic doctrine and answers all subsequent open questions. With his address to the Roman Curia on the 22nd of December 2005, Pope Benedict XVI presented a "key for the interpretation of the Conciliar texts offered: "Reform in Continuity" against the "Hermeneutics of Rupture".

The presentation of the book "Le chiavi di Benedetto XVI per interpretare il Vaticano II"  (The keys of Benedict XVI for the interpretation of the Second Vatican Council)" took place on the 22nd of May in Rome.   The work was written by Walter Cardinal Brandmuller together with Curial Bishop Agostinoo Marchetto and the Italian theologian and liturgist, Msgr. Nicola Bux.  At the presentation of the book, +Brandmuller touched on the various levels of binding of the Council texts.  There is a big difference between a Constitution and a simple Declaration, as well as those on Christian Education, the Mass Media or even "Nostra Aetate".  Those "controversial documents" for the FSSPX as even over religious freedom and the relationship to the other religions have no binding doctrinal content, said Brandmuller, as is the case with the Dogmatic Constitutions.  For that reason they may be discussed.  Oddly  both of the controversial texts, namely, "Nostra Aetate" and "Dignitatis Humanae", according to the estimation of Canon Lawyer Klaus Morsdorf would have no doctrinal content.  That doesn't mean, however, said the Cardinal, that one need not take them seriously:  they are expressions of the living Magisterium, without binding the entire Church.

Brandmuller's address was taken up by the media immediately represented as the opposite to the words of Cardinal Koch.  This then did not correspond to reality.  As to the question if he was in contradiction with Cardinal Koch's comments, +Brandmuller explained that this couldn't have possibly been the case.  It is completely correct, when Koch says, that a Catholic has to accept the decrees of a General Council.  That doesn't preclude, "that the Decrees have various levels of binding".  Also there is a "Free space for theological discussion abut the correct understanding of the Conciliar texts":  "Where then is the disagreement?"

This begs the question: is the reason that these differences which are as obscure as the Antipodes be a wedge driven between two Cardinals, these two who could or will be the spearheads of Benedict XVI's work of reform and  give significant contributions for the reflection over the Vatican Council right in the wings of the upcoming "Year of Faith?  "Divide et impera" appears to be the motto. Cui bono?

Link to origial kath.net....

Cardinal Koch: SSPX Has to Accept Vatican II

Edit: does this mean that the SSPX will have to give hearty assent to the vague and novel formulations which have no substantial foundation in Church history or doctrine before the 1960s according to Cardinal Koch?

Vienna (kath.net/KAP) Pope Benedict XVI is dealing with the reconciliation of the Society of St. Pius X as a theologian and one who knows Church history.  "Because he knew that till now every Council had a schism in its wake, it is for him a consideration , in avoiding anything, that he would not want this to repeat where he is responsible": That was quoted from the President of the Vatican Council for Ecumenism, Cardinal Kurt Koch, at a press conference in Vienna on Tuesday.  "Now it falls upon the Society to answer definitively,"  says Koch.  This touches specifically on their position on the Council.

The two answers of November and March which were known to him were considered insufficient: the most recent of the 17th of November is "not known to him."  What is clear, however, is that it won't be enough "if they reject 65 percent of the Council".  The second Vatican Council, which opened 50 years ago and in which the present Pope had functioned as an adviser, forms for the Swiss born President for Unity the great test in ecumenism.  But what is clear after 50 years, "is that the unity needed more time than we thought then".

Today there is an uncertainty over the goal.  Many protestant leaders only want that "all church properties are recognized as Church".  A deeper unity in this case then falls from view.

An important voice, namely the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, is quick to remind that the forms of consensus seeking in important questions of life like peace or environment would not be everything.  Patriarch Bartholomeos is one who seeks after a true unity of the Church.  But he also stresses:  "We need time".  One has "lived through 1,000 years apart".  Many points of divergence are not even theological, rather much more of a historical and cultural type, which never the less don't have easy solutions.

Open Problems in Ecumenical Dialog

In view of the barriers to unity, Cardinal Koch, noted "the Office of the Papacy",  which inn relation to Orthodoxy presents even more problems than with the churches of the Reformation.  Because Orthodoxy has theological arguments against the Papal Office, because it is a jurisdiction without sacramentality. Evangelical theologians and some Catholics like Hans Kung seek on the other hand after a primacy of honor similar to the Anglican Primate.  This is precisely the present breaking test within the Anglican Communion but is also a good example for this, that such a symbolic office functions "only in good weather".

