Two days before this year's March for Life in Rome, the Eucharistic Adoration for Life took place, at which Cardinal Gerhard Müller preached a homily.
On the occasion of the Eucharistic Adoration for Life, which takes place every year just before the anniversary of the passage of the infamous law 194 that allowed abortion in Italy on May 22, 1978, Cardinal Gerhard Müller presided over the solemn ceremony in the Roman parish of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini.
Recently, the Holy Father has pointed out the drastic demographic decline that threatens the future of Europe and America, and it is not just a question of mere utilitarian thinking so that business and government can continue with future consumers, customers and taxpayers. The reason for this question is theological in nature:
“Man is the only creature that God willed for himself” (Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes , 24), for every human being is predestined by God (as far as his present existence on earth is concerned) “in beings and form of his Son, that he may be the firstborn of many brethren" (Romans 8:29).
Every human being is embraced by God's salvific will from the moment of conception to the moment of his last breath. Therefore, any act of injustice against the life and integrity of another human being, especially the killing of a child in the womb (or even in the test tube [in vitro] or incubator) is a “despicable crime” ( Gaudium et Spes, 51). For life is sacred and protected by God Himself, as the fifth commandment of the Decalogue states:
"Thou shalt not kill" (Deut 5:17).
The legal order in all societies and states is aimed at human coexistence on the basis of morality; Morality means directing our actions towards good, based on the recognition of the fundamental dignity and rights of human beings, inherent in their nature and guaranteed by God. As human beings and Christians, we are convinced that the real (and not just abstractly theorized) physical man never exists as a purpose and instrument for something else or for the interests of others. This is the basis of our image of man and the criterion of all ethics.
On the other hand, the opposite of this is the starting point of all crimes against humanity and cynical contempt for human beings, with which Josef Stalin declared that Gulag prisoners only had a right to life because they were useful for the construction of the White Sea Canal. One Heinrich Himmler, commander of the notorious SS, said of his boss Hitler that he was "interested in the lives of a thousand Russian women only until they have dug an anti-tank trench for the Wehrmacht". And these are just two particularly drastic examples of the depths of human contempt in the political ideologies of a not too distant time. If one believes that there is overpopulation on our planet that consumes resources or negatively affects the climate, one cannot, however, propagate and justify the killing of life in the womb without revealing oneself as a diabolical misanthrope. Pope Francis, to whom some proponents of “reproductive health” (ie, abortion) invoke, says this in a very blunt way.
The materialists in power in the Western capitalist states and international organizations, as well as the communist dictators in China and its allied states, reject the doctrine of the creation of man in the image of God because they do not believe in God as believe our Creator and Judge. On the contrary, they claim to put themselves in the place of God and in their foolish arrogance are not even able to defeat the tiny coronavirus. Someone recently said: The oligarchs in Russia are mafiosi and in the West they call themselves philanthropists, so beware of those who pose as the saviors of humanity when they are only pursuing their own interests.
While the pandemic crisis and the measures taken to combat it have left millions of people in hardship and poverty, the world's ten richest people have simultaneously added hundreds of billions to their fortunes.
The dominant ideological current in politics, economy and communication thinks in a Darwinian-socialist perspective. This means that whoever asserts himself in the struggle for power, money and propaganda also has the law on his side, which is why only the powerful have the right to determine who is allowed to live and who must die based on their interests. They claim to determine which life is worth living and which life is not. Others even consider it a higher form of humanity to guarantee life only if born healthy, while it must be eliminated if born ill or in old age, in order to avoid present and future suffering. Or in the case of multiple pregnancies, only the child that the parents like according to their needs and preferences should survive; for example, China implemented the brutal and inhumane one-child policy for decades and forced women to kill their children. But whoever thinks in terms of the fundamental rights inscribed in man's spiritual and moral nature, or who invokes revelation in the Word of God as the ultimate criterion for man's image, can never find a just reason for killing an innocent human being.
