Aboard the papal plane, Mar 8, 2021 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- Please read below for CNA’s full transcript of Pope Francis’ in-flight press conference from Baghdad, Iraq, to Rome, Italy on March 8, 2021.
Pope Francis: First of all, thank you for your work, your company, your fatigue. Then, today is Women’s Day. Congratulations to the women. Women’s Day. But they were saying why is there no Men’s Day? Even when [I was] in the meeting with the wife of the president. I said it was because us men are always celebrated and we want to celebrate women. And the wife of the president spoke well about women, she told me lovely things today, about that strength that women have to carry forward life, history, the family, many things. Congratulations to everyone. And third, today is the birthday of the COPE journalist. Or the other day. Where are you?
Matteo Bruni, Holy See press office director: It was yesterday.
Pope Francis: Best wishes and we should celebrate it, right? We will see how we can [do it] here. Very well. Now, the word is yours.
Bruni: The first question comes from the Arabic world: Imad Atrach of Sky News Arabia.
Imad Abdul Karim Atrach (Sky News Arabia): Holiness, two years ago in Abu Dhabi there was the meeting with the Imam al-Tayyeb of al-Azhar and the signing of the document on human fraternity. Three days ago you met with al-Sistani. Are you thinking to something similar with the Shiite side of Islam? And then a second thing about Lebanon, which St. John Paul II said is more than a country, it is a message. This message, unfortunately, as a Lebanese, I tell you that this message is now disappearing. Can we think a future visit by you to Lebanon is imminent?
Pope Francis: The Abu Dhabi document of February 4 was prepared with the grand imam in secret during six months, praying, reflecting, correcting the text. It was, I will say, a little assuming but take it as a presumption, a first step of what you ask me about.
Let’s say that this [Ed. meeting with al-Sistani] would be the second [step] and there will be others. It is important, the journey of fraternity. Then, the two documents. The Abu Dhabi one created a concern for fraternity in me, Fratelli tutti came out, which has given a lot. We must… both documents must be studied because they go in the same direction, they are seeking fraternity.
Ayatollah al-Sistani has a phrase which I expect to remember well. Every man… men are either brothers for religion or equals for creation. And fraternity is equality, but beneath equality we cannot go. I believe it is also a cultural path.
We Christians think about the Thirty Years’ War. The night of St. Bartholomew [Ed. St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre], to give an example. Think about this. How the mentality has changed among us, because our faith makes us discover that this is it: the revelation of Jesus is love, charity, and it leads us to this. But how many centuries [will it take] to implement it? This is an important thing, human fraternity. That as men we are all brothers and we must move forward with other religions.
The [Second] Vatican Council took a big step forward in [interreligious dialogue], also the later constitution, the council for Christian unity, and the council for religious dialogue — Cardinal Ayuso accompanies us today — and you are human, you are a child of God and you are my brother, period. This would be the biggest indication. And many times you have to take risks to take this step. You know that there are some critics who [say] “the pope is not courageous, he is an idiot who is taking steps against Catholic doctrine, which is a heretical step.” There are risks. But these decisions are always made in prayer, in dialogue, asking for advice, in reflection. They are not a whim and they are also the line that the [Second Vatican] Council has taught us. This is his first question.
The second: Lebanon is a message. Lebanon is suffering. Lebanon is more than a balance. It has the weakness of the diversity which some are still not reconciled to, but it has the strength of the great people reconciled like the fortress of the cedars. Patriarch Rai asked me to please make a stop in Beirut on this trip, but it seemed somewhat too little to me: A crumb in front of a problem in a country that suffers like Lebanon. I wrote a letter and promised to make a trip to Lebanon. But Lebanon at the moment is in crisis, but in crisis — I do not want to offend — but in a crisis of life. Lebanon is so generous in welcoming refugees. This is a second trip.
Bruni: Thank you, Your Holiness. The second question comes from Johannes Neudecker of the German news agency Dpa.
Johannes Neudecker (Deutsche Presse-Agentur): Thank you, Holy Father. My question is also about the meeting with al-Sistani. In what measure was the meeting with al-Sistani also a message to the religious leaders of Iran?
Pope Francis: I believe it was a universal message. I felt the duty of this pilgrimage of faith and penance to go and find a great man, a wise man, a man of God. And just listening to him you perceived this. And speaking of messages, I will say: It is a message for everyone, it is a message for everyone. And he is a person who has that wisdom and also prudence… he told me that for 10 years, “I do not receive people who come to visit me with also other political or cultural aims, no… only for religious [purposes].” And he was very respectful, very respectful in the meeting. I felt very honored; he never gets up even to greet people. He got up to greet me twice. A humble and wise man. This meeting did my soul good. He is a light. These wisemen are everywhere because God’s wisdom has been spread all over the world.
It also happens the same with the saints, who are not only those who are on the altars, they are the everyday saints, the ones I call “next-door saints.” Men and women who live their faith, whatever it may be, with coherence. Who live human values with coherence, fraternity with coherence. I believe that we should discover these people, highlight them, because there are so many examples. When there are scandals in the Church, many, this does not help, but we show the people seeking the path of fraternity. The saints next door. And we will find the people of our family, for sure. For sure a few grandpas, a few grandmas.
