SSPX 1 July 2026 Episcopal Consecrations

International Una Voce Federation (FIUV) on Future SSPX Consecrations

Una Voce International and the Latin Mass Society have heard with concern the announcement by the Superior General of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX), Fr Davide Pagliarani, that the SSPX will carry out Episcopal consecrations on 1st July this year.

Our ardent wish, shared by many Catholics of good will, is for the canonical regularisation of the SSPX, which would enable its many good works to bear the greatest possible fruit. This announcement is an indication that this outcome is a more distant prospect than it has seemed for many years.We share the SSPX’s goal, that the Church’s ancient liturgy be made available as widely as possible for the good of souls. We do not share the SSPX’s analysis of the crisis of the Church in all its details. In particular we know many Catholics able to attend the Traditional Mass with all the necessary permissions from the Church’s hierarchy, such that it is not necessary for them to seek it in any irregular context.

We also know, however, that for others, attending the Traditional Mass has been made very difficult: in some places, this is despite the desire of qualified priests to celebrate it for the faithful, and even the willingness of the local bishop to allow this. This creates an environment in which the SSPX argument of a ‘state of emergency’ gains sympathy.

We urge our bishops, and above all His Holiness Pope Leo XIV, to be mindful of these pastoral realities, which are at this moment precipitating a crisis whose consequences no one can foresee.

What Catholics attached to the ‘former Missal’ desire is not some harmful or novel liturgical form. Pope St John Paul II called our desire for this Missal a ‘rightful aspiration’ (Ecclesia Dei, 1988), and later Pope Benedict XVI described it as a source of ‘riches’ (Letter to Bishops, 2007).

The time to act is now.

Joseph Shaw
President, Una Voce International, and Chairman, Latin Mass Society

Monika Rheinschmitt
Vice President and Treasurer, Una Voce International

Andris Amolins
Secretary, Una Voce International

(FIUV is the largest international association of diocesan Catholics attached to the Traditional Mass.)
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SSPX Announces Future Consecrations for July 1st, 2026

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Communiqué

On this February 2, 2026, the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Father Davide Pagliarani, Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X, during the ceremony of imposition of the cassocks which he presided over at the International Seminary of St. Curé d'Ars in Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, France, publicly announced his decision to entrust the bishops of the Fraternity with the task of proceeding with new episcopal consecrations on July 1.

Last August, he requested an audience with the Holy Father, informing him of his desire to filialy explain the current situation of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X. In a second letter, he explicitly addressed the Fraternity's particular need to ensure the continuation of the ministry of its bishops, who have been traveling the world for nearly forty years to respond to the many faithful attached to the Tradition of the Church and desirous that the sacraments of Holy Orders and Confirmation be conferred for the good of their souls.

After much prayerful reflection, and having received a letter from the Holy See in recent days that in no way responds to our requests, Father Pagliarani, supported by the unanimous opinion of his Council, believes that the objective state of grave necessity in which souls find themselves requires such a decision.

The words he wrote on November 21, 2024, for the fiftieth anniversary of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's historic declaration, reflect his thoughts and intentions more than ever:

"It is only in the Church of all time and in her constant Tradition that we find the guarantee of being in the Truth, of continuing to preach and serve it. [...]

"The Society [of St. Pius X] does not seek first and foremost its own survival: it seeks primarily the good of the universal Church and, for this reason, it is par excellence a work of the Church, which with unique freedom and strength, responds adequately to the specific needs of an unprecedented tragic era.

"This single goal is still ours today, just as it was fifty years ago: “That is why, without any rebellion, bitterness, or resentment, we continue our work of priestly formation under the star of the Magisterium of all time, convinced that we cannot render a greater service to the Holy Catholic Church, to the Supreme Pontiff, and to future generations (Archbishop Lefebvre, Declaration of November 21, 1974).””

In the coming days, the Superior General will provide further explanations on the present situation and on his decision.

“Nos cum Prole pia benedicat Virgo Maria.
May the Virgin Mary bless us, together with her divine Son.”

Menzingen, February 2, 2026 [source]

https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2026/02/international-una-voce-federation-fiuv.html

https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2026/02/urgent-society-of-saint-pius-x-sspx.html

The Six American Cardinals Named by Francis

Here is the short list of the American Cardinals made by Pope Francis. Most, if not all, were very much McCarrick favorites. Therefore, we could very safely say that the American Cardinals made by Francis were also very much made by McCarrick. That cloud over the Church is very concerning. The cloud of faggotry, a McCarrick legacy, hangs heavy over the Church right now.

The morale of the Church hierarchy is at an all time low. And Pope Prevosto seems sound asleep, "a good listener," in this present confusion. Perhaps a McCarrick pick himself! He needs to prove to the Church that the McCarrick heritage is over and that he has nothing to do with the lavender mafia which has been manipulating the Vatican my entire lifetime. The confused liturgy and the disfunction of the Church's pastoral activity are symptoms of an evil hand: La Mano Nera! "An Italian gentleman, very influential in Rome, told me to push for Bergoglio...In five years he could re-make the Church." --McCarrick on the 2013 pre-conclave.

Half of the Cardinals made by Francis were made while Cardinal McCarrick was still in good standing, having been wrongly fully rehabilitated by Pope Francis after he had been told to lay low by Pope Benedict. By this list is seems obvious that McCarrick was closely advising Pope Francis on his American appointments. Cupich (2016-present) and Tobin (2021-[present?]) were on the Dicastery for Bishops under the Prefect of that Dicastery Robert Prevosto (2023-2025). This is very worrisome!

Also, Cupich and Farrell, since 1 June 2022, are members of the Dicastery of Divine Worship.

Cupich, born 19 March 1949 is 76 years old, soon to be 77! Why has he not been resigned?

19 November 2016

1. Blase Joseph Cupich (b. 1949)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blase_Cupich#Vigan%C3%B2_controversy

2. Kevin Joseph Farrell (b. 1947)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Farrell#Association_with_former_Cardinal_Theodore_McCarrick

3. Joseph William Tobin, C.Ss.R. (b. 1952)

28 November 2020

4. Wilton Daniel Gregory (b. 1947)

27 August 2022

5. Robert Walter McElroy (b. 1954)

30 September 2023

6. Robert Francis Prevost O.S.A. (b. 1955)


N.B. There are three modern idols: Jewry (the transhistorical international anti-Christ/anti-Catholic/anti-God movement), Usury and Faggotry: the devil, the world and the flesh. The solution is the evangelical counsels: Obedience, Poverty and Chastity. The solution, as always, is Christ, in His Church, boldly and generously following Him and His Gospel of life and love in the Communion of the Saints and of the Sacraments.

The McCarrick Boast Revisited, Wake-Up Call to Leo

The McCarrick Boast Revisited, Wake-Up Call to Leo

I probably posted the above video back when I watched it first.

You can tell a man by his friends.

The fact that the Church's College of Cardinals is presently manipulated by Pope Francis appointed McCarrick favorites, is a fact that cannot be lost on Pope Leo XIV. But The Lion seems to be sound asleep!

When the foxes are in the henhouse someone has to chase the foxes away! It is the chief job of the shepherd to ward off the abusers of the flock, the abusers in every respect. The present day ubiquitous liturgical bullying is akin to the widespread moral effeminacy among the pastors of the Church, and to it's twin, weakness in sound leadership.

Consider the "wolf in sheep's clothing" of the Regensburg Bishop's Garden, "The Goose-Sermon Fountain!" It is in the center of the Cathedral courtyard beside the medieval cathedral of Regensburg, Ratzinger's Regensburg!

