The Reformation in Sweden

Tenth in a Series on the Protestant Reformation

by

Fr. Charles Coppens, S.J.

Gustav Vasa (1496-1560)

Few American readers are familiar with the events which brought about the Reformation in Sweden; and yet it is a very interesting chapter in history. There is in it a striking absence of even the pretext of abuses to be reformed. The people generally were pious Catholics, the pastors faithful and devout in the discharge of their sacred duties, the religious, male and female, led lives of fervor and charity, which endeared them to God and man; the bishops in particular gave the good example of every Christian virtue. Sins there were, of course, but few, if any, gross scandals are recorded. Here still more than anywhere else, Lutheranism was imposed upon an unwilling population by a cruel tyrant with the aid of a foreign army.

The tyrant was Gustav Vasa, who had begun his public career as the deliverer of his country from the foreign and unbearable yoke of Christiern II of Denmark. This signal service to his native land gained him the boundless love and confidence of his grateful fellow countrymen. They had bravely flocked to his standard at the time of common oppression, and when the victory was achieved and liberty secured, they enthusiastically offered him and pressed upon his apparent reluctance the Kingly crown of rescued Sweden. This was in 1523.

Before allowing himself to be crowned by the Catholic hierarchy, who would have made him swear fidelity to the Church, he planned and executed a religious revolution as thorough as his civil revolution had been. For during the tyrannous rule of Christiern, he had spent some months in Germany, and he had there become enamored by the Protestant plan, suggested by Luther, of vesting the spiritual power in the temporal ruler, and allowing him to appropriate the riches of the Church. This plan he undertook to adopt for Sweden.

For this purpose, carefully concealed at first, he needed an obsequious parliament and a body of foreign heretical troops.

The troops he could easily hire, and the religious treasures would readily furnish the money to pay them; and circumstances were exceptionally favorable for a total reorganization of the parliament. For in 1521, the Danish monarch Christiern, on occasion of his being crowned as King of Sweden, had invited the leading nobles and bishops to a banquet, and during it made a general butchery of his guests. This "Bloody Bath," as it is called in Swedish history, had left the government disorganized. So Vasa managed to have new senators chosen from among his friends, and he appointed bishops of his own choice; still, even of these bishops some proved to be in time of trial faithful to their sacred trust.

His further plan of action, to make himself spiritual head of the realm and master of all the ecclesiastical property, was skillfully devised and vigorously carried out. The Lutheran doctrine was the means, not the end intended by the monarch. But it was a necessary means, for as long as Sweden remained sound in doctrine, his most violent measures could have no lasting effect. For this purpose, he invited to his court some learned Lutherans, in particular two brothers, Olaus and Lawrence Petri, and, to give them credit with the people, he treated them with the utmost reverence. Olaus was allowed publicly to defend Lutheranism in presence of the diet, and was appointed preacher in the cathedral of Stockholm, while his brother Lawrence was made to teach theology at Uppsala. The former declaimed boldly against "the errors of Popery," the latter instilled the poison of heresy into the young theologians.

Vasa next required the Church to pay his foreign troops out of the revenue of the clergy. He removed an obnaxious bishop, and forced the chapter to depose the archbishop and to choose another, John Magnus by name, whom he selected to fill the vacancy thus created. This was a prelate of gentle character, whom he expected to make his pliant tool. But soon after, finding him unyielding in his fidelity to duty, he publicly mocked and insulted him, and banished him from Sweden. The good man died at last in poverty in a hospital at Rome.

Two recently deposed bishops, Knut and Sunnanwader, true Catholics - else he would not have discarded them - were accused of stirring up a revolt of the faithful. The King appeared himself as principal accuser, and, of course, they were condemned. We will let a Lutheran historian of Sweden, Anders Fryxell, describe the scene of their execution; it is a specimen page of the record of cruelty which disgraced the reign of Vasa, even according to so devoted a patriot and pronounced a Lutheran. He writes:

The seditionaries were forced to make a degrading entry into Stockholm, riding backwards on two half-starved horses, dressed in ragged palls, Master Knut wearing a bark mitre on his head, Peter Sunnanwader a crown of straw and a wooden sword by his side. Crowds of people in disguise followed them, mocking and teasing the unfortunates. The procession passed through some of the principle streets of the town, and stopped at last on the great square, where they were led to the whipping post, and made to drink with the executioner, hooted at and derided by the mob all the while. Shortly after this ungenerous treatment, they were both conducted to the place of execution, beheaded and impaled; Peter Sunnanwader in Uppsala, 18th of February, 1527, and Master Knut three days later in Stockholm. The fame of these proceedings spread like wild fire through the kingdom. Gustav had ordered the ignominious procession through Stockholm in order to decrease the reverence of the people for their bishops, but it was interpreted as an ungenerous victor's mockery over the vanquished, and the execution itself excited still greater displeasure. Such an attempt against such men was extraordinary, nay, unheard of. The priests represented the criminals as the fallen defenders of clerical freedom; the friends of the Stures as innocent victims of their devotion to the family, and the Roman Catholics as martyrs to the true faith, sacrificed by the hand of a heretic and godless King.

The foreign mercenaries were the chief means by which Vasa was enabled to accomplish his wicked designs. He played them off on all occasions, whether to cajole his people, and especially the clergy, out of their money, or to threaten them into servile compliance with his will. The same Lutheran historian, Fryxell, writes:

At the meeting held at Wastena in 1521, it was determined that the foreign cavalry should be quartered in the cloister; at the meeting of Stockholm (1525), that the tithes of that year should be employed to pay off the foreign soldiery. The priests opposed it, but the King clearly proved that these expenses were necessary, and the nobility, citizens and peasants, glad at not having to pay themselves, were well satisfied that the priests should do it. This bait Gustav often employed to get the people on his side against the prelates of Rome.

At last, in 1527, the King convened a diet at Westeras, at which he struck the final blow. He caused the Lutherans and Catholics to discuss the Reformation doctrines before himself and the whole assembly, terrorizing the Catholic champions and putting them designedly at a disadvantage. Before the meeting began, the bishops held a secret session in the cathedral, and there pledged themselves to one another to stand firmly by the ancient faith and union with the Holy See; but they were so overawed by the dangers awaiting them that they buried the parchment recording their agreement under a stone, whence it was not produced till in later years.

At the diet, the law was reluctantly passed which the tyrant dictated, abolishing the Catholic religion, and establishing Lutheranism in its stead, and confiscating to the King all the ecclesiastical property. Again, Fryxell says:

The diet of Westeras did not last long; scarcely eight days passed ere it was closed; but never at any diet has more been executed; never have any resolutions brought about a more complete change. The whole tremendous power of Popery in all its members was crushed. Deprived of their riches, their priviliges, their great consideration, they (the clergy) were open to the continued and often unjust exactions of the crown and the nobility, to the attacks of the Lutheran priests, and left without power to protect themselves from the encroachments of enemies on every side. The crown of Sweden, which before had been utterly impoverished and unable to pay half its expenses, became rich at once.

The King now appointed the Protestant Lawrence Petri to be archbishop of Uppsala; by wily promises that the Pope would sanction the appointment, he induced four bishops, his former appointees, to perform the consecration. Bishop Spalding makes the following important statement on this subject:

The consecration having been duly performed by bishops having undoubtedly the episcopal character themselves, though uncanonical and unlawful, was certainly valid; and thus the present Swedish Lutheran bishops, unless the rite of consecration has since been materially altered, are invested with the episcopal character; though, being severed from the communion of the Church, they have not canonical jurisdiction or any lawful authority whatever.

Soon after the consecration of the archbishop, he was publically married in his cathedral. Then, as Fryxell says, "a general murmur was heard; the ignorant populace threatened to kill the foreign heretic and the apostate King." Innovation after innovation was introduced; the people could stand it no longer; unsurrections arose, were repressed, and sprung up again. But the foreign troops were well armed and well disciplined; and the skillfull tyrant forced the rebels after each rising to deliver their leaders into his hands; and so new combinations to shake off the yoke of the foreign religion became impossible. Gradually, violent opposition subsided, the faithful clergy and the soundest layment died off, and the Reformation remained in undisputed possession.

