Papa Francesco's Agenda

There is a renewed interest and energy in the Catholic Church, and the cause of this post-Vatican II aggiornamento is Pope Francis.

People both inside and outside the Catholic community are talking about him, about his style, about his message.

Some are negative, saying that he is undermining the authority of the papacy, especially in his calling together a group of eight cardinals to advise him on Church policy and reform of the Vatican bureaucracy.  When Pope Francis challenged “unbridled capitalism,” radio-talk host Rush Limbaugh said the pope didn’t know what he was talking about. Still others lament, “He’s just style. He’s the Vatican’s PR man.”

Others praise him as “the people’s pope,” assessing his style, his words, and his example as a refreshing return to Gospel values. “He gives me hope,” is a common response to the question, “What do you think of Francis?” Some of those close to him have noted that he does not want to see a “personality cult” develop around him as did around Pope John Paul II; he wants the cult to be Christ-centered. His choice as Time’s man of the year was bitter-sweet for him.

Few of us knew that Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio was first runner-up in the conclave voting which had elected Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI on April 19, 2005. Eight years later Bergoglio’s name was seldom suggested as a possible replacement for the retiring Pope Benedict, but on March 13, 2013, he was elected with 90 out of a possible 115 votes. He accepted the office of Bishop of Rome, vicar of St. Peter, and chose the name Francis.

The information which trickles out of the secret conclave indicates that the majority of cardinals were looking for a leader who would restore Church credibility and could reform the Vatican Bank and Curia. Some of them insisted the Church needed a Gospel pope.

Pope Francis biographer Paul Vallely thinks that one of the major factors in the election of Bergoglio was a speech he made in the Synod Hall before the conclave. Each cardinal was allotted five minutes to address the assembly of voters. Vallely says that Bergoglio’s talk "lasted just three-and-a-half minutes…but it electrified the synod hall.”

Bergoglio reminded his brother cardinals that the only purpose of the Church is to go out to tell the world the good news about Jesus Christ, that the Church needed to surge forth to the peripheries, not just geographically but to the existential peripheries where people grapple with sin, injustice, ignorance and indifference to religion.

He spoke, it is said, from a few scribbled notes, but later in the day Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino of Havana, Cuba, asked Bergoglio for a copy of his remarks. The next day Bergoglio gave him a copy, and Ortega put it on his diocesan website.

In his book Pope Francis: Untying the Knots, Vallely provides a version of the talk:

            “But the Church has got too wrapped up in itself. It was too navel-gazing. It had become          ‘self-referential’ which had made it sick. It was suffering a 'kind of theological narcissism.’ When Jesus said, ’Behold I stand at the door and knock’ people assumed he was outside, wanting to come in. But sometimes Jesus knocks from within, wanting to be let out into the wider world. A self-referential Church wants to keep Jesus to itself, instead of letting him out to others.

            “The Church is supposed to be the mysterium lunae –the mystery of the moon is that it has no light but simply reflects the light of the sun. The Church must not fool itself that it  has light of its own; if it does that it falls in to what Henri de Lubac in The Splendor of  the Church called the greatest of evils –spiritual worldliness. That is what happens with a  self-referential Church, which refuses to go beyond itself.

             “Put simply, there are two images of the Church: a Church which evangelizes and comes out of  herself or a worldly Church, living within herself, of herself, for herself.  The next Pope should be someone who helps the Church surge forth to the peripheries like a sweet and comforting mother who offers the joy of Jesus to the world.”

These remarks or the gist of them provide the theology/philosophy motivating Pope Francis’ agenda. When he told priests that the shepherd should smell like the sheep, he was telling them to stop being “self-referential.” When he washed the feet of twelve prisoners (two of them women) on Holy Thursday, he was going out to the peripheries. When he chose not to live in the papal apartment, he was warning against spiritual worldliness.

It would be a mistake to put all the emphasis in the Church on its pope. The focus of the Church is Jesus Christ. The pope becomes for us the mystery of the moon, reflecting the light of Christ. His speech before the conclave, reminding his brothers of the Church’s purpose are worthy of ongoing reflection and will likely serve as a helpful preamble to interpreting Pope Francis’ agenda.

 

How Can You Tell?

How can you tell when a parish is fulfilling its purpose?

Canon Law’s definition of a parish is rather stark: “A parish is a certain community of the Christian faithful stably constituted in a particular church, whose pastoral care is entrusted to a pastor (parochus) as its proper pastor (pastor) under the authority of the diocesan bishop” (515).

Legally, then, any parish with these four elements (community, stability, a pastor, and the diocesan bishop) is a parish!

Vatican II’s Constitution on the Church put some meat on those bare bones. There should also be preaching of the Gospel, the celebration of the Lord’s supper, and manifest charity (26). The document on the laity adds a little more: the parish should be an example of community apostolate (active participation in liturgical life, engagement in apostolic works, spread of the word, and care of souls) plus working cooperation between laity and priests (10).

On the practical level, however, we need more.

Clearly a growing number of Catholics are “church shopping,” trying to find “a place where they are fed.”

What criteria make a parish a good parish? a place where the people are fed?

The people of St. Michael parish in Cincinnati were asked recently to answer the question, “What do you like about your parish?”

The top responses included: “a friendly, welcoming place,” “good music,” “good pastor,” “good preaching,” “the people.”

I think those responses can be summarized in one description; they like a church which is “pastoral.”

But is what they like necessarily what a parish should be?

A new book, recently published and growing in popularity, addresses the issue –Rebuilt: The Story of a Catholic Parish by Michael White, pastor of the Church of the Nativity, Baltimore, and Timothy M. Dolan, lay associate (Ave Maria Press, 2013).

Their chief insight is that for a parish to be what it is supposed to be the parishioners must recognize that they are called to be not consumers but disciples!

White and Dolan list ten major mistakes they made in their initial effort to make the parish grow (e.g., trying to please everyone, wasting time and money, fearing to lead).

Resolved to change the parish’s status quo, the two leaders set out to change the parish culture. They started by “challenging church people and seeking lost people.” They decided to evangelize.

In their words, “We just decided to stop doing a lot of things we had been doing and instead concentrate on the weekend…we had a music program; what we needed was a worship program…we are convinced that churches will remain consumer-driven as long as people aren’t singing.”

Most of what these two reformer-authors propose isn’t new; it’s just that they applied it: develop small faith groups, encourage tithing, promote lay ecclesial ministry, evangelize.

The start of their program for making a parish grow is the realization that only God can make a parish grow. The fertile soil for that growth is, in their experience, helping parishioners move from being consumers to disciples: “Our parish had become a consumer exchange, and, as such, it had lost its 'transforming power' in people’s lives.”

When Jesus sent the Church out into the world, he ordered, “Make disciples…”

 

White and Dolan spell out what they tried, acknowledge their mistakes, and urge others to make discipleship the catalyst for change.

There is no human agenda, formula or template for making a parish what a parish is supposed to be. The best we can do is allow Jesus to lead, and remember that being his disciple means picking up a cross.

Maybe that’s why we have a hard time making our parishes work –we’re still afraid of that cross.

 

 

A Woman Cardinal?

Speculation about Pope Francis’ naming a woman as a cardinal this coming February was reportedly rebutted  by  the director of  the Vatican’s press office Father Federico Lomabrdi .  He called the rumor  “nonsense.” 

The Huffington Post quoted him as saying, “It is simply not a realistic possibility…” 

He went on to acknowledge, however, that it (naming a woman as cardinal) is theologically and theoretically possible! 

The history of the origin of cardinals in the Church and of the meaning of the term “cardinal” is still debated. 

Some think cardinal comes from the Latin cardo (hinge), supposing that cardinals were the men on whom ecclesiastical administration turned. 

Others suppose that the word comes from incardinare, a term which Church officials made up to describe bishops who were transferred to other dioceses after their own were invaded and/or destroyed by barbarians. 

Over time those named cardinal formed a body of privileged clergy, becoming advisors to the popes. 

The Third Lateran Council (1179) confirmed that cardinals alone were the electors of a new pope.  

Pope John XXIII in April of 1962 ordered that all cardinals should be ordained bishops. 

Current Church law (canon 351) explains, “The Roman Pontiff freely selects men to be promoted as cardinals, who have been ordained at least into the order of the presbyterate…those who are not yet bishops must receive Episcopal consecration.” 

Basing himself on that law, Vatican spokesman Father Lombardi is on solid ground in describing as “nonsense” the  rumors and speculation that Pope Francis will name a woman as cardinal. 

However, the pope can dispense from the requirement that a cardinal must be a bishop; such was the case with Vatican II theologians Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac, and Urs von Balthasar. (De Lubac refused the offer of the red hat if acceptance required his being ordained a bishop; Pope John Paul II respected deLubac’s wish and set aside the requirement.) 

Since the College of cardinals is man-made and not an essential part of the Church’s institution, it could be abolished. There was a strong call for its dissolution in the 15^th century. 
 

History indicates that laymen have been named cardinals (e.g., Fernando I de Medici in the 16^th century, but, though he was never ordained a deacon, priest or bishop, he is said to have received the tonsure, one of the minor orders which made him officially a cleric, no longer a lay person). 

Theologically, theoretically then (as Father Lombardi acknowledged) Pope Francis could name a woman as cardinal but at this time law and custom militate strongly against it. 

 

 

Digesting What Pope Francis Said

I’m trying to digest the many thought-provoking and challenging responses Pope Francis made in his now-famed interview with the editor of the Italian Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica. 

He was asked what he thought about an expression St Ignatius used in his Spiritual Exercises: “think with the Church.”

Pope Francis replied that no one is saved alone. He underscored the relationship each individual must have with the human community, and reminded that “the church is the people of God” and explained that “thinking with the Church, therefore, is my way of being a part of this people. And all the faithful, considered as a whole, are infallible in matters of belief, and the people display this infallibiltas in credendo, this infallibility in believing, through a supernatural sense of the faith of all the people walking together.”

He went on, “This is what I understand today as the ‘thinking with the Church’ of which St. Ignatius speaks. When the dialogue among the people and the bishops and the pope goes down this road and is genuine, then it is assisted by the Holy Spirit.”

Then he cautioned that this infallibilitas of all the faithful is not a matter of populism. The hierarchical Church is part of the people of God, “pastors and people together. The Church is the totality of God’s people.” 

He was asked what he thought the Church needed most at this point in history, what he dreamed of for the Church.

Pope Francis replied that the church needs “the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the Church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds.”

He went on, “The Church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you.”

Then he cautioned Church ministers that they “must be ministers of mercy above all. The confessor, for example, is always in danger of being either too much of a rigorist or too lax.” 

He was asked what he thought about the Roman Curia (the Church’s bureaucracy).

Pope Francis replied that the Curia and its offices are at the service of the pope and the bishops. “They must help both the particular churches and the bishops’ conferences. They are instruments of help.”

Then he cautioned, “In some cases, however, when they are not functioning well, they run the risk of becoming institutions of censorship..” 

He was asked about the relationship between papal primacy and the collegiality of bishops (a hot but unresolved topic at the Second Vatican Council).

Pope Francis replied that the people, the bishops and the pope must walk together. He brought up the idea of synodality (one of the earliest structures in the Church to maintain unity and communion, a coming together to discuss problems, to express differing opinions, and then arrive at a decision).

He went on to say, “Synodality should be lived at various levels. Maybe it is time to change the methods of the Synods of Bishops, because it seems to me that the current method is not dynamic.”

Then he cautioned, “We must walk united with our differences: there is no other way to become one. This is the way of Jesus.”

(Jesuit historian Father John W. O’Malley reports that Pope Francis has read Bishop John R.Quinn’s book The Reform of the Papacy in which Quinn says, “Today’s synods seem distant from the ideal set forth in the council decree on bishops…The tendency since the council would appear to be to restrict the synod as much as possible.” 

I’m trying to digest what Pope Francis said in his famed interview. His responses seem to me to reflect both the letter and the spirit of the Second Vatican Council.

The full interview was published in the September 30  issue of America magazine (except for one sentence inadvertently omitted from Pope Francis’ reply to a question about women in the life of the Church. The missing sentence began his remarks: “It is necessary to broaden the opportunities for a stronger presence of women in the Church.”)

He went on to say, “The challenge of today is this: to think about the specific place of women also in those places where the authority of the Church is exercised for various areas of the Church.” 

I suspect I will be trying to digest what Pope Francis said for quite some time.

Pope Francis as Pontiff

In 2010 Pope Benedict XVI sat for an extensive, book-length interview with German journalist Peter Sewald. It was published as Light of the World.

In three previous interviews Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had responded to a series of challenging questions with what critiques described as "frank" and "honest" answers: The Ratzinger Report (1987),  Salt  of the Earth (1996), and God and the World (2002).

Now Pope Francis has followed suit --an interview conducted in August, 2013, by Antonio Spadaro, SJ, with publication on September 19, 2013.

The main-stream press described the interview as "sending shock waves from the Vatican."

Pope Francis is quoted as saying, "The Church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you."

He also said, "During the return flight from Rio de Janeiro I said that if a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge. By saying this, I said what the catechism says. Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person."

And he said, "The dogmatic and moral teachings of the Church are not all equivalent. The Church's pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently."

The full text can be found at America magazine's online site.

Such remarks (here admittedly taken out of context) brought forth a variety of responses and explanations.

For example, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York said in a TV interview,  “I think what he’s saying is, sometimes, if we come across as negative, as complaining too much, we lose the folks. We’ve got to be positive; we’ve got to be fresh; we’ve got to be affirming. ... I think he’s on to something. He’s a good teacher.”

When he was first elected pope, reports emerged that as Provincial Superior, head of all the Jesuits in Argentina, young Father Jorge Bergoglio began his leadership by rolling back his predecessor's changes and returning pre-Vatican II values and lifestyle.

He insisted that moral theology be taught from a Latin text-book, a requirement that proved troubling to the novices who did not know Latin.

Liberation Theology was taboo.

An older Jesuit, interviewed at the time of Bergoglio's election as Bishop of Rome, gave a less than enthusiastic response: "Yes I know Bergoglio. He's a person who has caused a lot of problems in the (Jesuit) Society and is highly controversial in his own country...We have spent two decades trying to fix the chaos that man left us."

In his assessment, British author Paul Vallely in his book Pope Francis: Untying the Knots (Bloomsbury, 2013) writes that despite his demands Bergoglio was described by some colleagues and students as "a marvelous leader," "a very spiritual man, humble with strong convictions," "responsible for attracting a large number of young men to join the Jesuits at a time when the numbers had fallen."

Now, as we assess the style and theology of Papa Francesco, we are aware that Bergoglio at some time and for some reason underwent a spiritual, theological metamorphosis. He comes across as a different man. Vallely believes the change came from experience, personal experience of living with and for the poor.

The pastoral Bergoglio tempered the clerical Bergoglio, and the result is Pope Francis, the "pope of surprises."

Vallely notes in his book that Pope Benedict had returned to the old practice of saying Mass with his back to the people, but "Francis made plain that this practice had been overturned for good reason, to make the people feel more included in the Church's liturgy. If he had ever doubted that, he learned its truth in the slums of Argentina." Again, another assertion that experience, pastoral experience, is formative.

Robert Mickens, Vatican Correspondent for The Tablet, thinks that cardinals and episcopal conferences are waiting to see what the new pope does next. Mickens thinks many bishops are licking a finger and holding it up in the air, trying to determine which way the wind is blowing.

However you assess Pope Francis and his impact upon the Church, you have to admit that he has people talking. His simplicity of lifestyle, his openness to the crowds, his policy of consultation, his concern for the poor, his defense of outsiders, and his appreciation for the environment have all coalesced into a formidable presence in the Catholic Church.

For centuries the term "pontiff" (from the Latin pontifex, which probably means "bridge builder") has been applied to bishops in the Catholic Church. When referring to the pope, the Bishop of Rome, it is usually rendered "Supreme Pontiff."

Although Pope Francis seems to prefer the title "Bishop of Rome," it may be more fitting to apply the designation "pontiff," for his style and his teaching have certainly become a bridge between the hierarchs and the people of God.

Facing East or Facing the People?

Someone showed me a bulletin from his parish. The pastor was announcing that he had decided to offer Mass on the "High Privileged Altar" rather than at the altar facing the people.

He explained that this orientation is more reverential and keeps the priest from taking center stage. He wants to prevent the priest's personality from getting in the way of the Liturgy.

He wrote that from the start Christians faced east when they prayed. This posture, he said, is the time-honored ad orientem.

This facing eastward has been explained as a witness to the rising of the sun which in turn symbolized the universality of God and the source of salvation. For this reason, in some places, churches were built with the altar against the eastern wall.

History, however, muddies this seemingly simple explanation.

In the fourth century Christians in Rome built churches with the altar at the west end of the church, in an apse, and the people sat facing the altar, facing west. The priest, however, stood on the west side of the altar facing east, facing the people.

This architectural arrangement, putting the sanctuary at the west end of the building, was in imitation of the sanctuary of the temple in Jerusalem.

Writing in The Journal of the Institute For Sacred Architecture (vol. 10, 2005), Helen Dietz, PhD, explains that in some places the congregations in these west-facing Roman churches would turn and face east at the time of the consecration, the same direction the priest was facing.

Dietz writes, "Quite obviously, the importance of the people's facing east in the Christian church was that this posture signified they were 'the priesthood of the faithful,' who in this way showed that they joined in the sacrifice offered by the ministerial priest in his and their collective name."

Thus in some architectural arrangements, even when the priest faced east, he was facing the people (ad populum).

By the 8th or 9th century, again depending on the architecture of the church and the placing of the sanctuary, the priest's  position changed and he faced the apse or wall when he stood at the altar, with the people standing behind him.

The meaning of ad orientem changed from "to the east" to "to the wall" or "to the high altar fixed against the wall."  The altar whether on the north end or the south end of the church, whether on the east or the west, became ad orientem.

Priests who today want to celebrate Mass facing ad orientem do not necessarily mean they are facing east; they may mean they are facing the altar which is against the wall.

It was in the light of the liturgical renewal ordered by the Second Vatican Council that liturgists and architects were advised to create a worship space which allowed the presiding priest to face the congregation.

As many liturgists noted, the first Mass was not celebrated with Jesus facing a wall. The first Eucharist was celebrated at table with the disciples gathered around. Such was the custom of the early church.

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal (as included in the Roman Missal, third edition, 2011) maintains this revision of church architecture and the arrangement for celebrating the liturgy.

Article 303 says, "In building new churches, it is preferable for a single altar to be erected, one that in the gathering of the faithful will signify the one Christ and the one Eucharist of Christ.

"In already existing churches, however, when the old altar is so positioned that it makes the people's participation difficult but cannot be moved without damage to artistic value, another fixed altar, skillfully made and properly dedicated, should be erected and the sacred rites celebrated on it alone. In order that the attention of the faithful not be distracted from the new altar, the old altar should not be decorated in any special way" (GIRM 303).

A  pastor's decision to celebrate Mass ad orientem can find some basis in history, but history shows that ad orientem is open to more than one interpretation.  

Whether a liturgy celebrated on a high altar fixed against the wall with the priest's back to the people is more reverent and prayerful is a matter of varying spirituality, ecclesiology, and even taste.

At this time in the Church's history, the positioning of the priest and people around the altar is the norm. It has been adopted to emphasize community (Christ is present in his people), exercise the common priesthood (all the baptized share in the priesthood of Jesus Christ), and promote the active participation of the people (a primary goal of Vatican II's liturgical renewal).

The ad orientem of today is orientation to Christ with, in and through the people.

That is the germ of the matter.

Recommendations to Committee of Eight Cardinals

Pope Francis has formed a committee of eight (possibly nine) cardinals to advise him on governing the Church, especially in reform of the Curia, the Vatican bureaucracy.

Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley of Boston is one of the reformers. He has asked US bishops for their recommendations, and some of the bishops have asked members of their dioceses for suggestions.

One strong recommendation I hope to see  echoes the proposal made at the Second Vatican Council by a patriarch of the Melkite Rite, Maximos IV Saigh.

He recommended the formation of a small group of bishops who would serve on a rotating basis, selected from around the world, as an advisory board for the pope, but also as a committee which would oversee the Curia. The bishops would direct the Curia!

He was responding to the idea that the bishops form a college which carries on the office of the college of apostles.

The New Testament shows that the early Church thought of the apostles, not just Peter, as the authority in the Church. Paul went to Jerusalem to consult with the apostles and presbyters to settle the issue about whether Gentile converts to Christ had to practice Jewish customs.

Over time Church authority came to be identified with the bishop of Rome and the exercise of that authority was centralized in one man. At Vatican II the bishops wanted to reclaim as a college the authority exercised by the college of apostles. Some members of the Curia were not happy about that idea and worked very hard to derail any such suggestion.

Historian Father John O'Malley believes that collegiality was one of the "issues under the issues" at Vatican II.  He meant that many of the discussions about directives and changes in various areas of Church life often came back to who had authority.

For example, who is in charge of the language in which a given nation worships? Does the pope (Curia) decide the vernacular or does the local conference of bishops? Vatican II decided the bishops had the authority. The US bishops, however, seemed to release that authority when the Curia objected to a proposed English translation of the Roman Missal and insisted on the Curia's translation.

Pope Paul VI offered the bishops a compromise over the collegiality issue when he called for the Synod of Bishops, a collegial body of advisers who, the pope said, would have the task of informing and advising. And, he went on, "It may also have deliberative power when such power is given it by the Sovereign Pontiff."

As retired bishop of San Francisco John R. Quinn noted in his recent book Ever Ancient, Ever New, "In fact, no synod to date has been given deliberative power, and (as a consequence) the synods held since Vatican II have not been a sharing by the bishops in the government of the universal Church but are rather a way for bishops to collaborate with the pope in his primatial function. What large numbers of the bishops at Vatican II desired was a means whereby they would share, as successors of the apostles, with the pope in the government of the universal Church."

A second recommendation for the committee of eight would be to effect a concerted effort to see that the personnel of all the offices of the Curia truly represent the Church's world-wide, multi-cultural membership.

Theologian Yves Congar noted decades ago that the immense diversity of the Church and the broader trends of the world require wide representation in the central office if it is to be an effective leader.

Congar went on to say that "we need to see development beyond a merely 'diplomatic representation,' going beyond simply personnel who are international by origin but still purely Roman by mentality; there needs to be at the heart of the Church a representation of the problems.

"Being out of touch, even a little, with living contact at the base or at the periphery is always dangerous for those in charge...What we are talking about here is not, properly speaking, decentralization, but rather the question of avoiding the danger of isolation."

And a third recommendation is the development of a vehicle for the advice of lay men and women in the administration of the Church.

The active participation of the laity in the liturgy should spill over into the active involvement of the laity in the running of the Church. Just as the Curia is subject to papal primacy, so lay involvement does not threaten the essential hierarchical structure of the Church.

If the Church is the people of God then the people of God ought to have some say in the Church.

While the implementation of these three recommendations may strike fear in the hearts of some members of the Church, the three are fully in keeping with the direction set by Vatican II. Those who oppose the style of Pope Francis with his emphasis on a pastoral Church may have to re-think the essence of Church and the style of the Master.