Church and World
Crisis of Vocations
Le Figaro (a French daily newspaper) reported about the meeting of the French Episcopal Conference, held in Lourdes from November 2 to 8, 2008. “While I ordain two priests a year,” said Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, archbishop of Lyons, “I bury twenty.” “Forty per cent of donors to Church contributions are over 80 years old,” admitted Bishop Roland Minnerath, bishop of Dijon. No wonder therefore that, faced with this grim picture, a spokesman for the bishops notes that “Everyone seems to be affected–priests, deacons and lay people.”
In six years, the number of foreign priests working in France has doubled; this speaks volumes about the magnitude of the crisis of vocations. Ninety men were ordained in France in 2008, compared to 101 in 2007 and 94 in 2006.
What solutions have the bishops found?
They first heard the report of their colleague, Bishop Claude Dagens, bishop of Angouleme, who refuses to set up “pastoral strategies,” and offers three ways to renew the Church in France:
1. Start a new reflection on the concept of “Catholic tradition.”
2. Renew “the membership of the Church” definitely leaving aside “the outdated idea” of a “forced membership” in the parish.
3. Develop communication.
The French bishops also heard speeches from Archbishop Dominique Lebrun, bishop of Saint-Etienne, and Bishop Guy Bagnard, bishop of Belley-Ars. The first hopes to create “missionary societies” in his diocese where the priests live in community. The latter could explain the reasons and results of their more traditional pastoral options; he has established a diocesan seminary at Ars and promoted the stability of the parish priest, not without experiencing sharp criticism from some of his colleagues.
Following these discussions, Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, archbishop of Bordeaux, admitted that the bishops had not yet “common beliefs about a scenario or model to promote,” but that they knew that the current organization was no longer tenable.
Cardinal Vingt-Trois said in his closing speech: “Our discussions of these days do not provide us with models which are ready to use, but they give us food for thought on our situations; the temptation needs to be rejected to let ourselves be overwhelmed by the regrets for what has been yesterday or by the anxiety to maintain at all costs what we have known.” Clearly, there must be no return to what has been, although we do not know what the future of the Church in France will be with a disappearing clergy.
Commentary
Note that, without saying so, the bishops of France have raised during their fall meeting the question which was hitherto a taboo: the dizzying crisis of vocations raises the question of the survival of the Church in France. A bishop interviewed in private four years ago on the subject responded that he had asked Cardinal Ricard, then president of the EFC, to put the item on the agenda. He was told that many bishops do not want to hear about the vocation crisis because it was depressing. It seems that the facts and figures are now taken into account despite their depressing effect…
However, what is not yet seen is the responsibility that churchmen themselves have in this unpre-cedented crisis.
They were aware in Lourdes of the contemporary “religious indifference”–which is undeniable–and they proposed a better “visibility of the Church”–which is highly desirable. But they forgot to examine their consciences over 40 years of pastoral “burial” when priests were wearing secular clothes and adopting the language and habits of secular life.
Is religious indifference not due, at least in part, to the lack of separation from the world and caused by the clergy itself in the name of “openness to the world”?
But the burial was not only that of dress. It has not only affected the vocabulary and the manners of the “renewed” clergy after Vatican II. There was also a philosophical and theological burial, i.e. a secularization of Catholic thought.
(Source: DICI
)
Holy See Receives Anglicans Who So Desire
On October 20, Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Archbishop Joseph Augustine Di Noia, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, presented to the journalists a Note concerning Personal Ordinariates for the Anglicans who contemplate “uniting with the Catholic Church.”
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which wrote the text, then announced the “preparation of an Apostolic Constitution” to respond to “the legitimate aspirations addressed to the Holy See by groups of Anglican clergy and faithful from all over the world, which desire to enter into full and visible communion.” Cardinal Levada emphasized that “the initiative originated from various Anglican groups which had declared that they shared the same Catholic Faith, as it is expressed in the Catechism of the Church, and that they accepted the Office of Peter as an element that Christ wanted for the Church.” He likewise indicated that the requests come from 20 to 30 bishops. There will not be, he continued, a global agreement with the association Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), but with its “faithful,” totaling 500,000 persons worldwide.
The cardinal explained that “Benedict XVI [hoped] that the Anglican priests and faithful desirous to unite with the Catholic Church [would find] in the canonical structure an opportunity to preserve such Anglican traditions as are dear to them and in conformity with the Catholic faith.” He specified that these faithful had broken away from the Anglican Churches which had decided to ordain women and homosexuals to the priesthood or the episcopate, and to bless homosexual unions.
