Benedict XVI

That Ardent Desire to Recover Unity
From the Letter to the Chinese Catholics to the document on the Conclave, by way of the Tridentine Mass and the note on Christian confessions, there is a common thread running through the Pontiff’s recent statements. And further measures are in preparation

by Andrea Tornielli

Three documents bearing his signature, one that he has approved... For Benedict XVI, the weeks leading up to summer were marked by an acceleration in decision-making, like the wonderful Letter to the Chinese Catholics, the document that permitted the Tridentine Missal in the 1962 edition, the motu proprio restoring the need for a two-thirds majority of votes for the election of the Pope, and the note of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. These texts, destined to leave a deep impression on the pontificate of Pope Ratzinger, have different histories and their publication just a few days apart is fortuitous.  But it is possible to trace a common thread that runs through them all and will predictably be repeated in the coming months. It is the desire for reconciliation and dialogue, which Benedict XVI has already demonstrated on many occasions. This desire for reconciliation strives to leave nothing undone in order to make good some of the fallings out in the past and foster the unity of the Church. 

Ratzinger is a pastoral Pope, he reaches out to many people, with his heart bent on the crux of the matter.  “My true program of government,” he said during the Mass for the beginning of his service as Bishop of Rome, “is not to do my own will, not to pursue my own ideas, but to listen with the whole Church to the word and the will of the Lord and let myself be guided by Him, so that it is He Himself who will guide the Church in this hour of our history.” 

His letter presenting the motu proprio which permits the ancient Missal, sent out to all Bishops, contains the key to its interpretation, going beyond the document itself and enabling us to glimpse the future prospects of the pontificate. “It is a matter of coming to an interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church. Looking back over the past, to the divisions which in the course of the centuries have rent the Body of Christ, one continually has the impression that, at critical moments when divisions were coming about, not enough was done by the Church’s leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity. One has the impression that omissions on the part of the Church have had their share of blame for the fact that these divisions were able to harden. This glance at the past imposes an obligation on us today: to make every effort to enable all those who truly desire unity to remain in that unity or attain it anew.” 

Litterae communionis to China

The long-awaited letter of Benedict XVI to the Catholic Church in China was published on June 30th. It is a call to unity in the Chinese Church, which is one and is not divided, as is persistently believed and reported in much of the Western media. But the letter also reaches out to the authorities in Beijing, offering practical suggestions for solving some of the problems and avoiding new tensions.  The Pope declares the end of the “special faculties” conceded twenty years ago by the Holy See, which allowed for the ordination of new “clandestine” Bishops and invited the two communities, the so-called “official” Church and the “underground”  one, to a full reconciliation.  He explains that the purposes of the Patriotic Association, the government organization that claims to control the Church by making it independent, autonomous, and self-managed, “cannot be reconciled with Catholic doctrine.” He invites the “official” Bishops (almost all recognized by Rome, though they were initially consecrated without papal approval) to publicly reveal their recognition of the Pontiff. It explains to the so-called “clandestine” Christians that the Church is not made for secrecy and states that the Church “is not tied to any political system.” Therefore, also in China, “it does not have a mission to change the structure or administration of the state” but to proclaim Christ. This is a key passage, to reassure the Beijing government that Catholics as such claim respect for religious freedom and are not working to overthrow the regime under the influence of the Vatican. In fact, “the Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible,” though at the same time “it cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice.” And it is clear that the Church “asks the State to guarantee to those same Catholic citizens the full exercise of their faith, with respect for authentic religious freedom.” 

