SUMMER MUSINGS (FROM THE CONSORTIUM) (Part Seven) (Final Part)

My sisters and brothers in the Risen Lord, greetings to you in the Holy Spirit of the Risen One! I hope your summer went well in the Lord and if you are still in that mode, that it continues to go well for you! This is the last issue in our series, Summer Musings. The Consortium had to publish something over this summer because so much kept happening over the summer. Francis really did not take any real holiday at this time because he is driven to accomplish what God is asking him to do: he has been gently chastised for not taking a real holiday but it is understandable that at his age (80 years) he has a lot to do before he dies. He also desires very much to establish the new Church before his death to such an extent that It will not be easily overturned by others when he does die; this probably is part of his mission in the Spirit. September still technically is part of summer until the first Fall/Autumn day which this year begins on September 22 (2016). And for some people summer-time still continues into September – not for many of us but for some fortunate ones! On this score, this edition can still be titled Summer Musings because practically all the research and writing and editing was done before September 22! Hence technically we can still call this issue a summer issue! I know I am rationalizing quite a bit here and stretching a bit but it does serve my purpose. And thank you for letting me do this! A great deal of research and study goes into these materials because they are important for us who are struggling with Francis to rebuild the Church. At this point, I would like to acknowledge and thank some people who do a great deal to help me with this (joyful) task. I am very grateful to God for the tremendous help give to me by Deacon Phil Tremblay, C.R., who literally daily digs up material for me for this work. I am at the front-line of the needed research but so is Deacon Phil and I thank him for all the work he does and all the good information/sources he gives me. Thank you very much, Phil, and God copiously bless you for all you do here! I also get some material from time to time from two other C.R. brothers in my community whose help I also cherish: they are Father Ernie Varosi, C.R., and Brother Ed Benson, C.R. The presence and work of all these three men make this Consortium project a Resurrectionist project instead of my own personal project. And my thanks to all of you for accompanying me and the Consortium on our summer journey of learning. May God bless your post-summer year that has just begun with mercy, joy, shalom, health, and all other kinds of grace. Amen.

OPPOSITION TO “AMORIS LAETITIA” (CONTINUED AND CONCLUDED) We continue our look at the reactions to the Pope’s exhortation, an exceptionally important document for our purpose of helping Francis build today’s Church so that it better reflects the Gospel and better serves the world. To a great extent, we have considered a lot of the negative criticism of Amoris Laetitia to this point and we are now starting to look in some depth to the positive assessments of the exhortation. Here let us continue to undertake more of the latter.

Many Catholics are encouraged by the exhortation and are happy with its tone and approach; moreover, many pastoral workers (including myself) are happy with Amoris Laetitia. (We have seen some of this earlier in the Musings and one good example of this for me are the words of Professor Julie Hanlon Rubio of Saint Louis University in her excellent article in the National Catholic Reporter of April 22 – May 5, 2016 titled “Pope offers compelling vision of love” (see page 10 of the Summer Musings, Part Five). 1

As a whole, the United States Conference of Catholic (USCCB) is positive and enthusiastic in respect to Amoris Laetitia. And so are many other episcopal conferences. Cardinal , the former president of the Pontifical Council for the , observes that the objective truth taught by Francis in the exhortation is what the Church has always taught. “It is held in the background, however, as a presupposition. In the foreground is placed the individual moral subject with his/her conscience, with his/her interior dispositions, with his/her personal responsibility [which] is why it is not possible to formulate general regulations.” (Antonelli) “In an age when Christianity was dominant, he [the Cardinal] said, the focus was on objective truth: Is this person living according to Church teaching or not? ‘Anyone who fell short of the observance of the norms was presumed to be gravely culpable’ and excluded from the Christian community. “However he said, because the influence of Christianity is waning, ‘it can be hypothesized that some persons live in objectively disordered situations without full subjective responsibility.’ That is why, he said, Saint John Paul II believed it was ‘appropriate to encourage the divorced and remarried to participate more fully in the life of the Church,’ although without access to the .” (Cindy Wooden, “Amoris Laetitia under debate,” National Catholic Reporter, July 29 – August 11, 2016 ) “, in a cultural context of even more advanced secularization and pansexualism [“The view that sexual instinct plays a part in all human thought and activity and is the chief or only source of energy” – The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Volume 2], is going even further but along the same lines. Without being silent on the objective truth, he is concentrating his attention on subjective responsibility, which at times can be diminished or eliminated. “The pope is therefore opening an outlet even for admission to sacramental reconciliation and Eucharistic Communion.” (Antonelli) “Such an approach brings risks, including a mistaken view that the Church is accepting and remarriage, he said, so he asked Francis for more explicit, ‘more authoritative guidelines’” (Wooden). It is refreshing to hear a commentator on the exhortation being so clear and hopeful in his comments!

