6 August: Two Transfigurations

Transfiguratio filiorum Adam

Transfiguratio Filii Dei

 

Et resplenduit facies ejus sicut sol (Matt. xvii.ii)

And his face shone like the sun (Mt 17.2)

Jesu, candor lucis æternæ, miserere nobis.

Jesus, brightness of the eternal light, have mercy on us.

 

"Born the child of cities grand": A Translation from Verlaine

Born the child of cities grand

And slavish rebellions

There I sought, there found my all,

T’ev’ry appetite in thrall.

But, since naught remains of these

I did bid a soft farewell

Of each thing that will not dwell

Pleasure, happiness, and of

All that ever I have loved,

Except, my sweet Lord, for Thee

The Cross lifted me aloft,

To the best zeals flew me off:

Silence, expiation, the fierce,

Harsh vocation to practice

Virtue unselfconsciously.

Sweet, precious Humility,

Water my poor charity,

Drench it in live waters thine.

O my heart, be thy design

A good death—always, only!

Né l’enfant des grandes villes

Et des révoltes serviles

J’ai là, tout cherché, trouvé

De tout appétit rêvé.

Mais, puisque rien n’en demeure,

J’ai dit un adieu léger

A tout ce qui peut changer,

Au plaisir, au bonheur même,

Et même à tout ce que j’aime

Hors de vous, mon doux Seigneur!

La Croix m’a pris sur ses ailes

Qui m’emporte aux meilleurs zèles,

Silence, expiation,

Et l’âpre vocation

Pour la vertu qui s’ignore.

Douce, chère Humilité,

Arrose ma charité,

Trempe-la de tes eaux vives.

O mon cœur, que tu ne vives

Qu’aux fins d’une bonne mort!

–P. Verlaine, Sagesse, i.xxiii, Paris, 1880

(Conforme à la troisième édition: Paris: Vanier, 1893, pp. 58-59.)

Translation 2013 C. A. Thompson-Briggs, in Transfiguratione D.N.J.C.

Post-Christendom: Thinking About Politics in Light of 1789, Part I

POST-CHRISTENDOM: THINKING ABOUT POLITICS IN LIGHT OF 1789

“There are ages which are so deeply in love with the primal forms of existence that they seek to express these in all spheres of life and to reflect them, for instance, in the forms of rank and class in society, which for a brief moment in history can express a sublime truth, but which then become hollow and restrictive. What these forms intended to express, however, is something which may not be dispensed with if man is not to fall into an undifferentiatedness in which everything is so wholly indifferent that in the end it is of no consequence whether it is defined as matter or as spirit.”

– Hans Urs von Balthasar, GL I, 24

This quote by von Balthasar might be the starting point for a theological politics.

The emphasis on the word “what” is perhaps misleading. In his aesthetics, von Balthasar articulates a position on form and content that avoids two pitfalls: first, an elimination of any distinction between form and content—characteristically “ancient”, in the sense of pagan idolatry—and second, the divorce of form and content that is characteristically modern (but also a retrieval of Gnostic thought). Form, von Balthasar reminds us, is not identical with content, but neither is form extricable from content, and hence disposable. We always encounter content through form. (I plan to dedicate an upcoming post to the Preface and Introduction to The Glory of the Lord [GL], Balthasar’s theological aesthetics.) This epistemological principle corresponds to a metaphysical reality. It is in fact the metaphysics of Christianity, and Judaism before it, in distinction to what we might call the two other basic metaphysical options (perhaps finally coincident): pantheism (which predominates in prehistorical societies) and “Gnosticism” (in the broadest possible sense, by which I include Buddhism and atheism)—the dominant metaphysics of our time.

In this quote Balthasar says that culture has at times sought to be a perfect mirror of metaphysical reality, that this has been achieved, but that the precise cultural forms of this expression of truth are subject to change, indeed, must change. What must not change is the effort to express metaphysical reality in culture. When culture ceases to express metaphysics, metaphysics becomes obscure, and hence all knowledge falls into darkness. How perfectly Balthasar expresses the sad condition of the dominant global culture today where the most ardent materialists, who insist love and faith can be explained by the mechanics of the brain and dedicate their leisure hours to orgasm, fashion, and gourmandise, are also devoted followers of Buddhist renunciation of the illusion of dasein! “Matter or spirit”—goes the credo of our age—“iz all good.”

When Balthasar speaks of ages “so deeply in love with the primal forms of existence,” Christendom—in its Greek and Latin wings—springs first to mind. Clearly, he is no “reactionary”—he admits that the ancien régime became “hollow and restrictive.” Here, a caveat: did Christendom ever have the chance to grow “hollow and restrictive” in Byzantium before it was vanquished by the Turks? In the Latin West, however, most observers would grant that the ancien régime had a long, decadent period before its overthrow.

Part One: Christendom’s Final Hand

In the Grand Siècle, Louis XIV converted a modest hunting lodge into the greatest house of cards in the world; at Versailles, gambling replaced the hunt as the favorite leisure activity of the aristocracy. And whereas the hunt had deep Christian resonances (as any medieval romance and Francis Thompson’s “The Hound of Heaven” richly exhibit), gambling is pretty irredeemably a distraction from reality. Versailles was certainly the grandest pleasure-palace the world had ever known. Richelieu and Louis XIV removed the nobility from its land to this Las Vegas of the 17^th century in order to prevent the religious and political instability ravaging contemporary England and Germany. They succeeded in keeping France one and nominally Catholic, but paid a high moral cost: removed from his land and his people, the nobleman became the libertin, engrossed in the distractions of pleasure. To pay off his gambling debts, supply his lavish parties, and dress himself sumptuously à la mode (fashion, too, was an invention of Louis XIV), he turned to Jewish and Genoese bankers, and to merchants and artisans, enriching and ennobling the bourgeosie. The splendor and pomp that had been signifiers of the glory of God and His structured, hierarchical Creation, became themselves the signified, the object of the rake’s caprice.

Still, in the Grand Siècle, for the last time, the grands hommes were Christian: Descartes, Malebranche, Arnauld, Pascal, Racine, Corneille, Bossuet, Fénelon—perhaps only Molière, among men of the first rank, stands apart. They did their best to convert the libertins, establishing the compagnie du Saint Sacrement, pouring themselves in pious and charitable activities, opposing the loosening of morals. In the growing culture of divertissement—which is ours a fortiori—Pascal offered the best hand for redemption with his Wager.

And here the French Jesuits played an interesting role that Pascal, in his Lettres provinciales, perceived and battled better than anyone. It is a role that came to dominate the Society of Jesus in the later 20^th century, the role that has given “equivocal” as the sense of “Jesuitical”: moral casuistry. Today we prefer the euphemism “being pastoral.” Faced with a deterioration of morals—especially the inflaming of lust—the Jesuit confessors of the Palace of Mirrors preferred laxity where the Gospel demands the crucifixion of passions (cf. Gal 5.24). Absolution became an excuse to sin. (In the 1960s, absolution would become unneccesary altogether, as moral theologians, following the lines of their 17^th century Molinist forebears, discovered that it was more or less impossible to sin mortally; cf. Pascal’s Provinciales, Letter 4.) What prompted this decision for laxity over evangelical severity? It is not necessarily damning to blame politics. The Jesuits had positioned themselves as the most politically active of the orders; they had immense influence in most of the Catholic governments of the world. They used this influence to battle Protestantism and to evangelize the pagans of faraway China, Japan, and America, and they were valiant in martyrdom as in learning and political intrigue. Perhaps part of the Jesuit confessors’ laxity can be traced to the concern to prevent the outright rejection of Catholicism by lusty kings. Could Jesuits have kept Henry VIII from butchering his wives and monks? At any rate, the Jesuits succeeded in keeping Louis XIV, and thus France, “Catholic.” Catholic, perhaps, but less and less Christian, and thus less genuinely Catholic. Louis XIV may not have made libertinage the religion of France (as his grandson would in practice and the Revolutionaries in law), but he made libertines of the French. Laxists today have, I suspect, much the same concern as the Jesuits of Versailles: they fear a smaller, more evangelical Church, and prefer a kind of cultural Catholicism “lite” that is vague and tepid anough to keep people calling themselves “Catholic” without living the Gospel. There is a misguided charity in this, a failure to take seriously the words of Christ, a loss of eschatology: because if the Church was founded, as she has always claimed, to save souls, she must be clear and pure in her doctrine, not vague and accomodating of sin. Christ accomodated the repentant sinner, never the sin, nor even the unrepentant sinner. If the laxity of the post-conciliar years may account for “Catholic” politicians like Joseph Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Kathleen Sebelius, whose policies directly attack the Faith, I suspect the laxity of French confessors in the 17^th and 18^th century bears considerable responsibility for the Enlightenment and the Revolution. The price the Jesuits payed for preserving Louis XIV’s Catholicism may well have been the eventual destruction of Christendom.

