Tuesday 8 October 1963
Syriac Mass. Tappouni. Rather heavy going, and too long.
Report on Chapter II of the Liturgy, and voting. In the interval, the interventions on Chapter II began. …
Msgr. Philips told me that yesterday evening there was a meeting of the sub-commission for the classification of amendments. It had been heavy going: we are once again up against the same mentality and the same obstruction from those on the other side: Tromp dominated and when he arrived he was referring to the stupidities heard in the Aula. This will be my siege of Saragossa: line by line and word by word!
The cardinal from Peru in the name of the Peruvian Conference of Bishops and of some other South American bishops. IN FAVOR of the diaconate; he stated the reasons IN FAVOR, and replied to the objections made. With respect to celibacy, leave the text as it is; make it clear that the decision rests with the episcopal conferences.
Cardinal Suenens: in favor of the permanent diaconate. He cited the New Testament, early tradition and the liturgy. THE CHURCH HAS A SACRAMENTAL STRUCTURE. He refuted the objection based on the fact that one could entrust to lay people the functions envisaged for deacons. Its implementation to be adapted to varying regions and circumstances. He listed the cases in which a diaconate would be indicated. Very strong text, but too long. He suggested that the issue be referred to the episcopal conferences.
I missed Staffa’s intervention: there is only one head in the Church; collegiality would be against the primacy.
Msgr. Gori, Latin ‘patriarch’ of Jerusalem had spoken in the same sense a little earlier.
Msgr. Rupp: there is no indication who the members of the college are. ALL the bishops, even titular ones. He made a very strong positive argument.
Msgr. Heuschen, Auxiliary in Liege: the patristic tradition on the Apostles as foundation, as FOUNDERS. The idea of the Apostolic sees. (great attention paid by the audience). …
Msgr. Klostermann told me that there was a meeting yesterday of the De regimine Diocesium [on the Government of Dioceses] Commission. He was not happy about it. Msgr. Carli, who is against collegiality, had been elected rapporteur of this commission. So it will be difficult to harmonize the text with that of Chapter II of De Ecclesia.
Msgr. Charue: the Scriptural arguments for Christ’s will to institute an Apostolic college, and for it to be the foundation of the Church. Text given with great emphasis and clarity, and listened to with great attention in spite of how late it was. He ended by quoting words of Paul VI.
Msgr. Guyot asked to speak to me for a moment. He would like priests to be the subject of a chapter following on the De Episcopis. He asked me to think about it.
Msgr. Martin would be prepared to make the intervention that I would like made about ex sese, but he is afraid that it will be too late to put his name down. I am pursuing this important question.
I have been told that the Germans would like to remove the word potestas [power] from Chapter II and replace it with the word munus [function].
At 4.30 pm, at the Secretariat (for unity). Report by Msgr. Philips on Chapter II of the De Ecclesia.
Lukas Vischer [a Protestant observer, as are the following speakers]: on No. 14. In antiquity, the link between the episcopacy and the celebration of the Eucharist was very close. It would seem that today simple priests are closer than bishops to the bishops of the early days. Greater emphasis on the Eucharist would pave the way for a better theology of the local Church. There is too little said about the action of the Holy Spirit on the ministers.
Canon Pawley: in the Catholic Church there is a certain hesitancy about the episcopacy. The pope can intervene in dioceses, the cardinals who for many years were not bishops; prelatures; episcopacy bestowed merely as a mark of honour for its recipient; prelatures nullius; the Presbyterian system that one finds in the religious Orders.
Schmemann: there is a certain pluralism in the structure of the Church, which is not reflected here at all: there are other primacies . . . and about ex sese. The document seems to be continually discussing the episcopacy as a concession and every absolute statement is still FOR the pope. Each statement on the episcopacy is related to the pope and his power.
Cullmann’s reaction was similar to Schmemann’s. Some preliminary questions, which remained unresolved for Protestants, are here deemed to have been resolved. Of what ORDER is the primacy of Peter in the New Testament? Was it the primacy of Peter among the other apostles while Jesus was still alive? After Christ’s resurrection? After Peter had left Jerusalem? The succession: the bishops succeed to the Apostles, but in a totally different order. An Apostle is an eye-witness of the Resurrection.
Nissiotis attacked the analogy. I do not quite see how he applied his criticism to the problem under discussion. It is about the succession of Peter and the image of the stone, the rock.
Msgr. Philips replied to each question or group of questions.
Msgr. Borovoj: the Council is a local council of the Roman Church. It is very delicate for us Observers to say what we approve of or disapprove of: one would think that there was nothing else. Generalities: we have to make the Roman Catholic point of view comprehensible to our Church, and vice versa. He approved of the insertion of a chapter De populo Dei, and the one on the hierarchy after it. That would be to follow a historical order and an order from the bottom to the top. On the question of collegiality, his Church will ask him: where are the patriarchs in all that . . . Now there is no question of this. The bishops of Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem are successors of the Apostles and even of Peter: they are very close to the bishop of Rome . . . He spoke at length with eloquence and gesticulations.
A representative of the Church of Mar Thoma saw a contradiction between a pope who can do everything on his own and collegiality.
On the way back, it took thirty-five minutes to cross Piazza Venezia! The weather is hideous, rainy and stormy. I cannot walk well and finish every half-day ‘exhausted.’
Wednesday 9 October 1963
(44th General Congregation). I handed to Msgr. Martin a text on ex sese. He has put his name down for this question.
Cardinal Liénart in the name of more than sixty French bishops: one felt a kind of antinomy between the primacy and the episcopal college. All one needs to do is to seek out what Jesus wanted to do and what the Acts show us of the early Church. Peter has the primacy but he is always IN the college. ‘Nec collegium apostolicum a potestate coregendi cum Petro destitutum est’ [The Apostolic college is not bereft of the power of governing in union with Peter]. The Eleven exercised their power collegially with Peter. If one were to look at the authorities from a juridical point of view, there would be competition, but not if what is in question are service and responsibilities.
Cardinal Richaud: De diaconatu [On the diaconate]: he endorsed what Cardinal Suenens had said. He believes that the restoration of the diaconate would be likely to promote priestly vocations (he quoted lots of examples and banalities, but it may have been useful).
Yves Congar, My Journal of the Council, pp. 349-353. The 1100-page book can be purchased from Liturgical Press. Pray Tell ran the previous installment of the journal of Yves Congar last Sunday.
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