So the Story Continues

by Chris McDonnell

Robert Mickens’ piece on the current NCR webpage “The Benedict protégé in Francis’ Vatican” brings into focus the problems of having Cardinal Gerhard Müller heading the CDF in Rome. His tone is so often out of sync with the words and actions of Pope Francis, yet his appointment made so near to the retirement of Benedict makes it difficult to replace him just yet.

Mickens’ article is worth reading because of its focus on the dilemma of this present situation. Maybe the wielder of the big stick can be side-stepped and we can all get on with life. Certainly the sisters of the LCWR would appreciate a break.

Good incidentally to hear again from Robert Mickens, until recently the Rome Correspondent for the Tablet Journal. I hope we hear more from a journalist who is always perceptive in his commentary.

Chris McDonnell is a regular reader and commenter at Pray Tell Blog.

Other Voices

Please leave a reply.

Comments

18 responses to “So the Story Continues”

  1. Fr William R. Young

    After R.Mickens’ dismissal from the Tablet, I wonder at his reappearance.

    Reply
  2. Richard Malcolm

    Maybe the wielder of the big stick can be side-stepped and we can all get on with life.

    Given the even bigger sticks being wielded now against both the friars and the sisters of the FFI, we may simply have to recognize that, for all his talking of “making a mess,” this Pope actually likes to wield big sticks more than the last one – and not always in the same direction.

    If Francis really wanted Muller gone, I don’t think he would let the shortness of his tenure at CDF stop him. Sarah, Paglia and Fisichella haven’t been at the head of Cor Unum (2010), Family (2012) and New Evangelization (2010) for much longer, and yet they still have no permanent reappointments.

    Reply
  3. Chip Stalter

    “Certainly the sisters of the LCWR would appreciate a break.”

    well one could assume their break would come when they are fully accepting of Church teaching, and not before.

    It seems to me that Cardinal Müller is in line with Pope Francis, espeically when the Holy Father’s words are not being filtered through the mainstream press.

    Reply
  4. Stanislaus Kosala

    Mickens conveniently ignores that Francis has explicitly (in writing, not through hearsay) affirmed his agreement with Benedict’s approach to interpreting Vatican II. This fact by itself is enough to suggest that Francis might actually want to keep Muller around.

    Reply
    1. Bill deHaas

      @Stanislaus Kosala – comment #2:
      Please provide this written agreement?

      Reply
      1. Stanislaus Kosala

        @Bill deHaas – comment #3:

        You can find the instances in which he agrees with Benedict’s approach to interpreting Vatican II here:
        1. http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/pope-supports-hermeneutic-of-continuity-approach-to-vatican-ii-in-letter

        2. http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2013/11/francis-writing-on-council-of-Trent.html [The Vatican website only has the original Latin, here is an English translation]

      2. Stanislaus Kosala

        @Bill deHaas – comment #4:
        Bill,

        There are two instances where the pope speaks of it explicitly:
        1. An official letter concerning the celebration of the 450th anniversary of the Council of Trent.

        2. A letter to Archbishop Marchetto, a historian who agrees with Ratzinger on how to interpret Vatican II. (Francis tells Marchetto that he takes him to be the best interpreter of the council.)

        You can find both texts online.

      3. Bill deHaas

        @Stanislaus Kosala – comment #10:
        Thanks to Fr. Ruff – he responded with grace and wisdom.

        Here is another opinion:

        http://www.harvestingthefruit.com/popes-letter-to-archbishop-marchetto-whats-the-big-deal/

        Key point:
        “………his “hermeneutic of continuity” program, even after a seven year pontificate, failed, and it will continue to fail no matter who is at the helm precisely because it attempts to establish continuity in areas where it simply doesn’t exist (e.g., the Council’s treatment of religious liberty, collegiality and ecumenism).

        As such, looking upon Benedict XVI, and likewise Archbishop Marchetto, as quasi-messianic figures relative to the interpretation of Vatican II, is to deny reality, the latter’s claim to fame extending no further than bashing “Bologna School” liberals who see the Council both as a rupture and as a cause for celebration.

        So far has the bar been lowered as to what qualifies as a heroic defense of the Faith, that Marchetto is thus treated by some like a crusader in shining armor, but this makes about as much sense as giving the Nobel Prize for Medicine to a researcher whose greatest scientific accomplishment is concluding that cancer is fatal.

        In any event, the very notion that this one solitary letter from the pope to a retired prelate somehow trumps the witness of the last eight months is just plain ludicrous.”