Eva Fernandez (Radio COPE): Holy Father, it is great to resume the press conferences again. It is very good. My apologies, but my colleagues have asked me to ask this question in Spanish.
[In Spanish] During these days your trip to Iraq has had a great impact throughout the world. Do you think that this could be the trip of your pontificate? And also, it has been said that it was the most dangerous. Have you been afraid at some point during this trip? And soon we will return to travel and you, who are about to complete the eighth year of your pontificate, do you still think it will be a short [pontificate]? And the big question always for the Holy Father, will you ever return to Argentina? Will Spain still have hope that one day the pope will visit?
Pope Francis: Thank you, Eva, and I made you celebrate your birthday twice — once in advance and another belated.
I start with the last question, which is a question that I understand. It is because of that book by my friend, the journalist and doctor, Nelson Castro. He wrote a book on [the history of] presidents’ illnesses, and I once told him, already in Rome, “But you have to do one on the diseases of the popes because it will be interesting to know the health issues of the popes — at least of some who are more recent.”
He started [writing] again, and he interviewed me. The book came out. They tell me it is good, but I have not seen it. But he asked me a question: “If you resign” — well, if I will die or if I will resign — “If you resign, will you return to Argentina or will you stay here?”
I said: “I will not go back to Argentina.” This is what I have said, but I will stay here in my diocese. But in that case, this goes together with the question: When will I visit Argentina? And why have I not gone there? I always answer a little ironically: “I spent 76 years in Argentina, that’s enough, isn’t it?”
But there is one thing. I do not know why, but it has not been said. A trip to Argentina was planned for November 2017 and work began. It was Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay. This was at the end of November. But then at that time there was an election campaign happening in Chile because on that day in December the successor of Michelle Bachelet was elected. I had to go before the government changed, I could not go [further].
So let us do this: Go to Chile in January. And then in January it was not possible to go to Argentina and Uruguay because January is like our August here, it is July and August in both countries. Thinking about it, the suggestion was made: Why not include Peru, because Peru was bypassed during the trip to Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, and remained apart. And from this was born the January trip between Chile and Peru.
But this is what I want to say so that you do not create fantasies of “patriaphobia.” When there are opportunities, it must be done, right? Because there is Argentina and Uruguay and the south of Brazil, which are a very great cultural composition.
About my travels: I make a decision about my trips by listening. The invitations are many. I listen to the advice of the counselors and also to the people. Sometimes someone comes and says: What do you think? Should I go or not? And it is good for me to listen. And this helps me to make the decision later.
I listen to the counselors and in the end I pray. I pray and I think a lot. I have reflected a lot about some trips, and then the decision comes from within. It is almost spontaneous, but like a ripe fruit. It is a long way, isn’t it? Some are more difficult, some are easier, and the decision about this trip comes early.
The first invitation of the ambassador, first, that pediatrician doctor who was the ambassador of Iraq, very good. She persisted. And then came the ambassador to Italy who is a woman of battle. Then the new ambassador to the Vatican came and fought. Soon the president came. All these things stayed with me.
But there is one thing behind my decision that I would like to mention. One of you gave me a Spanish edition [of the book] “The Last Girl.” I have read it in Italian, then I gave it to Elisabetta Piqué to read. Did you read it? More or less it is the story of the Yazidis. And Nadia Murad tells about terrifying things. I recommend that you read it. In some places it may seem heavy, but for me this was the trasfondo of God, the underlying reason for my decision. That book worked inside me. And also when I listened to Nadia who came to tell me terrible things. Then, with the book… All these things together made the decision; thinking about all the many issues. But finally the decision came and I took it.
And, about the eighth year of my pontificate. Should I do this? [He crosses his fingers.] I do not know if my travel will slow down or not. I only confess that on this trip I felt much more tired than on the others. The 84 [years] do not come alone, it is a consequence. But we will see.
Now I will have to go to Hungary for the final Mass of the Eucharistic Congress, not a visit to the country, but just for the Mass. But Budapest is a two-hour drive from Bratislava, why not make a visit to Slovakia? I do not know. That is how they are thinking. Excuse me. Thank you.
Bruni: Thank you, Eva. Now the next question is from Chico Harlan of the Washington Post.
Chico Harlan (Washington Post): Thank you, Holy Father. I will ask my question in English with the help of Matteo. [In English] This trip obviously had extraordinary meaning for the people who got to see you, but it did also lead to events that caused conditions conducive to spreading the virus. In particular, unvaccinated people packed together singing. So as you weigh the trip, the thought that went into it and what it will mean, do you worry that the people who came to see you could also get sick or even die. Can you explain that reflection and calculation. Thank you.
Pope Francis: As I said recently, the trips are cooked over time in my conscience. And this is one of the [thoughts] that came to me most, “maybe, maybe.” I thought a lot, I prayed a lot about this. And in the end I freely made the decision. But that came from within. I said: “The one who allows me to decide this way will look after the people.” And so I made the decision like this but after prayer and after awareness of the risks, after all.
Bruni: The next question comes from Philippine de Saint-Pierre of the French press.