In some ways, France under Louis XIV presages fascism: the charismatic leader who makes the religion of the State incarnate in himself. Louis XIV’s dictum, L’état, c’est moi, might just as well have been Mussolini’s. Louis explicitly presented himself not even as the lusty sage-king Solomon, but as the even lustier proto-imperator Alexander—and as the new Apollo: le roi soleil. In this, his favorite title, we see beneath the veneer of Antiquity a shocking blasphemy: for the Christian world, Christ was the true Apollo, the Light of the World; now, a prince of France, the descendant of Saint Louis, aimed to eclipse Christ’s brilliance with his own. As he grew old, Louis XIV, like many kings before him, grew pious; the Chapel at Versailles, one of his last and perhaps his finest monument, remains one of the greatest houses ever erected to and for the dwelling of God’s glory. But today they use it for concerts. After all, the Chapel rises away to the side of the great palace, marring its symmetry, almost an after-thought to the endless mirrors, promenades, and waterworks. Absolutism, born in part to preserve Christendom, surely hastened its demise. It is the political extension of the voluntarism that slowly poisoned the Christian perception of God, remaking the True, the One, the Good, and the Beautiful into a capricious despot. Though the the Sun King died with the Sacraments, can we be sure his judgment was any less severe than that of the apostate princes of Germany and England?

What I am groping towards here is this question: did the ancien régime fail to adequately represent metaphysical reality because of something intrinsic to this political order (its inability to adapt to change, say), or because this order was perverted by something extrinsic? If the Middle Ages, despite their flaws, did express sublime truth, why did the 18^th century so miserably fail in this expression? So miserably, in fact, that the system toppled utterly within a few years in France, the eldest daughter of the Church, the country that had been the supreme expression of the social ideal of the Middle Ages? Yes, no historical society can perfectly represent eternal reality. Yes, change is endemic to post-lapsarian life; forms may always need some adaptation (without overstating this adaptation in the fashionable manner of contemporary excurses on the “strangeness” of the past, since the Communion of the Saints and the divinely ordained transmission of Revelation quasi per manus ensures historical continuity: a people must be intelligible to itself, a Body a fortiori). But what had changed, I propose, is that the ancien régime had largely ceased to be the ancien régime. France in the 18^th century was not truly feudal. There were feudal “forms” that did not correspond to feudal “content”: hence the forms had become “hollow and restrictive.” In reality, the ancien régime did not topple in 1789, it had been slowly toppling for centuries. I suspect its auto-destruction became irreversible during the reign of Sun King.

And yet everything did change in 1789. In 1789, Christendom, long ailing, died. And everything that has happened since 1789 in Western culture—and, since 1945, in global culture—lives in the shadow of 1789.

Christian metaphysicians might be tempted to rejoice at the fall of the “hollow and restrictive” forms of the ancien régime because of a possible reunion of form and content. But we must be clear: Christendom represented, imperfectly but in its totality, metaphysical reality. What changed between, say, 1300 and 1789 was not metaphysical reality, but society. Western society had become much less Christian. New cultural forms might express the same metaphysical reality, perhaps more persuasively to a rapidly secularizing culture—but if the new cultural forms give up the expression of metaphysical reality to express cultural reality, the Truth fades even further from view. What was wrong in 1789 was not that France was too Christian, but that it was not Christian enough. In theory, Christendom has no monopoly on authentic Christian society; in practice, no other cultural system has better expressed the Logos.

(To be continued...)

"Simplicity", Splendor, Tradition, and the Nature of the Papacy: A Discussion with Francis Phillips of The Catholic Herald

One of the writers for The Catholic Herald, Francis Phillips, dedicated a recent post to Pope Francis’s much-discussed “simplicity”, arguing he was preaching by behavior:

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2013/03/18/pope-francis-is-preaching-by-his-behaviour/

While I certainly agree the new pope is preaching by behavior—indeed, it is impossible not to preach by behavior—I have deep reservations about what he is thereby preaching. This is how I responded to Mrs. Phillips’s post:

I am deeply concerned about Pope Francis’s “simplicity”, although I have little doubt it is genuine.

First, I fear it confuses personality with office. The papacy has existed for 2000 years, and its symbols, traditions, and ceremonial belong not to the personality of any pope, but to the office. To do away with many of its symbols and traditions (within minutes, no less) distracts from the office, calls attention to the office-holder, and does not seem humble. It certainly comes off as a repudiation of past popes, especially Pope Benedict, and so obscures the continuity of the pre-conciliar and post-conciliar Church. It was the effort to make that continuity visible that lay behind Benedict's sartorial and ceremonial choices. With Benedict we had a man who disappeared into his office. Now I fear the office is disappearing and all we will be left with is a man. A good man, but not a good representation of the continuity of the centuries—which is precisely what Peter must do: preserve the Faith that has been handed down to us. If we cannot recognize that the Faith proclaimed today is the same proclaimed by Pius XII and by Gregory the Great, and by Peter himself, how can we believe it?

Second, this “simplicity” reduces Christ to his human nature and sufferings. Yes, Christ was a poor carpenter and itinerant preacher; he is also God gloriously transfigured, resurrected, and ascended. This is not only false, but a great impediment to evangelization. Especially given modernity’s inability to see the spiritual, the transcendent, and the divine, we are in desperate need of signs that point to God’s glory. If we lose sight of his glory, we reduce Christ to the greatest man who ever lived, and we are just as damned as if he had not risen from the dead. The New Evangelization requires a greater, not a lesser focus on this glory.

Third, men need splendor. It is in our nature. When the Church does not use earthly splendor to point us to the divine splendor, men turn elsewhere. This is what the iconoclastic and anti-ceremonial furies of the Reformation showed. With their churches denuded, their clerics in simple clothes, did Northern Europeans live simpler lives? Not at all. They invented mercantilism, capitalism, materialism. They divorced splendor from God, and were left with gorgeous stuff and a God who, within a few centuries, they had completely forgotten.

The splendor of the papal office, as that of all ecclesiastical offices, and most of all the Liturgy, points to and honors God; we give Him our very best because we know all things come from Him, and by so doing we show this to the world.

Mrs. Phillips very kindly responded to my comment in her next post, arguing Francis’s style of being pope, while different from Benedict’s or the earlier “triumphalist” model, was just as valid. She called for a distinction between essential and inessential papal traditions:

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2013/03/20/both-benedict-and-francis-are-holy-men-but-with-naturally-different-personal-styles/

Here is how I responded to Mrs. Phillips:

Thank-you for responding so carefully to my concerns. Since I’m in my twenties, this is only the second time I’ve witnessed a papal succession; it is invaluable to hear the wisdom of more seasoned Catholics.

You note, “We have to distinguish here between what is essential to the tradition and what is inessential.” In the abstract, this sounds clear. Concretely, making these distinctions can be vexing. This difficulty points to something essential about our Faith: that it is received. We are to hold fast to the traditions we have received by word of mouth or in writing (cf. 2 Thess 2:15). Between what is received and its adaptation to a particular culture or age, the priority belongs to what is received.

Now, we might say that what is received, what is essential, is the “substance” of the Faith and not the particular forms through which this substance is expressed and appropriated. This way of understanding the transmission of the Faith is widespread today, but I fear it does not do justice to anthropology or to the deposit of the Faith. As human beings, we naturally appropriate things through our senses, that is, through particular forms. The Apostles appropriated the Faith through the particular cadence of Jesus’s voice, through the particular angles of His body. Nothing in Christ is inessential, neither the numbers of hairs on his head nor the lines on the soles of his pierced feet.

The Church is Christ’s Mystical Body. The visible Church does at times sprout hairs that need plucking and develop lines that need smoothing out. But by definition, a tradition is something that has been passed down, a way of expression that has been tested and found good (cf. 1 Thess 5:21). There are always new ways to express Christ, but the old ways cannot be repudiated, even if they are put aside.

