Inside the Vatican August 2020 by Inside The Vatican Magazine

INSIDE THE

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 $5 / EUR 5 / £3.30

VATICAN

A NEW CHURCH?

WHAT WAS VATICAN II? THE COUNCIL WAS MANY THINGS: A RETURN TO ANCIENT SOURCES, AN OPENING TO THE MODERN WORLD. BUT WAS IT SOMEHOW “HIJACKED”? A SPECIAL DOSSIER

THE NEXT POPE The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission George Weigel The Catholic Church is on the verge of a transition of great consequence.

s acclaimed Catholic theologian and papal biographer George Weigel notes, the eventual successor to Pope Francis will face uncharted territory, so it is appropriate to ponder now what the Church has learned during the pontificates of the three conciliar popes—and to suggest what the next pope might take from that learning. Drawing on his personal discussions with John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis, as well as his decades of experience with Catholics from every continent, Weigel examines the major challenges confronting the Catholic Church and its 1.3 billion believers in the 21st century: challenges the next pontificate must address as the Church enters new unknown horizons.

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Taking lessons from the pontificates of John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis, Weigel proposes what the next pope must do to remain faithful to the Holy Spirit’s summons to renewed evangelical witness, intensified missionary fervor, and Christ-centered reform in the wake of grave institutional failures, mission confusion and the secularist challenge to biblical faith.

Also by George Weigel X THE FRAGILITY OF ORDER Catholic Reflections on Turbulent Times n these bracing essays Weigel reads such events as World War I, the collapse of Communism, and the Obama and Trump presidencies through a distinctive cultural and moral lens, even as he offers new insights into Pope Francis and his challenging pontificate. Two of Weigel’s key convictions—that ideas have consequences for good and ill, and that the deepest currents of history flow through culture— illuminate political and economic life, and the life of the Church. FROH . . . Sewn Hardcover, $24.95 FROP . . . Sewn Softcover, $17.95

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EDITORIAL

by Robert Moynihan

Become a “Friend of Lebanon” A powerful explosion and subsequent shock wave which spread more than six miles killed more than 200 people, wounded thousands, and left hundreds of thousands homeless. A lament and an appeal

“Ah, let me cross over and see this good land beyond the Jor- generals had indicated to him that the explosion may not have been accidental, but touched off by “a bomb.” dan, this fine hill country, and the Lebanon!” – Deuteronomy 3:25 “According to them—they would know better than I would— Dear friends, All of us should shed a tear for what has happened to but they seem to think it was an attack,” Trump told reporters at Lebanon’s beautiful capital, Beirut — the lovely port city of a the White House. “It was a bomb of some kind.” “How can you say ‘accident’ if somebody left some terrible gorgeous, mountainous country just to the north of Israel. On August 4, at about 6:07 p.m., an explosion in the harbor of explosive-type devices and things around?” Trump asked Beirut sent a brief mushroom cloud billowing into the sky, fol- reporters during a White House briefing the next day. “I don’t lowed by clouds of red and grey smoke and a powerful shock think anybody can say right now... Some people think it was an wave (but comparatively little heat — something observers noted attack and some people think it wasn’t.” Then, speaking on August 7, the president of Lebanon, — the heat would have set the city on fire). The shock wave raced through the “Paris of the East,” so-called because of its beautiful Michel Aoun, also seemed to change his position from the origstreets and hospitable people, shattering windows into millions of inal one that it was a terrible accident, saying the Beirut explosions could have been “due to negligence or foreign interference glass shards, causing thousands of injuries. So August 4, 2020 in Lebanon, much like September 11, through a missile or bomb.” He said he had asked French Pres2001 in the United States, will go down as a day of tragedy and ident Emmanuel Macron to provide Lebanon with satellite imagery which might show whether sorrow for Lebanon’s people. there were any missiles or airplanes At his weekly General Audience in the area which may have had the next day, on Wednesday, August something to do with the explosion. 5, Pope Francis prayed for victims in So there seems to be some slow Beirut. “Let us pray for the victims, movement in official circles to look for their families,” Francis said. “And more closely at the possibility that let us pray for Lebanon so that, there was intent behind the explosion through the dedication of all its — which would, of course, make it social, political and religious elenot a lamentable accident, but a terriments, it might face this extremely tragic and painful moment and, with The round circle of water marks the crater left by ble crime. the explosion. The large building in the middle We have several dear friends who the help of the international commuforeground was not demolished, and to a certain are Lebanese, and they are well, thank nity, overcome the grave crisis they extent protected the city to the right of that God. Still, our thoughts and prayers are experiencing.” building from the shock wave. go out to the people of Beirut, and of The explosion was at first attributed by government officials to the accidental explosion of 2,750 Lebanon, who have been harmed and traumatized by this terrible tons of ammonium nitrate (fertilizer) stored at the harbor for the explosion. And during his lifetime, Jesus visited the Phoenician past seven years. In 2013, the fertilizer was being transported by cities along Lebanon’s coast, Tyre and Sidon, preached to the a Moldavan-registered ship from the Black Sea to Africa. A Russ- people there, and healed the sick. The soil on which he walked is ian national now living in Cyprus identified as Igor Grechushkin “holy ground.” As Pope Francis said, people of Beirut are in need had been paid $1 million to transport the high-density ammonium of assistance. We have spoken with our friends, Maronite monks nitrate to the port of Beira in Mozambique, according to reports. in Rome and Lebanon, about how we can help. They have The ship, named the Rhosus, set out from the Black Sea port of encouraged us to contribute to relief efforts sponsored by the Batumi, Georgia, but never made it past Beirut. The ship was Maronite Catholic Church in Lebanon. We invite all readers to impounded by Beirut port authorities, and the Russian owner join us in this effort. You may make donations at the insidethevatabandoned the vessel, which later sank in the harbor. The cargo ican.com website. Each person who contributes will become was brought ashore and left for seven years in the warehouse that enrolled in a group called “Friends of Lebanon.” Factions and divisions arise in the Church. The Church’s real, just blew up. abiding unity comes from the Holy Spirit, and is “incarnated” in What caused it to blow up? Lebanese authorities at first said it was touched off by a fire in acts of charity in time of need. Please join us in supporting the a fireworks factory next to the warehouse. But then U.S. President people of Lebanon. In this way we will “incarnate” the unity of Donald Trump said in an August 4 press conference that his top the Church in this factious time. —Robert Moynihanm AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

CONTENTS

Year 28, #7

LEAD STORY VATICAN-CHINA/The Vatican-China agreement is up for a September renewal... by Christina Deardurff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 NEWS: “We need to keep praying” by Theresa Li, special ITV correspondent from China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 Year 28, #7

