RES NOVAE

PERSPECTIVES ROMAINES Lettre mensuelle d’information ❚ N° 1 ❚ Septembre 2018 ❚ Année I ❚ 3 €

PRÉSENTATION Dans un monde qui bouge de Après le pontificat bergoglien, plus en plus et dans une Église qui se trouve constamment sous retour en arrière ou fuite en avant les feux des projecteurs, les in- formations importantes et le sens fter Bergoglio’s pontificate, what next ? à leur apporter risquent d’être Last May, the French weekly Christian magazine Golias, a voice ensevelis sous la masse des com- for left leaning christians, appeared pessimistic in regards to the mentaires, des opinions et des A evolution of the Bergoglian pontificate in which it had initially fausses nouvelles. À l’heure où founded so many hopes : « Francis is failing, wrote Gino Hoel. (…) After five il est urgent de restaurer le ma- years, the Bergoglian system, out of breath, is no longer holding up. Reforms gistère et l’autorité pontificales appear as short term solutions, in truth unambitious ; as to the men in charge, pour que l’Église puisse poursui- they do not seem at all adequate. » The publication explained the failure of vre sa mission reçue du Christ, the ’s visit to chile was due to reforms that went never beyond mere an- Res Novæ se veut un outil d’in- nouncements. Today, to these incriminations, we could add : financial corrup- formations et d’analyses au ser- L’ÉDITORIAL tion as well as protection of a prelate guilty of sexual abuse, both accusations vice du pouvoir pétrinien. made against no less than Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga, coordinator for the C9 Council of Cardinals ; then there are also accusations against the Pope himself by Archbishop Viganò concerning the handling of a scandal worst INDEX than Maciel’s, Cardinal McCarrick’s wrongdoings. Page 1 In reality the « progressivism » of the pontificate appears twice archaic, de- Benoît XVI ❚ Mgr Victor Manuel pending how one looks at it from two opposite views. Fernández ❚ Pape François ❚ Gino On the one hand, it seems inadequate. Indeed, a very much alive part of ca- Hoel ❚ Hans Küng ❚ Emmanuel Macron ❚ cardinal Rodriguez Ma- tholicism, often qualified as identitarian, does not recognise itself in the di- radiaga ❚ Mgr Theodore Edgar rection taken by Rome today. This translates into a bitter frustration of the McCarrick ❚ Karl Rahner ❚ Edward clergy and the faithful, relayed on various blogs so-called « Ratzingerians ». Schillebeeckx ❚ Henri Tincq ❚ Jus- tin Trudeau❚ Mgr Carlo Maria Vi- It also allows for recompositions and reconciliations, in particular with the ganò « Lefebvrists » of the SSPX, accustomed since the Vatican II council to living Amoris Lætitia ❚ G9 ❚ Golias a certain distance away from the rest of the catholics. ❚ ❚ Hebdo Le Monde La grande On the other hand, Francis’ progressivism is no longer really in phase with peur des catholiques de France Page 2 the state of today’s catholicism in Europe, or at least what is left of it : a ca- Benoît XVI ❚ Mgr Theodore Edgar tholicism widely impregnated by liberal relativism in its postmodern version, McCarrick ❚ Willem Jacobus Eijk ❚ heavily individualistic. This « Bourgeois » catholicism, in its German accep- Pape François ❚ Jean-Paul II ❚ Mgr Luis Ladaria ❚ Père Marcial Ma- tion of the word, in reality is a religion where doctrines, practices and norms, ciel ❚ cardinal ❚ car- but also Last Things, sacramental confession, education of the youth to purity, dinal ❚ Sandri ❚ rejection of contraception and abortion are put peacefully in parenthesis. Such Edward Schillebeeckx ❚ Cardinal Adrianus Simonis ❚ cardinal Angelo catholicism integrates quite well into a society with which it shares advances, Sodano ❚ Mgr Carlo Maria Viganò ❚ as it is now liberated of the progressist militancy of the Sixties and Seventies. cardinal Johannes Willebrands ❚ But, if is not from the ranks of the sons of Rahner, Küng and cardinal Schillebeeckx, he remains the open-minded man overcome by French and ❚ Follieri Group ❚ New Catholic Register American Jesuits post-catholicism. Basically, which pretends to organise the liberty of conscience, is from an other era. So then, what next ? Will the future be about a fast forward liberal escape, always Abonnement : 30 €/1 an ; numérique : 20 €/1 an ; keeping with the times, with a future pope like a Trudeau, in Canada or a Macron, in France ? Nothing is less certain. The former religious columnist of the French soutien : à partir de 50 €. La lettre mensuelle Res Novæ est éditée newspaper Le Monde, Henri Tincq, in his book « The great fear of French catho- par EHN. lics », worries that the next pontifical election gives way to a « reaction » making Éditorialiste : Abbé Claude Barthe. Francis’ pontificate a mere « parenthesis ». Actually, a conservative come back, Correspondant à Rome : Don Pio Pace. to the position of Benedict XVI, would only bring us to the same unfinished Contact : [email protected] state… unless, the occasion is ceased to break with the circle, to engage towards Commission paritaire : en cours. ◆ Directeur de la publication : Ch. Sergent. « res novae », towards things that, because they are eternal, are truly new. Fr. C. Barthe ◗ The Viganò document, in- had retired in 2006, to withdraw of all Without a doubt, at different time in dicative of a systemic crisis : public activities and to consecrate history, some prelates have indulged himself to prayer and penance. themselves in scandalous mundane li- The explosive testimony published by Third phase : in 2013, after the elec- festyles, but it