Surely traditions should only be put aside for the good of the Church. You argue, “it does not rock the barque of Peter if [inessential traditions] are put aside”—but haven’t the last fifty years been among the rockiest for Peter’s barque? Now, it would be ridiculous to trace recent gales solely to the abandonment of the sedia gestatoria or the triple crown. But what we witnessed with Paul VI and John Paul II was not the putting aside of a few traditions, but of a whole way of articulating the Faith, a language: the language of “triumphalism”, if you like, but also the language of dogma. Is the Church better off for it? Is the world better off for it? Have more souls been saved for it? Perhaps it is too early to tell, and it is surely simplistic to trace the ailments in the Church entirely to changes within the Church. Still, I think we are fooling ourselves if we do not at least ask: is the self-demolition of the Church in the last decades, the loosening of morals in the Church and the wider society, in some way related to the abandonment of the Church’s traditional language? And if so, is putting aside the vestiges of the “triumphalist” language really the best way to go about the New Evangelization?

I submit that Pope Benedict’s assessment of our culture is spot-on: we are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism. Dogma is not relative. Can we really articulate dogma without dogmatic language? Of course, dogmatic language is not the Church’s only language. The Faith finds expression not only in the canons of Councils but also in St Francis’s canticles to Lady Poverty. But St Francis is not St Peter. Peter’s essential task is to preserve the doctrine of the Faith; Peter speaks dogmatically. The world loves (its version of) St Francis. It hates Peter. The world reacted kindly to Paul VI’s repudiation of the papal tiara, and to Pope Francis’s repudiation of the red slippers, because it wants the Pope to repudiate dogma and sees these acts as signs of this repudiation. Worldy humility means relativism.

Pope Francis’s humility is not relativism. He will surely have his Humanae Vitae moment and be rebuffed by the world. But I fear that in divorcing form and substance, in divorcing sign and signified (the essence of postmodernity), our beloved Holy Father may unwittingly make the Faith harder to perceive and so to believe. If the color and signification of the pope's shoes become his to change and interpret at will, he puts on the shoes of relativism. So I pray that along with the pope's red slippers, the Church recover a robust Petrine language—the language of dogma, of triumphalism, of “the golden roof, the marble walls, the Vatican’s majestic halls.”

As always, I invite your comments below.

BXVI's 2005 Christmas Address to Roman Curia

  

A CRITICAL READING OF POPE BENEDICT XVI’S

CHRISTMAS 2005 ADDRESS TO THE ROMAN CURIA

Theologian of the Pontifical Household Father Wojciech Giertych, OP, asked in a recent video interview for Catholic News Services to give the most important text of Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate, unhesitatingly named the Christmas 2005 Address to the Roman Curia about the correct hermeneutic for understanding the Second Vatican Council. This hermeneutic is constantly cited, often somewhat incorrectly, in theological circles, and deserves to be understood within its immediate context. To this aim, following Father Giertych, and especially given Benedict’s recent abdication, it seems appropriate to devote the first (post-introductory) post of this blog to a close critical reading of the address that may serve as the key to understanding Benedict’s pontificate. My aim in this reading is to hew closely to the text, bolded below in English translation (found, alongside the original Italian, on the Vatican website), allowing it to unfurl its concerns, and critically engaging these concerns throughout. The text in brackets, including the section headings, is mine. May this be of use in understanding what we might call the “Benedictine hermeneutic” and in appropriating the Council in fidelity to the Faith that has been handed down to us (cf. 1 Cor 15:1-3; 2 Thess 2:15; 2 Tim 13-14)!

Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia

Offering Them His Christmas Greetings

Thursday, 22 December 2005

Your Eminences,

Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Presbyterate,

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

[INTRODUCTION:]

“Expergiscere homo: quia pro te Deus factus est homo – Wake up, O Man! For your sake God became man” (St Augustine, Sermo, 185). With the Christmas celebrations now at hand, I am opening my Meeting with you, dear collaborators of the Roman Curia, with St Augustine’s invitation to understand the true meaning of Christ’s Birth.

[“Wake up!” From the outset, Benedict announces that this is an important address—because it deals with the Incarnation. The address’s importance for the efforts of Benedict’s pontificate, as well as to waking up to the reality of the God made man, are further heralded by the timing of its delivery—a few weeks into the beginning of Benedict’s first full ecclesiastical year as pope (i.e. during his first Advent) and a few days before the great feast of the Incarnation. Benedict emphasizes that this address is crucial to understanding his pontificate and the Incarnation.]

I address to each one my most cordial greeting and I thank you for the sentiments of devotion and affection, effectively conveyed to me by your Cardinal Dean, to whom I address my gratitude.

God became man for our sake: this is the message which, every year, from the silent grotto of Bethlehem spreads even to the most out-of-the-way corners of the earth. Christmas is a feast of light and peace, it is a day of inner wonder and joy that expands throughout the universe, because “God became man.” From the humble grotto of Bethlehem, the eternal Son of God, who became a tiny Child, addresses each one of us: he calls us, invites us to be reborn in him so that, with him, we may live eternally in communion with the Most Holy Trinity.

[The “every year” frequency of its celebration, and its humble, “silent” origin, can harden us to the reality of the Incarnation. Benedict urges us to listen to the “inner wonder and joy” of Christmas, which is an invitation to eternal, Trinitarian life.]

[PART I: JOHN PAUL II AND THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING AND REDEMPTION:]

Our hearts brimming with the joy that comes from this knowledge, let us think back to the events of the year that is coming to an end. We have behind us great events which have left a deep mark on the life of the Church. I am thinking first and foremost of the departure of our beloved Holy Father John Paul II, preceded by a long period of suffering and the gradual loss of speech. No Pope has left us such a quantity of texts as he has bequeathed to us; no previous Pope was able to visit the whole world like him and speak directly to people from all the continents.

[The entire address from this point forward follows the structure of a reflection on the preceding year. First (what I’ve called Part I) we have the final days of Blessed John Paul II, which gives way to a reflection on the mystery of suffering and redemption. Then (Part II) Benedict reflects on divine worship through reminiscences of World Youth Day in Cologne and the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist. This gives way to the major concern of the address (Part III), introduced by the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of its closing: the correct interpretation of the Second Vatican Council. So Benedict offers three topics that might be called touchstones of his pontificate, two of them wrapped up in the recent past of the Church.]

In the end, however, his lot was a journey of suffering and silence. Unforgettable for us are the images of Palm Sunday when, holding an olive branch and marked by pain, he came to the window and imparted the Lord’s Blessing as he himself was about to walk towards the Cross.

Next was the scene in his Private Chapel when, holding the Crucifix, he took part in the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum, where he had so often led the procession carrying the Cross himself.

Lastly came his silent Blessing on Easter Sunday, in which we saw the promise of the Resurrection, of eternal life, shine out through all his suffering. With his words and actions, the Holy Father gave us great things; equally important is the lesson he imparted to us from the chair of suffering and silence.

In his last book Memory and Identity (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005), he has left us an interpretation of suffering that is not a theological or philosophical theory but a fruit that matured on his personal path of suffering which he walked, sustained by faith in the Crucified Lord. This interpretation, which he worked out in faith and which gave meaning to his suffering lived in communion with that of the Lord, spoke through his silent pain, transforming it into an important message.

Both at the beginning and once again at the end of the book mentioned, the Pope shows that he is deeply touched by the spectacle of the power of evil, which we dramatically experienced in the century that has just ended. He says in his text: “The evil . . . was not a small-scale evil. . . . It was an evil of gigantic proportions, an evil which availed itself of state structures in order to accomplish its wicked work, an evil built up into a system” (p. 189).

Might evil be invincible? Is it the ultimate power of history? Because of the experience of evil, for Pope Wojty³a the question of redemption became the essential and central question of his life and thought as a Christian. Is there a limit against which the power of evil shatters? “Yes, there is,” the Pope replies in this book of his, as well as in his Encyclical on redemption.

The power that imposes a limit on evil is Divine Mercy. Violence, the display of evil, is opposed in history—as “the totally other” of God, God’s own power—by Divine Mercy. The Lamb is stronger than the dragon, we could say together with the Book of Revelation. 

At the end of the book, in a retrospective review of the attack of 13 May 1981 and on the basis of the experience of his journey with God and with the world, John Paul II further deepened this answer. 

