Sua Eminenza il Card. Raymond L. Burke quest'oggi onora il nostro blog inviandoci il testo della relazione di cui abbiamo pubblicato qualche giorno fa il video, vertente sul diritto canonico ed il presbitero nel suo ruolo di "buon pastore".
Il Card. Burke, apprezzato canonista e molto noto per il suo infaticabile apostolato a favore della Santa Messa nella sua forma straordinaria, arcivescovo emerito di Saint Louis, nello stato del Missouri (USA), è attualmente Prefetto del Supremo Tribunale della Segnatura Apostolica, chiamato a quest'incarico da papa Benedetto XVI e da lui elevato alla porpora cardinalizia nel 2010 quale cardinale diacono del titolo romano di Sant'Agata dei Goti.
Lo ringraziamo vivamente per questo gesto di benevolenza e considerazione. Grazie Eminenza!
Il Card. Burke, apprezzato canonista e molto noto per il suo infaticabile apostolato a favore della Santa Messa nella sua forma straordinaria, arcivescovo emerito di Saint Louis, nello stato del Missouri (USA), è attualmente Prefetto del Supremo Tribunale della Segnatura Apostolica, chiamato a quest'incarico da papa Benedetto XVI e da lui elevato alla porpora cardinalizia nel 2010 quale cardinale diacono del titolo romano di Sant'Agata dei Goti.
Lo ringraziamo vivamente per questo gesto di benevolenza e considerazione. Grazie Eminenza!
MOTHER OF THE REDEEMER RETREAT CENTER
BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA
DECEMBER 7, 2012
CONFERENCE V
The Priesthood and the New Evangelization
Introduction
The pontificate of Pope John Paul II may be rightly described as a tireless
call to recognize the Church’s challenge to be faithful to her divinely-given
mission in a totally secularized society and to respond to the challenge by
means of a new evangelization. A new evangelization is teaching the faith
through preaching, catechesis and all forms of Catholic education; celebrating
the faith in the Sacraments and in their extension through prayer and devotion,
and living the faith through the practice of the virtues, all as if for the
first time, that is, with the engagement and energy of the first disciples and
of the first missionaries to our native place.
In his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici,
“On the Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the
World,” the Venerable Pope John Paul II described the contemporary situation of
the Church in the world with these words:
Whole countries and nations where
religion and the Christian life were formerly flourishing and capable of
fostering a viable and working community of faith, are now put to a hard test,
and in some cases, are even undergoing a radical transformation, as a result of
a constant spreading of an indifference to religion, of secularism and atheism.
This particularly concerns countries and nations of the so-called First World,
in which economic well-being and consumerism, even if coexistent with a tragic
situation of poverty and misery, inspires and sustains a life lived “as if God
did not exist”. This indifference to religion and the practice of religion
devoid of true meaning in the face of life’s very serious problems, are not
less worrying and upsetting when compared with declared atheism. [1]
To remedy the situation, the saintly Pontiff observed, “a mending of the
Christian fabric of society is urgently needed in all parts of the world.”[2] He
hastened to add that, if the remedy is to be achieved, the Church herself must
be evangelized anew. Fundamental to understanding the radical secularization of
our culture is to understand also how much the secularization has entered into
the life of the Church Herself. In the words of Pope John Paul II, “[b]ut for
this [the mending of the Christian fabric of society] to come about what is
needed is to first remake the Christian fabric of the ecclesial
community itself present in these countries and nations.”[3]
The Roman Pontiff, therefore, called upon the lay faithful to fulfill their
particular responsibility, that is, “to testify how the Christian faith
constitutes the only full valid response – consciously perceived and stated by
all in varying degrees – to the problems and hopes that life poses to every
person and society.”[4] Making
more specific the call, he clarified that the fulfillment of the responsibility
of the lay faithful requires that they “know how to overcome in themselves the
separation of the Gospel from life, to take up again in their daily activities
in family, work and society, an integrated approach to life that is fully
brought about by the inspiration and strength of the Gospel.”[5]
Before the challenges of living the Catholic faith in our time, Pope John
Paul II recalled to our minds the urgency of Christ’s mandate given to the
first disciples and given, no less, to missionaries down the Christian
centuries and to us today. He declared:
Certainly the command of Jesus:
“Go and preach the Gospel” always maintains its vital value and its
ever-pressing obligation. Nevertheless, the present situation, not
only of the world but also of many parts of the Church, absolutely
demands that the word of Christ receive a more ready and generous obedience.
Every disciple is personally called by name; no disciple can withhold making a
response: “Woe to me, if I do not preach the Gospel” (1 Cor 9:16).[6]
The obedience which is fundamental and essential to the new evangelization
is also a virtue acquired with great difficulty in a culture which exalts individualism
and questions all authority, except the self. Yet, it is indispensable if the
Gospel is to be taught and lived in our time. We must take example from the
first disciples, from the first missionaries to our homeland, and from the host
of saints and blesseds who gave themselves completely to Christ, calling upon
the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit to purify themselves of any rebellion
before God’s will and to strengthen them to do God’s will in all things.
Pope John Paul II issued the same call to a new evangelization to the
faithful in the other states of life in the Church. In the Post-Synodal
Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis, “On the Formation of
Priests in the Circumstances of the Present Day,” writing about the spiritual
gift of the priest for “the universal mission of salvation to the end of the
earth,” he observed:
Today in particular, the pressing
pastoral task of the new evangelization calls for the involvement of the entire
People of God, and requires a new fervour, new methods and a new expression for
the announcing and witnessing of the Gospel. This task demands priests who are
deeply and fully immersed in the mystery of Christ and capable of embodying a
new style of pastoral life, marked by a profound communion with the Pope, the
Bishops and other priests, and a fruitful cooperation with the lay faithful,
always respecting and fostering the different roles, charisms and ministries
present within the ecclesial community.[7]
According to the teaching of Pope John Paul II, the seminarian preparing to
present himself for ordination to the priesthood and the exercise of the
priestly office, today, must be equipped for and engaged in the remaking of
“the Christian fabric of the ecclesial community,”[8] in
fidelity to the Church’s apostolic nature, sustained in organic unity, down the
Christian centuries from the Resurrection, Ascension and Descent of the Holy
Spirit. Before the forces of secularization which dominate society and culture,
the faithful need the spiritual ministration of priests who recognize the
gravity of the situation and are prepared to address it steadfastly with
apostolic zeal, with fervent prayer, especially before the Blessed Sacrament;
with sound teaching, and with obedience to the Holy Father and the Bishops in
communion with him.
We who are seminarians and priests should not be naïve about the influence
of secularism and its by-product, consumerism, in our own lives. According to
an ancient axiom of the Church’s discipline, “corruptio optimi pessima est,”
“the corruption of the best is the worst thing.” Satan and the forces of evil,
who do not sleep, understand well that any influence which they can have upon
the shepherds of the Church will redound to their influence in the whole flock.
They know the wisdom expressed in the Prophet Zechariah, “Strike the shepherd,
that the sheep may be scattered.”[9] The
formation of future priests and the ongoing formation of priests, therefore,
must be centered upon the essential elements of our life in Christ and, in
particular, the irreplaceable office of the ordained priest in the Mystical
Body of Christ.
In a similar fashion, in his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita
Consecrata, “On the Consecrated Life and Its Mission in the Church and in
the World,” Pope John Paul II emphasized the new evangelization as the
particular form, in our time, of the universal charity which is the characteristic
mark of the state of life of consecrated persons. He declared:
Today, among the possible works
of charity, certainly the one which in a special way shows the world this love
“to the end” is the fervent proclamation of Jesus Christ to those who do not
yet know him, to those who have forgotten him, and the poor in a preferential
way.[10]
Consecrated persons, because of their identification with Christ the Poor,
the Chaste and the Obedient, both by their consecration itself and through
their apostolate – including the apostolate of prayer and penance of those who
are monastic or contemplative religious – , carry out an essential service in
the Church in every age and, in a special way, in our time. They call the
faithful and all persons of good will to Christ, to contemplate Christ and the
Gospel virtues, to love Christ and to serve Him.
