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Letter #126, 2022 Tue Dec 13: Reading Hollerich[2022-12-13][Engleză]Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, S.J., 64, Archbishop of Luxembourg, President of the Commission of Episcopal Conferences of the European Community. (link) On July 8, 2021, Pope Francis appointed him Relator General of the next Synod of Bishops on Synodality. So he is the man guiding the synodal process. On February 2, 2022, Hollerich told Germany’s Catholic News agency (Katholische Nachrichetn-Agentur, KNA) that he considered the Church’s teaching that homosexual relationships are sinful to be wrong: “I believe that the sociological-scientific foundation of this teaching is no longer correct.” (link; see also link). The cardinal said it was time for a fundamental revision of Church teaching on this matter. In a recent article, Vatican journalist Sandro Magister said he believes that Pope Francis would like Hollerich to be his successor as… the next Pope (see here and here)Letter #126, 2022, Tuesday, December 13: Reading Hollerich Today is the Feast of St. Lucy. Here is an account of her life from Catholic News Agency, a service of EWTN News (link): St. Lucy is a virgin and martyr from Syracuse in Sicily. Her feast is celebrated on December 13th. According to tradition, St. Lucy was born to rich and noble parents in the year 283. Her father was of Roman origin, but his early death left her dependent upon her mother, whose name, Eutychia, seems to indicate that she was of Greek heritage. Like so many of the early martyrs, Lucy had consecrated her virginity to God, and she hoped to devote all her worldly goods to the service of the poor. Her mother, Eutychia, arranged a marriage for her, but for three years she managed to postpone the marriage. Lucy prayed at the tomb of Saint Agatha to change her mother’s mind about her faith. As a result, her mother’s long haemorrhagic illness was cured, and she consented to Lucy’s desire to live for God. St. Lucy’s rejected bridegroom, Paschasius, denounced Lucy as a Christian. The governor planned to force her into prostitution, but when guards went to fetch her, they could not move her even when they hitched her to a team of oxen. The governor ordered her to be killed instead. After a gruesome torture which included having her eyes torn out, she was surrounded by bundles of wood which were set afire, but the fire quickly died out. She prophesied against her persecutors, and was then executed by being stabbed to death with a dagger. According to later accounts, Lucy warned Paschasius he would be punished. When the governor heard this he ordered the guards to gouge out her eyes. However, in another telling, it was Lucy who removed her eyes in an attempt to discourage a persistent suitor who greatly admired them. When her body was being prepared for burial, they discovered her eyes had been restored. This and the meaning of her name (“light” or “lucid”) led to her patronage of everything to do with eyes; the blind, eye trouble, and other eye ailments. (CNA) *** Reading Hollerich: “Openness and change are the paradigm of Christianity” On November 13, 2020 — so, two years ago — the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, published a brief interview (link) with Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, S.J., then 62, under the title “This is the Gospel,” in which Hollerich commented on the then-recently published encyclical of Pope Francis, Fratelli tutti (October 3, 2020, link). In this interview (full text below), Hollerich is quite eloquent and quite evidently very intelligent, befitting one of the leading Jesuits in the Church today. But his thought seems to de-emphasize the core proclamations of the Christian faith — essentially, that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world because of his sacrificial death and resurrection on the third day — and to emphasize rather amorphous concepts like “openness” and “change.” In addition, Hollerich gave a longer, more comprehensive interview just two months ago, in October, to the Vatican News website, in Italian (link). I have not found an English translation, so I did a rough translation myself, and include this text also below. Given the important role that Hollerich is now playing in the “Synod on Synodality” process (he is the head of the upcoming Synod, link), and given that he may play a still more important role in the future (Sandro Magister thinks that it is clear the Pope Francis would like Hollerich to be his successor, link), it seemed fitting to present some of the things Hollerich has been saying in order to begin to better understand his mind and heart. I do not wish to mis-characterize Hollerich’s thought. Therefore, I felt it was fitting to let him speak at length for himself. I do comment a bit on these interviews, and will publish the letters of comment readers send to me, if they seem helpful in better understanding this important leader of the Church. —RM *** Here is the text of the 1st interview, from November 13, 2020, including some of my own comments interspersed: (1) “This is the Gospel” “Openness and change are the paradigm of Christianity; since the time of the Apostles” Cardinal Hollerich on November 