Thursday 24 September 1964
Mass, DURING WHICH a choir sang chants in honor of the Blessed Sacrament. Why the blazes can’t we just have a Mass that is a Mass! The Constitution on the Liturgy is already a dead letter for many! And they have been determined this year, for the enthronement of the Gospel, to replace the Christus vincit, a strong chant, easy to sing, with the Palm Sunday hymn, Pueri hebraeorum, which is sung too high, and not well known by the Fathers.
Thursday 29 October 1964
This morning, I wrote and began to type my contribution to a volume of essays in honor of Fr. Chenu (I finished typing between 2 and 3.15 pm).
It would appear that this morning’s sitting was a great one: after Ruffini, always negative and mean, Cardinals Leger, Suenens, and Maximos IV spoke about marriage along the lines of the re-examinations that are currently being undertaken. Cardinal Suenens even asked that the commission set up by the Pope to study the problems connected with birth control should become public and work with the corresponding organisms of the Council. This is important. It was courageous on his part since the Pope keeps control of it as HIS commission, and as working in secret. But can such duality be maintained at a time when the Council is studying these things?
Cardinal Leger told me that he was still in a sweat (it is true: his hands were clammy). He told me that a Canadian bishop had said this morning: I have never heard so many heresies . . .
At 4.30 pm, Theological Commission. It was concerned with the modi [amendments] to No. 28 (De Presbyteris [On Priests]). It was noticeable that neither Ciappi, nor D’Ercole, nor Maccarrone, nor Lattanzi were there. It is no longer dealing with collegiality, so it no longer interests them . . . I continue to go. THIS TIME, Philips welcomed a fair number of modi I had prepared, which the French bishops had adopted and Cardinal Lefebvre had presented. I was pleased because these few changes do nevertheless somewhat transform the physionomy that is presented of the presbyteral priesthood, and in a way that is dear to myself and to the French.
I tremble each time a point is discussed.
Colombo raised some questions about the exact sense (the exact content) of the vote on the authority that re-establishes the diaconate.
At 6.40 pm, examination of the modi of Chapter III was completed: there were more than 5,500 modi for this Chapter. A start was made on the modi for Chapter IV, but attention was flagging a bit, and the Fathers were saying ‘yes,’ without really making an effort.
In the evening, until 8.15 pm, a visit from l’abbe R. Izard, who is involved with the journal Vocations. I had already decided in advance to agree to what he asked of me, as far as possible, because I consider the problem of priestly vocations to be a problem of the first order, and I would like to do as much as I possibly can for him.
During this afternoon’s sitting Moeller drew my attention to how Cardinal Browne, good and decent as he is, has a truly dreadful cast of mind. He has remained, without budging an inch, what he was when I knew him as ‘Master of the Sacred Palace’ and General. Renewal through the return to the sources has not dented him by so much as a micron. For him, today, just as twenty years ago, the pope is episcopus universalis’ [universal bishop]: that is the whole of his ecclesiology; ‘the encyclicals have corrected St. Paul’; everything that affirms submission is good, everything that speaks of freedom is to be restrained and, if possible, excluded. He NEVER MISSES A SINGLE OCCASION to speak along the lines of these miserable ‘principles’. With Moeller, one sees it coming, one tells oneself in advance what is going to be Browne’s reaction that THE WORDS alone are enough to trigger: and it never fails. One can be certain that if the words ‘love’, ‘experience’ occur, there will be a difficulty; and that if it is asserted for the twenty-ninth time, that everything must happen ‘sub Petro’ [in subjection to Peter], and that it is necessary ‘reverenter oboedire’ [repectfully to obey], that will be very good. This afternoon, he persisted in rejecting the following order for the acts of priesthood: word, community, sanctification. Priesthood absolutely had to be DEFINED by the power to say Mass. I quoted Romans 15:16, but he replied: theology has explained that. There was no way of appeasing the obtuse spirit of this gentle giant, except by saying that this was following an ascending order of dignity. He then fell in with it. But this is obviously not true: it follows the logical and real order that Revelation shouts aloud by so many voices!
Yves Congar, My Journal of the Council, pp. 590, 649-650-651. For previous posts in this series, simply enter “Congar” in the search box in the upper right. The 1100-page book can be purchased from Liturgical Press.
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