The True Face of Progress

A few days ago, President Obama, while delivering his short address at the National Prayer Breakfast, dropped the following bomb:

Lest we get on our high horse and think that this [i.e. the violence committed in the name of religion] is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.

Ignoring that the phrase "lest we get on our high horse" is invariably used to preface a statement which is itself a sanctimonious moral condemnation, this is an opportune moment to reflect upon the reactions the President's statement have provoked in the media. In particular, I'm interested in the comments made by radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham, a Catholic, during an interview on Fox News' The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson:

Are the Spanish rulers still burning heretics? Are they still executing them? No. Civilization has advanced. The problem is, in the Inquisition, let's not forget, that was a defence against, what, at the time, Christendom and Europe thought was the 'Death Cult of Islam.' That's why the Crusades actually began. It was a defensive move to protect Europe. But, that having been said, we've evolved and, sorry, this Islamic Jihadist movement is regressing.

Let's ignore that Ingraham, while understanding that the Crusades were defensive, and not aggressive, in nature, is essentially agreeing with President Obama in his moral equivalence of the Crusades to Jihad, and wishes only to add the caveat that 'we don't do that anymore.' Ingraham herself seems cognizant of the fact that her overall approach to the issue obviates the need for providing historical or - perish the thought - moral justification for either the Crusades or the Inquisition, which is why, we may assume, she makes her remarks on their justification parenthetical to her main point: we're past that, and Islam needs to join us in the 21st century. It was an unscripted interview, and I'm happy to assume that she would be capable of making a more coherent defense if given the opportunity.

Instead, I would like to focus your attention on the last statement in her comment - the one in which she claims that the Islamic Jihadist movement represents a "regression." This statement is integral to her main point, and it is rather troubling as it is symptomatic of an underlying view of the course of history which is antithetical to the Catholic understanding of time and man's orientation in it. I wouldn't feel compelled to comment were it not for the fact that I've heard so many well-meaning and otherwise well-educated Catholics take precisely this stance in regards not only to Islam and Islamic Jihadism, but also to the Church and Western civilization as whole. This underlying view is shaped by what can be termed the Enlightenment narrative. 

The Enlightenment narrative is a historical framework which pits an irrational, violent and oppressive past against a rational, peaceful and liberal future. In very broad strokes, it paints a picture of man's past which is inferior to his present in every regard and a future which surpasses the latter to an even greater degree. The underlying premise of the Enlightenment narrative, i.e. that the development and application of reason leads a more peaceful and free human society, is harmless enough. After all, which civilized person prefers armed conflict to reasoned discourse? Where the Enlightenment went sour, however, was in its assumption that reason alone was sufficient for bringing about more peaceful and free societies. And it became positively diabolical when it made human reason the foundation of all truth, when its interest in novelty and ingenuity mutated into a distrust and even hatred of everything traditional in favor of all things new. In this regard, the French Revolution and its aptly-named Reign of Terror is perhaps the greatest testimony to the failure of the ideals of the Enlightenment.

At the time of the Enlightenment and the period of revolutions which followed in its wake, the "advances" being made - in science, politics, and religion - were understood and defended as historical necessities, as the natural products of the development of human culture, as unavoidable and as unstoppable as the operation of the law of gravity. Now, having grown somewhat disenchanted with the fruits of the Enlightenment, secular thinkers are beginning to suspect that the narrative itself was perhaps the greatest driving force behind those revolutions.

While the Enlightenment narrative has largely collapsed under its own weight and is no longer seen as a fruitful framework for understanding historical events by professional historians - we are, as they say, in the "Post-Enlightenment" age - it remains very much a key component in the thought of modern man. In fact, given the central role it plays in the scientific, social, and political spheres of Western culture, one could go so far as to say that it has become the fundamental assumption - the "foundational myth" - of all modern societies. It is, more than any other factor - including religion - the common bond which unites all modern societies today: If you believe that the future is bright, or can be made bright by better education, better social conditions, and better technology, then you belong to "the modern world;" if, on the other hand, you believe that human history is to be plotted on a downward curve, that man, left to his own designs, is caught in a flat spin of self-destruction, that better education often only helps to inoculate man against true wisdom, that better social conditions often only serve to diminish his kindness and generosity, that better technology invariably produces the weapon with which he may more efficiently kill his fellow man, then you do not.

For most of her history, the Catholic Church taught the biblical narrative of the history of the world: that man began his existence in a state of physical perfection and supernatural grace, yet fell from this primordial state into one of abject sin and corruption. The march of time saw man get progressively worse, not better. Left to himself, things progressed to the point that God regretted having made man, and decided to wipe all but Noah and his family from the face of the earth, to start again with a covenantal promise of a future redemption, which has been fulfilled in His Son, Jesus Christ, and His Bride, the Catholic Church, the True Ark of Salvation. While she was always very attentive to the physical and mental needs of her children, and is rightly lauded for having constructed so many hospitals, orphanages, schools and universities, for having played such a vital role in the West's intellectual and scientific development, the Catholic Church was nonetheless even more attentive to their spiritual needs, for she understood that this world is ultimately headed for destruction. Yes, the earth will be brought forth anew from the ashes of the conflagration by the hand of Almighty God. However, it will not be of man's doing, but of God's alone.

Obviously, this biblical orientation put the Church at odds with the foundational assumptions of the Enlightenment narrative. This conflict frequently manifested itself in attacks on the Church herself, either in physically taking from her all that generations of piety and devotion had placed under her watchful care, blaming her for every misfortune suffered by the common man, or in excoriating her glorious history, portraying her as the enemy of all human culture. This conflict put tremendous pressure upon several successive generations of Catholics - cleric and layman alike - which came to a historic head at the beginning of the 20th century.

The period of the Second Vatican Council was a decisive time in the life of the Church, not least of all because it represented, by and large, the abandonment of the biblical narrative - that of a world slowly, and sometimes not so slowly, working its way towards ultimate destruction and divine judgment - in favor of the Enlightenment narrative - that of a world ready to launch itself into an ever brighter future, a world of intellectual freedom, of economic equity, of social justice and freedom for all. It is this fundamental shift in orientation which led the likes of Cardinal Seunens - one of the architects of the Council - to remark: "Vatican II is the French Revolution in the Church." If that is the case, it should be of no surprise that we are going through what can only be understood as our very own Reign of Terror.

And this brings us back to our original question: Does modern Islamic Jihadism represent a "regression"? Admittedly, for the Enlightenment narrative, 21st century Islam, with its stonings, beheadings and sex slave-markets, is something of a paradox. When, however, we assume the biblical narrative of history - which, as faithful Catholics, we should - the current rise in Islamic violence can in no way be seen as representing a "regression;" rather, it is a prime - one is tempted to say "perfect" - example of human progress. In the language of internet memes:

This picture, while shocking, is but one face of such unbridled human progress; another would be the horrifyingly obese American wheeling his way down the aisles of Wal-Mart in his Lil' Gopher Mobility Cart, or the European woman with cheek and lip implants which give her face the startling appearance of a bloated, hairless cat, or the South American sodomite couple prancing down the street in glittery pink thongs and thrusting their groins in the face of any child unfortunate enough to be present. These are not "regressions" to earlier, more primitive states. They are the true faces of human progress.

The Eucharist: A Shield from the Wrath of God

Sixth in a Series on the Reasons of the Eucharist

by

Fr. Albert Tesnière, S.S.S.

Dominus Est!