“Amoris Laetitia is welcomed. Catholics who are divorced and remarried should treat the Year of Mercy as an opportunity to begin a process of discernment, Cardinal [of England] said in a pastoral letter this week [May 1-7, 2016]. In the message, written to welcome the Pope’s apostolic exhortation on the family, Amoris Laetitia, Cardinal Nichols said that it was wrong to reduce the document to an argument over whether divorced and remarried Catholics could receive Communion. But he encouraged them – and everyone in difficult circumstances – to seek guidance from a priest about ‘the next step in their journey’ [which leaves room for the use of the Internal Forum]. “Elsewhere in the letter, Cardinal Nichols praised the document for its sensitivity, saying that it upheld the Christian ideal of marriage while promising mercy to those who fall short.” (“News Briefing From Britain and Ireland,” The Tablet, May 7, 2016). Monsignor Owen F. Campion, editor of The Priest magazine, has the following to say about what we are here considering. “An apostolic exhortation is not the only way that the Pope is teaching, and lover of Church history that I am, I see nothing in him or in his public testimonies that do anything other than stand in the greatest moments of Catholic witness over the years … If I may place both feet on the floor of the bully pulpit that this column [“Editor’s Opinion” – “Beloved by the Church: Amoris Laetitia is expression of ancient love”] gives me – I would urge my brother priests to find a copy of Evangelii Nuntiandi by Blessed Paul VI and, for good measure, a copy of his landmark encyclical Populorum Progressio. They are online. Then, read Amoris Laetitia again.” (Campion, The Priest, July 2016) A commendable statement of support and acceptance. Monsignor Campion’s comments show that Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia is in line with earlier papal teaching/documents and that it is very important for us. 2

Father Michael Ryan, a reformist pastor in Seattle, has stated that the pope “is trying to open doors, not to dole out cheap grace.” Sister Susan Kidd, C.N.D., a Canadian theologian, declares that “Francis is able to stick to the party line and yet put a lens on it that is very compassionate. It goes very well with his Year of Mercy.” Please note carefully Sister’s last sentence!

In all of this area, it is important for us to keep in mind some restrictions that were self- imposing on Francis. Associate Professor John Grabowski of The Catholic University of America notes that Amoris Laetitia does fall short on LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender/Transsexual) issues. It is safe to say this because it is true. The big question here is WHY? Grabowski states Francis touched lightly on women’s roles in the Church, same-sex marriage, and LGBT issues because to spend more time on these important questions would diffuse the document’s focus too much. Fair enough! So please be sure to note this! Thank you.