Philippine de Saint-Pierre (KTO): Your Holiness, we have seen the courage and dynamism of Iraqi Christians. We have also seen the challenges they face: the threat of Islamist violence, the exodus of Christians, and the witnesss of the faith in their environment. These are the challenges facing Christians through the region. We spoke about Lebanon, but also Syria, the Holy Land, etc. The synod for the Middle East took place 10 years ago but its development was interrupted with the attack on the Baghdad cathedral. Are you thinking about organizing something for the entire Middle East, be it a regional synod or any other initiative?
Pope Francis: I’m not thinking about a synod. Initiatives, yes — I am open to many. But a synod never came to mind. You planted the first seed, let’s see what will happen. The life of Christians in Iraq is an afflicted life, but not only for Christians. I came to talk about Yazidis and other religions that did not submit to the power of Daesh. And this, I don’t know why, gave them a very great strength. But there is a problem, like you said, with emigration. Yesterday, as we drove from Qaraqosh to Erbil, there were lots of young people and the age level was low, low, low. Lots of young people. And the question someone asked me: But these young people, what is their future? Where will they go? Many will have to leave the country, many. Before leaving for the trip the other day, on Friday, 12 Iraqi refugees came to say goodbye to me. One had a prosthetic leg because he had escaped under a truck and had an accident… so many escaped. Migration is a double right. The right to not emigrate and the right to emigrate. But these people do not have either of the two. Because they cannot not emigrate, they do not know how to do it. And they cannot emigrate because the world squashes the consciousness that migration is a human right.
The other day — I’ll go back to the migration question — an Italian sociologist told me, speaking about the demographic winter in Italy: “But within 40 years we will have to import foreigners to work and pay pension taxes.” You French are smarter, you have advanced 10 years with the family support law and your level of growth is very large.
But immigration is experienced as an invasion. Because he asked, yesterday I wanted to receive Alan Kurdi’s father after Mass. This child is a symbol for them. Alan Kurdi is a symbol, for which I gave a sculpture to FAO [the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations]. It is a symbol that goes beyond a child who died in migration. He is a symbol of dying civilizations, which cannot survive. A symbol of humanity. Urgent measures are needed so that people have work in their place and do not have to emigrate. And also measures to safeguard the right to emigrate. It is true that every country must study well the ability to receive [immigrants], because it is not only about receiving them and leaving them on the beach. Receive them, accompany them, help them progress, and integrate them. The integration of immigrants is key.
Two anecdotes: Zaventem, in Belgium: the terrorists were Belgians, born in Belgium, but from ghettoized, non-integrated Islamic immigrants. Another example: when I went to Sweden, during the farewell ceremony, there was the minister, of what I don’t know, [Ed. Alice Bah-Kuhnke, Swedish Minister of Culture and Democracy from 2014 to 2019], she was very young, and she had a distinctive appearance, not typical of Swedes. She was the daughter of a migrant and a Swede, and so well integrated that she became minister [of culture]. Looking at these two things, they make you think a lot, a lot, a lot.
I would like to thank the generous countries. The countries that receive migrants, Lebanon. Lebanon was generous with emigrants. There are two million Syrians there, I think. And Jordan — unfortunately, we will not pass over Jordan because the king is very nice, King Abdullah wanted to pay us a tribute with the planes in passage. I will thank him now — Jordan has been very generous [with] more than one and a half million migrants, also many other countries… to name just two. Thank you to these generous countries. Thank you very much.
Matteo Bruni: The next question is in Italian from the journalist Stefania Falasca.
Stefania Falasca (Avvenire): Good morning, Holy Father. Thank you. In three days in this country, which is a key country of the Middle East, you have done what the powerful of the earth have been discussing for 30 years. You have already explained what was the interesting genesis of your travels, how the choices for your travels originate, but now in this juncture, can you also consider a trip to Syria? What could be the objectives from now to a year from now of other places where your presence is required?
Pope Francis: Thank you. In the Middle East only the hypothesis, and also the promise is for Lebanon. I have not thought about a trip to Syria. I have not thought about it because the inspiration did not come to me. But I am so close to the tormented and beloved Syria, as I call it. I remember from the beginning of my pontificate that afternoon of prayer in St. Peter’s Square. There was the rosary, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. And how many Muslims with carpets on the ground were praying with us for peace in Syria, to stop the bombing, at that moment when it was said that there would be a fierce bombing. I carry Syria in my heart, but thinking about a trip, it has not occurred to me at this moment. Thank you.
Matteo Bruni: Thank you. The next question comes from Sylwia Wysocka of the Polish press.
Sylwia Wysocka (Polish Press Agency): Holy Father, in these very difficult 12 months your activity has been very limited. Yesterday you had the first direct and very close contact with the people in Qaraqosh: What did you feel? And then, in your opinion, now, with the current health system, can the general audiences with people, with faithful, recommence as before?
Pope Francis: I feel different when I am away from the people in the audiences. I would like to restart the general audiences again as soon as possible. Hopefully the conditions will be right. I will follow the norms of the authorities in this. They are in charge and they have the grace of God to help us in this. They are responsible for setting the rules, whether we like them or not. They are responsible and they have to be so.
Now I have started again with the Angelus in the square, with the distances it can be done. There is the proposal of small general audiences, but I have not decided until the development of the situation becomes clear. After these months of imprisonment, I really felt a bit imprisoned, this is, for me, living again.
