Father Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski, a Polish Roman Catholic and Armenian Catholic priest, author and activist.

“The Church (in Poland) didn’t want to hurt the Pope (John Paul II), but actually, more harm was done by keeping silent.” —Father Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski, 55, a Polish Roman Catholic and Armenian Catholic priest, author and activist. Born in 1956, in Cracow, Poland, Isakowicz-Zaleski was an activist of the anti-communist student opposition in Cracow in the late 1970s, became a Solidarity chaplain in Cracow’s Nowa Huta district in the 1980s and also the founder of a number of group homes for handicapped people. Following the end of communist rule, he became an avid supporter of the renewal of the Polish Church in the post-communist period based on truth-telling about what had happened under communism, including revealing who had collaborated with the regime.

“I am only interested in the truth (Chodzi mi tylko o prawde)“ —title of Father Zaleski’s latest book, published in Poland this spring, which alleges, without naming names, that there is powerful “homosexual mafia” within the Church hierarchy in Poland (and also in Rome) today

“The need for truth is more sacred than any other need.”—Simone Weil (1909-43), one of the most original, brilliant, intense, and enigmatic thinkers of the 20th century. Politically, Weil was left wing and and active in the trade union movement and the education of workers in France. After the outbreak of the Second World War and the Nazi occupation of France, Weil sought ways to be involved in the Resistance, but at risk because of her Jewish ancestry, in 1942, after a short detour in the US, she finally settled in London. Determined to share in the privations of the people she had left behind, and further weakened by overwork, and overcome by self-doubt and depression, Weil died in August 1943. She was just 34.

It is, however, as a religous thinker and mystic that Weil left her most indelible legacy. Her relationship to Christianity was vexed and complex. She finally came to regard herself as a Christian, but, so far as is known, she was never baptised. George Herbert’s poem “Love bade me welcome”, introduced to her by a young English priest in the late 1930s, struck and moved her deeply. She learned it by heart, and would often recite it to herself during periods of what she called “affliction”. For Weil the essence of faith was not credal belief but prayer in the form of attente, a “waiting” on God. God’s wholly and holy otherness, God’s kenosis in creation and in Christ, God’s compassion — and  passionate and relentless honesty — were at the heart of her “theology”

“Christ likes us to prefer truth to himself, because, before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go towards the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms.”—Ibid.

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A Difficult Letter

This is a complex, difficult letter to write. And I do not have enough time to do the various matters justice, so what I write here is merely a sketch.

There are a number of important things happening right now in the Church. There is the battle for religious freedom between the Church in the United States and the administration of President Barack Obama. There is the investigation by the Holy See of the American women religious orders. (Many note that the average age of the nuns in many of these orders is now approaching, or surpassing, 70; there are simply very few new vocations for most of these orders.) There is the turmoil in the Church in Ireland, rocked by allegations of harsh treatment and abuse of children, where the cardinal primate just resigned. And there is Pope Benedict’s imminent decision on whether to welcome the Society of St. Pius X, the traditional Catholic group founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, back into full reunion with the Holy See. The decision is expected before month’s end (and the Society’s reaction to that decision will then soon follow). There is no doubt that the welcoming of a group of 500 traditional priests back into full communion with Rome—and I intentionally do not go into the question of what that relationship has been up to now—is a matter of considerable importance, as these priests, and their lay congregations, would inevitably be a powerful group on behalf of a traditional Catholic position in future theological debates over the Church’s relationship to the secular world and over the interpretation of the Second Vatican Council, which is another way of saying that there will be voices in the secular media and on the “left” ready and willing to denounce the Pope harshly if he does move to “regularize” the situation of the Lefebvrists. Forewarned is forearmed.

But there are also other issues, and three in particular: first, to simplify, is the issue of “gender,” by which I mean the whole issue of human sexuality, sexual morality, the nature and role of the family, and even the demographic question—and this does not exhaust the issue; second, again to simplify, the issue of the globalized economy, and the role of human work, and of private losses placed as debts on the backs of the tax-paying public, to the point of constructing an enormously unbalanced, and unjust economy, which may require our children and grandchildren to pay off debts incurred recklessly during recent decades; third, and once again, to greatly simplify, there is the revolution occurring in genetics and genetic research, which promises to provide great benefits to humanity, to human health and well-being, but which is also fraught with the potential to bring great problems, even great evils, some of them catastrophic.

The second and third questions will have to be addressed in future reports.

But the first question is worth bringing up here, if only in passing, because traditional Church teaching is being challenged in this matter in nearly every Western country.

A Journey to Poland and Austria

Paul Badde with Pope Benedict XVI

We at Inside the Vatican ended our annual Easter pilgrimage on April 9, the day after Easter. (On these pilgrimages, we bring a small group of friends, generally no more than 12, to meet with Vatican officials, including cardinals, here in Rome, and to visit places like Assisi, Norcia, Subiaco, Castel Gandolfo.)

On April 9, we traveled to the village of Manoppello, Italy, where, on display in the local church is a mysterious image of the face of Christ on a small rectangle of ancient, precious, almost transparent, silk-like fabric. (Pope Benedict took the matter so seriously that he visited the shrine personally on September 1, 2006).

Upon our return to Rome, we spent the evening with Paul Badde, author of an important book on the image, The Face of God: The Rediscovery Of The True Face of Jesus (Ignatius, 2012, cover image below), and his wife, Ellen.

Badde has made a significant contribution to the understanding of both the image in Manoppello, and the Shroud of Turin, and I think it is no exaggeration to say that the English edition of his book, just out, may mark the beginning of a new era and opportunity for scholars of the Shroud of Turin, as well as of the Holy Face of Manoppello.

I mention this image because there is no doubt that Pope Benedict has been calling ever more frequently in reason years for all of us to look “toward Christ” and, in particular, to seek “the face of Christ.”

And I bring this up because it is this which must be at the heart of our search now, as we try to find a way forward for the Church, and the faith, in a secularized world, which is preaching a new anthropology, a new future for humanity, and, in a sense, a new “face” for the “messiah” of our age, a “face” without a transcendent dimension, a face which can be designed, and produced, by the new “gods” of our age, who are, as in the time of the Caesars, only men.

After the Easter pilgrimage, and the interesting visit with Badde and his wife, I went to Poland, and then to Austria.

Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz

In Cracow, I met with Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz (photo left), formerly, and throughout his entire pontificate (1978-2005), the personal secretary of Pope John Paul II, and also with Father Tadeusz-Isakowicz Zaleski, the priest who was silenced in 2006 by Cardinal Dziwisz because he discovered the names of 39 Polish clerics who collaborated with the Communist regime.

Here is a photo of Zaleski as a young priest in the days of Solidarnosc.

Image of the Czestochowa shrine, but not from my visit

I also had the chance to visit the Shrine of Divine Mercy, where St. Faustina Kowalska lived, and the Shrine of the Black Madonna at Czestochowa, not far from Cracow.

I was deeply moved by the piety I saw at this latter shrine. A German priest was celebrating Mass directly in front of the venerated icon for a group of German Catholics. Throughout the Mass, quietly, reverently, people, Germans and Poles alike, moved with tiny sliding motions on their knees along a marble pathway made smooth by countless legs, and then, having left the chapel, wrote down their special petitions to Our Lady and dropped the writings into little slots at the back of the church.

I asked that I might find some way to write more clearly and effectively, and to serve to build up, and not to tear down, to bring healing, not throw salt into wounds, to bring hope, not hopelessness, to bring understanding, and compassion, and peace, not confusion and condemnation and conflict.

All writing springs from a desire to communicate, to share, and so does this writing. One seeks the right words in order to send thoughts, images, insights, to a reader, a hearer, a receiver. One seeks to send news, bare facts, but also to send a context for that news, a way of understanding it, even by telling a story (or  a parable) so that the words can be digested, integrated into a complete, balanced, worldview. One seeks to do this — so one tells oneself — because one wishes to serve truth, to serve understanding, to serve reason (that is, the Logos, that is, Christ, “the anointed one”), to the exclusion of all ideologies and all false gods.

And one can hesitate, before writing, or before finishing writing, and clicking on the “Send” button, because one senses, with unease, and with a certain sorrow, which cannot be easily set aside, that one has not given sufficient context, that what one sends will not serve to build up truth in charity, but only to burden souls with “news” that cannot be assimilated, that cannot nourish.

“Truth-telling” Pros and Cons

In 2006, Cardinal Dziwisz had just returned to Poland after a quarter century in Rome to become the archbishop of Cracow.

One of the decisions he took was to forbid a priest—Zaleski—from revealing information on clerics who had cooperated with the Communist secret services during the years when the Soviet Union controlled Eastern Europe.

Zaleski, a Solidarity priest, had been beaten up twice in 1985 by Polish secret police. These attacks came in the wake of the notorious murder of fellow Solidarity priest Jerzy Popieluszko in 1984.

By the late 1980s, Zaleski had decided to devote his life to a work of Christian charity: to helping mentally handicapped people, who were virtually abandoned under the communist regime. Zelski launched a Foundation and began to raise funds to create centers for the care of mentally handicapped people throughout Poland. Today, he has 30 such centers around Poland, caring for hundreds of handicapped men and women.

In about 2005, a friend of his came to him and said, “Father Tadeusz, there is a dossier also on you in the Secret Police files.”

“Really?” Father Radeusz replied. He had not known of it.

“Yes,” his friend told him. “Would you like to see it?”

Zaleski said he would. He soon received permission to have access to his own secret file. He expected to find only a page or two. He found more than 500 pages, and a video of one of his two beatings.

“I was shocked at the size of my file,” he told me.

He realized that some of his actions and movements had been followed by people close to him — by collaborators of the regime who were inside the Church. But who were those collaborators? Zaleski decided to find out, with devastating consequences…

The Warsaw Business Journal on June 5, 2006, wrote the following:

“(Konrad Stanislaw) Hejmo, (Michal) Czajkowski, (Mieczyslaw) Malinski — in the last year, three priests’ names have already made it into the headlines, as they were all suspected of cooperating with communist secret services (SB, Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa, the Security Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs). Fathers Hejmo and Maliński were close to the late Pope John Paul II, while Father Czajkowski was accused of informing on Father Jerzy Popieluszko — a legend of the Solidarity movement who was murdered by the SB.

“Last week, Father Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski, who was conducting research on SB agents in the church in Kraków, called a press conference to reveal information he came across while looking through the archives of the National Remembrance Institute (IPN). He claimed to know the names of 28 SB collaborators within the Kraków church, eight of whom are already dead.

“A couple of hours before the meeting with journalists, Father Zaleski was summoned to the curia and handed a letter from Cardinal Dziwisz, which forbade him from talking to the press about his findings or continuing his research. ‘As the illegal sullying of somebody’s good name is a crime and by announcing that you are going to reveal the names of clerics suspected of collaboration with SB, you have come very close to committing one. I hereby give you a canonic reprimand pursuant to the relevant regulations,’ Dziwisz wrote.