Later on in Vita Consecrata, the Venerable Pope John Paul II
articulated the service to a new evangelization, given by consecrated persons,
with these words:
The new evangelization, like that
of all times, will be effective if it proclaims from the rooftops what it has
first lived in intimacy with the Lord. It calls for strong personalities,
inspired by saintly fervour. The new evangelization demands that consecrated
persons have a thorough awareness of the theological significance of
the challenges of our time. Those challenges must be weighed with careful
joint discernment, with a view to renewing the mission. Courage in proclaiming
the Lord Jesus must be accompanied by trust in Providence, which is at work in
the world and which “orders everything, even human differences, for the great
good of the Church.” … In every place and circumstance, consecrated persons
should be zealous heralds of Jesus Christ, ready to respond with the words of
the Gospel to the questions posed today by the anxieties and urgent needs of
the human heart.[11]
Given the individualism and materialism characteristic of a secularized
society, the faithful witness of the consecrated life to the poverty, chastity
and obedience of Christ is more critically needed in our time than ever.
An extraordinary synthesis of the teaching of Pope John Paul II on the new
evangelization is found in his Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte,
“At the Close of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000.” In the face of the grave
situation of the world today, we are, the saintly Pontiff reminded us, like the
first disciples who, after hearing Saint Peter’s Pentecost discourse, asked him
and the other Apostles: “Brethren, what shall we do?”[12] Even
as the first disciples faced a pagan world which had not even heard of our Lord
Jesus Christ, so we, too, face a culture which is forgetful of God and hostile
to His Law written upon every human heart.
Before the great challenge of our time, Pope John Paul II cautioned us that
we will not save ourselves and our world by discovering “some magic formula” or
by “inventing a new programme.”[13] In
unmistakable terms, he declared:
No, we shall not be saved by a
formula but by a Person, and the assurance which he gives us: I am with
you.[14]
He reminded us that the programme by which we are to address effectively
the great spiritual challenges of our time is, in the end, Jesus Christ alive
for us in the Church. He explained:
The programme already exists: it
is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition, it is the same as
ever. Ultimately, it has its center in Christ himself, who is to be known,
loved and imitated, so that in him we may live the life of the Trinity, and
with him transform history until its fulfillment in the heavenly Jerusalem.
This is a program which does not change with shifts of times and cultures, even
though it takes account of time and culture for the sake of true dialogue and
effective communication.[15]
In short, the program leading to freedom and happiness is, for each of us,
holiness of life, in accord with our state in life.
Pope John Paul II, in fact, cast the entire pastoral plan for the Church in
terms of holiness. He explained himself thus:
In fact, to place pastoral
planning under the heading of holiness is a choice filled with consequences. It
implies the conviction that, since Baptism is a true entry into the holiness of
God through incorporation into Christ and the indwelling of his Spirit, it
would be a contradiction to settle for a life of mediocrity, marked by a
minimalist ethics and a shallow religiosity. To ask catechumens: “Do you wish
to receive Baptism?” means at the same time to ask them: “Do you wish to become
holy?” It means to set before them the radical nature of the Sermon on the
Mount: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48).[16]
Pope John Paul II continued, making reference to the Second Vatican
Ecumenical Council, by reminding us that “this ideal of perfection must not be
misunderstood as if it involved some kind of extraordinary existence, possible
only for a few ‘uncommon heroes’ of holiness.”[17]
Pope John Paul II taught us the extraordinary nature of our ordinary life,
because it is lived in Christ and, therefore, produces in us the incomparable
beauty of holiness. He declared:
The ways of holiness are many,
according to the vocation of each individual. I thank the Lord that in these
years he has enabled me to beatify and canonize a large number of Christians,
and among them many lay people who attained holiness in the most ordinary
circumstances of life. The time has come to re-propose wholeheartedly to
everyone this high standard of ordinary Christian living: the whole
life of the Christian community and of Christian families must lead in this
direction.[18]
Seeing in us the daily conversion of life by which we strive to meet the
high standard of holiness, the “high standard of ordinary Christian living,”
our brothers and sisters will discover the great mystery of their own ordinary
life in which God daily showers upon them his ceaseless and immeasurable love,
calling them to holiness of life in Christ, His only-begotten Son. Clearly, the
“mending of the Christian fabric of society” can only come about by the
remaking of “the Christian fabric of the ecclesial community,” beginning with
the individual in his family, at home.[19]
The New Evangelization in the Magisterium of Pope Paul VI
To understand the nature and urgency of the call to the new evangelization,
it is important to note how the same call was issued in the Magisterium of Pope
Paul VI who, in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, “On
Evangelization in the World Today,” of December 8, 1975, had called for a new
proclamation of the Gospel in what he called “frequent situations of
dechristianization in our day.”[20] In
the years which followed the close of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
the Servant of God had witnessed the progressive secularization of society and
its destructive effects within the Church.
In his homily on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, in 1972, for
example, reflecting upon the situation of the Church in the world, he spoke of
his sense that “through some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered into the
temple of God.”[21] He
spoke of a pervasive doubt, uncertainty, restlessness, dissatisfaction and
dissent, and of a loss of trust in the Church, coupled with a ready placement
of trust in secular prophets who speak through the press or social movements,
seeking from them the formula for a true life.[22] He
noted how, also in the Church, the state of uncertainty prevailed, observing
that after the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council it was believed that “a day of
sunlight had dawned upon the Church,” while, in fact, “a day of clouds, storms,
darkness, wandering and uncertainty” had arrived.[23] He
commented that we seek to plumb the abysses rather than to fill them.[24]
I am reminded of a comment by the late and most wise Mother Mary Francis of
the Poor Clare Colettine Monastery in Roswell, New Mexico. Writing, already in
1967, about the approach to the renewal of the religious form of consecrated
life, after the Council, Mother Mary Francis observed:
It is simply a fact that we can
have too many workshops and discussions on such subjects as the formation of
novices and juniors, the psychological aspects of religious life, and mental
hygiene, which reduce to mere long-ringing condemnations of the past. One, of
course, would be too many. We could be using this time and this energy actually
forming our communities, in studying and promoting a sound psychology of
religious life, and in practicing and encouraging mental hygiene. We are all
surely aware that mistakes have been made in the past. We may even be willing
to admit we have made a few ourselves. Let us go on from there, not hold a
seminar there. Let us by all means get expert guidance in the areas just
mentioned and many others, the while not letting the fact elude us that the
Holy Spirit remains the Expert, the Counsellor.
There may certainly be valid reasons for calmly mentioning some past errors for
mutual education. A charitable sharing of blunders can be a genuine service to
one another, since we all stumble often enough even when forewarned of
booby-traps. However, to talk from a stump of censure will never avail anything
positive.[25]
Pope Paul VI’s lament, reflected also in the observations of Mother Mary
Francis, points to a rupture in the life of the Church, caused by the failure
to see the organic nature of her life, receiving from Christ, faithfully down
the centuries, the gift of the Holy Spirit for the evangelization of the world.
The rupture is embodied in the perception that everything which had happened in
the Church from the time of the first disciples was a betrayal and that the
Church must, therefore, be created ex novo by somehow
returning to the life of the primitive ecclesial community, viewed, according
to this way of thinking, in a naïve manner taking no account of the grave
internal struggles which the Church experienced from the beginning and about
which Saint Luke in the Acts of the Apostles and Saints Paul,
John, Peter and James in their letters give ample testimony.
Pope Benedict XVI reflected at length upon the rupture in his first
Christmas address to the Roman Curia, in December of 2005, which also marked
the fortieth anniversary of the close of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council.
He described a struggle between two interpretations of the Council, the
“hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture,” and the “hermeneutic of reform.”[26] Without
entering into a thorough analysis of his discussion of the struggle between the
two hermeneutics, which would certainly be illuminating for the subject of our
reflection but which time does not permit me to undertake, suffice it to say
that the hermeneutic of rupture “risks ending in a split between the
pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church” and, thereby, justifies an
interpretation of the Council not based upon the texts approved by the Council
Fathers but upon what is called “the true spirit of the Council,” which is
discovered “in the impulses toward the new that are contained in the texts.”[27]
The fruit of the “hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture” is described by
Pope Benedict XVI in these words:
The nature of a Council as such
is therefore basically misunderstood. In this way, it is considered as a sort
of constituent that eliminates an old constitution and creates a new one.
However, the Constituent Assembly needs a mandatory and then confirmation by
the mandatory, in other words, the people the constitution must serve. The
Fathers had no such mandate and no one had ever given them one; nor could
anyone have given them one because the essential constitution of the Church
comes from the Lord and was given to us so that we might attain eternal life
and, starting from this perspective, be able to illuminate life in time and
time itself. [28]
His analysis points to the need of a new evangelization which centers upon
the gift of Christ’s life given to us, as individuals and as a community, in
the Church, by which we are to live and thus to serve our neighbor.