Here is a situation about which few of us are informed: slum priests in Argentina support Francis. We need to look at some background in order to understand this and so here it is. “A group of priests made up of clergy who work in the ‘villas miserias,’ or ‘villas of misery’, in the Argentine capital [Buenos Aires], have issued a petition defending Pope Francis against what it terms a ‘brutal campaign against him with attacks of every kind.’ … As Pope Francis was celebrating a solemn Mass in for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul on Wednesday [June 29, 2016, Saints Peter and Paul known as ‘the pope’s day’ in Argentina], in his home country of Argentina, a small army of priests working in the slums issued [this] petition.” (Inés San Martin, CRUX Vatican Correspondent, “Priests from Argentina’s slums defend Pope Francis,” CRUXNOW, June 30, 2016, at https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2016/06/30/ ). “In a world where wars, hungers and abuses over the environment endanger human life, Pope Francis raises his voice in an effort to preserve the life of the weakest and to protect mother earth, putting limits to such craziness” (the priests’ communique which also invites people to pray for Francis: please do so and thank you). “The group, together with a lay association called Generacion Francisco [=The Francis’ Generation], also writes that not ‘by chance’ there is a ‘brutal campaign against him with attacks of every kind,’ especially in Argentina, where local political leaders and the media continue their efforts to either claim him as their own, or discredit his every word. On Wednesday [June 20, 2016], in a Mass celebrated by the ‘villero’ priests to mark the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, an interreligious alliance signed a petition ‘ratifying our commitment to the pope’s intentions and our repudiation of the actions against him.’” (San Martin) The Mass was celebrated in one of the more than twenty slums where Francis as a cardinal worked to build up a poor Church for the poor in his own territory. Most of the priests were handpicked by Francis in the past and they lived and worked in the slums. “The allegations of a campaign against Francis [in Argentina] are not without merit” (San Martin). One newspaper article recently spoke of Francis becoming pope and he raised people’s hopes as to what he would accomplish but “the last three years have shown a pontiff who fails to be universal by constantly meddling in Argentina’s political affairs [and having an] anachronistic economic vision. [This newspaper article claims that the pope’s international interventions, far from helping the sometimes heroic efforts of European countries to welcome the massive immigration from North Africa and the Middle East, has made them more difficult with a permissiveness that ignores restrictions in the health and educational systems. Francis’ gesture of taking 12 [Muslim] refugees from [Lesbos] Greece was … pure demagoguery.” (San Martin) The article also said the Pope receives athletes and show business people for hours but had only 20 sombre minutes for the recently elected president of Argentina. There are other articles/newspapers that put the Pope down in his home country. “The Italian blog Il Sismografo, considered a semi-official voice of the Vatican’s Secretary of State, has repeatedly 3 complained that historic newspapers in the pope’s country ‘do everything in their power to outdo each other in the amplification of falsehood, hypotheses, suppositions and insinuations’ regarding Francis, often including the voices of people who wrongly appoint themselves as papal spokespersons.” (San Martin) Other examples could be given but the above is enough to give you a good picture as to what is going on. One point needs to be made here because it is very important for grasping the whole picture here. Biblically, the voice of the poor, e.g., people in slums, is a very powerful voice before God and should also be so before us. It is a voice to be heeded! And so the voice of the priests and poor people in the “villas miserias” count more before divine justice and mercy than the voices of others! “Francis’ supporters in his home country, however, do not come only from the slums” (San Martin). One good example of this is the following. Oscar Ojea of San Isidro, part of Buenos Aires’ greater area, released a letter objecting that ‘from diverse media, [some] try to darken [the pope’s] evangelical and prophetic message,’ with ‘biased opinions, assumptions, and unverified information.’ Ojea also rejected the ‘manoseo,’ a word that can be translated as ‘massaging,’ of the pope’s person, made by so many with ‘a total lack of respect. A political interpretation of the pope’s gestures leads to getting lost in a maze that dilutes their meanings.’ [Ojea]” (San Martin) This kind of rejection and scorning must hurt the Pope greatly because it comes from his own country-men and country-women: it is a huge psychological let-down. So please pray fervently for healing of the Pope’s person by the Spirit of God and the Risen One. Thank you. One last thing here. It is obvious that the above positive and negative reactions stand also in respect to Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia and in this way fits in with our comments/reflections here!

