Cardinals Expected to be Silent in the Next Consistory

The cardinals of the Church will meet in a consistory next week, but Pope Francis has set unusual rules for them.

In a few days a cardinal consistory will begin in Rome – with special rules

(Rome) A regular Consistory of Cardinals has been convened by Pope Francis for Monday, August 29th. On Monday and Tuesday the Cardinals will gather in Rome to "reflect." Francis used this word on May 29 when he announced the convocation of the consistory at the end of the Regina Cæli. The convocation consists of several parts. In the first, the Extraordinary Consistory, next Saturday, Francis will create new cardinals with the next conclave firmly in view.

What is certain is that the reflections to be undertaken by the cardinals will not be free and open, clear and honest exchanges with parrhesia [freedom of speech], as Francis is wont to say, but on the contrary: none of the cardinals will be able to intervene or even ask questions.

This "detail" was revealed yesterday by the voyeuristic, sleazy website Dagospia, which, however, has surprisingly good contacts in the Church sector.[We'll definitely take that into account!] It also reported that the Cardinals read the “detailed introductory report of Monsignor Marco Mellino, Secretary of the Council of Cardinals [ex C9 Council of Cardinals], on the Roman Curia in the light of the Apostolic Constitution Praedicate Evangelium, with a general presentation, news, times and methods of application.” This report was already mentioned in a report by the Italian press agency ANSA on May 9th, which had as its subject the purpose of a meeting between Francis and the heads of dicasteries at the Roman Curia that took place on that day.

Dagospia published the document in its entirety, that is, the report read by Mellino at that meeting to the dicastery leaders “with laughter and unflattering comments” and then sent to the cardinals around the world who will be gathering at the Vatican in a few days will. Msgr. Mellino prepared them, recte warned them that no interventions or questions from the cardinals were planned.

Those who thought - and this is of course primarily true of the cardinals themselves directly concerned - that the Consistory would be an opportunity to ask Francis for clarifications on, or even to comment on, the curial reform that came into force on June 5th, will have to postpone these expectations. The College of Cardinals is the Senate of the Church and is intended to advise the Pope. But apparently the expectations of the current governing pontiff, who says "think about it" but means silence, are "too high".

According to Dagospia, the text has already drawn criticism from some members of the College of Cardinals, who consider it an idiosyncratic "potpourri of reflections" by Paul VI, John Paul II and Francis. The missing mention of Benedict XVI. is no coincidence.

On Sunday, between the extraordinary consistory on Saturday and the ordinary one beginning on Monday, Pope Francis will pay a pastoral visit to L'Aquila, the old imperial city of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, which was almost leveled by a severe earthquake in 2009. A visit to the tomb of Celestine V, the only pope in church history who voluntarily resigned before 2013, is also planned. 

In 1294 Celestine, who until then had lived as a hermit in the mountains, resigned after just a few months. It was only on this condition that he had consented to his election, after the cardinals had been unable to elect a new pope for two years since the death of his predecessor. The two major factions, Guelfi and Ghibellini, who divided Italy, also balanced each other out in the Church senate. Some were close to the Guelphs and were considered the "papal party", the other to the Waiblingen, meaning the Staufers, i.e. the "imperial party". However, Celestine, now Pietro da Morrone again, was not allowed to return to his hermit life, but was held in honorable custody by his successor - honored, but in prison.

Pope Benedict XVI visited Celestine's grave in 2009. Francis' visit to the tomb sparked speculation and led to the "mistaken reading" that Bergoglian Vaticanists tirelessly assert that Francis also intends to resign and announce his abdication at the forthcoming consistory. 

It remains to be seen how many of the Church's 206 cardinals will be present in Rome in the coming days to be mere extras, now that they know what role they are destined to play. In addition, neither the WHO nor the Vatican, where particularly radical and disproportionate Corona measures were taken, officially declared the “pandemic” to be over, which is why there is a harmless excuse not to make the trip to Rome in the first place.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image : Vatican.va (screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

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Raimundo Lull's Novel of 1284 About the Resignation of a Pope and "Perfect Charity"

Raimundo Lull and his novel Banquerna about a hermit, who becomes elected to the papacy
and resigns after realizing reforms.