What limits the force of evil, the power, in brief, which overcomes it—this is how he says it—is God’s suffering, the suffering of the Son of God on the Cross: “The suffering of the Crucified God is not just one form of suffering alongside others. . . . In sacrificing himself for us all, Christ gave a new meaning to suffering, opening up a new dimension, a new order: the order of love. . . . The passion of Christ on the Cross gave a radically new meaning to suffering, transforming it from within. . . . It is this suffering which burns and consumes evil with the flame of love. . . . All human suffering, all pain, all infirmity contains within itself a promise of salvation . . . evil is present in the world partly so as to awaken our love, our self-gift in generous and disinterested service to those visited by suffering. . . . Christ has redeemed the world: “By his wounds we are healed” (Is 53:5) (p. 189, ff.).

All this is not merely learned theology, but the expression of a faith lived and matured through suffering. Of course, we must do all we can to alleviate suffering and prevent the injustice that causes the suffering of the innocent. However, we must also do the utmost to ensure that people can discover the meaning of suffering and are thus able to accept their own suffering and to unite it with the suffering of Christ.

In this way, it is merged with redemptive love and consequently becomes a force against the evil in the world.

The response across the world to the Pope's death was an overwhelming demonstration of gratitude for the fact that in his ministry he offered himself totally to God for the world; a thanksgiving for the fact that in a world full of hatred and violence he taught anew love and suffering in the service of others; he showed us, so to speak, in the flesh, the Redeemer, redemption, and gave us the certainty that indeed, evil does not have the last word in the world.

[The mystery of suffering and redemption is explicitly linked to Benedict’s predecessor, whose right-hand man he was and whose person he raised to the altars. Benedict’s pontificate is in clear continuity with Blessed John Paul II. And yet, we can now see even more clearly, Benedict compliments this continuity with a significant shift of emphasis, as becomes apparent in the next section.]

[PART II: ADORATION]

I would now like to mention, if briefly, another two events also initiated by Pope John Paul II: they are the World Youth Day celebrated in Cologne and the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, which also ended the Year of the Eucharist inaugurated by Pope John Paul II.

The World Youth Day has lived on as a great gift in the memory of those present. More than a million young people gathered in the City of Cologne on the Rhine River and in the neighbouring towns to listen together to the Word of God, to pray together, to receive the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist, to sing and to celebrate together, to rejoice in life and to worship and receive the Lord in the Eucharist during the great meetings on Saturday evening and Sunday. Joy simply reigned throughout those days.

Apart from keeping order, the police had nothing to do—the Lord had gathered his family, tangibly overcoming every frontier and barrier, and in the great communion between us, he made us experience his presence.

The motto chosen for those days—“We have come to worship [i.e. adore] him!”, contained two great images which encouraged the right approach from the outset. First there was the image of the pilgrimage, the image of the person who, looking beyond his own affairs and daily life, sets out in search of his essential destination, the truth, the right life, God.

This image of the person on his way towards the goal of life contained another two clear indications. First of all, there was the invitation not to see the world that surrounds us solely as raw material with which we can do something, but to try to discover in it “the Creator’s handwriting”, the creative reason and the love from which the world was born and of which the universe speaks to us, if we pay attention, if our inner senses awaken and acquire perception of the deepest dimensions of reality.

As a second element there is a further invitation: to listen to the historical revelation which alone can offer us the key to the interpretation of the silent mystery of creation, pointing out to us the practical way towards the true Lord of the world and of history, who conceals himself in the poverty of the stable in Bethlehem.

[The mention of the “historical revelation,” emanating from Bethlehem, that “alone can offer us the key to the interpretation of the silent mystery of creation” links this passage to the timing of the address and also to the discussion of the correct key to the interpretation of the Second Vatican Council and Benedict’s treatment of Dei Verbum. He also identifies this concrete, historical revelation as the pointer to the proper ordering of the temporal realm, a crucial issue in assessing the Council.]

The other image contained in the World Youth Day motto was the person worshipping: “We have come to worship him.” Before any activity, before the world can change there must be worship. Worship alone sets us truly free; worship alone gives us the criteria for our action. Precisely in a world in which guiding criteria are absent and the threat exists that each person will be a law unto himself, it is fundamentally necessary to stress worship.

[These words represent Benedict’s pontificate in nuce: it is adoration that is at its center.]

For all those who were present the intense silence of that million young people remains unforgettable, a silence that united and uplifted us all when the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament was placed on the altar. Let us cherish in our hearts the images of Cologne: they are signs that continue to be valid. Without mentioning individual names, I would like on this occasion to thank everyone who made World Youth Day possible; but especially, let us together thank the Lord, for indeed, he alone could give us those days in the way in which we lived them.

[Again, the return to the beloved word “silence”—from which any legitimate speech and action is born.]

The word “adoration” brings us to the second great event that I wish to talk about: the Synod of Bishops and the Year of the Eucharist. Pope John Paul II, with the Encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia and the Apostolic Letter Mane Nobiscum Domine, gave us the essential clues and at the same time, with his personal experience of Eucharistic faith, put the Church’s teaching into practice.

Moreover, the Congregation for Divine Worship, in close connection with the Encyclical, published the Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum as a practical guide to the correct implementation of the conciliar Constitution on the liturgy and liturgical reform. In addition to all this, was it really possible to say anything new, to develop further the whole of this teaching?

This was exactly the great experience of the Synod, during which a reflection of the riches of the Eucharistic life of the Church today and the inexhaustibility of her Eucharistic faith could be perceived in the Fathers’ contributions. What the Fathers thought and expressed must be presented, in close connection with the Propositiones of the Synod, in a Post-Synodal Document.

Here, once again, I only wish to underline that point which a little while ago we already mentioned in the context of World Youth Day: adoration of the Risen Lord, present in the Eucharist with flesh and blood, with body and soul, with divinity and humanity.

It is moving for me to see how everywhere in the Church the joy of Eucharistic adoration is reawakening and being fruitful. In the period of liturgical reform, Mass and adoration outside it were often seen as in opposition to one another: it was thought that the Eucharistic Bread had not been given to us to be contemplated, but to be eaten, as a widespread objection claimed at that time. 

The experience of the prayer of the Church has already shown how nonsensical this antithesis was. Augustine had formerly said: “nemo autem illam carnem manducat, nisi prius adoraverit . . . peccemus non adorando – No one should eat this flesh without first adoring it . . . we should sin were we not to adore it” (cf. Enarr. in Ps 98: 9 CCL XXXIX 1385).

Indeed, we do not merely receive something in the Eucharist. It is the encounter and unification of persons; the person, however, who comes to meet us and desires to unite himself to us is the Son of God. Such unification can only be brought about by means of adoration.

Receiving the Eucharist means adoring the One whom we receive. Precisely in this way and only in this way do we become one with him. Therefore, the development of Eucharistic adoration, as it took shape during the Middle Ages, was the most consistent consequence of the Eucharistic mystery itself: only in adoration can profound and true acceptance develop. And it is precisely this personal act of encounter with the Lord that develops the social mission which is contained in the Eucharist and desires to break down barriers, not only the barriers between the Lord and us but also and above all those that separate us from one another.

[This second part of the address reveals Benedict’s shift from the focus on redemptive suffering that marked all, but especially the final years, of John Paul’s papacy, to a focus on divine worship: adoration both in the specific sense of Eucharistic Adoration, but also in the broader sense of latria, the worship a man properly offers to God alone. Of course, John Paul had himself revived and emphasized Eucharistic Adoration, but he was not really a liturgical pope. It is a shift of emphasis, not a radical break or disavowal of the John Paul II years. Benedict was a supremely liturgical pope, as anyone who had attended his 7 AM Masses during his years at Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith or read his book The Spirit of the Liturgy (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2000) would have suspected. The Benedictine arrangement of the altar, with candles on either end and a crucifix front and center would have been significant enough, but there was much else: an extraordinary mastery of ceremonies in Monsignor Guido Marini, the restoration of communion kneeling and on the tongue at all papal Masses, the retrieval of ancient liturgical vestments, renewed efforts to promote Gregorian chant, and most significantly, the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, which liberalized the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass (last modified by Blessed John XXIII in 1962) and declared that it had never been abrogated. Henceforth, the 1962 Mass is an “extraordinary form” of the Roman Rite, side by side with the “ordinary form” of Paul VI’s 1969 novus ordo missae.