THESIS

The Eucharist is the Security of Humanity in the Presence of the Justice of God and the Shield of the World against His Anger

ADORATION

Prostrate yourself, with a lively faith and a reverence mingled with holy fear, before the altar on which Our Lord Jesus Christ, in person and without interruption, accomplishes His sublime and merciful ministry of priest and victim in favor of a guilty world.

Behold Him raised between heaven and earth, as upon the cross, and interposing between the powerless, rebellious creature and the irritated Creator. Saint John says that even in heaven there will be an altar on which Jesus Christ will remain under the form of an immolated Lamb, recalling ceaselessly to the Divine Majesty, by means of His state of victim, the infinite satisfactions which He offered to Him by dying to restore His glory and to obtain the salvation of all men, which He merited by offering His death for them.

If the spectacle of the sacrifice of the divine Lamb is continued even in that heaven where there is neither sin against God nor the fear of losing His friendship and incurring His anger, it is the earth which above all demands it, which has need of it, which could not do without it. My God, when Thy Name is blasphemed with perfect freedom, in public and in private, when all Thy rights are disowned by society, when evil in all its forms is favored, and is able without any hindrance, but on the contrary with the approval of the public powers, to spread and to invade souls, what would become of the world if Thou didst not find therein the compensation, the reparation, the sacrifice, the holiness, and the prayer of Thy own Son, immolating Himself ceaselessly to Thy glory, and offering His blood for the guilty?

Adore, contemplate Jesus Christ behind the veils of the Sacrament as in the most august of sanctuaries, accomplishing the function of His reparative priesthood. He has all the qualities required in a priest: purity, holiness, contempt of created things, hatred of sin, love for sinners, a heavenly life; all these qualities He possesses in supreme perfection, in infinite perfection, because He is the Son of God, infinitely perfect. He has a perfect victim also, which is no other than Himself; and it is His soul, His body, His blood, His life, His liberty, His power, His repose, which He takes and immolates to God in the Eucharistic debasement, in which disappears the whole of His liberty and the whole of his life!

Adore Him! Adore Him in this sublime state, in this incomparable action of His Eucharistic priesthood, with humble fear, tempered by love and illuminated by admiration.

THANKSGIVING

Continue the contemplation of the sacrifice accomplished in the Sacrament by Our Lord by considering that you may make thanksgiving from your heart, the part which the love of our God assumes therein, the marvellous inventions by which it is there manifested.

It is freely, and by the pure inclination of His merciful heart, that He willed to add to His sacrifice on Calvary, and to the humiliations of His human life, the sacrifice of the altar and the abasements of His Eucharistic life; it is a fresh gift, which at each instant of its duration is renewed with a love equal to that which made it the very first time flow forth from His heart.

Moreover, this sacrifice is a compensation which surpasses in the glory rendered to God, in the satisfaction offered to His justice, and in gratitude for His benefits, all that the revolts, the ingratitude, and the stains of our sins attempt to take away from Him.

This intervention of Christ between heaven and earth has for its object to maintain between God and man reconciliation and peace, the communication of life and of grace, to assure to every one coming into the world the application of the salvation acquired upon the cross; to the just succor to prevent them from falling, to the sinner strength to rise again, to the dying means for dying in peace with God, to the whole world divine benevolence.

It is as perpetual as the needs of the creature and as the unreasonableness of sin. It is as universal as the world, that it may pursue sin everywhere and apply its reparatory action wherever sin has left its destructive principles.

Oh sweet and merciful, oh powerful and indefatigable mediation of the Eucharistic Christ! Oh too precious ransom! Oh vigilant protection! Oh, Sacrament of the priesthood and of the sacrifice of Jesus, throne of perpetual mediation, altar of peace, be Thou blessed, praised, loved forever!

REPARATION

Understand how serious a thing sin is in the world, since it continues to be committed so frequently in presence of the altar, whereon the divine Victim immolates Himself for the very purpose of diminishing its ravages, and yet in spite of its marvels of love, its innumerable sacrifices, its astounding abasements, all is useless!

There is no doubt but that sin is rendered more serious, more worthy of the hatred of God and of His chastisements, by the fact of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ being despised, repelled, soiled, by erring man carried away by fury against the love of His God. The presence of the Eucharist everywhere makes of the whole world, as it were, a sanctuary. It is this sanctuary which the sinner so ceaselessly profanes. What will not be his punishment if he perseveres in offending God, notwithstanding the protestations, the advances, the sacrifices, the reparations perpetuated and multiplied by the Eucharist to preserve him from or to make him cease from sinning?

Examine yourself, and recalling to memory the most serious sins of your past life, weigh them, measure them by the weight of all the love contained in the nineteen centuries of the Eucharistic existence of Jesus; detest them as He does, on account of Him. Offer Him that love for yourself, you can still do so; it is the crown of His mercy; make use of it, for if henceforth you despise it, your judgment will be terrible.

PRAYER

Pray always by the Eucharist, that is to say, by Jesus the priest, the mediator, the victim, the ransom and security of the world in the Sacrament. Remember that He is always there in the act of His sacrifice, which He renews night and day, at every moment and everywhere. Delight to place the mediator of peace between God and your miseries, your infidelities and your sins. Shelter, beneath the sacrifice, the prayers, and the protection of the Sacrament all those who are attached to you by the ties of blood, of duty, and of affection. The brood is not afraid of the vulture when it is under the extended wings of its mother; and in the same way, beneath the protection and under the shelter of the Sacrament we shall be safe from the murderous arrows of the enemy, and from the divine anger which revenges on us the victories which we easily allow Satan to win over us.

PRACTICE

Confidently invoke the Blessed Sacrament in temptation, danger, and trouble.

The Founding of the Church

Reading N° 1 in the History of the Catholic Church

by

Fr. Fernand Mourret, S.S.

The Baptism of Christ
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1618-1682)

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother tetrarch of Iturea and the country of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilina; under the high priests Annas and Caiphas; the word of the Lord was made unto John, the son of Zachary, in the desert. And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins. [...] Now it came to pass, when all the people were baptized, that Jesus also being baptized and praying, heaven was opened; and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape as a dove upon Him; and a voice came from heaven: "Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased."

In these words the Evangelist St. Luke relates the first public manifestation of Him whom His disciples soon afterward acclaimed as "their Lord and their God," and the Church acknowledged as its Head.

Jesus had been born of the Virgin Mary about thirty years before,^[1] in a stable at Bethlehem, a town in the kingdom of Juda, as the ancient prophets had foretold. Thus far His life had been hidden from the eyes of the world; but the hour was now at hand for Him to manifest Himself.

His public ministry began on the day of His baptism. Then for three years He went about Galilee and Judea doing good. "He declares high mysteries, but confirms them by great miracles; He enjoins great virtues, but gives, at the same time, great lights, great examples, and great graces."^[2]

The doctrine that He preached was very old and yet very new. "Every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like to a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure new things and old."^[3] He gathered, as in a sheaf, the religious truths and divine precepts that had been spread in the world, from the beginning, by the patriarchal and the Mosaic religion, and He supplemented them by a revelation of deeper mysteries and the preaching of more perfect virtues.