We are in a “war against the saints” ( Rev 13:7), not only in the inhumane war against the Ukrainian people but also in the West, which is radically denying its Christian roots. Behind those responsible for all the suffering is “the beast that came up out of the earth', the epitome of wickedness and ungodliness unleashed by the life and death struggle of God's followers and against Christ the Lamb of God. Anyone who takes a pro-life position in Europe or America today is insulted, persecuted, discriminated against and marginalized. US Supreme Court justices who oppose abortion rights face death threats and their families' safety is threatened. Mobs fueled by the neo-Marxist media are burning Catholic churches in a country that prides itself on freedom of religion, expression and conscience. In Germany, as in all of Europe, where a campaign of annihilation against life, marriage and the family is underway,
In the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes, the Second Vatican Council addressed not only believers in Christ, but all people, as Magna Carta Pro Vita on the basis of inalienable human rights:
“Furthermore, which is contrary to life itself, like every kind of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, and also voluntary suicide; whatever violates the sanctity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical or mental torture, and attempts at psychological coercion; whateverI offends human dignity, such as inhumane living conditions, arbitrary detention, deportation, slavery, prostitution, trafficking in women and young people, then also substandard working conditions in which the worker is treated as a mere means of subsistence and not as a free and responsible person: all these and other similar acts are in themselves a disgrace; they are a decomposition of human culture, degrade those who do wrong far more than those who suffer it. At the same time, they are supremely contrary to the Creator's honor” (Gaudium et Spes, 27).
In this hour of struggle for life and against death in the unborn, for the dignity of the seriously ill, but also for those at risk of suicide, if one wants to convince them that death (disguised as mercy) is their right, we Christians must remind them:
"Open your mouth for the sake of the mute, for the rights of all who are weak" (Proverbs 31:8).
Translation: Giuseppe Nardi Image : Corrispondenza Romana
Cardinal Müller: "The celibate way of life of Jesus Christ corresponds most intimately to the sacramental priesthood".
(Rome) Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former Prefect of the Roman Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, today published a magisterial lecture to defend priestly celibacy and the sacramental priesthood. In it he describes celibacy as the “bastion of the transcendent” that is to be destroyed and verbal charges against “external and internal forces” who strive for a man-made world religious unity without God. The wording of the Lectio, published today by Cardinal Müller at La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana.
Celibacy, the last transcendent bastion to be torn down
By Gerhard Cardinal Müller *
The media attempt to create confusion, because of the participation of Benedict XVI in Cardinal Sarah's book “From the Depths of our Hearts” is nothing more than a sign of the paranoia that is spreading in public about the alleged coexistence of two popes. Apparently, since there can only be one Pope in the Catholic Church because "the Bishop of Rome, as Peter's successor, is the everlasting, visible principle and foundation for the unity of the multitude of bishops and believers" (Lumen Gentium , 23).
In Benedict XVI's contribution in Cardinal Sarah's book there is new confirmation of the perception of this disturbance between the two opposing principles of unity. It is also obvious that Pope Francis and his predecessor Benedict XVI. are not the originators of this pathological polarization, but rather the victims of an ideological projection.
"Benedict XVI. is not a pensioner"
The latter poses a threat to the unity of the Church and at the same time undermines the primacy of the Roman Church. All these facts only show that the psychological trauma that was triggered by the resignation of Pope Benedict in early 2013 has not yet healed in the “sense of faith of the people of God” (LG 12; 35). However, believers have the right to a clear theological judgment about the coexistence of a ruling pope and his predecessor, who has now emerged. This extraordinary event, that the Pope, head of the college of bishops and the visible Church, whose invisible head is Christ himself, the Cathedra Petri before his death who has been given him for life can never be understood according to secular criteria, such as an age-related right to retirement or the popular desire to change the person of one's own boss. Although it is true that canon law provides this possibility in an abstract way (Can. 332 §2 CIC), there are still no detailed provisions or concrete experiences to describe the status of this figure and even more, how this in practice will be realized for the good of the Church.