The Servant of God Raimundo Lull (1232-1316), Franciscan and universal scholar who was from Mallorca. In addition to numerous other writings, he wrote the novel, Libre de Evast e Blanquerna, commonly known as Blanquerna, between 1283/1284. He portrays the life of the main character of the same name and is the first great literary work in Catalan.

Blanquerna is a figure of a deep and rich spiritual life and representative of an organic reform of the Church. Lull describes the seven deadly sins on the basis of the main character. Blanquerna decides, after a life that also makes him experience marriage and the birth of a son, to lead the hermit's existence.  Although he longs to be withdrawn, he soon becomes the abbot of a monastic community and eventually even becomes a pope. His pontificate is uneasy because he is subjected to hostility. He reorganizes the Roman Curia and reforms it from the ground in the right faith. He then declares his resignation and withdraws to his hermit's life.

The parallels to Pope Celestine V (1209-1296) are unmistakable. However, Celestine was elected pope ten years after Blanquerna's writing. Celestine's pontificate lasted only a few months, in order to overcome the stagnation in the election of the pope by mutually paralyzing parties. As soon as this had happened, he announced his resignation to the Cardinals to prepare for the election of a successor. As a precaution, he honorably left to prevent the danger of a schism in the church, since there can only be one pope. Celestine, who before his election was pope hermit and abbot, was already venerated as a saint during his lifetime.

There is another analogy in the office of Pope Benedict XVI. In February 2013 Brother  Amado Trujillo Cano, Vicar General of the Regulated Tertiary of St. Francis (TOR), wrote the corresponding description in Lull's novel Blanquerna.

Pope Blanquerna felt the desire to devote himself to a hermit's life, a passion that had accompanied him since he had decided to follow his vocation. This desire was always greater when he assumed new ecclesiastical responsibility and realized important and significant reforms not only for the Church, but also for the whole society.

Now that he had gathered with all the cardinals in a secret consistory, he proposed the creation of a ministry (in the etymological word of service) of prayer, whose leader was to devote himself to contemplative life in order to ask the Lord to give the excellent State of the Papacy and the Roman Curia, which had been achieved by the reform. When the Cardinals heard his suggestion, and his request to accept his renunciation from the papacy and to undertake with this new prayer, they tried to persuade him by all sorts of arguments. Blanquerna answered them with the request that they should have mercy on him. It was only because of this emphatic request that the Cardinals finally accepted his resignation, which pleased Blanquerna very much, because he could thus realize his heartfelt desire to devote himself entirely to contemplation in a hermit's life. He asked the Cardinals for their blessing and thanked them for their support. Then he immediately retired to the life of a hermit. The cardinals then elected the cardinal "Laudamus te" as pope.

The intended aim of Blanquernas's vocation calls in some way the path of the sanctification of Walter Map, who was a member of the Commission on the Third Lateran Council (1179) to examine the teachings of the Waldensians. He resisted the pauperistic path propagated by the new religious groups, which he regarded as false, for he observed that, while waiting for the papal confirmation, they humbled themselves, but when they were obtained, quickly abandoned their original resolutions, as soon as the call of their holiness brought them gifts and privileges. For Walter Map the unmistakable sign of holiness was the perfecta caritas, which was personified by three hermits who distinguished themselves by leticia perfectae caritatis, which was opposed to the hypocrites' tristes.

\On February 22, an exhibition on Raimund Lull will be opened in Rome in the crypt of the Basilica of St. Anthony (Via Merulana 124). The exhibition emtitled Raimundus Lullus, Christianus Arabicus - The meeting between cultures has been organized by the Pontifical University Antonianum in collaboration with the European Institute of the Mediterranean of the University of La Sapienza.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: catedraferratermora (Screenshot)
Trans; Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
Link to Katholisches...
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