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Robert Moynihan ASSOCIATE EDITOR: George “Pat” Morse (+ 2013) ASSISTANT EDITOR: Christina Deardurff CULTURE EDITOR: Lucy Gordan CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Giuseppe Rusconi, Dr. Jan Bentz WRITERS: Anna Artymiak, Alberto Carosa, William D. Doino, Jr., David Quinn, Andrew Rabel, Vladimiro Redzioch, Serena Sartini, Father Vincent Twomey PHOTOS: Grzegorz Galazka LAYOUT: Giuseppe Sabatelli ILLUSTRATIONS: Stefano Navarrini CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: Deborah B. Tomlinson ADVERTISING: Katie Carr Tel: 202-536-4555, ext.303 kcarr@insidethevatican.com

EDITORIAL OFFICES FOR MAIL: US: 14 West Main St. Front Royal, VA 22630 USA Rome: Inside the Vatican via delle Mura Aurelie 7c, Rome 00165, Italy Tel: 39-06-3938-7471 Fax: 39-06-638-1316 POSTMASTER: send address changes to Inside the Vatican c/o St. Martin de Porres Lay Dominican Community PO Box 57 New Hope, KY 40052 USA Tel: 800-789-9494 Fax: 270-325-3091 Subscriptions (USA): Inside the Vatican PO Box 57 New Hope, KY 40052 USA www.insidethevatican.com Tel: 800-789-9494

INSIDE THE VATICAN (ISSN 1068-8579, 1 yr subscription: $ 49.95; 2 yrs, $94.95; 3 yrs, $129.95), provides a comprehensive, independent report on Vatican affairs published monthly except July and September with occasional special supplements. Inside the Vatican is published by Urbi et Orbi Communications, PO Box 57, New Hope, Kentucky, 40052, USA, pursuant to a License Agreement with Robert Moynihan, the owner of the Copyright. Inside the Vatican, Inc., maintains editorial offices in Rome, Italy. Periodicals Postage PAID at New Haven, Kentucky and additional mailing offices. Copyright 2020 Robert Moynihan

INSIDE THE VATICAN

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

NEWS: Pope Francis starts fund for unemployed; Bolivian diplomat chosen for Vatican post; the meaning of the Hagia Sophia becoming a mosque by Christina Deardurff and Hannah Brockhaus (CNA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 DEBATE: Vaccines using aborted human babies Stefanie Stark, ITV special correspondent, interviews Dr. Theresa Deisher . . . . . . . . . . . .18 DOSSIER VATICAN II/Do we have a “parallel Church”? by Christina Deardurff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 VATICAN II/Was Vatican II really the “seed of error”? by Dr. John Cavadini of the Univeristy of Notre Dame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 VATICAN II/De-throning Vatican II by Dr. Anthony Esolen of Magdalen College in New Hampshire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 VATICAN II/Vatican II and the work of the Spirit by Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM Capuchin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 CULTURE DEBATE/New openings to make Masonic membership possible? by Robert Moynihan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 SAINTS/ by Anna Artymiak, ITV special correspondent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36 SCRIPTURE/ by Prof. Anthony Esolen, Magdalen College, New Hampshire, USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38 EDUCATION/Australia’s groundbreaking Catholic college by Dr. Paul Morrisey, President of Campion College, Sydney, Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 OBITUARY/ by Deborah Castellano Lubov (Zenit), interviewing Dr. Michael Hesemann . . . . . . . . . . .42

URBI ET ORBI: CATHOLICISM AND ORTHODOXY Icon/ by Robert Wiesner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46 Spirituality/ By Father El Meskeen (1919-2006) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47 East-West Watch/ by Peter Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48 News from the East: by Becky Derks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49 FEATURES LATIN/Profile of a great Latinist: Cardinal Antonio Bacci (1885-1971) by John Byron Kuhner, Paideia Institute, Rome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 Art/Who should own Italy’s religious art? Church or state? by Lucy Gordan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54 BOOK/Selection from Lord of the World (originally published in 1907) by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56 Vatican Watch/A day-by-day chronicle of Vatican events: May, June, July by Becky Derks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 People/ by Becky Derks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60 Food for Thought/”True Italian hospitality”: An oasis in Trastevere by Mother Martha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62

The Secrets of Christian History and Becoming a Saint X SCANDAL OF THE SCANDALS: The Secret History of Christianity Manfred Lütz — After holy wars and witch-hunts, persecutions and political machinations, there is a broad sense today that the Church is on the wrong side of history. But do we really know our history? Best-selling German author Lütz dares to show us what contemporary historians actually say about Christianity's track record. Separating myth from fact, he gives us a candid portrait of Christendom. You’ll be amazed at how little you really knew about Christianity. "In taking on 'the distorted image of the history of Christianity', Dr. Lütz challenges a remarkable range of errors and falsehoods, combining robust historical research with a clear and accessible style." — Carl Olson, Editor, Catholic World Report SOTSP . . . Sewn Softcover, $18.95

X EIGHT POPES AND THE CRISIS OF MODERNITY Russell Shaw — A searching look at the cause of the modern crisis of the assaults on the dignity of the human person, and the various approaches to it by eight Popes who led the Church in the 20th century. A very fascinating story that presents an illuminating interpretation of recent world events, viewed through the lens of an ancient institution, the papacy, a key champion of human rights under attack in modern times. “A powerful reminder of the importance of the papacy, and the achievements of the extraordinary men who held it during a turbulent century, from Pius X through John Paul II.” — Most Reverend Charles Chaput Archbishop Emeritus of Philadelphia EPCMP . . . Sewn Softcover, $15.95

SAINTS: Becoming an Image of Christ Every Day of the Year Dawn Marie Beutner — Saints have inspired Christians for two thousand years because they show us how to follow Christ amidst countless challenges. This unique book has short biographies of several saints for every day of the year, along with prayers to each one. These saints from every period of Church history and all walks of life show us that holiness is a path for anyone, and by their example they help us to follow it. “The saints are called the ‘living Gospel’. This work provides a great service in bringing together their short biographies for every day of the year.” —Fr. Paul Scalia, Author, That Nothing May Be Lost STSP . . . Sewn Softcover, $27.95

Dying to Live: From Agnostic to Baptist to Catholic Ian Murphy — When a teacher told high school valedictorian Murphy he could not mention Jesus in his speech, his defiance made national news, and his zeal to spread the Gospel became the defining passion of his life. The unexpected twists and turns in Murphy's extraordinary spiritual journey show that when a man gives his life to Christ, the Lord never lets him go. "Murphy’s incredible conversion story begins with a helicopter chase — and the plot gets more exciting from there. This story could just as well be an action movie!" —Scott Hahn, from the Foreword; Author, Rome Sweet Home DTLP . . . Sewn Softcover, $17.95

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

INSIDE THE VATICAN welcomes letters but cannot reply to all. Each is read and considered carefully. Printed letters may be edited for clarity. You may email us at editor@insidethevatican.com