In the world of politics, antagonists are common in the power struggle. Once the enemy is overcome, things continue as if nothing had happened. But it should not be like this among the disciples of Christ, because all are brothers in the Church of God. God alone is our father. And only His Son Jesus Christ, the Word Incarnate (Jn 1: 14-18), is the master of all people (Mt 23:10). Bishops and priests are ministers of the Church because of the sacramental ordination chosen by the Holy Spirit (Acts 20:28). They lead the Church of God in the name and authority of Christ, and He speaks through their mouths as Divine Teachers of the Annunciation (1 Thess. 2.13). He sanctifies the faithful through them in the Sacraments. And finally Christ is the “guardian and shepherd of your souls” (1 Petr 2,25), He cares for the salvation of people by calling priests (bishops or presbyters) to His church so that they can be their shepherds (1 Peter 5: 2f; Acts 20:28). The Bishop of Rome holds the office of Saint Peter, who was called by Jesus, Lord of the Church, to be the universal shepherd (Jn 21:15–17). But the bishops are also brothers to one another, although as members of the college of bishops they are united with and under the authority of the Pope (LG, 23).
A still living "ex" pope is fraternally connected with all bishops and is subject to the teaching authority and the jurisdiction of the ruling pope. This in no way excludes that his word still has great weight in the Church due to his theological and spiritual competence as well as due to his experience in government both as a bishop and as a pope.
The relationship of each retired bishop to his successor must be marked by a spirit of fraternity. A desire for worldly prestige and political power games is a poison in the body of the Church, the body of Christ. This applies a fortiori even more so to the even more delicate relationship of the incumbent Pope to his predecessor, who has given up the office of Peter and all privileges of the papal primacy, which is why he is no longer the Pope.
"The Common Front of the Church's Inner and Outer Enemies"
What is particularly surprising is that those enemies of the Church, who come from the ranks of the Old Liberals and Marxist Neoheathens, make common cause with inner-Church secularists, who are driven by the desire to transform the Church of God into a globally active, humanitarian organization.
The militant atheist Eugenio Scalfari prides himself on being Pope Francis' friend. United through the common idea of a single, planetary religion of human origin (without trinity and without incarnation) he offers him his cooperation. The idea of a popular front of believers and non-believers is propagated against those who identify Scalfari as an enemy and opponent in the ranks of the cardinals and bishops and the Catholics ("right-wing conservatives"). In it he finds like-minded spirits who belong to the circle of those who describe themselves as part of a "Bergoglian Guard." This network of left-wing populists, driven by the mere desire for power, they pervert the Pope's potestas plena into a potestas illimitata et absoluta. This reflects obvious voluntarism: From their point of view, everything is good and true because the Pope wants it and not because the Pope says or does something. They contradict the Second Vatican Council, which the Magisterium recognizes in the service of revelation “by teaching nothing but what has been handed down, because it hears the word of God with the divine commission and interprets it with awe with the help of the Holy Spirit, holy preservation and faithfulness" ( Dei Verbum , 19). They therefore turn to be demonic opponents of the papacy, as it is dogmatically defined in the teachings of the First and Second Vatican Councils. If the principle of service and the standard of friendship (Jn 15:15) applied between Jesus and His disciples, how can the relationship between the Pope and his brothers in the episcopate be shaped by a submissive opportunism and a blind and irrational obedience that is outside the unity of belief and reason inherent in Catholic theology? According to the liberal Marxist view, a pope would be "up to date" to the extent that he would finish the ruthless agenda of the extreme left and promote a spirit of unity devoid of any transcendence,without God and without historical salvation through Christ, the only mediator between God and man (1 Tim 2: 5).
The masters who manipulate public opinion and the ideologues of this world (the Civitas terrena ) abuse their power if they fail to observe the natural law of morality and the commandments of God. They repeatedly usurp God's place and turn into demons in human disguise. But where God is recognized as the only Lord, there is grace and life, freedom and love. In the Kingdom of God, the words of Jesus are basic guidance:
"But it shouldn't be like this with you, but whoever wants to be great with you should be your servant (...) Because the Son of Man didn't come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10.43–45).
