RES NOVAE

ROMAN PERSPECTIVE - English Edition International monthly newsletter of analysis and prospective ❚ N° 2 ❚ October 2018 ❚ Année I ❚ 3 € Published in French, English and Italian PRÉSENTATION In an ever changing world and Who killed catholicism in ? in a Church constantly in the spotlights, the important infor- mations and the meaning to give them may be buried under a he reform pushed forth by Yves Congar in his 1950 book, True and mass of commentaries, opinions False Reform in the Church, has today all the appearances of a false and fake news. At a time when it reform. This is what comes out of Guillaume Cuchet’s book, a pro- is urgent to restore the magiste- T fessor at the Institut catholique in Paris, How our world ceased to rium and pontifical authority so be christian, Anatomy of a collapse (Seuil, 2018). The author explains the spec- that the Church may continue its tacular collapse of Sunday attendance since 1965 in France (25 % in the be- mission received from Christ, ginning of the 1960’s, today they are only 1.8 %) : after 1965, the young Res Novæ intends to be an infor- generations of catholics no longer profited from the transmission of the heritage mational and analysis tool at the and have fallen out en masse. service of the petrinian power. All the western european countries have experience this dechristianisation, but By subscribing now you will L’ÉDITORIAL in Belgium the collapse was astonishing. In 1962, in Flanders, Sunday atten- help with the start of Res Novæ dance was over sixty per cent of the population, and in Wallonia thirty per cent and its development. which was considered « low », while at the time its eight dioceses had a total of ten thousand priests. Today, attendance reaches a low three per cent, with three thousand six hundred priests, with an average age of seventy three, wi- INDEX thout any hope of a renewal : seventy seminarians, of which only twenty five Page 1 Guillaume Cuchet ❚ Yves Congar in Flanders, once a haven for priestly vocations. ❚ ❚ Josef De One must admit their pastors as Conciliar Fathers were rather of an “opened Kesel ❚ Mgr André-Joseph Léo- mind”. Cardinal Leo-Joseph Suenens (1961-1979), one of Vatican II strategist, ❚ nard cardinal Carlo Maria Martini incidentally deeply marian, exercised a true authority within the assembly to ❚ cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier ❚ Paul VI ❚ cardinal ❚ which he was one of the four moderators, notably in the battle on collegiality. Léon-Joseph Suenens ❚ cardinal Although very trusted by Paul VI, yet he would not succeed in convincing the Joseph-Ernest Van Roey pope about the legitimacy of contraception. Page 2 Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio ❚ cardi- Suenens begot Danneels, to speak like the gospel genealogies. Cardinal God- nal Gottfried Danneels ❚ Josef De fried Danneels (1979-2010), although himself not a one way mind either (his Kesel ❚ cardinal ❚ Jean- remarks on the liturgy being non-manipulable and a place of silence, could Paul II ❚ cardinal Audrys Juozas Backis ❚ cardinal ❚ have been also assumed by a Cardinal Sarah), took over carrying the torch. cardinal Karl Lehmann ❚ chanoine Later, he would recall having been part of a « St. Gallen Group », whose foil Pierre de Locht ❚ cardinal Carlo figure was Cardinal Ratzinger and the reference Cardinal Martini, archbishop ❚ Maria Martini cardinal Jügen of Milan. Like Martini, Danneels was favorable to some moral openness (de- Mettepenningen ❚ cardinal Cor- mac Murphy-O’Connor ❚ cardinal claration on the symbolic questions on condoms, and on homosexual tenden- Jean-Louis Tauran ❚ Cardinal cies), and to institutional openness as well (maximum synodality). Danneels’ Karim Schelkens ❚ cardinal Achille spiritual son, following the inconclusive restoration lead by Msg. André-Joseph Silvestrini Léonard (2010-2015), today is found in . But this set course followed by the archbishops of is not the only Subscription : €30.00 yearly ; explanation to the social disappearance of catholicism in Belgium. If, for exam- E-subscription : €20.00 yearly ; ple, institutions as eminent as Maredsous Abbey and the Catholic University Donor subscription : starting at in Leuven, were able to go astray, one in regards to religious life under Abbot €50.00. du Roy, the other in regards to moral teaching, it is because belgian catholicity, IBAN : FR76 3006 6108 4500 0201 during the time of cardinals Mercier and Van Roey, certainly rich in all respects, 7170 155. The monthly newsletter Res Novæ is published by EHN (12, rue Ro- was nonetheless undermined : the common culture in which it seemed well an- senwald, 75015 Paris). chored would become more and more fragile within the structures of demo- Editor in Chief : Rev Fr. Claude Barthe. cratic modernity, specially since the end of the last war. Instead of the true Correspondant : Don Pio Pace reform, which would have stimulated belgian catholicity, came the false re- Contact : [email protected] form : suddenly it was infused with an ecclesial decal of this modernity, inspi- CPPAP : underway red, more importantly, in a maximalist way, by Suenens and his sons. Director of publication : Ch. Sergent. Of this catholicity, there is nothing left. Abbé Claude Barthe ◆ ◗ The St. Gallen Group and of Europe which gathered in tampering activity : on 20 Septem- the « Martini hypothesis » St. Gallen, Council previously