In the years following the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, but certainly
not because of the Council, the rupture was manifested, for example, in an
erosion of marital fidelity and, therefore, of family life, and the denial of
procreation as the crown of marital love. It was also manifested in the
betrayal of the liturgical reform ordered by the Council through a manipulation
of the divine action of the liturgy to express the individual personality of
the celebrant and of the congregation, and even to advance various human
agenda, completely alien to the divine action of the Sacred Liturgy. Already,
in 1972, Pope Paul VI had the sense that some foreign, indeed diabolically
hostile element, had entered into the very sanctuaries of the Church. One
understands, then, why Pope Paul VI urged so adamantly the work of
evangelization in the Church and in the world.
The New Evangelization in the Magisterium of Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI, in his 2010 Christmas Address to the College of
Cardinals, the Roman Curia and the Governorate of Vatican City State, spoke
clearly and strongly about the profoundly disordered moral state in which our
world finds itself, today, and of its devastating effect also within the
Church. He spoke about the grave evils of our time, for example, the sexual
abuse of minors by the clergy, the marketing of child pornography, sexual
tourism, and the deadly abuse of drugs.
One further thinks of other most grievous moral evils of our time, for
instance, the plague of procured abortion, the abhorrent practices of the artificial
generation of human life and its subsequent destruction, at the embryonic stage
of development; the so-called “mercy killing” of the very brothers and sisters
who have the first title to our care, those who have grown weak through
advanced years, grave illness or special needs; and the ever advancing agenda
of those who want to redefine marriage and family life to include the unnatural
sexual union of two persons of the same sex. Such acts are evil in themselves.
They are always and everywhere wrong, that is, they can never be justified for
any reason.
Regarding the grave evils which beset the world, in our day, Pope Benedict
XVI declared that they are all signs of “the tyranny of mammon which perverts
mankind” and that they result from “a fatal misunderstanding of freedom which
actually undermines man’s freedom and ultimately destroys it.”[29] They
are manifestations, to be sure, of a way of living, to use the words of Pope
John Paul II, “as if God did not exist.”[30]
They are a manifestation of sin at its root which is pride, the pride of
man who fails to recognize that all that he is and all that he has come from
the hand of God Who has created us and has redeemed us, after the sin of our
First Parents. They are a manifestation of the foolishness of seeking our
freedom other than in the will of God and thus making ourselves slaves to
creaturely realities. That foolishness manifests itself in a most distressing
manner in a culture of addictions, in which we seek our freedom and happiness
in some creaturely reality and, when we do not find them there, as indeed we
never can, we, in our pride, instead of turning in obedience to God, enslave
ourselves more and more to the same creature, for example, alcohol, drugs,
food, abuse of power, sexual promiscuity or pornography, until the creature
destroys us.
Pope Benedict XVI’s words in his 2010 Christmas Address are redolent of the
powerful pastoral concern about the profound influence of secularization within
the Church herself, which he expressed in his homily during the Mass for the
Election of the Roman Pontiff, celebrated before the conclave during which he
was elected to the See of Peter. He spoke of how the “the thought of many
Christians” has been tossed about, in our time, by various “ideological
currents,” observing that we are witnesses to the “human deception and the
trickery that strives to entice people into error,” about which Saint Paul
wrote in his Letter to the Ephesians.[31] He
noted that, in our time, those who live according to “a clear faith based on
the Creed of the Church” are viewed as extremists, while relativism, that is,
“letting oneself be ‘tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of
doctrine’,” is extolled.[32] Regarding
the source of the grave moral evils of our time, he concluded: “We are building
a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and
whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.”[33]
In his 2010 Christmas Address, reflecting on the grave evils which are
destroying us as individuals and as a society, and which have generated a
culture marked predominantly by violence and death, the Holy Father reminded us
that, if we, with the help of God’s grace, are to overcome the grave evils of
our time, “we must turn our attention to their ideological foundations.”[34] He
then identified directly and unequivocally the ideology which fosters these
evils: a perversion of ethos, of the moral norm, which has even
entered into the thinking of some theologians in the Church.
Referring to one of the more shocking manifestations of the ideology,
namely, the so-called moral position that the sexual abuse of children by
adults is actually good for the children and for the adults, he declared:
It was maintained – even within
the realm of Catholic theology – that there is no such thing as evil in itself
or good in itself. There is only a “better than” and a “worse than”. Nothing is
good or bad in itself. Everything depends on the circumstances and on the end
in view. Anything can be good or also bad, depending upon purposes and
circumstances. Morality is replaced by a calculus of consequences, and in the
process it ceases to exist.[35]
Pope Benedict XVI described a relativism, called proportionalism or
consequentialism in contemporary moral theology, which has generated profound
confusion and outright error regarding the most fundamental truths of the moral
law.[36] Here,
too, the rupture in ecclesial life is manifested. It has led to a situation in
which morality itself indeed “ceases to exist.” If, therefore, the
irreplaceable moral order, which is the way of our freedom and happiness, is to
be restored, we must address with clarity and steadfastness the error of moral
relativism, proportionalism and consequentialism, which permeates our culture
and has also entered, as the Holy Father reminds us, into the Church.
To confront the ideology, Pope Benedict XVI has urged us to study anew the
teaching of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, in his Encyclical Letter Veritatis
Splendor, “Regarding Certain Fundamental Questions of the Church’s Moral
Teaching.” In Veritatis Splendor, Pope John Paul II, in the words
of Pope Benedict XVI, “indicated with prophetic force, in the great rational
tradition of Christian ethos, the essential and permanent
foundations of moral action.”[37] Veritatis
Splendor is a remarkable fruit of the “hermeneutic of reform” or
hermeneutic of continuity in what pertains to the perennial moral doctrine of
the Church. Reminding us of the need to form our consciences, in accord with
the moral teaching of the Church, our Holy Father also reminded us of “our
responsibility to make these criteria [these moral foundations] audible and
intelligible once more for people today as paths of true humanity, in the
context of our paramount concern for mankind.”[38] In
the exhortation of Pope Benedict XVI, we hear again the call of Pope John Paul
II to mend “the Christian fabric of society” by mending first “the Christian
fabric of the ecclesial community itself.”[39]
In Jesus Christ, God the Son made man, heaven has come to earth to dispel
the darkness of error and sin, and to fill souls with the light of truth and
goodness. If Christians live in Christ, in the union of their hearts with His
Most Sacred Heart, when their brothers and sisters, lost in the unreal and
destructive world of moral relativism and, therefore, tempted to despair,
encounter them, they will discover the hope for which they are looking. Living
in Jesus Christ, living according to the truth which He alone teaches in His
Church, Christians become light to dispel the confusion and error which have
led to the many and so grievous moral evils of our time, and to inspire a life
lived in accord with the truth and, therefore, marked by freedom and happiness.
The words of our Holy Father make clear the inherent dynamism of the life of
the Holy Spirit within the soul, leading the Christian to give witness to the
mystery of God’s love in his life and so to convert his own life more fully to
Christ and to transform the world.
The State of Canon Law in the Church
I began my studies of Canon Law in September of 1980, residing at the Casa
Santa Maria dell’Umiltà, the residence of the Pontifical North American College
in Rome for priests undertaking graduate studies. At the time, the number of
United States priests pursuing graduates studies in Rome was much less than the
capacity of the residence. As a result, the Casa Santa Maria was also able to
be the residence for priests from the United States doing a three-month
sabbatical in Rome. As a result, every fall and every spring semester, a new
group of priests arrived for the sabbatical course, and the normal process of
getting to know one another took place.
I, who, to be honest, took up the study of Canon Law in obedience to my
Bishop and not because of a deep personal interest in the discipline, soon
learned how much the Church’s discipline was disdained by her priests, in
general. When I responded to the usual question of what my area of study was,
the responses fairly consistently went like this: “I thought that the Church
had done away with that,” and “What a waste of your time.” These responses, in
fact, reflected a general attitude in the Church toward her canonical
discipline, an attitude inspired by the hermeneutic of discontinuity, by that
sense that “a day of sunlight” had arrived in the Church, in contrast to the
darkness of what had gone before.[40] Institutes
of the Church’s law, which, in her wisdom, she had developed down the Christian
centuries, were set aside without consideration of their organic relationship
to the life of the Church or of the chaos which would necessarily result from
their neglect or abandonment.
