Paven

Mye skryt for pave Benedikt

Katolsk, Paven /

Pope-Benedict-XVI-humility
Det er i dag 11 år siden kardinal Ratzinger ble valgt til pave og tok navnet Benedikt XVI. John Allen skriver om dette og sier også pave at Benedikt kan komme til å bli kjent for paven som foretok de store reformene. Han skriver bl.a.:

… When the American scandals erupted under St. John Paul II, the deniers had control in the Vatican and the reformers were an embattled minority. By the end of Benedict’s papacy, the situation was the exact reverse: The deniers hadn’t gone away, but they’d been driven underground.

While he was still at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it was then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who pushed for new rules to weed out abuser priests in the Pope John Paul II years and who wrote those rules into law as pope.

It was also Ratzinger who unleashed his top prosectuor, then-Msgr. Charles Scicluna, on Mexican Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado despite the cleric’s powerful network of Vatican allies, and who sentenced Maciel to a life of “prayer and penance” in 2006.

Later, Benedict was the first pope to meet with victims of sex abuse, the first pope to apologize for the crisis in his own name, and the first pope to dedicate an entire document to the abuse crisis in his 2010 letter to the Catholics of Ireland.

Benedict laicized almost 400 priests in 2011 and 2012 alone for reasons related to sex abuse, which is almost 1 in every 1,000 Catholic priests in the world flushed out of the system in just two years.

To be sure, there was plenty of work left undone at the end of Benedict’s term, but the broad direction had been set.

Although Pope Francis is rightly celebrated for his humility and simplicity, the truth is that Benedict XVI contributed significantly to the “demystification” of the papal office well before Francis stepped onto the scene.

Here’s an example. Shortly after his election, Francis returned to the Casa del Clero in Rome where he’d been staying prior to the conclave in order to pack his own bag and pay his own bill, an episode that became part of his “man of the people” image.

Yet Benedict did much the same thing 11 years ago, returning to his apartment to pack up and then going around to thank the nuns who lived in the building for being good neighbors. In other words, Benedict was every bit as humble as his successor – arguably, in some ways, more so – even if that wasn’t always clear from his public image.

Benedict also humanized the papacy with his capacity to admit fault and to ask for help.

His 2009 letter to the bishops of the world after the Holocaust-denying traditionalist debacle is one of the most heart-felt, plaintive documents written by a papal hand you’ll ever see, and in it Benedict candidly acknowledged that he and his Vatican team had dropped the ball – not on the substance of the decision, which he defended, but on the way it was handled and communicated.

Finally, of course, there’s the fact that Benedict delivered the single most stunning act of papal humility in at least the last 500 years: His Feb. 11, 2013, decision to resign.

Pope Francis has said that in the wake of that act, resignation has now become an “institution” rather than a historical anomaly. That doesn’t even mean every future papacy will end in resignation, because some no doubt will still die in office, either as a conscious choice or simply by dint of circumstance.

Nevertheless, Benedict clearly answered the question of whether a pope even could resign in relatively normal historical circumstances – in other words, when not facing schism or invading armies – with a resounding “yes,” thereby, in ecclesiological terms, moving the papacy a huge step closer to being reinserted within the College of Bishops.

No doubt, Francis and whoever follows him will continue to build on these precedents. The fact always will remain, however, that the precedents were set by the “Great Reformer.”

Forståelig at folk blir forvirret når de leser hva paven sier om ekteskapet

Katolsk, Paven, Teologi /

I dokumentet «Amoris lætitia» har pave Frans bevisst valgt å uttale seg uklart, ser det ut til – så da kan man letter forstå oppslag som det jeg kritiserte i går. Hos Sandro Magister kan man bl.a. lese:

The deliberately vague, polyvalent form of many passages of “Amoris Lætitia” finds confirmation in the incredible diversification of comments. It should suffice to cite three conflicting ones from among the thousand that the post-synodal exhortation has prompted.

On one side is an enthusiastic Alberto Melloni – the Church historian who is also the current leader of the progressive “school of Bologna” – who hails the exhortation as the “epochal” act that has definitively liberated marriage from the “juridical-philosophical cage” of the Council of Trent with its “cold and lifeless doctrine”:

On the other side is Juan José Pérez-Soba, a professor at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at the Pontifical Lateran University, according to whom instead, just as in the “Relatio finalis” of the synod, neither in “Amoris Lætitia” is there any explicit admission of the divorced and remarried to communion, contrary to all the expectations:

In the middle is Robert Royal, founder and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, who applauds the exhortation for its “vigorous defense of Church teaching on contraception, abortion, homosexuality, reproductive technologies, the education of children,” but at the same time criticizes chapter 8, which “hesitantly and ambivalently would like to depart from the Church’s constant teaching since the beginning, on communion for the divorced and remarried”. …

I denne artikkelen presenterer Magister også synet til P. Antonio Spadaro, S.J., som har en svært progressiv forståelse av dokumentet – og som på mange måter står pave Frans nær.

Og John Allen skriver her om hvor viktige noen av fotnotene i pavens dokument er:

Numbers 336 and 351 in Amoris Laetitia may go down as among the most famous footnotes in papal history, since that’s where the key language occurs about how discernment in cases of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics could lead to a change in their ability to receive the sacraments.

If the devil is always in the details, in the case of Amoris Laetitia, one might say, the fireworks are in the footnotes.