The sacramental ordination (to the bishop, priest and deacon) remains valid and effective and with it also the responsibility for the teaching of the Church and its pastoral mission. The old opponents of Joseph Ratzinger (as Prefect of Faith as well as pope) have no right against him to impose a damnatio memoriaeto, all the less since the majority of them differ from their qualities as Church teachers by a startling theological and philosophical dilettantism. Benedict XVI's contribution Cardinal Sarah's book can only be discredited as an act of opposition to Pope Francis by those who mistake the Church of God for an ideological-political organization. They do not want to understand that the secrets of faith can only be grasped with the "spirit of God", but not with the "spirit of the world".
"But the earthly minded man does not accept what comes from the Spirit of God" (1 Cor 2:14).
In the beginning, not even the apostles wanted to understand that there are people who are willing to renounce marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus said to them:
It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick (Mt 19:12).
And then explained to them:
"Anyone who has left home or wife, brothers, parents or children for the sake of God's Kingdom will receive many times over in present time and eternal life in the world to come" (Luke 18: 29-30; cf. Mt 19 , 29).
The claim that Benedict was the secret opponent of the ruling Pope and that the defense of the sacramental priesthood and celibacy were part of an obstruction policy against the expected post-synodal writing on the Amazon Synod can only thrive in the fertile ground of theological ignorance. Nobody refutes this fixed idea more brilliantly than Pope Francis himself.
In the foreword to the anthology on ordination, on the occasion of Joseph Ratzinger's 65th anniversary in 2016, Pope Francis wrote:
“Every time I see the works of Joseph Ratzinger / Benedict XVI., it becomes clear to me that he practiced theology on his knees and still does it on his knees, because you can see that he is not just an outstanding theologian and teacher of faith, but a man who really believes, who really prays. You can see that he is a man who embodies holiness, a man of peace, a man of God.”
After rejecting the caricature of the Catholic priest as an official and expert in a Church that is like an NGO, Pope Francis once again underlines the exceptional status of Joseph Ratzinger as a theologian on Cathedra Petri in the following words:
"Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller has confirmed that the theological work of Joseph Ratzinger first and Benedict XVI. then enlisted him among the great theologians in the Petrine chair, such as Pope Leo the Great, saint, and Church Father. (…) With this in mind and with due regard to the Prefect of Faith, I would add that perhaps today, as Pope Emeritus, he is obviously giving us one of his greatest lessons in 'theology on his knees'.”
"The priest associated with Christ is not an official."
Benedict XVI's contribution on Cardinal Sarah's book offers a hermeneutic, Christological-pneumatological deepening of the unity of the Old and New Testaments, a unity based on the divine revelation of himself in history. He thus offers help to overcome the theological and spiritual crisis of the priesthood, which “has an increasingly important task (…) in the area of the renewal of the Church of Christ” ( Presbyterorum Ordinis, 1). The priest is not a company official who offers socio-religious services. He is also not a representative of an autonomous community that could exercise its own rights before God, instead of receiving "every good gift and every perfect gift (...) from above, from the Father of the stars" (James 1:17). Rather, through holy consecration, he is made equal to Jesus Christ, the high priest and mediator of the New Covenant, the divine master and good shepherd, who gives his own life for the sheep of the flock of God (LG, 29; PO, 2).
For this conformitas cum Christo also follows the fact that Christ's celibate way of life closely corresponds to the sacramental priesthood. Jesus himself spoke of the disciples who live abstinently and freely choose to dispense with marriage and their own family than those who bear witness to the coming kingdom and work for the salvation of men (Mt 19:12; 1 Cor 7:32). Celibacy is not categorically required by the nature of the priesthood, but it corresponds most intimately to the nature of this sacrament, since it represents Christ, the head of the Church, with the authority that comes from the mandate and the way of life dedicated to God ( see PO, 16). For this reason, the dispensaries of the Celibacy Act, as they have developed in different ways in the Eastern and Western Churches, are exceptions and not the rule of priestly celibacy. The Church must fundamentally aim at a celibate priesthood. Based on the biblical origins and as a result of the obligation to abstain in marriage for the married clerics, the practice took shape to consecrate bishops, priests and deacons only from among those who promise from the beginning to live as celibates.