Francis himself is fighting back against the negative criticisms aimed at Amoris Laetitia. He doing so through a series of articles in L′Osservatore Romano under his eye (something of which we have already seen earlier in Part Six of the Summer Musings). What follows is an excellent short article by The Tablet that sums up this strategy well, as well as some fall-out. “Don’t be fooled: Pope Francis may have opened the door to debate in the Church, but this is not a papacy where anything goes. As theologians and bishops around the world trade blows over what he really meant in his landmark document on the family – can divorced and remarried Catholics receive Communion or not? – Francis, who so far seems happy with a messy but more ‘smell of the sheep’ Catholicism, appears to have decided enough is enough. He is trying to rein in the debate on what he really meant in his apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, with a series of articles in L′Osservatore Romano, the in-house Vatican newspaper. “The first to address the issue was Rocco Buttiglione, who writes that the Pope is coming up against ‘the learned class’ who ‘seem to have trouble understanding him.’ Buttiglione was a clever choice: he was close to Pope John Paul II and came to prominence when he was withdrawn as Italy’s candidate as a European commissioner due to remarks that is a sin. Not the first person you might expect to rush to Francis’ defence. “In his article on Amoris Laetitia, the Italian politician and academic stresses that the Pope has not broken with Church teaching but is seeking to develop it. So on Communion for the divorced and remarried, Buttiglione argues that Francis has not changed the moral law but is instead taking into account individual circumstances, something which is fully consistent with Catholic tradition. [This is similar to American Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl’s observation that Francis makes a key distinction between the Church’s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage that lasts until death and the pastoral judgment concerning relationship to the sacraments. Wuerl clearly states that Church teaching and pastoral judgment are not the same thing.] “Then, just a few days after Buttiglione, came an article in the same paper by Rodrigo Guerra López, a Mexican philosopher. He argued that Francis was developing teaching with ‘creative fidelity’ and that the Church’s ‘deposit of faith’ should not be put in a freezer.

4

“The Pope’s fightback comes in the wake of a letter by 45 priests and academics appealing to cardinals across the world to lobby the Pope to clarify his teaching. [Recall to mind this group which we already have encountered in Parts Four and Five of the Summer Musings; they wrote to the world’s Catholic cardinals in an effort to have them respond to the dangers to Catholic Faith and morals from the Pope’s exhortation. The following synopsis of the matter in The Tablet will also help us remember. “Almost a quarter of the theologians who signed a document that criticised Pope Francis’ exhortation on the family are based in England, writes Liz Dodd (of The Tablet). Of the 45 theologians and clergy who wrote to cardinals requesting clarification over Amoris Laetitia, specifically that it did not change Church teaching, at least 11 teach or minister in parishes in England. They include two Dominicans, Father Aidan Nichols, O.P., prior of the Convent of Saint Michael, Cambridge, and Father Neil Ferguson, O.P., of Holy Cross Priory in Leicester, as well as Father John Osman, former Catholic Chaplain to the University of Cambridge. Two Ordinariate priests are signatories, Father John Hunwicke and Father David Palmer, Chair of Nottingham Diocese Marriage and Family Life Commission. The letter said that the exhortation ‘contains statements that can be understood in a sense contrary to Catholic faith and morals’ and requested the cardinals petition Pope Francis to ‘condemn the errors listed in the document.’ The signatories’ names were revealed this week (July 24-30, 2016) by the United States-based National Catholic Reporter. One, Father Ray Blake, parish priest at Saint Mary Magdalen, Brighton (England), said: ‘I never discuss my correspondence with a third party.’” (Liz Dodd, “English theologians voice concerns over Amoris Laetitia,” The Tablet, July 30, 2016) I realize that the above is a bit repetitive in spots, in terms of what we have already seen in the Musings, but this event is so outstanding that this repetition bears seeing again, e.g., in no prior modern papacy would the Pope have allowed this kind of response to a papal document without chastising and punishing those who would be the perpetrators of such an affront – this gives us some idea of how much the Church has changed under Francis, e.g., it shows that today’s Church allows the freedom of conversation and dialogue over very difficult topics!] [We now return to the original quotation we were making prior to this insert.] Meanwhile, Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, an expert in moral theology, has recently said that Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia is ‘objectively unclear.’ “Those close to Francis say in addition to the ‘L′Osservatore’ articles, he has designated Vienna’s Cardinal Christoph Schönborn as the document’s chief interpreter [see PART SIX of the Musings]. But the difficulty is this: once you open up debate within global Catholicism, it is hard to close it down.” (So true!) (Christopher Lamb, Rome Correspondent for The Tablet, “View From Rome,” The Tablet, July 30, 2016)

In addition to the above articles in L′Osservatore Romano, there is also another article in this Vatican newspaper that makes very clear that Amoris Laetitia is authoritative Church teaching. The article makes very clear that Amoris Laetitia is a good example of the Church’s “ordinary ” – papal teaching to which we Catholics are obliged to give “religious submission of will and intellect.” The article of August 23, 2016, was written by a well-known Spanish professor of ecclesiology (the study of the Church), Father Salvador Pie-Ninot; it was written in order to clarify questions raised about the formal status of Amoris Laetitia, e.g., recall what we have already seen, i.e., American Cardinal Raymond Burke said more than once that the document is a mixture of opinion and doctrine. Father Pie-Ninot “said that while Pope Francis did not invoke his teaching authority in a ‘definitive way’ in the document, it meets all the criteria for being an example of the ‘ordinary magisterium’ to which all members of the Church should respond with ‘the basic attitude of sincere acceptance and practical implementation … Pie-Ninot said he examined the document in the light of the 1990 instruction from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the vocation of the theologian.