With Benedict’s renunciation of the Petrine ministry, this focus on adoration becomes radicalized. If in John Paul II we witnessed a new Saint Peter crucified, a pope who, in not coming down from his cross, “showed us, so to speak, in the flesh, the Redeemer,” in Benedict we had—and have—a Johannine figure. Benedict showed us that the pope must also echo the words of the Forerunner: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3:30). The Faith, as Cardinal Arinze reminded us with his blunt magnanimity in a CNS interview, is not based on the Pope, but on Christ. Benedict showed this when he put the crucifix at the center of the altar, when he celebrated Mass facing this same crucifix along with the congregation (i.e. ad orientem liturgicam, to the liturgical East), and most starkly when he renounced the Petrine office because he was no longer able to fulfill it. Now, in his hidden life of prayer for the Church, Benedict follows the mystic Apostle who lay at the breast of the Lord as we may do in Adoration, St Augustine’s favorite evangelist, with whose words he named his first encyclical (Deus Caritas Est – God Is Love), about whom Jesus said to Peter: “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!” (Jn 21:22). “With his words and actions, the Holy Father gave us great things; equally important is the lesson he imparted to us from the chair of suffering and silence.” It is totally false to claim that Benedict has inaugurated a new era of papal resignations, still less that Benedict somehow slights the memory of John Paul by not following his example. “Follow me” says the Lord—for Peter, as for John Paul, this meant unto Calvary; for the Beloved Apostle and for our beloved Benedict this means writing, prayer, abiding in adoration. Benedict has given us an example of variety in fidelity to the Lord.]

[PART III: THE CORRECT INTERPRETATION OF VATICAN II]

The last event of this year on which I wish to reflect here is the celebration of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council 40 years ago. [Benedict’s pontificate began in the 40^th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council; it ended with the 50^th anniversary of the opening of the Council, which commemoration is central to the Year of Faith Benedict proclaimed for 2012-2013.] This memory prompts the question: What has been the result of the Council? Was it well received? What, in the acceptance of the Council, was good and what was inadequate or mistaken? What still remains to be done? [We might even say these questions have been at the center of Benedict’s pontificate; these are the questions we have asked again and again these last eight years, reflecting on the forty years, and now the fifty years, since the Council.] No one can deny that in vast areas of the Church the implementation of the Council has been somewhat difficult, even without wishing to apply to what occurred in these years the description that St Basil, the great Doctor of the Church, made of the Church’s situation after the Council of Nicea: he compares her situation to a naval battle in the darkness of the storm, saying among other things: “The raucous shouting of those who through disagreement rise up against one another, the incomprehensible chatter, the confused din of uninterrupted clamouring, has now filled almost the whole of the Church, falsifying through excess or failure the right doctrine of the faith” (De Spiritu Sancto, XXX, 77; PG 32, 213 A; SCh 17 ff., p. 524).

We do not want to apply precisely this dramatic description to the situation of the post-conciliar period, yet something from all that occurred is nevertheless reflected in it. The question arises: Why has the implementation of the Council, in large parts of the Church, thus far been so difficult?

[The choice to approach the answer to the crucial questions about the Council asked above (its result, reception, acceptance, etc.) with St Basil’s “dramatic” assessment of the post-Nicene years demands attention. Even Benedict’s comment on them (“We do not want to apply precisely this dramatic description . . .”), rather than softening their force, highlights it: Benedict does not wish to apply precisely Basil’s description, but he does, it seems, wish to apply something like it. This modified appropriation of St Basil’s words also hearkens to one of Benedict’s last addresses, the unscripted remarks to the seminarians of Rome about his personal experience of the Council, which concluded with an unusually harsh assessment of the post-Council (“seminaries closed, convents closed, banalized liturgy”). And Benedict seems, at the end of his pontificate, to have maintained the same conclusion about the Council he gives in this address. This conclusion is already implicit in the question that Benedict makes the fil conducteur of what follows. In beginning with the question of why the implementation of the Council has been difficult, he assumes that the Council ought to be implemented. This is Benedict’s starting point, but it should be added that while this starting point implies that the Council itself is somehow unproblematic, it does not exclude a priori that the implementation of the Council has been difficult because of defects in the Council itself.]

Well, it all depends on the correct interpretation of the Council or—as we would say today—on its proper hermeneutics, the correct key to its interpretation and application. The problems in its implementation arose from the fact that two contrary hermeneutics came face to face and quarrelled with each other. One caused confusion, the other, silently but more and more visibly, bore and is bearing fruit.

[It might be noted in passing that this appraisal of the two dueling hermeneutics—one false, one correct—follows Augustinian (and Pauline) dualism (e.g. City of God v. City of Man, body v. flesh), rejecting Hegelian dialectic-leading-to-synthesis (cf. Rowan Williams, Why Study the Past?, for a good contemporary example of the Hegelian approach to theology).]

On the one hand, there is an interpretation that I would call [1] “a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture”; it has frequently availed itself of the sympathies of the mass media [cf. “the virtual Council” Benedict speaks of in final address to Roman seminarians], and also one trend of modern theology. [The School of Bologna, according to which the Council is an “event”?] On the other, there is the [2] “hermeneutic of reform”, of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us. She is a subject which increases in time and develops, yet always remaining the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God.

[Here we have the two hermeneutics, briefly defined. The first is perhaps easier to grasp. Rupture is something our post-revolutionary world encounters daily not only in the political sphere (Chavez died and what will become of Venezuela is anyone’s guess) but also in the social and private (homosexual “marriage” and no-fault divorce) or even material spheres (cosmetic surgery). Even the “Evangelical” reduction of salvation to “getting saved” participates in this culture of rupture (whereas the legitimate Christian understanding of salvation—the “already” of baptism and the contingent “not-yet” of continued assent, lifelong conversion and growth in sanctity, Judgment with the possibility of the other “already but not yet” state of Purgatory—unites the rupture of election with fidelity to the covenant). It is no surprise that this false hermeneutic would have the sympathies of the mass media, that mirror and master of the culture, that leopard ever-more-rapacious for a new “big break” and a new “hit”. There is no doubt much blame to be assigned to the media in the distortion of the Council, but, as Benedict notes, the media was used by the hermeneutic; the origin of the false hermeneutic lies elsewhere. Its origin lies elsewhere, too, than the “trend of modern theology” to which Benedict alludes, which, like the media, is its instrument, not its maker. We might speculate that its origin, like the final origin of all falsehoods and lies, is the Father of Lies—and so draw a connection to Paul VI’s famous mention of the “smoke of Satan” that seemed, almost, to have entered the sanctuary—but Benedict, perhaps surprisingly, does not here ask the question of origin of the false hermeneutic.

The second, “correct” hermeneutic, is not, as if often said, that of “continuity” tout court; rather Benedict defines it in one word as the hermeneutic of “reform”. It would be totally false to claim Benedict here puts forward a “traditionalist” hermeneutic or that he is a traditionalist, in any Catholic sense of the term. Rather, Benedict sees “reform” as a positive term, and the particular “reform” of the Council as positive, even necessary. But like any word, “reform” needs to be unpacked, and it would be just as false to allow the single world “reform” to define the hermeneutic. The “hermeneutic of reform” is one of “renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us.” So the term “continuity” is central to the Benedictine hermeneutic, but he does not conceive of continuity as something necessarily static; rather, he speaks of dynamic continuity (echoes of Avery Cardinal Dulles’s “dynamic fidelity”?). And why does continuity with the “one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us” allow for, even demand, reform? Because the Church, once and for all gifted by Christ, is also “the journeying People of God”—“increasing in time and developing, yet always remaining the same.” The Benedictine hermeneutic of “reform in continuity” presupposes and develops out of his ecclesiology. The Church, for Benedict, is at once the same and developing, as explained by John Henry Cardinal Newman, whom Benedict beatified, extraordinarily, in person in England (Essay on the Development of Doctrine) and as enunciated by Dei Verbum and Lumen Gentium.

While Benedict does not directly address it here, there are at least two, very different “hermeneutics of discontinuity”. His immediate concern is that hermeneutic of discontinuity that, briefly put, thinks the Council “did not go far enough” in reforming the Church. The other hermeneutic of discontinuity (associated with the SSPX, but also advanced by such theologians as Romano Amerio, Enrico Maria Radaelli, and, with a lighter touch, Brunero Gherardini, as well as the historian Roberto de Mattei) holds that the Council “went too far” in reforming the Church, that it was unfaithful to the Faith gifted by Christ. Both hermeneutics of discontinuity risk splitting the Church into a “before” and “after” the Council, but they are substantively different, as I will briefly note further on.]

The hermeneutic of discontinuity risks ending in a split between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church. It asserts that the texts of the Council as such do not yet express the true spirit of the Council. It claims that they are the result of compromises in which, to reach unanimity, it was found necessary to keep and reconfirm many old things that are now pointless. However, the true spirit of the Council is not to be found in these compromises but instead in the impulses toward the new that are contained in the texts.