ON VATICAN II (Re: Moynihan Letter #13: Dossier Vatican II, #1, Professor Anthony Esolen) So Prof. Esolen and Viganò think they know better than the Church meeting in formal Council. God help us and preserve us from egotists and self-appointed interpreters who harken back for the Imperialist authoritarianism of the Inquisition. Sean Creaney seancreaney@gmail.com Your Letter #13, by Prof. Anthony Esolen, and today’s Letter #18, dated July 30, from Archbishop Viganò knocked me over. What I drew from Prof. Esolen could not only apply to the spiritual condition of the world, but also the political — with the virus and its devastating fallout, then the political and social strife with the riots, tearing down of statues, and trying to eliminate history, has been jaw-dropping. And then the “hearing” with Attorney General William Barr — it was sinister, but he held his own. I had the same reaction reading Letter #18. My mouth is so wide open these days, an airplane could land in it. Yet, the wisdom that flowed from Prof. Esolen put it in perspective. The present sad condition of my country, the United States, did not start with the death of George Floyd. The anarchy, debauchery and hate has been simmering here and in other countries for a long time. The waning of faith and Truth in the world is where we find ourselves. Archbishop Viganò has been right. But here is the saving grace, literally: “But the lawgiver here is the Holy Spirit and not men, and that makes all the difference in the world” — as Dr. Esolen wrote. You said on one of the virtual pilgrimages that “we are going through a period of purification — and we have to go through it.” That was a riveting statement. I believe the Holy Spirit is revealing Truth when good people stand up for it. I believe that you, Archbishop Viganò, our president, and many others are doing that. You are doing that at great risk. Linda Smith Florida, USA 8

INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

I have not been able to attend your virtual pilgrimages last week or this week. However, I did subscribe to Inside the Vatican some weeks ago, and I look forward to receiving the next issue. The reason I subscribed was because reading the free issue you put up, I discovered valuable details of Pope Francis inviting prisoners and family and chaplains to write part of the Way of the Cross for Good Friday. I am much involved in Criminal Justice Reform, especially in West Virginia, and this was valuable information that allowed me to follow up and find the program used. The magazine seems to have a pretty comprehensive overview and I appreciate that. But, do you really agree mostly with the comments of Archbishop Viganò and Professor Esolen? It appears that you do by the way you put forth their writings. My seminary professors also discussed the Council pronouncements that tried to reconcile conservative and progressive viewpoints. Those were the passages that we studied in the original Latin instead of the English translation... because the translation lost a lot of the nuance of the compromise. However, we viewed those items just as the Christological controversies, where councils crafted words that captured a “both” “and” kind of algebra that somewhat resolved the controversy as far as human words would allow. Anyway, do you really want to turn the clock back to 1961 when seminaries were full, but Christians were at each others’

throats in controversy and disunity? Do you want to reverse the gains in mutual understanding among all the Abrahamic strands of faith? Do you want a return to “outside the Church there is no salvation”? Do you accept a static view of philosophy, or an evolutionary view of philosophical thought? This last question is a nonreligious question, but it has an impact on the vocabulary and reasoning process we use to describe the ecclesial reality. If you are open to these issues, I recommend that you instead begin to ask your contacts to accept Vatican II as they accept the previous Councils, in its context, and to develop and propose an agenda for the next Council in areas that you and they believe may have been incorrect / incomplete / misdirected... and put further positive proposals also on the table for next steps of resolving the scandal of Christian disunity. In summary: be positive and pro-active instead of negative and reactive. Propose a way to fix the problems identified instead of creating a climate of criticism. When you study the early Councils, they didn’t get everything fully resolved at one time. For example, the Nicene Creed received development at further meetings. I really think we need another Council soon to address the unfinished / unresolved work of Vatican II that has left us with 50+ years of pro and con leadership, both in Rome and in fact throughout the world. Do you agree we need a new Council? Soon? Robert Graf, D.Min. robertgraf@aol.com

The Editor replies: The Second Vatican Council had a pastoral intent. There was no desire to change doctrine, which the Church had taught faithfully for two millennia. There was a desire to “engage” the world with thoughtful and persuasive arguments in favor of the Church’s perennial teaching — because it could not be otherwise. If it were otherwise, we would have to say the Church had been teaching error prior to the Council, and we cannot say that without saying that the Holy Spirit had ceased to protect the Popes from error, and we cannot say that. However, there are quite a few who today say “since the Council, the Church no longer teaches” or “the Church changed her teaching on that at and after the Council.” This cannot be correct, but many seem to believe it is correct. So on this one point, I would be in favor of a clarification — not in favor of a new Council being held, but in favor of a clarification from the Pope that we do not today have a “new” Church and doctrine, different from the “old” Church prior to 1965, but the same Church and doctrine, presented perhaps in a more understandable or compelling way, but not altered in any doctrine, still teaching what has always been handed down from the beginning.—RM God bless you for publishing this Dossier of Vatican II! I admit, I was very discouraged after reading Viganò’s letter and the essay by Dr. Esolen. Fr. Weinandy has expressed exactly how I feel (much more eloquently than I could have). A simple summary — if I may be so presumptuous: I was present at the University of Dallas in 2018, when Scott Hahn spoke. During Q&A following the talk, in response to a question about his expectations when he came into the Church 30 years previously, Dr. Hahn said he never imagined anything like this — he never imagined 30 years ago that things could possibly be as bad as they are today, and, at the same time, he never imagined 30 years ago the wonderful things he is seeing today! It can only be the work of the Holy Spirit. In all things, thank God. Mark Drogin droginmark@yahoo.com

ROBERT KENNEDY, JR., ON VACCINES I was initially shocked and later quite troubled by your giving credence to Ken-

nedy’s peculiar positions by printing the Stefanie Stark interview. In the interview he states, “Vaccines are not safety tested, and people find that hard to believe, but unfortunately it’s true.” As a physician who has studied the vaccine development protocols, Kennedy’s statement is clearly false, misleading, and does great harm to the general public. He promotes the nonsense that the virus infection can be solved with clean water and good nutrition. I wonder if he would rely on those measures if he contracts the virus — I doubt it unless he is completely irrational. Kennedy is well-known for his conspiracy theory views and his association with Alex Jones and their ilk. These people claim the holocaust was a hoax, as was 9/11. I have a relative who claims we never landed on the moon, and worse, that the earth is flat! My growing impression is that Archbishop Viganò has joined this group — his recent statements seem socially paranoid, again without a shred of evidence for support. Lastly, I am even more concerned that you appear to support all these views by printing such, quoting Viganò, we ought not “allow centuries of Christian civilization to be erased under the pretext of a virus.” That is a gross exaggeration of the current situation. Certainly we must fight to preserve our freedoms and beliefs, but to link current limitations (lockdowns, masks, etc.) to a vague one-world domination scheme is just bizarre. I have for years read ITV as a reliable, guiding light to world Catholic news and events. I pray it returns to that important role. Ronald V. Erken, MD St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. responds: Dr. Erken seeks to discredit me by somehow associating me with his cousin’s belief that the moon landing was staged and with Alex Jones’s Holocaust denialism. The former is comical, the latter reprehensible. I endorse neither. His only substantive critique is his dispute of my claim that none of the 72 vaccines currently mandated to American children have ever been safety tested against an inert placebo — the gold standard of safety testing for every other pharmaceutical product. This is the reality in vaccine safety testing because Health and Human Services (HHS) classifies vaccines

as “biologics” rather than “medicines” and routinely licenses them without true placebo testing. For example, when Gardasil was in clinical trials, rather than testing the vaccine against an inert saline solution, Merck chose to use as a “placebo” an aluminum containing solution that compared closely with the aluminum content used as an adjuvant in the vaccine. This served to better mask adverse events that are typically associated with exposure to aluminum. In 2018, I sued HHS in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit demanding that the agency produce all biannual vaccine safety reports submitted to Congress as stipulated in the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. The agency was unable to produce a single vaccine safety report and was therefore derelict in its duties to ensure vaccines are as safe as possible and send reports of its work to Congress. You can view the HHS reply here. Under federal law, the package inserts for each vaccine must disclose all pre-licensing safety testing. Those inserts for each vaccine are public records available on the internet. A quick look reveals that none has been safety tested against an inert placebo. —RK, Jr.