The Tridentine Missal

A week later, on Saturday, July 7th, the Pope published his motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum. By this act, Benedict XVI permitted the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass, never officially abolished or forbidden. In this way, he carried out the intention expressed earlier by John Paul II, who granted a  dispensation for those faithful deeply attached to the old form of worship. The ruling becomes effective on September 14th, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. It lays down that the “faithful who remain attached… to the previous liturgical forms” should apply directly to their parish priest to ask for the Tridentine Mass. The Sacraments can also be celebrated, in addition to the Sunday Liturgy. The motu proprio was accompanied by a letter to the Bishops from the Pope. Benedict XVI explains that the Mass of the liturgical reform “is and remains the normal form” of the Roman Liturgy,” while the Tridentine Mass is its  “extraordinary form.” And it recalls that some Catholics turned to the old Liturgy “because in many places celebrations were not faithful to the prescriptions of the new Missal, but the latter was actually understood as authorizing or even requiring creativity, which frequently led to deformations of the Liturgy which were hard to bear.”  Speaking from “direct experience,” Ratzinger recalls “having seen how arbitrary deformations of the Liturgy caused deep pain to individuals totally rooted in the faith of the Church.” 

This papal document, known to have been in preparation for some time, aroused widespread comment and controversy.  In reality, it does not mean a complete return to the past. Even less is it “a slap in the face” for the Council.  The unity of the Catholic Church has always been expressed in a plurality of celebrations and the papal decision is another hand reached out in reconciliation to the traditionalist world. It is a gesture of liberality in the spirit of the correct interpretation of the Vatican Council’s decisions and should not be seen as a break with tradition. 

The reform of the Conclave

The Pope has also launched a minor electoral reform by canceling one of the most innovative (and debated) points of Conclave law  introduced by John Paul II in 1996 with the Apostolic Constitution Universi dominici gregis. In the future, a Pope will no longer be elected by a simple majority, meaning half-plus-one of the votes. Election will require two-thirds of the votes, the standard rule throughout the history of the Conclave. Benedict XVI did not choose to rewrite the rules for election from scratch. He simply changed paragraph 75 of his predecessor’s text, which laid down that after a certain number of ballots (33 or 34) and 10-13 days of fruitless balloting, the Cardinals could abandon the two-thirds majority rule and adopt the simple majority. There is little likelihood of a Conclave lasting more than ten days (it has not happened in the past 150 years). But election by simple majority touched on a rule that had always accompanied the elections: the new Pope has to come through expression of an ample majority. Under the half-plus-one system, there would be the risk of a narrowly won election, with disputes over voting and, above all, the image of a split electoral college.  Ratzinger therefore abolished the 1996 innovation, introducing the obligation, after 33-34 ballots, of the second ballot between the two Cardinals with the most votes. Here again, for the election to be valid, the two-thirds majority is essential. This is a way to ensure that the Pope always has the support of a large majority.

Where does the Church of Christ “subsist”? 

The last of the texts, published on July 10th, is not a papal document, but a note of the former Holy Office, approved by Benedict XVI, which returns to a topic widely studied and examined in the past. The one Church of Christ, it explains, “the visible and spiritual community,” “subsists”–meaning it continues and remains–in the Catholic Church. The crux is how to interpret that word “subsists.” In the Conciliar Constitution Lumen gentium, it replaced the earlier “is” used by Pius XII and has given rise to numerous interpretations. They keep cropping up, despite the authoritative statements in papal texts.  Some of these interpretations present the Church of Christ as something that does not yet exist and will be created by the reunification of the Christian Churches, an ecumenical objective to be attained by the communities that have broken away. Instead, that term, “subsistence,” explains the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith once again, represents the “perduring, historical continuity and the permanence of all the elements instituted by Christ in the Catholic Church, in which the Church of Christ is concretely found on this earth.” Why, then, did the Council use the word “subsists”? 

The term was used to state more clearly that “numerous elements of sanctification and truth” are also found outside the Catholic Church, in other Christian confessions, even though they lack the fullness of the gifts of the Church of Christ. Though it did not imply any change in doctrine, the explanation of the former Holy Office, in response to some of the questions raised in recent years, was treated as controversial. Here again, however, we have a precise expression of Benedict XVI’s attitude. The ecumenical dialogue should not lead us to ignore differences or shunt them onto the sidelines, but to look them squarely in the face. The dialogue has to start from what we are, which means the Catholic Church has to start from the way it was defined by Vatican Council II.