THE POPE REASSERTS HIS POWER

Patrick Marnham on how the Pope will use Vatican II to out-manoeuvre the

progressive forces in the Catholic Church

Rome THE unexpected announcement of an extraordinary synod of bishops to be held in Rome next November has caused considerable alarm among the more prog- ressive members of the Catholic Church. In Rome last week one lecturer in theology said that he had received fearful letters from as far away as Jamaica and Australia. From Lesotho a Dominican priest wrote to the Tablet to say that the synod filled him With trepidation. `Ever since the close of Vatican II twenty years ago there have been powerful elements in the Roman Curia doing their best to hijack Vatican II to destinations they regard as safer than the one intended by the council fathers.'

But if the progressive forces in the Catholic Church fear the forthcoming Synod, and they have every reason to do so, it should not be because Pope John Paul H plans to put the clock back. The reason why the progressives should fear this synod is because, through it, the Pope Plans to do exactly what the progressives are always urging him to do, re-emphasise the authentic intentions of the Second Vatican Council. In doing this he will call the progressives' bluff. For the progres- sives Vatican II has become a symbol, Perhaps the only religious symbol such admirably literal-minded people allow themselves. As a symbol it is sacrosanct. But symbolism has never been the progres- sives' strong point. Vatican II was not a symbol. It was an historical event and its authority lies in a long list of published documents. When these are re-examined the authority for the progressive plan for the future direction of the Catholic Church collapses like a house of cards.

The view of the Catholic Church re-

ceived in many parts of the world today is Of an institution which, by reason of a uniquely important event, the Vatican Council, is undergoing a revolution. It is Said that there has been an essential change In the nature of the Church's authority; that a decision has been taken for the Church to concern itself increasingly with such temporal issues as will be aired during next week's papal visit to Holland; that heresy has become an old-fashioned no-

tion, replaced by a liberal tolerance of 'unorthodox' theology; and that the laity has an independent and fundamental role to play in the government of the modern Church. Every one of these propositions has the virtue, for progressive Catholics, of recommending the Church more seductive- ly to the non-Catholic or non-Christian world, and every one of them appears to be false.

Contrary to the popular view, the Second Vatican Council was not of unique importance. It was merely the most recent in a series of 21 ecumenical councils of the Church, each of which still enjoys the same authority. None of the decrees of Vatican II can contradict, for instance, the decrees of the Council of Nicaea which took place in 787. The Council of Trent (1545-63), which was chiefly concerned with opposing the doctrines of the Protestant reforma- tion, established a universal liturgy (the Tridentine rite). Following Vatican II that rite was replaced but it was not invalidated; it will always remain valid and potentially available by reason of the authority with which it was established. It is for this reason that the Catholic Church can never be a genuinely revolutionary body but will always remain a thoroughly conservative one. It is for ever locked into its own past and chained to its claim to be the sole guardian of a system of revealed truth. So if one wishes to know the Church's final answer on the question of whether or not the concept of heresy can be abandoned, one does not have to seek the self- interested views of the television theolo- gian of one's choice. One merely has to consult the decrees of the Second Council of Nicaea and read: `Anyone who does not accept the whole of the Church's Tradi- tion, both written and unwritten, anathema sit.' That is not a contentious assertion, it is

a statement of fact. The wonder is not, as the progressives would have it, that such antediluvian rulings have survived, the wonder is that a large section of Catholic opinion has been allowed to behave for so long as though they had not survived.

The explanation must lie in the Vatican's traditional patience and ability to see the problems of the moment through the pers-

pective of centuries. This is not an approach which journalists can find sym- pathetic. For the Vatican, the last `news story' was the life and death of Jesus Christ. The next news story will be Armageddon. No other news bears more than a relative importance. But the press has to sell papers every day and in the 1960s the Vatican was faced with a poten- tially disastrous pressure for novelty and change. The press's need to provide novel- ty and the Vatican's need to provide a smokescreen coincided most effectively. Behind the smokescreen of unorthodoxy, it is becoming increasingly evident, an entirely orthodox Church has survived and may now be ready to reveal itself.