Fr Longenecker skriver også om dokumentet, bl.a.:

… let us consider chapter eight which people at both extremes of the American Catholic church have jumped on. In chapter eight the pope discusses appropriate pastoral approaches to those whose marital situations are “less than the Catholic ideal.” The progressives have claimed that the document allows communion for divorced and remarried people and are delighted. Conservatives agree but are dismayed. …

… In saying that some conservatives have over reacted, it must be said that some progressives have too. I had an email from one person who assumed there would be a new procedure to grant divorced and remarried Catholics a dispensation to receive communion. They wondered how a priest would go about “making exceptions” to the rule for couples in his care.

I don’t think chapter eight says any of that at all. Here, in a few points, is what the Pope is trying very hard to communicate to us:

1. Modern Marriage is a Mess – for many complicated reasons marriage in the modern world is in crisis. As a result there are many of our people who are the walking wounded.

2. The Church is Global – the Marriage Mess is different in different parts of the world for a complex series of reasons. … Cultures are different. Socio economic conditions are different. Many things are different.

3. One Pastoral Method Does Not Fit All – While we uphold the simple definition of Christian marriage as between one man and one woman for life, the situation of a polygamous culture in Africa and a no fault divorce culture in America and a machismo culture in Argentina and a cohabiting culture in Europe means that while we uphold the ideal, matching our lives to that ideal is increasingly complex and it is impossible to set out one pastoral methodology which will apply to everyone.

4. The Church is Welcoming Not Excluding – Pope Francis wants us to open the doors to those who are caught up in the Marriage Mess. This does not mean we sacrifice or compromise the ideal, but it does mean that we listen to the real life situations of real people. …

5. Priests and people should Work With the Wounded – Some people who are divorced and re-married have simply flaunted the church’s rules and could care less about the faith. Pope Francis recognizes this and condemns them. On the other hand, many are genuinely wounded, genuinely repentant and genuinely want to belong to the church and follow Jesus Christ despite their “irregular relationships.” In other words, they want to find peace, they’ve messed up and they know it and they want to find reconciliation and the way forward.

6. Those Who Fall Short of the Ideal Should be Integrated – Pope Francis want us to welcome and integrate those whose relationships are “less than ideal”. We should remember that those whose relationship are “less than ideal” are not just the divorced and remarried. There are numerous complex relationships that fall short of the Catholic ideal. These people should be welcomed into the church and asked to participate in prayer, Bible study, charitable activity, fellowship and full life in the parish except for the reception of communion

7. Integration Does Not Demand Reception of Communion – there is a very interesting observation over at Church Militant in which the author specifically quotes Pope Francis in his press conference on the way back from Mexico and the Pope specifically says “No Communion for the Divorced and Remarried.” Check out the article.

Mange reaksjoner på paven dokument «Amoris lætitia»

Katolsk, Paven, Teologi /

Fra det engelske Catholic Herald tar jeg med tre artikler om «Amoris lætitia». Den første artikkelen helter Amoris Laetitia: What people are saying, og den starter slik:

Church leaders have welcomed the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, which was published on Friday.

Cardinal Wilfred Napier of Durban said: “What is new about this exhortation is its tone,” that it exhorted ministers “to be warm and caring in the way they deal with people in difficult circumstances”. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin identified “a unifying thread: The Gospel of the family is challenging and demanding, but … with the grace of God and his mercy, is attainable and fulfilling, enriching and worthwhile”.

Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane described the heart of the interview thus: “A genuinely pastoral approach to marriage and the family begins with the facts.” For Cardinal O’Malley of Boston, “Pope Francis challenges us to approach the weak with compassion.” ….

Den andre artikkelen heter When apostolic exhortations are too long all we are left with is spin, og inneholder bl.a.:

… the Pope’s recent apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, weighs in at 60,000 words or thereabouts. According to Fr Raymond de Souza, this makes Amoris Laetitia the longest document of the Papal Magisterium ever. The encyclicals of St John Paul II, which have been of lasting value to the Church, are long by the standards of his predecessors, but Amoris Laetitia beats all records.

This strikes me as unfortunate. When one writes anything – novel, article, or apostolic exhortation – one does so in the hope that it will be read as widely as possible. But when one’s apostolic exhortation is of record breaking length, the chances of it finding a wide readership become correspondingly slim. It simply won’t be read by the man and woman in the pew. The only people who will read it will be professional theologians and commentators, and many of the latter will skim read it, and mine it for quotations. Thus most people who hear about Amoris Laetitia will do so at second hand, and even then in a way that may well warp the meaning of the original. Given the unmanageability of the work itself, what we will be left with is the spin; neither will we be able to counsel people to read the original for themselves and make their own judgment.

Papal documents have been getting longer and longer of late. Perhaps one needs to remember that these are letters, like the pastoral letters that our bishops address to the faithful a few times a year and which are read out in church. A Papal letter than could be read out in all churches would really make people sit up and pay attention. …

Den tredje artikkelen heter Cardinal Burke: ‘Amoris Laetitia does not change Church teaching’, og her leser vi bl.a.:

… cardinal Burke said that “Pope Francis makes clear, from the beginning, that the post-synodal apostolic exhortation is not an act of the magisterium” and that “it is written as a reflection of the Holy Father on the work of the last two sessions of the Synod of Bishops (on the family).”