Living again because it is touching the Church, touching the holy people of God, touching all peoples. A priest becomes a priest to serve, to serve the people of God, not for careerism, right? Not for the money.
This morning in the Mass there was [the Scripture reading about] the healing of Naaman the Syrian and it said that Naaman wanted to give gifts after he had been healed. But he refused… but the prophet Elisha refused them. And the Bible continues: the prophet Elisha’s assistant, when they had left, settled the prophet well and running he followed Naaman and asked for gifts for him. And God said, “the leprosy that Naaman had will cling to you.” I am afraid that we, men and women of the Church, especially we priests, do not have this gratuitous closeness to the people of God which is what saves us.
And to be like Naaman’s servant, to help, but then going back [for the gifts.] I am afraid of that leprosy. And the only one who saves us from the leprosy of greed, of pride, is the holy people of God, like what God spoke about with David, “I have taken you out of the flock, do not forget the flock.” That of which Paul spoke to Timothy: “Remember your mother and grandmother who nursed you in the faith.” Do not lose your belonging to the people of God to become a privileged caste of consecrated, clerics, anything.
This is why contact with the people saves us, helps us. We give the Eucharist, preaching, our function to the people of God, but they give us belonging. Let us not forget this belonging to the people of God. Then begin again like this.
I met in Iraq, in Qaraqosh… I did not imagine the ruins of Mosul, I did not imagine. Really. Yes, I may have seen things, I may have read the book, but this touches, it is touching.
What touched me the most was the testimony of a mother in Qaraqosh. A priest who truly knows poverty, service, penance; and a woman who lost her son in the first bombings by ISIS gave her testimony. She said one word: forgiveness. I was moved. A mother who says: I forgive, I ask forgiveness for them.
I was reminded of my trip to Colombia, of that meeting in Villavicencio where so many people, women above all, mothers and brides, spoke about their experience of the murder of their children and husbands. They said, “I forgive, I forgive.” But this word we have lost. We know how to insult big time. We know how to condemn in a big way. Me first, we know it well. But to forgive, to forgive one’s enemies. This is the pure Gospel. This is what touched me the most in Qaraqosh.
Matteo Bruni: There are other questions if you want. Otherwise we can…
Pope Francis: How long has it been?
Bruni: Almost an hour.
Pope Francis: We have been talking for almost an hour. I don’t know, I would continue, [joking] but the car… [is waiting for me.] Let’s do, how do you say, the last one before celebrating the birthday.
Matteo Bruni: The last is by Catherine Marciano from the French press, from the Agence France-Presse.
Catherine Marciano (AFP): Your Holiness, I wanted to know what you felt in the helicopter seeing the destroyed city of Mosul and praying on the ruins of a church. Since it is Women’s Day, I would like to ask a little question about women… You have supported the women in Qaraqosh with very nice words, but what do you think about the fact that a Muslim woman in love cannot marry a Christian without being discarded by her family or even worse. But the first question was about Mosul. Thank you, Your Holiness.
Pope Francis: I said what I felt in Mosul a little bit en passant. When I stopped in front of the destroyed church, I had no words, I had no words… beyond belief, beyond belief. Not just the church, even the other destroyed churches. Even a destroyed mosque, you can see that [the perpetrators] did not agree with the people. Not to believe our human cruelty, no. At this moment I do not want to say the word, “it begins again,” but let’s look at Africa. With our experience of Mosul, and these people who destroy everything, enmity is created and the so-called Islamic State begins to act. This is a bad thing, very bad, and before moving on to the other question — A question that came to my mind in the church was this: “But who sells weapons to these destroyers? Because they do not make weapons at home. Yes, they will make some bombs, but who sells the weapons, who is responsible? I would at least ask that those who sell the weapons have the sincerity to say: we sell weapons. They don’t say it. It’s ugly.
Women… women are braver than men. But even today women are humiliated. Let’s go to the extreme: one of you showed me the list of prices for women. [Ed. prepared by ISIS for selling Christian and Yazidi women.] I couldn’t believe it: if the woman is like this, she costs this much… to sell her… Women are sold, women are enslaved. Even in the center of Rome, the work against trafficking is an everyday job.
During the Jubilee, I went to visit one of the many houses of the Opera Don Benzi: Ransomed girls, one with her ear cut off because she had not brought the right money that day, and the other brought from Bratislava in the trunk of a car, a slave, kidnapped. This happens among us, the educated. Human trafficking. In these countries, some, especially in parts of Africa, there is mutilation as a ritual that must be done. Women are still slaves, and we have to fight, struggle, for the dignity of women. They are the ones who carry history forward. This is not an exaggeration: Women carry history forward and it’s not a compliment because today is Women’s Day. Even slavery is like this, the rejection of women… Just think, there are places where there is the debate regarding whether repudiation of a wife should be given in writing or only orally. Not even the right to have the act of repudiation! This is happening today, but to keep us from straying, think of what happens in the center of Rome, of the girls who are kidnapped and are exploited. I think I have said everything about this. I wish you a good end to your trip and I ask you to pray for me, I need it. Thank you.
[…]
I trust absolutely nothing that emanates from this disasterous pontificate with its predilection for deliberately fomenting ambiguity and confusion and for attaining by stage-managed subsidiarity and local proxies what it cannot to do directly.