“Father Zaleski, a famous priest within the Solidarity movement in Nowa Huta, told the journalists: ‘I accept this decision in the spirit of obedience towards Kraków’s archbishop,’ but later added: ‘I have a moral right to talk about my generation. It is the generation of people who in the 1980s stayed in Poland, survived the times of Solidarity and martial law.’ This was a clear allusion to Cardinal Dziwisz, who lived in Vatican between 1978 and 2005.”

But within a few weeks, Zaleski published the results of his research.

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Communist Collaboration in Poland

Many historians argue that a significant segment of the clergy in Poland and other Eastern bloc countries collaborated to varying degrees with the Communist secret services.

The Polish Church publicly apologized in 2006 for priests who collaborated with the SB, but has tried to keep their names secret.

Most researchers who have delved into the archives of the Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa (Security Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) estimate that thousands of the country’s priests, monks and nuns at the time — as many as 10% of the total — collaborated with the secret police to some degree.

The Archbishop of Warsaw, Cardinal Jozef Glemp, told an Italian news agency in 2006 that the overall percentage was 15%. The percentage was likely to have been much higher in major cities and university towns, some historians say, where surveillance was heavier.

When Father Zaleski decided to begin publishing disclosures in May 2006, Cardinal Dziwisz forbade him to do so or to speak to the press because it would undermine “love for the Church and Christ.” The cardinal issued an order prohibiting any member of the clergy from delving into Krakow’s secret police archives without his authorization.

Still, Father Zaleski published a book identifying 39 priests whose names he found in Krakow’s secret police files, three now bishops in the Polish Church.

The name for the collaborators was TWs (= Tajny wspolpracownik) “secret collaborator.” Father Zaleski found the 39 priests identified as “TWs”; four of them became bishops. Of the 39, 22 answered Zaleski’s request for comment, the majority denying that they were collaborators, and 4 admitted that they were. One, the Rev. Janusz Bielanski, resigned as rector of Wawel Cathedral in Cracow on January 8, 2007, citing the allegations.

In May 2006, the Rev. Michal Czajkowski, co-president of Poland’s Council of Christians and Jews, was accused of having spied for the secret police for 24 years. He resigned his posts and issued an apology.

Rev. Mieczyslaw Malinski, who had been close to John Paul II, worked for the SB in the 1980s. Malinski admitted having had contacts with the secret police but denied that he was a spy.

Rev. Konrad Stanislaw Hejmo, a Dominican priest posted to the Vatican, passed information to the secret service’s antichurch branch. Hejmo admitted giving the information but denied that he was a spy.

Pope Benedict picked Stanislaw W. Wielgus in early December 2006 to succeed Cardinal Glemp as Archbishop of Warsaw. A Polish daily newspaper, Gazeta Polska, reported December 20, 2006, that the bishop had spied on dissidents and fellow clerics from 1978 when he signed the cooperation agreement with the Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa (Security Service, SB), until Communism collapsed in 1989. In fact, Wielgus was recruited by the SB in 1967 when he was a philosophy student at the University of Lublin in eastern Poland, more than a decade before he signed the cooperation agreement. Archbishop Wielgus admitted that he had collaborated with the SB, on January 5, 2007. “By the fact of this entanglement, I have damaged the Church,” he said. He abruptly resigned at a Mass meant to celebrate his new position January 7, 2007. “A roar of shock arose from the crowd inside the cathedral and stunned many people watching the proceedings live on television,” the New York Times wrote on January 8, 2007. “The Vatican had announced the resignation a half hour earlier, though few had heard the news…. Outside the cathedral, scuffles erupted between supporters and detractors of the bishop among the hundreds of Catholics gathered beneath umbrellas in the rain. Some of his supporters shouted that ‘Jews’ were trying to destroy the Church. Anti-Semitism, long present in Poland, is a particular problem within some conservative branches of the Polish Catholic church.”

(Here is a link to the site that contains the information in the paragraphs above: http://www.eurekaencyclopedia.com/index.php/Category:Communist_Collaboration

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Meeting Zaleski

It was a long and winding road to reach Father Zaleski. He lives on the outskirts of Cracow, in a residential complex set up to provide living, eating, studying and recreation facilities for dozens of mentally retarded men and women.

At my first glimpse of Zaleski, I was struck by his smile. It was broad and warm. He said he had a few minutes to talk, and offered a drink of tea. When ten minutes became an hour, he suggested we retire to the dining facility, and we dined on the same food as the rest of the community.

Now, the odd thing about our conversation was that it had little to deal with the communist past, and much to deal with the present situation of the Church.

“I have just been to see Cardinal Dsiwisz,” Zaleski told me. “We met three days ago.”

“You were just with him?” I asked.

“Yes,” Zaleski told me. “And we have come to a new understanding. That is very gratifying to me.

“He agreed to allow me to give a presentation to diocesan officials. I think he thought I would not influence anyone. And I gave a presentation. In the end, a majority supported me, especially among the younger priests.”

“What was your presentation about?” I asked.

“The present situation of the Church in Poland,” Zaleski said. “The situation is grave because there are individuals, and not only in Poland, but also in Rome, and in the United States, who are part of a homosexual mafia which wishes to impede the careers of anyone who is not part of this group.”

Here is a link to a recent article about Zaleski’s claims: http://www.thenews.pl/1/9/Artykul/93469,‘Gay-mafia-in-Polish-Church-claims-controversial-priest

This is the text of the article:

“Gay mafia” in Polish Church, claims controversial priest

March 16, 2012

A controversial priest and Solidarity veteran has claimed that the Church in Poland is compromised by a “gay mafia” which “can destroy anyone” in its path.

“The gay lobby in the Church can destroy anyone who gets in its way,” claims Father Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski in his latest book, ‘I am only interested in the truth’ (Chodzi mi tylko o prawde).

The priest is not new to controversy, having caused a storm in 2006 by publishing research which alleged collaboration of priests with the communist-era security services.

In his latest volume, which takes the form of an interview with the editor of the conservative, right wing journal Fronda, the priest claims that Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, Archbishop of Krakow, had specifically requested him to avoid homosexual references in the earlier book about communist collaboration.

When asked in the current publication whether “homosexuality is a problem in the clergy”, the priest replied that “the higher up you go, the worse it gets.”
He also claimed knowledge of one curia where “from the bishop down to the butler, everyone working there is of such a tendency.”

Isakowicz-Zaleski argued that “it cannot be so that someone receives an important position solely because of his homosexuality.”

He also claimed that during his research into the communist-era files, he discovered a custom whereby clergymen were sent to Rome when the Curia “was unable to cope with the homosexuality of a priest.”

Isakowicz-Zaleski added that “homosexual circles have always had a strong influence at the Vatican.”

The priest, who runs a charitable foundation near Krakow, is descended from a prominent Polish-Armenian family and is a figurehead for the Armenian Catholic Church in Poland.

“Super agent”

When researching his 2006 book, Isakowicz-Zaleski says that after he found evidence of widespread collaboration by priests with the communist authorities, he was told by the Krakow archdiocese to “throw the material in the incinerator”.

When he persisted with the research, Krakow’s Cardinal Dziwisz – a longtime aid to John Paul II — condemned his “irresponsible and harmful” activities, warned him to stop “throwing accusations” and banned him from speaking to the media.

Poland’s then Roman Catholic primate, Cardinal Jozef Glemp, accused Isakowicz-Zaleski of behaving like a “super agent” himself, who pursued priests in a one-man witch hunt. (pg/nh)

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How Others View Zaleski’s Accusations

Zaleski’s accusations have been, for the most part, downplayed. He is often characterized as “reckless” in making unsubstantiated charges.

What seems to be Zaleski’s main source, the communist state police archives, may contain false allegations, these critics say.

For example, the communist authorities may have wished to destroy someone by labeling him as a homosexual when that person was not, in fact, a homosexual. In other words, Zaleski often can’t be sure of his allegations because his sources may be unreliable, even intentionally misleading. In this sense, his critics argue, Zaleski may be falling into a trap, and damaging the Church by spreading and giving credence to these police reports.

For example, the website “VaticanInsider” recently ran a story on Zaleski and his claims by Marek Lehnert, a Polish journalist who has worked in Rome for many years. The essence of the “line” in Lehnert’s report is that “the evidence… does not seem watertight.”

Here is a link to Lehnert’s story: http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/the-vatican/detail/articolo/polonia-poland-14114/

And here is the text of the article:

“A gay lobby is controlling careers in the Vatican”

April 4, 2012

This is the theory put forward in a new book by Polish priest Fr. Zaleski. But no names are mentioned in the work and the “evidence” provided by the Polish communist secret police does not seem watertight

By MAREK LEHNERT, ROME

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”: in recent days Fr. Tadeusz Isakowicz Zaleski has been continuously repeating these words from the Gospel of St. John (8:32). The chorus has not stopped since the publication of his new book “I care about the truth.” In this long interview, the priest, who during communist times was known for his unconditional support of Solidarnośc and is now known for the unusual investigative spirit with which he sifts through documents kept in the National Memory Institute (IPN), reveals — amongst other things — the existence of a so-called “gay lobby”. Both on a national and Vatican level.

Isakowicz Zaleski, however, launches accusations and then shies away: aside from the case of Mgr. Juliusz Paetz, who was forced to resign from his position as Archbishop of Poznan by John Paul II after being accused of molesting his seminarians, no other name is mentioned in the book. “Given the controversy surrounding my accusations, I will only reveal the names before the relevant commission which the Polish Church decides to establish,” the priest said.

This is a strange attitude coming from a person who claims he is certain that his readers are well aware of what and about whom he is talking about. “These things are universally known,” Isakowicz Zaleski retorted. “I demonstrate that one of the problems of the Polish Church today is the lack of transparency with regard to certain questions,” he added.

He believes enemies of the Church take advantage of the situation. This was the case when the identities of clerics who collaborated with the Polish secret police were revealed during the communist regime. And it is still the case today, in relation to homosexuality, which according to him is “omnipresent”. There are dioceses, Fr. Tadeusz wrote, in which everyone has such tendencies, from ordinary bishops to housekeepers. But no names are given; everyone knows who they are anyway. It is the same in the Vatican — because “the situation worsens the higher up you go” — where there is a strong gay lobby that guarantees the careers of its members, the author says.

The Polish Catholic Church, at least the hierarchy, is in no hurry to discuss things with Isakowicz Zaleski and take his revelations into account (thus fuelling the scepticism of the press which wants names). The only voice raised on the subject is that of Fr. Józef Augustyn, a Jesuit who for years has been willing and able to publicly discuss some of the most burning questions regarding the sexual conduct of the laity and the clergy.

According to the Jesuit, the problem of homosexuality in the clergy does indeed exist, but Fr. Isakowicz Zaleski has exposed it “in an ambiguous and superficial way.” The crux of the issue, he says, is not the phenomenon itself “which we have little power to influence, but our attitude towards it.”