The Gänsepredigtbrunnen (goose sermon fountain, 1980) depicts the medieval story of the Goose Sermon: a fox who was too slow to catch geese dressed up as a clergyman and gave a sermon to the geese. When the geese fell asleep, he was able to catch them. It’s an allegory about false preachers and their gullible believers.

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." --Jesus Christ (Matthew 7:15)

P.S. McCarrick and Bergoglio were created cardinals at the same consistory, 21 February 2001.

Here is the oath made by each cardinal at inserting his ballot at a conclave: "Testor Christum Dominum, qui me iudicaturus est, me eum eligere, quem secundum Deum iudico eligi debere."

"He's a good theology, he's an excellent philosopher!" McCarrick on Francis' teaching.

One great irony is that McCarrick's only conclave elected Joseph Ratzinger Pope! I sense some regret for that in this speech.

McCarrick died on 3 April, Bergoglio on 21 April 2025.

N. B. "On the other hand, maybe the devil did not have your accommodations ready." Pope Francis to McCarrick on the key to the latter's longevity.

Requiscant in pace!

SSPX SEMINARY USA

 https://www.youtube.com/@SSPX-STAS

This YouTube channel is very impressive! The schismatics are beating us at our own game.

Pope Leo XIV, please take notice!

The Rite Itself is Towards the Lord

The Question of the Traditional Mass in Pope Leo XIV’s Pontificate

Canon of Shaftesbury

We find ourselves in the early days of Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate, and there are reasons for cautious optimism. Several signs suggest that the Holy Father wishes to address some of the more pressing challenges inherited from his predecessor. Among these is the thorny question of access to the Traditional Latin Mass (what was once called the Extraordinary Form or Tridentine Mass) and the restrictions imposed by Traditiones Custodes.

I approach this question with the disposition we ought to have toward any successor of Peter: giving the benefit of the doubt, assuming good faith, and trusting in his pastoral intentions. Thus far, I do not detect in Pope Leo XIV any ill will toward those attached to the Traditional Mass. Yet good intentions alone do not guarantee wise policy, and two proposals currently being discussed as potential ‘solutions’ to the current impasse give me serious pause. Both, I would argue, fail to address the underlying problems and may even compound them.The Ordinariate Proposal: A Gilded Cage

The first proposal involves creating some form of personal ordinariate to oversee communities attached to the Traditional Mass. This has a certain administrative logic to it: provide a dedicated structure, remove these communities from the direct oversight of potentially hostile diocesan bishops, and create a stable canonical framework for their existence.

But this apparent solution conceals a fundamental problem: it would create a liturgical ghetto. The genius of Pope Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum was precisely that it refused this ghettoization. Pope Benedict recognized the Traditional Mass not as some exotic rite requiring special permissions and separate hierarchical structures, but as part of the Roman Rite itself: never abrogated, always legitimate, and available as a right to the faithful and to priests. The ordinary-extraordinary form distinction was meant to emphasize continuity, not division. It acknowledged that the Church prays in two forms of the same rite, both equally Roman, both equally Catholic.

An ordinariate structure, by contrast, would effectively declare: ‘This Mass is so problematic, so divisive, so other, that it cannot exist within normal diocesan structures.’ It would enshrine in canon law the very separation that Pope Benedict sought to overcome. Worse still, it would do nothing to address the problem of hostile bishops. In fact, it might embolden them. A bishop who has shown himself ungenerous—or outright antagonistic—toward the faithful attached to the Traditional Mass would simply have his prejudices validated: ‘See, these people and their liturgy are so different they need their own separate structure. They don’t really belong here.’

The faithful would be protected, perhaps, but at the cost of being formally marginalized. This is not a solution; it is an institutionalized retreat.

The “Reform of the Reform”: Necessary but Insufficient

The second proposal focuses on improving celebrations of the Novus Ordo; what is often called the ‘reform of the reform.’ Proponents argue that if the Ordinary Form were celebrated with greater reverence, solemnity, and attention to the sacred, many of the concerns driving people toward the Traditional Mass would dissipate.

This is not entirely wrong. Much of what ails Catholic liturgy today stems not from the Novus Ordo itself in its official form, but from the liberties, innovations, and abuses that have become routine in its celebration. A more reverent Novus Ordo: celebrated ad orientem, with Gregorian chant, in Latin where appropriate, with careful attention to rubrics, etc. This would undoubtedly be a vast improvement over what many Catholics experience on a typical Sunday.

But this approach, while laudable, does not go far enough. It treats the problem as primarily one of implementation when there are also questions of structure and theology embedded in the rite itself.

The Novus Ordo was not the product of organic liturgical development but of committee design. This is not a polemical claim but a historical fact. The post-Vatican II liturgical reform, whatever its intentions, created a rite that was substantially different from what preceded it; not through the gradual, Spirit-guided evolution that characterized liturgical development for centuries, but through deliberate committee construction in a remarkably short period of time.

Pope Benedict XVI himself was deeply aware of this problem. In his writings both as Cardinal Ratzinger and as Pope, he expressed concerns about the rupture in liturgical continuity and the dangers of treating the liturgy as something we construct rather than something we receive. His whole project in Summorum Pontificum was, in part, to restore that sense of organic continuity.

More troubling still is the way the Novus Ordo, in its typical celebration, places the priest at the center of the liturgical action. The structure of the rite, particularly when celebrated versus populum, tends to make the priest’s personality, choices, and even charisma central to the experience. The priest becomes, whether he wishes it or not, a kind of performer. The liturgy becomes, to a troubling degree, his creation.

This is not to say that priests celebrating the Novus Ordo are acting in bad faith or that Christ cannot be encountered there; of course He can and is. But the structure of the rite makes the centrality of Christ dependent on the priest’s willingness and ability to efface himself, to suppress his own personality, to resist the temptation to innovate or ‘personalize’ the liturgy.

In the Traditional Mass, by contrast, the priest’s personality is structurally suppressed. Facing the same direction as the people, following a more fixed and detailed rubrical structure, praying large portions of the Mass quietly, the priest becomes almost anonymous; a mediator rather than a protagonist. Christ is at the center not because the priest is particularly holy or particularly skilled, but because the structure of the rite itself directs all attention away from the priest and toward the altar, toward the sacrifice, toward the Lord.

It is no accident that so many churches built or renovated in the Novus Ordo era look like stadiums or auditoriums rather than sacred spaces. If the liturgy is fundamentally about what the priest does, about the community’s celebration, about active participation understood primarily as external activity, then the architectural logic follows: create a space where everyone can see the action, where the priest is visible and audible to all, where the focus is on the human gathering rather than on the divine presence.

A more reverent celebration of the Novus Ordo can mitigate some of these problems, but it cannot fully overcome them without structural changes so substantial that we would be, in effect, creating a different rite.

The Pastoral Ends

The real solution is not complicated, though it requires courage and perhaps a willingness to disappoint certain constituencies who have grown attached to the restrictions of Traditiones Custodes. The solution is to return to the dispensation of Summorum Pontificum. Pope Benedict’s motu proprio was wise precisely because it addressed all the problems that the current proposals fail to solve:

1. It dealt with hostile bishops. By establishing that priests have a right to celebrate the Traditional Mass without needing episcopal permission, and that faithful have a right to request it, Pope Benedict removed the question from the realm of episcopal whim and placed it on firmer canonical ground. A bishop could not simply forbid what the universal law of the Church permitted.

2. It refused ghettoization. By insisting on the ordinary-extraordinary form distinction, Pope Benedict kept the Traditional Mass within the normal life of dioceses and parishes. It was not an exotic import requiring special structures, but part of the Church’s living tradition.

3. It respected the freedom of the faithful. Pope Benedict understood that the faithful have a right (not merely a privilege) to access the Church’s liturgical heritage. The liturgy is not the property of bishops or popes to manipulate at will, but a sacred trust handed down through generations.