The “hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture,” which has tried to highjack
the renewal mandated by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, is marked by a
pervasively antinomian culture, epitomized by the Paris student riots of 1968,
and had a particularly devastating effect on the Church’s discipline. Father
John J. Coughlin, O.F.M., in his recently published book comparing canon law
with Anglo-American legal theory, treats, at some length, the effect of
antinomianism on Church discipline. Reflecting on the long process of the
revision of the Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law, he observed:
Over the course of almost three
decades of revision, although theoretically still the universal law of the
church, the 1917 Code fell into general disuse. It was in many instances
abrogated in favor of postconciliar innovations ad experimentum. In
retrospect, the ecclesial ambiance in the wake of Vatican II represented a
swing of the pendulum from the preconciliar legalism toward the antinomian.
While it would overstate the matter to claim that the juridical structures of
the church disintegrated during the postconcilar years, it seems accurate to
observe that proper function of law in the church became unbalanced. The
legalism of the past had been supplanted not only by openness to the new spirit
but perhaps also by the tendency to underestimate the need for a healthy
ecclesial order. The culture of canon law was reduced, with the effect that law
was seen as an obstacle to the manifestation of the spirit in the church.[41]
Father Coughlin shows, in a particular way, how the failure of knowledge
and application of the canon law, which was indeed still in force, contributed
significantly to the scandal of the sexual abuse of minors by the clergy in our
nation.[42]
Indeed, it is often asserted that the just-mentioned scandal was caused by
the absence of a proper discipline in the Church to deal justly with such
abhorrent factispecies. In the typical approach of the hermeneutic of
discontinuity, it is assumed that the Church lacked the proper canonical discipline
with which to investigate such crimes and sanction them. The truth of the
matter is that the Church had dealt with such crimes in the past, as should
come as a surprise to no one, and that she had in place a carefully articulated
process by which to investigate accusations, with full respect for the rights
of all parties involved, including the protection of potential victims during
the time of the investigation; to reach a just decision regarding their truth,
and to apply the appropriate sanction. The discipline in place was not followed
because it was not known and, in fact, was presumed not to exist.
In his annual addresses to the Roman Rota, from 1969 to 1973, Pope Paul VI
repeatedly confronted the loss of respect for the irreplaceable, if also humble,
service of canon law in safeguarding and fostering our life in Christ in the
Church. His repeated appeals for a new appreciation of the Church’s discipline
are an indication of the gravity of the weakened situation of canon law, at the
time. Confronting a general opinion that somehow the Second Vatican Ecumenical
Council had repudiated the service of Canon Law, he declared:
On the contrary the Council not
only does not repudiate canon law, the norm that spells out the duties and
defends the rights of the members of the Church, but wishes and desires it as a
consequence of the power bequeathed by Christ to his Church, as a necessity of
its social and visible nature, its communitarian and hierarchical nature, as
the guide of religious life and of Christian perfection, and as the juridical
safeguard of liberty itself.[43]
In another address to the Roman Rota, he confronted the false dichotomy
between canon law and freedom in the Church, observing that canon law is not
opposed to freedom but serves “what is needed to safeguard the common good –
including the basic good of exercising freedom – which only a well-ordered
social order can adequately guarantee.”[44]
The years of a lack of knowledge of the Church’s discipline and even of a
presumption that such discipline was no longer fitting to the nature of the
Church indeed reaped gravely harmful fruits in the Church, for example, the
pervasive violation of the liturgical law of the Church, a revolution in
catechesis which often rendered the teaching of the faith vacuous and confused,
if not erroneous; the breakdown of the discipline of priestly formation and
priestly life, the abandonment of the essential elements of religious life and
the devastating loss of fundamental direction in many congregations of
religious Sisters, Brothers and priests; the loss of the identity of
charitable, educational and healthcare institutions bearing the name of
Catholic; and the failure of respect for the nature of marriage and the
time-proven process for judging claims of nullity of marriage in ecclesiastical
tribunals. Regarding the last example, the concern about the breakdown of
canonical discipline in the Church’s matrimonial tribunals is not simply a
technical legal concern but, above all, a concern for the sanctity itself of
marriage, the first cell of the life of the Church and society, which must be
respected, above all else, in judging a cause of matrimonial nullity, and which
is the reason why, in the Church’s procedural discipline, marriage must always
enjoy the favor of the law.[45] It
is also a concern for the scandal caused in the wider society, when the Church,
which is to be the speculum iustitiae for all legal orders,
treats claims of nullity of marriage without due respect for the nature of
marriage itself and for the time-tested process for arriving at the truth
regarding such claims.
A frequent manifestation of the confusion and error regarding the
irreplaceable role of canon law in the life of the Church has been the claim
that the Church’s discipline is, somehow, in opposition to her pastoral care of
the faithful. Pope John Paul II confronted the false opposition between Church
discipline and her pastoral care in his annual address to the Roman Rota in
1990.[46] He
confronted it once again in his last annual address to the Roman Rota in 2005.[47] Pope
Benedict XVI has addressed the same false opposition in his annual addresses to
the Roman Rota in 2006,[48] 2007[49] and
2010.[50] In
his 2010 address, Pope Benedict XVI recalled the words of Pope John Paul II:
“The judge… must always guard against the risk of misplaced compassion, which
could degenerate into sentimentality, itself pastoral only in appearance.”[51] He
went on to observe:
One must avoid pseudo-pastoral
claims that would situate questions on a purely horizontal plane, in which what
matters is to satisfy subjective requests to arrive at a declaration of nullity
at any cost, so that the parties may be able to overcome, among others things,
obstacles to receiving the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist. The supreme
good of readmission to Eucharistic Communion after sacramental Reconciliation
demands, instead, that due consideration be given to the authentic good of the
individuals, inseparable from the truth of their canonical situation. It would
be a false “good” and a grave lack of justice and love to pave the way for them
to receive the sacraments nevertheless, and would risk causing them to live in
objective contradiction to the truth of their own personal condition.[52]
Regarding the Church’s pastoral concern, Pope Benedict XVI reminded the
Rotal auditors and, through them, the whole Church, “that both justice and
charity postulate love for truth and essentially entail searching for truth.”[53] “In
particular,” he observed, “charity makes the reference to truth even more
exacting.”[54]
Canon Law in the Magisterium of Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II pursued with vigor the revision of the 1917 Code of Canon
Law. There was no question in his mind, as a Father of the Second Vatican
Ecumenical Council, about the Council’s desire that the perennial discipline of
the Church be addressed to the present time. Clearly, the Council’s desire
regarding Church discipline did not intend the abandonment of her discipline
but a new appreciation of it in the context of contemporary challenges. In the
Apostolic Constitution Sacrae Disciplinae Leges, with which he, the
Supreme Legislator in the Church, promulgated the 1983 Code of Canon Law, he
wrote:
Turning our minds today to the
beginning of this long journey [of the revision of the Code of Canon Law], to
that January 25, 1959 [“when my predecessor of happy memory, John XXIII,
announced for the first time his decision to reform the existing corpus of
canonical legislation which had been promulgated on the feast of Pentecost in
year 1917”] and to John XXIII himself who initiated the revision of the Code, I
must recognize that this Code derives from one and the same intention, the
renewal of Christian living. From such an intention, in fact, the entire work
of the council drew its norms and its direction.[55]
These words point to the essential service of canon law in the work of the
new evangelization, that is, the living of our life in Christ with the
engagement and energy of the first disciples. Canonical discipline is directed
to the pursuit, at all times, of holiness of life.
The saintly Pontiff described the nature of canon law, indicating its
organic development from God’s first covenant with His holy people. He recalled
“the distant patrimony of law contained in the books of the Old and New
Testament from which is derived the whole juridical-legislative tradition of
the Church, as from its first source.”[56] In
particular, he reminded the Church how Christ Himself declared that He had not
come to abolish the law but to bring it to completion, teaching us that it is,
in fact, the discipline of the law which opens the way to freedom in loving God
and our neighbor. He observed: “Thus the writings of the New Testament enable
us to understand even better the importance of discipline and make us see
better how it is more closely connected with the saving character of the
evangelical message itself.”[57]
Pope John Paul II then articulated the purpose of canon law, that is, the
service of the faith and grace, and of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and
charity. He noted that, far from hindering the living of our life in Christ,
canonical discipline safeguards and fosters our Christian life. He declared:
[I]ts purpose is rather to create
such an order in the ecclesial society that, while assigning the primacy to
love, grace and charisms, it at the same time renders their organic development
easier in the life of both the ecclesial society and the individual persons who
belong to it.”[58]
As such, canon law can never be in conflict with the Church’s doctrine but
is, in the words of Pope John Paul II, “extremely necessary for the Church.”[59]
The teaching of the Church, in fact, is translated into discipline by the
canonical tradition.[60] He
indicated four ways in which the Church’s discipline is a necessary complement
to her doctrine, declaring:
Since the Church is organized as
a social and visible structure, it must also have norms: in order that its
hierarchical and organic structure be visible; in order that the exercise of
the functions divinely entrusted to it, especially that of sacred power and of
the administration of the sacraments, may be adequately organized; in order
that the mutual relations of the faithful may be regulated according to justice
based upon charity, with the rights of individuals guaranteed and well-defined;
in order, finally, that common initiatives undertaken to live a Christian life
ever more perfectly may be sustained, strengthened and fostered by canonical
norms.[61]
Because of the essential service of canon law to the life of the Church,
Pope John Paul II reminded the Church that “by their very nature canonical laws
are to be observed,” and, to that end, “the wording of the norms should be
accurate” and “based on solid juridical, canonical and theological
foundations.”[62]
Specific Form of the New Evangelization through Canonical Discipline
From the above considerations, it should be clear that the knowledge of and
respect for canonical discipline is indispensable to the Church’s response to
the call to a new evangelization. There are many aspects of the form of the new
evangelization through canonical discipline. I address four as examples.