Belief in one God, the expectation of a liberator (Messias) and the hope of a restoration of Israel were the chief foundations of the Jewish faith. Christ taught them that the God they adored was Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,^[4] that the Messias they expected was truly the Son of God,^[5] and that the restoration for which they hoped was nothing but the redemption of the world.^[6]

Until then the Jews had been aroused to obedience to God by the hope of earthly rewards. "Jesus Christ sets forth to them a future life, and keeping them suspended in that expectation, He teaches them to disengage themselves from all things of sense. [...] Not satisfied with telling us that a life eternally happy was reserved for the children of God, the Messias has also told us wherein it consists. And this is life eternal, to be with Him where He is in the glory of God the Father; life eternal is to behold the glory He has in the bosom of the Father; life eternal, in a word, is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent."^[7]

"With such new rewards, Jesus Christ must propose also ideas of virtue, practices more perfect and more refined. He proposes to us the love of God even to the hating of ourselves. He proposes to us the love of our neighbor so as to extend that kind disposition towards all men. He proposes to us humility, even to the extent of loving shame for the glory of God."^[8]

Thus in the realm of morals as in that of doctrine, the old ideal is immeasurably surpassed. Is this the whole message of Christ? By no means. Those who listened to the Master soon understood that He had the future especially in mind. The second year of His ministry, His calling of the twelve Apostles and the choosing of a certain number of disciples laid the foundations of a society with Himself as the center and inspirer. At the head of the Twelve He placed Simon, the son of Jona, whom He named Peter. Peter's primacy is "so manifest a prerogative that the Evangelists, who in the catalogue they make of the Apostles observe no certain order, unanimously agree in naming St. Peter before all the rest as the first."^[9]

Christ and the Pharisees
Ernst Karl Georg Zimmermann (1852-1901)

Then, confronted by the misunderstanding of the populace and the ill-will of the Pharisees, the Master, in conformity with the custom of popular teaching in the East, altered the ordinary form of His discourses. Instead of direct exhortation and instruction, He now habitually made use of little figurative stories and popular parables or fables, to make His thought understood or surmised. Yet the subject of a large number of these parables is a mysterious kingdom, sometimes called the kingdom of God, at other times the kingdom of the heavens. This kingdom is compared to a field where cockle, sowed by the devil, chokes the grain,^[10] or to a mustard seed that becomes a great tree,^[11] or to leaven which a woman kneads in a mass of dough until all the latter is leavened,^[12] or to a net which is cast into the sea and filled with all kinds of fishes.^[13]

To the eyes of the disciples, the picture of this kingdom was still somewhat dim. It appeared to them in turn as something afar off and very near, as beyond this visible world and as transformed in this world. The fact is that, in the Master's thought, it is near, inasmuch as it is given in this life, but far off, inasmuch as it is consummated and perfected in the next life. In any event, it clearly appears that this future kingdom was to take the form of a society organized about Christ the King. The mother of the sons of Zebedee, understanding it in an earthly manner, asked that her sons be given places of honor in the future kingdom.

Most of the uncertainties disappeared during the forty days of intercourse which the risen Christ granted His disciples. Henceforth it is evident that the word "kingdom," so often used by the Master in the course of His earthly life, while sometimes meaning the reign of God by grace, and more often the supreme revelation of the last days, ordinarily refers to an earthly and militant society or church, with the mission of realizing in every man the individual reign of God and thereby preparing for the coming of a triumphant Church in Heaven.

Christ Giving Peter the Keys to Paradise
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867)

Further, this Church, organized and living, is there before the eyes of all. It is a perfect society, having received from the Master its special purpose, the salvation of the world; its essential doctrine, the gospel teaching; its sacred liturgy, centering in the Eucharist; its divine hierarchy, with degrees marked by the Sacraments of Baptism and Orders; its supreme head, designated by the Savior's special choice. Jesus said: "Simon, Bar-Jona [...] Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build My Church. [...] And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven.^[14] [...] Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren."^[15]

Jesus ascended into Heaven. No essential element seemed lacking in the divinely organized society which He left upon earth. Yet the attitude of His disciples was still timid. Abandoned to their own weakness, trembling before the Jewish police, they did nothing but pray together and piously keep in their hearts, along with the memory of the Master's conversations, the recollection of the great miracle of the Resurrection, performed to sustain their faith. They awaited the coming of the promised Comforter, because, when Jesus was leaving, He said to them: "If I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you."^[16]

Footnotes

[1] Probably in 749 A.U.C. We know that Herod died in 750; and the Gospel insinuates that Jesus was born a short time before. Dionysius Exiguus fixed upon the year 754 A.U.C. as the beginning of our era, but it was found that he was mistaken in his calculations. (Cf. Fouard, The Christ, the Son of God, I, 42 ff.) The same chronology is established by astronomical computations undertaken to determine the year of Christ's death. The work of De la Porte and Pio Emmanuelli, astronomer at the Vatican Observatory, seems to prove that the Savior's death occurred on Friday, the 7th of April, 783 A.U.C., the year 30 of our era. In that year the 14th Nisan began at about 6 o'clock on the evening of April 6. The 7th of April, 783 A.U.C., was a Friday. This coincidence did not occur in any other year between 28 and 34 of our era. (Cf. Cosmos, 1913, pp. 520, 565. A bibliography of this question will be found in the Revue d'histoire ecclesiastique, April 15, 1913.)

[2] Bossuet, The Continuity of Religion, p. 97.

[3] Matt. 13:52.

[4] Matt. 28:19.

[5] John 8:58.

[6] Matt. 26:28.

[7] John 17:3. Bossuet, op. cit., pp. 99, 110.

[8] Bossuet, op. cit., pp. 110 f.

[9] Ibid., p. 97.

[10] Matt. 13:24-30.

[11] Matt. 13:31 f.

[12] Matt. 13:33.

[13] Matt. 13:47-49.

[14] Matt. 16:17-19.

[15] Luke 22: 31 f. "The mighty words which so clearly establish Peter's primacy, also established the episcopacy. He who said to St. Peter: 'Whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth [...]' said the same thing to all the Apostles. [...] But the latter promise does not annul the former. Christ's promises, as also His gifts, are not taken back. [...] The power given to several contains a restriction in its partition, whereas the power given to a single one and over all and without exception, conveys plenitude. It was the teaching of a holy bishop of Gaul that the authority in the Church was first established in the person of a single man and was extended to others only on condition of being always referred to the principle of its unity." Bossuet, Sermon sur l'unite de l'Eglise, in Œuvres (Lachat ed.), XI, 599 ft. 

[16] John 16:7.

Join the discussion at:

Catholic Truth in History

by

Hilaire Belloc

[Note: Given the relative success of our historical series on Protestantism and an attendant increase in awareness of the need for reliable resources in the study of the history of the Catholic Church, I've decided to use this blog as a platform from which to embark on something of a social-networking educational experiment:  the History of the Catholic Church community on Google+. This community will be focused on engaging faithful Catholics in the study of Church history using Mourret's excellent History of the Catholic Church as its core curriculum along with supplemental material from around the internet. All readers of this blog are welcome to join. To get the endeavor off to a good start, we begin with a short essay by Hilaire Belloc on the importance of history and its study by Catholics. -RC]

***

Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953)

I had almost written that history is the most important department of all education. To put this without modification would be, of course, to put it wrongly. The most important part is the teaching of dogma; next, and inextricably connected with it, the teaching of morals; next, the securing (and this is also connected with the teaching of dogma and morals) of continuous Catholic daily custom.

History comes, of course, after all these. Any Catholic parent would much rather that his children grow up ignorant of history than ignorant of the Faith or of sound morals, or of Catholic custom and habit. Nevertheless, there is an aspect in which history may be called the most important of all subjects taught. And that aspect is precisely the purely scholastic aspect.

If I am sending my child to a school where he is taught positively certain things for a few hours a day, I may at a pinch guarantee his getting his religion and morals at home. But I cannot prevent his history being taught at the school, for history is regarded everywhere as part of the secular curriculum. And yet, upon what view of history he absorbs in youth depends a man's judgment of human life and of the community in which he will pass his days.

History is the memory of the State and at the same time the object-lesson of politics. It is by true history that men know what they really are. False history must make them think themselves different from what they really are. By history is the continuity of the State preserved and its character determined. Now history being of this supreme importance to philosophy, to one's whole outlook on life, and yet at the same time universally treated as a secular subject, you have meeting in it two issues, the conflict between which forms the great peril Catholics have to run in this country [i.e. England]. History must have a philosophy. It must tend to praise or to blame. It must judge. There is no such thing as mere external history, for all history is the history of the human mind. Therefore, in anti-Catholic society, history will be anti-Catholic. It will be anti-Catholic in the textbooks. It will be anti-Catholic in the examinations which Catholic youth has to pass. We are confronted in this country with the crucial difficulty of having to present the most important of human subjects, the one which, of temporal subjects, most affects the soul, with a machinery designed for the production of an anti-Catholic effect. 