The Vintage Catholic – Sacred Art & Antiques –

“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred....” Pope Benedict XVI

www.thevintagecatholic.com AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

LEAD STORY

Vatican-China Agreement Is Up for Renewal THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT IS STEPPING UP AGGRESSION AGAINST RELIGION; IS THE 2018 VATICAN-CHINA DEAL STILL WORKING?

n BY CHRISTINA DEARDURFF

A number of Christian churches in Lu’an were left without crosses (photo from the BITTTER WINTER website). Top, the buildings with crosses; second row, after the crosses were removed. Below, Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli and Hong Kong’s retired archbishop, Cardinal Joseph Zen

he Vatican’s interim 2-year agreement with the Communist Chinese government, signed September 22, 2018, is set to expire in September of this year, and it remains unclear whether the Vatican will — and perhaps more importantly, should — renew the deal for another year, or even two. The agreement, which stipulated among other things that the Chinese government would select the country’s new bishops but that final approval would belong to the Holy See, also regularized China’s previously government-appointed bishops (those of the government-spon10 INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

sored Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association [CPA], as opposed to the “underground” Chinese Catholic Church, which has always maintained communion with the Holy See), allowing many of them to be recognized by the Vatican. But according to the South China Post, the agreement has to date failed to produce results in new bishop appointments: “No new heads have been chosen for the 52 bishop-less dioceses in the two years since the agreement was signed, according to sources with knowledge of the

negotiations, who declined to be named.” The intention of the agreement, as indicated by its architects, was to bring unity to Catholics in China, fractured by membership in two competing versions of the Church. The hope seemed to be that VaticanChinese government cooperation would lead to the eventual amalgamation of all Catholics into one Chinese Catholic Church, retaining enough Vatican affiliation to remain Catholic while still meeting the government’s requirements of Sinicization. One of the agreement’s architects, Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, told an inter-

viewer June 7, “We have to see what to do after this [September 2020] deadline. I think we should probably reconfirm it for one or two years.” But Hong Kong’s retired archbishop, Cardinal Joseph Zen, an outspoken critic of the agreement, warns that the 2018 agreement has further marginalized the faithful of the Vatican-loyal “underground” Church and and increased pressure on Catholics to join the government’s Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association by pointing to the Vatican’s acquiescence to its demands for oversight of choice of bishops. Cardinal Zen said of the situation in a March 2020 blog post that “during the last 20 years, because of the wrong policy of the Holy See in dealing with the Church in China, pursued by a group of people who dared even not to follow the line of the Pope, the underground community was more and more like abandoned, considered inconvenient, almost as an obstacle to unity, while in the community officially recognized by the Government the ‘opportunists’ grow more and more numerous, fearless and defiant because encouraged by people inside and around the Vatican, intoxicated by their illusions of the Ostpolitik. [The word “Ostpolitik,” which means “Eastern policy,” refers to all aspects of the policy of the Vatican toward the Soviet Union, in the East of Europe, and by extension, also to the Communist regime in China.] The deal, whose exact contents remain a secret, has so far resulted in five “underground” bishops being installed by the CPA. However, Catholic clergy in China are required by law to “register” with the government, and many clergy of the “underground” church began to appeal to Rome to ask whether they should do so. The registration also contained an affirmation of the independence, autonomy and self-administration of the Church in China — part of a cam-

STATE-SANCTIONED CHURCH APPOINTS FIFTH UNDERGROUND BISHOP

Bishops pose for a photograph after the public installation of Bishop Paul Ma Cunguo of Shuozhou on July 9, 2020

he state-sanctioned Catholic Church in Communist China approved and installed another underground bishop loyal to the Vatican. Bishop Paul Ma Cunguo, 49, of Shuozhou was installed at a public ceremony in Shanxi province on July 9. He is the fifth underground bishop to be recognized by the state-sanctioned Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA) since the Vatican and China signed a September 2018 deal. A Church source told UCA News that the Vatican representative in Hong Kong had no prior knowledge of the episcopal installation. Social media circulated a copy of Bishop Ma’s oath, which, unlike that of the previous four bishops installed by the state-backed Church, had no insistence on working for “an independent, selfgoverning Church” in China. (UCA News)

paign of “Sinicization” of all religions in order, ostensibly, to root out foreign influence in society. In response, the Vatican issued a set of directives in September 2019, which advised priests that they may, in good conscience, sign the registration and statement, but included a further recommendation to add a sentence affirming respect for authentic Catholic doctrine, if possible. The Vatican also said, conversely, that no priest should be forced to sign the statement if his interpretation of it was opposed to his conscience. Unfortunately, examples of clergy who have been hounded and detained by the government for refusing to register have been documented, including Bishop Vincent Guo Xijin of the diocese of Mindong. According to Asia News, Bishop Guo was placed under supervision of two

state security officials in November of 2019 and visited daily in an attempt to force him to sign the registration. He finally escaped and went into hiding. The majority of the diocese’s priests had also refused to sign. Also of note is the Chinese government’s simultaneous campaign to demolish Christian churches and remove all crosses from the roofs of any buildings visible to the public. “All Christian symbols are ordered to be removed as part of the government’s crackdown campaign,” a state employee from Ma’anshan city told the website Bitter Winter, which follows human rights abuses in Communist China. In the Anhui province alone, crosses have been removed from more than 250 Christian churches. “As crosses are being removed throughout the country, those who AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN 11