In the Eastern Church, a break with the tradition of the early church - and certainly not based on its model - led to the marriage of priests and deacons by the Second Trullan Synod (691/692), which took place, characteristically, in the Imperial Palace and not in a Church respectively. In the Latin Church, on the other hand, only celibate men who had previously promised to lead a celibate life were consecrated. In the Eastern Churches, married clerics, but not the bishops, were allowed to remain married provided that they abstain from the marriage act and cease it for a period prior to the celebration of the Divine Liturgy and not marry again should their wife die. This provision also applies to those Catholic clerics who have received a dispensation from the obligation to celibacy (LG, 29). The Catholic Church accepts this practice in the Uniate Eastern Church in the name of the greater good of unity and has been granted since Pius XII, and as for the Anglicans, since Benedict XVI, those clergymen who return from other denominations to full unity with the Church and are already married, are exempt from celibacy if they are ordained priests.
“Attack on the Sacramental Priesthood”
In short, abolishing priestly celibacy along the lines of the 16th century Protestant and Anglican communities would be an attack on the nature of the priesthood and an act of contempt for the entire Catholic tradition. Who wants to take responsibility before God and His Holy Church for the catastrophic consequences for spirituality and theology of the Catholic priesthood? Millions of priests since the founding of the Church would feel deeply hurt by claiming that their existential sacrifice to the Kingdom of God and the Church was based only on an external, legal discipline that had nothing to do with the priesthood and celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The shortage of priests (in number and quality) in western countries, is not a shortage to be blamed on God, but on our own shortcomings in living the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and savior of the world.
We are not only experiencing a discussion, but a fierce battle against celibacy and also against the sacramental priesthood. The Protestant reformers of the 16th century considered the Church office only a religious function within the Christian community, and so they denied its Sacramental character. If ordination no longer corresponds to an inner alignment with Christ, the Divine Master, the Good Shepherd and high priest of the New Covenant, then the understanding of the intimate connection with celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, which is rooted in the Gospel, is also lost ( Mt 19:12; 1 Cor 7:32).
In the wake of the polemics of the Protestant Reformation and due to an immanentist view of man that is his own, the French Enlightenment saw priestly celibacy and religious vows only as a form of the repression of the sexual instinct that could lead to neuroses and perversions similar to those later theses, which were represented by depth psychology, considering sexuality as a mechanical satisfaction of instincts, which, if "suppressed", would cause neuroses and perversions.
In the current dictatorship of relativism, the emphasis on sacramental authority, which stems from a higher divine authority, is perceived as a clerical hunger for power, and the celibacy model of life as a public accusation against a viewpoint that reduces sexuality to selfish pleasure. Priestly celibacy appears as a final bastion of a radically transcendent orientation of man and hope for a future world in the hereafter, which according to the atheistic principles is a dangerous illusion.The Catholic Church is bitterly hostile because it represents an ideological alternative to the radical immanentism of the power and economic elite, which strives for absolute control over the mind and body of the starving masses of mankind .
You disguise yourself in a therapeutic gesture as philanthropists who would do nothing but do a favor to the poor priests and religious by freeing them from the cage of oppressed sexuality. In their triumphant ignorance, however, these benefactors of humanity do not notice how much they insult the dignity of all Christians, who take the indissolubility of marriage seriously in their God-oriented conscience or faithfully adhere to celibacy with the help of grace. Exactly where these believing Christians make the most important decisions in the depths of their conscience before God, those who deny a supernatural vocation of man want to convince them to enter the limited horizon of a doomed existence, as if the living God did not exist ( Gaudium et spes , 21).
“Since the creation of the world, its invisible reality has been perceived in the works of creation with reason, its eternal power and deity. Therefore, they are inexcusable. Because they recognized God, but did not honor him as God and did not thank him. (...) They claimed to be wise and became fools. They exchanged the glory of the imperishable God with images depicting a transient human being and flying, four-footed and crawling animals” (Romans 1: 20-23).
