Revue de réflexion politique et religieuse.

Debate over the two her­me­neu­tics

Article publié le 9 Juin 2009 | imprimer imprimer  | Version PDF | Partager :  Partager sur Facebook Partager sur Linkedin Partager sur Google+

[Hereaf­ter is repro­du­ced the inter­view publi­shed in the n. 100 of Catho­li­ca (Sum­mer 2008), this text was revi­sed and upda­ted by the author]

Accor­ding to his « her­me­neu­tic of conti­nui­ty », Pope Bene­dict has insis­ted on the unin­ter­rup­ted connec­tion bet­ween Vati­can II and the Tra­di­tion, and the July, 2007 Res­ponses of the CDF sta­ted that the Council’s tea­ching did not change ear­lier doc­trine on the nature of the Church. How could we explain the fact that such a recall has been une­qual­ly recei­ved and regar­ded as a fla­sh­back to a rejec­ted doc­trine of the past (a dark past) ?

1)  Per­haps it is because of my age and the fact that my expe­rience of the Church spans a per­iod of 33 years before Vati­can II and the for­ty years since, that Pope Benedict’s address to the Roman Curia, 22nd Decem­ber, 2005, appea­red to me as a water­shed. But what Pope Bene­dict said so inci­si­ve­ly has been the unwa­ve­ring papal magis­te­rium.

Pope Bene­dict insis­ted that we redis­co­ver a her­me­neu­tic of conti­nui­ty in order to unders­tand Vati­can II cor­rect­ly. Is that not in line with the inten­tion of Pope John XXIII when he said he inten­ded the Coun­cil « to trans­mit the Church’s doc­trine pure and inte­gral », always with the same mea­ning and mes­sage ?  And Pope Paul VI tes­ti­fied that « it would not be true to think that Vati­can II repre­sents a sepa­ra­tion from and a rup­ture or libe­ra­tion from the Church’s tea­ching, nor does it autho­rise or pro­mote a confor­mi­ty with what is ephe­me­ral » (Inse­gna­men­ti di Pao­lo VI, Vol IV, 1966, p 699).

So it cau­sed no com­ment when, spea­king to the car­di­nals who had elec­ted him, Pope John Paul II said he would try to ensure that Vati­can II would be inter­pre­ted authen­ti­cal­ly. This inten­tion was given concrete shape with the extra­or­di­na­ry ses­sion of the Roman Synod of Bishops in 1985, whose final report insis­ted that « Vati­can II is impor­tant but its tea­ching is to be unders­tood in the context of pre­vious coun­cils. The Church is one and the same in all coun­cils ». They also said that it is not legi­ti­mate to sepa­rate the spi­rit and the let­ter of the Coun­cil. (Jan P. Schotte : The Second Vati­can Coun­cil and the Synod of Bishops, pp 60 — 61)

A com­ment of Car­di­nal Jour­net, illus­tra­tive of the pro­cess in the Coun­cil, fits into this context : « The present ecu­me­ni­cal synod is cer­tain­ly going to confirm the doc­trine of the pre­vious one (i.e. the First Vati­can Coun­cil) regar­ding the pre­ro­ga­tives of the Roman Pon­tiff. But it will also have as its prin­ci­pal object the task of des­cri­bing and honou­ring the pre­ro­ga­tives of the epi­sco­pate. These pre­ro­ga­tives are tra­di­tio­nal. »  (Charles Jour­net : Theo­lo­gy of the Church, pp 398–9) Again, spea­king of the Council’s outreach to other Chris­tians and to the world reli­gions, Jour­net com­ments : « Although these grand pers­pec­tives are not new or unk­nown to theo­lo­gy, they have never been affir­med so plain­ly or so solemn­ly by the voice of the Church’s magis­te­rium. » (ibid p 427) This is the « rene­wal in conti­nui­ty », iden­ti­fied by Pope Bene­dict as the authen­tic her­me­neu­tic of Vati­can II. When it is applied, we then see that the Church deve­lops yet always remains the same.

The rea­son for the une­ven recep­tion of this magis­te­rial posi­tion of the Church by many Catho­lics is com­plex and mul­ti­laye­red. One rea­son is the hubris of some theo­lo­gians who have consti­tu­ted a paral­lel magis­te­rium in the Church. I have heard some of them argue for this by refer­ring to cer­tain texts of St Tho­mas Aqui­nas in which a dis­tinc­tion appears bet­ween the « magis­te­rium cathe­drae pas­to­ra­lis » and the « magis­te­rium cathe­drae magis­te­ria­lis ». But St Tho­mas was also clear that the right to judge in mat­ters of doc­trine is the sole res­pon­si­bi­li­ty of the « offi­cium prae­la­tio­nis ». The post­con­ci­liar « paral­lel magis­te­rium » of theo­lo­gians is in no way due to Vati­can II but was aggra­va­ted by the dyna­mics of some conci­liar pro­ce­dures. The many theo­lo­gians who acted as consul­tants to the bishops gai­ned consi­de­rable power and in many cases were given world pro­file by the media. Many read and com­mu­ni­ca­ted the tea­ching of Vati­can II with a her­me­neu­tic of dis­con­ti­nui­ty.

Such a paral­lel magis­te­rium set over against the divi­ne­ly consti­tu­ted magis­te­rium of Pope and bishops is in fact a rejec­tion of the autho­ri­ty of the Church. It is much more than a mat­ter of per­so­nal dif­fi­cul­ties of faith which a belie­ver may honest­ly have ; rather it res­ts on the phi­lo­so­phi­cal libe­ra­lism which is wides­pread and which regards the vali­di­ty of a jud­ge­ment (about truth) as grea­ter to the extent that it pro­ceeds from the indi­vi­dual relying on his own powers ; it puts free­dom of thought over against the autho­ri­ty of the Tra­di­tion ; free­dom of jud­ge­ment becomes more impor­tant than truth. The 1960s saw a world­wide rejec­tion of autho­ri­ty and this infil­tra­ted the Church, at a time when the man­ner in which some Coun­cil reforms were imple­men­ted local­ly and regio­nal­ly gave the impres­sion that the Church no lon­ger wan­ted to exer­cise an autho­ri­ty that would bind people in conscience. The autho­ri­ty of the Church is roo­ted in the mis­sion of Christ as an autho­ri­ty of repre­sen­ta­tion and ser­vice. (cf 1 Cor 4,1ff ; 12,7 ; Eph 4,12ff.)  It has its bin­ding cha­rac­ter from its ori­gin in God and in its final goal, the glo­ry of God and the sal­va­tion of human beings.

An his­to­ri­cal pers­pec­tive leads one to the fur­ther conclu­sion that the rejec­tion by some Catho­lics of the doc­trine on the nature of the Church in Tra­di­tion and in Vati­can II is in fact a conse­quence of a resurgent form of Moder­nism. After its first phase, after being com­ba­ted by St Pius X, it went under­ground not least in semi­na­ries and uni­ver­si­ties ; most Catho­lics thought it had disap­pea­red until it re-emer­ged in the oppor­tu­ni­ties ope­ned up around Vati­can II. This time, it has affec­ted a much wider range of people in the Church – obvious­ly tea­chers and theo­lo­gians but also, in popu­lar form, priests in parishes and pari­shio­ners. This has crea­ted a cli­mate in which the Church is no lon­ger unders­tood as « mys­te­ry », as the Consti­tu­tion on the Church, Lumen Gen­tium, des­cri­bed it, but rather as a human construct which must be sha­ped and resha­ped by those who com­pose it in res­ponse to the needs of the times. Hence minds tend to be clo­sed to reve­la­tion and to super­na­tu­ral faith.

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