The first aspect is respect for the rule of law as the irreplaceable
foundation for right relationships and coherent activities within the Church.
In specific, we must confront the antinomian tendency of the culture, which is
inimical to the organic unity which is inherent to the Body of Christ. A
general ignorance of canon law, which sees it as some esoteric and surpassed
aspect of Church life, must be overcome. At the same time, the false conflict
between canon law and the pastoral nature of the Church, between truth and
love, must be addressed.
Secondly, key to the form of the new evangelization through canonical
discipline is the study of the sources of canonical institutes in the Sacred
Scriptures and Tradition. The discipline regarding the refusal of Holy
Communion to persons who persist in grave and public sin, for example, must be
seen in its consistent development from the time of Saint Paul.[63] Likewise,
the ground of nullity of marriage, lack of sufficient discretion of judgment,
must be seen in the long canonical tradition regarding the influence of the
lack of mental capacity or the loss of it through mental illness on the
capacity to give marriage consent.[64]
Thirdly, the study of the text of the law must respect the mind of the
legislator and, therefore, avoid any kind of formalism. The wording of Church
discipline derives from solid juridical, canonical and theological foundations
which can only be known by those humble enough to study them. All forms of
manipulation of the law to advance particular agenda redound to the grave harm
of the faithful and of the Church as the Body of Christ.[65]
Finally, liturgical law must enjoy the primacy among canonical norms, for
it safeguards the most sacred realities in the Church. It is interesting to
note that in his first Encyclical Letter Redemptor Hominis, Pope
John Paul II confronted the abuse of general confession and general absolution,
of the essentially personal encounter with Christ in the Sacrament of Penance,
reminding us both of the right of the penitent to such an encounter and the
right of Christ Himself,[66] and
that, in his last Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, he
urgently addressed abuses of the Church’s discipline regarding the Sacrament of
the Holy Eucharist.[67] In Ecclesia
de Eucharistia, he declared:
I consider it my duty, therefore,
to appeal urgently that the liturgical norms for the celebration of the
Eucharist be observed with great fidelity. These norms are a concrete
expression of the authentically ecclesial nature of the Eucharist; this is their
deepest meaning. Liturgy is never anyone’s private property, be it of the
celebrant or of the community in which the mysteries are celebrated. The
Apostle Paul had to address fiery words to the community of Corinth because of
grave shortcomings in their celebration of the Eucharist resulting in divisions
(schismata) and the emergence of factions (haereses) (cf. 1
Cor 11:17-34). Our time, too, calls for a renewed awareness and
appreciation of liturgical norms as a reflection of, and a witness to, the one
universal Church made present in every celebration of the Eucharist. Priests
who faithfully celebrate Mass according to the liturgical norms, and
communities which conform to those norms, quietly but eloquently demonstrate
their love for the Church.[68]
As is always the case, knowledge and observance of canonical discipline
frees us from the false impression that we must make the Sacred Liturgy interesting
or stamp it with our personality, and frees us to be the instruments by which
the presence of Christ, the Good Shepherd, among His people is rendered more
visible, and the action of the Sacred Liturgy bears His stamp alone.
Conclusion
It is my hope that these few reflections will help us to understand the
key, indeed essential, service of canon law to the work of a new
evangelization. There are, to be sure, many other fruitful avenues of
reflection on the subject. It must be clear that the remaking of “the Christian
fabric of the ecclesial community,” which is necessary for the “mending of the
Christian fabric of society,” will have as a fundamental element a new
knowledge of and respect for the canonical discipline of the Church.[69]
The challenge of a new evangelization through a new knowledge of and
respect for the canonical discipline of the Church is formidable. But we must
never forget that Our Lord, the New Moses, accompanies and strengthens us all
along the way, and that Mary Immaculate unceasingly intercedes for us. Honoring
the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the theological
seminary of the Archdiocese of Newark, placed, from its beginning, into her
maternal care, I invoke her intercession under her title, Speculum
Iustitiae, Mirror of Justice. Mary Immaculate, conceived without any stain
of sin, consecrated totally to Christ from the very first moment of her life,
by her humility before God and her total obedience to His will, is indeed a
mirror of the justice which is the minimum but indispensable condition of the
charity of life lived in Christ. The Blessed Virgin Mary, under her title of
the Immaculate Conception, teaches us the hypocrisy of exalting charity, when
we do not practice justice in obedience to God’s law. At the same time, she
prays for us, drawing our hearts to her Immaculate Heart, in order that our
hearts, like hers, may be totally for Christ, that from our hearts may flow in
abundance Christ’s justice and charity.
On our continent, we are the privileged witnesses of the truth of Mary
Immaculate’s title of Mirror Justice in her apparitions at Tepeyac in present
day Mexico City, by which she inspired obedience to the moral law, especially
in what pertains to the respect for the inviolable dignity of innocent human
life and, thereby, drew together into lasting unity two peoples who were set on
a course to destroy one another. She is Mother of America and Star of the New
Evangelization in a special way through her teaching of the justice which
respects the inviolable dignity of human life from its first moment of
existence and, thereby, draws us together into a community dedicated to serve
the common good, the good of all, without boundary or exception.
I conclude with the exhortation with which the Venerable, soon to be
Blessed, Pope John Paul II concluded the Apostolic Constitution Sacrae
Disciplinae Leges:
I therefore exhort all the
faithful to observe the proposed legislation with a sincere spirit and good
will in the hope, that there may flower again in the Church a renewed
discipline and that consequently the salvation of souls may be rendered ever
more easy under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the
Church.[70]
[1] “Integrae
regiones nec non nationes in quibus anteacto tempore religio et vita christiana
florebant, quae vivacis ac operosae fidei communitates excitabant, nunc rebus
adversis premuntur ac non raro radicitus sunt transformatae, gliscentibus
indifferentismo, saecularismo et atheismo. Agitur praesertim de regionibus et
nationibus «Primi Mundi» qui dicitur, in quibus oeconomica prosperitas et
consumendarum rerum cupiditas, quamquam etiam terribilibus paupertatis et
miseriae adiunctis commixtae, inhiant ac proclamant ita esse vivendum «etsi
Deus non daretur». At religiosa indifferentia et practica Dei completa
neglegentia ad vitae quaestiones licet graviores exsolvendas non minus
affligunt animum nec minus videntur evertentes quam proclamatus atheismus; ….”
Ioannes Paulus PP. II, Adhortatio Apostolica Christifideles Laici,
“De vocatione et missione Laicorum in Ecclesia et in mundo,” 30 Decembris 1988, Acta
Apostolicae Sedis 81 (1989), p. 454, no. 34. [Hereafter, CL]. English translation: Pope
John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici,
30 December 1988, “On the Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the
Church and in the World,” Vatican City State: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, nd,
p. 95, no. 34. [Hereafter, CLE].
[2] “consortium humanum spiritu
christiano ubique denuo imbuendum est.” CL, p. 455, no. 34. English
translation: CLE, p. 96, no. 34.
[3] “[i]d [consortium humanum
spiritu christiano imbuendum] tamen possible erit, si christianus
communitatum ipsarum ecclesialium contextus, quae his in regionibus et
nationibus degunt, renovetur.” CL, p. 455, no. 34.
English translation: CLE, p. 96, no. 34.
[4] “testari quomodo christiana
fides responsum constituat unice plene validum, ab omnibus plus minusve conscie
agnitum et invocatum, ad quaestiones et exspectationes, quas vita ipsa homini
et societatibus imponit singulis.” CL, p. 455, no. 34. English
translation: CLE, p. 96, no. 34.