The vile indictment claims that those sinister reactionaries in the Church who promote sacramental celibacy, a worldly sexual morality - as it appears in the prosecutor's eyes - and defend misanthropic celibacy in order to modernize the Catholic Church and adapt it to the modern, would delay or even hinder the world. At best, they tolerate a Church without God, without the cross of Christ, and without the hope of eternal life. This "Church of dogmatic indifferentism and moral relativism,“ which could include atheists and non-believers alike, can talk about the climate change, overpopulation and migrants; but it has to remain silent about abortion, self-mutilation, which is called a sex change, euthanasia and the blameworthy character of a sexual intercourse outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. One is called to absolutely accept the sexual revolution, since it is an act of liberation from the rejection of the body by Catholic sexual morality. In this way this would send a sign of remorse for the traditional rejection of the body that comes from the Manichean legacy of St. Augustine.
"An Advisor to the Pope"
In spite of all this flattery, faithful Catholics hold the well-founded conviction that instead of the atheist Scalfari, who neither believes in God nor is able to understand the "mystery of the Holy Church" (LG, 5), Benedict XVI. (Joseph Ratzinger) would be an infinitely more competent advisor for the representative of Christ, successor of Peter and head shepherd of the world Church. This applies both to his theological qualities and his spiritual intuition in the mystery of God's love, as well as to his experience as a pope, alone before God, for the world Church, a responsibility that Benedict is the only one among all still living people on earth, shares with Pope Francis.
What Pope Francis wrote in the foreword to the book on the priesthood of his predecessor should be read by all "the knowledgeable and powerful of the world" (1 Cor. 2.6) before they share their paranoid fantasies about opponents of the pope, cardinals at war, and impending schisms trumpet in all four directions:
“[Joseph Ratzinger / Benedict XVI.] Embodies that constant relationship with the Lord Jesus without which nothing is true, everything becomes routine, the priests almost full-time employees, the bishops bureaucrats and the Church no longer the Church of Christ, but our product, an ultimately superfluous NGO. "
Francis continues by addressing the cardinals, bishops and priests gathered for the book presentation in the Sala Celementina on July 28, 2016, not as to subordinates to be commanded but how to speak to friends:
"Dear Brothers! I dare to say that if any of you ever have doubts about the center of your ministry, its meaning, its usefulness, if you ever have doubts about what people really expect from us, meditate thoroughly on these pages you are offered to us: because they expect us above all from what you find described and testified in this book: that we bring them Jesus Christ and lead them to him, to the fresh and living water that they want more than anything else that only he can give and that no substitute can ever replace; that we lead them to full and true bliss; when nothing satisfies them anymore, that we can make them realize their innermost dream, which no power can promise and fulfill! "
* The text is a translation of the Italian text published today by Cardinal Müller in the Catholic Internet newspaper La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana .
[Chiesa] To him too, in addition to Pope Francis, cardinals Brandmüller, Burke, Caffarra, and Meisner had sent their five “dubia” on the interpretation of “Amoris Laetitia,” seeking “clarity.”
And neither he, Cardinal Gerhard L. Müller, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, nor much less the pope had responded until now to the questions of the four cardinals.
To make up for this, however, now Müller is bringing clarity, and how, in an extensive interview that is coming out today in the magazine “Il Timone,” conducted by editor Riccardo Cascioli and by Lorenzo Bertocchi:
In the interview, the cardinal does not use the word “dubia,” but he says “apertis verbis” precisely what the four cardinals were asking to have clarified.
And he does not fail to lash out against those bishops who with their interpretive “sophistries” - he says - instead of acting as leaders for their faithful are falling “into the risk of the blind leading the blind.”
(Rome) From 13 -14 June, 2015 the IVth Conference on the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum was held, which Pope Benedict XVI. had adopted for the Universal Church in 2007. The meeting was held at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, better known as the Angelicum.
