Letter #46, 2017: So be it

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Letter #46, 2017: So be it

[2017-07-27]

[Engleză]

July 26, 2017, Wednesday

Rome at Mid-Summer...

"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." —St. Paul, 2nd Corinthians 4:7

"Let us ask the Lord for this parresia, this apostolic fervor that impels us to move forward, as brothers, all of us forward! Forward, bringing the name of Jesus in the bosom of Holy Mother Church, and, as St. Ignatius said, 'hierarchical and Catholic.' So be it." —Pope Francis, April 23, 2013, during the first weeks of his pontificate, in a homily on the Feast of St. George (link). The Pope was asking all of us to speak the truth boldly as we all move forward together in the faith. It has been a central teaching of this pontificate

"The Lord does not abandon His Church, even when the boat has taken on so much water as to be on the verge of capsizing." —Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, in remarks he prepared in Rome for the July 15 funeral in Cologne, Germany, of his old friend Cardinal Joachim Meisner, who died on July 5. The remarks were read by Archbishop Georg Gaenswein in Cologne; Emeritus Pope Benedict did not attend the funeral but remained in the Vatican where he has lived since his resignation in 2013

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So be it

Late July in Rome... hot, sunny, dry... the air pulls water from the flesh like a vast dehumidifier... but today was not as scaldingly hot as last week, and some clouds even broke up the previously flawless azure sky. It even seemed i might rain... But there was no rain.

Vatican officials yesterday decided to turn off the fountains in St. Peter's Square, because there has been no rain here for weeks and the distant reservoirs providing Rome's water supply are shrinking dangerously.

Crowds continue to wait for hour upon hour under the hot sun in St. Peter's Square to pass through the security controls and enter St. Peter's Basilica.

But the Square seems strangely silent, as the water does not flow, and the summer sun beats down, scalding the heads and shoulders of the faithful and the curious as they seek to draw near to the tomb of Peter.

In this odd, dry, sweating silence, murmurs and whispers fill the city with peculiar intensity, as if we are infected by a form of intellectual fever... in cafes, on benches, in restaurants, in un-air-conditioned cardinals' apartments, in apostolic palace corridors decorated with the pale ancient maps of a Europe, and a world, prior to the Industrial Revolution, hushed voices rise and fall, heads nod in agreement, or shake in sadness and disbelief, then silence falls...

These are the relatively quiet days that have followed what we may call the "days of thunder," which came at the end of June, and in the first half of July.

What follows is by no means a comprehensive report on these tumultuous days, merely a partial summary.

On June 20, Libero Miloni, the Auditor General of the Vatican -- the man charged with final authority to account for all the income and expenses of the entire Vatican -- resigned with no official explanation whatsoever.

Reports in the Italian media claimed that Miloni had resigned, not because he was not a competent professional, but because he did not make "enough concessions to the court ceremonial of the Vatican, to internal equilibria, and to the clerical susceptibility." (link and also link)

One report put it this way: "Milone acted like a professional and this was the problem. Because he was not afraid of anybody, the resistance group called him 'the Executioner.' A long list of Cardinals complained to Francis who eventually gave in. Francis asked Milone to accept a lower pay. Milone was paid tax-free 20,000 Euros a month, which is a normal salary for a manager hired from the free market. At this point Milone decided to quit."

Whether these reports are accurate or not, clearly, the unexplained departure of the Vatican's chief accountant suggested that the Pope's financial reform of the Vatican was encountering difficulties.

And then, another bombshell related to a high-ranking figure in Pope Francis' financial reform efforts detonated...

On Thursday, June 29, it was announced in Australia that Australian Cardinal George Pell, chosen by Pope Francis to be the head of the entire financial reform effort, would be indicted on charges of child abuse in Australia, and asked to appear in Australian court to face the charges on July 26 (today). He did appear in court today. He did not speak a word, and the court proceedings were continued to mid-September. (link) “For the avoidance of doubt and because of the interest might I indicate that Cardinal Pell pleads not guilty to all charges and will maintain his presumed innocence that he has,” Pell's lawyer told the court.

Then, another bombshell....

On Friday, June 30, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and so the chief doctrinal authority on the Church after Pope Francis, met with Pope Francis... and Pope Francis told Mueller that his services would no longer be needed in that post.

Reuters headlined: "Second conservative departure in three days." (link)

The Associated Press connected the decision with the fact that Mueller's office handles investigations into allegations of sexual abuse by priests, and that these investigations have been criticized as insufficiently rigorous (link).

The AP article states: "Perhaps sensing a need to change course, Francis declined to renew the mandate of German Cardinal Gerhard Mueller as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office that processes and evaluates all cases of priests accused of raping or molesting minors. Francis named Mueller's deputy, Monsignor Luis Ladaria Ferrer, a Spanish Jesuit, to run the powerful office instead. During Mueller's five-year term, the Congregation amassed a 2,000-case backlog and came under blistering criticism from Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins, who had been tapped by Francis in 2014 to advise the Church on caring for abuse victims and protecting children from pedophile priests."

So the impression was given that Francis's "reform agenda" with regard to sexual abuse, as well as with regard to Vatican finances (Miloni's resignation and Pell's departure from Rome for Australia), was faltering, more than four years into his papacy, and that the Pope was anxious to have Pell and Mueller "out of the way."

Mueller was taken by surprise. He had had no inkling of this decision.

In the days that followed, Rome pulsed with chatter, which slipped over onto the internet.

Mueller, it was said, had not expected to be renewed. It was said that he had had no indication that the Pope would ask him to leave the post for which his whole life of theological study had prepared him. He had expected he might remain until age 75, another six years, it was said...

But some writers suggested that a number of events in the past three years should have made it quite clear why, for theological reasons unrelated to the abuse cases, Pope Francis might not have wished to keep Mueller in his post (link).