The author’s thesis that Roman centralization is theologically unsupportable and historically untenable certainly creates quite a conundrum. For over 50 years we have been told that papally-centralized Vatican II and its subsequent papally-centralized governance juggernaut of theological, liturgical, disciplinary, ecumenical, political, and “pastoral” changes were all the work of the “Spirit” creating a “New Pentecost” and new “models of the Church”. If the Roman sources of these “novelties” are now “indefensible”, an ecclesiastical fraud on a universal scale has been practiced on the Church. One cannot have it both ways. If decentralization is “theologically, historically, and practically” normative, then Vatican II has to be seen as a monstrous deviation and corruption.
The decentralization goes against the Petrine doctrine established by Christ Himself, making Simon the rock of the Church is the model the faithful have always followed. The decentralization is apostasy. The ideas that the enemies of Holy Church (protestants, pagans, etc.) Holy Church to have in order to divide and conquer the faithful. There is nothing going on in decentralization of the Roman Curia that does not help and support the adversary’s wish to destroy Holy Church.
That commendation has validity only if local governance will be faithful to Christ. Historically it was always the Roman Pontiff that insured unity in one body, one faith, one baptism in Christ. The Latin Church developed from a relaxed confederation of dioceses always in acknowledgment of the primacy of Peter to a more centralized organization spreading the faith throughout the world. The Eastern churches were localized, esoteric, confined to cultures never missionary. And it was Rome that safeguarded universal doctrine on faith and morals. This Roman Pontiff is creating the opposite, the Church disintegrating into a doctrinal Babel. Disunity at this stage of history ensures further disunity and heterodoxy as already evidenced in several major national bishops conferences. You seem to believe distancing from Rome “and the worst lunatic of all” [is that you’re conviction also?] will save orthodoxy, whereas orthodoxy will be preserved not by philosophical musings and certainly not by Pope Francis. It will be preserved with fortitude and honor to Christ by that Mystical Body faithful to the Apostolic Tradition known as the One, Holy, Catholic Church.
“The Eastern churches were localized, esoteric, confined to cultures never missionary.”
Not true. The Byzantine, Western Syriac, and Eastern Syriac churches were all missionary to one degree or another until they bumped against the power of the ruler or invaders.
Latin missionary efforts have been pronounced in the last 500 years only because of Western imperialism and colonialism.
Sol that holds true for Spanish Portuguese presence in S Am due to papal decree. Even there it was Spanish missionaries who fought for the rights of Native peoples and were often opposed by Conquistadors. It was Spanish and Portuguese missionaries who brought the faith many martyred in hostile Japan and throughout unconquered areas in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. It was French Jesuit missionaries who brought the faith suffered martyrdom to unclaimed unconquered areas of N America. Whereas in Protestant Britain’s possessions in Africa it was Catholic missionaries who spread the faith among Africans. The irrefutable point is who spread the faith.
The first point is, without those imperialist efforts there would have been no missionaries to go around the world. The failure of the Church to deal properly with the power of state/empire can be seen in the lack of proper catechesis in the New World and in other places.
The second is that the claim that the Eastern churches were never missionary is false, especially when we remember the conflicts between the Jesuits and the native non-Latin churches that were already in certain areas (e.g. India).
Very true, SOL, and one must also remember that Russia itself was the result of missionaries. Eastern Christians were once widespread in China and other regions too. Unfortunately, as in the middle east, unfavorable governments drove them down.
It seems to me that the centralization of the Church and the role of the popes from Pius IX to John Paul II was necessary to maintain the integrity of the faith and morals of the Church in the face of modernist influences that have made a shipwreck of the faith of many during the past 50 years. The monarchical papacy evolved the way it did for a very good reason. It has been the best safeguard against centrifical forces which have seriously affected both the Protestant bodies and the Orthodox Churches. The authority of the pope over councils, synods, and bishops is a well established principle. The teachings of the popes against modernist influences in the 19th and 20th century have been critical in preserving the integrity of the faith in the face of an ever invasive and radically secular culture. I just hope the attempts to deconstruct the monarchical papacy will not have serious consequences for the integrity of the faith and moral teachings of the Church and the undermining of papal authority.
To what extent?
Isn’t the author downplaying the danger that the current papacy has initiated on some doctrinal issues; that if this is Francis’s idea of “decentralization” the Church is where on the charism of infallibility? Different enclaves of clerics under a new decentralized ecumenism decide what is now “relatively true” that works for them?
I’m all for Latin decentralization, when individual Latin bishops have the courage to excommunicate other bishops for heresy, schism, or dereliction of duty. Let’s have the first Latin bishop inveigh against the heretical errors of liberalism.
“that he quoted St. Ignatius of Antioch (albeit obliquely) and his famous observation that it is “the Church of Rome which presides in charity over all the Churches”—the entire Church, not the pope alone.”
Questionable — perhaps more a turn of language then really referring to the entire Church, or more precisely, to the leadership of the Church of Rome, whatever it may have been before the rise of the monoepiscopate.
So if the Eastern Churches always seem to have it right, then why don’t we just become Eastern Orthodox?