4. It created space for mutual enrichment. Pope Benedict hoped that the two forms of the Roman Rite would enrich each other: that the reverence and sacral character of the old would influence the new, while the new rite would encourage Catholics to engage actively with the liturgy, to better understand the texts, and to participate vocally in their appointed parts. These devotional habits, once cultivated, naturally enhance one’s experience of the traditional rite as well. But for this enrichment to work, it requires proximity, not separation.

Conclusion

Pope Leo XIV faces a difficult situation, and I do not envy him the task of navigating these troubled liturgical waters. But the path forward should not require novel structures or half-measures. Pope Benedict XVI, in his wisdom, already showed us the way. Summorum Pontificum was not perfect (no merely human legislation ever is) but it was fundamentally sound in its principles and generous in its pastoral vision.

What is needed now is not innovation but restoration: restoration of the freedom Pope Benedict granted, restoration of trust in the faithful, restoration of confidence that the Church is big enough to hold both forms of her Roman liturgical tradition without one threatening the other.

The Traditional Mass is not a problem to be managed or a crisis to be solved. It is a gift to be received, a treasure to be preserved, and a heritage to be passed on. The sooner we return to treating it as such, the sooner we can move past these exhausting controversies and return to the real work of the Church: the sanctification of souls and the worship of Almighty God.

The Man Behind Traditiones Custodes

Cardinal Roche Is Sad and Worried

January 19, 2026 — by elwanderer

Those who move through the Dicastery for Divine Worship say that in recent days Cardinal Roche has been seen with his head down; they find him sad and worried. And with good reason. His career as a bishop—now close to fading into the shadows of age—will have been a trail of failures. His episcopate in Leeds was disastrous, in many respects, including financially. That is why—and this is no secret—the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales asked Pope Benedict in 2012 to find him another post where he could do no harm to souls or to bank accounts. And good old Ratzinger could think of nothing better than to place him as Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, thereby making him the natural successor to Cardinal Robert Sarah. (Moral: to be a good ruler, it is not enough to be wise and pious.)

Roche’s failures as prefect were spectacular. The first of them was precisely Traditionis custodes. He was the one responsible for convincing Pope Francis to publish that ill-fated document, on a subject that did not interest the Argentine pontiff and that plunged him into one of the most significant avoidable and self-inflicted crises of his pontificate. Not only did it gain nothing, it plunged the Church into a permanent state of division, conflict, and sadness. The pax liturgica achieved with Summorum pontificum was inexplicably shattered by an unnecessary and mendacious document, since—documents in hand, as Nicola Bux and Saverio Gaeta have shown in their book La liturgia non è uno spettacolo: Il questionario ai vescovi sul rito antico: arma di distruzione di Messa?—the statistical reasons used to justify TC were grossly manipulated.

Worse still, by late 2022 it was known with certainty that Roche, Archbishop Viola (the dicastery’s secretary), and some adviser from Sant’Anselmo (Andrea Grillo?) were preparing a new document which, in the form of an apostolic constitution, would brutally restrict the traditional liturgy, taking particular aim at the so-called “Ecclesia Dei institutes.” Pope Francis, at the audience he granted Roche on February 20, 2023—as we reported here—not only did not sign any apostolic constitution but sent the cardinal packing, giving him only a rescript that scarcely altered the existing situation.

And now, with the change of leadership in Rome, and with the liturgical question once again in play under a Pope who wants to give it a definitive solution, who is not opposed to the traditional liturgy, and who wishes to return to that pax liturgica that would close a significant wound in the Church, Roche comes out with a document riddled with more holes than a Gruyère cheese. We will not repeat here the gross errors in the document signed by the cardinal—errors for which he now wanders like a lost soul through the silent corridors of his dicastery. They have been thoroughly dissected by theologians and experts whose opinions can be easily found on the usual websites. Curiously, as far as I know, it was defended by no progressive. Not even Andrea Grillo raised his voice this time.

On the tactical side as well, the blunder was colossal. Roche handed that very weak text to the cardinals before the topics to be addressed at the Consistory had even been decided. In other words, he showed his hand before the play that will ultimately take place next June. The cardinals will be fully informed of the unbearable lightness of Roche’s arguments, and in the coming months their inboxes will receive—respectfully and reverently—the opinions of their faithful on the matter, along with refutations of the arguments put forward by the prefect.

Finally, I add one striking aspect. These figures, so open to new ideas and diverse theologies, when it comes to the traditional liturgy become more orthodox than the most recalcitrant reactionary, invoking like geese the worn-out theological principle lex orandi, lex credendi. They invoke it and interpret it to suit themselves, deceiving in many cases those who lack the historical perspective to interpret it—that is, the majority of bishops and cardinals.

No one doubts the importance of unity in the faith. It is a fundamental principle of the Catholic Church that distinguishes it from other Christian denominations. Nor does anyone doubt that this unity is expressed in worship. But the deceptive argument lies in assuming that unity of faith is necessarily tied to unity of worship. To assume that is absurd. The Church has 24 rites, completely different from one another, and no one would think that a Chaldean from Iraq, a Copt from Egypt, or a Byzantine from Romania has a faith different from that of a Roman from Madrid or Bogotá. All share the one faith in Jesus Christ, and yet their worship—or lex orandi—is different.

Even if we focus on the West, Roche’s argument collapses under its own weight. If any Catholic of faith attends a Mass celebrated with the reformed Missal of Paul VI in Buenos Aires, he will find it quite different from the one he attends while on vacation in Mar del Plata, or Mendoza, or Paris, or New York. More still, if he goes to another church in his own city, the Mass will very likely change—and quite a bit—because we know that the novus ordo encourages improvisation and creativity on the part of celebrating priests. What unity in the lex orandi, then, is Cardinal Roche talking about?

More than that: it would be hard to find two historical periods in the Church in which unity of faith was pursued more vigorously than the 13th and 16th centuries. And yet any Catholic living in a European city of the time—say Lyon or Milan—if he attended Mass at his parish, it would be celebrated in the Lyonese or Ambrosian rite; if he went to the Franciscan convent twenty meters away, it would be celebrated in the Roman rite; if he walked two blocks to the Dominicans, he would find a Mass in the Dominican rite; a few steps further on, the Carmelites (of the Ancient Observance) would celebrate it in the Carmelite rite; and if he decided to make a retreat and went to a Carthusian monastery, the monks there would celebrate in the Carthusian rite. That is, within a radius of just a few kilometers, he would encounter five different forms of lex orandi without any harm to the lex credendi. And this situation endured well into the twentieth century.

As I said in a previous post, we cannot suppose that the cardinal prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship is unaware of these historical circumstances. My doubt is whether we can suppose that he wishes to deceive the faithful and his brother cardinals. And if that were the case, I would advise His Eminence to put more effort into his tricks and lies.

Vice President Vance at the March for Life, Again!

"What I Want Most in America is More Families and More Babies!" -Vance

"Be joyful in your advocacy."

Theme: Life is a Gift!

"Dobbs was the most important Supreme Court decision of my lifetime."

"There have been five decades of bad policy on the question of life."

"Throwing priests and grandmothers in prison for praying outside of a clinic. That is over. We stopped it."

"We are returning accountability to our foreign policy... Under Joe Biden, it was the policy of the United States to export abortion and radical gender ideology all around the world. That is what they did with your tax money. They would relentlessly bully developing countries into parodying the left wing views. But...we believe that every country in the world has the duty to protect life. And it is not our job to promote gender ideology. It is our job to promote families and human flourishing... We've turned off the tap from NGO's whose sole purpose is to dissuade people from having kids."