“A post-synodal apostolic exhortation, by its very nature, does not propose new doctrine and discipline but applies the perennial doctrine and discipline to the situation of the world at the time,” Cardinal Burke wrote.

The cardinal continued: “With the publication of Amoris Laetitia, the task of pastors and other teachers of the faith is to present it within the context of the Church’s teaching and discipline, so that it serves to build up the Body of Christ in its first cell of life, which is marriage and the family. …

AMORIS LÆTITIA – Oppsummeringen etter bispesynodene

Katolsk, Liturgi, Paven /

Oppsummeringen etter bispesynodene om familien i 2014 og 2015 ble utgitt i går, og norske nyhetskilder har meldt kort om dette, stort sett gjennom en NTB-arktikkel, som f.eks. Vårt Land har gjengitt. Denne korte gjengivelsen er korrekt på enkelt punkter, men også forholdsvis misforstått. Jeg har omstrukturert meldingen litt og gir også noen kommentarer til de enkelte artiklene.

I det nye dokumentet fra paven heter det at samboere bør ønskes velkommen og «rettledes, tålmodig og diskret». Han mener at homofile bør respekteres – men fastholder kirkens motstand mot homofile partnerskap og ekteskap.

Ingenting her er jo nytt; vi har i mange år mottatt samboere vennlig og veiledet dem diskret. (Riktignok kan det være at noen utenlandske prester her har vært altfor strenge, jeg har hørt et par eksempler på det.) Og de homofile skal også alltid møtes med respekt, det sa f.eks. Den katolske kirkes katekisme fra 1992 veldig tydelig. Der leser vi i artikkel 2358. «Et ikke ubetydelig antall menn og kvinner viser grunnleggende homoseksuelle tendenser. Denne tilbøyelighet, som er objektivt feilrettet, utgjør en prøvelse for de fleste av dem. Disse må tas imot med respekt, medfølelse og fintfølelse. Alle utslag av urettferdig diskriminering mot dem skal unngås. …»

I tillegg taler paven varmt om kjærlighetens «erotiske dimensjon», og mener kirken bør ta selvkritikk for tidligere å ha hevdet at ekteskapets eneste formål var å få barn.

Her er det knapt grunn til selvkritikk. Kirken har jo de siste årene alltid presentert ekteskapets to hovedformål som 1) Fellesskapet mellom de to, 2) å få barn. I tidligere tider var rekkefølgen her motsatt, og plikten til å få barn kunne bli satt over utviklingen av et godt og varmt fellesskap mellom ektefellene, men det er tross alt lenge siden.

Den katolske kirke anerkjenner ikke skilsmisse, selv om den juridiske skilsmissen er et faktum. I stedet har kirken en ordning med såkalt annullering av ekteskap. Ifølge katolsk lov/ kirkerett kan begrunnelsene for annullering være at den ene parten ikke ønsker barn, (ikke virkelig lovet/ ønsket at ekteskapet skulle vare hele livet), mindreårighet ved inngåelse, tvang, og psykisk sykdom – eller at den ene parten (hadde vært gift) tidligere.

En knapp måned i forkant av bispemøtet i fjor høst sendte paven ut et brev med sju punkter skal blant ­annet føre til at prosessen tar kortere tid og koster mindre (i Norge har den alltid vært billig).

I avsnittene over har jeg presisert enkelte ting (i parentes) som var uklare og mangelfulle. Men det står likevel fast at Kirken i alle år har hatt ekteskapstribunaler, som i mange land har fungert svært godt. Nå vektlegges det (og det er det absolutt ingen uenighet om i Kirken) at tribunalene må fungere godt (og være billige) alle steder, og prosessen har også blitt forkortet noe.

Paven ser ut til å åpne døren på gløtt for at skilte katolikker som har giftet seg på nytt (med en borgerlig vielse), kan få gå til nattverd – noe reglene inntil nå har sagt de ikke kan.

I dette siste avsnittet ligger det eneste kontroversielle i dette lange dokumentet; er det mulig at katolikker som lever i et nytt (sivilt) ekteskap som Kirken ikke har godtatt (fordi de ikke har prøvd å gifte seg kirkelig, ikke har gått til tribunalet med et tidligere ekteskap eller fått avslag fra tribunalet), at disse likevel skal kunne mottatt absolusjon i skriftemålet og kunne motta kommunion i messen? I rundt 50 år har det vært prester som har ment (jeg har ikke gjort det, og forstår heller ikke grunnlaget for å kunne gjøre det) at slike likevel kan motta sakramentene, gjennom det som kalles en pastoral løsning som pr. definisjon er uoffisiell.

Det kan muligens se ut til at en slik løsning har blitt delvis eller nesten godtatt av pave Frans, men dette er ikke skrevet tydelig i dette lange dokumentet noe sted. Jeg skal nå snart kaste meg over grundige og mer teologiske analyser at dokumentet «Amoris lætitia» og se hva de «lærde mener.

Man finner hele dokumentet på engelsk her.

Intervju med pave (emeritus) Benedikt

Paven, Teologi /

Det har nylig blitt offentliggjort et intervju med pave (emeritus) Benedikt XVI, som tar opp temaer som «mercy and our need for forgiveness, salvation through the cross, the necessity of baptism, and the importance of sharing in Christ’s redeeming love.» Intervjuet ble gjort i oktober i fjor, før en konferanse om rettferdiggjørelse og tro i Roma (i Jesuittenes kirke Il Jesu) – der teksten ble lest opp av erkebiskop Georg Gänswein.