The theory put forward in the book about the esistence of “a powerful sexual conspiracy within the Church,” does not hold water in the face of questions that spontaneously spring up. The author bases his theory on Polish secret police documents but the Polish Jesuit asks himself whether this is a reliable source. The more serious the accusations, the stronger the evidence needs to be, Fr. Augustyn added, saying that he could not find any such evidence in the book. All it presents are insinuations and fallacies. Not to mention the “dangerous generalisations”, for example, the section on the Vatican. The truth which Isakowicz Zaleski seems so fond of is not only to be found in information: it should also lie in the reasons that pushed someone to supply this “news”, the Jesuit concludes in the interview with Polish Catholic news agency KAI.

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I asked Zaleski if he had any doubts about his allegations.

“Are you sure you are not making exaggerated or false accusations?” I asked him. “Where do you get your information? Are you sure it is reliable?”

Zaleski told me he bases his accusations on emails and written reports and letters he has received from priests and lay people all over Poland, as well as from Rome — where he studied 20 years ago — and from the United States.

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Zeleski was born in Cracow on September 7, 1956; he is now 56. He is both Roman Catholic and Armenian Catholic. He was ordained in 1983.

On May 3, 2006, he was awarded the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, one of Poland’s highest Orders, and in 2007, he was awarded the Order of the Smile and Polish Ombudsmans Order of Paweł Włodkowic.

In 1988, as a priest of the workers, he participated in the strike in Nowa Huta’s Lenin Steel Mill. At the same time, he began helping the poor and the handicapped, together with nuns from local convents. In 1987, he co-founded charitable Foundation of Brother Albert Chmielowski. Currently, he is director of the Foundation, which owns a shelter in the village of Radwanowice in the suburbs of Cracow.

He lost several members of his family in a campaign of ethnic cleansing of Poles in modern Western Ukraine (formerly inside pre-1939 eastern Polish territory), has for years been fighting to commemorate the Polish victims. In 2008 he unsuccessfully appealed to the Government of Poland, stating that it should officially condemn the Volhynian Genocide. He stated that political correctness in Poland makes it impossible to mention these tragic events. He frequently criticizes not only members of the Polish Government, together with president Kaczynski, but also Roman Catholic hierarchy, such as Primate Jozef Glemp and Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, claiming that they have neglected sufferings of Poles in Western Ukraine and they do not protest when Ukrainian nationalists are awarded orders.

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Before leaving Zaleski, I asked him how he felt about living and working for 25 years with mentally handicapped people. “Is it a heavy duty for you?” I asked. “Do you find it burdensome?”

“It is better than life in most other places in our society,” Zaleski said. “In the curia, certainly. You know, here someone says to me, ‘I love you,’ and he is telling the truth. He does love me. And here someone says ‘I hate you!’ and he is also telling the truth. He does hate me! There are no lies here. There is no deceit. I like living without lies and deceit. I like living with these people, whom the world calls ‘retarded.’ I think they are far advanced beyind most of us. They live a life in the light, in truth.”

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I left Zaleski not sure what to make of him. Surely he is a feisty personality. Surely he is a fighter, as he proved in the days of the struggle against communism. And surely he loves Christ and his Church, especially the “little ones,” as his lifetime of work with the mentally handicapped clearly shows. But is he right in his allegations? Has he discovered the truth, or has he spread false reports?

With this question in my mind, I set out south for Vienna, where another case has arisen arousing much controversy and debate, involving an old friend, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn — a case that just today led the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to write to Schoenborn asking him to explain what has happened in his diocese…

(to be continued)

“Qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur.” —The words of the consecration of the wine in the Mass, meaning literally “(my blood) which is poured out for you and for many”

“But when He added pro multis He wanted that there be understood the rest of those chosen (electos) from the Jews or from the Gentiles. Rightly therefore did it happen that for all (pro universis) were not said, since at this point the discourse was only about the fruits of the Passion which bears the fruit of salvation only for the elect.” —Roman Catechism (the Catechism produced after the Council of Trent), 1566

“That consensus is shattered.” —Pope Benedict XVI, letter to German bishops. April 14, 2012, referring to the consensus after the Second Vatican Council that the words “pro multis” could be better translated as “for all” instead of “for many”

A Decisive Letter

By now many of you will have heard that, just after Easter, Pope Benedict, though resting at Castel Gandolfo, picked up his pen to write a decisive letter to the German bishops’ conference.

In his letter, dated April 14 (copy below both in German and in English translation), Benedict insisted that the German-speaking bishops translate the Latin words “pro multis” (literally: “for many”) used at the moment of the consecration of the wine during Mass (in both the old and new liturgy) literally as “for many” (“für viele”) and not “for all” (“für alle”), as they had been doing.

This action—both the way the Pope acted and the argumentation he used—has theological, philosophical, liturgical, ecclesial and moral implications; one could write a dissertation about it, and I am sure some will, someday.

But, essentially, for our purposes here and now, it means three things:

(1) that Pope Benedict, though now 85, and obviously more tired than he was a few years ago, is still able to take decisive action, and this suggests we may expect more decisive actions from him in future, despite his age;

(2) that Benedict continues to employ dialogue, reason, and persuasion as his preferred tools in contested matters; rather than simply saying “translate it this way, and that’s final,” he spends considerable time and effort to engage his interlocutors (the German bishops) and explain to them why the words should be translated in the way he wishes; and

(3) that Benedict continues, through a process of slow steps—too slow for many traditionalists, too fast for most progressives—to restore traditional Catholic teaching, in keeping with his prime task as Pope of defending the depositum fidei (“deposit of the faith”) against temptations to innovate—powerful temptations, which have in the post-conciliar period swayed many to give up what was handed down in order to keep in step with a presumed “spirit of the times” which has often turned out to be a spirit of confusion and of rejection of key Catholic doctrines, despite protestations to the contrary.

In short, Benedict is still decisive, he still has a powerful, reasoning mind, and seems today, in fact, more intent than ever to defend the deposit of the faith.

But I would stress one point in this regard: those who fear “the conservative Pope,” fearing that burdens too heavy to bear will once again be placed upon the shoulders of the faithful, should know that Benedict, pyschologically and pastorally, has never been, and is not now, a cruel person, a rigorist who would demand that people obey his commands, or even Church rules, without understanding them, their goal and value, and therefore without assenting to them in conscience; rather, as a professor and as a pastor, he values reason, and the assent of reason, as a complement to willing assent to Church teaching. This is the essence of his pastoral method.

He privileges the person, and that aspect of the person which is most precious, the conscience, and continues to attempt to form that conscience, even in our age of considerable confusion, and ignorance.

And the goal of this effort is not to make people submit to a distant, incomprehensible “diktat,” but to defend and restore a form of Christian worship, and of Christian life, which brings to men and women the graces of clarity, truth, reason, and, ultimately, blessedness, which is the true name of happiness.

So when Benedict acts to restore an element of Catholic tradition, he is not acting to curtail human joy, but to protect true human joy, though not many seem to understand this, and so criticize him sharply.

That said, the main point has been made.

It remains to be said that Benedict was so anxious to persuade the German bishops of the rightness of this translation, that he took the time to explain the whole post-conciliar period, in miniature, rather than simply quoting the Roman Catechism, which dealt with this matter in a quite clear way 450 years ago.

This is what the Roman Catechism, promulgated after the Council of Trent says about the words “pro multis”:

“But the words which are added for you and for many (pro vobis et pro multis), were taken some of them from Matthew (26: 28) and some from Luke (22: 20) which however Holy Church, instructed by the Spirit of God, joined together. They serve to make clear the fruit and the benefit of the Passion. For if we examine its value (virtutem), it will have to be admitted that Blood was poured out by the Savior for the salvation of all (pro omnium salute sanguinem a Salvatore effusum esse); but if we ponder the fruit which men (homines) will obtain from it, we easily understand that its benefit comes not to all, but only to many (non ad omnes, sed ad multos tantum eam utilitatem pervenisse). Therefore when He said pro vobis, He meant either those who were present, or those chosen (delectos) from the people of the Jews such as the disciples were, Judas excepted, with whom He was then speaking. But when He added pro multis He wanted that there be understood the rest of those chosen (electos) from the Jews or from the gentiles. Rightly therefore did it happen that for all (pro universis) were not said, since at this point the discourse was only about the fruits of the Passion which bears the fruit of salvation only for the elect (delectis). And this is what the words of the Apostle aim at: Christ was offered up once in order to remove the sins of many (ad multorum exhaurienda peccata Heb 9:28); and what according to John the Lord says: I pray for them; I do not pray for the world, but for those whom you gave to Me, for they are Yours (John 17:9). Many other mysteries (plurima mysteria) lie hidden in the words of this consecration, which pastors, God helping, will easily come to comprehend for themselves by constant meditation upon divine things and by diligent study. (translated from the Roman Catechism, Part II, ch. 4 (264.7-265.14), taken from the original Latin in Catechismus Romanus seu Catechsimus ex decreto Concilii Tridentini ad parochos …. Editio critica. Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1989, p. 250. Cf. The Catechism of the Council of Trent. Trans. John A. McHugh & Charles J. Callan. Joseph F. Wagner, Inc.: New York, 1934, pp. 227-28.)

Here is some background to this story:

On October 17, 2006—so, more than 5 years ago—the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments sent a circular (No. 467/05/L) to Presidents of Episcopal Conferences on the question of the translation of “pro multis.” It noted that a 1974 declaration by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had pointed out that “for all” is not a literal translation of “pro multis,” nor of the words “περὶ πολλῶν” in Matthew 26:28 or “ὑπὲρ πολλῶν” in Mark 14:24. “For all,” it said, is not so much a translation as “an explanation of the sort that belongs properly to catechesis.” It then directed the Episcopal Conferences to make an effort, in line with the Instruction Liturgiam authenticam, to translate the words pro multis “more faithfully.”

So the Pope was dealing with an issue that the Vatican had asked the German bishops to address more than five years ago.

In English-speaking countries, the revised translation was ordered to be used from 2011 on, and this has taken place.

Some German-speaking episcopal conferences have been more reluctant to make the change. Now, in his April 14, 2012, personal letter to the German bishops, Pope Benedict XVI stresses the importance of using the literal translation.

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Here is a useful summary published today by Sandro Magister, though he does not name the author of the piece. His remarks about John Paul II’s attitude to this particular issue are very interesting, and especially important is the story he tells of the protest of Cardinal Ratzinger a few days before John Paul’s death in 2005 against a wording used in a text John Paul did sign, but perhaps (this article suggests) while not in full possession of his faculties. I send the piece in its entirety, with those two sections bold-faced:

Vatican Diary

“For many” or “for all”? The right answer is the first

Benedict XVI writes as much to the German bishops. And he wants the whole Church to respect the words of Jesus at the Last Supper, without inventing others like in the postconciliar missals. The complete text of the pope’s letter

by ***

VATICAN CITY, May 3, 2012 – The Churches of various nations of the world are restoring one after another, in the Mass, the words of the consecration of the chalice taken verbatim from the Gospels and in use for centuries, but in recent decades replaced almost everywhere with a different translation.