Like the previous sessions there was also a motto for this year, "A treasure for the whole Church", which finds its complement in the often-mentioned sentence: "A hope for the whole Church". The first three meetings were held in 2008, 2009 and 2011. It was supposed to take place biannually. The resignation of Benedict XVI. and the election of Pope Francis persuaded many of the members that the fourth edition of the conference would be postponed till 2015.
It was organized in turn by Giovani e Tradizione and 2008 in the wake of the first meeting launched in 2008, Amicizia Sacerdotale Summorum Pontificum .
The meeting was opened with a Holy Mass in the traditional rite, which was celebrated by Cardinal Raymond Burke in the Church of SS. Domenico e Sisto. The conference work was led by the Dominican Vincenzo Nuara, member of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei and the priest moderator of the association, Amicizia Sacerdotale Summorum Pontificum. Father Nuara declared the meeting objective was thus to promote a positive approach to the liturgical question, by making increasingly known the richness of the traditional Mass, which Benedict XVI. had restored to the Church.
High-caliber speakers who have something to say
IV. Meeting the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum
This was followed with presentations by Cardinal Raymond Burke, patron of the Sovereign Order of Malta ("Tradition as the Foundation of the Catholic Liturgy"); Dom Cassian Folsom, OSB, Prior of the Traditional Benedictine House of Nursia and lecturer at the Pontifical Athenaeum of Sant'Anselmo in Rome ("Lex orandi-lex credendi in Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum: A Theological Entrance"); Professor Giovanni Turco of the University of Udine ("Righteousness, Religion, True Cult - The Perspective of St. Thomas Aquinas"); Professor Don Marino Neri of the University of Pavia ("The Cultus in Spirit and in Truth: Liturgy and Symbolism"); Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Prefect of the Congregation and President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei ("Tradition as the Basic Principle of Catholic Theology"); . Professor Monsignor Stefan Heid from the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology ("Where the Sky Opens, the Early Christian Altar in Liturgy and Art."); . Monsignor Marco Agostini from the State Secretariat of the Holy See ("The Abode of God Among Men: The Altar and Its Treasures") and Monsignor Athanasius Schneider, Bishop of Astana ("The Treasure of the Altar: the Unspeakable Majesty of Holy Communion").. The first day concluded with a Te Deum led by Cardinal Walter Brandmüller.
On Sunday Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, emeritus prefect for economic affairs of the Holy See, celebrated Solemn Pontifical Mass in the Immemorial Roman Rite in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of St. Peter's Basilica.
An interested audience from Italy and abroad listened to presentations and discussions to deepen their liturgical understanding. The focus of the conference in 2015 was the need for a conscious rediscovery of the deeper reasons for the celebration of the traditional rite.
The lectures and sermons will be published in the conference proceedings.
Text: Claude Ducraux picture: Giovani e Tradizione / Corrispondenza Romana
"Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", borrowing from a cartoon from the late '80s Lorenzo Bertocchi points out that behind the scenes, significant activities are underway to break the resistance against the "new Mercy" and exercise pressure on those that stand in its way. Just yesterday the Vatican expert Manfred Ferrari reported on the Vatican Mysteries - The Lost Book .
Bertocchi is also about the same book. The story began in the summer of 2014. Shortly before the Synod of Bishops on the family, the first part was published the anthology "Remain in the truth of Christ." The driving force behind it was the American Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke. The book gathered together essays by five cardinals, and four other articles by renowned theologians. These are the Cardinals Walter Brandmüller, Carlo Caffarra Velasio De Paolis, Gerhard Müller and Burke himself. The book was published simultaneously in several languages, the German version is by publisher Echt.
The Book of Five Cardinals
All authors are defending Catholic marriage and family teaching at the highest level against the thesis that the Cardinal Walter Kasper at the Consistory in February 2014 put forward that "remarried" divorcees can, under certain conditions, have authorization granted to receive the sacraments. The Augustinian Father Robert Dodaro OSA, editor of the anthology, explained it in a nutshell: "The 'merciful' solution Cardinal Kasper represents was not unknown in the early church, but no recognized churchman or theologian defended them. On the contrary, when it is mentioned then, it is to condemn it, because it is contrary to Scripture." The admission to the Eucharist for "the remarried" divorced is therefore impossible, unless the couple would exercise abstinence. This could summarize the main thesis of the book in its Italian edition issued from the publisher Cantagalli.