    2. Andrew rex

      @Stanislaus Kosala – comment #2:
      Francis is hardly going to criticise the Head of the CDF in public although I’m sure there are things diplomatically happening behind the scenes to ensure he is less vocal and combative in his pronouncements, also a future reorganization of the CDF (loudly called for during VC2 sessions) is highly probable at an optimal time in the future. Having said that I think Francis is comfortable with different viewpoints being expressed in this new era of openness. Mueller’s perspective therefore has become only one of many among legitimate theologians so his importance is somewhat diminished. Francis’ comments regarding the interpretation of V2 was within the context of a goodbye thank-you type letter upon the person’s retirement, so again it’s hardly surprising that he made commendable remarks. What he really thinks will be seen by his future actions, also very early in his pontificate he made it explicitly clear that there will be no going back on V2 and reforms are on the agenda.

      Reply
      1. Stanislaus Kosala

        @Andrew rex – comment #4:
        It wasn’t a good-bye/retirement letter, it was on the occasion of the publication of a book celebrating Archbishop Marchetto’s work: “Papal Primacy and Episcopate: From the First Millennium to the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council – Studies in Honor of Archbishop Agostino Marchetto.”

        Francis has this to say to Marchetto: “Once I said to you, dear Monsignor Marchetto, and today I wish to repeat it, that I consider you the best interpreter of Vatican Council II. I know that it is a gift of God, but I also know that you have made it fructify.”
        As you can see, this isn’t the first time that Francis has said this to Marchetto.
        Also notice that he is not just being affectionate to Marchetto but siding with him in the debates over interpreting the council. In order for your dismissal of the letter to work, Francis would have to be insincere to Marchetto on multiple occasions implying that he agrees with him when he in fact does not. I don’t know about you, but I find that highly implausible.

  5. Richard Malcolm

    Hello Andrew,

    Mueller’s perspective therefore has become only one of many among legitimate theologians so his importance is somewhat diminished.

    I would not go quite *that* far – Cardinal Muller as CDF Prefect retains an enforcing authority (including a number of noteworthy laicizations) that no other theologian has, and Pope Francis has been content so far to affirm and support it. And there was nothing that said he *had* to give him a reappointment, beyond custom (and this Pope is a notorious dispenser from custom). But there *is* a sense in which Francis has behaved in such a way as to suggest that he likes to have Muller function as a “bad cop” while he reaches out to progressive figures (like Kasper) to encourage them to express their viewpoints. Or at least that’s my sense.

    Where this all ends is hard to say.

    Reply
  6. Anthony Ruff, OSB Avatar
    Anthony Ruff, OSB

    I sometimes have the impression that Pope Francis agrees with everyone and genuinely likes everyone! This is why he occasionally says the kinds of things that Stanislaus Kosala likes to emphasize, though this isn’t the pope’s main emphasis and I think Stanislaus might be making too much of such things.

    My hope is that Pope Francis can help unify the Church and make everyone feel included again, after way too many years of divisiveness and hurt feelings. I think the Pope really means it when he says nice and affirming things in all directions.
    awr

    Reply
    1. Stanislaus Kosala

      @Anthony Ruff, OSB – comment #11:
      I’m a bit baffled by your response, Father. The main thesis of Mickens’ article is that Francis is keeping Muller around because he can’t get rid of him though he would like to. I’m pointing to those two letters as evidence that maybe Francis might be keeping Muller around because he agrees with his overall theological trajectory. (these two letters are not the only pieces of evidence btw) .
      Would you tell Mickens that we can’t take the pope seriously when he reportedly says that he will implement Vatican II, or that religious should not worry about CDF letters?
      Im also a bit confused, are you saying that Francis has no positions on these controversies of his own, and is simply flattering both sides, or simply that none of Francis’ words reveal what he really thinks about these issues?
      Quite frankly, your approach to interpreting Francis appears to be the following: “if he says something I disagree with, i’ll just pretend as though he wasn’t serious”. George Weigel perfected this method when he divided one of Benedict’s encyclicals iinto those statements that are the true Benedict and those in which he was pleasing vatican officials.

      Reply
      1. Bill deHaas

        @Stanislaus Kosala – comment #13:
        and you are doing the same as Weigel basing everything upon one letter (that may reveal friendship rather than some type of well thought out hermeneutical approach but the letter reinforces your ideology – hummm, not unlike the Weigel approach.)
        Finally, you appear to assume that Mueller and Marchetto agree – do they?