While the traditional text in its foundational Latin version still says: “Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei […] qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur,” the new postconciliar formulas have read into “pro multis” an imaginary “pro omnibus.” And instead of “for many,” they have translated “for all.”

Already in the last phase of the pontificate of John Paul II, the attempt was made by a few Vatican officials, including Joseph Ratzinger, to revive in the translations fidelity to “pro multis.” But with no success.

Benedict XVI has taken the situation in hand personally. Proof of this is in the letter that he wrote last April 14 to the bishops of Germany.

The complete translation of the letter is reproduced further below. In it, Benedict XVI summarizes the main issues of the controversy, to substantiate better his decision to restore a correct translation of “pro multis.”

But in order to understand the context thoroughly, it is helpful to recall a few elements here.

*

In the first place, in addressing his letter to the bishops of Germany, Benedict XVI also intends to address through them the bishops of the other German-speaking regions: Austria, the German cantons in Switzerland, South Tyrol in Italy.

If in Germany, in fact, although with strong resistance, the episcopal conference  recently opted to translate “pro multis” no longer with “für alle,” for all, but with “für viele,” for many, in Austria this is not the case.

And not in Italy either. In November of 2010, in a vote, out of 187 voting bishops only 11 sided with “per molti.” An overwhelming majority voted in favor of “per tutti,” indifferent to the Vatican guidelines. Shortly beforehand, the episcopal conferences of the sixteen Italian ecclesiastical regions, with the sole exception of Liguria, had spoken out for the retention of the formula “per tutti.”

In other parts of the world they are returning to the use of “for many”: in Latin America, in Spain, in Hungary, in the United States. Often with disagreement and disobedience.

But Benedict XVI clearly wants to see this one all the way through. Without impositions, but urging the bishops to prepare the clergy and the faithful, with appropriate catechesis, for a change that must come no matter what.

After this letter, it is therefore easy to predict that “per molti” will also be restored in the Masses celebrated in Italy, in spite of the contrary vote of the bishops in 2010.

The new version of the missal, approved by the Italian episcopal conference, is currently under examination by the Vatican congregation for divine worship. And on this point it will certainly be correct according to the pope’s guidelines.

*

A second annotation concerns the continual obstacles that the restoration of a correct translation of “for many” has encountered on its way.

Until 2001, the proponents of more “free” translations of the liturgical texts appealed to a document put together in 1969 by the “Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia,” the secretary of which was Monsignor Annibale Bugnini, an unsigned document unusually drafted in French, ordinarily cited by its first words: “Comme le prévoit.”

In 2001, the Congregation for Divine Worship published an instruction, “Liturgiam Authenticam,” for the correct implementation of the conciliar liturgical reform. The text, dated March 28, was signed by Cardinal Prefect Jorge Arturo Medina Estevez and by  archbishop secretary Francesco Pio Tamburrino, and had been approved by John Paul II in an audience granted eight days before by Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano.

Recalling that the Roman rite “has its own style and structure that must be respected in so far as possible in translation,” the instruction recommended a translation of the liturgical texts that would be “not so much a work of creative inventiveness as one of fidelity and exactness in rendering the Latin texts into a vernacular language.” Good translations – the documents prescribed – “must be freed from exaggerated dependence on modern modes of expression and in general from psychologizing language.”

The instruction “Liturgiam Authenticam” didn’t even cite “Comme le prévoit.” And it was a voluntary omission, to deprive that text definitively of an authority and officiality that it had never had.

But in spite of that, the instruction encountered extremely strong resistance, even within the Roman curia, so much so that it was ignored and contradicted by two subsequent pontifical documents.

The first is the encyclical of John Paul II “Ecclesia de Eucharistia” of 2003. In paragraph 2, where it recalls the words of Jesus for the consecration of the wine, it reads: “‘Take this, all of you and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all, so that sins may be forgiven’ (cf. Mt 14:24; Lk 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25).” The “for all” there is a variation that has no basis in the biblical texts cited, evidently introduced from listening to the translations present in the postconciliar missals.

The second document is the last of the letters that John Paul II customarily addressed to priests each Holy Thursday. It was dated Policlinico Gemelli, March 13 2005, and in the fourth paragraph said:

“‘Hoc est enim corpus meum quod pro vobis tradetur.’ The body and the blood of Christ are given for the salvation of man, of the whole man and of all men. This salvation is integral and at the same time universal, because no one, unless he freely chooses, is excluded from the saving power of Christ’s blood: ‘qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur.’ It is a sacrifice offered for ‘many,’ as the Biblical text says (Mk 14:24; Mt 26:28; cf. Is 53:11-12); this typical Semitic expression refers to the multitude who are saved by Christ, the one Redeemer, yet at the same time it implies the totality of human beings to whom salvation is offered: the Lord’s blood is ‘shed for you and for all,’ as some translations legitimately make explicit. Christ’s flesh is truly given ‘for the life of the world’ (Jn 6:51; cf. 1 Jn 2:2).”

John Paul II had his life hanging from a thread, he would be dead about twenty days later. And it was a Pope in this condition, without even the strength to read anymore, who was made to sign a document in favor of the formula “for all.”

At the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which had not been given the text ahead of time, the matter was noted with disappointment. So much so that a few days later, on March 21, Monday of Holy Week, in a tumultuous meeting of the heads of some dicasteries of the curia, Cardinal Ratzinger registered his protests.

And less than a month later, Ratzinger was elected pope. Announced to the world with visible satisfaction by Cardinal Protodeacon Medina, the same who had signed the instruction “Liturgiam Authenticam.”

*

With Benedict XVI as Pope, the restoration of a correct translation of “pro multis” immediately became an objective of his “reform of the reform” in the liturgical arena.

He knew that he would encounter tenacious opposition. But in this arena he has never been afraid of making tough decisions, as proven by the 2007 motu proprio “Summorum Pontificum” for the liberalization of the Mass in the ancient rite.

One fact of great interest is the manner in which Benedict XVI wants to implement his decisions. Not exclusively with peremptory orders, but through persuasion.

Three months after his election as Pope, he had the congregation for worship, headed at the time by Cardinal Francis Arinze, conduct a survey among the episcopal conferences to find out their views on the translation of “pro multis” with “for many.”

Having gathered these views, on October 17, 2006, at the instructions of the pope, Cardinal Arinze sent a circular letter to all the episcopal conferences, listing six reasons in favor of “for many” and urging them—wherever the formula “for all” was in use—to “undertake the necessary catechesis of the faithful” in view of the change.

It is the catechesis that Benedict XVI suggests be made in Germany in particular, in the letter he sent to the German bishops last April 14. In which he points out that it does not appear to him that this pastoral initiative authoritatively suggested six years ago has ever been undertaken.

Two marginal notes on the papal text: 1) The “Gotteslob” is the common book of hymns and prayers in use in the German-speaking Catholic dioceses. 2) The citation “May thanks be given to the Lord who, by his grace, has called me into his Church…” is the last verse of the first stanza of a song frequently sung in German churches: “Fest soll mein Taufbund immer stehen.”

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And here is some further background information on this matter.

Pro multis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pro multis is a Latin phrase that means “for many” or “for the many”. Not having the definite article, Latin does not distinguish between these two meanings.

The phrase is part of the longer phrase “qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum” used, with reference to the blood of Christ, in the consecration of the wine in the Roman Rite Mass.

In the definitively approved English translation this longer phrase appears as “which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins”.

The phrase “poured out for you” comes from Luke 22:20 only. “Poured out for many” (in the original Greek, the phrase is not “for the many”) from Matthew 26:28 and Mark 14:24. “For the forgiveness of sins” from Matthew 26:28 only. 1 Corinthians 11:25, the earliest account of Jesus’ words over the cup at his Last Supper, mentions none whatever of these phrases in relation to the consecration of the wine.

The variety of these accounts indicates that the writers did not intend to give the exact words that Jesus used, probably in Aramaic. The only words that are considered essential for the consecration of the wine at Mass are “This is my blood”, though the form of the sacrament, which varies according to the liturgical rite (Roman Rite, Byzantine Rite, etc.) contains other words as well.

In its initial translation of the Order of Mass, the International Commission on English in the Liturgy rendered the phrase “qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum” as “which will be shed for you and for all men, so that sins may be forgiven”. (The word “men” was later omitted because of complaints that it could be understood as referring only to males.) This version was approved by the Episcopal Conferences of English-speaking countries in 1973 and confirmed by the Holy See…

The 1973 translation was confessedly a non-literal translation, and objections were raised against it not only for this reason but also on the grounds that it could be taken to mean that all are in fact saved, regardless of their relationship to Christ and his Church. Some even claimed that use of the “for all” translation made the consecration invalid.

In defense of the 1973 translation, it was said that the literal translation, “for many”, could nowadays be taken to mean “not for all”, contradicting the declaration in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 that Christ died for all, though not all choose to avail of the redemption won for them by the shedding of Christ’s blood…

In the Apostolic Constitution Cum occasione of 31 May 1653 Pope Innocent X declared that it is orthodox Catholic teaching to say that Christ shed his blood for all human beings without exception. Indeed, the traditional blessing of a Paten found in the Pontificale Romanum includes the phrase, “Jesus Christ Thy Son, Who for our salvation, and of everyone (pro nostra omniumque salute), chose to immolate Himself to Thee, God the Father on the gallows of the Cross.”

It is also orthodox Catholic teaching that not all will necessarily avail of the redemption obtained by the shedding of Christ’s blood. While Christ’s redemptive suffering makes salvation available to all, it does not follow that all men are actually saved. This seems never to have been authoritatively defined, since it has remained uncontroversial.

The Roman Catechism, also known as the Catechism of the Council of Trent, stated: “If we look to its value, we must confess that the Redeemer shed his blood for the salvation of all; but if we look to the fruit which mankind have received from it, we shall easily find that it pertains not unto all, but to many of the human race.”

It would be heretical to interpret “for many” in the words of consecration of the wine as indicating that there were some for whom the shedding of Christ’s blood was in itself incapable of redeeming (its value). So the Roman Catechism interpreted “for many” in the context of the consecration form as referring to the effect actually accepted by individuals (its fruits). It declared: “When therefore (our Lord) said: ‘For you’, he meant either those who were present, or those chosen from among the Jewish people, such as were, with the exception of Judas, the disciples with whom he was speaking. When he added, ‘And for many’, he wished to be understood to mean the remainder of the elect from among the Jews or Gentiles.”