[5] “hiatum inter Evangelium et
vitam in seipsis superare valeant, in quotidianis familiae navitatibus, in
labore et in societate unitatem vitae componentes, quae in Evangelio lucem et
vim pro sua plena invenit adimpletione.” CL, p. 455, no. 34. English
translation: CLE, p. 96, no. 34.
[6] “Equidem mandatum Iesu:
«Euntes praedicate evangelium» sua vi perpetuo viget ac inoccidue urget: verumtamen praesens
rerum conditio, non solummodo in mundo sed in pluribus quoque Ecclesiae
partibus, omnino requirit ut Chrisi verbo promptius ac magis dilatato
corde obtemperetur; quivis discipulus ita in sua ipsius persona
interpellatur, ut nullus se in proprio responso eliciendo retrahere possit:
«Vae enim mihi est, si non evangelizavero!» (1 Cor 9, 16). CL,
p. 454, no. 33. English translation: CLE, p. 94, no. 33.
[7] “Hodie praesertim urgentius
illud munus pastorale novae evangelizationis, quod universum Dei Populum
sollicitat novamque alacritatem, novas methodos, novam denique linguam pro
Evangelio nuntiando postulat, sacerdotes requirit qui radicitus atque integre
in Christi mysterium immersi sint, capaces novum pastoralis viate stilum in
actum ponendi; qui et profunda communione cum Summo Pontifice, cum Episcopis,
apud semetipsos emineant, et per fecundam cum christifidelibus laicis
collaborationem signentur, reverentes niholiminus et provehentes quae, intro
ecclesialem communitatem, diversa sunt vel munera, vel charismata, vel
ministeria.” Ioannes Paulus PP. II, Adhortatio Apostolica Postsynodalis Pastores
Dabo Vobis, “De Sacerdotum formatione in aetatis nostrae rerum condicione,”
25 Maii 1992, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 84 (1992), p. 685, no.
18. English translation: Pope John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic
Exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis, “On the Formation of Priests in
the Circumstances of the Present Day,” 25 May 1992, Vatican City State:
Libreria Editrice Vaticana, nd, pp. 46-47, no. 18.
[8] “christianus
communitatum ipsarum ecclesialium contextus.” CL, p. 455, no.
34. English translation: CLE, p. 96, no. 34.
[10] “Inter varia quae fieri
possunt caritatis genera illud quod proprio quodam titulo hominibus amorem
ostentat «usque in finem», hodie certe est flagrans Iesu Christi nuntiatio iis
qui nondum eum noverunt, qui sunt Ipsius obliti, at potissmum pauperibus.” Ioannes
Paulus PP. II, Adhortatio Apostolica Post-Synodalis Vita Consecrata,
“De vita consecrata eiusque missione in Ecclesia ac mundo,” 25 Martii 1996, Acta
Apostolicae Sedis 88 (1996), p. 452, no. 75. [Hereafter, VC].
English translation: Pope John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita
Consecrata, “On the Consecrated Life and Its Mission in the Church and in
the World,” 25 March 1996, Vatican City State: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, nd,
p. 138, no. 75. [Hereafter, VCE].
[11] “Haud secus atque consueta,
evangelizatio nova tum efficax erit cum ex tectis pronuntiare valebit
quaecumque in intima cum Domino consortione prius erunt experta. Ad hanc igitur
solida flagitantur ingenia sanctorum ardore incensa. A consecratis viris
feminisque postulat nova evangelizatio plenum theologici sensus
conscientiam provocationum aetatis nostrae. Haec
postulata ponderentur oportet a diligenti unanimique iudicio, unde missio ipsa
renovetur. In Domino Iesu annuntiando fortitudinem comitari debet fiducia de
Providentiae actione, qui in mundo «omnia, adversos etiam humanos casus, in
Ecclesiae bonum sapienter» disponit.... Omnibus in locis rerumque adiunctis ardentes
sint personae consecratae Dominum Iesum nuntiatrices, conditorum conditricumque
menti fideles, paratae ad respondendum cum sapientia postulatis evangelicis
quae ex inquieto hominis corde eiusque impellentibus necessitatibus oriuntur.” VC,
pp. 457-458, no. 81. English translation: VCE, pp. 148-149, no. 81.
[13] “formulam
veluti «magicam» … excogitando «novo consilio». Ioannes Paulus PP. II, Epistula
Apostolica Novo Millennio Ineunte, “Magni Iubilaei anni MM sub
exitum,” 6 Ianuarii 2001, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 93 (2001), p.
285, no. 29. [Hereafter, NMI].
English translation: Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio
Ineunte, “At the Close of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000,” 6 January
2001, Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 2001, p. 39, no. 29. [Hereafter, NMIE].
[14] “Nullo modo: servabit nos
nulla formula, verum Persona una atque certitudo illa quam nobis Ipsa infundit: Ego
vobiscum sum!” NMI, p. 285, no. 29. English translation: NMIE,
p. 39, no. 29.
[15] “Iam enim praesto est
consilium seu «programma»: illud nempe quod de Evangelio derivatur semper
vivaque Traditione. Tandem in Christo ipso deprehenditur istud, qui sane
cognoscendus est, diligendus atque imitandus, ut vita in eo trinitaria ducatur
et cum eo historia ipsa transfiguretur ad suam usque in Hierosolymis
caelestibus consummationem. Institutum enim hoc, variantibus quidem temporibus
ipsis atque culturae formis non mutatur quamvis rationem quidem habeat temporis
et culturae, ut verum instituat diverbium efficacemque communicationem.” NMI,
pp. 285-286, no. 29. English translation: NMIE, pp. 39-40, no. 29.
[16] “Re quidem vera, si
pastoralis ordinatio sub signo sanctitatis statuitur, aliquid compluribus cum
consectariis decernitur. Inde enim in primis firma aperitur sententia: si vera
est Baptismus ingressio in Dei sanctitatem per insertionem in Christum ipsum necnon
Spiritus eius per inhabitationem, quaedam repugnantia est contentum esse
mediocri vita, quae ad normam transigitur ethnicae doctrinae minimum solum
poscentis ac religionis superficiem tantum tangentis. Ex catechumeno quaerere: «Vis baptizari?» eodem tempore
est petere: «Vis sanctificari?». Idem valet ac deponere eius in via extremum
Sermonis Montani principium: «Estote ergo vos perfecti, sicut Pater vester
caelestis perfectus est» (Mt 5, 48).” NMI, p. 288, no.
31. English translation: NMIE, 43, no. 31.
[17] “optima haec perfectionis
species non ita est iudicanda quasi si genus quoddam secum importet vitae
extraordinariae quam soli aliqui sanctitatis «gigantes» traducere possint.” NMI,
p. 288, no. 31. English translation: NMIE, p. 43, no. 31.
[18] “Multiplices enim
sanctitatis exsistunt viae atque cuiusque congruunt cum vocatione. Grates
Domino referimus Nobis quod concessit his proximis annis tot christianos et
christianas inter beatos adnumerare ac sanctos, ex quibus plures laici
sanctimoniam sunt communissimis in vitae condicionibus adsecuti. Omnibus ergo
tempus est iterum firmiter hunc proponere «superiorem modum» ordinariae
vitae christianae: ad hanc namque metam conducere debet omnis vita
ecclesialis communitatis ac familiarum christianarum.” NMI, p. 288,
no. 31.
[19] “consortium
humanum spiritu christiano ubique denuo imbuendum est…christianus
commmunitatum ipsarum ecclesialium contextus.” CL, p. 455, no. 34. English translation: CLE,
p. 96, no. 34.
[20] “cum crebro hodie eae
invaluerint condiciones, quibus a lege christiana prorsus disceditur.” Paulus
PP. VI, Adhortatio Apostolica Evangelii Nuntiandi, “De
Evangelizatione in mundo huius temporis,” 8 Decembris 1975, Acta
Apostolicae Sedis 68 (1976), pp. 40-41, no. 52. English translation:
Pope Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, “On
Evangelization in the Modern World,” 8 December 1975, Washington, D.C.: United
States Catholic Conference, nd, p. 36, no. 52.
[21] “da
qualche fessura sia entrato il fumo di Satana nel tempio di Dio.” Paulus PP.
VI, “Per il nono anniversario dell’Incoronazione di Sua Santità: «Resistite
fortes in fide», 29 giugno 1972, in Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, Vol.
10 (1972), Città del Vaticano: Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, 1973, p. 707.
English translation by author.