I believe in the universal supremacy of the Pope over the entire Church, I’m tired of theologians, and even our own prelates, constantly trying to erode and apologize for the very office that facilitates the Church’s unity, I do not want the Church to become broken up over competing nationalist/ethnic parties like the Orthodox nor do I want to see people literally campaign to be elected bishop like the Anglicans in Canada. The Papacy is what unites the majority of Christians in one Church. Let’s not meddle with what works,
I think Dr. DeVille is pointing to the unique role that the Eastern Catholic Churches, although small in size, can play when it comes to finding a proper balance. He’s well aware (as many of his other essays demonstrate) the problems with the Eastern Orthodox “model”, without the Petrine office. And he certainly doesn’t deny or want to do away with the proper, universal authority of the pope. Personally, I think there were good and understandable reasons for the centralization of the past 100+ years (modernity, modernism, globalism, technology, world wars, etc.), but there are serious problems with how things currently run. So, it’s not about denying the papacy, but reconsidering the ins-and-outs of the governance of the Church and the various bureaucracies (and that’s what they are) in Rome.
Andrew writes: “So if the Eastern Churches always seem to have it right, then why don’t we just become Eastern Orthodox?”
That’s exactly what I did. All the boogeymen I was told to expect in Orthodoxy, the infighting, the ethnocentrism, etc., were curiously absent. The degree of most people’s adherence to Christian morality and practice in Orthodoxy is noticeably greater than in the Roman Church. After so much persecution and change over the last century, if the fact that the Orthodox are still generally following the Apostolic traditions isn’t a testament to the truth of our Church and our model of governance, I’m not sure what is.
What you state can be debated regarding practice of Christian morality among Orthodox. I’ve been to a few Orthodox majority lands and they were remarkably like everyone else living in modernity (sometimes worse). There are saints and sinners in both Churches.
I’m glad you’ve had a good experience thus far and there is much that is beautiful in Orthodoxy but let’s not pretend the current Orthodox system of over laping jurisdictions and warring Patriarchates (Constantinople vs Moscow) is the model to emulate or reflective of the early Church. Moreover, the tendency of Orthodoxy to idolize the state also frightens me. For example, look at the Patriarch of Moscow’s cozy relationship with Putin. If that’s what’s offered as a model of papal reform I say no thanks! We as Catholics must not forget that the prerogatives of the Pope flow from Christ Himself. To modify that to appease Protestants and in fighting Orthodox is folly.
Infighting, warring Patriarchates, and church-state alliances are quite normal in Christian history. Allowing multiple low-intensity, localized pockets of dissent from the Gospel to compete with and check one another is a positive feature of the Orthodox Catholic Church, not a bug.
What the centralization of the Papacy did in the western Church was amplify and globalize what likely would have been only localized religious corruptions. For example, if King Henry VIII could have compelled a crooked autocephalus English jurisdiction of the church to grant him divorces on demand, it would have been whispered about in other corners of Europe but generally laughed off. This happened a lot in eastern Europe. Then, the King would die, and things would go back to normal with his successors condemning him. Even the German situation with Luther might have been a minor, provincial squabble. It’s hard to imagine indulgences gaining much currency beyond Italy in a scenario where the Conciliarist triumph at the Council of Constance.
Instead, the Papacy set the stage for the bloody and unprecedented Wars of Religion and Reformation that ravaged Europe for centuries and caused the rise of secularism and religious indifferentism. Turning the Pope into a competing temporal ruler with supreme power served only to raise the stakes of Christian-on-Christian violence and thrust doctrine itself into the realm of politics. Pope Francis is simply the latest chapter in this ongoing drama of centralization.
Personally, it seems bizarre to me that something as important to the governance of the Church as papal infallibility would not be defined, and generally doubted, until as late as 1870. The Pope didn’t even bother to personally show up at Ecumenical Councils, and you’d think somebody would have been aware of his supremacy and infallibility, which could be expected to play a huge role in settling Christological heresies. Whether I’ve overlooked pros of a centralization in the papacy that outweigh the cons, the fact is, there is no evidence to suggest the papal claims are anything other than relatively late, predominately politically-motivated innovations.
I respect you and the author of the article greatly BUT let’s be honest, we didn’t hear such concerns about Vatican centralization in this or other orthodox Catholic publications during the JP2/Benedict years. In other words, the concerns about Vatican control seem to be a response to Francis and nothing more. I too have concerns about Francis but must we erode the papal office because of one man?
It’s a fair point in some respects, but Eastern Catholics have long had these concerns (and both Dr. DeVille and myself are Eastern Catholics), going back decades. Does some of this have to do with Francis? Yes, some. What this pontificate has shown, I think, is that not every pope is going to be a brilliant, orthodox, and globally-minded man who works to keep above the political frays, whether inside or outside the Church. I cannot argue it here, but I don’t see this as an erosion of the papal office, but a strengthening of what the papacy should be. There will be, of course, constant problems, as no pope is perfect and there will always be power struggles.