"And today, our administration is proud to announce a historic expansion of the Mexico City Policy. We’re going to start blocking every international NGO that performs or promotes abortion abroad from receiving a dollar of U.S. money."

Full Text Transcript

The Weakening of the Faith in Latin America

This is a trend that has been going on for decades.

Pope Francis did not curb the trend.

The obvious exception in the downward trend was Mexico which saw a 2% increase from 1995 to 2013! going from 77 to 79%. Now it is in sync with the rest at -14%!

Roche's "Healthy" Tradition: What a Splurge!

To the pessimists who insist on spreading the falsehood that the recent Consistory served only to let the cardinals experience “real” synodality—right there in the synodal hall, at the same tables and in the same format as the Synod on Synodality; to the dour souls who have failed to see how vital it has been for the Church that the cardinals at the round tables could share smiles without tears—it must be said that where smiles and debates have not reached, papers from on high have arrived.

Indeed, the hopes that part of the Church had placed in the Consistory—whose program included the long-awaited liturgical peace—have not been disappointed, even though this topic was ruled out from the very beginning for lack of time. The solution to the problem was entrusted to the cardinal to whom Pope Leo XIV has assigned the guardianship of tradition. A cardinal who is developing grand epistemological principles.

To begin with, Cardinal Roche seems to have discovered that worship has nothing to do with culture; that the decline of worship does not entail the weakening of culture. What a discovery, right? He has also discovered, in the exercise of his office as custodian of tradition (Traditionis custos), that one must discern (oh, holy discernment!) between “healthy” tradition and pathological tradition: the kind that is driven by the itch of a “pathological search for novelties” (he is referring, of course, to “traditionalist novelties” that the sickly lovers of tradition keep discovering in order to feed their pathology). Upon these two imposing pillars, His Eminence has constructed the edifice of the persecution of the obsessive reformers of the reform—an edifice he considers complete with Traditionis custodes, which, as he himself declares in his Consistory papers, issued from his own illustrious pen.

Roche has failed to notice that there is nothing more traditional than worship. That is why the first thing every new master sets about doing in his conquests is the destruction of worship and traditions: because tradition leads us to nostalgia for the past and distances us from the future. If tradition is not destroyed, there is no way to impose new ideas.

The fact is that, since there was no time to put the issue on the table, the Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship made up for that lack of time with his creative papers. However much one of the major aims of the Consistory was to train their Eminences in the practice of “listening,” Cardinal Roche brilliantly replaced that triviality with his carefully crafted documents.

Cardinal Roche states in his surreptitiously slipped-in text to the Consistory that “the reform of the liturgy ‘desired by the Second Vatican Council’ (not promulgated by the Council) is not only fully in tune with ‘the truest sense of tradition’ (so there exists a ‘less true’ sense of tradition: that of the traditionalists), but also constitutes an elevated form (the traditionalists’ is coarse and base) of placing oneself at the service of tradition.” He then goes on to explain this notion of pathological tradition opposed to “healthy tradition,” and that of “legitimate progress.” Indeed, the defenders of crusty, reactionary tradition do not know how to discern between “legitimate” and illegitimate progress—something the Consistory supposedly should have clarified. But that is no longer necessary, since the cardinal defender of “healthy tradition” has discerned it all by himself. The only thing this “healthy tradition” lacks, Roche says, is the appropriate formation in seminaries.

Pope Leo XIV is no stranger to these approaches; on the contrary, he is aligned with the document slipped in by the Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship. Indeed, in his address on January 8, he stated that “the Second Vatican Council rediscovered (if it ‘rediscovered’ it, that must be because something was lacking in its initial ‘discovery’) the face of God as Father, looked upon the Church in the light of Christ (it must have been looking at it with some other light before), and initiated an important liturgical reform by placing at the center the mystery of salvation and the active and conscious participation of the People of God.” It is clear that a wheel cannot function with two axles: the old one (that of the mystery of salvation) and the new one, that of the active and conscious participation of the People of God. Evidently, the new center of the liturgy (the participation of the People) has displaced the former center: that of the “mystery of salvation.”

It seems evident that Cardinal Roche’s report must be interpreted in the light of Leo XIV’s words spoken on January 8 (in the midst of the Consistory). The pope’s words on the matter have every appearance of attempting to shore up not only the aforementioned report, but also its author. In any case, it is an explicit papal stance very much in line with the document that seeks to make up for the removal of the liturgical topic from the Consistory’s program.

It is obvious that the underlying issue is the Second Vatican Council, which the Church has still not been able to bring to a close. The current liturgy was forged outside the Council and, in not a few respects, in direct opposition to it. But it is not only the liturgy that was so falsely “closed,” since after sixty years we are still grappling with the problem. We continue dragging along the only dogma proclaimed urbi et orbi by the Second Vatican Council: aggiornamento—a deceptive principle, impossible to close. Because the days keep passing, there is no way to finish the Church’s “updating.” And since in sixty years the world has turned upside down, we have found ourselves compelled to “open ourselves to the world and to welcome the changes and challenges of the modern age” (again, the pope’s words).

Yes, of course, the great dogma of aggiornamento has brought us to the centrality of the great issues that trouble the Church today—especially in the West. Evidently, Christ is no longer the center of interest of episcopal conferences, the Vatican, or the various synodal maneuvers. The bishops’ obsession is to attune themselves to the world, which is no longer the world of the Second Vatican Council. Today the obsession is to establish in the Church a synodality that grants full legitimacy to different inculturations—not only Amazonian and indigenist ones, but also those of the very latest Western culture, so firmly propped up by Fiducia supplicans. “For the moment.” There you have the new postmodern theological discovery: provisionality as the supreme norm. Since the world never stops turning, what seems perfect today is useless tomorrow. And the Church, so ready to open herself to the world and to welcome changes (yes, of course, changes and more changes) and the challenges of the modern age, has no choice but to dance to the rhythm set by the world. Thus aggiornamenti neither are nor can be forever. From the “updatings” (to the world) of the Second Vatican Council onward, there are no longer things that are definitive and for all time in the Church. From that point on, everything is “for the moment.” And if moments change, why shouldn’t principles change as well?

Source (Spanish): https://germinansgerminabit.blogspot.com

 

 

"Consultation" Control!

The Greatest Figures of the Romantic Age

After reading the excellent 1966 book The Mind of the European Romantics by H.D. Schenk, on the key role of Christianity and especially Catholicism in the life and achievement of the greatest figures of the 19th century Romantic movement in literature and the arts I was left with the question, who were the greatest figures of that movement which can be held up as models to be studied and imitated today?

The answer, of course, as in any age, is, the Saints!, the canonized Saints and declared Doctors of the Church from that period and within that movement of human culture.

Here is my spontaneous short-list, on which I might enlarge in the future.

Saint John Henry Newman, Doctor of the Church, particularly for his thought on the historical development of Christian/Catholic doctrine.

Saint Therese of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church.

Saint John Bosco

Saint Anthony Mary Claret 

Saint John Marie Vianney

Saint Catherine Laboure

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, visionary of Our Lady of Lourdes

Blessed Pope Pius IX

And, I would also add another great Pontiff of that age: Pope Leo XIII Giovanni Maria Battista Pietro Pellegrino Isidoro Mastai-Ferrett

The great Catalan poet, Father Jacinto Verdaguer

And, of course, the great, also Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi 

Here is a list (Wikipedia) of all of the Saints and Blesseds of the 19th Century, the age of romanticism, a tremendous age of holiness!