Forandringer i synet på rettferdiggjørelse blir tatt opp tidlig i intervjuet, er der leser vi bl.a.:

For the man of today, compared to those of the time of Luther and to those holding the classical perspective of the Christian faith, things are in a certain sense inverted, or rather, is no longer man who believes he needs justification before God, but rather he is of the opinion that God is obliged to justify himself because of all the horrible things in the world and in the face of the misery of being human, all of which ultimately depend on Him. In this regard, I find it significant that a Catholic theologian may profess even in a direct and formal this inverted position: that Christ did not suffer for the sins of men, but rather, as it were, had «canceled the guilt of God.» Even if most Christians today would not share such a drastic reversal of our faith, we could say that all of this reveals an underlying trend of our times. When Johann Baptist Metz argues that theology today must be “sensitive to theodicy”, this highlights the same problem in a positive way. Even rescinding from such a radical contestation of the Church’s vision of the relationship between God and man, the man of today has in a very general way the sense that God cannot let most of humanity be damned. In this sense, the concern for the personal salvation of souls typical of past times has for the most part disappeared. …

Også vanskelige spørsmål om frelse og misjon tas opp i intervjuet:

… There is no doubt that on this point we are faced with a profound evolution of dogma. While the fathers and theologians of the Middle Ages could still be of the opinion that, essentially, the whole human race had become Catholic and that paganism existed now only on the margins, the discovery of the New World at the beginning of the modern era radically changed perspectives. In the second half of the last century it has been fully affirmed the understanding that God cannot let go to perdition all the unbaptized and that even a purely natural happiness for them does not represent a real answer to the question of human existence. If it is true that the great missionaries of the 16th century were still convinced that those who are not baptized are forever lost – and this explains their missionary commitment – in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council that conviction was finally abandoned.

From this came a deep double crisis. On the one hand this seems to remove any motivation for a future missionary commitment. Why should one try to convince the people to accept the Christian faith when they can be saved even without it? But also for Christians an issue emerged: the obligatory nature of the faith and its way of life began to seem uncertain and problematic. If there are those who can save themselves in other ways, it is not clear, in the final analysis, why the Christian himself is bound by the requirements of the Christian faith and its morals. If faith and salvation are no longer interdependent, faith itself becomes unmotivated.

Sannhetens medarbeidere

Paven, Teologi /

Coat_of_arms_Ratzinger_l En presteblogger i England, Fr Ray Blake, har skrevet et interessant innlegg om pave Benedikt og hans vektlegging på sannheten. Han skriver bl.a.:

… … Truth was front and centre of the Benedictine pontificate, and along with it a certain intellectual precision and a desire to define precisely what we mean and what the Church believes. This type of precision was always at the heart of Ratzinger’s ministry, it was there in his time of Prefect of the CDF. I think a great turning point occurred with his commissioning of Cardinal Schönborn to produce the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I remember speaking to a seminarian who said, «Until the Catechism was published in 1994 we were told any old rubbish was Catholic teaching, then we were able to check for ourselves. It was amazing the effect a copy of it in a seminary class room on even the most way out lecturer». Therefore 1994 became a significant turning point, when ‘the faith’ was placed in the hands of ordinary Catholics, rather than something which was claimed by ‘specialists’. Another great turning point was Dominus Jesus in 2000 which brought precision to our christology and ecclesiology.

Benedict’s pontificate was a search for truth that animated countless Catholics, I suspect this was one of the reasons for the rise in numerous Catholic citizen journalists and the flourishing of the Catholic blogosphere. More importantly I believe that it gave rise to a culture for transparency, openness and accountability in the Church. Benedict made it possible for us to ask the simple question, «Is this true?» and to expect an answer, He gave us a point of reference to understand that there were not many truths but one Truth and that this Truth is the Incarnate Word, the 2nd Person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ himself an objective and real presence that should be at the heart of the Church. For Benedict a denial of Truth was a denial of Christ himself, an obfuscation of it an obfuscation of Christ, a lack of clarity about it, a lack of clarity about Christ.

Truth for Benedict was the disinfecting sun-light, it was the answer to corruption and self-seeking within the Church, as much as it was to false teaching or to obfuscation or a lack of transparency or on a more mundane level bishops covering up child abuse, financial corruption or lobby groups, gay or otherwise, or plain heresy.

The search for Truth seems to have stimulated vocations to the priesthood, it certainly gave an impetus to Catholic intellectual life and the desire of Catholic intellectuals to teach and give ordinary Catholics an intellectual underpinning to their faith. … …

Pave Frans i Mexico

Katolsk, Paven /

francis_mexico
John Allen skriver om dette besøket:

Upon arriving in Mexico, Francis clearly wanted to make four statements, and he underscored each with a symbolically fitting destination:

1 The importance of popular faith and devotion, which he highlighted Saturday with a Mass in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

2 The dignity of Latin America’s indigenous population, expressed on Monday by an outing to Chiapas, home to an armed Zapatista uprising fueled in part by a legacy of injustices directed at indigenous communities.

3 The indecency of the drug trade and drug-related violence, hammered home on Tuesday when the pontiff traveled to Morelia, a state in which scores of ordinary people and an estimated 40 Catholic priests have been killed by criminal gangs in the past decade.