LEAD STORY

VATICAN-CHINA AGREEMENT UP FOR RENEWAL

hall”— and ordered the refuse to cooperate will be church permanently empaccused of opposing the tied. The crucifix at the altar Communist Party,” a Chriswas replaced with the govtian congregation member ernment propaganda slogan, added. “We are pressured to “Do Not Forget the Original give up our faith, but we Intention; Keep the Mission will persevere.” in Mind.” When asked about this In another bid for power phenomenon in an interview over all religion, the State on the Italian television Administration for Religious show Stanze Vaticane, ArchAffairs and the Ministry of bishop Celli replied: “It is The crucifix at the altar was replaced with the government Civil Affairs last year adoptundeniable that there are still propaganda slogan, “Do Not Forget the Original Intention; ed the “Template for a Charsituations that require a jourKeep the Mission in Mind.” ter of Legal Persons in Reliney. It will not be easy. The Meanwhile, reports continue to gious Activity Venues.” Holy See still wants to continue. We According to Bitter Winter, want to move forward and we want to filter through internet censors in reach a normality in which a Chinese China about persecution of “The order, which came into effect Catholic can express all of his fidelity Catholic congregations who refuse on April 1 last year, demands that to the Gospel and also with respect for to join the government-controlled all religious venues must establish his being Chinese. I always say, I use CCPA. Last year, Fuzhou city gov- a ‘democratic management coma very simple expression, that the ernment officials raided an unregis- mittee.’ The body must be adminisCatholic Church in China must be ful- tered Catholic church — which had tered by a director, no more than ly Chinese, but it must also be fully been disguised by the congregation three deputies, and several memas a traditional Chinese “ancestral bers in charge of making decisions Catholic.”

ANOTHER CARDINAL TAKES UP THE ALARM ABOUT CHINA MYANMAR’S CARDINAL BO BLASTS CHINA’S COMMUNIST PARTY

religion, resulting in the deyanmar’s Francis-appointstruction of thousands of ed Cardinal Charles Maung churches and crosses and the Bo, 71, president of the Federation incarceration of at least one of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, million Uyghur Muslims in conhas lately been an outspoken centration camps.” Then, on July critic of the Chinese govern2, Bo released another statement, both in its handling of the ment expressing fears over the COVID-19 epidemic and regardnew “National Security Law” ing the new security laws that it imposed on Hong Kong July 1 imposed on Hong Kong July 1. by the Chinese government, On April 2, Cardinal Bo resaying in mainland China, they leased a message in which he Cardinal Charles Maung Bo of Yangon, Myanmar, head of the Federation of Asian are “suffering the most severe criticized the Chinese governBishops' Conferences restrictions experienced since ment’s delays in reporting the Cultural Revolution.” COVID 19 infections, saying “it is the repression, “Even if freedom of worship in Hong Kong is the lies and the corruption of the CCP that are renot directly or immediately affected, the new sponsible” for the pandemic. security law and its broad criminalization of UCA News called the cardinal’s criticisms — ‘subversion,’ ‘secession’ and ‘colluding with which included calls for reparations from China foreign political forces’ could result in the mon— “unprecedented.” itoring of religious preaching, the criminalizaCardinal Bo also mentioned campaigns of retion of candlelit prayer vigils, and the harasspression being carried out by the ruling CCP, especially against religion. “In particular,” he said, ment of places of worship,” the cardinal said. “the regime has launched a campaign against (ITV staff) 12 INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

WHAT DOES THE ACCORD REALLY SAY? Chinese pilgrims during an audience with Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square. Below, a cross being removed from the Gulou Church in Fuyang city, China

ope Francis dropped a reference to Hong Kong, and a plea for religious freedom there, from his message at his Sunday public audience on July 5. The omitted passage ran: “I hope therefore that all the people involved will know how to face the various problems with a spirit of far-sighted wisdom and authentic dialogue. This requires courage, humility, non-violence, and respect for the dignity and rights of all. I thus express the desire that societal freedom, and especially religious freedom, be expressed in full and true liberty, as indeed various international documents provide for it.”

on the appointment of personnel, finances, formulation of internal regulations, and other activities.” The committee members, who must support the Chinese Communist Party’s policies, “take over the decision-making right from people of faith,” says the website. Against the backdrop of China’s ongoing violation of human rights on its mainland, the island of Hong Kong, a protectorate of the United Kingdom until it was handed over to China in 1997, has just experienced the loss of its freedoms that were once guaranteed in its law. The Chinese government aggressively instituted a series of 41 new “national security” laws in Hong Kong on the last day of June which have effectively ended freedoms of speech and assembly, among others, criminalizing anyone who not only advocates for independence for Hong Kong, but who is seen in any way as a threat

The curious omission of those sentiments led to speculation that the Pope’s message — mild as it was — was suppressed out of concern it might provoke an angry reaction from sensitive officials in Beijing. The Vatican has been careful to maintain friendly relations with the Chinese regime, and has avoided public expressions of concern about threats to religious liberty. Vatican officials are reportedly anxious to renew a secret agreement with Beijing, governing the appointment of new bishops in China. (CNA)

to Chinese “national security.” Some outspoken independence advocates promptly left the island for fear of arrest and imprisonment. Although Hong Kong has, until now, retained limited civil liberties and democracy since coming under Chinese control, the new laws, passed in secret and not revealed until their 11 p.m., June 30 implementation, explicitly override any Hong Kong law. The website Axios noted that Article 38 of the national security law states that it applies to those who commit the offenses against the Hong Kong Special Administrative

Region “from outside the Region by a person who is not a permanent resident of the Region.” Wang Minyao, a Chinese-American lawyer based in New York, told Axios, “It literally applies to every single person on the planet.” It remains to be seen whether the Vatican can continue to deal constructively with a regime so committed to increasing its power in virtually every sphere of human existence — and whether Cardinal Zen is correct when he calls the agreement which is up for renewal “immoral” and “against the Catholic conscience.” Pope Francis himself conceded that the agreement fell short of the Holy See’s desires, but unavoidably so: “You know that when you make a peace agreement or a negotiation, both sides lose something,” he said. “This is the law. Both sides. And you move ahead.”m AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN 13

NEWS CHINA

“WE NEED TO KEEP PRAYING FOR THE WORLD AND FOR THE CHURCH IN CHINA” Letter from a young Chinese woman living as a Christian in Communist China n BY THERESA LI

une 2020, Somewhere in China — After living with the pandemic for 5 months, people here are starting to perceive an end of COVID-19 in sight. The situation with COVID-19 in Beijing was improving at the beginning of June, with patient numbers nearly reduced to zero, and people rejoiced, hoping for the end of their “prison” life (although face masks are still mandatory in public). Likewise, in the other parts of China, the situation has improved, and most public places have been reopened. Children have returned to the local playground and people are starting to gather and socialize in the sun. Looking at the religious sphere of life: dioceses opened local parishes for religious functions in the middle of June. We, as Christians, are so grateful to God for restoring us to normal Christian life. Just as St. Paul told

INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

A priest wearing a protective mask celebrates a livestreamed Mass in Hong Kong in late March during the COVID-19 pandemic (CNS photo/Tyrone Siu, Reuters)

us in the Letter to the Philippians, 1:6: “I am quite confident that the One who began a good work in you will go on completing it until the Day of Jesus Christ comes.” Regulations for reopening daily and Sunday Mass stipulate that everyone must download an “app” and, before going to Mass, must register and choose which Mass to attend. (Some parishes offer up to seven Masses on Sundays.) A reason given for this is limiting the

number of worshippers per Mass as a health precaution. Will the app track other information about Christians for the government? It’s not certain, but the government could easily access this information. This ideological tactic is not only happening in Beijing but also in other parts of China. Unfortunately, an unexpected emergency arose which disrupted life suddenly: after a while without an increase in the coronavirus numbers, a second wave of COVID-19 started at a peddlers’ market in Beijing at the end of June, after which the government again closed all religious sites. However, other social gathering places remained open — something very concerning, because if we really care about the second wave of the coronavirus, then why close only religious places? Hopefully, the situation will not be an excuse for the government to violate reli-

A government poster in favor of the “one child per family” policy of past years. The policy is slowly being relaxed to allow more than one child

gious freedom. Christians in China need continuous prayer. There is another topic emerging during the pandemic which may be related to Christian life in China, namely, the changing of Constitution Law regarding divorce. I can only share one personal reflection: due to the high divorce rate in China each year, the government now requires that every couple seeking divorce must provide evidence to prove that their marriage cannot be continued. In other words, if they cannot provide evidence to the local court, their divorce application will be rejected. On the one hand, it seems that this change violates people’s freedom in personal matters. However, from my point of view, I foresee potential good coming from it. Although the lawmakers are not

Christian, their aim is to lower the divorce rate in China (though the law still needs more modification). Thus, I believe that Divine Providence is protecting the holiness of marriage according to His will. The last and most important good news to emerge for Christians: the one-child policy is finally starting to disappear. The government may increase the limit on the number of

children for each family; it means there is hope in the future for each family to have children according to their own will. Chinese Catholics are grateful for this excellent news, which means the end of this kind of persecution. I am, incidentally, not surprised by this, since China’s aging population is a big problem. This is not only a problem for China, but for most of the world. And of course, the best way to solve this problem is to obey natural law, inscribed in creation by God, and reject contraception and abortion. Theresa Li is the pen name of a young Chinese Catholic teacher in Beijing, China. She reports on the current status of Catholics in her country as she is experiencing it.m

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

NEWS VATICAN

FRANCIS STARTS $1 MILLION EURO FUND FOR ROME’S UNEMPLOYED POPE’S FUND MEANT TO RELIEVE COVID-CAUSED HARDSHIP n BY HANNAH BROCKHAUS (CNA)

s Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis has started a fund with 1 million euros (c. $1.1 million) to help those in the diocese of Rome who are facing economic difficulty because of the coronavirus. In a June 8 letter to Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, Rome’s vicar general, Pope Francis said “there are many fathers and mothers of a family who are fighting with difficulty to be able to set the table for their children and to guarantee there will be the minimum needed.” “As Bishop of Rome, I decided to institute in the diocese, the ‘Jesus the Divine Worker’ Fund, to recall the dignity of work…” Francis said. The 1 million euros will go to the Diocese of Rome’s charitable organization, Caritas, and is intended to help those who are most gravely impacted economically because of the coronavirus and the measures put in place to control its spread. Especially, the Pope said, the fund is for those who are likely to be excluded from institutional sources of support. In his letter, Pope Francis said he wanted Rome’s return to “normality” after the coronavirus pandemic to be

NEWS VATICAN

A homeless man follows the Regina Coeli prayer through a small radio near St. Peter’s Square (Photo Grzegorz Galazka)

marked by “a work which sees us united, above all in facing the suffering of those who are the most marginalized.” “The Church in our city is present and accompanies the weak with her charity, and is ready to collaborate with the city’s institutions and with all the social and economic realities,” he stated. The Pope said it was very close to his heart to protect the dignity of those hit hardest by the effects of the pandemic. He referenced in particular: seasonal, day, and hourly laborers, people with short-term contracts, interns, domestic

workers, small business owners, and the self-employed. Before the pandemic, Italy’s overall unemployment rate was just under 10%. In the months of March and April, Italy saw its number of jobs drop by 400,000 and at the end of April, according to ANSA, 4.7 million people filed requests for the country’s COVID-19 bonus, a 600 euro-per-month stipend for selfemployed Italians who lost their source of income due to the coronavirus. “This time of suffering we are living because of the pandemic, besides sowing sorrow and worry, is seriously weakening the social fabric of our city,” the Pope underlined. “We see that many people are asking for help, and it seems that ‘the five loaves of bread and two fish’ are not enough. Yet, I cannot but notice with joy the signs of life of our Church in Rome and of the whole city.” He encouraged Romans to give to the new fund and to share generously with their neighbors, not just from their “excess,” adding that he would like to see the city grow in the “solidarity of next door.” He also invited the priests of Rome diocese to be the first to participate and to be enthusiastic supporters of sharing in their communities. “May the Lord bless our diocesan community and the whole city. I invoke on all the strength and consolation and protection of Mary Salus Populi Romani,” he wrote as he closed his letter.m

Opposite, Julio César Caballero with Pope Francis as he began his mandate as the ambassador from Bolivia to the Holy See four years ago, in 2016. Now Francis has given him a Vatican post

BOLIVIAN DIPLOMAT APPOINTED TO VATICAN POST

hanks to a decision by Pope Francis, a Bolivian will be responsible for the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for Latin America, in charge of spreading the Catholic faith on the continent. The Pope’s new appointee is Julio César Caballero, who assumes the role after having been former socialist president of Bolivia Evo Morales’ ambassador to the Vatican for four years. Caballero was among the few diplomats appointed by Morales who were not dismissed last November by the interim government of Jeanine Áñez. He, however, resigned from 16

INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

the position in March. Caballero comes from Santa Cruz, where he served for a long time as a television journalist. A few have objected to Francis’ appointment of Caballero as a veteran official of a “communist” government. (Bolivia’s president, Morales, had famously given Francis the gift of a crucifix made from a hammer and sickle at one visit.) At the time of his 2016 appointment by Morales, Caballero said that, as a Catholic, and as a man of the Church, he humbly offered himself as a bridge between Bolivian Catholicism and the government. He gave his speech after he

NEWS VATICAN

HAGIA SOPHIA NOW LOST TO THE CHRISTIAN WORLD CONVERSION OF THE 6TH-CENTURY BASILICA INTO A MOSQUE IS A BLOW FOR WORLD CHRISTIANITY n BY CHRISTINA DEARDURFF

A monument in Kiev to Prince Vladimir, who converted to Orthodoxy in 988 A.D. In the circle, Metropolitan Hilarion, head of External Church Relations for the Russian Orthodox Church

espite appeals from religious and secular leaders around the world, the government of Turkey, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, announced July 10 that it will turn the Hagia Sophia, built as the Christian cathedral of Constantinople in the 6th century and a symbol of Eastern Christianity for centuries, into a Muslim mosque. The church bears a Latinized Greek name which means “Holy Wisdom,” referring to the Wisdom of God—the Logos—the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Criticism of the decision from world Christianity has been swift. Pope Francis said at his Sunday Angeles address July 12, “I think of Hagia Sophia, and I am very saddened.” The World Council of Churches, with its membership of half a billion, expressed its “grief and dismay” over the action. Metropolitan Hilarion, head of External Church Relations for the Russian Orthodox Church, recalled in a July 10 interview that the Hagia Sophia had

was confirmed by the Senate. At that time, relations between Morales and the Church in Bolivia were experiencing a moment of strong recovery, thanks to Pope Francis’ visit to Bolivia in July 2015. Before Francis’ pontificate began in 2013, Evo Morales’ positions were perceived as rather anti-Catholic. However, Morales established a warm relationship with the Argentine Pope — so close, in fact, that Chile

a vital role in the Russian people’s embrace of Christianity. “It was while attending the divine service in Hagia Sophia,” he said, “ that the ambassadors of Prince Vladimir felt that they did not know where they were —in heaven or on earth. Returning to Kiev, they talked about what they saw and heard to Prince Vladimir... We can say that Russia’s adoption of Christianity, which predetermined its entire history, has a connection with this

church, and it is an important symbol for us.” After a millennium as the most important Christian Church in the East, invading Ottomon Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror ordered the cathedral to be turned into a Muslim mosque in 1453. It remained as such until it was closed in 1931 by the secular Turkish government and then reopened in 1935 as a museum. Commenting on why Turkey had taken this step, Metropolitan Hilarion said, “When, in 1934, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk decided on the museum status of the Hagia Sophia, the goal was to turn Turkey into a secular state, the symbol of which was the museum status of Hagia Sophia. Today’s decision is undoubtedly taken under the influence of radical Islamists, who are gaining strength in modern Turkey.” “I repeat once again,” he said, “in the Orthodox and Christian world as a whole, this decision of the Turkish authorities is received with great sorrow.”m became concerned about its implications, since Bolivia and Chile were engaged in a maritime dispute. The Pope’s new appointee has his job cut out for him. Among the issues that he’ll have to deal with in his new role is the decline in Catholic parishioners in Latin America; Catholics now comprise 60% of Bolivians, compared to 90% in past decades. (CommunalNews/ITV staff) m

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

DEBATE

VACCINES USING ABORTED HUMAN BABIES

A VETERAN RESEARCHER SAYS THEY ARE NOT ONLY IMMORAL, THEY MAY ALSO BE QUITE DANGEROUS

n BY STEFANIE STARK, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT TO INSIDE THE VATICAN

“I AM CATHOLIC, BUT MY OPPOSITION TO THE USE OF FRESH

MATERIAL FROM THE BODIES OF ABORTED BABIES IS NOT JUST A

CATHOLIC PERSPECTIVE AND DOESN’T EVEN HAVE TO BE A RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVE.”—DR. THERESA DEISHER

Dr. Theresa Deisher obtained her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Physiology from Stanford University School of Medicine. She is an expert in cellular technologies. Opposite, a laboratory at the university

oronavirus infections and deaths continue to rise in America and around the world. While elected leaders and the medical and scientific communities wrestle with how best to contain the pandemic, economies are perched on the edge of social and financial ruin. There is an ever-increasing urgency to find a cure for COVID-19. The proposed solution is a COVID-19 vaccine, created at “warp speed,” and set to be administered to the entire world’s population. According to a recent New York Times article, in the history of medicine, rarely has a vaccine been developed in less than five years and approved for use. The goal now, we are told, is to have a vaccine approved by late 2020 or early 2021. The two most likely COVID-19 vaccine candidates for fast approval, Moderna and Oxford University /AstraZeneca, are both developed using fetal cell lines from aborted babies. These two frontrunners are also joined by CanSino Biologics/Beijing Institute of Biotechnology, and Inovio Pharmaceuticals in developing COVID-19 vaccines using aborted fetal cell DNA. 18

INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

It is not commonly known or openly disclosed by drug manufacturers that aborted fetal cell lines have been used since the 1980s in the manufacture of vaccines including the varicella (chickenpox), MMR (measles / mumps / rubella), hepatitis A, polio, shingles, and rabies vaccines. Should Catholics be concerned about both the health and moral issues surrounding the upcoming COVID-19 vaccine? I reached out to Catholic researcher Dr. Theresa Deisher for insight into this topic. Dr. Deisher obtained her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Physiology from Stanford University School of Medicine. She is an expert in stem cell research, the founder of the AVM Biotechnology research company, and the founder and director of the nonprofit Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute. —Special ITV Correspondent Stefanie Stark Stefanie Stark: You are an accomplished researcher into adult stem cells. You have 47 patents and three discoveries in clinical trials. What has

virus. And they infect these fetal cells with the virus, been the primary area of your research and discovand the virus grows. Then they try to isolate it from the eries? And what led you into this field of vaccines? cell lines. Dr. Theresa Deisher: We have a biotech company, But you cannot purify away the fetal DNA contamiand our focus there is not on vaccinations but on more nants without having a viral yield that’s so low that the natural stimulation of the immune system with drugs. vaccine would cost thousands of dollars instead of a In our nonprofit, Sound Choice Pharmaceutical $100 or $200 vaccine. Institute, we have been involved in researching and So there are large amounts of fetal DNA fragments sharing information on the health consequences of havfrom that cell line that are in vaccines. ing primitive DNA in the contaminants of the final And we give these vaccines to children who have a products of vaccines. really small blood volume. We’re giving them a very Tell me about the work of Sound Choice Pharmahigh concentration that is known to have profound bioceutical Institute. And did your Catholic faith lead logic activity and a profound effect on the human body. you to this work? Dr. Deisher: The mission of the Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute is to do scientific research about the public health consequences of using biologic material from exploited human beings in our medical products, and to give seminars and to share this information, through peer reviewed published research, with the public. We also promote alternatives to replace any products that are developed or manufactured in a way that a human being is exploited or harmed. I am Catholic, but my opposition to the use of fresh material from the bodies of aborted babies is not just a Catholic perspective and doesn’t even have to be a religious perspective. Philosophically, it is a disgusting way to treat the body of another human being. This belief led me to form the company and the nonprofit organization. “AND IT WAS MY FAITH THAT LED ME TO FORM AN OPENLY And it was my faith that led me to form an ETHICAL ORGANIZATION WHERE WE OPENLY PROCLAIM openly ethical organization where we WHAT OUR MISSION IS: TO END HUMAN EXPLOITATION IN openly proclaim what our mission is: to BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH AND DRUG DEVELOPMENT” end human exploitation in biomedical research and drug development. When did vaccine manufacturers move from What are the facts about fetal cell material? using animal cells to human fetal cells in the producWhere does it come from and why do they use it in tion of vaccines? medicines and, particularly, in vaccines? Dr. Deisher: It depends on the country. In the US it Dr. Deisher: What we are talking about here is the was approved in 1979. In Canada it was 1984. In the use of cell lines that were made from the bodies of elecUK, the fetal MMR was approved in 1988. So there is a tively aborted babies. You would be concerned from a bit of a spread from country to country. But in the 1980s public health perspective if these were cell lines from some of the vaccine manufacturing was switched from miscarried babies because, regardless of how the materanimal cell-based to human fetal cell-based. ial is sourced, it is primitive material and poses a danger It is interesting that now there is a move by these to have contaminants in the final product that is used for pharmaceutical companies to switch back. For instance, a human being for medicine. So in this case, electively Sanofi [a major French drug manufacturer headquaraborted babies and their bodies were used to generate tered in Paris] just changed their manufacturing of the cell lines that could grow indefinitely in the lab. polio component — they have 3 different vaccines that Then, to make the virus that goes into vaccines, scihave polio in them that were made from a human fetal entists mimic nature’s way of replicating or growing a AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