In this, the Catechism drew on the words of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who in his Summa Theologica interpreted “for you” as a reference either to the elect among the Jews, for whom the Old Testament sacrifices were offered, or to the priest and faithful partaking of Mass, and “for many” as referring either to the elect among the Gentiles or to those for whom Mass is offered…

It would also be heretical to interpret “for all” in the words of consecration of the wine as indicating that, without any exception, everybody must in concrete fact receive the benefit won by the shedding of Christ’s blood. So the Holy See has interpreted “for all” in the 1973 English translation of the consecration form as referring to the value of the shedding of Christ’s blood and to his intention. On 25 January 1974, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared that there was no doubt whatsoever regarding the validity of Masses celebrated using “for all” as a translation of “pro multis”, since “for all” corresponds to a correct interpretation of Christ’s intention expressed in the words of the consecration, and since it is a dogma of the Catholic faith that Christ died on the Cross for all (cf. John 11:52, 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, Titus 2:11, 1 John 2:2)…

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Lombardi editorial: For you and for many

The Holy See spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, S.J., clarifies the correct interpretation of the wording to be used during the consecration of the wine during mass

(Taken from VATICANINSIDER)

According to the rules of Mass, “the translation of the phrase ‘for many’ – which is more faithful to the Biblical text – is to be preferred to the translation ‘for all,’ a modification of the Biblical translation which was intended to clarify the universality of the salvation which was brought about by Christ.” The Holy See’s spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi confirmed this in a statement to Vatican Radio, explaining the content of a letter which Benedict XVI sent in recent days to German bishops, on the question of the correct interpretation of the wording to be used for the consecration of the wine during mass. Fr. Lombardi stressed that “There is no doubt that Jesus died so that everyone might be saved. This, along with the profound significance of the words that are used for the institution of the Eucharist, should be explained to the faithful through the use of solid catechesis.”

Indeed, “The words which are used for the institution of the Eucharist are fundamentally important for Pope Benedict, because these words lie at the heart of the Church. By saying ‘for many,’ Jesus is saying that he is the Servant of Yahweh who was foretold by the prophet Isaiah. When we say ‘for many,’ therefore, we both express our fidelity to the word of Jesus, and recognize Jesus’ fidelity to the words of the Scripture.” This question – Lombardi stressed – is of “profound theological and spiritual significance” to all Christians. Indeed, “When the Lord offers himself ‘for you and for many,’ Fr. Lombardi explained, we become directly involved and, in gratitude, we take on the responsibility for the salvation which is promised to everyone.

“The Holy Father – who has already touched upon this in his book about Jesus – is providing here profound and insightful catechesis about some of the most important words in the Christian Faith. The Pope concludes by saying that, in this Year of Faith, we must proceed with love and respect for the Word of God, reflecting on its profound theological and spiritual significance so that we might experience the Eucharist with greater depth,” Fr. Lombardi said.

Fr. Lombardi ended, stating that, in the letter the Pope wrote from Castel Gandolfo during his brief Easter visit, he “concludes by saying that in this Year of Faith we must make efforts to proceed in this direction. We hope to really do so.”

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The complete text of Pope Benedict’s April 14 letter to the German bishop, in English (translation found at: http://incaelo.wordpress.com/translations/10761-2/)

Letter to the German Bishops’ Conference
Your Excellency!
Venerable, dear Lord Archbishop!

During your visit of 15 March 2012 you let me know that, regarding the translation of the words “pro multis” in the canon of the Mass, there is still no consensus among the bishops of the German language area. There now seems to be the danger that, with the soon to be expected publication of the new release of ‘Gotteslob’, some parts of the German language area will keep the translation “for all”, even though the German Bishops’ Conference had agreed to use “for many”, as was desired by the Holy See. I promised you I would express myself in writing about this serious issue to prevent a split in our most inner prayer room. The letter, which I send through you to the members of the German Bishops’ Conference, will also be sent to the other bishops of the German language area.

Let me first say a few words about the origin of the problem. In the 1960s, when the Roman Missal was translated into German under the responsibility of the bishops, there was an exegetical consensus that the words “the many” and “many” in Is. 53, 11 and further was a Hebrew expression to indicate the community, the “all”. The word “many” in the accounts of Matthew and Mark was accordingly considered a Semitism to be translated as “all”. This is also related directly to the Latin text that was to be translated, that the “pro multis” in the Gospel accounts refer back to Is. 53, and must therefore by translated as “for all”. This exegetical consensus has know shattered; it no longer exists. In the German translation of Sacred Scripture the account of the Last Supper states: “This is my Blood, the Blood of the Covenant,  which is shed for many” (Mark 14:24, cf. Matt. 26:28). This indicates something very important: The rendering of “pro multis” with “for all” was not a pure translation, but an interpretation, which was and remains very reasonable, but is already more than translation and interpretation.

This mingling of translation and interpretation belongs in hindsight to the principles which, immediately after the Council, directed the translation of the liturgical books into the vernacular. It was understood how far the Bible and the liturgical texts were removed from the language and thought of modern man, that even when translated they would remain largely incomprehensible to the participants of the divine service. It was a new endeavour that the sacred texts were, in translation, disclosed to the participants of the service, yet still remained removed from their world, yes, would now even be more visible in their removal. One not only felt justified but even required to mix interpretation into the translation and so shorten the way to the people, whose hearts and minds would be reached through these words.

To a certain degree, the principle of a substantive but not necessarily justified literal translation of the source texts remain. As I [pray the liturgical prayers time and again in various languages, I notice that it is often hard to find a common ground between the various translation, and that the underlying common text often only remains visible from afar. Added to that are the undermining banalisations which constitute the real losses. In this way it has, over the course of the years, become more clear to me that the principle of the non-literal but structural equivalence as a translation guideline has its limits. Following such insights, the translation instruction Liturgiam authenticam, published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on 28 March 2001, has once more placed the literal translation in the foreground, but of course without dictating a singular vocabulary. The important insight which lies at the basis of this instruction is already expressed in the distinction between translation and interpretation, outlined above. This is necessary for both the Word of Scripture as the liturgical texts. One the one hand, the sacred Word should, if possible, be presented as itself, even with the strangeness and questions it contains in itself; on the other hand the Church has been given the task of interpreting, by which – within the limits of our respective understanding – the News which the Lord has intended comes to us. An empathic translation can also not replace the interpretation: it is part of the structure of Revelation that the Word of God is read in the interpreting community of the Church, that faithfulness and realisation are combined.The Word must exist as itself, in its own shape which is perhaps strange to is; the interpretation must be measured to the faithfulness to the Word itself, but at the same time be made accessible to the modern ear.

In this context the Holy See has decided that in the new translation of the Missal the words “pro multis” must be translated as such and not at the same time interpreted. The simple translation “for many” must come in the place of the interpretative ” for all”. I would like to point out that in both Matthew and in Mark there is no article, so not “for the many”, but “for many”. As the decision of the fundamental ordering of translation and interpretation is, as I hope, understood from this, I am yet aware that this represents a tremendous challenge for all who have the task of interpreting the Word of God in the Church. Since for the regular visitors of the church this will almost inevitably seem to be rupture at the heart of the holiest. They will ask: did Christ not die for all? Has the Church changed her teaching? Can and is she is allowed to do so? Is this a reaction against the heritage of the Council? We all know, through the experience of the last fifty years, how deeply the changes in the liturgical forms and texts affects the people; how much must a change in the text of such a central point affect the people? While this is the case, it has long been held that the translation of “many” was to be preceded by a thorough catechesis on the difference between translation and interpretation, a catechesis in which the bishops must inform their priests, through which they must make themselves clear to their faithful, what it is about. This catechesis is a basic requirement before the new translation comes into force. As far as I know, such a catechesis has, until now, not been given in the German language area. The intention of my letter, dear brothers, is to most urgently ask for such a catechesis to be established, to then discuss it with the priests and immediately make it available to the faithful.

Such a catechesis must first briefly explain why after the Council the word “many”was translated in the Missal with “all”: to clearly express the universality of the salvation desired by and coming from Jesus. This leads to the question: If Jesus died for all, why do the words of the Last Supper then say “for many”? And why do we then keep these institutional words of Jesus? Added to this must be that Jesus, according to Matthew and Mark, said “for many”, but according to Luke and St. Paul “for you”. This apparently narrows the circle even more. But from here one can also reach the solution. The disciples know that the mission of Jesus transcends them and their inner circle; that He came to gather together all the scattered children of God (cf. Joh. 11:52). This “for you” makes the mission of Jesus very concrete for those present. They are not some anonymous element of some vast totality, but everyone knows that the Lord died particularly for me, for us. “For you” reaches into the past and into the future; I have been named very personally; we, who gather here, are known as such by Jesus. In this way, “for you” is not a constriction, but a specification which is valid for every community that celebrates the Eucharist, unites itself concretely to the love of Christ. In the words of consecration, the Roman Canon has united the two Biblical reading and reads: “for you and for many”. At the reform of the liturgy, this formulation was then taken over for all prayers.

But once again: Why “for many”? Did the Lord then not die for all? The fact that Jesus Christ, as incarnated Son of God, is the Man for all Men, the new Adam, belongs to the basic certainties of our faith. I would like to remind you of but three passages in Scripture: God gave His Son “up for the sake of all of us,” Paul writes in the Letter to the Romans (Rom. 8:32). “One man died for all,” he says in the Second Letter to the Corinthians about the death of Jesus (2 Cor. 5:14). Jesus has “offered himself as a ransom for all”, it says in the First Letter to Timothy (1  Tim 2:6). But then it is right to ask ourselves once again: When this is all so clear, why then does the Eucharistic Prayer say “for many”? Well, the Church took this formulation from the institution narrative from the New Testament. She does so out of respect for the Word of Jesus, to remain true to Him, also in the Word. The respect for the Word of Jesus is the  reason for the formulation of the prayer. But then we ask: why did Jesus say this Himself? The true reason for that is that Jesus, in this way, revealed Himself as the servant of God from Is 53, identified Himself as the form that the word of the prophet was expecting. Respect of the Church for Jesus’ Word, faithful to Jesus Word from Scripture, is this double faithfulness the solid basis for the formulation “for many”. In this chain of reverent loyalty we join the literal translation of the Word of Scripture.

As we have said before, that the “for you” in the Lucan-Pauline tradition does not constrict, but rather specifies, so we can now say that the dialectic of “many” – “all” has its own significance. “All” exists on the ontological level – the being and action of Jesus includes all of mankind, past, present and future. But factually, in the concrete community of those who celebrate the Eucharist, it involves only “many”. In this way one can see an threefold significance in the ordering of “many” and “all”. Firstly, it should mean for us, who may sit at His table, surprise, joy and gratitude, that he has called me, that I am with Him and can know Him. “Thanks to the Lord, who has called me out of mercy into His Church…” Then, secondly, this is also a responsibility.How the Lord reaches the other – “all” – in His own way remains a mystery. But without a doubt it is a responsibility to be called to Him and His table, so that I may hear: For you, for me has He suffered. The many carry a responsibility for all. The community of the many must be the light on the candles, the city on the hill, leaven for all. This is a calling that applies to everyone personally. The many, who we are, must consciously experience their mission in responsibility for the whole. Finally, a third aspect may be added.  In modern society we have the feeling that we are far from “many”, but very few – a small number that is continuously decreasing. But no – we are “many”: “After that I saw that there was a huge number, impossible for anyone to count, of people from every nation, race, tribe and language,” the Revelation of John tells us (Rev. 7:9). We are many and we stand for all. In this way both words, “many” and “all”, belong together and relate to each other in responsibility and promise.