      2. Stanislaus Kosala

        @Bill deHaas – comment #14:
        Bill,

        How do you know what my ideology is? For the record, I don’t think Francis is in the Ratzinger camp, but I also don’t think he’s in the anti-Ratzinger camp either, he takes what he finds useful in Ratzinger and leaves what he doesn’t. Mickens assumes that Francis only keeps Muller because he can’t do otherwise, I think that that this assumption is unwarranted.

        The problem with your chalking the pope’s comments up to nothing more than friendly affection has two simple problems:
        1. it requires us to take the pope’s words as meaning something other than they plainely do.
        2. It also means that we are in a better position to interpret it than the person who knows Francis and knows what Francis would have wanted to convey with it. Marchetto takes Francis to be placing himself on the same side as Benedict when it comes to interpreting the council.

        Btw, i’m not basing everything upon one letter, there are other cases which could lead one to think that Francis is this way. I take Muller and Marchetto to agree when it comes to how Vatican II should be interpreted, yes.

      3. Bill deHaas

        @Stanislaus Kosala – comment #15:
        From St. John’s itself – resident visiting professor, Faggioli:
        https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/italian-job

        Key sections:
        “…..Bergoglio has little patience for any “ideological obsession”—not even when it takes the form of debates on the interpretation of Vatican II. Fernández insists that Bergoglio wants to “apply Vatican II in its entirety…without backtracking, with the intention of leading the church out of itself, in order to get to everyone.” For example, “this also applies to many paths of reform that were opened by Vatican II but were stopped halfway—such as the importance the council gave to collegiality and episcopal conferences.”

        “In Francis’s view, when one disconnects doctrine from its context—the kerygma—it becomes “ideological.”

        “When it comes to church politics, Fernández is quite blunt. He candidly acknowledges the pope’s opposition, exploring the problem of “conservative dissent” in a church where conservatives are unaccustomed to disagreeing with a pope. “Until two years ago,” he explains, some people would never question what a pope said. But “now they…disseminate all kinds of criticism of Pope Francis.” Those whose projects differed “even slightly” from that of past popes, Fernández says, “were very respectful of [those popes’] choices, or at least accepted them in silence.” But now he sees “some in the church who feel threatened by the speeches and the style of Francis, and they seem to have suddenly lost all their affection for the figure of the pope.”

        “The neo-medievalists resist Francis because they oppose Vatican II on liturgical issues. The widely read blog Rorate Caeli falls into this camp, as does Vittorio Messori, who co-authored the famous Ratzinger Report (1985). As recently as May 28, he wrote about the church’s diarchical papacy—two popes, Benedict and Francis—in Italy’s most important newspaper, Il Corriere della Sera.

      4. Stanislaus Kosala

        @Bill deHaas – comment #17:
        Bill,

        Thanks so much for the article, there’s a lot to digest there. I’m not sure, however, how it addresses my comments. The fact that Francis does not believe in ideological obsession does not mean that he does not take a substantive position on interpreting the council. It also seems incoherent to say that Francis wants to implement the council, full stop, and to say that he does not have a strong position on how it should be interpreted, nor on how the magisterii of John Paul and Benedict have contributed to this interpretation.

        Implementing Vatican Ii can mean many things to many people.
        Also, implementing

  7. Jim McKay

    Pope Francis’ approach to conflict is described in Evangelii Gaudium. It is difficult to put him on one side or another of most conflicts.

    227. When conflict arises, some people simply look at it and go their way as if nothing happened; they wash their hands of it and get on with their lives. Others embrace it in such a way that they become its prisoners; they lose their bearings, project onto institutions their own confusion and dissatisfaction and thus make unity impossible. But there is also a third way, and it is the best way to deal with conflict. It is the willingness to face conflict head on, to resolve it and to make it a link in the chain of a new process. “Blessed are the peacemakers!” (Mt 5:9).

    228. In this way it becomes possible to build communion amid disagreement, but this can only be achieved by those great persons who are willing to go beyond the surface of the conflict and to see others in their deepest dignity. This requires acknowledging a principle indispensable to the building of friendship in society: namely, that unity is greater than conflict. Solidarity, in its deepest and most challenging sense, thus becomes a way of making history in a life setting where conflicts, tensions and oppositions can achieve a diversified and life-giving unity. This is not to opt for a kind of syncretism, or for the absorption of one into the other, but rather for a resolution which takes place on a higher plane and preserves what is valid and useful on both sides.

    Reply

Posted

in

by

Other Voices

Tags:

Discover more from Home

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading