Magister on the “monocratic, centralizing form in which Francis is in fact governing the Church.”
ROME, December 18, 2013 – In an interview with Vatican Tornielli friend, “La Stampa” three days ago, Pope Francis is back on two points of the “Evangelii gaudium” which had aroused animated comments pros and cons. The first step is communion for divorced and remarried. The pope wanted to clarify that he was not referring to it when he spoke of communion in the apostolic exhortation “as spiritual food, to be considered a remedy and not a reward.” With that Francis was keen to distinguish themselves from those who had read his words as yet another “open” and had expressed publicly in favor of communion. Among which, from the past, the new secretary general of the Synod of Bishops Baldisseri Lorenzo and Cardinal Walter Kasper. The second caveat concerning its rejection of the economic theory of “derrame” – an expression translated into Italian as “favorable relapse” and in English with “trickle-down” – that “every economic growth, driven by the free market, is able to produce by itself a greater equity and social inclusion.” Pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio he said – “not as a coach” – he does not believe in validity of this theory. It thus rejected the criticism that had been leveled in particular by the American neo-conservative theologian Michael Novak, that would be understandable distrust of the pope “in a static system such as Argentina, without any mechanism for social mobility”, but not in the United States and other advanced capitalist countries, where “wealth flows from the bottom” and economic growth – if supported by the protection of basic rights and the care of the poor is typical of Jewish-Christian tradition – promotes the rise of the less well-off towards higher levels of life. * Of the two explanations, the first tap one of the crucial points of the “Evangelii gaudium” where Francis promises more collegiality in the government of the Church, with greater powers given to the episcopal conferences. In a previous service, www . church has highlighted the novelty of this approach adopted by Pope Bergoglio respect to the line of his predecessors Karol Wojtyla and Joseph Ratzinger, both very resolute in countering the risk that the Church becomes “a kind of federation of national churches” > L ‘federalist option of the bishop of Rome Some prominent clerics have gone well beyond what was said and not said by Better World. For example, the archbishop Baldisseri – considered a protege of the Pope – has already given it for granted that “Francis wants a dynamic and permanent synod, how interplay between the center and the periphery.” Multiplying in Germany, on the part of bishops and cardinals weight of pronouncements in support of communion for divorced and remarried – which will be just one of the topics for discussion at the next synod – also seems to confirm this news. However, there are at least two elements, the pope Better World, which seem to orient in the opposite direction . *The first is a single member, centralizing, in which Francis is actually ruling the Church. Nominations more significant than the beginning of his pontificate, both in and out of the curia, they are all descended from the personal choices of Pope Bergoglio, sometimes without jumping the normal processes of consultation or disregarding the rules in force. For example, although the fundamental laws of the Governorate of Vatican City State permit that the Secretary General is a layman, the pope has not only promoted to this role a cleric, the Legionnaires of Christ Argentine Fernando VERGEZ Álzaga, very attached to him, but he also consecrated bishop and entrusted the pastoral care of the citizens of the small state, removing it to Cardinal Angelo Comastri, archpriest of the basilica of St. Peter and Vicar General for the Vatican City. In other cases Francis appointed people who are living the denial of its program of cleaning and reform of the curia. It has kept them in place despite all the warnings received to the contrary, even by ecclesiastical upright and secure his confidence: > Rich and Chaouqui, two enemies at home How to episcopal conferences, their autonomy and their weight are not growing but declining. Among those who had distinguished themselves in the final phase of the pontificate of Benedict XVI, just as the United States continues along the same route. L’Italian, the most linked to the See of Peter, is in disarray. Francis has deprived the Secretary-General Mariano Crusade and has confined to Latin America, a diocese of the third row. He removed the president, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the role of a member of the Congregation for Bishops, by promoting in its place the archbishop of Perugia Gualtiero Bassetti, one of the three vice-presidents of the CEI, which happens to be in the good graces of the Pope instead. And now is preparing to appoint a new secretary, who will become the de facto number one in the conference, directly to him. Meanwhile, Bergoglio asked the IEC to decide whether it will elect itself the future president, or if you prefer to leave the appointment to the pope, as it has always been. In 1983, in the only previous consultation on them, the Italian bishops said in a majority in favor of the election.But this time, the humours circulating, it seems that most prefer to leave it to the pope Better World ‘task, in order to avoid the risk of colliding with him. conclave In the March summits of the CEI is spent in support of Cardinal Angelo Scola. And shortly after the ‘”habemus papam” spread by mistake a statement of praise for the successful election … Archbishop of Milan. Still afraid that the real gliel’abbia elected not forgiven. * The second element that seems to hold Pope Francis a strengthening of episcopal conferences, according to a government of the Church more “collegial”, has to do with ecclesiology. ”the universal Church can not be conceived as the sum of the particular Churches or as a federation of particular Churches. It is not the result of their communion, but in its essential mystery, it is a reality ontologically and temporally prior to every individual particular Church. “ So you are quoted Pope John Paul II and then Cardinal Ratzinger in a letter of 1992 the congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, entitled “Communionis notio.” The letter was addressed to the bishops, and so he continued: ”In fact, ontologically, the Church as mystery, the Church is one and unique according to the Fathers, precedes creation, and gives birth to the particular Churches as daughters, is expressed in them, is the mother and not the product of the particular Churches. Moreover, temporally, the Church is manifested in the day of Pentecost in the community of one hundred and twenty gathered around Mary and the twelve Apostles, the only Church representatives and the founders of the local Churches, who have a mission-oriented world: from the Church speaks all languages. ”Since it originated and manifested universal, have arisen the different local Churches, as particular expressions of the one Church of Jesus Christ . Arising within and by the universal Church, in it and from it have their ecclesiology. Therefore, the formula of the Second Vatican Council: ‘The Church in and out of the Churches’ (Ecclesia in et ex Ecclesiis) is inseparable from this one: “The Churches in and with the Church” (Ecclesia in et ex Ecclesia). Clearly, the mysterious nature of this relationship between the universal Church and the particular Churches, which is not comparable to that between the whole and the parts in any group or society purely human. “ This letter gave an official capacity to the argument by Ratzinger in dispute that the opposed to fellow German theologian, later Cardinal Walter Kasper. Kasper supported the original simultaneity of the universal Church and the particular Churches and to Ratzinger saw at work “an attempt to theological restoration of Roman centralism.” While Ratzinger reproached Kasper reduce the Church to a sociological construction, endangering the unity of the Church and in particular the ministry of the Pope. dispute between the two cardinals theologians continued until 2001, with a final exchange of stockpiled in the journal of the Jesuits in New York, ” America. “ But he became pope, Ratzinger has returned to restate his thesis post-synodal apostolic exhortation “Ecclesia in the Middle East” in 2012: ”The universal Church is a reality prior to the particular Churches, which are born into and the universal Church. This truth faithfully reflects Catholic doctrine and particularly that of the Second Vatican Council. Begin to understand the hierarchical dimension of ecclesial communion and allows the rich diversity and legitimate the particular Churches to articulate always drive, the place where the particular gifts become a real asset to the universality of the Church. “And Better World? Elected him to the chair of Peter, gave the impression of wanting a more collegial governance of the Church. And in his first Angelus in St. Peter’s Square, on March 17, told the crowd that he had read a book with profit of Cardinal Kasper, “a theologian smart, a good theologian. “ Some joined the two and concluded that Pope Francis married Kasper positions in the relationship between the universal Church and the local Churches. was not the case. Kasper’s book read by the pope did not concern the ecclesiology but the mercy of God And as ecclesiology, the theologian always most admired and quoted by Better World is Henri De Lubac (1896-1991), a Jesuit cardinal and finally, in 1971, author of an essay entitled “Les Églises particulières dans l’Église Universelle “who claimed to twenty years in advance and almost in the same words the thesis of Ratzinger and the” Communionis notio. “ In the opinion of De Lubac “the universal Church is not at a later time for a ‘ Addition of particular Churches or their federation. “Neither episcopal collegiality must be translated into” ecclesiastical nationalism that usually accompany an equally nefarious doctrinal pluralism “and a subtraction of his authority to the pope. In the fifth chapter of “Les Églises particulières dans l’Église Universelle “De Lubac analysis applies to the episcopal conferences and gives them a basis not of doctrine but simply pragmatic, not by divine right but only of ecclesiastical law: “The conciliar Constitution ‘Lumen Gentium’ is as clear as possible, to this regard. Do not accept any mediation between the doctrinal particular Church and the universal Church. “ Pope Bergoglio is not a theologian., but these are his masters.