Your Excellency, beloved brother bishops! With all the above I wanted to indicate the basic content of catechesis, which should prepare, as soon as possible, priests and laity for the new translation. I hope that all this may serve towards a more profound celebration of the Eucharist and becomes part of the great task that lies before in he “Year of Faith”. I would hope that the catechesis will soon be presented, to become part of the liturgical renewal for which the Council has worked from its very first session.

With Easter blessing, I remain in the Lord,

Benedictus PP XVI.

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Here is the text in the original German, found at the website of the German bishops’ conference: http://www.dbk.de/presse/details/?presseid=2091&cHash=a73624e1fe19363371ca03c812dbf396

SCHREIBEN VON PAPST BENEDIKT XVI.
AN DEN ERZBISCHOF VON FREIBURG UND VORSITZENDEN DER DEUTSCHEN BISCHOFSKONFERENZ, DR. ROBERT ZOLLITSCH

Vatikanstadt
14. 4. 2012

Seiner Exzellenz
dem Hochwürdigsten Herrn
Dr. Robert Zollitsch
Erzbischof von Freiburg
Vorsitzender der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz
Herrenstraße 9

D-79098               F R E I B U R G

Exzellenz!
Sehr geehrter, lieber Herr Erzbischof!

Bei Ihrem Besuch am 15. März 2012 haben Sie mich wissen lassen, daß bezüglich der Übersetzung der Worte „pro multis“ in den Kanongebeten der heiligen Messe nach wie vor keine Einigkeit unter den Bischöfen des deutschen Sprachraums besteht. Es droht anscheinend die Gefahr, daß bei der bald zu erwartenden Veröffentlichung der neuen Ausgabe des „Gotteslobs“ einige Teile des deutschen Sprachraums bei der Übersetzung „für alle“ bleiben wollen, auch wenn die Deutsche Bischofskonferenz sich einig wäre, „für viele“ zu schreiben, wie es vom Heiligen Stuhl gewünscht wird. Ich habe Ihnen versprochen, mich schriftlich zu dieser schwerwiegenden Frage zu äußern, um einer solchen Spaltung im innersten Raum unseres Betens zuvorzukommen. Den Brief, den ich hiermit durch Sie den Mitgliedern der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz schreibe, werde ich auch den übrigen Bischöfen des deutschen Sprachraums zusenden lassen.

Lassen Sie mich zunächst kurz ein Wort über die Entstehung des Problems sagen. In den 60er Jahren, als das Römische Missale unter der Verantwortung der Bischöfe in die deutsche Sprache zu übertragen war, bestand ein exegetischer Konsens darüber, daß das Wort „die vielen“, „viele“ in Jes 53, 11f eine hebräische Ausdrucksform sei, um die Gesamtheit, „alle“ zu benennen. Das Wort „viele“ in den Einsetzungsberichten von Matthäus und Markus sei demgemäß ein Semitismus und müsse mit „alle“ übersetzt werden. Dies bezog man auch auf den unmittelbar zu übersetzenden lateinischen Text, dessen „pro multis“ über die Evangelienberichte auf Jes 53 zurückverweise und daher mit „für alle“ zu übersetzen sei. Dieser exegetische Konsens ist inzwischen zerbröckelt; er besteht nicht mehr. In der deutschen Einheitsübersetzung der Heiligen Schrift steht im Abendmahlsbericht: „Das ist mein Blut, das Blut des Bundes, das für viele vergossen wird“ (Mk 14, 24: vgl. Mt 26, 28). Damit wird etwas sehr Wichtiges sichtbar: Die Wiedergabe von „pro multis“ mit „für alle“ war keine reine Übersetzung, sondern eine Interpretation, die sehr wohl begründet war und bleibt, aber doch schon Auslegung und mehr als Übersetzung ist.

Diese Verschmelzung von Übersetzung und Auslegung gehört in gewisser Hinsicht zu den Prinzipien, die unmittelbar nach dem Konzil die Übersetzung der liturgischen Bücher in die modernen Sprachen leitete. Man war sich bewußt, wie weit die Bibel und die liturgischen Texte von der Sprach- und Denkwelt der heutigen Menschen entfernt sind, so daß sie auch übersetzt weithin den Teilnehmern des Gottesdienstes unverständlich bleiben mußten. Es war ein neues Unternehmen, daß die heiligen Texte in Übersetzungen offen vor den Teilnehmern am Gottesdienst dastanden und dabei doch in einer großen Entfernung von ihrer Welt bleiben würden, ja, jetzt erst recht in ihrer Entfernung sichtbar würden. So fühlte man sich nicht nur berechtigt, sondern geradezu verpflichtet, in die Übersetzung schon Interpretation einzuschmelzen und damit den Weg zu den Menschen abzukürzen, deren Herz und Verstand ja von diesen Worten erreicht werden sollten.

Bis zu einem gewissen Grad bleibt das Prinzip einer inhaltlichen und nicht notwendig auch wörtlichen Übersetzung der Grundtexte weiterhin berechtigt. Da ich die liturgischen Gebete immer wieder in verschiedenen Sprachen beten muß, fällt mir auf, daß zwischen den verschiedenen Übersetzungen manchmal kaum eine Gemeinsamkeit zu finden ist und daß der zugrundeliegende gemeinsame Text oft nur noch von weitem erkennbar bleibt. Dabei sind dann Banalisierungen unterlaufen, die wirkliche Verluste bedeuten. So ist mir im Lauf der Jahre immer mehr auch persönlich deutlich geworden, daß das Prinzip der nicht wörtlichen, sondern strukturellen Entsprechung als Übersetzungsleitlinie seine Grenzen hat. Solchen Einsichten folgend hat die von der Gottesdienst-Kongregation am 28. 3. 2001 erlassene Übersetzer-Instruktion Liturgiam authenticam wieder das Prinzip der wörtlichen Entsprechung in den Vordergrund gerückt, ohne natürlich einen einseitigen Verbalismus vorzuschreiben. Die wichtige Einsicht, die dieser Instruktion zugrunde liegt, besteht in der eingangs schon ausgesprochenen Unterscheidung von Übersetzung und Auslegung. Sie ist sowohl dem Wort der Schrift wie den liturgischen Texten gegenüber notwendig. Einerseits muß das heilige Wort möglichst als es selbst erscheinen, auch mit seiner Fremdheit und den Fragen, die es in sich trägt; andererseits ist der Kirche der Auftrag der Auslegung gegeben, damit – in den Grenzen unseres jeweiligen Verstehens – die Botschaft zu uns kommt, die der Herr uns zugedacht hat. Auch die einfühlsamste Übersetzung kann die Auslegung nicht ersetzen: Es gehört zur Struktur der Offenbarung, daß das Gotteswort in der Auslegungsgemeinschaft der Kirche gelesen wird, daß Treue und Vergegenwärtigung sich miteinander verbinden. Das Wort muß als es selbst, in seiner eigenen, vielleicht uns fremden Gestalt da sein; die Auslegung muß an der Treue zum Wort selbst gemessen werden, aber zugleich es dem heutigen Hörer zugänglich machen.

In diesem Zusammenhang ist vom Heiligen Stuhl entschieden worden, daß bei der neuen Übersetzung des Missale das Wort „pro multis“ als solches übersetzt und nicht zugleich schon ausgelegt werden müsse. An die Stelle der interpretativen Auslegung „für alle“ muß die einfache Übertragung „für viele“ treten. Ich darf dabei darauf hinweisen, daß sowohl bei Matthäus wie bei Markus kein Artikel steht, also nicht „für die vielen“, sondern „für viele“. Wenn diese Entscheidung von der grundsätzlichen Zuordnung von Übersetzung und Auslegung her, wie ich hoffe, durchaus verständlich ist, so bin ich mir doch bewußt, daß sie eine ungeheure Herausforderung an alle bedeutet, denen die Auslegung des Gotteswortes in der Kirche aufgetragen ist. Denn für den normalen Besucher des Gottesdienstes erscheint dies fast unvermeidlich als Bruch mitten im Zentrum des Heiligen. Sie werden fragen: Ist nun Christus nicht für alle gestorben? Hat die Kirche ihre Lehre verändert? Kann und darf sie das? Ist hier eine Reaktion am Werk, die das Erbe des Konzils zerstören will? Wir wissen alle durch die Erfahrung der letzten 50 Jahre, wie tief die Veränderung liturgischer Formen und Texte die Menschen in die Seele trifft; wie sehr muß da eine Veränderung des Textes an einem so zentralen Punkt die Menschen beunruhigen. Weil es so ist, wurde damals, als gemäß der Differenz zwischen Übersetzung und Auslegung für die Übersetzung „viele“ entschieden wurde, zugleich festgelegt, daß dieser Übersetzung in den einzelnen Sprachräumen eine gründliche Katechese vorangehen müsse, in der die Bischöfe ihren Priestern wie durch sie ihren Gläubigen konkret verständlich machen müßten, worum es geht. Das Vorausgehen der Katechese ist die Grundbedingung für das Inkrafttreten der Neuübersetzung. Soviel ich weiß, ist eine solche Katechese bisher im deutschen Sprachraum nicht erfolgt. Die Absicht meines Briefes ist es, Euch alle, liebe Mitbrüder, dringendst darum zu bitten, eine solche Katechese jetzt zu erarbeiten, um sie dann mit den Priestern zu besprechen und zugleich den Gläubigen zugänglich zu machen.

In einer solchen Katechese muß wohl zuerst ganz kurz geklärt werden, warum man bei der Übersetzung des Missale nach dem Konzil das Wort „viele“ mit „alle“ wiedergegeben hat: um in dem von Jesus gewollten Sinn die Universalität des von ihm kommenden Heils unmißverständlich auszudrücken. Dann ergibt sich freilich sofort die Frage: Wenn Jesus für alle gestorben ist, warum hat er dann in den Abendmahlsworten „für viele“ gesagt? Und warum bleiben wir dann bei diesen Einsetzungsworten Jesu? Hier muß zunächst noch eingefügt werden, daß Jesus nach Matthäus und Markus „für viele“, nach Lukas und Paulus aber „für euch“ gesagt hat. Damit ist scheinbar der Kreis noch enger gezogen. Aber gerade von da aus kann man auch auf die Lösung zugehen. Die Jünger wissen, daß die Sendung Jesu über sie und ihren Kreis hinausreicht; daß er gekommen war, die verstreuten Kinder Gottes aus aller Welt zu sammeln (Joh 11, 52). Das „für euch“ macht die Sendung Jesu aber ganz konkret für die Anwesenden. Sie sind nicht irgendwelche anonyme Elemente einer riesigen Ganzheit, sondern jeder einzelne weiß, daß der Herr gerade für mich, für uns gestorben ist. „Für euch“ reicht in die Vergangenheit und in die Zukunft hinein, ich bin ganz persönlich gemeint; wir, die hier Versammelten, sind als solche von Jesus gekannt und geliebt. So ist dieses „für euch“ nicht eine Verengung, sondern eine Konkretisierung, die für jede Eucharistie feiernde Gemeinde gilt, sie konkret mit der Liebe Jesu verbindet. Der Römische Kanon hat in den Wandlungsworten die beiden biblischen Lesarten miteinander verbunden und sagt demgemäß: „Für euch und für viele“. Diese Formel ist dann bei der Liturgie-Reform für alle Hochgebete übernommen worden.