seems that since the last Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, for- tion of Pope Francis, election in which Council, a porosity ever more impor- mer nuncio to the United States, re- McCarrick played an important role, tant with respect to an oppressing mo- veals a major ecclesial crisis. The albeit explicit warnings given by Nun- dernity, takes away all defences. It is frightening wrongdoings of Theodore cio Viganò, Cardinal McCarrick was particularly noticeable with the inva- McCarrick, Cardinal of the Roman called back by the newly elected Pope sion of repugnant sins, followed by Church, who for a long time corrupted and became one of his close advisers. media covered repentances when an seminarians and priests are, in a sense, In the end though, McCarrick was ascetic and spiritual reform is what worst than the illicit actions of a Father eventually caught up by the heaviness should be engaged instead. It is even Maciel with the Legionaries of Christ. of his file, and forced to resign his po- more true with respect to the teaching The reading of the document reveals sition as cardinal. of the message of the Gospel which has three phases in the matter. This third phase, during which been asepticized, watered-down. P.P. First phase : since 2000, Cardinal So- McCarrick was used in a manner one dano, Secretary of State, had duly been could qualify of machiavellian, is of ◗ The new Dutch catechism informed of the conduct of McCarrick an inexcusable gravity. But it is the of Cardinal Eijk as a priest and as a prelate. But, even- first phase which is the most scanda- though he had, the serial predator still lous. It actually adds up, at the end of The discrete and determined appearance became Archbishop of Washington, in the pontificate of John-Paul II, to the of the Cardinal of is an occur- 2000, and then Cardinal, in 2001. In- feverish financial activities of the So- rence to be added to other episcopal deed, McCarrick had numerous sup- dano, Sandri, and Martino, all belon- speeches, until others follow. Willem Jacobus Eijk, 65 years old, a spe- port in Rome, notably because of the ging to the Follieri Group, and to the cialist in medical ethic (he wrote a doc- financial contributions he handled. emergence of Father Maciel’s affair. torate thesis on euthanasia and an other Second phase : in 2009 or 2010, Bene- In this respect, the election of on genetic manipulation) has been a bi- dict XVI, as he did with Fr. Maciel, Benedict XVI had been largely motiva- shop since 1999. He had been « made » imposed on Cardinal McCarrick who ted by a desire of purification. by Cardinal Simonis the man of the re- versal, aiming to restore the church of Holland. Benedict XVI appointed him Archbishop of Utrecht in 2007, succee- ding to cardinal Simonis, and later made MORE ON THE GERMAN AFFAIR : him cardinal, in 2012. He presided the WHAT ABOUT THE MAGISTERIUM ? Conference of bishops up to 2016. It happens, in the years after the On february 22, 2018, Cardinal Marx, President of the German Episcopal Council, the seat of Utrecht had been Conference, announced that the majority of the bishops had approved a occupied by Cardinal Willebrands, document seeking to allow spouses of mixed marriages to participate to- who was at the same time President of gether in the . The document had found its inspiration in the dis- the Secretariat for Christian Unity, position of Amoris Laetitia on the access of divorced and remarried and who represented the advanced persons to the Eucharist (these couples being accompanied). ecumenical spirit (« One must not On March 22, seven German bishops reacted calling on the Pope. Cardi- speak of “return” in regards to sepa- nal Woelki, Archbishop of , the Bishops of Augsburg, Passau, rated Christians »). Eichstätt, Bamberg, Rastibon, and Görlitz presented the Prefect of the Today, in the Netherlands, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith what they have called their gives his support to the Dubia on com- « dubia ». Their main question : if a protestant shares the faith of a catholic munion to remarried divorcées, and on the Eucharist mustn’t he become catholic ? In other words : isn't the questions the silence of the Magiste- ecumenism of Cardinal Marx the end of the missionary spirit ? rium regarding communion to Luthe- On May 3rd, representatives of both parties were called to the Palace of rans. This is from the same the Holy Office for a discussion presided by Msg. Ladaria, Prefect of the Netherlands where the very influential Congregation. In the end… Rome decided nothing. Msg. Ladaria asked « rupture » dominican theologian Ed- them to find among themselves « an agreement as unanimous as possible ». ward Schillebeeckx had shine and A bit embarrassed, on June 4, he « put a hold » on the document and ex- from the same Netherlands where, in plained he had to engage into a reflection on the question. 1966, the famous Dutch Catechism Rome doesn’t have an answer… In the May 7th 2018 edition of the Natio- had been published, a catechism that nal Catholic Register, Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk, Archbishop of were to go so astray from orthodoxy. Utrecht, had solemnly warned : « in failing to clarify the matter, great From Willebrands to Simonis, and confusion increases among the faithful, and it is the Church unity itself from Simonis to Eijk, it is a new world which is threatened ». Pio Pace that has started to rise. And, in any case, it is an old world that has depre- ciated itself. H.C.

2 - SEPTEMBRE 2018