5

“The instruction – issued by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now-retired Pope Benedict XVI – explained three levels of Church teaching with the corresponding levels of assent they require.” (Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service, “Vatican newspaper: ‘Amoris Laetitia’ is authoritative teaching,” National Catholic Reporter, August 23, 2016, at https://www.ncronline.org under above date and heading. The top/first level is “infallible pronouncement. This requires an assent of faith because it is divinely revealed and the teaching is proposed in a clear definitive way which is strictly and intimately connected with revelation and which must be firmly accepted and held/believed. The second level is a teaching of the ordinary magisterium. “A teaching is an example of the ‘ordinary magisterium,’ according to the instruction, ‘when the magisterium, not intending to act “definitively,” teaches a doctrine to aid a better understanding of revelation and make explicit its contents, or to recall how some teaching is in conformity with the truths of faith, or finally to guard against ideas that are incompatible with these truths, the response called for is that of the religious submission of will and intellect.’” (Wooden) The third level is the category into which the exhortation falls. “Amoris Laetitia falls into the third category, Pie-Ninot said, adding the 1990 instruction’s statement that examples of ordinary magisterium can occur when the pope intervenes ‘in questions under discussion which involve, in addition to solid principles, certain contingent and conjectural elements.’ The instruction notes that ‘it often only becomes possible with the passage of time to distinguish between what is necessary and what is contingent,’ although as the Spanish priest said, the instruction insists that even then one must assume that ‘divine assistance’ was given to the pope.” (Wooden) Lastly, “accepting Amoris Laetitia as authoritative Church teaching, Pie-Ninot said, applies also to the document’s ‘most significant words’ about the possibility of divorced and remarried without an annulment receiving Communion in limited circumstances.’ (Wooden) AMEN! That does it for me – it is very clear in my mind and research that Amoris Laetitia is authoritative Church teaching!

We need to be aware that sometimes the media create problems here because they do things that, strictly speaking, they should not be doing, e.g., giving major importance to matters that in the Pope’s documents or speeches he does not highlight as major. The classic example in Francis’ Press Conference on his return flight from the island of Lesbos in Greece earlier this year (2016). We have already seen some of this press conference in an earlier issue of the Musings (see PART SIX). Let us now look at a bit more material from that press conference that highlights what is being said here. This material comes from “Pope’s Press Conference on Return Flight From Lesbos: Themes Touched on During In-Flight Press Conference Include Refugees, Arms Dealers, Sacraments; Stresses Meeting Bernie Sanders in Vatican Was Only ‘Polite,’ Not Political” on ZENIT at https://zenit.org under April 18th, 2016. This question is from Francis Rocca from the Wall Street Journal. “If you allow me, I would like to ask a question on another event of the last days, which was your Apostolic Exhortation. As you well know, there has been much discussion on one of the many points – I know that we concentrated much on it, after the publication: some hold that nothing has changed in regard to the discipline that governs access to the Sacraments for the divorced and remarried, and that the law and pastoral practice and obviously the doctrine remain the same; others hold instead that much has changed and that there are many new openings and possibilities. The question is for a person, for a Catholic who wants to know: are there new concrete possibilities, that did not exist before the publication of the Exhortation or not?” Here is Francis’ answer, most of which we have already seen. “I could say ‘yes,’ and that is it, but it would be too small an answer. I recommend to you all that you read the presentation made by Cardinal Shoenborn, who is a great theologian. He is a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and knows well the Doctrine of the Church. Your question will have an answer in that presentation. Thank you!” 6