On the same day, the head of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, and Archbishop Vincent Gerard Nichols, archbishop of Westminster and president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, released a joint declaration. Therein they specified that the announced Apostolic Constitution is “the consequence of ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion,” begun 40 years earlier, and that this development is “further recognition of the substantial overlap in faith, doctrine and spirituality between the Catholic Church and the Anglican tradition.”
On October 30, Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Press Office of the Holy See, indicated to the news agency Imedia that Rowan Williams would meet with Benedict XVI at the Vatican on November 21, 2009. The meeting will take place on the occasion of his visit for the ceremonies of the centennial of the birth of Dutch Cardinal Johannes Willebrands (1909-2006) a pioneer of ecumenism. “It is positive that they may meet,” Fr. Lombardi explained, thinking that it as the “sign of a good dialogue existing between the two Christian denominations.” Rowan Williams, who has been accused by his peers for having approved an act perceived as a division of the Anglican Communion, likewise explained that he did not consider the decision of the Catholic Church as “an aggressive act,” but as “cooperation”; and together with the Primate of the Catholic Church in Great Britain, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, he was rejoicing over this “official dialogue.” “It has been years that some groups, like the Traditional Anglican Communion for instance, have approached Catholics to join them. Others, who are still in the Anglican Church, are thinking about it. It is no secret that the issue of women bishops is a controversial subject,” Rowan Williams also added.
On October 31, Fr. Lombardi answered the “observations from supposedly well-informed sources” of Vatican observer Andrea Tornielli from the Italian daily Il Giornale, according to whom “a serious root issue, to wit the disagreement over whether celibacy will be the norm for the future [Catholic–Ed.] clergy” from the Anglican Tradition, explained the delay in the release of the Apostolic Constitution. The director of the Press Office of the Holy See made known that Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, specified that the “delay” was “of a strictly technical order, to ensure the uniformity in language and canonical references.” Moreover, Cardinal Levada also added that if he had been asked for precisions, he would “gladly have clarified any doubt concerning (his) declarations during the press conference” given this past October 20. The high ranking prelate also said that there was “not matter for such speculation,” before affirming that “nobody at the Vatican” had “mentioned such a problem” to him.
On November 9, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Cœtibus, concerning the institution of personal ordinariates for Anglicans entering full communion with the Catholic Church, as well as the Complementary Norms which were signed by Cardinal William Joseph Levada and by Archbishop Luis F. Ladaria, Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The two documents were dated November 4 and published in Italian and in English.
A communiqué from Cardinal Levada accompanying the two texts specified that “the Apostolic Constitution published today introduces a canonical structure that provides for such corporate reunion by establishing Personal Ordinariates, which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony.” The Complementary Norms would be used for a correct application of the process. This Constitution opens “a new path for the promotion of Christian unity, by acknowledging, at the same time a legitimate diversity in the expression of our common Faith.” The cardinal added that it was not “an initiative from the Holy See” but “a generous response from the Holy Father to the legitimate aspirations of these Anglican groups.” And he continued: “The provision of this new structure is consistent with the commitment to ecumenical dialogue, which continues to be a priority for the Catholic Church.” The possible presence, evoked in the Apostolic Constitution, of some married priests in the Personal Ordinariates in no way means that there is any change in the discipline of the Church concerning priestly celibacy, which, as the Second Vatican stated, is a sign, both of the pastoral charity and a pre-indication of the Kingdom of God, the cardinal said.
In this new apostolic constitution, the pope set up a canonical structure in the form of “Personal Ordinariates for the Anglicans entering full communion with the Catholic Church.” Thirteen dispositions deal with the formation of the ordinariates which, according to § 3 of the first part “possesses public juridic personality by the law itself; it is juridically comparable to a diocese.” Its “power is to be exercised jointly with that of the local Diocesan Bishop, in those cases provided for in the Complementary Norms” of candidates to the sacramental order, the erection with the approval of the Holy See of new institutes of consecrated life and of societies of apostolic life as well of parishes, and the ad limina visit of Ordinaries…. The Complementary Notes deal with the dependence upon the Holy See, the relationships with the Bishops’ Conferences and of the diocesan bishops, of the Ordinary, of the ex-Anglican faithful of the ordinariate, their clergy and their bishops, of the Council of government, of the Pastoral Council and of the personal parishes.
It will be allowed to keep the liturgical books proper to the Anglican Tradition, which will have been approved by the Holy See “to preserve the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared.” According to the Apostolic Constitution, a personal ordinariate whose official will be a former Anglican priest or bishop appointed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and not by the Congregation in charge of bishops, will be entrusted with the charge of overseeing and pastoral leadership of these groups of faithful. The future ordinariates will have a structure similar to that of the military dioceses.