Anti-Catholic Methods

First, let us examine in what way the anti-Catholic effect comes in. The great error of Catholics who would meet the opposing current is that they search out in the textbook which they must use the sentences maligning particular Catholic characters, times, doctrines, or false statements with regard to particular events. But such passages are rare and are not essential.

The essentials of anti-Catholic history, the things which make it all anti-Catholic, are, first, the anti-Catholic selection of material; second, what is called the anti-Catholic tone; and third, the anti-Catholic proportion observed in the presentation of historical fact. I would like, with your permission, to enlarge upon these three points which are capital to our subject.

First, as to selection. The telling of any story whatever is a matter of selection. If you select so that the truth sought is not revealed, then your selection, though every fact you present be true, is in its sum-total an untruth. What facts we choose to tell, and in what order, determine the picture we present.

Now, as to tone. I would like to emphasize in this matter of tone in history something which a good deal of detailed work has taught me but which, I think, is not sufficiently appreciated. It is this: tone or atmosphere in history is not a vague unseizable thing. It does not escape analysis. You can, if you will carefully go through a passage, exactly noting the adverbs and adjectives used, the type of verb also, and even, sometimes, the substantives, put your finger upon what gives the particular tone and say: ''That was the way in which the lie was told."

Thirdly, proportion, the respective amount of space and weight given to various parts of your story, is the final element which determines the whole. It is not the same as selection. Two men may select the same dozen facts to relate and each relate them, yet arrange a very different proportion among them of length, emphasis and weight.

We are surrounded by an atmosphere of, and presented with the machinery of, anti-Catholic history; history which produces its anti-Catholic effect not so much by misstatement of fact - that is rare - as by anti-Catholic selection, anti-Catholic tone, and anti-Catholic proportion.

How to Meet Them

How are we to meet the evil? How are we to teach our Catholic youth true history, that is, Catholic history? For it behooves us to remember what in a Protestant country it is easy to forget: that the Catholic Church is not one of many opinions, but the truth. Its clergy are not part of the "clergy of all denominations," but the priests of God with Sacramental power. What it says definitely on any matter is not, to use the modern jargon, a "subjective" truth; it is an objective truth. It is not the presentation of something in the mind. It is the presentation of something that would go on being there though all human mind were destroyed. And truth supports truth, as untruth supports untruth. Catholic truth is not something stuck into general history like a pin into a pin-cushion. It is part of the universal truth. The same attitude which makes a man deny the morality of divorce and affirm the morality of private property will make him tell the truth about history, when he comes to write it, in matters apparently remote from Catholic doctrine.

There is a Catholic truth about the Conquest of England, or the War of the Roses, or the Prankish Monarchy in Gaul, quite as much as there is Catholic truth about the Manichean heresy or the nature of the Reformation. By this I do not mean that in these temporal matters, dependent upon positive evidence, there will not he differences in judgment among the most learned of Catholic authorities. But I do mean that a whole library of different and conflicting books written by Catholics and dealing with the history of Europe would be Catholic in nature and would teach Catholic history; and that a similar collection of books written by anti-Catholics, however much they differed among themselves, would be anti-Catholic in tendency and produce an anti-Catholic effect upon the reader, and, so far as they indoctrinated the reader, would be indoctrinating him in lies.

Antagonistic Textbooks

Our first difficulty is the lack of textbooks. Here we may note a very deplorable accident of the immediate past. Ever since modern accurate detailed history began, pretty nearly every textbook of note has been written in direct antagonism of the Faith. Of the mass of Protestant work that goes without saying. All the German Protestant work and all the English Protestant work is anti-Catholic. The man who waved his arm at the British Museum and said: "Books written by dons to attack the Church" was exaggerating, but there was something in what he said. It is no answer to this truth to say that many of the writers are what is called "fair" to the Catholic Church. You cannot be called "fair" to the truth. The truth is not one of two interesting antagonists around whom you have to keep a ring. If you do not support it you cannot help attacking it. To talk of being "fair" to the Catholic Church in history is exactly parallel to talking of a judge being "neither partial on one side nor impartial on the other."

A Protestant historian is not to be commended, for instance, because he admits that many of the monasteries suppressed by Thomas Cromwell were well conducted. Rather is the Catholic historian to be commended who thoroughly exposes the ill-conduct of many of these monasteries, but who tells us what really happened. And what really happened was that the monastic institution was uprooted in England not because it had gone bad, nor because it was "outworn," not because it was unpopular, but because it was for the moment unfashionable in the smart intellectual world of that generation, because it was the chief defense of the Papacy and of unity of religion and, above all, because the King and the avaricious men who surrounded him wanted other people's goods. These three things combined explain that capital disaster in English history, the fiscal and territorial revolution of 1539. And if you do not put these three causes forward as the three great causes of the event, you are writing bad history.

It would be difficult to say why all the great textbooks since modern history began have been anti-Catholic, with the exception of Lingard, and even the great Lingard was influenced by the Protestant society in which he lived and for which he wrote. I can only connect so singular a phenomenon with the general story of Catholic academic work. The Church was, as it were, "taken aback" by the onslaught of skepticism in the eighteenth century. The French political system, the monarchy which was the chief defense of the Church, at that moment happened to be in decay, and when the storm blew that institution over, the scattered and defeated Catholic army of Europe took some time to rally. It did not really rally till our own time. There is also, probably, a large element of chance in the matter. Great historians are few, just as great poets are few.

At any rate, whatever the cause, there you have it. Every name you mention - Montesquieu, Mommsen, Michelet, Freeman, Stubbs, Treitschke, and a host of minor ones - tells the story of Europe and of his own country against the Church. The popular rhetorical historians do the same thing. The same is true of the dull and would-be accurate school-books. Green, who wrote for sale, leaves the innocent youth upon whom he imposed under the impression that all history led up to a Divine climax - the Protestant society of his common room. And there may be (I have not read them) other later textbooks continuing the same tradition. The great compendiums, such as the "Oxford History," or the much superior Rambaud and Lavisse, are in the same boat.

***

Join the discussion at:

The Reformation in Scotland

Ninth in a Series on the Protestant Reformation

by

Fr. Charles Coppens, S.J.

John Knox (1514-1572)

In England, as we have seen, the Reformation began with the throne and was forced upon the people; in Scotland, it began with a small but active portion of the people and was forced upon the government; once seated on the throne, it worked downward on the entire nation. It resembled a vast conflagration which begins with a match applied at the bottom of a pile of wood, shoots upward and spreads over the surface, kindling first all the dry portions it meets, and gradually consuming everything from the top to the bottom.

The dry branches were the corrupt members of the Church; and they were many in that land, more than elsewhere, especially among the clergy. For the freedom of ecclesiastical elections had been much violated, the rights of the Sovereign Pontiffs over the appointment of bishops ignored, and the Kings had often thrust their favorites into vacant bishoprics and other important benefices. For instance, King James V had made his illegitimate sons abbots and priors of Holyrood House, Kelso, Melrose, Codingham and St. Andrew's. Under such circumstances, inferior benefices were often openly put up for sale, or bestowed on unworthy candidates, sometimes on illiterate minions of courtiers.

Among such clergymen, religious scandals were frequent, and all manners of abuses were multiplied. The land was among the most remote corners of the Church, so that supervision and interference of the Roman Pontiff were very difficult, and therefore rare and inefficient. Such demoralization of the clergy could not fail to react on the laity, extinguishing in their hearts all reverence and confidence. Certainly there were at the time still large numbers of holy priests and monks and nuns; multitudes among the laity remained pious, fervent and faithful Catholics; but the depraved members of society are apt to be the most noisy and most active, and are always the most unprincipled in their use of means.