4 The human dignity of immigrants, captured in the border stop on Wednesday.

Aides said Francis personally chose these destinations, and it’s hard to imagine an itinerary better reflecting his priorities. When the pope goes some place, a good chunk of the world’s media also travels with him, and it’s clear Francis wanted to exploit that spotlight.

Pave Frans snakket også til biskopene i Mexico, og om dette sier Allen:

In effect, what the Mexico trip underlined was the kind of bishop Francis wants. Key qualities include:

– A preference for ordinary people and the poor rather than elites.
– Close contact with social realities, including concrete humanitarian and charitable efforts.
– Political moderation and dialogue with all parties.
– Simplicity of lifestyle and approach.
– Personal integrity and a distaste for wheeling and dealing.
– Rejection of careerism; that is, a prelate who thinks more about this job than the next one.

Filius meus hic est, in quo bene complacui. Ipsum audite.

Katolsk, Liturgi, Paven /

jesu_daap

«Hodie caelesti sponso iuncta est Ecclesia, quoniam in Iordane lavit eius crimina.
Currunt cum munere Magi ad regales nuptias et ex aqua facto vino laetantur convivia.
Baptizat miles Regem, servus Dominum suum, Joannes Salvatorem.
Aqua Iordanis stupuit, columba protestatur. Paterna vox audita est:
Filius meus hic est, in quo bene complacui. Ipsum audite«.

“Today the Church is joined to the heavenly bridegroom, because he has washed her sins away in the Jordan. The Magi hasten to the royal wedding with gifts and the guests are gladdened with the water turned to wine. The soldier baptizes the King, the servant his Lord, John the Savior. The water of the Jordan is amazed, the dove bears witness. The voice of the Father is heard: This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.”

Sandro Magister presenterer denne teksten fra den ambrosianske liturgien i starten av et innlegg der han presenterer:

… all fifteen of the baptismal homilies delivered by Joseph Ratzinger in the six years of his pontificate, at the Easter Vigil and on the Sunday of the Baptism of Jesus.

They are “mystagogical” homilies, of initiation into the mystery of baptism. Like those of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, of Saint Ambrose of Milan, of other Fathers of the Church.

It is an anthology collected for the first time here, of extraordinary richness. As can be perceived from the passages of each homily as they gradually unfold.

Pave Benedikts prekener er fra påskenatt 2006-2012 og fra festen for Jesu dåp 2006-2013. Her er et utdrag fra påskenatt 2012:

… Through the sacrament of baptism and the profession of faith, the Lord has built a bridge across to us, through which the new day reaches us. The Lord says to the newly-baptized: Fiat lux – let there be light. God’s new day – the day of indestructible life, comes also to us. Christ takes you by the hand. From now on you are held by him and walk with him into the light, into real life. For this reason the early Church called baptism «photismos» – illumination.

Why was this? The darkness that poses a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see and investigate tangible material things, but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil. The darkness enshrouding God and obscuring values is the real threat to our existence and to the world in general. …

Expergiscere, homo: quia pro te Deus factus est homo.

Katolsk, Paven /

I dag er det 10 år siden pave Benedikt holdt sin berømte første juletale til den romerske kuriaen, der han aller mest sentralt definerte Kirkens liv, arbeid og utvikling som noe som skjer innenfor og i kontinuitet med Kirkens tradisjon, aldri som brudd med tradisjonen. Her er starten av talen, samt det han sier om forandring i kontinuitet med tradisjonen:

«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. ….

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.

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. ….

…… 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. 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? No one can deny that in vast areas of the Church the implementation of the Council has been somewhat difficult. …

….. there is an interpretation that I would call “a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture”; it has frequently availed itself of the sympathies of the mass media, and also one trend of modern theology. On the other, there is the “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.

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. …..

Her kan hele talen leses.

Pave Frans har ikke tenkt å redusere tempoet

Katolsk, Paven /

Det skriver John Allen, og han åpner sin artikkel slik:

Let’s face it: In some ways, 2015 has been a rough year for Pope Francis.

Despite continuing to bask in wide popularity, the pope presided over a tumultuous Synod of Bishops in October that exposed deep internal fractures over issues such as divorce and homosexuality, and which began with a Vatican official doing a round of sensational media interviews in which he acknowledged being in a committed gay relationship.

He’s watched a burgeoning Vatican leaks scandal that’s led to three former insiders and two journalists facing criminal charges, and he’s seen his own press office forced to release details of the autopsy of a former papal diplomat accused of sexual abuse, who died in August, because of persistent rumors he may have been killed to avoid the embarrassment of a trial.

Recently there have been indications of resentment from some of the pontiff’s own aides, including publication in a German newsmagazine of a stinging letter to the pope from a former Vatican official accusing him of weakness on doctrine, “authoritarianism,” and “wrath” toward critics.

Francis also took five successful but extremely demanding foreign trips during the past year. He recently celebrated his 79th birthday, and is poised to spend much of the next 12 months presiding over a grueling calendar linked to his special jubilee Year of Mercy.

Some might naturally wonder if all that has worn Francis down, perhaps lessening his resolve about the direction and pace of his reform agenda. In response, the pontiff on Monday effectively delivered a very clear, and very simple, answer: “Nope.”