Chronological list of saints and blesseds in the 19th century

 

Alphabetical List 

A

• Agatha Lin
• Anna Pak Agi
• Amandina of Schakkebroek
• Ambrose of Optina
• Aristocleus of Athos
• Avakum the Deacon

B

• Madeleine Sophie Barat
• Clelia Barbieri
• Basil of Pavlovsky Posad
• Marguerite Bays
• Siméon-François Berneux
• Gaspare Bertoni
• André Bessette
• Francis Xavier Bianchi
• Joan Elizabeth Bichier des Âges
• Józef Bilczewski
• Julie Billiart
• Amelia Bloomer
• Jean-Louis Bonnard
• Catherine Booth
• William Booth
• Pierre Dumoulin-Borie
• John Bosco
• James Lloyd Breck
• Phillips Brooks

C

• Joseph Cafasso
• Benedetta Cambiagio Frassinello
• Bartolomea Capitanio
• Peter William Cassey
• Gaetano Catanoso
• Paola Elisabetta Cerioli
• Peter Chanel
• Auguste Chapdelaine
• Charles of Mount Argus
• Philander Chase
• Chinese Martyrs
• Albert Chmielowski
• Paul Chong Hasang
• Anthony Mary Claret
• Conrad of Parzham
• Hannah Grier Coome
• Marianne Cope
• Jean-Charles Cornay
• Giuseppe Benedetto Cottolengo
• Alberic Crescitelli
• Pope Cyril IV of Alexandria

D

• Father Damien
• Daniel of Katounakia
• Marie-Nicolas-Antoine Daveluy
• James DeKoven
• Gaspar del Bufalo
• Maria De Mattias
• Maria Micaela Desmaisieres
• Pierre-Henri Dorie
• Rose Philippine Duchesne

E

• Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine
• Queen Emma of Hawaii
• Enmegahbowh
• Olga Vasilievna Evdokimova
• Peter Julian Eymard

F

• Alexander Forbes (bishop of Brechin)
• André-Hubert Fournet
• Francesco Maria da Camporosso
• Paula Frassinetti
• Joseph Freinademetz
• Elizabeth Fry

G

• Thomas Gallaudet (priest)
• Frei Galvão
• Geronimo (martyr)
• Vincenza Gerosa
• Antonio Maria Gianelli
• Manuel Míguez González
• Zygmunt Gorazdowski
• Gregorio Grassi
• Théodore Guérin

H

• Habel of Kaipetta
• James Hannington
• Herman of Alaska
• Cornelius Hill
• Michael Hồ Đình Hy
• Clement Mary Hofbauer

I

• Teresa Jornet Ibars
• Laurent-Joseph-Marius Imbert
• Innocent of Alaska
• Isaac I of Optina

J

• Joachim of Ithaca
• Joseph of Damascus
• Jeanne Jugan

K

• Andrew Kaggwa
• Kamehameha IV
• Nimatullah Kassab
• Jackson Kemper
• Achilleus Kewanuka
• Ambrosio Kibuuka
• Andrew Kim Taegon
• Saint Kizito
• Feodor Kuzmich
• Agatha Kwon Chin-i

L

• Catherine Labouré
• Ursula Ledóchowska
• Lev of Optina
• List of saints canonized by Pope Leo XIII
• Vicenta María López i Vicuña
• Charles Lowder
• Adolphus Ludigo-Mkasa
• Charles Lwanga

M

• Charles Mackenzie (bishop)
• Mary MacKillop
• Magdalene of Canossa
• Master Malati
• Leopold Mandić
• Josep Manyanet i Vives
• Joseph Marchand
• Joseph Marello
• Marie-Adolphine
• Marie of Saint Just
• Marie of Saint Natalie
• Marie-Eugénie de Jésus
• Marie-Hermine of Jesus
• Henry Martyn
• Martyrs of Damascus
• The Massabki Brothers
• Maria Domenica Mazzarello
• Robert Whitaker McAll
• Metrophanes, Chi Sung
• Stephen Min Kuk-ka
• Bernard Mizeki
• William Augustus Muhlenberg
• Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe
• Matiya Mulumba
• Leonardo Murialdo

N

• Maria Chiara Nanetti
• Narcisa de Jesús
• Jacob Netsvetov
• John Neumann
• Nicodemus the Hagiorite

P

• John Patteson (bishop)
• Pauline of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus
• Mary Euphrasia Pelletier
• John Gabriel Perboyre
• Petar I Petrović-Njegoš
• Peter the Aleut
• Philaret Drozdov
• Agostina Livia Pietrantoni
• Marie-Madeleine Postel

R

• Émilie de Rodat
• Bonifacia Rodríguez y Castro
• Benildus Romançon
• Maria Crocifissa di Rosa
• Maria Giuseppa Rossello
• Thomas Ryzkov

S

• Carmen Salles y Barangueras
• Jenaro Sánchez Delgadillo
• Dominic Savio
• Victor Scheppers
• Augustin Schoeffler
• John Selwyn (bishop)
• Seraphim of Sarov
• Elizabeth Ann Seton
• Sidhom Bishay
• Silouan the Athonite
• John Skinner (poet)
• Filippo Smaldone
• Bernadette Soubirous
• Denis Ssebuggwawo Wasswa
• Vincent Strambi

T

• Theophan the Recluse
• Thérèse of Lisieux
• Maria Soledad Torres y Acosta
• Sojourner Truth

U

• Uganda Martyrs
• Fyodor Ushakov

V

• Joaquina Vedruna de Mas
• Théophane Vénard
• Emily de Vialar
• Émilie de Villeneuve

W

• William White (bishop of Pennsylvania)
• Mutien-Marie Wiaux
• Catherine Winkworth

X

• Xenia of Saint Petersburg

Y

• José Maria de Yermo y Parres
• John Baptist Yi Kwang-nyol
• Agatha Yi Kyong-i
• Lucy Yi Zhenmei
• Peter Yu Tae-chol

Benedict XVI Masterful Address to the Roman Curia

Yesterday I watched Pope Leo XIV's first 22 December Christmas Address to the Roman Curia. Listening to the Holy Father's vague address, filled with unclear and too cliche and ambiguous to be helpful religious platitudes--"mission," "shepherding," and "communion,"--I found myself nostalgic for the abundantly clear and doctrinally rich mission statements of Pope Benedict XVI's Christmas Addresses to the Roman Curia, beginning with his first, in 2005, an unambigious response to the relativism of our time: a true missionary, a true shepherd and a true promoter of Catholic communion, calling out the wolves and committing to getting rid of them!

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO THE ROMAN CURIA
OFFERING THEM HIS CHRISTMAS GREETINGS

Thursday, 22 December 2005 

Your Eminences,
Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Presbyterate,
Dear Brothers and Sisters, 

"Expergiscere, homo: quia pro te Deus factus est homo - Wake up, O man! For your sake God became man" (St Augustine, Sermo, 185). With the Christmas celebrations now at hand, I am opening my Meeting with you, dear collaborators of the Roman Curia, with St Augustine's invitation to understand the true meaning of Christ's Birth.

I address to each one my most cordial greeting and I thank you for the sentiments of devotion and affection, effectively conveyed to me by your Cardinal Dean, to whom I address my gratitude.

God became man for our sake: this is the message which, every year, from the silent grotto of Bethlehem spreads even to the most out-of-the-way corners of the earth. Christmas is a feast of light and peace, it is a day of inner wonder and joy that expands throughout the universe, because "God became man". From the humble grotto of Bethlehem, the eternal Son of God, who became a tiny Child, addresses each one of us: he calls us, invites us to be reborn in him so that, with him, we may live eternally in communion with the Most Holy Trinity.