Aber nun noch einmal: Warum „für viele“? Ist der Herr denn nicht für alle gestorben? Daß Jesus Christus als menschgewordener Sohn Gottes der Mensch für alle Menschen, der neue Adam ist, gehört zu den grundlegenden Gewißheiten unseres Glaubens. Ich möchte dafür nur an drei Schrifttexte erinnern: Gott hat seinen Sohn „für alle hingegeben“, formuliert Paulus im Römer-Brief (Röm 8, 32). „Einer ist für alle gestorben“, sagt er im zweiten Korinther-Brief über den Tod Jesu (2 Kor 5, 14). Jesus hat sich „als Lösegeld hingegeben für alle“, heißt es im ersten Timotheus-Brief (1 Tim 2, 6). Aber dann ist erst recht noch einmal zu fragen: Wenn dies so klar ist, warum steht dann im Eucharistischen Hochgebet „für viele“? Nun, die Kirche hat diese Formulierung aus den Einsetzungs-Berichten des Neuen Testaments übernommen. Sie sagt so aus Respekt vor dem Wort Jesu, um ihm auch bis ins Wort hinein treu zu bleiben. Die Ehrfurcht vor dem Wort Jesu selbst ist der Grund für die Formulierung des Hochgebets. Aber dann fragen wir: Warum hat wohl Jesus selbst es so gesagt? Der eigentliche Grund besteht darin, daß Jesus sich damit als den Gottesknecht von Jes 53 zu erkennen gab, sich als die Gestalt auswies, auf die das Prophetenwort wartete. Ehrfurcht der Kirche vor dem Wort Jesu, Treue Jesu zum Wort der „Schrift“, diese doppelte Treue ist der konkrete Grund für die Formulierung „für viele“. In diese Kette ehrfürchtiger Treue reihen wir uns mit der wörtlichen Übersetzung der Schriftworte ein.

So wie wir vorhin gesehen haben, daß das „für euch“ der lukanisch-paulinischen Tradition nicht verengt, sondern konkretisiert, so können wir jetzt erkennen, daß die Dialektik „viele“ – „alle“ ihre eigene Bedeutung hat. „Alle“ bewegt sich auf der ontologischen Ebene – das Sein und Wirken Jesu umfaßt die ganze Menschheit, Vergangenheit und Gegenwart und Zukunft. Aber faktisch, geschichtlich in der konkreten Gemeinschaft derer, die Eucharistie feiern, kommt er nur zu „vielen“. So kann man eine dreifache Bedeutung der Zuordnung von „viele“ und „alle“ sehen. Zunächst sollte es für uns, die wir an seinem Tische sitzen dürfen, Überraschung, Freude und Dankbarkeit bedeuten, daß er mich gerufen hat, daß ich bei ihm sein und ihn kennen darf. „Dank sei dem Herrn, der mich aus Gnad’ in seine Kirch’ berufen hat…“. Dann ist dies aber zweitens auch Verantwortung. Wie der Herr die anderen – „alle“ – auf seine Weise erreicht, bleibt letztlich sein Geheimnis. Aber ohne Zweifel ist es eine Verantwortung, von ihm direkt an seinen Tisch gerufen zu sein, so daß ich hören darf: Für euch, für mich hat er gelitten. Die vielen tragen Verantwortung für alle. Die Gemeinschaft der vielen muß Licht auf dem Leuchter, Stadt auf dem Berg, Sauerteig für alle sein. Dies ist eine Berufung, die jeden einzelnen ganz persönlich trifft. Die vielen, die wir sind, müssen in der Verantwortung für das Ganze im Bewußtsein ihrer Sendung stehen. Schließlich mag ein dritter Aspekt dazukommen. In der heutigen Gesellschaft haben wir das Gefühl, keineswegs “viele“ zu sein, sondern ganz wenige – ein kleiner Haufe, der immer weiter abnimmt. Aber nein – wir sind „viele“: „Danach sah ich: eine große Schar aus allen Nationen und Stämmen, Völkern und Sprachen; niemand konnte sie zählen“, heißt es in der Offenbarung des Johannes (Offb 7, 9). Wir sind viele und stehen für alle. So gehören die beiden Worte „viele“ und „alle“ zusammen und beziehen sich in Verantwortung und Verheißung aufeinander.

Exzellenz, liebe Mitbrüder im Bischofsamt! Mit alledem wollte ich die inhaltlichen Grundlinien der Katechese andeuten, mit der nun so bald wie möglich Priester und Laien auf die neue Übersetzung vorbereitet werden sollen. Ich hoffe, daß dies alles zugleich einer tieferen Mitfeier der heiligen Eucharistie dienen kann und sich so in die große Aufgabe einreiht, die mit dem „Jahr des Glaubens“ vor uns liegt. Ich darf hoffen, daß die Katechese bald vorgelegt und so Teil der gottesdienstlichen Erneuerung wird, um die sich das Konzil von seiner ersten Sitzungsperiode an gemüht hat.

Mit österlichen Segensgrüßen verbleibe ich

im Herrn Ihr

BENEDICTUS PP XVI

 If anyone would feel moved to support the development of this site, and the associated Inside the Vatican site, www.insidethevatican.com (new site under development, to be launched this summer), please feel free to become one our supporters. The new site will offer a digital version of Inside the Vatican magazine, which I founded almost 20 years ago. We are also looking for qualified writers to contribute news and analysis. These sites will become a true news service, with reports on economic, social, technological and political affairs, like other global news services, as well as on the life of the Vatican, but animated by the same vision in which I write these letters. Your support would be very welcome, and is needed to make this hope a reality. I will be in personal contact with all supporters of this work. —Robert Moynihan)

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Seven Years… And a Prayer for Seven More

“And now, at this moment, weak servant of God that I am, I must assume this enormous task, which truly exceeds all human capacity. How can I do this? How will I be able to do it? All of you, my dear friends, have just invoked the entire host of Saints, represented by some of the great names in the history of God’s dealings with mankind. In this way, I too can say with renewed conviction: I am not alone. I do not have to carry alone what in truth I could never carry alone. All the Saints of God are there to protect me, to sustain me and to carry me. And your prayers, my dear friends, your indulgence, your love, your faith and your hope accompany me.” —Pope Benedict XVI, Homily at the Mass for the Imposition of the Pallium and Conferral of the Fisherman’s Ring for the Beginning of the Petrine Ministry of the Bishop of Rome, St. Peter’s Square, April 24, 2005

“The purpose of our lives is to reveal God to men. And only where God is seen does life truly begin. Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is. We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary. There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him. The task of the shepherd, the task of the fisher of men, can often seem wearisome. But it is beautiful and wonderful, because it is truly a service to joy, to God’s joy which longs to break into the world.” —Ibid.

“My dear friends – at this moment I can only say: pray for me, that I may learn to love the Lord more and more. Pray for me, that I may learn to love his flock more and more – in other words, you, the holy Church, each one of you and all of you together. Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves.” —Ibid.

The sun in Rome is shining on this 19th of April, the 7th anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI’s election to the See of Peter. It is a holiday in the Vatican for that reason.

I remember this day seven years ago. It was a Tuesday evening, about 6 p.m., when the smoke began to fly up from the Sistine Chapel roof. It looked grey, then, white, then grey again, and then fully white. The Pope had been elected. Who was he?

Pope Benedict XVI greets the crowd in St. Peter's Square after his election to Pope.

A few minutes later the Square was filled, and people were pouring in through all the columns of the colonnade. And then the announcement came: “We have a Pope. His name is Joseph Ratzinger. He has chosen to call himself Benedict XVI.”At the balcony, Benedict’s first words to the crowd, given in Italian before he gave the traditional Urbi et Orbi blessing in Latin, were:

“Dear brothers and sisters, after the great Pope John Paul II, the Cardinals have elected me, a simple, humble laborer in the vineyard of the Lord. The fact that the Lord knows how to work and to act even with insufficient instruments comforts me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers. In the joy of the Risen Lord, confident of his unfailing help, let us move forward. The Lord will help us, and Mary, His Most Holy Mother, will be on our side. Thank you.”

Then the new Pope appeared. He seemed happy, peaceful.

The most important thing to say is to wish the Holy Father well (he turned 85 three days ago, on April 16).

My prayer for him would be something like this:

May the Lord be with you as you continue in the task God has called you to, of leading and ruling Christ’s Church, of teaching the truths of the faith, and of bearing witness to the final, eternal reality, the glorious holiness and the immeasurable justice, mercy and loving-kindness of the triune God. May you be consoled in moments of difficulty, may you be strengthened in moments of weakness — moments all flesh is heir to — and may you be protected by Mary, the Mother of God, and of the Church, and richly blessed with profound joy and peace as you continue your mission. Ad multos annos… unto many more years. As you yourself prayed on Holy Saturday, just 12 days ago, “Let us pray to the Lord at this time that He may grant us to experience the joy of his light; let us pray that we ourselves may become bearers of his light, and that through the Church, Christ’s radiant face may enter our world (cf. LG 1). Amen.”

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“It Was On the Third Day of the Council…”

Archbishop Lefebvre with Padre Pio in 1967, a year before Padre Pio's death

“On 29 June 1976, (Archbishop) Lefebvre went ahead with planned priestly ordinations without the approval of the local Bishop and despite receiving letters from Rome forbidding them. As a result Lefebvre was suspended a collatione ordinum, i.e., forbidden to ordain any priests. A week later, the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops informed him that, to have his situation regularized, he needed to ask the Pope’s pardon. Lefebvre responded with a letter claiming that the modernisation of the Church was a ‘compromise with the ideas of modern man’ originating in a secret agreement between high dignitaries in the Church and senior Freemasons prior to the Council. Lefebvre was then notified that, since he had not apologised to the Pope, he was suspended a divinis…” —Wikipedia, Marcel Lefebvre, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Lefebvre

“On 18 September 1991, Cardinal Silvio Oddi, who had been Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy from 1979 to 1986, visited Lefebvre’s tomb, knelt down at it, prayed, afterwards saying aloud: “Merci, Monseigneur”. Thereafter Cardinal Oddi said he held Archbishop Lefebvre to have been ‘a holy man’ and suggested that the Society of St Pius X could be granted a personal prelature by the Holy See like that of Opus Dei. —Ibid.