This canonical model “unique in the universal Church” foresees the “ordination as Catholic priests of former married Anglican priests.” For the first time in history, a Christian community, born from the Reform, may thus be admitted again by the Catholic Church. But for “historical and ecumenical” reasons, the note from the Congregation recalls that episcopal consecration of married men is not authorized in the Catholic Church, nor in the Orthodox Churches. Hence, the Constitution establishes that the “bishop can be an unmarried priest or bishop.” The seminarians of the ordinariate will be trained “together with Catholic seminarians.” It must be noted that the Roman document does not speak of re-ordinations, as some journalists said, but of “ordination as Catholic priests,” for the Apostolic Bull Apostolicæ Curæ (September 18, 1896) by Pope Leo XIII clearly affirmed that Anglican ordinations were null and void: “Ordinations carried out according to the Anglican rite have been, and are, absolutely null and utterly void.”
Article 6 of the Apostolic Constitution deals with the status of priests and seminarians. “Those who ministered as Anglican deacons, priests, or bishops, and who fulfill the requisites established by canon law and are not impeded by irregularities or other impediments may be accepted by the Ordinary as candidates for Holy Orders in the Catholic Church. In the case of married ministers, the norms established in the Encyclical Letter of Pope Paul VI Sacerdotalis coelibatus, n. 42 and in the Statement In June are to be observed. Unmarried ministers must submit to the norm of clerical celibacy of CIC can. 277, §1.”
Lastly, “The Ordinary, in full observance of the discipline of celibate clergy in the Latin Church, as a rule (pro regula) will admit only celibate men to the order of presbyter. He may also petition the Roman Pontiff, as a derogation from can. 277, §1, for the admission of married men to the order of presbyter on a case by case basis, according to objective criteria approved by the Holy See.” In the press release published by the Press Office of the Holy See, Cardinal Levada moreover explained that “this article (was to) be understood in the logic of the usual custom of the Church.” He also specified that the case of already married Anglican seminarians would be “jointly examined by the Personal Ordinariate and the Bishops’ Conference and submitted to the approval of the Holy See.”
It is to be hoped that the derogation granted to ease up the return of Anglicans into the Catholic Church will not be the opportunity expected by the progressives who are militating in favor of the ordination of married men and the ordination of already married priests. To prevent this, the precautions taken in the study of each particular case will have to be not only a matter of words but of very concrete reality.
Moreover, Fr. Lombardi specified that the Holy See did not wish to constitute “a new ritual Church” or “a new rite within the Catholic Church of Latin Tradition.” But “it was only a variant inside the Latin rite, yet not a distinct Church with a distinct rite.” The publication of this document “is in no way contrary to the ecumenical commitment in the relationships with the Anglican Communion, which continues as previously,” said the director of the Press Office of the Holy See.
Press Review
In an opinion column published on Wednesday, October 28, simultaneously in Le Monde, The Guardian and La Repubblica, Hans Küng reacted heatedly against Benedict XVI’s decision. For “After Pope Benedict XVI’s clash with the Jews and the Muslims, Protestants and reform-oriented Catholics, it is now the turn of the Anglican communion,” Hans Küng explained. He considers the pope’s gesture as “a dramatic changing of course: steering away from the well-proven ecumenical strategy of eye-level dialogue and honest understanding,” lamented the ultra-progressive Swiss theologian. He denounced a “luring away of Anglican priests” which he called “unecumenical.” This decision, in his eyes, shows that “Pope Benedict is set upon restoring the Roman imperium. He makes no concessions to the Anglican communion. On the contrary, he wants to preserve the medieval, centralistic Roman system for all ages–even if this makes impossible the reconciliation of the Christian churches in fundamental questions. Evidently the papal primacy –which Pope Paul VI admitted was the greatest stumbling block to the unity of the churches–does not function as the ‘rock of unity,’ ” he thinks.
Hans Küng saw several dramatic consequences in what he considers “a conservative influx [of Anglicans–Ed.]”: “First, a further weakening of the Anglican church” and the “widespread disturbance of the Anglican faithful” as to whether Anglican priests are validly ordained. “Third, the irritation of the Catholic clergy and laity. Discontent over the ongoing resistance to reform” concerning the ordination of married men. “And now these Catholic priests are expected to tolerate married, convert priests alongside themselves. When they want themselves to marry, should they first turn Anglican, and then return to the church?” wrote Hans Küng. And the dissident theologian concluded: “Just as we have seen over many centuries–in the East-West schism of the 11th century, in the 16th-century Reformation and in the First Vatican Council of the 19th century–the Roman thirst for power divides Christianity and damages its own church.”