13, 2020 (link) Interview by Andre Monda of Cardinal Hollerich “You know me, director, and you know how I shy away from rhetoric. But if I have to specify an adjective that shows my state of mind in reading Fratelli Tutti, the only word that comes to mind is ‘enthusiastic.’” This is how Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, Archbishop of Luxembourg and President of the Commission of Episcopal Conferences of the European Community, began a conversation on the new papal Encyclical, which he offers us despite his many commitments. Cardinal Hollerich: “I would have preferred to subscribe to your invitation to write an organic commentary on Pope Francis’ beautiful text, but the situation of the pandemic is, here in Luxembourg just as in the rest of Europe, extremely serious, and pastoral commitments are mounting: if the sheep are not gathered, it is the shepherd in this moment who must search for the flock.” “I am enthusiastic,” he said at the outset, “because in this Letter we taste the flavour of the Gospel. There is nothing more and nothing less than the Gospel. There is nothing other than what Christ tells us in the Gospel. “Fratelli Tutti means first and foremost that ours is a community religion: we are never alone before God. Jesus taught us to pray the Our Father in the first person plural. But, especially here in Europe, it is now common to pray the ‘My Father,’ to indulge a very personal piety, to consider God as ‘my’ God. “This is not simply incorrect; it is not Christian. “Jesus is very explicit in this sense: I am with you when ‘two or three’ are gathered in my name. “The essential nature of the very Incarnation is in fraternal sharing. God became man and brother in order to share Himself. “From this point of view I find prophetic tones in the Letter, with respect to the rising individualism in the post-modern era. “And also with respect to the renewal of the Church, which is largely overcoming a tendency toward individualism which unfortunately also persists within her.” [Comment: These thoughts and beliefs of the cardinal — that “ours is a community religion”; that Jesus taught us to pray the “Our Father” and not “My Father,” which, if anyone would pray in this way, would be “to indulge a very personal piety” (Note: though I actually have never encountered anyone in Europe who prays “My Father” for the “Our Father,” and wonder if and where European Catholics really do pray this way…); that we suffer from “rising individualism in the modern era” — all stress the danger of individualism, and the goodness of a type or “communal” or “collective” piety. But the “community” or “collective” is made up of individuals, each of whom has made a personal commitment of faith, each of whom engaged in a personal pilgrimage toward God, along with other fellow pilgrims in this world. This emphasis on the “collective” seems to downplay the essentially personal nature of… each believer’s relationship with Jesus… a personal relationship which Hollerich seems to be saying is “not simply incorrect; it is not Christian” [because it is individualistic). Yet is it not the very essence of the Christian faith (and of traditional Jesuit spirituality) that we, one by one, come to believe in Jesus, come to enter into a relationship with Him, and in this way undertake to live… a Christian life?] “Pope Francis invites us to a new globalization: that of love and fraternity. I am deeply touched by the reference to the Good Samaritan, and by the necessary modernizing of the parable: today I am, I must be, a neighbour to the refugees in Lesvos, be they Christians or Muslims; I am a neighbour to the millions of people suffering from the pandemic everywhere in the world. From the perspective of fraternity, new fields open out to us, new possibilities to our being Christians. [Comment: Again, the emphasis here is not on loving God, or on loving Christ, or on venerating the Virgin Mary, and that “cloud of witnesses,” the saints, and as a result of this love, of this veneration, of this loving and venerating one’s heroically holy fellow man and woman, both in and out of the Church. Rather, the emphasis is on an amorphous concept: “a new globalization of love and fraternity.” The personal is de-emphasized, the collective — here the global — is emphasized.] “And on the contrary, certain options that are intrinsically opposed to being Christian close, first and foremost populist and nationalistic ideologies.” [Comment: Here Hollerich states clearly that he believes that “populist” and “nationalistic” ideologies are “intrinsically opposed to being Christian.” But is this really, and fully, exhaustively, the case? Is there not, in the natural realm, a certain place for a group of people (a family, a community, a city, a nation) to have a somewhat exclusive common identity, a common sense of pride in a shared history of joys and sorrows, of successes and failures? Is all of this annihilated by becoming Christian? Or does the Christian faith, as it were, “baptize” the sense of family, the sense of one’s hometown, the sense of one’s area of a city (Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx…), the sense of one’s city, the sense of one’s nation? Again, Hollerich’s thought seems to move toward the abstract