Our hearts brimming with the joy that comes from this knowledge, let us think back to the events of the year that is coming to an end. We have behind us great events which have left a deep mark on the life of the Church. I am thinking first and foremost of the departure of our beloved Holy Father John Paul II, preceded by a long period of suffering and the gradual loss of speech. No Pope has left us such a quantity of texts as he has bequeathed to us; no previous Pope was able to visit the whole world like him and speak directly to people from all the continents.

In the end, however, his lot was a journey of suffering and silence. Unforgettable for us are the images of Palm Sunday when, holding an olive branch and marked by pain, he came to the window and imparted the Lord's Blessing as he himself was about to walk towards the Cross.

Next was the scene in his Private Chapel when, holding the Crucifix, he took part in the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum, where he had so often led the procession carrying the Cross himself.

Lastly came his silent Blessing on Easter Sunday, in which we saw the promise of the Resurrection, of eternal life, shine out through all his suffering. With his words and actions, the Holy Father gave us great things; equally important is the lesson he imparted to us from the chair of suffering and silence.

In his last book "Memory and Identity" (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005), he has left us an interpretation of suffering that is not a theological or philosophical theory but a fruit that matured on his personal path of suffering which he walked, sustained by faith in the Crucified Lord. This interpretation, which he worked out in faith and which gave meaning to his suffering lived in communion with that of the Lord, spoke through his silent pain, transforming it into an important message.

Both at the beginning and once again at the end of the book mentioned, the Pope shows that he is deeply touched by the spectacle of the power of evil, which we dramatically experienced in the century that has just ended. He says in his text: "The evil... was not a small-scale evil.... It was an evil of gigantic proportions, an evil which availed itself of state structures in order to accomplish its wicked work, an evil built up into a system" (p. 189).

Might evil be invincible? Is it the ultimate power of history? Because of the experience of evil, for Pope Wojty³a the question of redemption became the essential and central question of his life and thought as a Christian. Is there a limit against which the power of evil shatters? "Yes, there is", the Pope replies in this book of his, as well as in his Encyclical on redemption.

The power that imposes a limit on evil is Divine Mercy. Violence, the display of evil, is opposed in history - as "the totally other" of God, God's own power - by Divine Mercy. The Lamb is stronger than the dragon, we could say together with the Book of Revelation.

At the end of the book, in a retrospective review of the attack of 13 May 1981 and on the basis of the experience of his journey with God and with the world, John Paul II further deepened this answer.

What limits the force of evil, the power, in brief, which overcomes it - this is how he says it - is God's suffering, the suffering of the Son of God on the Cross: "The suffering of the Crucified God is not just one form of suffering alongside others.... In sacrificing himself for us all, Christ gave a new meaning to suffering, opening up a new dimension, a new order: the order of love.... The passion of Christ on the Cross gave a radically new meaning to suffering, transforming it from within.... It is this suffering which burns and consumes evil with the flame of love.... All human suffering, all pain, all infirmity contains within itself a promise of salvation;... evil is present in the world partly so as to awaken our love, our self-gift in generous and disinterested service to those visited by suffering.... Christ has redeemed the world: "By his wounds we are healed' (Is 53: 5)" (p. 189, ff.).

All this is not merely learned theology, but the expression of a faith lived and matured through suffering. Of course, we must do all we can to alleviate suffering and prevent the injustice that causes the suffering of the innocent. However, we must also do the utmost to ensure that people can discover the meaning of suffering and are thus able to accept their own suffering and to unite it with the suffering of Christ.

In this way, it is merged with redemptive love and consequently becomes a force against the evil in the world.

The response across the world to the Pope's death was an overwhelming demonstration of gratitude for the fact that in his ministry he offered himself totally to God for the world; a thanksgiving for the fact that in a world full of hatred and violence he taught anew love and suffering in the service of others; he showed us, so to speak, in the flesh, the Redeemer, redemption, and gave us the certainty that indeed, evil does not have the last word in the world.

I would now like to mention, if briefly, another two events also initiated by Pope John Paul II: they are the World Youth Day celebrated in Cologne and the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, which also ended the Year of the Eucharist inaugurated by Pope John Paul II.

The World Youth Day has lived on as a great gift in the memory of those present. More than a million young people gathered in the City of Cologne on the Rhine River and in the neighbouring towns to listen together to the Word of God, to pray together, to receive the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist, to sing and to celebrate together, to rejoice in life and to worship and receive the Lord in the Eucharist during the great meetings on Saturday evening and Sunday. Joy simply reigned throughout those days.

Apart from keeping order, the police had nothing to do - the Lord had gathered his family, tangibly overcoming every frontier and barrier, and in the great communion between us, he made us experience his presence.

The motto chosen for those days - "We have come to worship him!", contained two great images which encouraged the right approach from the outset. First there was the image of the pilgrimage, the image of the person who, looking beyond his own affairs and daily life, sets out in search of his essential destination, the truth, the right life, God.

This image of the person on his way towards the goal of life contained another two clear indications.
First of all, there was the invitation not to see the world that surrounds us solely as raw material with which we can do something, but to try to discover in it "the Creator's handwriting", the creative reason and the love from which the world was born and of which the universe speaks to us, if we pay attention, if our inner senses awaken and acquire perception of the deepest dimensions of reality.

As a second element there is a further invitation: to listen to the historical revelation which alone can offer us the key to the interpretation of the silent mystery of creation, pointing out to us the practical way towards the true Lord of the world and of history, who conceals himself in the poverty of the stable in Bethlehem.

The other image contained in the World Youth Day motto was the person worshipping: "We have come to worship him". Before any activity, before the world can change there must be worship. Worship alone sets us truly free; worship alone gives us the criteria for our action. Precisely in a world in which guiding criteria are absent and the threat exists that each person will be a law unto himself, it is fundamentally necessary to stress worship.

For all those who were present the intense silence of that million young people remains unforgettable, a silence that united and uplifted us all when the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament was placed on the altar. Let us cherish in our hearts the images of Cologne: they are signs that continue to be valid. Without mentioning individual names, I would like on this occasion to thank everyone who made World Youth Day possible; but especially, let us together thank the Lord, for indeed, he alone could give us those days in the way in which we lived them.

The word "adoration" [worship] brings us to the second great event that I wish to talk about: the Synod of Bishops and the Year of the Eucharist. Pope John Paul II, with the Encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia and the Apostolic Letter Mane Nobiscum Domine, gave us the essential clues and at the same time, with his personal experience of Eucharistic faith, put the Church's teaching into practice.

Moreover, the Congregation for Divine Worship, in close connection with the Encyclical, published the Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum as a practical guide to the correct implementation of the conciliar Constitution on the liturgy and liturgical reform. In addition to all this, was it really possible to say anything new, to develop further the whole of this teaching?

This was exactly the great experience of the Synod, during which a reflection of the riches of the Eucharistic life of the Church today and the inexhaustibility of her Eucharistic faith could be perceived in the Fathers' contributions. What the Fathers thought and expressed must be presented, in close connection with the Propositiones of the Synod, in a Post-Synodal Document.

Here, once again, I only wish to underline that point which a little while ago we already mentioned in the context of World Youth Day: adoration of the Risen Lord, present in the Eucharist with flesh and blood, with body and soul, with divinity and humanity.

It is moving for me to see how everywhere in the Church the joy of Eucharistic adoration is reawakening and being fruitful. In the period of liturgical reform, Mass and adoration outside it were often seen as in opposition to one another: it was thought that the Eucharistic Bread had not been given to us to be contemplated, but to be eaten, as a widespread objection claimed at that time.

The experience of the prayer of the Church has already shown how nonsensical this antithesis was. Augustine had formerly said: "...nemo autem illam carnem manducat, nisi prius adoraverit;... peccemus non adorando - No one should eat this flesh without first adoring it;... we should sin were we not to adore it" (cf. Enarr. in Ps 98: 9 CCL XXXIX 1385).