Here is the question of Jean-Marie Guenois of Le Figaro. “I have the same question, but it is a complementary question, because it is not understood why you have written the famous note in Amoris Laetitia on the problems of the divorced and remarried – note 351. Why such an important thing in a little note? Did you foresee oppositions or did you wish to say that this point is not so important?” Here is Francis’ answer; please note carefully what he says about the media here. “Listen, one of the last , speaking about the Council, said that there were two Councils: that of Vatican II, which was done in Saint Peter’s Basilica, and the other, the ‘Council of the Media.’ When I convoked the first , the great preoccupation of the majority of the media was: Will they be able to give Communion to the divorced that have remarried? And, as I am not a saint, this annoyed me a bit, and it also made me somewhat sad. Because I thought: But this means or says this, and this, and this, but does it not realize that that is not the important problem? Does it not realize that the family is in crisis throughout the world? And the family is the basis of society! Does it not realize that young people do not want to marry? Does it not realize that the drop in the birth rate of Europe makes one weep? Does it not realize that the lack of work and the possibility of work are so that it makes fathers and mothers hold two jobs and the children grow up alone and do not learn to grow in dialogue with their father and mother? These are the great problems! I do not remember that note, but surely if a thing of that nature is in a note it is because it was said in Evangelii Gaudium, surely! It must be a quotation from Evangelii Gaudium. I do not remember the number, but I am sure.” Father , the Pope’s press officer at the time, ends the conversation: “Thank you, Your Holiness. You have engaged in a wide conversation on subjects on this trip and you have now also enlarged on the Exhortation. We wish you a good trip and the good continuation of your work.” To which the Pope replies: “Thank you [all aboard the flight] for your company. I truly feel tranquil with you. Thank you so much! Thank you for the company.” We can translate the Holy Father’s answers here to this synopsis: “There are many questions to be considered when looking at in the modern world. The question of the remarried divorced and access to Eucharist is a good question but not the only one. There are so many big important questions here and to focus too much on the question of the remarried divorced and Eucharist is to be too narrow!”