The current bogeyman of progressive Catholicism is Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect for the Congregation for the Doc- trine of the Faith ('the Holy Office'). It was the Holy Office which recently condemned 'liberation theology' and Ratzinger himself who refuted the views of the 'unorthodox' Brazilian theologian, Father Boff. For progressive Catholics the activities of Car- dinal Ratzinger and his congregation are an outrage. They ignore the fact that he

was once one of the enfants terribles of the

Vatican Council. They consider, quite rightly, that he is now opposed to unli- mited freedom of theological expression; they mutter about the Inquisition and point out, in the shorthand of Catholic political

abuse, that this former Archbishop of Munich is a Bavarian. They will no doubt be appalled to learn that Cardinal Ratzin- ger is likely to play a very important part in the extraordinary synod.

The progressives may wonder why the prefects of Curial congregations, the old enemy, should play any part at all in a synod of bishops. The synod has its own permanent organisation in Rome, with its own general-secretary who until last week was the highly independent Czech, Archbishop Josef Tomko. Then Archbishop Tomko was removed, prom- oted to Cardinal and made a Curial pre- fect. Tomko's successor may not be well placed to resist the influence of Cardinal Ratzinger, whose congregation has already submitted a discussion paper for the even- tual consideration of the synod. There are 'indications', in a phrase popular with Vaticanologists, that Cardinal Ratzinger will choose to make the synod a test of strength between the post-conciliar Curia and the progressive hierarchy.

The issue is likely to be simple and to be foreshadowed in the short list of questions posed to the bishops which has just been sent out from Rome. Question Three is: 'Are there any errors or abuses in the interpretation and application' of the Council? It would be surprising if the discussion of that question did not, at Cardinal Ratzinger's prompting, include some mention of the misunderstandings which have arisen about the true nature of authority in the post-conciliar Church.

Catholic progressives cite as the most important change introduced by the Second Vatican Council two doctrines, ecumenism and collegiality. The first is well-known and constantly in the news; the second, which deals with authority, is hardly ever considered although it affects the whole work of the Council. Almost every innovation of recent years, from liberation theology to the presence on what was formerly regarded as a sacrificial altar of some untalented amateur performer with her banjo, can finally be traced to the idea of 'collegiality'. The First Vatican Council of 1870 stated that 'the Pope possesses full and supreme power over the whole Church'. That decree, which was aimed against the notion of 'episcopalism' (power shared by all the bishops), was complemented, though naturally not con- tradicted, by the statement of the Second Vatican Council that 'the college of bishops has supreme and full authority over the universal Church'. This is col- legiality, the popular notion of which is that authority in the Church today has, except in a few special areas, been filtered down through the college of bishops to the priests and lay members of the Church.

The real nature of collegiality was stated by Karol Wojtyla in Sources of Renewal, a book he wrote before he became pope and has subsequently revised. In this he states: 'The Roman Pontiff. . . as Vicar of Christ. . . has full, supreme and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.' The order of bishops also enjoys supreme power but only 'together with their head, the Supreme Pontiff, and never apart from him. . . . The college of bishops has no authority unless united with the Roman Pontiff.' Furthermore, the supreme power of the bishops is only exercised in an ecumenical council and that is always called by the Pope, presided over by him and confirmed by him. They evidently know even more about watertight con- tracts in the Vatican than they do in Hollywood or the Bronx. And lest anyone wonders whether Cardinal Wojtyla was making it up as he went along, every one of his statements is confirmed in Vatican Council II, edited by Father Austin Flan- nery OP, a collection (in English) of the Conciliar documents. In other words there can be no question at all, if a conflict ever arose between the supreme power of the Pope and the supreme power of the bishops, which would prevail, since the bishops cannot even exercise their supreme power unless they are summoned to an ecumenical council by the Pope, at which council he can at any stage veto their authority by disagreeing with them. In summary the doctrine of collegiality, so far from introducing a fundamental change in the nature of Catholic authority, actually emphasises the primacy of Peter.