Indeed, we do not merely receive something in the Eucharist. It is the encounter and unification of persons; the person, however, who comes to meet us and desires to unite himself to us is the Son of God. Such unification can only be brought about by means of adoration.

Receiving the Eucharist means adoring the One whom we receive. Precisely in this way and only in this way do we become one with him. Therefore, the development of Eucharistic adoration, as it took shape during the Middle Ages, was the most consistent consequence of the Eucharistic mystery itself: only in adoration can profound and true acceptance develop. And it is precisely this personal act of encounter with the Lord that develops the social mission which is contained in the Eucharist and desires to break down barriers, not only the barriers between the Lord and us but also and above all those that separate us from one another.

The last event of this year on which I wish to reflect here is the celebration of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council 40 years ago. This memory prompts the question: What has been the result of the Council? Was it well received? What, in the acceptance of the Council, was good and what was inadequate or mistaken? What still remains to be done? No one can deny that in vast areas of the Church the implementation of the Council has been somewhat difficult, even without wishing to apply to what occurred in these years the description that St Basil, the great Doctor of the Church, made of the Church's situation after the Council of Nicea: he compares her situation to a naval battle in the darkness of the storm, saying among other things: "The raucous shouting of those who through disagreement rise up against one another, the incomprehensible chatter, the confused din of uninterrupted clamouring, has now filled almost the whole of the Church, falsifying through excess or failure the right doctrine of the faith..." (De Spiritu Sancto, XXX, 77; PG 32, 213 A; SCh 17 ff., p. 524).

We do not want to apply precisely this dramatic description to the situation of the post-conciliar period, yet something from all that occurred is nevertheless reflected in it. The question arises: Why has the implementation of the Council, in large parts of the Church, thus far been so difficult?

Well, it all depends on the correct interpretation of the Council or - as we would say today - on its proper hermeneutics, the correct key to its interpretation and application. The problems in its implementation arose from the fact that two contrary hermeneutics came face to face and quarrelled with each other. One caused confusion, the other, silently but more and more visibly, bore and is bearing fruit.

On the one hand, there is an interpretation that I would call "a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture"; it has frequently availed itself of the sympathies of the mass media, and also one trend of modern theology. On the other, there is the "hermeneutic of reform", of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us. She is a subject which increases in time and develops, yet always remaining the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God.

The hermeneutic of discontinuity risks ending in a split between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church. It asserts that the texts of the Council as such do not yet express the true spirit of the Council. It claims that they are the result of compromises in which, to reach unanimity, it was found necessary to keep and reconfirm many old things that are now pointless. However, the true spirit of the Council is not to be found in these compromises but instead in the impulses toward the new that are contained in the texts.

These innovations alone were supposed to represent the true spirit of the Council, and starting from and in conformity with them, it would be possible to move ahead. Precisely because the texts would only imperfectly reflect the true spirit of the Council and its newness, it would be necessary to go courageously beyond the texts and make room for the newness in which the Council's deepest intention would be expressed, even if it were still vague.

In a word: it would be necessary not to follow the texts of the Council but its spirit. In this way, obviously, a vast margin was left open for the question on how this spirit should subsequently be defined and room was consequently made for every whim.

The nature of a Council as such is therefore basically misunderstood. In this way, it is considered as a sort of constituent that eliminates an old constitution and creates a new one. However, the Constituent Assembly needs a mandator and then confirmation by the mandator, in other words, the people the constitution must serve. The Fathers had no such mandate and no one had ever given them one; nor could anyone have given them one because the essential constitution of the Church comes from the Lord and was given to us so that we might attain eternal life and, starting from this perspective, be able to illuminate life in time and time itself.

Through the Sacrament they have received, Bishops are stewards of the Lord's gift. They are "stewards of the mysteries of God" (I Cor 4: 1); as such, they must be found to be "faithful" and "wise" (cf. Lk 12: 41-48). This requires them to administer the Lord's gift in the right way, so that it is not left concealed in some hiding place but bears fruit, and the Lord may end by saying to the administrator: "Since you were dependable in a small matter I will put you in charge of larger affairs" (cf. Mt 25: 14-30; Lk 19: 11-27).

These Gospel parables express the dynamic of fidelity required in the Lord's service; and through them it becomes clear that, as in a Council, the dynamic and fidelity must converge.

The hermeneutic of discontinuity is countered by the hermeneutic of reform, as it was presented first by Pope John XXIII in his Speech inaugurating the Council on 11 October 1962 and later by Pope Paul VI in his Discourse for the Council's conclusion on 7 December 1965.

Here I shall cite only John XXIII's well-known words, which unequivocally express this hermeneutic when he says that the Council wishes "to transmit the doctrine, pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion". And he continues: "Our duty is not only to guard this precious treasure, as if we were concerned only with antiquity, but to dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fear to that work which our era demands of us...". It is necessary that "adherence to all the teaching of the Church in its entirety and preciseness..." be presented in "faithful and perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine, which, however, should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the literary forms of modern thought. The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another...", retaining the same meaning and message (The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, S.J., p. 715).

It is clear that this commitment to expressing a specific truth in a new way demands new thinking on this truth and a new and vital relationship with it; it is also clear that new words can only develop if they come from an informed understanding of the truth expressed, and on the other hand, that a reflection on faith also requires that this faith be lived. In this regard, the programme that Pope John XXIII proposed was extremely demanding, indeed, just as the synthesis of fidelity and dynamic is demanding.

However, wherever this interpretation guided the implementation of the Council, new life developed and new fruit ripened. Forty years after the Council, we can show that the positive is far greater and livelier than it appeared to be in the turbulent years around 1968. Today, we see that although the good seed developed slowly, it is nonetheless growing; and our deep gratitude for the work done by the Council is likewise growing.

In his Discourse closing the Council, Paul VI pointed out a further specific reason why a hermeneutic of discontinuity can seem convincing.

In the great dispute about man which marks the modern epoch, the Council had to focus in particular on the theme of anthropology. It had to question the relationship between the Church and her faith on the one hand, and man and the contemporary world on the other (cf. ibid.). The question becomes even clearer if, instead of the generic term "contemporary world", we opt for another that is more precise: the Council had to determine in a new way the relationship between the Church and the modern era.

This relationship had a somewhat stormy beginning with the Galileo case. It was then totally interrupted when Kant described "religion within pure reason" and when, in the radical phase of the French Revolution, an image of the State and the human being that practically no longer wanted to allow the Church any room was disseminated.

In the 19th century under Pius IX, the clash between the Church's faith and a radical liberalism and the natural sciences, which also claimed to embrace with their knowledge the whole of reality to its limit, stubbornly proposing to make the "hypothesis of God" superfluous, had elicited from the Church a bitter and radical condemnation of this spirit of the modern age. Thus, it seemed that there was no longer any milieu open to a positive and fruitful understanding, and the rejection by those who felt they were the representatives of the modern era was also drastic.

In the meantime, however, the modern age had also experienced developments. People came to realize that the American Revolution was offering a model of a modern State that differed from the theoretical model with radical tendencies that had emerged during the second phase of the French Revolution.

The natural sciences were beginning to reflect more and more clearly their own limitations imposed by their own method, which, despite achieving great things, was nevertheless unable to grasp the global nature of reality.

So it was that both parties were gradually beginning to open up to each other. In the period between the two World Wars and especially after the Second World War, Catholic statesmen demonstrated that a modern secular State could exist that was not neutral regarding values but alive, drawing from the great ethical sources opened by Christianity.