Fundamentally all of the more deeper running steps toward unity need a first gesture of mutual forgiveness and reconciliation, said Cardinal Koch.  One fundamental problem is that most Christians don't see division as a sin and a scandal. In dialog meetings with Orthodox representatives  this is painfully evident that the Orthodox side will not offer small gestures of reconciliation like a kiss of peace because these in Orthodoxy are a precondition for Eucharistic communion.

Considerations of the Reformation with Offers of Reconciliation?

Even the upcoming "Reformation Jubilee" will only bring ecumenical progress, "if it is bound with a mutual recognition of wrongdoing".    As an archetype for reconciliation is Pope John Paul II in the Holy Year of 2,000; "I hope that just that takes place in 2017".

One shouldn't speak then of a 'Jubilee' but of a Reformation Memorial, because we couldn't celebrate a  sin".  It is also known to him that this expression has earned him the description of "anti-ecumenicist".  If, however, 2017 involves this common understanding, then there will be on his side openness to the question, "what greater signs could be set".

Koch went also addressed a widely disseminated falsehood, where Benedict XVI. gives more priority to ecumenism with the Orthodox than the Reform churches.  This is historically false because Joseph Ratzinger has already worked a great deal in Reform theology.

It is also true that Ratzinger had been the one who saved the 1998 Augsburg "Common Declaration on Justification" (1999), a milestone of Ecumenism between Catholics and Lutherans.  The current Pope is since traveled to Regesburg since 1998, where he participated with the assembled Lutheran church worldwide.  The result was approved and highlighted in a document on understanding in the clarity of the  unmistakable and fundamental truth of the teaching on justification.   It was still further stressed that the mutual doctrinal condemnations of the 16th century do not concern today's Church.  In this sense it is pointedly clear that people are justified and saved by grace alone.

Cardinal Koch expressed himself in a press conference also on relations to Judaism, especially on missionary work with the Jews.  Catholic belief is that the bond with the people of Israel is "an important",  at the same time is however "become something new with Jesus" .  How that will happen, is not something easily addressed "in a half minute during a press conference".  Because of this complex interaction the Church looks upon it as an explicit mission to the Jews.  The individual witnesses of Christians to their faith is however a requirement for Evangelism in that which also depends on the belief that the Gospel must be preached to the Jews.

Link to original...

The Mass of All Ages Will Outlast Newer Rites

The Pastor's Corner column on Dici makes common cause with Cardinal Koch about the Mass. Eventually one Mass will disappear. Perhaps it will be as Cardinal Ranjith envisions, the more ancient Missal of All Ages?

“Benedict XVI knows well that in the long term we cannot remain with a coexistence between the ordinary and extraordinary forms in the Roman rite, but that the Church will again need in the future a common rite... However, given that a new liturgical form cannot be decided in an office, as it requires a process of growth and purification, for the time being the Pope stresses above all that the two forms of use of the Roman rite can and must enrich one another mutually.” (Ibid.) According to Cardinal Koch, Rome’s permission of a Mass that needs no permission would be that it might ultimately disappear!

German Politicians Have Fearfully Underestimated the Islam-Problem: Cardinal Koch on Middle East Summit

The Swiss Cardinal Kurt Koch is the new Official heading the Vatican Office for Ecumenism. A discussion about Christian in the Holy Land, Minarets in Europe and the current Islam-Debate.

Rome (kath.net/DieWelt) As the successor of the Curial Cardinal, Walter Kasper, the former Basel Archbishop Kurt Koch will become the next President for the Papal Adviser for the Promotion of the Unity of Christians -- a kind of "ecumenical minister" of the Vatican. Koch was born in 1950 in Emmenbrucke in the Canton of Luzern. As his first challenge was a two week Synod in the Vatican on the situation of Christians in the Middle East. Paul Badde of Die Welt interviewed him.

Die Welt Hardly in office, you were confronted with the extremely difficult Middle East Summit. How would you describe your idea of the situation?

Koch: There are two realities. First, the various churches of the Middle East came together in order to advise and find new ways into the future. The second was just as important and pressing: That the diversity of the churches are brought to the consciousness of the public. If Christianity in the Holy Land is only stones and buildings, memorial sites and no more people, then a basic value has gone lost. The Middle East without the churches would be a horrible historical occurrence. That the whole Universal Church is concerned about this event and must stay in solidarity, is a very high and important value.

Die Welt You are not just threatened by external enemies. Are your conflicts not only conflicts between each other -- which have been taking place for more than a 1000 years?