There is one thing I want to be certain that you and I understand because it is so very important in understanding Pope Francis and ultimately the kind of Church he is trying to set up. To begin this reflection, please let me state a very basic psychological principle that is at work in us who are in the Western World where we tend to “psychologize” almost everything! When you and I in the Western World get hurt, we tend to personalize the matter and we take it personally and we tend to react out of this context. This is not the case for every culture in our world and if we scrutinize Francis carefully and thoroughly, this kind of reaction does not seem to be a strong part of his personality and personal actions; whether this is because of his spirituality/Faith and/or his culture, whenever people who oppose him and say and/or do what we could consider personally hurtful, he seems to have the ability to set it aside because of the vision and perspectives that rule his life. When this happens, he turns the focus from his personal being to what mission he needs to undertake, from the realm of his person/personhood to the vision (God-given) of what needs to be done. This is important and so please let me elaborate it a bit. Shortly before Christmas of 2014, Pope Francis was being foiled in his work to rebuild and reform the Church by some (many?) members of the Curia who were against him and his “new” theology and so opposed him. He needed to react to this because it was a stumbling block on the road to accomplishing his goals for the Church. At that time “Pope Francis told members of the Roman Curia that they often suffered ‘from the pathology of power,’ which produced a ‘superiority complex.’ Such blunt statements from a chief executive might be followed by a shake-up of head 7 office manpower – there are virtually no women involved, which may be part of the problem – but there was little sign of it. “Eighteen months on, he explained his management methods a little further. If obstructive [and opposing] officials were like nails, he hammered them further into the wood rather than cut them off at the head. By which he meant, apparently, that he waits for them to retire rather than sacking them. ‘They do their job and I do mine,’ he told the Argentine newspaper La Nación. ‘They say no to everything. I continue straight on my way, without looking over my shoulder.’ [Note, however, as we have seen, that Francis sometimes does sack opponents, e.g., Cardinal Raymond Burke.] “That would be all very humane and admirable, if the consequences did not affect the good of the Church. But to admit that the Body of Christ of more than a billion members was still being administered by power-crazy , working in what he had once called a ‘nest of vipers,’ does raise questions. He has a reform programme, which is rapidly becoming overdue. Are curial officials dragging their feet? “Cardinals such as Gerhard Mϋller (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), () [note that Ouellet has been ‘converted,’ as we already have seen], and (Congregation for Divine Worship) are not men for whom a document like Evangelii Gaudium, the manifesto for this pontificate [and Amoris Laetitia], would be favourite reading. They may feel that in a papacy heading in the wrong direction, foot-dragging is a duty. But that does not mean Francis has to put up with them. [So The Tablet is urging Francis to put his foot down!]” (“Reform of the Curia: Francis Must Put His Foot Down,” editorial, The Tablet, July 9, 2016) I generally agree with the tone and direction of this editorial but I think they are being a bit too harsh on the Pope and they have failed to some extent to look at the structural changes Francis is making in Rome. In any case, for our purposes, note that the issues are not (psychologically) personal but have to do with goals, strategies, and ecclesial reforms! In the same issue of The Tablet (above), their Vatican correspondent, Christopher Lamb, has some great insights in this area. Here they are! ‘Question: what does a pope do with bishops who do not do what he wants [for the Church]? Answer: he moves them out – out of the Vatican and sometimes to a remote diocese in some far-flung part of the world. “That is certainly how things used to be done. But in the Francis era it is different: ever since his election the current pope has adopted a contrary approach. First, it is because he believes passionately about the need for bishops to be sensitive pastors and close to the people – so if he does not think a bishop is up to scratch, the last thing he wants to do is to send him to lead a large flock. “And second, it is because this pope’s approach to running the Church is essentially non- confrontational. His personal philosophy is rooted in one of his favourite expressions: ‘Time is greater than space.’ Francis simply is not interested in trying to impose his ideas and concepts on the Church – this week, this month or even this year. Instead, his vision is for a more open, understanding and merciful Church, which will unfold over time. “So when it comes to dealing with his opponents inside the Vatican, Francis plays a waiting game. Speaking to the Argentinian newspaper La Nación last Sunday [July 3, 2016] he referred to his opponents as ‘nails’ but stressed: ‘I do not cut off heads.’ “These nails, he explained, ‘are removed by applying pressure to the top … or, you set them aside to rest when the age of retirement arrives.’ In other words, people go when their time is up – and until then, he prefers to avoid battles with them so far as he possibly can … When Francis does remove people, it is usually a last resort – and a diocese is the last place he would send them.” (“View From Rome”) Please be aware that there is some difference in translation when it comes to the article in La Nación; Doctor Austen Ivereigh, a well-known Church observer, states that the translation from the Spanish is “you take nails out by applying pressure from below, or you put them to one side, when 8 they reach retirement age. Doctor Ivereigh, in a letter to the editor of The Tablet (July 16, 2016), also states “In sum: the best way of dealing with opponents was not to confront them but to retire them or promote people below them. Somehow this became, in your editorial, ‘If obstructive officials were like nails, he hammered them further into the wood rather than cut them off at the head.’ But rather than ‘hammering them further into the wood’ Francis was speaking of moving them out gently, without direct confrontation. You argue for the opposite – for a John Paul II-type crackdown – which you opposed at the time. Francis is showing a different papal way of governing. We should embrace it.” (Ivereigh) For our present purposes, whichever translation is correct, the difference does not impact upon our main point here.

It is interesting to look at what an accomplished Vatican correspondent for CRUXNOW, Inés San Martin, has to say on this matter. See her “Pope vows he won’t be slowed down by ‘ultra- conservatives’,” CRUX, July 3, 2016, at https://cruxnow.com. “In a new interview with an Argentine journalist [with La Nación], Pope Francis says there is a wing of the that ‘says no to everything,’ and while he is going ahead, he has no intention of launching a crackdown: ‘I do not cut off heads. That was never my . I have never liked doing that,’ he said. [So] Pope Francis has vowed … that he won’t be slowed down by resistance frorm ‘ultra-conservatives’ in the Church who ‘say no to everything,’ insisting, ‘I am going ahead without looking over my shoulder.’ … “[The] journalist Joaquin Morales Solá…used the word ‘ultra-conservative’ to describe internal resistance to the pope, and Francis said he ‘rejects conflict’ with them. ‘They do their job and I do mine,’ the Pope said. ‘I want a Church that is open, understanding, that accompanies wounded families,’ he said. ‘They [his opponents] say no to everything. I go ahead, without looking over my shoulder.’… “The ‘nails’ reference is often heard in Rome, used to refer to prelates who, having been bad administrators in their diocese – not criminally so, but simply inefficient – get appointed to a Vatican office. The suggestion appeared to be that Francis is slowly getting rid of people he perceives as problems, in many cases by waiting for them to reach the normal retirement age and then appointing someone else. “‘I do not like conflicts,’ the pontiff said, ‘I am tired of repeating this.’” (San Martin) At the end of her article, San Martin, tells a beautiful story about Pope Francis which comes from La Nación article. The Pope welcomed to the Vatican a woman, Hebe de Bonafini, who is the founder of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo movement, a group of women who protest against the military killing of people in the past. De Bonafini is a divisive figure in Argentina and has said some nasty things about the Catholic Church and Francis. She asked the Pope for forgiveness and he did so. “She is a woman who had two of her children killed. I bend over, kneel down in front of such suffering. I do not care what she said about me. And I know she has said horrible things in the past.” (Francis)