In an editorial dated Thursday, October 29, Giovanni Maria Vian, director of L’Osservatore Romano, declared that Hans Küng’s reaction was “far from reality” and that he had “caricatured Benedict XVI’s decision, depicted it with exaggerated colors, and simply rewrote it.” The director of the Holy See’s daily assures that the opening to the Anglicans was first “a gesture aiming at rebuilding the unity willed by Christ, which acknowledging the long and painful ecumenical path traveled in this direction.” But “Küng deformed all this and presented it outrageously as if it were cunning Vatican diplomacy, to be read according to political criteria, obviously of the extreme right-wing.” And he went on: “It is not necessary to underline the falseness and the inaccuracies in this latest text by Küng, whose tone does no honor to his personal history.…”
In the Anglican Church of Malaysia, Bishop Ng Moon Hing, of the Anglican diocese of West Malaysia since 2006, quoted by Churches of Asia, is a fervent partisan of ecumenism. Relationships with the local Catholic Church are excellent, he rejoiced, and added that Anglican and Catholic officials meet every month out of concern for dialogue, especially within the framework of the Christian Federation of Malaysia and of the inter-religious forums. Yet, he emphasized, we must distinguish rapprochement with the Catholic Church from “integration” into it, which is “quite another question.”
Rome’s decision came as the Anglican Communion is in full crisis and on the verge of schism because of divergences concerning, among others, women’s ordinations, the union or ordinations of homosexuals to the priesthood or the episcopacy. It is especially this last issue which caused Bishop Ng Moon Hing to disapprove of some of the recent orientations taken by his church and approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual head of the Anglican Communion. Thus he agrees with other Anglican officials, numerous in Asia, who rise against what they call “theological deviations,” especially since 2003, when the first homosexual bishop living with his partner, Gene Robinson, was “consecrated” in the US Anglican Church. The Anglican Church of Malaysia is sensitive to this opening gesture of the pope, the Anglican prelate said, but “it cannot answer it immediately, without having more details.”
“The circulation of persons between the two Churches will cause ecumenism to move forward,” declared Abraham Kim Gwang-joon, general provincial secretary of the Anglican Church of Korea, and president of the Committee for Ecumenism of the National Council of Churches (Protestant) of Korea, an early worker in favor of unity and interreligious dialogue. The Anglican Church of Korea had strongly reacted to the recent change in the spiritual orientation of the Anglican Communion, especially by opposing the ordination of homosexual priests. Today, the Korean community eyes favorably the decision to welcome within the Roman Catholic Church “the members of the clergy or the faithful who think themselves in disagreement with their institution and prefer to follow Rome’s doctrinal line” while keeping their specific traditions.
(Source: DICI)
Vatican Visitation of Women Religious to Look at Fidelity to Doctrine and Charism
Mother M. Clare Millea, the sister in charge of conducting the Vatican visitation, sent the working document, known as an Instrumentum Laboris, to the hundreds of religious superiors around the US on July 28, along with a letter of explanation. With the issuance of the working document, the first phase of the visitation has come to a close.
The Instrumentum Laboris contains an introduction to the nature and purpose of the visitation, the four phases of the process, and references to the principal Vatican documents.
The document also presents “reflection topics” for all members of religious orders to consider in order to prepare for the visitation. Topics include the religious identity of the respondents’ order, its governance and financial administration, and its spiritual and common life.
Questions are also presented concerning vocation promotion, admission and formation policies.
The reflections ask respondents about their concerns for the future of their religious order and how sisters in their order understand and express the “vows and virtues” of poverty, chastity and obedience. They inquire about whether daily Mass and frequent confession are a “priority” for sisters and how an order expresses the Eucharist as the source of their spiritual and communal life.
Liturgical norms are also one topic of inquiry, as is the practice of the Liturgy of the Hours, the manner of an order’s dress, and the order’s provisions for care of aging and ill sisters.
“Is your institute moving toward a new form of religious life? If so, how is this new form specifically related to the Church’s understanding of religious life?” one reflection asks.
Such questions recall concerns voiced earlier this year by Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, concerning the “tenor and content” of addresses at the annual assemblies of the 1,500-member Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR).
In the keynote address of LCWR’s 2007 assembly, Sinsinawa Dominican Sister Laurie Brink spoke with apparent approval about religious congregations “moving beyond the Church, even beyond Jesus.” Saying some congregations have “grown beyond the bounds of institutional religion,” she described them as “post-Christian” in most respects.
The LCWR is undergoing a separate inquiry being led by Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo, Ohio.