presi- ber, 2005, the italian review Limes, ded by Cardinals Etchegaray and in an article from L. Brunelli (« Cosi K. Schelkens and J. Mettepennin- Hume successively. eleggemmo papa Ratzinger »), publi- gen’s book Gottfried Danneels But Martini, who had retired in 2002, shed the « secret journal of the (, Polis, 2015) revealed was now ill with Parkinson’s disease. conclave » that he claims he obtained what the Cardinal of Mechelen So, during the 2005 conclave, the from a cardinal, in which we find out later confirmed : he had participated, group had laid up its hopes with that Jorge Bergoglio had, nonethe- from 1996 to 2006, with Cardinals Cardinal Bergoglio, Jesuit archbi- less, obtained forty votes, to Ratzin- Martini, Lehmann, Kasper, Silves- shop of Buenos Aires. Bergoglio re- ger, seventy two. And to show that trini, and Hume, in informal mee- ceived its maximum votes in the the fight went on, Cardinal Silves- tings in St. Gallen, Switzerland, third round, on 19 April 2005. Rather trini had had published the picture of with the purpose to organise the re- than attempting unreliable blocking, a « secret » meeting held at the Villa sistance against the restoration he asked for electors to stop voting Nazareth, the house an educational movement of John Paul II’s pontifi- for him. In the fourth round, charity to which he was the patron. cate and to prevent Cardinal Ratzin- Ratzinger was elected with eighty On the picture, Silvestrini appeared ger to succeed him. Their hopes four votes. with Cardinals Danneels, Backis laid up with Jesuit Cardinal Martini, Disappointed, the Group members, from Vilnius, Kasper, Lehmann, archbishop of Milan. It happens that now greatly augmented, immediately Martini, Murphy-O’Connor of West- up until 1993 he had presided over started to prepare a future pontifi- minster, and French Cardinal Tauran. the Council of ’ Conferences cate. Let us recall the first act of this The latter who, as first Cardinal-Dea- con, would have to announce, on 13 March 2013, the election of Martini redivivus. P.P. CARDINAL JOZEF DE KESEL : SECULARISATION AS GRACE ◗ Brussel churches opened Jozef De Kesel, an intelligent and courteous man, was born in Ghent in 1947. First a teacher, he was later appointed auxiliary of Meche- Opened to gay pride participants : len-Brussel in 2002. on May 27th, 2006, as part of the In the old debate on re-married divorces, he gave his support to Fr. Herman Gay pride festivities, Our Lady of Cosijns, who had become Secretary to the Bishops’ conference, who be- Good Help parish had organised a lieves « for a christian, a second marriage (after a divorce) should be consi- mass celebrated with the Community dered as an opportunity to grow in the love of God […] The second of Christ Liberator, announced marriage thus acquiring a religious dimension and being able to be expe- through a poster campaign. rienced as a way of sanctification, a path suggested by God. » The altar cloth was in the colours The same Fr. Cosijns thinks homosexual persons can find the way of God of the rainbow. by living their relation (Pastoralia, review of the archdiocese of Meche- Opened to Muslims : All Saints day len-Brussel, May 1996). 2006, at the fourth congress for a , Bishop of Antwerp, added : « We must search within the New Evangelisation, after Paris, Church a formal acknowledgement of the relationality which is also pre- Lisbon and Vienna, an inter-religious sent in many bisexual and homosexual couples » (De Morgen, 27 Decem- concert was given in the church of ber, 2014). And J. De Kesel, after becoming a cardinal, declared himself Our Lady Immaculate, with the favorable to the celebration of a ceremony for homosexual unions (La muslim chorus Rafik El Maai, and Croix, 5 June, 2018). most of all, in the church of Saint- In the mean time, in 2010, it is Msg. Leonard, Bishop of Namur, that Be- Roch, took place an inter-religious nedict XVI had appointed archbishop of Mechelen, so to respect the in- vigil with readings and prayers taken formal principle of linguistic changeover. But pope Ratzinger nevertheless from the Bible and the Koran. set De Kesel on its way to success, by appointing him Bishop of Bruges. Opened to neo-moral justifications : While there, De Kesel raised the sempiternal question of the ordination of on March 17th, 2007, in Brussel’s married men : the « persons for whom celibacy is humanly impossible cathedral, Jozef De Kesel pronoun- should also have the opportunity to become priest » (a demand that his ced a funeral oration for Canon auxiliary in Brussel Msg. Kockerols just put forward at the Synod on Pierre de Locht, strong supporter Youth). As to the ordination of women, he said it could be addressed. And of Planned Parenthood, advocate Msg. Bonny to only push the matter further. for selective abortion, member The church is disappearing ? Godfried Danneels finds consolation : « What of the Right to Die Association. the Church has lost in quantity, she made it up in quality ». And Jozel De « Pierre de Locht, said De Kesel, Kesel takes on : « on condition of staying humble, in a secularised society, remained faithful to the Gospel, the church will represent « like a point of view and a possibility among and I can say, and I must say, others » (16 September, 2016). A way, a truth, a life among others. faithful to that same Church, People Pio Pace of God. » P.P.

2 - OCTOBRE 2018