[Is Benedict implying that the “true spirit of the Council” is to be found in its compromises, which would perhaps unite the “impulses toward the new” (reform) with “old things” (continuity)? A related question: are there in fact true compromises in the texts, or merely the juxtaposition of different, opposed, even irreconcilable statements or assertions or theologies juxtaposed?]

These innovations alone were supposed to represent the true spirit of the Council, and starting from and in conformity with them, it would be possible to move ahead. Precisely because the texts would only imperfectly reflect the true spirit of the Council and its newness, it would be necessary to go courageously beyond the texts and make room for the newness in which the Council’s deepest intention would be expressed, even if it were still vague.

In a word: it would be necessary not to follow the texts of the Council but its spirit. In this way, obviously, a vast margin was left open for the question on how this spirit should subsequently be defined and room was consequently made for every whim.

[The hermeneutic of discontinuity relies upon the idea (we might call it its epistemological conception) of the extricability of form and substance. According to this understanding of how we come to know reality, how something is expressed is 1) not essential to what is being expressed, and 2) can be divorced from it. It is possible to isolate “pure spirit” from “obfuscating text”. The truth or falseness of this idea is at the center of conciliar hermeneutics of all stripes, from Küng to Radaelli, including the Benedictine hermeneutic that follows the words of Blessed John XXIII. As Benedict notes, if we fully embrace this idea, there is a “vast margin” for consequently defining this spirit, that is, giving it other, less “concealing” forms. I define the spirit this way today, another tomorrow, you define it still another, etc.—and unity of form becomes impossible. And since language is a form, communication finally becomes impossible in this realm of “formal” relativism.]

The nature of a Council as such is therefore basically misunderstood. In this way, it is considered as a sort of constituent that eliminates an old constitution and creates a new one. [i.e. the way politics has worked since 1789] However, the Constituent Assembly needs a mandator and then confirmation by the mandator, in other words, the people the constitution must serve. The Fathers had no such mandate and no one had ever given them one; nor could anyone have given them one because the essential constitution of the Church comes from the Lord and was given to us so that we might attain eternal life and, starting from this perspective, be able to illuminate life in time and time itself.

[Note that Benedict does not condemn the “constitutional” approach a priori (as we will see later, he is not opposed to all manifestations of the “Enlightenment”). Rather, he notes that a constitutional approach is impossible for a Church Council because the ecclesial “constitution” (he even uses this word!) was gifted by Christ for the attainment of eternal life. Fidelity to Christ and salvation itself are at stake—because fidelity to Christ is the only means of salvation. But again, Benedict’s understanding of the application of the ecclesial “constitution” is dynamic: if it is itself materially sufficient, it nonetheless needs to be applied in time, always grounded in the perspective of salvation.]

Through the Sacrament they have received, Bishops are stewards of the Lord’s gift. They are “stewards of the mysteries of God” (I Cor 4:1); as such, they must be found to be “faithful” and “wise” (cf. Lk 12:41-48). This requires them to administer the Lord’s gift in the right way, so that it is not left concealed in some hiding place but bears fruit, and the Lord may end by saying to the administrator: “Since you were dependable in a small matter I will put you in charge of larger affairs” (cf. Mt 25:14-30; Lk 19:11-27).

These Gospel parables express the dynamic of fidelity required in the Lord’s service; and through them it becomes clear that, as in a Council, the dynamic and fidelity must converge.

[Dynamic fidelity. Fidelity to the Lord requires evangelical dynamism (whatever that means), so that the Gospel may bear fruit and its shepherds may attain eternal life.]

The hermeneutic of discontinuity is countered by the hermeneutic of reform, as it was presented first by Pope John XXIII in his Speech inaugurating the Council on 11 October 1962 and later by Pope Paul VI in his Discourse for the Council’s conclusion on 7 December 1965.

[Benedict grounds the correct hermeneutic in words, not “spirit”, the papal words that opened and closed the Council, just as his own words on the Council would open and close his pontificate, corresponding to the closing and opening of the Council.]

Here I shall cite only John XXIII’s well-known words, which unequivocally express this hermeneutic when he says that the Council wishes “to transmit the doctrine, pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion.” And he continues: “Our duty is not only to guard this precious treasure, as if we were concerned only with antiquity, but to dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fear to that work which our era demands of us.” It is necessary that “adherence to all the teaching of the Church in its entirety and preciseness” be presented in “faithful and perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine, which, however, should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the literary forms of modern thought. The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another,” retaining the same meaning and message (The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, S.J., p. 715).

[Obviously, Benedict intends with these quotations to show the “renewal in continuity” advanced by John XXIII, a figure often appropriated by those hermeneuts of discontinuity Benedict has described above. Yet Pope John makes two, interrelated assertions here that would disquiet the other hermeneuts of discontinuity. First, he calls for applying modern research methodology and literary forms to doctrine. This assumes that modern thought (however vaguely defined) is valuable for the appropriation of doctrine—something that would be widely contested. More baldly, he claims that doctrine’s “substance” and its “way of presentation” (i.e. its form) are different things. This difference could perhaps be read as a “distinction” or something united—in the way the Divine Persons of the Holy Trinity are distinct but united as the one God. But, prima facie, the assertion is bold. Does it not make much the same response to the question of the relation of form and substance as those who hail the “spirit” of the Council? Is it correct? Ought we rather to say that while form and substance are ontologically distinct, they are epistemologically coincident? That is, in themselves form and substance may be two different realities—or, if not different realities, distinct entities—but insofar as man comes to understand substance, does he not always, or at least ordinarily (i.e. naturally) come to know them together? We only know the ideas of the book through the words of the book. We only know a man’s spirit through his body. We only know the Father through the Son. And would not this be true a fortiori given the Incarnation, when the Son, already the Form of the Father, takes on humanity, so that henceforth man may know the Father through the eternally incarnate Son of God and of the New Eve? One wonders if Benedict’s not treating this potentially problematic statement of John XXIII might be traced to his own preference for St Augustine over St Thomas Aquinas.]

It is clear that this commitment to expressing a specific truth in a new way demands new thinking on this truth and a new and vital relationship with it; it is also clear that new words can only develop if they come from an informed understanding of the truth expressed, and on the other hand, that a reflection on faith also requires that this faith be lived. In this regard, the programme that Pope John XXIII proposed was extremely demanding, indeed, just as the synthesis of fidelity and dynamic is demanding.

[Benedict’s unpacking of John XXIII’s statement softens its impact. Surely there are always new ways to express specific truths, new insights, even new thinking. But it might be cautioned, as Benedict would surely agree, that not every new expression is a true expression, that some new expressions or patterns of thought are not adequate to express doctrine—and also that the old expressions cannot really lose their validity in themselves, even if the men of a certain time my find them less illuminating, because the Church, following Christ’s words, is eternally infallible (cf. Dei Filius).]

However, wherever this interpretation guided the implementation of the Council, new life developed and new fruit ripened. Forty years after the Council, we can show that the positive is far greater and livelier than it appeared to be in the turbulent years around 1968. Today, we see that although the good seed developed slowly, it is nonetheless growing; and our deep gratitude for the work done by the Council is likewise growing.

[Without contradicting the Holy Father’s enthusiasm, one wishes again for some precision: what, specifically are these good fruits?]

[Now Benedict shifts from enunciating the two hermeneutics to an historical survey of the Church’s relationship to the modern era, which prepares for his reading of how the Council responded to three questions that had emerged:]

In his Discourse Closing the Council, Paul VI pointed out a further specific reason why a hermeneutic of discontinuity can seem convincing.

In the great dispute about man which marks the modern epoch, the Council had to focus in particular on the theme of anthropology. It had to question the relationship between the Church and her faith on the one hand, and man and the contemporary world on the other (cf. ibid.). The question becomes even clearer if, instead of the generic term “contemporary world”, we opt for another that is more precise: the Council had to determine in a new way the relationship between the Church and the modern era.

[While looking for an answer in what follows, we might ask Paul VI, and Benedict: Why did the Council have to recast the relationship between the Church and modernity?]

This relationship had a somewhat stormy beginning with the Galileo case. [Is this perhaps an exaggeration? While le cas Galilée remains a cause célèbre of secularist coteries, are not the facts rather less dramatic? These include, for example, that his theory contradicted every known thinker, contemporary or ancient. It was not so much a case of the Church against Galileo as the World against Galileo.] It was then totally interrupted when Kant described “religion within pure reason” and when, in the radical phase of the French Revolution, an image of the State and the human being that practically no longer wanted to allow the Church any room was disseminated.[And thousands were martyred.]