Such is the ordinary source of religious corruption in history; the secular power usurps the appointment of the Church dignitaries, the unworthy bishops install unworthy men in lower benefices, scandals and abuses degrade the clergy in the eyes of the laity, who lose confidence in their spiritual guides and reverence for religion itself.

The disgust of the good Catholics in Scotland, and the gibes and insults of the ill-disposed attracted more attention year after year. It was the time when Luther had just succeeded in revolutionizing religion in Germany, Calvin was triumphant in Geneva, Henry VIII had made himself the head of the Church in England. The most restless malcontents in Scotland were looking for a religious revolution in their own country as a cure of the existing evils. But many of them had a further design. They noticed that in all regions where the Reformation gained ground, the lords were enriched by the appropriation of Church lands and the treasures of the altars and the monasteries; only there was no sovereign in Scotland willing to promote the confiscation. They plotted among themselves secretly and perseveringly and at last accomplished their wicked purpose.

Their first effort was to foster the popular discontent. Revilings and ridicule of the demoralized clergy went far towards discrediting the ancient doctrine. Poetry contributed its aid, and fostered heretical views there as it had done in Germany. Sir David Lindsay thrilled the heart of the nation by lines as vigorous as they were elegant. The same wordy warfare was there used to discredit the clergy and the Church which was afterwards so successfully emploed by Voltaire to destroy the nobles and Christianity in France, where he prepared the way for the Reign of Terror.

The soul of the Reformation in Scotland, the counterpart of Luther, Zwingli and Calvin on the continent, was John Knox, the founder of the Presbyterians. he was born in 1505, ordained a priest in 1530; he was a man of learning and uncommon ability, a powerful preacher, but exceedingly coarse in his language. From 1535, he was a Protestant at heart, though he wore the mask of orthodoxy till 1542. A few years later, in open violation of his solemn vow of celibacy, he married a Miss Bowes, at Berwick, on the Scottish borders.

In 1544, Henry VIII plotted with some Scottish traitors to get possession of Mary, the heir to the throne of Scotland, who was then an infant only one year old. He was thwarted in his criminal design by a true Scottish patriot, Cardinal Beatoun. But he had his revenge in the murder of that noble prelate, perpetrated by the foiled conspirators. Knox openly approved the crime, and defended it as a "godly deed," which was to promote the work of the Reformation. he joined the band of guilty wretches, furnished them with armed defenders, with whom he was taken prisoner and carried to France by the allies of Mary.

Thence, after two years' detention, he passed into England, where he fraternized with Cranmer and his friends, who were then engaged in drawing up the Book of Common Prayer. When Mary restored Catholicity there, he fled to Geneva, to imbibe, from Calvin's teachings, the predestinarianism and the fanaticism which he was to infuse into his own followers. In 1555, he entered Scotland secretly, and encouraged the lords, who, that same year, entered into their first "Solemn League and Covenant" to bring about the establishment of the new gospel. Two years later, they went further, and swore to uproot the "abominations and idolatry" of the ancient faith.

Mary of Guise, the Queen Dowager

The Queen dowager, who was governing the country during the minority of Mary, strove to conciliate the rebels. She offered them full liberty of worship in the practice of the reformed doctrines, but they would not accept the offer; they had covenanted together for the total destruction of the Catholic religion. This is admitted by Knox himself, for in a letter which he wrote in 1559, he said that his party obtained permission for eight days to practice "religious liberty" as they understood it, and he adds:

In the which (days), the abbey of Lindores, a place of black monks, twelve miles distant from St. Andrew's, we reformed: their altars we overthrew; their idols, vestments of idolatry and Mass books we burned in their presence, and commanded them to cast away their monkish habits.

Knox and his brother preachers marched through the land, with the assistance of the covenanted rebels, establishing along their route the glorious Reformation, in the light of burning churches and monasteries, with their burning libraries and works of art. The preaching aroused the mob, and the mob did the work of destruction; for it was a solemn injunction of the Calvinistic creed, still contained, we believe, in the Presbyterian confession of faith, forcibly to remove all "false worship" and all "monuments of idolatry."

The Protestant Hutchinson writes:

The Reformation, in its violence, was a greater disgrace to religion than all the errors it was intended to subvert. Reformation has hitherto always appeared in the form of a zealot full of fanatic fury, with violence subduing, but through madness creating almost as many mischiefs in its oversight as it overthrew errors in its pursuits. Religion has received a greater shock from the present struggle to suppress some formularies and save some scruples than it ever did by the growth of superstition.

The dowager Queen-regent offered, over again, the free exercise of their religion to the covenanted Protestant lords, but these would not accept the offer in good faith; they claimed besides the right to remove "false worship and the monuments of idolatry." By this term, they meant especially the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is the center of Catholic worship. Protestants generally in our day have no conception of the bitter fanaticism with which the early Reformers in various lands persecuted their fellow countrymen who persevered in their ancestral faith.

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots

In Scotland particularly, they carried their ferocity to the most shocking excesses. They did not even allow their young Queen Mary, when she came home from France, to have Mass said by her chaplains in her own palace. Miss Agnes Strickland, herself a Protestant, writes in her valuable work Lives of the Queens of Scotland as follows:

On that morning, being Sunday (the first day of her return), Mary ordered Mass to be said in the Chapel Royal, resolutely claiming for herself and the Catholic members of her household the same liberty of conscience and freedom of worship which she frankly guaranteed to her subjects in general, without reservation or exceptions. The hearts of the congregation (the Protestants) were wonderfully moved when they learned that the Queen, though she refrained from persecuting interference with their mode of worship, meant to go to Heaven her own way. Patrick, Lord Lindsay, braced on his armour, and, rushing into the close at the head of a party of the Church militant, brandished his sword and shouted: "The idolater priest shall die the death!" They attacked the Queen's almoner, and would have slain him, if he had not fled for refuge into the presence of his royal mistress.

On the following Sunday, Knox preached on the evil of idolatry, and he expressed in his sermon such fanatical hatred of the ancient worship as to say one Mass was more fearful unto him than if ten thousand armed enemies were landed in one part of the realm on purpose to suppress the whole religion. These very words are attributed to him by his warm admirer, the historian of his life, the preacher McCrie. The acts of open violence by which the Reformation was spread from one city to another, by the desecration of churches, the plundering and sacking of monasteries, etc., had begun in 1559. In 1560, the rebels had formed a parliament without commission from their sovereign, and they had established in that meeting the new religion on the ruins of the old; they had abolished the papal power and enacted punishments against all who still had recourse to it; they had abolished the Holy Mass, and enacted, for the priests who should continue to offer it and the faithful who attended the service, forfeiture for the first offense, banishment for the second, and death for the third. The new confession of faith was modeled on that of Calvin. The dowager Queen marched with an army against the rebels, and had got the better of them so that their power was on the point of being crushed, when it was saved and made triumphant by the open support of Queen Elizabeth, who had so far aided them in secret ways. The same Protestant historian of Knox, McCrie, quoted above, and who substantially admits nearly everything we have narrated, says, on this matter:

The disaster, which caused the Protestant army to leave Edinburgh, turned out to the advantage of their cause. It obliged the English court to abandon the line of cautious policy, which they had hitherto pursued. On February 27, 1560, they concluded a formal treaty with the lords of the congregation; and in the beginning of April, the English army entered Scotland.

What secret plotting had begun was consummated by open violence, as far as the establishment of the Reformation in Scotland was concerned.

As to the subsequent life of the unfortunate but truly glorious Queen Mary, and her heroic death, we shrink from entering here upon the sickening story of the intrigues, slanders, treason, murder and forgeries by which all this was brought about. Of forgeries, the Anglican parson Whitaker says, and with his words we can appropriate close the narrative of the Reformation in Scotland:

Forgery - I blush for the honor of Protestantism while I write - seems to have been peculiar to the Reformed. I look in vain for one of the accursed outrages among the disciples of Popery.