Speaking to Vatican Radio on Tuesday, Cardinal Franc Rode shed more light on the reasons behind the ongoing apostolic visitation of female U.S. religious orders, saying that a “secularist mentality” and a “feminist spirit” evident in the communities were among the factors leading to the visitation.
The apostolic visitation was launched earlier this year with the stated aim of helping strengthen religious communities in the U.S., which are suffering from a sharp decline in vocations.
In his Tuesday interview with Vatican Radio, Cardinal Rode said “some criticism arrived from United States and an important representative of the U.S. Church warned me about certain irregularities or deficiencies in the lives of American women religious.”
Though Cardinal Rode did not say who the representative was, he also revealed the problems include “a certain secularist mentality that has spread among these religious families, perhaps even a certain ‘feminist spirit.’”
“There a desire was manifested to take steps to find a remedy to this situation that many say is not as good as that of past decades,” Cardinal Rode explained to Vatican Radio.
Cardinal Rode also addressed the general criticisms of the visitations, specifically the belief that they are somehow fueled by mistrust of the women religious communities. “There are indeed misunderstandings,” he said, “as if it were an act of mistrust of the U.S. women religious congregations or as if it were a general criticism of their work. It is not about that.”
The prefect reiterated his earlier statement that the purpose of the visitation is “mainly to see the current situation of feminine consecrated life in the United States,” and that, “it is an obvious fact that the number of American women religious has dropped a lot, that their presence in schools, health and other social institutions is greatly diminished. The question then is: what are the causes for this decline in numbers and this much weaker presence in the Church and society in the United States?”
The apostolic visitations are currently in phase two of a four-phase process.
(Source: Catholic News Agency)
The reason the Vatican is doing the visitations is clear enough from the commentary of Cardinal Rode. If the Catholic Church wants to build confidence and trust among the faithful, a reform of religious life is urgently needed (probably not only among female orders in the US, although it might be a necessary beginning–and a litmus test to see whether certain parts of the Church are “reformable” or whether they are “lost” to scandals and anti-Christian movements).
Two examples may illustrate the questionable ways of female religious nuns in the US.
“In France there is a ‘Joan of Arc Association’ that presses for the priesthood for women, while in the United States, without any objection from the bishops, there is an active national convention of American religious sisters that makes the same demand. The movement’s arrogance was displayed, and the world was amazed, on the occasion of John Paul II’s visit to America, when Sr. Theresa Kane, the convention’s president, confronted the Supreme Pontiff unannounced claiming women had a right to be admitted to the priesthood, and urged Christians to stop giving any help to the Church until that right was recognized… (Iota Unum, p.202).
Dr. Gyula Mago, in an article entitled Feminism as Antichurch (The Angelus, October 2002), writes about Mary Daly, a leading feminist and former Catholic religious sister and “witch”:
“Most feminists are products of a standardized indoctrination called ‘women’s studies.’ (A large grant from the Ford Foundation in 1972 gave initial legitimacy to these programs, and now the majority of accredited colleges and universities have a program in ‘women’s studies.’) We prefer to examine a feminist who can be expected to understand better the import of what she is saying, having been a Thomist theologian before becoming ‘unhinged’ (her own favorite expression describing herself) and turning into a leading light of feminism.
“Mary Daly, a former nun, was the first American woman to have earned a doctorate in Catholic theology (in Fribourg in 1963). Her Catholic publications are The Problem of Speculative Theology (Washington: Thomist Press, 1965), and Natural Knowledge of God in the Philosophy of Jacques Maritain (Rome: Officium Libri Catholici, 1966).
“But she was really formed by all the dissidents she encountered in Fribourg. In 1965 she visited the Second Vatican Council, and from that visit ‘she came home breathing fire.’ (Donna Steichen, Ungodly Rage: The Hidden Face of Catholic Feminism [Ignatius Press, 1991], p.298.) Her next book published in 1968, The Church and the Second Sex, is considered a landmark by feminists. Although most of it is not original (builds on Simone de Beauvoir, Teilhard de Chardin, Paul Tillich, Hans Küng, Gregory Baum, Harvey Cox, and many feminists), it contains in rudimentary form most of the ideas still current in religious feminism. In this book Daly is trying strenuously to neutralize the Eternal Woman of Getrud von Le Fort, which strongly influenced Catholic women since 1934, and keeps on doing so even today. All her arguments add up to the feeble assertion that ‘there is no such thing as an enduring symbolic significance of woman’ because everything about woman is constantly changing. This coming from the most adulated of the feminist theoreticians shows that their thinking is nothing but an imitation of Marxism.”
(Source: Angelus Press)
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