In the 19th century under Pius IX, the clash between the Church’s faith and a radical liberalism and the natural sciences, which also claimed to embrace with their knowledge the whole of reality to its limit, stubbornly proposing to make the “hypothesis of God” superfluous, had elicited from the Church a bitter and radical condemnation of this spirit of the modern age. [Note that Benedict characterizes as “radical” both 19^th century liberalism and naturalism and Pius IX’s response to it.] Thus, it seemed that there was no longer any milieu open to a positive and fruitful understanding, and the rejection by those who felt they were the representatives of the modern era was also drastic.

[Benedict seems partially to blame Pius IX for the rejection of the Church by modernity. Was his condemnation of liberalism and naturalism somehow wrong? Is his Syllabus of Errors somehow faulty or subject to false application?]

In the meantime, however, the modern age had also experienced developments. People came to realize that the American Revolution was offering a model of a modern State that differed from the theoretical model with radical tendencies that had emerged during the second phase of the French Revolution.

[This is a very interesting statement. First, note the pejorative use of “radical”, which informs our reading of the preceding paragraph. Benedict claims (“people came to realize”—not “people proposed, or argued, or felt”) that the American Revolution offers an alternative modernity to that founded in the French Revolution. Is this true? Are there really two modernities—the radical, secularist French version that leaves no room for God and religion, and the American version? Just how would we define this American version? Would we look to the Constitution, which implicitly derives its agenda from God-gifted freedom: “We the People . . . in order to . . . secure the Blessings of Liberty . . . establish this Constitution”? (It also mentions “our Lord” when giving the year in the closing statements.) Would we look to the First Amendment, guaranteeing the free practice of religion? Or to the Declaration of Independence, which refers to “Nature’s God” and to the “Supreme Judge of the World” (shades of Robespierre’s Être suprême?), asserts that men are “created”, and derives the “unalienable rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” from the “Creator”? Or, leaving behind texts, would we look to the longstanding liberality in the tolerance of the practice of religion, or perhaps the greater religiosity, relative to Europeans, of Americans in the late 20^th century? Is American secularism really so different from French laïcité? Or is it rather than, given the diversity and decentralization of the United States, laïcité and the other Enlightenment projects have taken longer to crystallize? And in the last decades at least—with Roe v. Wade overturning the right to life, with the HHS Mandate restricting religious liberty, with the fabrication of the “right to divorce”, the “right to marry” one’s own sex, to reinvent one’s gender—witnessing the “purification” of the Enlightenment à l’américaine in the waters of the Seine? If so, what are the implications for Benedict’s argument, and want are the implications for the proper understanding and appropriating of the Council?]

The natural sciences were beginning to reflect more and more clearly their own limitations imposed by their own method, which, despite achieving great things, was nevertheless unable to grasp the global nature of reality.

[Benedict seems to see another positive shift in the turn away from “totalitarian” thought. But has this shift not been accompanied by a turn toward absurdity, and thus the relative—indeed, toward what Benedict famously called the “dictatorship of relativism”?]

So it was that both parties were gradually beginning to open up to each other. In the period between the two World Wars and especially after the Second World War, Catholic statesmen demonstrated that a modern secular State could exist that was not neutral regarding values but alive, drawing from the great ethical sources opened by Christianity.

[Just which countries and statesmen? Not being versed in the political history of these eras, the prime Catholic secular statesman I can think of is the Bonapartist DeGaulle, whose nuclear proliferation hardly drew on the “great ethical sources” of Christianity. Admittedly, much of the denaturalization of the legal systems of historically Christian countries (e.g. legalization of abortion, divorce, sodomy, etc.) postdated the Council. Still, from today’s perspective, Benedict’s assessment of the era seems curiously optimistic.]

Catholic social doctrine, as it gradually developed, became an important model between radical liberalism and the Marxist theory of the State. The natural sciences, which without reservation professed a method of their own to which God was barred access, realized ever more clearly that this method did not include the whole of reality. Hence, they once again opened their doors to God, knowing that reality is greater than the naturalistic method and all that it can encompass.

[Again, is this not rather rosy? Does the idea that Catholic social teaching is a via media “between” economic liberalism and Marxism dangerously approach the centrist fallacy? And does it risk reducing social theory to the dominant framework of the twentieth century? And so many natural scientist’s door were “open to God” in 1962, why are they all shut now?]

It might be said that three circles of questions had formed which then, at the time of the Second Vatican Council, were expecting an answer. First of all, [1]the relationship between faith and modern science had to be redefined. Furthermore, this did not only concern the natural sciences but also historical science for, in a certain school, the historical-critical method claimed to have the last word on the interpretation of the Bible and, demanding total exclusivity for its interpretation of Sacred Scripture, was opposed to important points in the interpretation elaborated by the faith of the Church.

Secondly, it was necessary to [2]give a new definition to the relationship between the Church and the modern State that would make room impartially for citizens of various religions and ideologies, merely assuming responsibility for an orderly and tolerant coexistence among them and for the freedom to practise their own religion.

Thirdly, linked more generally to this was the [3]problem of religious tolerance—a question that required a new definition of the relationship between the Christian faith and the world religions. In particular, before the recent crimes of the Nazi regime and, in general, with a retrospective look at a long and difficult history, it was necessary to evaluate and define in a new way the relationship between the Church and the faith of Israel.

[For Benedict, the three central questions leading up to the Council have to do with the idea of the relationship, or, in biblical language, the covenant. First, the relationship of faith and science, second the relationship of Church and State, and third the relationship of Christianity and other religions (or perhaps, more broadly, between Catholicism and other religions). Benedict does not explain why these questions had to be answered, that is, why the Church’s traditional answers were insufficient; perhaps he thinks this why self-evident, but is it self-evident to us today? To the first question, Benedict does provide some explanation about its urgency in the need to address the self-proclaimed hegemony of the historical-critical method in certain circles. Of course, given the rise in prominence of the historical-critical method in Catholic circles after the Council, this seems at first glance a curious assertion. But of course part of Benedict’s point is that Dei Verbum itself (the Council’s Constitution on Revelation), while giving some place to the method, does not allow for its hegemony. To the question of Church and State, there is only a semblance of an answer to why the relationship had to be redefined. Why should the Church support secular states? Perhaps an implied answer would be a pragmatic one: secular states exist, and Christians live in secular states, so some framework for this reality needs to be enunciated? But if, as experience would seem to show, the secular state is necessarily anti-Christian, why should Christians attempt to harmonize their relationship with the enemy? Would this not rather be to make friends with the devil? These are vexing questions, and Benedict does not here anticipate them. Finally, to the question of the inter-religious relationship, Benedict mentions the Shoah. Again, this does not directly explain the necessity of re-defining the relationship between the Church and Judaism. The Nazi regime was pagan, its anti-Semitism largely based in pseudo-science, not Christianity, even if many professed Christians perpetuated its crimes. Still, the horror of the Shoah, which like all horrors, took years to sink in, obviously demanded reflection in all areas.]

These are all subjects of great importance—they were the great themes of the second part of the Council—on which it is impossible to reflect more broadly in this context. It is clear that in all these sectors, which all together form a single problem, some kind of discontinuity might emerge. Indeed, a discontinuity had been revealed but in which, after the various distinctions between concrete historical situations and their requirements had been made, the continuity of principles proved not to have been abandoned. It is easy to miss this fact at a first glance.

[This is a fascinating if somewhat obscure passage. The “single problem” is surely the relationship between the Church and the modern world. The Pope argues not only that “some kind of discontinuity might emerge” in re-evaluating this relationship, but that discontinuity had already arisen and “been revealed.” So the work of the Council, in Benedict’s understanding, is to reveal the continuity in apparent discontinuity. Rather than creating discontinuity, the Council healed discontinuity by enunciating a broader continuity. And he admits this project of continuity is susceptible to misconstrual “at first glance.”]

It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically than before that the Church’s decisions on contingent matters—for example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation of the Bible—should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within. On the other hand, not so permanent are the [N.B.] practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change.

[“Decisions on contingent matters . . . should necessarily be contingent themselves.” “It is only the principles that express the permanent aspect.” Is Benedict embracing John XXIII’s split of “substance” and “ways”?]