On the Pastoral Nature of Vatican II: An Evaluation

by

Msgr. Brunero Gherardini

[Note: While this presentation was originally delivered in December 2010, it seems that it has received relatively little attention outside the italophone world in the four-year interim: at the time of writing, the Italian-language video of the presentation has ca. 4,300 views, and the version with English subtitles has a mere 375. This is a pity, given that Msgr. Gherardini provides us with a truly masterful dissection of the notion of a "pastoral" council as well as a useful framework for understanding the varying degrees of assent to which the documents of Vatican II can be seen as binding the Catholic faithful. For those who appreciate the fine art of Italian gesticulation - and Msgr. Gherardini is an old master - I've included a link to the subtitled video below. - RC]

***

Once upon a time, there was the Arabian Phoenix. Everyone talked about her - but no one had ever seen her. And today there is an updated version, also much talked about, but nobody can tell what it may be. Its name is Pastoral.

The Word

Msgr. Brunero Gherardini

One thing should be crystal clear: the word itself is no problem, for its derivation from the Latin pascere (to feed, graze) is obvious. The Latin verb was born from pabulum (pasture, feed) that gives life to a family not very large, but easily distinguishable in its components: to pasture, in the sense of herding and feeding, pastum (which, in Italian, becomes pasto, "a meal"), which can also be translated as "food"; Latin pastor (shepherd), the person who leads to pabulum, provides food and guards herds and flocks. Pastor becomes in turn the father of pastoricia ars (Italian: pastorizia), the art of tending animals; of Italian pastura (pasture, pasture-land); and of pastoral, already present in late Latin to describe the clothes, food, customs, language of a shepherd. Pasteurization (the process to preserve liquid substances, such as milk), however, is not derived from pastor, but from the French pastoriser, in turn derived from the inventor Louis Pasteur (1822-1895).

Pastoral soon became part of the ecclesiastical jargon to characterize three of the letters of Saint Paul, or the activity and teaching of evangelizers, or episcopal insignia such as ring, crosier, letters. More recent (but not modern) is the use of the word "pastoral" in reference to theology and with a non-dogmatic meaning; in fact, originally pastoral meant "anti-dogmatic." Apart from the ecclesiastical jargon, however, any educated person will easily relate pastoral to the nymphs of Arcadian poetry, to love poetry of Provençal origin, to Aminta (a pastoral drama) of Torquato Tasso, and to music of a simple and tender kind, whose specific characterization is the Sixth Symphony of Beethoven.

The Word Pastoral in Vatican II

After such a broad semantic spectrum, any allusion to the unknown and unseen Arabian Phoenix may appear unsustainable because of evident contradiction. Yet, the hypothetical "may" is neutralized by the absence from the conciliar documents of a sufficient reason adequate to justify it. I say "sufficient reason," because if I said that in the Council documents the word "pastoral" is not present, I would display crass and unforgivable ignorance of Vatican II. Not only is the word there, but it's there in abundance; indeed, it characterizes Vatican II in its specificity of ecumenical Concil against the other twenty that precede it. Vatican II does, in fact, speak of "pastoral action" in general and, in a more direct way, of "pastoral activities;" it identifies various "pastoral necessities" and advocates the institution of, and the mutual cooperation among, various "pastoral subsidies" in order to obviate such necessities; it duly lists among such subsidies the planning and organization of "courses, conferences, centers with their libraries specifically designed for pastoral studies, to be entrusted to eminently qualified persons." For the purpose of radiating "pastoral sensitivity" and any required knowledge within the widest possible radius, Vatican II makes it an obligation for the bishops to study on their own or at an inter-diocesan level the best system "to ensure that presbyters, particularly after several years since their ordination," pursue the required in-depth study of "pastoral methods." And, given that a strong contribution to the apostolic action of the Church can also come from the lay ranks, the Council invites the bishops to choose "priests endowed with the necessary qualities and sufficiently formed," who may in turn provide lay persons with an adequate formation and eventually entrust them with special "pastoral action tasks." And so that "the unity of intent among priests and Bishops may render their pastoral action ever more fruitful," the clergy is urged to hold periodical meetings that should be extended to other members of church organizations "in order to deal with pastoral issues."

Episcopal Conferences of individual nations are warmly encouraged to take to heart and foster the pastoral training of the clergy by means of "pastoral institutes in cooperation with purposely chosen parishes, periodical conferences, appropriate workshops." Not to be omitted, a call to "the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority" to establish an institute "for liturgical pastoral care" with "experts in liturgy, music, sacred art, and pastoral care." These data prove that the Arabian Phoenix is at home in Vatican II, but Vatican II does not say who or what she may be.

Those who "rule and nurture the people of God" are exhorted to incarnate the Good Shepherd who gives his life for his sheep (John 10:11) and to follow "the example of those priests who, even in our own time, did not hesitate to sacrifice their own lives for their flock." Briefly, while exhorting the clergy to become, day after day, the instrument of an increasingly effectual service to the people of God, Vatican II declares explicitly that its "pastoral goals" aim at "the internal renewal of the Church, the dissemination of the gospel throughout the whole world, and the establishment of a relationship based on dialogue with it." Such goals evidently respond to an underlying principle, a notion (rudimentary at least) of a barely sketched pastoral care; a relationship based on dialogue with the world by a Church renewed in her methods of evangelization and apostolate. At this point, though a bit vaguely, the Arabian Phoenix begins to give herself away.

Such insistence (and so much of it) is not surprising. To the contrary, it attests to docility and fidelity to the guidelines that Pope Roncalli, on the 11th of October, 1962, presented to the Council Fathers at the official opening of the great conciliar assembly: though doctrine ranked first among the Council's tasks, Pope John diversified its methodology as compared to the past. Previously, the Church had not eschewed firm and severe condemnation. Today she prefers to strictness the medicine of mercy. According to Pope Roncalli, then, the Church ought to show the good, benevolent, patient countenance of a Mother, most of all to a mankind fettered by so many hardships. She ought to foster human progress by expanding the scope of charity, to spread love, concord, and peace. In this way the contours of the Arabian Phoenix, though they remain hazy, merge with those of the good and patient Mother.

As if to confirm Roncalli's orientation, Paul VI in his homily of the 7th of December, 1965, for the Ninth Session of the Council, declared that the Church takes to heart, along with the kingdom of heaven, mankind and the world; indeed, the Church exists in function of mankind and the world, for the bond between Catholic religion and human life is an intrinsic one, to the point that Catholic religion can be called the very life of man and mankind thanks to her sublime doctrine, to her maternal care with which she accompanies man towards his last end, to the means she gives him to achieve such an end. An umpteenth declaration of pastoral intent that, since it remains within the boundaries of generic statements, does not yet unveil the countenance or the features of the Arabian Phoenix.

On the pastoral character of the Council, however, no doubts and no questions. Vatican II was not - only because it did not want to be - a dogmatic Council and, all things considered, not even a disciplinary one. It only wanted to be "pastoral." Yet, in spite of many interventions by in- and outsiders, the true significance of its declared "pastoral character" is still lost in the fog.

An Undefined Concept

A few lines back I indicated the multifaceted "pastoral role" of the Council. Pastoral as a qualifying adjective or in connection with a noun really occurs dozens and dozens of times. Yet, not one single occurrence gives, if not a definition, at least a hint of an explanation. I realize that, through a critical analysis of various declarations, one can get the general idea; this idea, however, could not be a direct expression of the Council's teachings.