[23] “una
giornata di sole per la storia della Chiesa...una giornata di nuvole, di
tempesta, di buio, di ricerca, di incertezza.” Ibid., p. 708. English translation by author.
[25] Mother Mary Francis,
P.C.C., Marginals, Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1967, p. 42.
Reprinted as: Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C., Chastity, Poverty, and
Obedience: Recovering the Vision for the Renewal of Religious Life, San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007, p. 42.
[26] “ermeneutica
della discontinuità e della rottura...ermeneutica della riforma.”Benedictus PP. XVI, Allocutio “Ad Romanam Curiam
ob omina natalicia,” 22 Decembris 2005, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 98
(2006), p. 46. English translation: Pope Benedict XVI, “Address of His Holiness
Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia Offering Them His Christmas Greetings,” 22
December 2005, L’Osservatore Romano Weekly Edition in English, 4
January 2006, p. 5.
[27] “rischia
di finire in una rottura tra Chiesa preconciliare e Chiesa postconciliare...il
vero spirito del Concilio...negli slanci verso il nuovo che sono sottesi ai
testi.” Ibid., p. 46. English translation: Ibid., p. 5.
[28] “Con
ciò, però, si fraintende in radice la natura di un Concilio come tale. In
questo modo, esso viene considerato come una specie di Costituente, che elimina
una costituzione vecchia e ne crea una nuova. Ma la Costituente ha bisogno di
un mandante e poi di una conferma da parte del mandante, cioè del popolo al
quale la costituzione deve servire. I Padri non avevano un tale mandato e
nessuno lo aveva mai dato loro; nessuno, del resto, poteva darlo, perché la
costituuzione essenziale della Chiesa viene dal Signore e ci è stata data
affinché noi possiamo raggiungere la vita eterna e, partendo da questa
prospettiva, siamo in grado di illuminare anche la vita nel tempo e il tempo
stesso.” Ibid., p. 46. English translation: Ibid., p.
5.
[29] “dittatura
di mammona che perverte l’uomo … un fatale fraintendimento della libertà, in
cui proprio la libertà dell’uomo viene minata e alla fine annullata del tutto.”
Benedictus PP., Allocutio “Omina
Nativitatis novique Anni Curiae Romanae significantur,” 20 Decembris 2010, Acta
Apostolicae Sedis 103 (2011), p. 36. [Hereafter, CG2010].
English translation: Pope Benedict XVI, “Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI
on the Occasion of Christmas Greetings to the Roman Curia,” 20 December 2010, L’Osservatore
Romano Weekly Edition in English, 22-29 December 2010, p. 13. [Hereafter, CG2010E].
[31] “pensiero
di molti cristiani…correnti ideologiche…sull’inganno degli uomini, sull’astuzia
che tende a trarre nell’errore.” Ioseph Cardinal Ratzinger, “Initium Conclavis,” 18 Aprilis 2005, Acta
Apostolicae Sedis 97 (2005), p. 687. English translation: Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger, “Mass «Pro eligendo Romano Pontifice», Homily of His Eminence
Card. Joseph Ratzinger, Dean of the College of Cardinals,” 18 April 2005, L’Osservatore
Romano Weekly Edition in English, 20 April 2005, p. 3. Cf. Eph 4:14.
[32] “una
fede chiara, secondo il Credo della Chiesa…il lasciarsi portare «qua e là da
qualsiasi vento di dottrina».” Ibid., p. 687. English translation: Ibid.,
p. 3
[33] “Si
va costituendo una dittatura del relativismo che non riconosce nulla come
definitivo e che lascia come ultima misura solo il proprio io e le sue voglie.” Ibid.,
p. 687. English translation: Ibid., p. 3.
[34] “dobbiamo
gettare uno sguardo sui loro fondamenti ideologici.” CG2010, p. 36.
English translation: CG2010E, p. 13.
[35] “Si
asseriva – persino nell’ambito della teologia cattolica – che non esisterebbero
né il male in sé, né il bene in sé. Esisterebbe soltanto un «meglio di» e un
«peggio di». Niente sarebbe in se stesso bene o male. Tutto dipenderebbe dalle
circostanze e dal fine inteso. A seconda degli scope e delle circostanze, tutto
potrebbe essere bene o anche male. La morale viene sostituita da un calcolo
delle conseguenze e con ciò cessa di esistere.” CG2010, pp. 36-37.
English translation: CG2010E, p. 13.
[36] Cf.
Ioannes Paulus PP. II, Litterae Encyclicae Veritatis Splendor, “De
quibusdam quaestionibus fundamentalibus doctrinae moralis Ecclesiae,” 6 Augusti
1993, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 85 (1993), oo. 1193-1194, no. 75. English translation: Pope John
Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, “Regarding Certain
Fundamental Questions of the Church’s Moral Teaching,” 6 August 1993, London:
Catholic Truth Society, 1993, pp. 79-81, no. 75.
[37] “indicò
con forza profetica nella gande tradizione razionale dell’ethos cristiano
le basi essenziali e permanenti dell’agire morale.” CG2010, p. 37.
English translation: CG2010E, p. 13.
[38] “nostra
responsabilità rendere nuovamente udibili e comprensibili tra gli uomini questi
criteri come vie della vera umanità, nel contesto della preoccupazione per
l’uomo, nella quale siamo immersi.” CG2010, p. 37. English translation: CG2010E, p. 13.
[41] John J. Coughlin, Canon
Law: A Comparative Study with Anglo-American Legal Theory, New York: Oxford
University Press, 2011, pp. 68-69.
[43] “Ma
il Concilio non solo non ripudia il Diritto Canonico, la norma cioè che precisa
i doveri e difende i diritti dei membri della Chiesa, ma la auspica e la vuole,
come conseguenza delle potestà lasciate da Cristo alla sua Chiesa, come
esigenza della sua natura sociale e visibile, comunitaria e gerarchica, come
guida alla vita religiosa e alla perfezione cristiana, e come tutela giuridica
della stessa libertà.” Paulus PP. VI, Allocutio “Ad Praelatos Auditores,
Officiales et Advocatos Tribunalis Sacrae Romanae Rotae, novo litibus
iudicandis ineunte anno coram admissos,” 27 Ianuarii 1969, Acta
Apostolicae Sedis 61 (1969), p. 177. English translation: William H. Woestman, O.M.I., ed., Papal
Allocutions to the Roman Rota 1939-2002, Ottawa: Saint Paul University,
2002, p. 96. [Hereafter, Papal Allocutions to the Roman
Rota].
[44] “le
esigenze di una sicura ed efficace tutela dei beni comuni, tra i quali quello
fondamentale dell’esercizio della stessa libertà, che solo una convivenza bene
ordinata può adeguatamente garantire.” Paulus PP. VI, Allocutio “Ad Praelatos
Auditores et Officiales Tribunalis Sacrae Romanae Rotae, a Beatissimo Patre
novo litibus iudicandis ineunte anno coram admissos,” 29 Ianuarii 1970, Acta
Apostolicae Sedis 62 (1970), p. 115. English translation: Papal Allocutions to the
Roman Rota, p. 101.
[46] Cf. Ioannes Paulus PP. II,
Allocutio “Ad Romanae Rotae Praelatos, auditores, officiales, et advocatos anno
iudiciali ineunte,”18 Ianuarii 1990, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 82
(1990), pp. 872-877. English translation: Papal Allocutions to the
Roman Rota, pp. 209-213.
[47] Cf. Ioannes Paulus PP. II,
Allocutio “Ad Tribunal Rotae Romanae iudiciali ineunte anno,” 29 Ianuarii 2005, Acta
Apostolicae Sedis 97 (2005), pp. 164-166. English translation: Pope John
Paul II, “Address of Pope John Paul II to the Members of the Tribunal of the
Roman Rota,” 29 January 2005, L’Osservatore Romano Weekly Edition in
English, 2 February 2005, p. 3.
[48] Cf. Benedictus PP. XVI,
Allocutio “Ad Tribunal Rotae Romanae,”28 Ianuarii 2006, Acta
Apostolicae Sedis 98 (2006), pp. 135-138. English translation: Pope
Benedict XVI, “Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Members of the
Tribunal of the Roman Rota,” 28 January 2006, L’Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English, 8 February 2006, p. 3.
[49] Cf.
Benedictus PP. XVI, Allocutio “Ad Tribunal Rotae Romanae in inauguratione Anni
Iudicialis,” 27 Ianuarii 2007, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 99
(2007), pp. 86-91. English translation: Pope Benedict XVI, “Address of His Holiness Benedict
XVI to the Members of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota,” 27 January 2007, L’Osservatore
Romano Weekly Edition in English, 31 January 2007, pp. 3 and 10.