Catholic social doctrine, as it gradually developed, became an important model between radical liberalism and the Marxist theory of the State. The natural sciences, which without reservation professed a method of their own to which God was barred access, realized ever more clearly that this method did not include the whole of reality. Hence, they once again opened their doors to God, knowing that reality is greater than the naturalistic method and all that it can encompass.

It might be said that three circles of questions had formed which then, at the time of the Second Vatican Council, were expecting an answer. First of all, the relationship between faith and modern science had to be redefined. Furthermore, this did not only concern the natural sciences but also historical science for, in a certain school, the historical-critical method claimed to have the last word on the interpretation of the Bible and, demanding total exclusivity for its interpretation of Sacred Scripture, was opposed to important points in the interpretation elaborated by the faith of the Church.

Secondly, it was necessary to give a new definition to the relationship between the Church and the modern State that would make room impartially for citizens of various religions and ideologies, merely assuming responsibility for an orderly and tolerant coexistence among them and for the freedom to practise their own religion.

Thirdly, linked more generally to this was the problem of religious tolerance - a question that required a new definition of the relationship between the Christian faith and the world religions. In particular, before the recent crimes of the Nazi regime and, in general, with a retrospective look at a long and difficult history, it was necessary to evaluate and define in a new way the relationship between the Church and the faith of Israel.

These are all subjects of great importance - they were the great themes of the second part of the Council - on which it is impossible to reflect more broadly in this context. It is clear that in all these sectors, which all together form a single problem, some kind of discontinuity might emerge. Indeed, a discontinuity had been revealed but in which, after the various distinctions between concrete historical situations and their requirements had been made, the continuity of principles proved not to have been abandoned. It is easy to miss this fact at a first glance.

It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within.
On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change.

Basic decisions, therefore, continue to be well-grounded, whereas the way they are applied to new contexts can change. Thus, for example, if religious freedom were to be considered an expression of the human inability to discover the truth and thus become a canonization of relativism, then this social and historical necessity is raised inappropriately to the metaphysical level and thus stripped of its true meaning. Consequently, it cannot be accepted by those who believe that the human person is capable of knowing the truth about God and, on the basis of the inner dignity of the truth, is bound to this knowledge.

It is quite different, on the other hand, to perceive religious freedom as a need that derives from human coexistence, or indeed, as an intrinsic consequence of the truth that cannot be externally imposed but that the person must adopt only through the process of conviction.

The Second Vatican Council, recognizing and making its own an essential principle of the modern State with the Decree on Religious Freedom, has recovered the deepest patrimony of the Church. By so doing she can be conscious of being in full harmony with the teaching of Jesus himself (cf. Mt 22: 21), as well as with the Church of the martyrs of all time. The ancient Church naturally prayed for the emperors and political leaders out of duty (cf. I Tm 2: 2); but while she prayed for the emperors, she refused to worship them and thereby clearly rejected the religion of the State.

The martyrs of the early Church died for their faith in that God who was revealed in Jesus Christ, and for this very reason they also died for freedom of conscience and the freedom to profess one's own faith - a profession that no State can impose but which, instead, can only be claimed with God's grace in freedom of conscience. A missionary Church known for proclaiming her message to all peoples must necessarily work for the freedom of the faith. She desires to transmit the gift of the truth that exists for one and all.

At the same time, she assures peoples and their Governments that she does not wish to destroy their identity and culture by doing so, but to give them, on the contrary, a response which, in their innermost depths, they are waiting for - a response with which the multiplicity of cultures is not lost but instead unity between men and women increases and thus also peace between peoples.

The Second Vatican Council, with its new definition of the relationship between the faith of the Church and certain essential elements of modern thought, has reviewed or even corrected certain historical decisions, but in this apparent discontinuity it has actually preserved and deepened her inmost nature and true identity.

The Church, both before and after the Council, was and is the same Church, one, holy, catholic and apostolic, journeying on through time; she continues "her pilgrimage amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God", proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes (cf. Lumen Gentium, n. 8).

Those who expected that with this fundamental "yes" to the modern era all tensions would be dispelled and that the "openness towards the world" accordingly achieved would transform everything into pure harmony, had underestimated the inner tensions as well as the contradictions inherent in the modern epoch.

They had underestimated the perilous frailty of human nature which has been a threat to human progress in all the periods of history and in every historical constellation. These dangers, with the new possibilities and new power of man over matter and over himself, did not disappear but instead acquired new dimensions: a look at the history of the present day shows this clearly.

In our time too, the Church remains a "sign that will be opposed" (Lk 2: 34) - not without reason did Pope John Paul II, then still a Cardinal, give this title to the theme for the Spiritual Exercises he preached in 1976 to Pope Paul VI and the Roman Curia. The Council could not have intended to abolish the Gospel's opposition to human dangers and errors.

On the contrary, it was certainly the Council's intention to overcome erroneous or superfluous contradictions in order to present to our world the requirement of the Gospel in its full greatness and purity.

The steps the Council took towards the modern era which had rather vaguely been presented as "openness to the world", belong in short to the perennial problem of the relationship between faith and reason that is re-emerging in ever new forms. The situation that the Council had to face can certainly be compared to events of previous epochs.

In his First Letter, St Peter urged Christians always to be ready to give an answer (apo-logia) to anyone who asked them for the logos, the reason for their faith (cf. 3: 15).

This meant that biblical faith had to be discussed and come into contact with Greek culture and learn to recognize through interpretation the separating line but also the convergence and the affinity between them in the one reason, given by God.

When, in the 13th century through the Jewish and Arab philosophers, Aristotelian thought came into contact with Medieval Christianity formed in the Platonic tradition and faith and reason risked entering an irreconcilable contradiction, it was above all St Thomas Aquinas who mediated the new encounter between faith and Aristotelian philosophy, thereby setting faith in a positive relationship with the form of reason prevalent in his time. There is no doubt that the wearing dispute between modern reason and the Christian faith, which had begun negatively with the Galileo case, went through many phases, but with the Second Vatican Council the time came when broad new thinking was required.

Its content was certainly only roughly traced in the conciliar texts, but this determined its essential direction, so that the dialogue between reason and faith, particularly important today, found its bearings on the basis of the Second Vatican Council.

This dialogue must now be developed with great openmindedness but also with that clear discernment that the world rightly expects of us in this very moment. Thus, today we can look with gratitude at the Second Vatican Council: if we interpret and implement it guided by a right hermeneutic, it can be and can become increasingly powerful for the ever necessary renewal of the Church.

Lastly, should I perhaps recall once again that 19 April this year on which, to my great surprise, the College of Cardinals elected me as the Successor of Pope John Paul II, as a Successor of St Peter on the chair of the Bishop of Rome? Such an office was far beyond anything I could ever have imagined as my vocation. It was, therefore, only with a great act of trust in God that I was able to say in obedience my "yes" to this choice. Now as then, I also ask you all for your prayer, on whose power and support I rely.

At the same time, I would like to warmly thank all those who have welcomed me and still welcome me with great trust, goodness and understanding, accompanying me day after day with their prayers.

Christmas is now at hand. The Lord God did not counter the threats of history with external power, as we human beings would expect according to the prospects of our world. His weapon is goodness. He revealed himself as a child, born in a stable. This is precisely how he counters with his power, completely different from the destructive powers of violence. In this very way he saves us. In this very way he shows us what saves.

In these days of Christmas, let us go to meet him full of trust, like the shepherds, like the Wise Men of the East. Let us ask Mary to lead us to the Lord. Let us ask him himself to make his face shine upon us. Let us ask him also to defeat the violence in the world and to make us experience the power of his goodness. With these sentiments, I warmly impart to you all my Apostolic Blessing.

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