This is not to say that the Second Vatican Council was an unimportant event which failed to change the Church. What seems to have happened is that for 20 years the Pope and his Curia have kept the Church on a long rein. They realised that if they tried to resist it, the movement for change could destroy the Church. Many of the changes which have taken place will be permanent. (It is difficult to imagine the Tridentine rite being reintroduced as the norm, for instance.) But, as I was told in the Holy Office last week: 'It is part of Catholic doctrine that the Pope is the final authority, the Holy Office is the guardian of his authority and eternal truths are not up for majority votes.' In the most cour- teous way possible the forthcoming synod may be the first assembly of the hierarchy to be made aware of this turn of the tide.

If this analysis is correct the new direc- tion will become evident to most people in the fate of the ecumenical movement. At times in the last 20 years enthusiasm for institutional amalgamations has seemed to sweep all before it. But it has recently been slowed down by awkard little points of belief which none of the individual chur- ches involved is prepared to abandon. If belief is so important, then it should never be sacrificed to bureaucratic uniformity. Twenty years after the Vatican Council, the remaining divisions between the Christian denominations do not seem so much 'a scandal' as a strength. Oddly enough Buckingham Palace and the Vati- can may have been less at odds last week than appeared. The Queen's decision to cancel Prince Charles's mass was preceded by a little noticed statement from the Pope that the future of the ecumenical move- ment lay in 'reconciled diversity'.

Listening to the cogitations of the Bishop of Durham, one of the leading Catholic members of the Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission said: 'Of course we never discussed the Resurrection because we assumed we agreed on the Creed.' If one Christian Church wishes to appoint one bishop who queries the creed and another (the Bishop of Salisbury) who believes that much of the New Testament is anti-semitic and should be repudiated by Christians, let it do so. But it can hardly complain if other Christian Churches wish to retain the concept of heresy. It is hard to see how the existence of two such different ways to a knowledge of God can be described as 'a scandal', since if such differences exist different institutions should also exist to accommodate them.

If the progressive movement in the Church has indeed lost the initiative after 20 fat years, its adherents will blame many people. They will blame bogeymen like Cardinal Ratzinger, or regret that the Pope is a Pole, or search (incredibly) for the agents of President Reagan. But they would do better to blame themselves. Immediately after the Council, when the progressives were at the zenith of their influence in Rome, they used the central authority of the papacy happily and ruth- lessly against the small, unhappy rump of Catholic traditionalists who preferred the old ways. Archbishop Lefebvre was driven (not entirely unwillingly it must be said) to the point of defiance and then excommuni- cated. Now that the progressives have lost their influence with the central authorities it turns out that they were bitterly opposed to central authority all the time. Their arguments have been marked throughout by what might, in a less charitable debate, have been called intellectual dishonesty and by a consistent desire to not so much modernise the Church as secularise it.

November's synod will be a sincere celebration of the Council and an attempt to regain some of its inspiration, but it will finally be dominated by the Pope. Behind the headlines, John Paul II has been working quietly to stamp his pontificate with his view of the Church. It is an irredeemably spiritual view, which is one reason why he is so unpopular with the more progressive members of his flock. But this spiritual leader is a sufficiently practical politician to out-manoeuvre the Catholic progressives. He learnt his politics in a harder school.

If he were asked what his own wishes for the synod were he might refer his question- ers once again to Sources of Renewal, where he wrote: 'All that Vatican II has said must be subjected to the principle of the integration of faith,' and he referred to the teaching of Paul VI, the 'progressive' Pope, who said in his Credo that the teaching of Vatican II must be organically inserted into the whole deposit of faith, so as to be integrated with the teaching of all preceding Councils and pontiffs. Karol Wojtyla concluded by scolding those who divided the Church into integralists' and 'progressives', saying that all should be integralists. . . .

Ex Roma nun quam aliquid novi. After all, the news from Rome is no news'.