“Reform will move forward with determination, clarity, and firm resolve,” he said …

Hva vil den uforutsigbare pave Frans gjøre i 2016?

Katolsk, Paven /

John Allen skriver en artikkel der han stiller akkurat dette spørsmålet – og foreslår at fem ting kommer til å skje:

I did something that’s basically an act of madness: I delivered a set of predictions for 2016 regarding the almost metaphysically unpredictable Pope Francis. …

1. The next US cardinal Francis names will be a shocker.

It’s not clear whether Francis will create new cardinals in 2016, or whether one of them would be an American. If so, however, it probably won’t be anyone people are expecting — Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, for instance, or Blase Cupich in Chicago.

When distributing red hats, Francis likes to bypass the usual centers of power. …

2. Francis will have a health issue.

So far, this pope has not had a serious health crisis. A bogus report in October of a benign brain tumor doesn’t count, since it fell apart almost as soon as it appeared.

On the other hand, Francis turns 79 on Dec. 17 and keeps up a schedule that would destroy people half his age. Those closest to Francis have long said they’re worried about the pope not taking care of himself, for instance by canceling his summer vacation at Castel Gandolfo. Watching him up close, he often seems visibly fatigued …

3. The pope will be a player in the US elections.

Pope Francis is likely to emerge as a major factor in the US elections in 2016, an especially plausible prospect given that five of the GOP contenders are Catholic (Jeb Bush, Rick Santorum, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, and George Pataki; Bobby Jindal dropped out of the race in November).

One moment when the pope appears destined to inject himself into the race will come in February, when he travels to Mexico. The trip will feature a stop in Ciudad Juarez at the US/Mexico border, where Francis will make a major statement about immigration. …

4. The pope will make two significant gestures of mercy.

Francis opens his special jubilee Year of Mercy Tuesday, and at least two unscripted papal gestures of compassion may roll out at some point along the way.

First, he may offer a hand to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics. The question of whether they could receive Communion was hotly debated at the recent Synods of Bishops on the family, and while there was no consensus, there was agreement that the Church needs to do a better job of making them feel included.

Second, and possibly more quickly, Francis may offer pardons to least some of the five people currently facing a Vatican criminal trial for leaking secrets. …

5. Resistance to Francis’ initiatives will continue, but shift.

All along, there’s been resistance to Francis in some quarters inside and outside the Catholic Church. In 2016, that blowback will almost certainly continue, but it may become less about left vs. right and more about north vs. south and rich vs. poor.

A sign of things to come appeared before Francis’ November trip to Africa with a controversial essay by an editor for a web site operated by the largely progressive German bishops’ conference, suggesting that Francis may have an overly romanticized vision of the global South and an overly negative approach to Europe. …

Pave Frans forvirrer de troende om felleskommunion

Katolsk, Paven, Teologi /

15nov_pope_lutheran
Pave Frans var i Romas lutherske kirke søndag kveld, og fikk da et spørsmål fra en luthersk kvinne som lurte på om hun kunne motta katolsk kommunion/ nattverd når hun gikk i kirken sammen med sin katolske mann. Paven svarte ganske langt og nokså uklart, men så ut til å antyde at hun her måtte følge sin egen samvittighet. Men han la også til:

The Pope added: “I wouldn’t ever dare to allow this, because it’s not my competence. One baptism, one Lord, one faith. Talk to the Lord and then go forward. I don’t dare to say anything more.”

Jeg har lest om dette her – Catholic Herald og Father Z skriver også om det.

Er paven katolsk?

Katolsk, Paven /

Mercatornet stiller dette spørsmålet, og svarer bekreftende (selvsagt). Samtidig skriver de at pave Frans ikke ønslet å gå så direkte inn i den amerikanske debatten, som også preges ganske mye av svart-hvitt argumenter. Slik skriver de bl.a.:

… although the Pope’s opposition was crystal clear, he still declined to anathematize abortionists and “marriage equality” during his recent trip. Instead, in a speech before a joint sitting of Congress, he took aim at the death penalty, global poverty, the international arms trade and responsibility for the environment.

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, who often speaks for “conservative” Catholics, felt betrayed. Pope Francis, he wrote, “has been a gift to liberals who are also Christians, to religious believers whose politics lean left”. It remains to be seen, he concludes, “whether, after the cheering ends, the same winter that enveloped liberal Protestantism after the 1960s will claim Franciscan Catholicism as well.”

This just about hits the gong on the grouch scale and, I think, is almost entirely unwarranted. Let me explain.

Although it is hardly unique to Americans, they are particularly susceptible to dividing the world between good and evil, between liberals and conservatives, between friends of America and its foes. Having clearly defined enemies makes the world easier to understand and easier to grapple with.

Its corollary is the rhetoric of denunciation. The killer argument is knock-out punch which sends an opponent to the canvas. It wins the applause of your friends – even if it fails to persuade your enemies.

But Pope Francis is committed to a different kind of rhetoric. It’s not overly simplistic to say that he is trying to win souls, not arguments. …

Pavebesøk i USA

Katolsk, Paven /

popeJP2_USA

George Weigel skriver i First Things slik om det kommende pavebesøket i USA:

…. John Paul II’s first papal pilgrimage to the United States was, I think, a surprise for him. He had previously visited the U.S. on two occasions, but his exposure to Catholic life in America was rather limited on those trips. That changed in October 1979, when everything that happened during John Paul’s visit—from the cheers of raucous teenagers in Madison Square Garden to the piety of Iowa farmers gathered around the Bishop of Rome in a cornfield—testified to the vitality of American Catholic life. America was not, it seemed, a trans-Atlantic version of western Europe: religiously dessicated, vaguely guilty about its impiousness, and thus aggressively secular.

