The Collegiality Pope
Magister announces:
Every bishop I've ever spoken to about B16 has always reflected on his ad limina visit. As you all know, during the quinquennials the visiting prelates meet with the Roman dicasteries to "discuss" relevant issues. Usually, the prefect walks in, gives a canned speech as if he were lecturing students, and walks out.
But the bishops' faces -- and their words -- would light up when speaking of the CDF experience. As one told me about Ratzinger's presentation, "He listened to us. He engaged us. He asked us what we wanted to know, and he put us at ease...." Ratzi even lingered afterward if any bishop had a private question or just wanted to chit-chat.
As with any of us, but especially with bishops, that goes a very long way.
-30-
One of the items on Benedict XVI's list of projects is a new equilibrium between papal primacy and the college of bishops.That rattling you hear is the bishops of the world, banging pots in excitement. Go on, Sandy....
During the first millennium of Christianity, when the Church of Rome and the Eastern Churches were still united, the college of bishops played a greater role than it has since. It still plays such a role in the patriarchates of the East, which are governed by a synodal system.So we're seeing a dual-pronged effect here: one which serves the existing Catholic world well in giving its diverse and far-flung voices (through the bishops, of course) a more substantive reception in the universal administration of the church. And it goes further into the Pope's ecumenical agenda.
The opposite took place in the Roman Church. There, papal primacy was greatly strengthened during the second millennium. Benedict XVI – together with the cardinals who elected him – is convinced that the time has come to strike a balance of powers and give greater recognition to the role of the bishops.
A small first corrective measure has already been introduced into the synod Rome is planning for next October. The synod – an institution inaugurated by Paul VI after Vatican Council II, periodically gathering around the pope representatives of the Catholic bishops from all over the world – will remain a consultative rather than a deliberative body, but the bishops will be able to discuss their topic, the Eucharist, using procedures much better adapted to bringing out different points of view, which the pope will have to consider.
Benedict XVI hopes that by reinforcing the college of the bishops, he will heal the schism that has divided the Church of Rome from the Eastern Churches. He wants to bring the respective systems of governance closer together according to the best that each has produced throughout its history.
Every bishop I've ever spoken to about B16 has always reflected on his ad limina visit. As you all know, during the quinquennials the visiting prelates meet with the Roman dicasteries to "discuss" relevant issues. Usually, the prefect walks in, gives a canned speech as if he were lecturing students, and walks out.
But the bishops' faces -- and their words -- would light up when speaking of the CDF experience. As one told me about Ratzinger's presentation, "He listened to us. He engaged us. He asked us what we wanted to know, and he put us at ease...." Ratzi even lingered afterward if any bishop had a private question or just wanted to chit-chat.
As with any of us, but especially with bishops, that goes a very long way.
-30-
posted by Rocco Palmo at 11:10
2 Comments:
This collegiality could well support the much-desired development of episcopal spines. After all, if the Pope doesn't take the other bishops seriously, then why should anyone else?
Pope Benedict will undoubtedly treat the bishops with REAL--as opposed to superficial--respect. That is a good thing in itself and in the long run will be good for the Catholic Church.
However, I don't think it will be helpful for ecumenism with the Orthodox. Despite the fact that they loathe the papal primacy of jurisdiction, they also loathe the anti-traditional/radically innovative posture of much of the Catholic hierarchy after Vatican Two. The idea that a traditional liturgy can be destroyed (or radically revamped) by committee or synod of bishops is totally repugnant to them and one more sign of the essential unfaithfulness and dangerously authoritarian nature of the Roman Church. And of course, radical theology also horrifies them.
In other words, though in theory they ought to welcome more decentralization, in practice, they hate the results of it in the Roman church and lose any taste for association with us. The sight of liturgical dancing and gospel singing in Belleville which so delights the heart of Rocco, brings no more joy to the monks of Mount Athos than it does to the denizens of Econe. Desire for closer bonds with the Orthodox is yet one more argument for liturgical restraint and faithfulness to sound doctrine.
And remember, the Cardinal Ratzinger who listened deeply and sympathetically was also able, once he had meditated thoroughly and prayerfully, to say, "No. You must not. If you persist, you will be sanctioned." Sometimes "listening" is a code word for tolerating anything or being indecisive. In THIS perverse sense of the word, the Pope is NOT a listener.
kantors@patriot.net
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