 Lefebvre, the Council, the Mass…

The report which follows concerns a matter of great importance — a matter that cannot be dealt with in one email. I will try to follow the story as it unfolds, as it is, in some ways, the story of the Church, and her trials, in our age…

Yesterday, the Vatican Press Office released a little note which almost all observers agree marks a pivotal moment in one of the most important developing news stories in the Church, and in the world, at this time.

The note said that a letter had been received in the Vatican from the head of the Society of St. Pius X.

That is all the note said.

And yet, the internet and the press was soon filled with reports that this note marked a “breakthrough” in the multi-year process of negotiations between Rome and Society of St. Pius X, which is not in full communion with Rome.

Here is the text of the note, entitled: Communique of the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” (a commission now under the auspices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the chief doctrinal office in the Church).

The communique reads:

“The text of the response of His Excellency Bp. Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, requested during the meeting in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of March 16, 2012, was delivered on April 17, 2012. This text will be examined by the Dicastery and submitted afterwards to the judgment of the Holy Father.”

Why is this little note generating so much excitement?

Because many believe the note presages a solution to the break between Rome and the Society, and expect that solution to be announced within days, or weeks.

Some are even saying that this letter received, referred to in this note, is a “birthday present” to the Holy Father on his 85th birthday.

However, that goes beyond what we know for sure.

Father Federico Lombardi, S.J., the spokesman of the Holy Father, yesterday in the Press Office, had this to say (the following is a transcription of his oral comments to journalists; I bold-face the two phrases which are the “news” in this comment):

“Today’s news means that yesterday Bp. Fellay’s response, that had been requested by Cardinal Levada at the last meeting, was delivered to the Congregation, to the Ecclesia Dei Commission, to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Now, this response, it is a reponse that, according to the words of those who could see it, is a very different response from the previous one, and this is encouraging, we proceed forward. But, naturally, we also find in the response the addition of some details or integrations to the text of the doctrinal preamble that had been proposed by the Congregation for a doctrinal agreement, and this response will be discussed, it will be examined first by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in one of its meetings of the next few weeks and, afterwards, it will also naturally be examined directly by the Pope. It can be said that steps forward have been taken, that is to say, that the response, the new response, is rather encouraging, but there are still developments that will be made, and examined, and decisions that should be taken in the next few weeks. I think the wait will not be long because there is the desire to reach a conclusion in these discussions, in these contacts.”

A spokesman for the Society of St. Pius X was, if anything, even less positive about this letter than Lombardi. He said the following:

Communiqué of the General House of the Society of Saint Pius X

The media are announcing that Bishop Bernard Fellay has sent a “positive response” to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and that consequently the doctrinal question between the Holy See and the Society of St. Pius X is now resolved.

The reality is different.

In a letter dated April 17, 2012, the Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X responded to the request for clarification that had been made to him on March 16 by Cardinal William Levada concerning the Doctrinal Preamble delivered on September 14, 2011. As the press release dated today [April 17] from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith indicates, the text of this response “will be examined by the dicastery then submitted to the Holy Father for his judgment”.

This is therefore a stage and not a conclusion.

Menzingen, April 18, 2012

How this matter is resolved — and how it will finally be resolved is still not at all clear — will have much to do with how Benedict XVI’s pontificate is viewed by future historians.

Benedict now finds himself at the center of many very powerful interests who will wish to sway his judgment as he decides this matter. For this reason, he will need our prayers.

But more important than the effect on the historical judgment of this pontificate, the way this matter is resolved will have a profound impact on the Church herself, on how she views herself and her mission in the world, in time, in history, and, therefore, on how the Church orients her activity and life with regard to the secular world outside of the Church.

The matter at issue is the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X and whether it will be received back into full communion with Rome, but the deeper question is the Second Vatican Council and how that Council should be interpreted.

Therefore, the matter directly concerns several hundred thousand Catholics who followed and sympathized with the French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, and who ended up in an irregular position on the edges of the Church — “Traditionalist Catholics,” they are labeled — after Lefebvre was suspended a divinis (from all sacramental activities) by Pope Paul VI in the 1970s, and then excommunicated latae sententiae (i.e., automatically) by Pope John Paul II in 1988, after he ordained four bishops against the Pope’s explicit request not to do so.

Lefebvre died in 1991. I did not know him personally, but I have spoken with cardinals who did know him, including with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI). All have praised him for his upright moral character, his personal integrity, and his profound desire to be faithful to Catholic tradition; in short, for his personal goodness. Lefebvre was a missionary for many years in Africa, and then one of many bishops — for the sake of simplicity, let us say there were about 600 of them — who at the Second Vatican Council composed a “conservative” group concerned that the Council was moving too far, too fast. So he was by no means unique, or marginal, or “bizarre,” at that time. It is a sign of how rapidly and profoundly the times and mentalities have changed that he should be so regarded by some today. In the 1960s, he was well within the “norm” of a large group of bishops who agreed with him.

But, he was the only bishop who, after the Council, founded a functioning Society which had a structure capable of surviving over time, and of carrying on his ideas which, in effect, were the ideas of the 600 conservative Catholic bishops at the Council.

For those who loved and followed him, he was a modern St. Athanasius, alone against the world. (St. Athanasius in the 4th century was arrested, deposed from his see in Egypt, had to flee into exile, and was opposed by hundreds of bishops who had become Arian in their theology, that is, heretics, but was supported by the Pope of the time. That is why we speak of St. Athanasius as “Athanasius contra mundum” — Athanasius against the world. And when we speak of him using that phrase, we are praising him for his intransigence, for not giving in to the majority…)

(Note: In his biography of Lefebvre, The Horn of the Unicorn, David Allen White said that Lefebvre received a small number of votes — variously reported as three or “several” — in the August 1978 conclave that elected Pope John Paul I, a matter that, he said, caused some consternation among the cardinals, as Lefebvre was not a cardinal, and casting a vote for a non-cardinal in a papal election is unusual, although permitted by Church law.)

Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict, came to know Lefebvre well, for the two met personally to negotiate a possible agreement in the spring of 1988. (That negotiation was preceded by a 1987 investigatory visitation of the Lefebvre seminary at Econe and their houses and centers elsewhere by Cardinal Edouard Gagnon, whom I knew. Gagnon was impressed by the piety and discipline he observed.)

In fact, an agreement between Rome and Lefebvre was reached, and Lefebvre signed the agreement on May 5, 1988. The agreement would have avoided the schism that then occurred, and it suggests that Lefebvre found reason to trust Ratzinger enough to sign the agreement.

But that very night, Lefebvre, having returned to Albano outside of Rome — just next to Castel Gandolfo, the Pope’s summer residence — felt uneasy in spirit. His assistants told me that he stayed up late praying in his private chapel. He was on his knees for most of the night, asking for God’s guidance. (I went out to visit that chapel, and to talk to his assitants, not long after that night.)

In the morning, Lefebvre changed his mind. He felt, his assistants told me, that he could trust Cardinal Ratzinger, but not the Vatican, that the document he had signed allowed too much leeway for Vatican authorities to eventually influence who would become the leaders (the bishops) of his Society, and that the outwardly secure, safe agreement that Ratzinger had urged him to sign, and which he had agreed to sign, would slowly be unraveled, in time, by others, and that all his work would risk, eventually, being dismantled.

“He simply could not make a leap of trust,” one observer close to the negotiations told me.

But why could he not make that “leap” of trust?

Some argue that it was because of his character, that he was by nature a bit “rigid,” not “expansive” and trusting.

But others say there were solid reasons for his lack of trust. They note, especially, that he had observed how some actions in the Church had been “pushed through” even by almost violent means, breaking procedures previously agreed upon.

In order to understand this better, one must go back to the Council itself. And, in order to do that, I thought I needed to go talk with someone who had been present at the Council. So I went to talk to Monsignor Brunero Gherardini.

Gherardini lives inside the Vatican, in the Fabbrica of San Pietro, the palace between the Paul VI Hall and the back of St. Peter’s. He lives on the 5th floor.

He is a tall, slender, white haired-man with friendly eyes and a ready smile. He is almost 90, but his mind is crystal clear. He taught theology for decades at the Pontifical Lateran University. He is considered a “conservative” and some say he is the last great representative of the “Roman School” in theology.

I rang three times, and he wasn’t in — I was late for our meeting. I waiting five minutes, then left. I would have missed him, but he was walking into the archway below, with a newspaper he had gone out to purchase. “Hello!” he said. “Turn around and come back upstairs with me and we’ll talk.”

And so I joined him in his apartment. He moved two chairs until they faced each other, and we began to talk. We spoke of the Pope’s anniversary today, and then I asked about the possible reconciliation with the Lefebvrists. He said these days are historic, and he is hopeful of a good result.

Then I asked about the Council. Whenever I think about the Council, I said, I always have one image in my mind: an aging Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, now blind, about age 80, limping, the head of the Holy Office and so the chief doctrinal officer of the Church, born in Trastevere to parents who had many children, so a Roman from Rome, from the people of Rome, takes the microphone to speak to the 2,000 assembled bishops. And, as he speaks, pleading for the bishops to consider the texts the curia has spent three years preparing, suddenly his microphone was shut off. He kept speaking, but no one could hear a word. Then, puzzled and flustered, he stopped speaking, in confusion. And the assembled fathers began to laugh, and then to cheer…

“Yes,” Gherardini said. “And it was only the third day.”

“What?” I said.

“Ottaviani’s microphone was turned off on the third day of the Council.”

“On the third day?” I said. “I didn’t know that. I thought it was later, in November, after the progressive group became more organized…”

“No, it was the third day, October 13, 1962. The Council began on October 11.”

“Do you know who turned off the microphone?”

“Yes,” he said. “It was Cardinal Lienart of Lille, France.”

“But then,” I said, “it could almost be argued, perhaps, that such a breech of protocol, making it impossible for Ottaviani to make his arguments, somehow renders what came after, well, in a certain sense, improper…”

“Some people make that argument,” Gherardini replied.

Father Joseph Ratzinger was among the leaders of the progressive movement at the Council, along with Karl Rahner, Dominique Chenu, Yves Congar — “Congar was the master-mind of the group,” Gherardini said — and others.

But the ways of God are mysterious. Ratzinger failed to bring Lefebvre back into full communion with Rome in 1988, and in 2005, he was elected Pope — seven years ago today.

During his pontificate, one golden thread has been his effort to reverse that 1988 defeat, and to bring the Lefebvrists back into union with Rome.

On July 7, 2007, he promulgated Summorum Pontificum, against vociferous protests by many cardinals and bishops, encouraging free use throughout the Church of the traditional Tridentine liturgy.

And now, the final acts of the negotiation with the successors of Lefebvre are about to be played out.

(to be continued)