And as the Church in the United States continued to pay far more serious attention to John Paul II’s challenging teaching than the Church in Great Britain, France, the Low Countries, and the German-speaking lands of western Europe, John Paul began to encourage the new democracies of central and eastern Europe to look to the United States for one important model of how to be Vatican II’s “Church in the modern world,” after the Wall came down.

And speaking of surpises, who could have imagined, in 1945, that a former German prisoner-of-war, held briefly by American forces as the Nazi regime crumbled, would be welcomed as pope on the South Lawn of the White House by the President of the United States and the U.S. Army band? Or that that same pope, long pilloried in the more ignorant sections of the American press as reactionary and authoritarian, would, in New York, make the gothic beauties of St. Patrick’s Cathedral the central metaphor in a stunning homily on the openness and spaciousness of the Church when viewed “from inside”? Lots of people were surprised by the joy and warmth of Benedict XVI’s visit to the U.S. in 2008; but a German pope who could thank the British people for winning the Battle of Britain during World War II proved capable of far more surprises than his cultured detractors imagined.

The popes in America have spoken words of both challenge and encouragement, and that will surely continue with Pope Francis’s visit this month. Unlike Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, however, Francis will be visiting the United States for the first time. Here he will find the Church that, for all its difficulties, is the best example of his “Church permanently in mission” in the developed world. As Francis encourages his American flock—and likely challenges us, too—my hope is that he is also challenged, encouraged, and perhaps even instructed by the vibrant faith he experiences among us.

Reglene for annullering av ekteskap forandres

Katolsk, Paven /

Mens vi fortsatt venter på detaljene om hvordan ekteskapstribunalenes arbeid med gyldighen av ekteskap vil komme til å se ut, skriver John Allen om konsekvensene at pavens Motu proprio:

In Catholic parlance, an “annulment” means a ruling by a Church court that a union between a man and a woman, even if it featured a Church wedding, is not a valid marriage because it fails one of the traditional tests, such as a lack of genuine consent or a psychological incapacity to undertake the obligations.

Annulments are hugely important at the retail level of the faith, because for Catholics whose relationships break down and who want to get married in the Church to someone else, they first have to obtain one.

It’s no accident that Francis is making this move on the cusp of a special “Holy Year of Mercy” that he has decreed will begin Dec. 8, the same day these changes take effect. …

The decision will recalibrate the discussion at October’s second edition of the Synod of Bishops on the family, likely reducing the emphasis on the question of Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics and creating space for other issues to emerge.

Last October, the matter of whether the traditional ban on Communion for Catholics who divorce and remarry outside the Church ought to be softened was the hot-button issue par excellence, with cardinals and other senior leaders exchanging barbed commentary and activist groups on both sides egging them on.

All along, reform in the annulment process seemed the most obvious compromise measure, a way of giving both camps at least part of what they wanted. Those opposed to revising the Communion ban could take comfort that the Church was not softening its stand on divorce, while progressives would be pleased that the Church was at least trying to show greater compassion and outreach. ….

The reform may lead over time to a cultural shift within the canon law community — the lawyers, judges, academics, and others engaged in the theory and practice of Church law.

In recent decades, a general tendency among many canon lawyers has been to try to make the annulment system as user-friendly as possible, on the grounds that it could be unwieldy, time-consuming, and costly.

As this new reform is rolled out, it may be that concern over cumbersomeness will be replaced with concern about the possibility of abuse, ….

On the eve of his first-ever trip to the United States, one could argue that Pope Francis has delivered a major thumbs-up to American Catholicism.

Over the years, bishops, canon lawyers, and other Church personnel around the world sometimes have complained that America makes it too easy to obtain an annulment, with some going so far as to call the United States an “annulment factory.”

US prelates and canonists often reply that America is one of the few countries that takes the annulment process seriously, investing significant resources in training lawyers and judges and making the process available to whoever wants it. ….

Fokus på sakramental tilgivelse i Nådens år

Katolsk, Paven, Teologi /

Pave Frans har annonsert et Nådens år som skal begynne 8. desember i år. I et brev som ble offentliggjort i dag, skriver paven bl.a. at alle prester i løpet av dette året kan tilgi de som har vært involvert i provosert abort, og at også absolusjonen til SSPX-prester vil være gyldig. Slik skriver Catholic Herald:

… the Pope wrote: “I have decided, notwithstanding anything to the contrary, to concede to all priests for the Jubilee Year the discretion to absolve of the sin of abortion those who have procured it and who, with contrite heart, seek forgiveness for it.

“May priests fulfil this great task by expressing words of genuine welcome combined with a reflection that explains the gravity of the sin committed, besides indicating a path of authentic conversion by which to obtain the true and generous forgiveness of the Father who renews all with his presence.”

Pope Francis also wrote that lay people who attend Confession with SSPX priests will receive valid absolution during the year of mercy.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that abortion incurs excommunication and as a result absolution can only be granted by a Pope, bishop or priest authorised by them. …

… Regarding the Fraternity of St Pius X, Pope Francis said: “This Jubilee Year of Mercy excludes no one.” He continued: “From various quarters, several Brother Bishops have told me of their good faith and sacramental practice, combined however with an uneasy situation from the pastoral standpoint. I trust that in the near future solutions may be found to recover full communion with the priests and superiors of the Fraternity.