That’s a good point. Much to think about. I’ve just finished reading the biography of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (no I’m NOT an SSPX guy; I attend a solid Novus Ordo parish) and it said that one of his concerns and other conservative bishops at Vatican 2 was that the Vatican 2 documents, with their dual focus on Rome and national bishop’s conferences, inadvertently eroded the authority of the individual bishop in his diocese. I think this is very true. Roman decentralization might be a good thing, but I would hate to exchange Rome for some national committee run by ecclesiastical politicians. I don’t know what the answer is. It seems everywhere (Catholic, Anglican and Eastern Orthodox) is messed up. Maybe this is where the Benedict Option comes in. Focus on the local and create small, faithful, orthodox communities capable of living and passing on the Faith in a dynamic and authentic manner; because when I look at many of our bishops I want as little to do with them as possible (it saddens me to say that btw).
Carl it’s also a fair point to say that DeVille’s views and yours reflect a choice of structure that is less open to liturgical change and which possesses an attractive stability. Similarly it’s a fair point to say that if it weren’t for the universal nature [definitive of Catholic] of papal authority, which largely took the initiative to unite the Eastern churches including Maronites there would be no union. “The whole discussion gravitates around a text of the twelfth century. William of Tyre (De Bello Sacro, XX, viii) relates the conversion of 40,000 Maronites in the year 1182. The substance of the leading text is as follows: ‘After they [the nation that had been converted, in the vicinity of Byblos] had for five hundred years adhered to the false teaching of an heresiarch named Maro, so that they took from him the name of Maronites, and, being separated from the true Church had been following their own peculiar liturgy [ab ecclesia fidelium sequestrati seorsim sacramenta conficerent sua], they came to the Patriarch of Antioch, Aymery, the third of the Latin patriarchs, and, having abjured their error, were, with their patriarch and some bishops, reunited to the true Church'” (New Catholic Advent). Also the current controversy regarding centralized authority has everything to do with this papacy. The structure of the Latin Church cannot simulate the Maronite structure of independent bishoprics and remain solvent. We see it’s disunity already in Germany.
As a former Maronite Catholic, Fr. Peter, I can assure you that’s not the history of the Maronite Catholic Church, unless you want to admit that the Roman Catholic Church commemorates a canonized heirisiarch on her calendar. Maro in William of Tyre’s book is none other than St. Maron, commemorated by both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches as a defender of Chalcedon. Please research further.
Sorry Carl, I can’t agree with you on this.
“Centralization” is another term for the Church’s ultimate triumph over lay investiture in the 19th century. We all can be grateful for its full realization in Pope Pius XII — our Pastor Angelicus, “the Pope of Our Youth” as Benedict XVI called him in 2008.
The poison that is rotting the Church today is lay, lower clergy and episcopal officiating. We need guys like Sarah, and Ratzinger, and Rigali — experienced “players” at the highest level who can weed out bad shepherds.
No, what Francis wants is what Paul VI (who did his share and more to actualize it) called the “auto-demolition” of the Roman Church. The Roman Church in its full rigor has saved what’s left of Christendom –something the Eastern churches weren’t up to. Sorry once again, but I’m not buying any version of Bergoglio’s St. Gallen/Martini/Aparecida/Lavender Mafia “decentralization”.
“, rightly refusing to be ruled by the one-time imperial capital whose colonizing practices continue to manifest themselves in the Church of Rome’s curia.”
Nothing like a fair, unbiased author without an axe to grind, is there?
It’s almost a rule of life and growth. Pruning and renewal add vigor, vitality, and strength to institutions.
As for the for many odious “Roman centralism”, it can be thanked for the fact that we still actually in the Catholic Church. From the period of Conciliarism after the Great Western Schism, there was Gallicanism and later Febronianism and Josephinism which if they had been successful would have converted the Catholic Church into something like the Orthodox autocephalous Churches, which as is clear from the recent attempt at a Panorthodox Synod which was a failure.
As for the selection of bishops, certainly, the system can and should be improved, as the crop of bishops we now have would clearly indicate. However, let us not forget that the system of popular acclamation, whilst it gave the Church some of the most outstanding bishops such as St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, it also provoked even riots with as many as 100 dead at the election of Pope Damasus I in 362. In the 16th century,when the appointment of bishops was in the hands of the King of Spain for his dominions, he appointed some excellent bishops such as St. Toribo of Mogrovejo, who was Archbishop of Lima in Peru for 14 years and he spent 17 of them making pastoral visits to many parts of his huge diocese, and is now the Patron Saint of Latin American Bishops.
Pope Francis has also proposed giving doctrinal authority to Bishop’s Conferences and this is a very bad idea as is already apparent. This is seen as an application of the dangerous doctrine of Collegiality as it is presented in Lumen Gentium which is a novelty in the tradition of the Latin Church and would tend to convert the Pope into a kind of Prime Minister. This doctrine needs to be reviewed.
As for the reform of the Curia, it seems to me that Francis has already failed in this effort and he has gone about it in a very wrong fashion. He has continually belittled and insulted the members of the Curia and according to Cardinal Muller and others, there is a very negative atmosphere there. If he wants to reform it, he might have consulted those who work by means of questionnaires and he might have personally gone to visit each dicastery and listen to them so that they would see that their input has been taken into account and they are on board. PF is now 81 and they know that he cannot last long, so they can go back to business as usual when he passes away. He needed to have a positive attitude, for it is impossible to think that everyone who worked in the Churia is a knave. Positive motivation is always better than berating.