and impersonal, away from the concrete and personal…] “Every ‘closed’ system poses risks. And this also applies to theology and the Church: to always flee from identity-based closures. Openness and change are the paradigm of Christianity; since the time of the Apostles. [Long Comment: Here Hollerich warn again against “every ‘closed’ system” and says this even applies to the Church, which may suffer from “identity-based closures.” He again repeats his key insight: “Openness and change are the paradigm of Christianity.” The phrase is, once again, impersonal and amorphous. Hollerich — in these phrases, in the way he chooses words and examples — seems uncomfortable with what is personal, with personal beings with clear contours and identities. Persons who have a clear individual “identity” seem to leave him cold; what he is enthusiastic about seems to be what is general: principles, collective groups of things. Yet Christians from the beginning have said: “We seek about all to encounter Jesus Christ, to be open to encountering Him, to preparing ourselves to encounter Him, in prayer, in the sacraments, in Scripture, in the lives of his imitators, the saints. St. Paul in his 1st Letter to Timothy, Chapter 6: 12-16 writes of the very personal and unique identity of Jesus, and of the very particular judgment Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate, and of the necessity to hold fast, without change or alteration, to the commandments of Christ in order to see, in the end, the “King of kings” who “dwells in unapproachable light.” Here is that passage of Paul’s letter to Timothy: 12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. 13 I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession; 14 That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: 15 Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; 16 Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen. Human beings wish to encounter Christ, to be in communion with Christ, because He enables us to also be open to what is the final goal of our being: to encounter the Father, who dwells in unapproachable light, whose being is eternal, outside of time, changeless, untouched by any “shadow of changing.” So there is something in Hollerich’s keynote phrase — “openness and change are the paradigm of Christianity” — which seems at odds with the proclamation of the early Christians: that they wished to encounter and be open to Christ, then not to change, but to remain unchangingly faithful to the teachings about Him, and given by Him, so that they might order their lives in such a way as to follow Him as His (unworthy) disciples. End of Long Comment. Hollerich then continues:] “It is the very presence of Christ in the Church that allows the propensity toward openness. I’ve said it before: the Gospel is in this Letter [he means the papal encyclical, Fratelli tutti], and the Gospel always comes first. In this sense I can say that in the Encyclical there is the entire pre-existing Doctrine of the Church, but in Francis’ language, which is a language that makes it fragrant, that is able to speak to the heart.” [Comment: Here Hollerich proposes that “It is the very presence of Christ in the Church that allows the propensity toward openness.” This statement seems incomplete. It might, perhaps, better be said that “the presence of Christ in the Church draws us ever more toward Him, then… (then allows the propensity toward openness).” Andrea Monda: Particularly in the first two chapters there are various references to Europe. What impression have they made on you, Your Eminence? Cardinal Hollerich: “I found it really beautiful that it speaks of Europeans. They are people who have come to know and experience the concept of fraternity. The same concept expressed in lay terms was at the basis of the European project, just as the founding fathers intended. A united Europe is a project of fraternity. The Pope says that if it did not exist, it would have to be invented. It is a model for the world. Nowhere else in the world is it given that nations renounce portions of their sovereignty in order to transfer it to a common project. But this project is in grave difficulty today. The transfer of sovereignty is opposed to ‘sovreignism.’ That is, fraternity is opposed to egotism. Look at the situation of the displaced: compromise cannot be found, and if it is found, it is certainly to the detriment of the refugees who pay the price for European indecision and selfishness. No, this is not our history. It is not the best history of Europe, of that united Europe that we want. And this also applies to religions that appear on the European theatre: overcoming the temptations of closure, and with them the generalizations, isolating separatism, and violence. To always recognize that the Other is a wealth. To always see the good that is also always there in the Other. To speak of what unites us, not of what divides us. [Comment: At the center of this paragraph, Hollerich makes this astonishing assertion: “The transfer of sovereignty is opposed to ‘sovreignism.’ That is, fraternity is opposed to egotism.” He is suggesting that any transfer of authority from the individual nations of Europe to the European Union continental authority in Brussels is “fraternity” and any desire to retain sovereignty in the individual countries is “egotism.” This is a type of thought that is, it would seem, almost dualistic, polarizing, stark, un-nuanced, even… ideological. Is there not a way of viewing nations and their governing bodies as an expression of the common good will of each separate people? Is there not a way of seeing the continuing existence of sovereign independent nations as a form of good in our world? Can these independent sovereign nations not forms a harmony of voices seeking the common good of a continent, or of the world? Is it “egotism” to desire to honor the struggles and sufferings of one’s own nation in the past, of one’s ancestors? Or is it not rather, indeed, a type of piety — if it is understood that other people, in other nations, may also have a similar respect and affection for their own national identity — all moved by a similar emotion of love of country? Is this not possible?] “We have the duty to make an appeal to everyone’s conscience. It is not (only) an issue of politics. But above all of conscience. The Union needs values, but I do not see a great circulation of ideals at this time. The Union survives on compromises; it does not live on ideals. We have to return to the original ideal of a common Home. The one dreamt of and built by the founding fathers. Which undoubtedly needs updating (for example also in relation to the coexistence of different religious beliefs), but which in its foundations is still valid. “I would like to add one last thing. I see Fratelli Tutti as the continuation and the consequence of Laudato Si’. We live as brothers and sisters in a common home. Only if we are brothers and sisters can we protect our common home. Being brothers and sisters, then, means contributing to the protection of creation with our brothers and sisters of Amazonia and with those of generations to come. There is a consequential nexus between the two Encyclicals which will be further explored. I have no doubt that both documents are the bases on which to build a new humanism for all men and women of good will.” —By Andrea Monda *** (2) “The Church must change, we risk speaking to a man who no longer exists” And here below is a second long interview given by Hollerich, again to official Vatican News journalists, published on October 34, 2022 — less than two months ago. I refrain from commenting on this long text. I limit myself to citing one passage, which has become somewhat controversial, where Hollerich says that human nature itself is changing and that he fears that “our pastoral care speaks to a man who no longer exists.” Here is what Hollerich says on this point: “You see, my generation has experienced and is experiencing changes that no generation has experienced before. I would say the greatest since the invention of the wheel. With the difference that today everything changes with an unusual speed only a few decades ago… Today we are not even able to imagine it, but there will be very, very big anthropological transformations. In the awareness that man can only partially influence his own evolution… Very frankly, our pastoral care speaks to a man who no longer exists. We must be capable of proclaiming the Gospel, and making the Gospel understood by today’s man who mostly ignores it. This implies a great openness on our part, and also a willingness — while remaining firm in the Gospel — to let ourselves be transformed too.” I hesitate to risk commenting on this, and on the conclusions about the need to change Church teaching on sexual morality which Hollerich seems to draw from this. I would appreciate receiving commentary and analysis from readers, interpreting Hollerich’s position and what it means for Church teaching. [The interview text below is from the Italian text that was published in the Osservatore Romano on October 24 (link). It is in my own translation into English.] *** Hollerich: “The Church must change, we risk speaking to a man who no longer exists” In a long interview with L’Osservatore Romano, the cardinal president of the Commission that brings together the European episcopates talks about how much the preparation phase for the next Synods is bringing out the urgency of a change of pace in pastoral care: even though we are firm in the Gospel we must be capable of announcing it to today’s man who mostly ignores it and this implies the willingness to let ourselves be transformed too October 24, 2022 By Andrea Monda and Roberto Cetera Jean-Claude Hollerich, 64, cardinal archbishop of Luxembourg, is president of the Commission of the Episcopal Conferences of the European Community and vice-president of the Council of the Conferences of European Bishops, as well as Relator General at the Synod on Synodality. With the opening of the continental phase of the Synod on Synodality, he gladly welcomes a conversation with the “Osservatore Romano” on the progress of the most widespread consultation of the history of the Church in Europe, and its contents. We meet him in the parish church of Rome of which he the titular cardinal, while he talks like a “good parish priest” with the children of the first communion course. “The Church is not this building,” he explains to them. “Church means assembly. You