“In the meantime, motivated by the need to respond to the good of these faithful, through my own disposition, I establish that those who during the Holy Year of Mercy approach these priests of the Fraternity of St Pius X to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation shall validly and licitly receive the absolution of their sins.”

Pave Frans oppfordrer ungdommer til å leve avholdende før ekteskapet

Katolsk, Paven, Teologi /

15juni_p_frans_ungdommer Sandro Magister skriver om hvordan pave Frans ofte (bevisst) misforstås som veldig liberal og moderne av pressen. Og så siterer han hva paven sa til de unge i Torino 21. juni:

Even the pope must sometimes take a risk to speak the truth. Love is in works, in communicating, but love is very respectful of persons, it does not use persons, and love is chaste. And to you young people in this world, in this hedonistic world, in this world where all the publicity goes to pleasure, to fun, to the good life, I say to you: be chaste, be chaste.

All of us in life have gone through moments in which this virtue is very difficult, but this is nothing other than the way of a genuine love, of a love that knows how to give life, that does not seek to use the other for one’s own pleasure. It is a love that considers the life of the other person as sacred: I respect you, I do not want to use you. It is not easy. We all know the difficulties in overcoming this “facilistic” and hedonistic conception of love. Forgive me if I am telling you something that you were not expecting, but I ask you: make the effort to live love chastely…

We are living in a culture of the disposable. Because that which is of no economic utility is discarded. Children are discarded because they are not had or are killed before they are born; the elderly are discarded because they are not needed and are left there to die in a sort of hidden euthanasia.

Magister skriver i samme artikkel om hvordan pavens encyklika «ladato si» er gjort lettere tilgjengelig fordi den teologiske innledningen er flyttet lenger ut i brevet, men likevel er den teologiske sammenhengen og helheten tydelig med:

“The encyclical, as it is presented to us today, shows a face different from that of the first draft, which was to include a long introduction of a theological, liturgical, sacramental, and spiritual character. If the initial configuration had remained, the encyclical would have been addressed more immediately to the Catholic world. Pope Francis, instead, preferred to change this configuration, moving the theological part to the middle and end, as he also did with the parts concerning spirituality and education. In this way he restructured the material made available to him, arranging it according to a method of analysis and discernment that implies a consideration of the situation, an evaluation and a prefiguration of practical guidelines for working on a solution of the problems. He thus wanted to involve the largest possible number of readers, including nonbelievers, in a thought process that to a large extent can be shared in by all.”

Another interesting observation has come from an economist who contributed to the composition not of this encyclical but of the “Caritas in Veritate” of Benedict XVI, former IOR president Ettore Gotti Tedeschi.

In an interview with “la Repubblica” and a commentary in “Il Foglio,” he has said that the profound meaning of the encyclical can be grasped only when to “Praised may you be” is added “my Lord.” Because the ultimate cause of the behavior that leads to environmental degradation “is sin, the loss of God,” while the proximate cause “is the exaggerated consumerism induced in order to compensate for the collapse of the birth rate in Western countries.” ….

Pave Frans ønsker å stanse fremskrittet, er verden klar?

Generelt, Katolsk, Paven /

Jeg presenterer her enda et annerledes perspektiv på pave Frans’ encyklika, skrev av Matthew Schmitz, assisterende redaktør i First Things. Han skriver bl.a.:

Laudato Si, Pope Francis’ encyclical letter on the environment, is the work of a profoundly pessimistic man. John Paul II may have spoken of the “culture of death” and Benedict XVI of the “dictatorship of relativism,” but not since the publication of the Syllabus of Errors in the nineteenth century has a leader of the Catholic church issued a document so imbued with foreboding. Critics will seize on his dark tone, but Francis’ letter offers a challenge worthy of serious consideration.

“People no longer seem to believe in a happy future,” he writes. “They no longer have blind trust in a better tomorrow based on the present state of the world and our technical abilities. There is a growing awareness that scientific and technological progress cannot be equated with the progress of humanity and history.”

Despite these portents, we “do not grasp the gravity of the challenges before us,” nor the “spiral of self-destruction which currently engulfs us.” “We stand naked and exposed in the face of our ever-increasing power, lacking the wherewithal to control it.” There are no clear solutions. “Halfway measures simply delay the inevitable disaster.”

… As evidence of the coming disaster, Francis adduces environmental calamities—climate change, pollution, deforestation, monoculture, extinction — and yet he leaves no doubt that the crisis is fundamentally a spiritual one. Its source is our desire to master and manipulate nature, which leads us to use technology that ends up mastering us.

Francis’ broadsides against technology are loaded with quotations from “The End of the Modern World,” a book written by the midcentury German priest Romano Guardini. Francis has a longstanding love of the German thinker who, like him, was the son of Italian émigrés and studied chemistry. Drawing on Guardini, the pope denounces the excessive use of air-conditioning, broods over genetically modified crops, worries about automobiles “causing traffic congestion, raising the level of pollution, and consuming enormous quantities of non-renewable energy,” and pans “megastructures” that express “the spirit of a globalized technocracy.”

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