[50] Cf. Benedictus PP. XVI,
Allocutio “Ad sodales Tribunalis Romanae Rotae,” 29 Ianuarii 2010, Acta
Apostolicae Sedis 102 (2010), pp. 110-114. English translation: Pope Benedict
XVI, “Address of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI on the Occasion of the
Inauguration of the Judicial Year of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota,” 29
January 2010, L’Osservatore Romano Weekly Edition in English, 3
February 2010, p. 3.
[51] “Il
giudice […] deve sempre guardarsi dal rischio di una malintesa compassione che
scadrebbe in sentimentalismo, solo apparentemente pastorale.” Ibid.,
p. 112. English translation: Ibid., p. 3.
[52] “Occorre
rifuggire da richiami pseudopastorali che situano le questioni su un piano
meramente orizzontale, in cui ciò che conta è soddisfare le richieste
soggettive per giungere ad ogni costo alla dichiarazione di nullità, al fine di
poter superare, tra l’altro, gli ostacoli alla ricezione dei sacramenti della
Penitenza e dell’Eucharistia. Il bene altissimo della riammissione alla
Communione eucharistica dopo la riconciliazione sacramentale, esige invece di
considerare l’autentico bene delle persone, inscindibile dalla verità della
loro situazione canonica. Sarebbe un bene fittizio, e una grave mancanza di
giustizia e di amore, spianare loro comunque la strada verso la ricezione dei
sacramenti, con il pericolo di farli vivere in contrasto oggettivo con la
verità della propria condizione personale.” Ibid., pp. 112-113.
English translation: Ibid., p. 3.
[53] “sia
la giustizia, sia la carità, postulino l’amore alla verità e comportino
essenzialmente la ricerca del vero.” Ibid., p. 113. English
translation: Ibid., p. 3.
[54] “In
particolare, la carità rende il riferimento alla verità ancora più esigente.” Ibid.,
p. 113. English translation: Ibid., p. 3.
[55] “Mentem
autem hodie convertentes ad exordium illius itineris [ad Codicem Iuris Canonici
recognoscendum], hoc est ad diem illam XXV Ianuarii anno MCMLIX [“qua Decessor
Noster fel. rec. Ioannes XXIII primum publice nuntiavit captum abs se consilium
reformandi vigens Corpus legum canonicarum, quod anno MCMXVII, in sollemnitate
Pentecostes, fuerat promulgatum”], atque ad ipsum Ioannem XXIII, Codicis
recognitionis initiatore, fateri debemus hunc Codicem ad uno eodemque proposito
profluxisse, rei chistianae scilicet restaurandae; a quo quidem proposito totum
Concilii opus suas normas suumque ductum praesertim accepit.” Ioannes Paulus
PP. II, Constitutio Apostolica Sacrae Disciplinae Leges, 25
Ianuarii 1983, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 75, Pars II (1983), p.
viii (cf. p. vii). [Hereafter, SDL]. English translation: Canon Law Society of
America, Code of Canon Law: Latin-English Edition, New English
Translation, Washington, DC: Canon Law Society of America, 1998, p. xxviii (cf.
p. xxvii). [Hereafter, SDLE].
[56] “longinqua illa hereditas
iuris, quae in libris Veteris et Novi Testamenti continetur, ex qua tota
tradition iuridica et legifera Ecclesiae, tamquam a suo primo fonte, originem
ducit.” SDL, p. x. English translation: SDLE, p. xxix.
[57] “Sic Novi Testamenti
scripta sinunt ut nos multo magis percipiamus hoc ipsum disciplinae momentum,
utque ac melius intellegere valeamus vincula, quae illud arctiore modo
contingunt cum indole salvifica ipsius Evangelii doctrinae.” SDL,
pp. x-xi. English translation: SDLE, p. xxix.
[58] “Codex eo potius spectat,
ut talem gignat ordinem in ecclesiali societate, qui, praecipuas tribuens
partes amori, gratiae atque charismati, eodem tempore faciliorem reddat
ordinatam eorum progressionem in vita sive ecclesialis societatis, sive etiam
singulorum hominum, qui ad illam pertinent.” SDL, p. xi. English
translation: SDLE, pp. xxix-xxx.
[61] “Cum ad modum etiam
socialis visibilisque compaginis sit constituta, ipsa normis indiget, ut eius
hierarchica et organica structura adspectabilis fiat, ut exercitium munerum
ipsi divinitus creditorum, sacrae praesertim potestatis et administrationis
sacramentorum rite ordinetur, ut secundum iustitiam in caritate innixam mutuae
christifidelium necessitudines componantur, singulorum iuribus in tuto positis
atque definitis, ut denique communia incepta, quae ad christianam vitam
perfectius usque vivendam suscipiuntur, per leges canonicas fulciantur,
muniantur ac promoveantur.” SDL, pp. xii-xiii. English translation: SDLE,
p. xxxi.
[62] “canonicae leges suapte
natura observantiam exigent…accurate fieret normarum expressio…in solido
iuridico, canonico ac theologico fundamento inniterentur.”SDL, p. xiii. English
translation: SDLE, p. xxxi.
[63] Cf. can. 915; Raymond Leo
Burke, “Canon 915: The Discipline regarding the Denial of Holy Communion to
Those Obstinately Persevering in Manifest Grave Sin,” Periodica de Re
Canonica 96 (2007), pp. 7-55.
[64] Cf. can. 1095, 2°; Raymond
L. Burke, “Defectus discretionis iudicii propter schizophraeniam doctrina et
recens jurisprudentia rotalis,” Periodica de Re Morali Canonica
Liturgica 73 (1984), pp. 560-566.
[65] Cf. Raymond L. Burke,
“Response Role of Law Award,” Canon Law Society of America, Proceedings
of the Sixty-Second Annual Convention (October 2-5, 2000, Arlington,
Virginia), Washington, DC: Canon Law Society of America, 2000, pp. 495-500.
[66] Cf.
Ioannes Paulus PP. II, Litterae Encyclicae Redemptor Hominis,
“Pontificali eius ministerio ineunte,” 4 Martii 1979, Acta Apostolicae
Sedis 71 (1979), p. 314, no. 20. English translation: Pope John Paul II, Encyclical
Letter Redemptor Hominis, “At the Beginning of His Papal
Ministry,”4 March 1979, Vatican City State: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, nd, p.
86, no. 20.
[67] Cf. Ioannes Paulus PP. II,
Litterae Encyclicae Ecclesia de Eucharistia, “De Eucharistia
eiusque necessitudine cum Ecclesia,”17 Aprilis 2003, Acta Apostolicae
Sedis 95 (2003), p. 439, no. 10. English translation: Pope John Paul
II, Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, “On the Eucharist in
Its Relationship to the Church,” 17 April 2003, Vatican City State: Libreria
Editrice Vaticana, nd, p. 13, no. 10.
[68] “Nostrum propterea esse
censemus vehementer hortare, ut in eucharistica Celebratione magna quidem
fidelitate liturgicae observentur regulae. Ipsae enim sunt significatio solida
verae ecclesialis indolis Eucharistiae; hic eorum est altissimus sensus. Numquam
privata alicuius proprietas est liturgia, neque ipsius celebrantis neque
communitatis ubi Mysteria celebrantur. Debuit acriora verba apostolus Paulus
communitati Corinthiae proferre ob graviora vitia eorum in eucharistica
Celebratione, quae pepererunt divisiones (schismata) atque factionum
constitutiones (haereses) (cfr 1 Cor 11, 17-34). Nostris
pariter temporibus observantia liturgicarum normarum iterum est detegenda et
aestimanda veluti actus et testimonium unius universalisque Ecclesiae, quae in
omni Eucharistiae celebratione praesens redditur. Tam sacerdos, qui Missam ex liturgicis
normis fideliter celebrant, quam communitas, quae his se conformat, modo tacito
sed eloquenti suum testificantur erga Ecclesiam amorem.” Ibid., p.
468, no. 52. English translation: Ibid., p. 65, no. 52.
[70] “Omnes ergo filios dilectos
hortamur ut significata praecepta animo sincero ac propensa voluntate
exsolvant, spe confisi fore ut Ecclesiae studiosa disciplina revirescat ac
propterea animarum quoque salus magis magisque, auxiliatrice Beatissima Virgine
Maria Ecclesiae Matre, promoveatur.” SDL, p. xiv. English
translation: SDLE, p. xxxii.
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