Some reports suggested that Mueller was deeply offended both by the Pope's decision, and by the way the Pope communicated it.

Soon after his dismissal, Mueller spoke by telephone with his friend, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, the retired archbishop of Cologne. (link)

On July 5, not many hours after speaking with Mueller, Meisner suddenly passed away.

Meisner's death meant the passing of a close friend of Mueller, and also of Emeritus Pope Benedict. Here is a report on Meisner's death (link).

Meisner in that final conversation expressed his solidarity with Mueller, Mueller himself reported (of course, it is not best practice to accept the account of a conversation given by only one of the two speakers, but in this case there seems little reason to doubt the essential truth of Mueller's reconstruction of what was said: link):

"Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has just revealed in a new 5 July interview that he spoke with Cardinal Meisner the night before he died. As the Passauer Neue Presse reports: 'Müller had spoken over the phone with the former Archbishop of Cologne [Cardinal Meisner] the previous night [before he died the next morning]; and they also had spoken about the non-renewal of his former position. Meisner had shown himself to be "deeply saddened" by this dismissal. “That moved him personally and wounded him – and he considered it to be a form of damage for the Church,” as the Curial Cardinal [Müller] himself described the reaction of Meisner.

"Cardinal Müller also commented and sharply criticized in this new interview the conduct of Pope Francis with regard to his dismissal from the CDF. According to the Passauer Neue Presse: 'In the interview with the PNP [Passauer Neue Presse], he explained that Pope Francis “communicated his decision” not to renew his term “within one minute” on the last work day of his five-year-term as Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith. Additionally, he [Müller] was not given any reasons for it. “This style [sic] I cannot accept,” as Müller stressed, clearly distancing himself from the procedure of the Pope. In dealing with employees, also in Rome “the Church’s social teaching should be applied.”'"

On July 15, Meisner's funeral Mass was celebrated in Cologne.

At the Mass, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein read an extraordinary message from Meisner's old friend... Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI. (link)

Here is the text of that message composed by the Emeritus Pope, who turned 90 in April (link):

"At this hour, when the church of Cologne and faithful from further a field gathered to say goodbye to Cardinal Joachim Meisner, my heart and thoughts are with you also, and gladly accepting the invitation of Cardinal Woelki, I wish to address a word of remembrance to you.

"When I heard of the death of Cardinal Meisner last Wednesday, I did not want to believe it. The day before we had talked on the phone. His gratitude for the fact that he had been on vacation after he had participated in the beatification of Bishop Teofilius Matulionis in Vilnius on Sunday before (June 25) was clear in his his voice. The love for the Church in the neighboring countries in the East, which had suffered under the Communist persecution, as well as the gratitude for the withstanding the sufferings of that time, shaped his life. And so is it is no coincidence that the last visit to his life was one to a Confessor of the Faith in those countries.

"What particularly impressed me in that last talk with the retired Cardinal, was the loosened joy, the inner joy, and the confidence he had found. We know that this passionate shepherd and pastor found it difficult to leave his post, especially at a time in which the Church stands in particularly pressing need of convincing shepherds who can resist the dictatorship of the spirit of the age and who live and think the faith with determination. However, what moved me all the more was that, in this last period of his life, he learned to let go and to live out of a deep conviction that the Lord does not abandon His Church, even when the boat has taken on so much water as to be on the verge of capsizing.

"Two things in recent times which pleased him more than anything:

"(1) On the one hand, he has always told me how deeply he in the Sacrament of Penance, how young people, especially young men, are experiencing the grace of forgiveness—the Gift, they have found the life that only God can give.

"(2) The other thing that has always touched him and gave him joy, was the quiet growth of Eucharistic Adoration. At the World Youth Day in Cologne this was a central point for him — that there was Adoration, a silence in which only the Lord spoke to the heart. Some Pastoral and Liturgical experts felt that such silence in looking at the Lord can not be achieved with such a huge number of people. Some were also of the opinion that Eucharistic Adoration was overtaken as such, by the Mass, since the Lord would be received in Eucharistic bread and not be looked at. But that this Bread can not be eaten like any food, and that the Eucharistic sacrament “welcomes” all dimensions of our existence – that reception must be worship, has now become very clear. Thus, the time of Eucharistic Adoration at the Cologne World Youth Day has become an interior event, which remained unforgettable to the Cardinal.

"When, on his last morning, Cardinal Meisner did not appear at Mass, he was found dead in his room. His Breviary had slipped out of his hands: he was praying as he died, looking at the Lord, talking to the Lord. The death that was given to him, shows once again how he lived: looking at the Lord and talking to him. So we can confidently recommend his soul to the goodness of God. Lord, we thank thee for the testimony of thy servant Joachim. Let him be intercessors for the Church of Cologne, and on the whole Be earthly! Requiescat in pace!"

Now, in this text written by Emeritus Pope Benedict in memory of Meisner, what drew the attention of the press were these words: "However, what moved me all the more was that, in this last period of his life, he (i.e., Meisner) learned to let go and to live out of a deep conviction that the Lord does not abandon His Church, even when the boat has taken on so much water as to be on the verge of capsizing."

Some people took these words as an unusual, oblique criticism by the emeritus Pope of... the leadership of the present Pope, Francis, in guiding the Church.

One Italian author, Leo Zagami, wrote (link):

"Controversy of course erupted in the Vatican after Benedict XVI's touching words were read in memory of his great friend, under the vaults of the magnificent Cathedral, and even if very diplomatic, they still raise questions about Meisner’s sudden death, and filter a not-so-mild form of criticism towards the present state of the Vatican from the Pope Emeritus.

Sursa: www.InsideTheVatican.com

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