Koch: It was very clear at the Synod, that communal is important to pursue and note, that one can only be strong together. Surely there are many open questions, and naturally you can't always discuss them in every detail, where many of the problems are subsumed. Really what is needed is a strong will to forge a common way to the future.

Die Welt Now there are only above all the various Catholic Church coming together. Isn't the greatest problem in the Middle East the conflict with the Greek Orthodox Church, who consider the Catholics only as heretics? Or is there a substantial movement from the leadership since the visit of Paul VI to Patriarch Athenagoras in Jerusalem in 1964?

Koch: This movement was a tremendous start, which has proven fruitful in a decade-long discussion. None the less, the dialog since the year 2000 because of various problems has been broken again. Really it is Pope Benedict XVI within the last four months by his own decision, to get this discussion back on its feet. It is clear that we will need more time than previously planned.

Die Welt Which role does the separated Jerusalem have in the Drama of Christendom?

Koch: Jerusalem is a completely accurate picture for the real situation, was we have it today, with the various religions and above all even the various churches, their various liturgies. The conflicts over the precise location where one can celebrate, is however a good example of how things shouldn't go in the future with the progress of this divisiveness in Christianity. In so far as a visit to Jerusalem is always very beautiful,, because one comes back to the origins, but it's also sad, because one sees the concrete situation.

Die Welt Is Jerusalem not also a picture of "Many dwellings in the house of the Father"? [what a dumb question]

Surely the diversity is not in itself bad. This was shown even in the Synod in its many colors, where everyone is astonished, how very diverse the Catholic Church is. That is the greater kingdom. But only if one considers the other side and looks together for a common way into the future. The diversity and multiplicity is good in itself, when correlation leads to enrichment. Right in Jerusalem there is for this reason still a drama playing itself out.
That is namely the greatest division that we have, the division between Synagogue and Church.

Die Welt: What do you mean?

Koch: Because Jerusalem today has become the precise model of division, in the level that even appears between Christianity and Judaism. St Paul had hoped that this division would be put aside and we could really come to unity, therefore to a Church of Jews and Gentiles as the true people of God. That is the great hope, but Paul had in any case had it. For that reason we must continue to nourish it.

DIE WELT Only Paul was himself a Jew and was much closer to the Synagogue

Koch: That's right, even in his journey he stayed close to the Synagogue and preached to the Jews, but first he went to the Gentiles. In the Letter to the Romans he had later exactly described why some went their own way from the Gospel. That he understood the deeper significance of the rejection by the majority of the Jews that the message of Jesus must be brought firstly to the whole world. It is the great secret, that Israel remain the chosen people, but still await the Messiah. That is the greatest question with which they are concerned.

DIE WELT Can you describe other questions in the foreground? In the "Short Story of the Anti-Christ" by Vladimir Soloviev which was written a century before, which predicted the end of the World in Jerusalem. Recently the monks here in Rome from the Holy Land said that the next fearful conflict in the Middle East is expected either before or after Christmas. Were such fears expressed in the Synod?

Koch: One such advent of such an event is not known to me and so I can't substantiate it. But one can be certain, that this conflict is ongoing and will come to a head. That is realistic enough. What other such concrete notions come to mind, if anything, everyone is cautious.

DIE WELT In Switzerland we've experienced the conflict over minarets. What would you say to the Germans in their recent Islam-debate?

Koch: I have the general impression that the politicians have fearfully underestimated the problem with Islam in Europe. In Switzerland we have for example a Court of Religion with Jews, Muslims and Christians and we want the National Court sensitized at an early stage toward Problems, which were the subject of the Minarets. The National Courts had solved this problem simply by referring it to building rights. Therefore it was not discernible which anxieties should have been attached to the Minaret Question. These anxieties, however, had to be taken into consideration, which responsible politics does.

DIE WELT: And what would you advise Germans, who want to be taken seriously, which have had in their midst a large Islamic Community for a long time?

Koch: Firstly, that one has to open ones' eyes and see reality, that there are substantial differences between religions, which also reflect culture and not to wipe it from the table. A natural difference is naturally that Christianity had to learn in its long history, that only the consequent separation of State and of Religion of Church has its assigned and adequate area in society. There is still a much greater trouble spot buried there.

DIE WELT: Can Europe's Christians learn something from those of the Middle East?

Koch: Absolutely yes to the last question, quite a lot. From them they could learn a model, how one can co-exist with Muslims. How one can lead a dialogue with them. There they have a very leading edge of experience from their history. And that can help us. They cultivate contacts. If one doesn't learn this, then there remain only anxieties.