Pope Paul VI, who had worked in the Churia for some 30 years reformed it, but he placed much of the power int he hands of ht Secretariat of State, where he himself has worked. Cardinal Muller has stated that Doctrine should be given primacy and not diplomacy. For that, power has to be taken away from the Secretariat of State, but Francis has even increased it by adding a new subsection to it. The failure of the financial reforms has been due to a good degree to Francis having given into the pressures of the Secretariat of State and others unwilling to relinquish theirs.
And whatever happened to the high-level 2012/2013 report on the Lavender Mafia that Benedict turned over to Bergoglio? Like “the dubia sent, did it fall into an air vent?” Or maybe it was received under the new rubric: But who am I to judge? (You’re the Pope, Jack, judging is your job).
The Church needs more “centralization” in the Supreme Pontiff, not less — less has been the disastrous “los von Rom” modernist program of the last 60 years. I hate to say it, but what we really need is a more worthy man than the St. Gallen/Lavender Mafia-packaged nightclub bouncer Bergoglio, with his entourage of power-hungry thugs, on the throne of St. Peter.
In a way, the question of Rome’s decision to exercise authority in a centralized or decentralized way is moot for the Orthodox.
For the Orthodox, the point is this: according to current Catholic teaching, it is the pope’s prerogative (and his alone) to decide which way he wishes to exercise his authority. That is the issue at heart.
Even a proponent of Roman decentralization as noteworthy as Cardinal Walter Kasper (sic!) points this out in his book on the Church (translated several years ago into English). As he says, any restrictions on papal authority to do things (e.g., I might offer by way of an example, the ability of Eastern Churches to appoint bishops in their ‘home’ territories) is always a self-limitation on the part of the Roman pontiff. As Cardinal Kasper notes, this is how things work in the current Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches (CCEO): the pope has elected to hold back the exercise of his power; it is only through this self-circumscription that the Eastern Churches exercise their own synodal prerogatives, etc. The corollary (unstated by Kasper) to this is clear: at any time, the pope may elect to cancel these self-restrictions. (Indeed, Pope Francis change the CCEO’s prescriptions on marriage law several years ago by his fiat with a motu proprio.) As long as that is the case, and there is no check on papal power that is absolute, Orthodox Churches will never accept papal authority. But how can the Catholic Church do that? Vatican I is fairly clear about the pope’s universal jurisdiction as dogmatic, and Vatican II (in Christus Dominus) only re-affirms this teaching in the clearest terms.
Honestly, the only way would be for Vatican I & II to be rejected as anti-councils due to a catastrophic failure of the Papacy. That may be what Providence is working toward by allowing unchecked centralization and faith in an infallible and supreme Pope to despoil the Roman liturgy, devestate religious life, wipe out vocations, introduce blatant contradictions to reveal the absurdity of the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, etc. Even in wider society, the chaotic cultural and sexual revolutions of the 1960s and 70s are hard to imagine without Vatican II unsettling a critical mass of believers who would have otherwise confidently opposed the societal shifts.
Not anti-councils, but local councils of the Roman Patriarchate, with dogmatic statements that are not binding on any other patriarchate/particular Church unless so ratified.
I don’t see it as a catastrophic failure of the papacy, but the living reductio ad absurdam of one model of the papacy.
Maybe we need to remember what the two previous pope’s had to say on this not-new issue of centralization. Decentralization of bureaucracies is not the same as the unfortunately and predictably co-mingled elevation of geographic conferences of bishops. In Pope Benedict XVI’s image, the collegiality of bishops is an ellipse with two focal points, the primacy and the episcopacy, rather than being a mimic of either a political monarchy or a democratic national assembly (God’s Word: Scripture, Tradition and Office, Ignatius Press, 2008). The several national Catholic conferences of bishops do not qualify as a sort of presumptive local church parliament. They exist rather to support “the inalienable responsibility of each bishop in relation to the universal Church and to his particular Church” (St. Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, May 21, 1998). This form of Church is not the same as the autocephalous Orthodox Churches, nor the Protestant ecclesial communities, nor, incidentally, Islam whose sectarian self-understanding is as a “congregational theocracy” — unlike the what the Second Vatican Council still affirmed as the Catholic “hierarchical communion” (Lumen Gentium).
Perhaps a re-reading of papal primacy is in order, regardless of how it has been exercised historically. Biblically, the Twelve needed constant correction by Christ for sorting out who was first; including Peter.
This article would be interesting if it were not so naive. The main problem is that decentralization is only as good as the local powers into whose hands decentralization plays. With weak, heretical, and often power-hungry local ordinaries and episcopal conferences, decentralization is simply one more step in the autodemolition of the Church about which Paul VI sadly spoke (and to which, alas, he himself contributed by the unprecedented dismantling of the Roman Rite).
If Fortescue was really speaking of St. Pius X one must remember the liturgical reforms that were implemented by him.
Oops, that was intended for the comment below by “Leslie.”
You quote Adrian Fortescue (quite approvingly): “Does it really mean that one cannot be a member of the Church of Christ without being, as we are, absolutely at the mercy of an Italian lunatic?”
The Person he was calling an “Italian lunatic” was Pope St. Pius X.
That pretty much takes care of any respect I might have had for Fortescue’s opinion
Hmmm – not sure why I capitalized the ‘p” in “person” – it was unintentional!