are the Church. Because, as Pope Francis says, without young people there is no Church, because God is young.” Then he comes towards us: “I’m really happy to be the titular cardinal, not of one of the beautiful churches in the historic centre, but of this parish on the outskirts; when I come here I find the joy of being a priest among the people.” Last month, Cardinal Zuppi gave us a long interview on the Synod of the Italian Church, in which, with great honesty, he did not hide that he had recorded a lower than expected participation, in quantity and quality. What vision do you have of the progress of the Synod on the European scene? Cardinal Hollerich: Yes, I read that interview with great interest. With equal honesty, it seems to me that Zuppi’s observations can also apply to other European countries, even if with the necessary distinctions between countries. You see, I believe that today in Europe we are suffering from a pathology, that is, that we are unable to see clearly what the mission of the Church is. We always talk about structures, which is certainly not a bad thing, because structures are important and certainly need to be rethought. But there is not enough talk about the mission of the Church. Which is to proclaim the Gospel. Proclaim, and above all testify, the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. A testimony that the Christian must interpret mainly through his commitment in the world for the protection of creation, for justice, for peace. The teaching of Pope Francis is everything and nothing other than the explanation of the Gospel. It’s not difficult to figure it out. In today’s secularized world, direct announcement is not always understood, but our testimony is. We are observed and evaluated in the world for how we live the Gospel. It’s a bit like teachers at school: what they say is certainly important, but what they communicate about themselves is even more important. In our case what matters is consistency with the Gospel. Take, for example, the encyclical Laudato si’. Many have read it, even among non-believers, even among those who do not know the Gospel. And all those who have read it have shared the value, the importance, the urgency. I have had direct feedback on this in my daily contacts with politicians from the European Parliament and Commission in Brussels. So everyone has read Laudato Sě, and admires it. And the same was also true for Fratelli tutti. That is, everyone recognizes Pope Francis as the author of the proposal for a new humanism. Which he often proposes in solitude among the great world leaders. But it is then up to us to know how to explain that the humanism of Francis is not just a political proposal, but is the proclamation of the Gospel. Those who are outside the Church sometimes understand the Gospel better than those who are inside. Pope Francis has therefore indicated this way of proclaiming the Gospel, which starts from reality, that reality which sees us all as creatures and children of the same Father. But to answer your initial question: in all European countries at the synods there was much talk of communion, of participation, but very little of mission. Surely the difficulties encountered in the synods of the various countries were influenced by a certain instinctive defense of their status on the part of the clergy and, on the other hand, by a persistent delegating attitude of the laity. Cardinal Hollerich: The concept of synodality was introduced by Pope Paul VI as a requirement of collegiality, of communion among bishops. The Second Vatican Council had the preliminary need to complete what had remained pending with the First Vatican Council, whose focus was entirely on the figure and prerogatives of the Roman pontiff. So the effort of the assembly was first of all to define the role of the bishop. But in Lumen Gentium the concept of “the people of God on the journey” and of the Church as “temple of the Holy Spirit” is introduced for the first time, the “universal priesthood” which concerns all the baptized is made explicit. Well, I think that these gigantic intuitions of the Council Fathers have not yet been adequately developed. But I very much agree with Pope Francis when he says that it takes a hundred years to implement a Council. Only 60 have passed… we’re not late (he says it laughing heartily, ed)! But, joking aside, we must be aware that the baptismal priesthood takes nothing away from the ministerial priesthood. Indeed, all of us priests must understand that there is no ministerial priesthood without a universal priesthood of Christians, because it originates from this. I am well aware that the difficulty of assimilating a concept, basically so elementary, is opposed by a presbyterial formation that still lingers on an “ontological diversity” that does not exist. Theologians must get to work on this and provide more certain definitions around the theme of character and sacramental grace. But above all, the bishops must seriously and profoundly put their hands on the formation of future priests. We still have seminaries today that I call “liberalized Tridentine.” Sursa: www.InsideTheVatican.com Contor Accesări: 476, Ultimul acces: 2026-07-28 13:41:10
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