Basic decisions, therefore, continue to be well-grounded, whereas the way they are applied to new contexts can change. Thus, for example, if religious freedom were to be considered an expression of the human inability to discover the truth and thus become a canonization of relativism[isn’t this exactly how it is conceived by large swaths of contemporary Westerners?], this social and historical necessity is raised inappropriately to the metaphysical level and thus stripped of its true meaning. Consequently, it cannot be accepted by those who believe that the human person is capable of knowing the truth about God and, on the basis of the inner dignity of the truth, is bound to this knowledge.

It is quite different, on the other hand, to perceive religious freedom as a need that derives from human coexistence, or indeed, as an intrinsic consequence of the truth that cannot be externally imposed but that the person must adopt only through the process of conviction.

[There are two points here in defense of religious freedom: 1) the reality that men of different religions coexist, and 2) by its nature faith cannot be imposed but personally adopted. The first point relies on the implied premise that there should be no wars of religion, a premise not self-evident in the history of the Church and so, I would argue, needing further explanation. The second, however, is unassailable. Even God does not impose Himself upon man: faith, and salvation, always demand man’s assent. Now, the question might be raised: did any Catholic every deny this?]

The Second Vatican Council, recognizing and making its own an essential principle of the modern State with the Decree on Religious Freedom, has recovered the deepest patrimony of the Church. By so doing she can be conscious of being in full harmony with the teaching of Jesus himself (cf. Mt 22:21), as well as with the Church of the martyrs of all time. The ancient Church naturally prayed for the emperors and political leaders out of duty (cf. I Tm 2:2); but while she prayed for the emperors, she refused to worship them and thereby clearly rejected the religion of the State.

[Is the modern State’s principle of religious freedom really founded on the truth that faith requires personal assent and cannot be imposed? Or is it founded, at least in the popular imagination, on the principle that men should not go to war over religion? Of course, the “Wars of Religion” were about religion in name only, but the myth that they were about Catholic and Protestants killing each other over doctrine was exploited as propaganda at the time and persists in the popular imagination. Modern States were founded on State religions—in opposition to Catholicism and the universal jurisdiction of the papacy that ensured a dynamic of allegiances. Against the medieval world with its allegiances to family, parish, lord, bishop, king, and pope, the modern State reduced allegiances to one: the State itself.]

The martyrs of the early Church died for their faith in that God who was revealed in Jesus Christ, and for this very reason they also died for freedom of conscience and the freedom to profess one’s own faith—a profession that no State can impose but which, instead, can only be claimed with God’s grace in freedom of conscience. A missionary Church known for proclaiming her message to all peoples must necessarily work for the freedom of the faith. She desires to transmit the gift of the truth that exists for one and all.

At the same time, she assures peoples and their Governments that she does not wish to destroy their identity and culture by doing so, but to give them, on the contrary, a response which, in their innermost depths, they are waiting for—a response with which the multiplicity of cultures is not lost but instead unity between men and women increases and thus also peace between peoples.

The Second Vatican Council, with its new definition of the relationship between the faith of the Church and certain essential elements of modern thought, has reviewed or even corrected certain historical decisions, but in this apparent discontinuity it has actually preserved and deepened her inmost nature and true identity.

The Church, both before and after the Council, was and is the same Church, one, holy, catholic and apostolic, journeying on through time; she continues “her pilgrimage amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God,” proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes (cf. Lumen Gentium, n. 8).

Those who expected that with this fundamental “yes” to the modern era all tensions would be dispelled and that the “openness towards the world” accordingly achieved would transform everything into pure harmony, had underestimated the inner tensions as well as the contradictions inherent in the modern epoch.

[A fundamental “yes.” Where is the evangelical basis for “openness towards the world”? Where does the Faith tell us to embrace the world? Did not St James rather say in his Letter: “Unfaithful creatures! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (4:4).]

They had underestimated the perilous frailty of human nature which has been a threat to human progress in all the periods of history and in every historical constellation. These dangers, with the new possibilities and new power of man over matter and over himself, did not disappear but instead acquired new dimensions: a look at the history of the present day shows this clearly.

In our time too, the Church remains a “sign that will be opposed” (Lk 2:34)—not without reason did Pope John Paul II, then still a Cardinal, give this title to the theme for the Spiritual Exercises he preached in 1976 to Pope Paul VI and the Roman Curia. The Council could not have intended to abolish the Gospel’s opposition to human dangers and errors.

[Is not this last line so obvious to anyone who has read the Gospels that the need the make it rather casts doubt on the Council’s clarity of continuity with the Church? While Gaudium et spes contains occasional warnings, its overall tone is quite optimistic and sympathetic to the world.]

On the contrary, it was certainly the Council’s intention to overcome erroneous or superfluous contradictions in order to present to our world the requirement of the Gospel in its full greatness and purity.

[How is speaking the Council’s “intention” different from speaking of its “spirit”?]

The steps the Council took towards the modern era which had rather vaguely been presented as “openness to the world,” belong in short to the perennial problem of the relationship between faith and reason that is re-emerging in ever new forms. The situation that the Council had to face can certainly be compared to events of previous epochs.

[Benedict acknowledges that the slogan “openness to the world” is vague. He places the Council’s re-evaluation of the relationship between Church and the world in the historical perspective of the relationship between faith and reason, and proceeds to a brief historical survey:]

In his First Letter, St Peter urged Christians always to be ready to give an answer (apo-logia) to anyone who asked them for the logos, the reason for their faith (cf. 3:15).

This meant that biblical faith had to be discussed and come into contact with Greek culture and learn to recognize through interpretation the separating line but also the convergence and the affinity between them in the one reason, given by God.

When, in the 13th century through the Jewish and Arab philosophers, Aristotelian thought came into contact with Medieval Christianity formed in the Platonic tradition and faith and reason risked entering an irreconcilable contradiction, it was above all St Thomas Aquinas who mediated the new encounter between faith and Aristotelian philosophy, thereby setting faith in a positive relationship with the form of reason prevalent in his time. There is no doubt that the wearing dispute between modern reason and the Christian faith, which had begun negatively with the Galileo case, went through many phases, but with the Second Vatican Council the time came when broad new thinking was required.[Again, why “required”?]

Its content was certainly only roughly traced in the conciliar texts, but this determined its essential direction, so that the dialogue between reason and faith, particularly important today, found its bearings on the basis of the Second Vatican Council.

This dialogue must now be developed with great openmindedness but also with that clear discernment that the world rightly expects of us in this very moment. Thus, today we can look with gratitude at the Second Vatican Council: if we interpret and implement it guided by a right hermeneutic, it can be and can become increasingly powerful for the ever necessary renewal of the Church.

[Benedict argues for a balance between openmindedness and discernment. We might recall St. Paul’s admonition to the Thessalonians: “Test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thess 5:21).]

[CLOSING REMARKS:]

Lastly, should I perhaps recall once again that 19 April this year on which, to my great surprise, the College of Cardinals elected me as the Successor of Pope John Paul II, as a Successor of St Peter on the chair of the Bishop of Rome? Such an office was far beyond anything I could ever have imagined as my vocation. It was, therefore, only with a great act of trust in God that I was able to say in obedience my “yes” to this choice. Now as then, I also ask you all for your prayer, on whose power and support I rely.

[“Should I perhaps recall”: what a winning combination of humor and humility!]

At the same time, I would like to warmly thank all those who have welcomed me and still welcome me with great trust, goodness and understanding, accompanying me day after day with their prayers.

Christmas is now at hand. The Lord God did not counter the threats of history with external power, as we human beings would expect according to the prospects of our world. His weapon is goodness. He revealed himself as a child, born in a stable. This is precisely how he counters with his power, completely different from the destructive powers of violence. In this very way he saves us. In this very way he shows us what saves.

[This remark recalls Benedict’s case for religious freedom. Christ did not wage war over the Truth, nor did he force himself upon anyone. Rather, He to Whom all is subject made himself a meek and mild child, powerless from womb to tomb. Powerless, that is, from a worldly perspective. For the saving power of Christ, Pope Benedict reminds us, is in his passio.]

In these days of Christmas, let us go to meet him full of trust, like the shepherds, like the Wise Men of the East. Let us ask Mary to lead us to the Lord. Let us ask him himself to make his face shine upon us. Let us ask him also to defeat the violence in the world and to make us experience the power of his goodness. With these sentiments, I warmly impart to you all my Apostolic Blessing.

Peccator, Sacramento, California, 7 March 2013, Thursday after the Third Sunday of Lent