The book immediately aroused strong opposition, the representatives of the Kasper thesis knew but now that the "new Mercy" at the Synod of Bishops could not expect an unimpeded march. Thesis and antithesis are part of the discourse and are nothing out of the ordinary. But recently the head of the progressivist school of Bologna, Alberto Melloni fired an arrow in the newspaper Corriere Fiorentino. He did it in the middle of a book review to a very different book released by Cantagalli.
Melloni's arrow: "Conspiracy against the Pope"
Melloni's arrow says that the publishing house has lent themselves as a base of operations for the opposition of the cardinals. The left historian: "The publishing house had with the backing of Cardinal Müller, Prefect of the Congregation of Doctrine and the Faith, in good or bad faith God only knows (...) to foment a plot against the Pope and against the Synod, a few hours before it started, in order not to discuss the things that Francis wanted to discuss."
In short: According to Melloni, Cardinal Tagle's former boss, with whom he participated in the School of Bologna, had accused five cardinals under conspiring under the leadership of the Prefect, Cardinal Müller, to "plot" against the Pope and to use the publishing house as a base of operations. Strong stuff, considering that the book was published at the same time not only in Italy but in five languages and five publishers. Strong stuff even if you know the expiry of the Synod of Bishops, where the Cardinals had openly defended their position and if someone else was playing with marked cards. As a "revelation" of sinister plans, Melloni's arrow is not good, that must also have been clear. What is it about then?
Cardinal Kasper: "Nothing was done by me"
The book, which was a commercial success, provided a significant contribution to the Synod debate. This is exactly what had been repeatedly claimed by Pope Francis. But Cardinal Kasper responded irritably. He felt personally attacked. In interviews he said he was "surprised" by the book with which an "unprecedented situation" had been created. In short, what the five cardinals had dared, was outrageous. In addition, the German cardinal hastened to emphasize, that everything had been arranged with the Pope.
However, this was truly a revelation. Until then, it was officially known, Pope Francis wanted an honest discussion, but not express itself in fact. It could be argued, we do not know what position the Pope took regarding the Kasper thesis. Now, however, says Kasper seven months after the Cardinal Consistory, that everything was discussed with Francis and the Pope had "agreed to everything. They [the five cardinals] knew that I have not done these things of my own accord. I have arranged it with the Pope. I have spoken to him twice. He was satisfied."
Attentive observers could not escape the fact that Pope Francis sought by a whole series of gestures and words, a striking proximity to Kasper and his thesis. Kasper's revelation provided the confirmation.
Cardinal De Paolis, "I will have the freedom to say what I think"
That was more interesting than the five Cardinals with their essays in no way criticizing the Pope, but at a high level put forward their arguments for the defense of the marriage sacrament. Cardinal De Paolis clarified it in an interview with the daily newspaper La Repubblica : "Not a major operation. We wanted to make our contribution to the discussion, as we have had our say." He also adds that there is no question of it being "unprecedented," because the positions had been repeatedly made previously in other settings and published on another occasion.
Melloni's arrow is reminiscent of the method, where Soviet bloc dissidents were accused of "anti-Soviet agitation". "I want to have the freedom to say what I think without becoming accused as a conspirator" replied Cardinal De Velasio in his interview. In fact, this does not seem to be obvious to some.
Also, the publisher Cantagalli must have the right to be able to do its job without receiving cryptic messages from Melloni. So it is absurd to talk of conspiracy, so it is also true that there have been significant attempts to exert pressure on the publisher not to publish the book. The honest dialogue on the topic: "Speak with boldness" (Pope Francis). Melloni's arrow confirmed five months later that there are important people, according to whom this book ought not have appeared. "You understand Roger Rabbit?" Asks Lorenzo Bertocchi. "Bold" dialog? Of course, but please do so unanimously.