Gaudium et spes is the most cogent example. It is even characterized as "pastoral constitution" being, all of it, an ideal and positive ferment in favour of man, of his freedom and dignity, of his presence in the family, in society, in cultural endeavours, and in the world, for the purpose of conferring upon private and public life breath and dimensions to measure of man. The association of the word "pastoral" with "constitution" in the heading is the most novel of all novelties in the whole Vatican II; and so was it perceived by the Council Fathers themselves, who, before giving their approval, discussed several other definitions. The only justification for associating those words is found in the note that follows the title of this unusual document called "pastoral" both because "on the basis of doctrinal principles, it aims at expounding the attitude of the Church towards the world and the people of today", and because attitude and doctrinal principles intersect and complement each other. The inference should be that such an attitude is always the application and the practical expression of doctrinal principles. To understand which ones, however, is still a problem: sociological, political, economical principles, perhaps, but not - or at least not directly - evangelic ones.

The reference to man and the world recalls the intrinsic limitations of both entities, their being created, and their living in time; their dynamic qualities, their unceasing evolution threatened, as if by Damocles's sword, by an always possible regression. All this highlights their variable and contingent condition but also the problems inherent in the practical application of those doctrinal principles that are for the most part absolute and irreformable. The note, too, acknowledges such perplexities and points them out, but does not solve them. It even complicates matters when it establishes that "the Constitution shall be interpreted according to the general norms of theological hermeneutics, taking into consideration the changing circumstances and their intrinsic links with the matters in question." Truly, should "pastoral care" consist of this merry-go-round of yes-and-no, any definition of it would be impossible. It is stated that the unquestionability of doctrine is to be applied to contingent situations; but should it make doctrine contingent, or should it render the contingent unquestionable and absolute, such an application would turn both elements upside down:"yes" arm-in-arm with "no." I understand why, from the Council halls on, Gaudium et spes was the most debated and the most hindered text. Its submission to committees and subcommittees was of little avail, and likewise its passage through as many as four successive formulations: the difficulty,bordering on hybris, lies in the simultaneous assertion of "yes" and "no."

Perhaps this unresolved perplexity is at the root of the problematicalness that still, after roughly half a century of post-Conciliar age, accompanies every discourse on the Council's "pastoral" role. In practice such perplexity is employed to legitimize just about everything and its opposite. Both conciliar hermeneutics, often analyzed by the Holy Father - the one, which considers Vatican II a new way of being Church, and the other that, to the contrary, links the Council to the living Tradition of the Church, are legitimized by this unsolved difficulty. In both hermeneutics, in fact:

• At the doctrinal level, Vatican II acquires all the values and the appearance of a dogmatic council: the former interpretation turns it into a super-Council, the latter into a doctrinal summary of all previous councils.
• At the pastoral level, Vatican II appears as a container, mixed because of the very fact of its "pastoral" nature, a sort of free hitter who, for "pastoral" reasons, is allowed to say simultaneously "yes" and "no."

At this point, it becomes imperative to provide an objective and unprejudiced assessment of the overall quality of Vatican II, a council that was hastily and naively limited to the "pastoral" sector.

The Four Levels of Vatican II

Those familiar not only with Gaudium et spes, but with all sixteen conciliar documents, are well aware that the variety of its topics and their respective methodologies situate Vatican II on four qualitatively distinct levels:

1. The generic level of ecumenical council as ecumenical council.
2. The specific level of its "pastoral" role.
3. The level of appeal to other councils.
4. The level of innovations.

At the first and generic level, Vatican II meets all the requirements to be an authentic Council of the Catholic Church, the twenty-first in a series. It follows that its magisterium is a conciliar one, that is to say: solemn and supreme, a fact that does not, in and of itself, testify to its dogmaticalness and infallibility; to the contrary, it does not even include these characteristics, because they were removed from the start from the Council's horizon.

At the second and specific level the pastoral role justifies the Council's extraordinarily broad interests that often exceed the boundaries of Faith and theology, e.g. the mass media, technology, the value attached to efficiency in contemporary society, politics, peace, war, socioeconomic life. This level also belongs to the conciliar teaching and is therefore solemn and supreme, but cannot claim - because of the matters dealt with and the non-dogmatic fashion in which they are treated - a validity in and of itself infallible and irreformable.

The appeal to some teachings of previous councils constitutes the third level. On occasion this appeal is direct and explicit (Lumen gentium §1: praecedentium Conciliorum argumento instans [urging on with the argument of previous councils]; Lumen gentium §18: Concilii Vaticani I vestigia premens [pressing on the tracks of the First Vatican Council]; Dei verbum §1: Conciliorum Tridentini et Vaticani I inhaerens vestigiis [treading in the footsteps of the Tridentine Council and Vatican I]), at times it is indirect and implicit and re-states already defined truths, such as the nature of the Church, her hierarchical structure, the apostolic succession, the universal jurisdiction of the Pope, the incarnation of the Word, redemption, the infallibility of the Church and her magisterium, eternal life for the good and eternal damnation for the wicked. In this respect, Vatican II is endowed with unquestionable dogmatic validity, yet this fact does not make it a dogmatic council, because its dogmaticalness is a reflection of the dogmatic character of the conciliar texts cited above.

Innovations constitute the fourth level. If one looks at the spirit that guided the Council, one could say that the whole Council was fourth-level, moved as it was by a radically innovative spirit, even when and where it attempted to strike root in Tradition. Some innovations, however, are specific: collegiality of bishops, the absorption of Tradition in Holy Writ, the limitation of biblical inspiration and inerrancy, the strange relations with the Jewish and Islamic world, the strain on the so-called religious freedom. It is all too plain that, if there is a level where the dogmatic character cannot be perceived at all, it is precisely that of conciliar novelties.

Conclusion

Adherence to Vatican II is, for the reasons stated above, qualitatively articulated. Inasmuch as all four described levels express conciliar teaching, all four require of individual believers and Catholic-Christian communities the duty of an adherence that shall not necessarily be always "of Faith." Such adhesion only goes to the truths of the third level, and only inasmuch as they derive from other assuredly dogmatic Councils. A religious and respectful reception is due to the other three levels, as long as some of their assertions do not collide with the perpetual reality of Tradition by reason of an obvious break of some of their formal variants with the eodem sensu eademque sententia [with the same sentiments and the same consensus]. In such a case, dissent, especially if calm and reasoned, determines neither heresy nor error.

As regards the second, pastoral level, one must truly think that the Council Fathers were not aware of the mortgage paid by themselves to Enlightenment by opening up the Council to a pastoral role that from the very beginning, according to the Enlightenment mentality from which it sprang, had given a trip to God in order to replace Him with man and even, at times, to identify God with man. Indeed, eighteenth-century pastoral care bypassed the motivations, sources, contents, and methods of dogmatic theology and opened wide the gates of the theological fortress to the primacy of anything natural, rational, temporal, sociological.

By saying this, I do not mean at all that the pastoral model of Vatican II is the same as the pastoral model of the eighteenth century. But anyone who, in order to deny their identity, denied any relationship between the two, would be naive or disinformed. In Vatican II, the pastoral model remained rooted in Enlightenment, albeit with different expressions and motivations. It was Paul VI who rescued it from the quicksands of the Enlightenment when, at the opening of the second post-conciliar period, he transferred that model to a Romantic sphere in order to make it "a bridge to the contemporary world" that would convey to it "its inner vitality ... as a life-giving event and an instrument of salvation for the world itself." Thus the Arabian Phoenix became a bridge, a coefficient of life, an instrument of salvation; yet without losing its relationship with Enlightenment as its source through the Neo-Modernistic inspiration of its proponents. Not by chance secularization, which subsequently celebrated its triumph in the present post-conciliar stage, moved from a "pastoral theology" thus understood. And if an uncertain notion of its pastoral nature derives from ignorance of its precedents, the absurdity of the dogmaticalness of a self-styled merely "pastoral" council must needs derive from its original relationship with them.

Thus, the Arabian Phoenix unveils her true features. All things considered, it would have been better had she kept them secret still.

***

(Text Source: Centre for Mediaeval Studies Leonard Boyle)

Video Presentation

[Note: Ensure subtitles are enabled by clicking on the (CC) icon.]