The pope has and continues to appoint people to important positons who are his allies. Here is one recent example (taken from The Tablet, Christopher Lamb, “United States: Pope appoints ally to bishops Congregation,” July 16, 2016). “Pope Francis has named one of his allies among the United States’ Catholic leadership to sit on an important Vatican bishop-making body. The Archbishop of Chicago, Blase Cupich, will be a member of the Congregation for Bishops giving him a key voice in future appointments to the episcopate. It signals an attempt by the Pope to remodel the leadership of the United States Church as perceived as out of step with the direction of Francis’ papacy and overly focused on gay marriage, abortion and contraception.” Cupich was Francis’ pick to head the Archdiocese of Chicago and he shares the Pope’s desire for a more compassionate Church which is willing to serve the poorest people. 9

If you are looking for good resources that will help you with your ongoing understanding of Amoris Laetitia, I suggest the following three which are excellent, trustworthy, balanced, and fair in their comments: a) The National Catholic Reporter at www.ncronline.org b) The Tablet at www.thetablet.co.uk c) CRUX at https://cruxnow.com And, of course, do not forget Origins (see information on page 4 of PART SIX of the Musings).

Please allow me to end our long reflection on Amoris Laetitia including its acceptance and some strong opposing reactions to it with the following statements/thoughts: a) There are people who think in the future we will have schisms or splits in the Church because of some strong differences among various present Catholic groups/groupings. I do have some fear that this could happen but I am more confident in the presence of the Risen One and His Spirit in His Church who will see to it that this kind of thing will not happen. So in spite of what we know and have learned, let us keep up our Hope and our mission to support Christ’s vicar, Pope Francis. b) For our religious/Faith purposes, let us all use the following statement of Pope Francis from Amoris Laetitia: “love opens our eyes and enables us to see beyond all else, the great worth of a human being.” If all of us who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ live out this axiom, which is the basic commandment of love, all will be well, all will be well (to paraphrase Julian of Norwich). c) “We have to give our leadership the time to get Amoris Laetitia right so that its importance is not dismissed. That leads to our next point. After Amoris Laetitia, anyone who continues to insist that Francis is not bringing change to the Catholic Church either misunderstands the deeper message of this apostolic exhortation – and the Francis pontificate – or is deliberately trying to mislead people.” (Editorial, “Take Amoris Laetitia’s challenge seriously,” National Catholic Reporter, April 22 – May 5, 2016) d) In one very important sense, let us all be, in the best sense of the words, traditional Catholics: Rome has spoken clearly and tells us that Francis’ Amoris Laetitia is to be firmly accepted as authoritative Church teaching. Let us do so. So be it! e) Let us all make a serious commitment to prayer for the new Church that is developing right before our eyes! In much prayer there is a fantastic amount of power, understanding, and help (grace). Let us especially use the advice of Padre Pio, i.e., “pray and do not worry.” f) And thank you for using part of your summer-time to read and digest these Musings and becoming a better informed disciple of Christ.

May our loving merciful God bless you and listen to all your prayers; may He/She let you find Him/Her whenever you seek God with all your heart (Jeremiah). Amen!

Father Fred Scinto, C.R., Resurrection Ministries, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. ([email protected]) (519-885-4370 or toll free 1-877-242-7935)

10