DEBATE THE IMMORALITY OF SOME VACCINES

their blood reach concentrations greater than those cell line — and they just switched back to an animal cell required to trigger labor and delivery. So of course line. The announcement just came in June of this year. we’re going to trigger an effect in the child’s body. Why in the 1980s did vaccine manufacturers And none of that research has ever been done. switch to using aborted fetal cell lines, and why are That could be dangerous, that massive activation of they now switching back to animal cell lines? the child’s immune system with the fetal DNA. We now Dr. Deisher: In the 1980s they thought it would be have phenomenal levels of autoimmune disease in our more financially lucrative for them. And it turns out that children. is actually not the case. They would make more money, The other danger we know from gene therapy where but that just has not panned out. all the scientists for decades were trying to use gene And I’ve seen this from scientists I’ve worked with. therapy to correct mutations and help people. They They sort of saw the fetal material as a new toy, sort of found they can’t get a whole gene to insert into a cell. an exciting development, almost as if they were playing It’s too big. So they use small fragments now. And with the material. they’ve also found that underNone of it was ever necesmethylated fragments are the sary. But perhaps they conmost efficient to insert into cells vinced themselves and many and insert into the genome. others that it was, but it wasn’t. So from decades of that work, Why are they switching back we know that stem cells in our now? I believe that they have blood will readily take up these realized what perhaps they did undermethylated fetal DNA not know — that that practice is fragments and insert them into very dangerous. And we [Sound their genome. And when they’re Choice Pharmaceutical Instiinserted, that is a mutation. tute] like to believe that we Depending on where the inserplayed a small role in that. Other tion occurs, it could cause disgroups have reported on the high levels of contamination in “THAT COULD BE DANGEROUS, THAT ease. the vaccines as well over the last MASSIVE ACTIVATION OF THE CHILD’S The Catholic Church, and couple of years. And they [pharother religious groups, conIMMUNE SYSTEM WITH THE FETAL maceutical companies] are DNA. WE NOW HAVE PHENOMENAL demn abortion as the direct making changes to do the right killing of human beings, and LEVELS OF AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE IN thing. therefore finds the use of the OUR CHILDREN” victims’ bodies for utilitarian How did you conclude that purposes inadmissible. Yet the the behavior of vaccines with US bishops’ conference and a fetal cell material in them has Vatican official have said that it is not a sin for been harmful to children (and perhaps all people) Catholics to receive vaccines containing aborted who are vaccinated with them? fetal cell material if no alternative is available. What Dr. Deisher: That information actually comes from are your thoughts about the ethics of using fetal cell the field of gene therapy, as well as immunology, and material in medicines? the obstetrics field. So let’s just start with obstetrics. We can talk about having babies and actually delivDr. Deisher: That is not the complete teaching of the ering your baby. So what happens when the pregnancy Church. And unfortunately many organizations choose goes on? The placenta begins to break down. And fetal to embrace only one sentence of the teaching. DNA from the baby and placenta fragments end up in Here is the full teaching: If there is a grave health risk the mom’s blood stream. And when they reach a certain to the child, or the person, and if there is no other option, level, they bind to these immune receptors and activate and if the person taking the vaccine or the parent makes them. The result is that there is a rejection of the baby their objections known and actively works to see that from the mother’s immune system being activated by alternatives are brought to the market, then they may the baby’s own DNA fragments. And that triggers labor use the vaccines. and delivery. So we know that’s a profound effect — So it’s a little more complicated than most people labor and delivery. And this is from the baby’s primitive like to share. There are responsibilities to see that it is DNA. So when we give our children vaccines like the written clearly in those documents, and nobody wants chickenpox, the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella), that to take that up. (Part Two of this interview will be feaare contaminated with human fetal DNA, the levels in tured in ITV’s October 2020 issue.)m 20

INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

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DOSSIER

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S. (2011-2016), against a background of the Council Fathers in the seats set up for them in the main nave of St. Peter’s Basilica during the Second Vatican Council, which took place over four consecutive autumns (1962-65)

DO WE HAVE A “PARALLEL CHURCH”? ARCHBISHOP CARLO MARIA VIGANÒ HAS SPARKED A NEW DISCUSSION OF WHAT VATICAN II HAS DONE TO THE CHURCH — AND WHETHER THE COUNCIL CAN BE SALVAGED

n BY CHRISTINA DEARDURFF

ince gaining celebrity in 2018 as a “whistleblower” of sorts in the sexual abuse case of the ebullient and influential American prelate, thenCardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S., has had the ear of much of the Catholic world and beyond. Making what some consider impertinent, and even shocking, claims and proposals, he has called on Pope Francis to resign, said the Freemasons are in control of the Vatican, and, in his latest salvo against what he sees as a web of distortion and corruption in the 22 INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

Church, suggested in a June 2020 essay that the 1960s Vatican Council II has resulted in a “parallel Church” that was “built, superimposed over and diametrically opposed to the true Church of Christ.” Criticisms of the Second Vatican Council began while the ink was still drying on its documents, and they have continued throughout the intervening decades. Many found something arresting in Archbishop Viganò’s analysis, perhaps because it seemed to forthrightly explain the Council as the one principle of coherent explanation among disparate occurrences that have

been so troubling to so many Catholics. Steve Skojec, editor of the OnePeterFive website, went so far as to say, “In today’s text [by Viganò], we see the calmest, most succinct, most direct acknowledgment of what the Second Vatican Council has wrought that I have ever read from a member of the episcopacy,” and he called the letter “historic.” Others were not so sanguine about Archbishop Viganò’s thesis. CNA’s J.D. Flynn opined July 1 that Archbishop Viganò’s comments may even reach the level of either heresy or

The five Popes of the Council: John XXIII, who summoned the Council in early 1959, shortly after his 1958 election; Paul VI, who continued the Council after John died in 1963, and saw it to its conclusion, then spent 15 years “implementing” it; John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who attended the Council, one as bishop of Krakow, the other as a theological expert, then tried as Popes to interpret it “correctly”; and Francis. Not shown: John Paul I, who ruled only 33 days in 1978

schism, saying such a conclusion is “subject only to the judgment of the Holy See.” The archbishop used as a springboard for his June 9 essay a previous essay, published June 1, also on LifesiteNews, by Archbishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan, which posited that, seemingly contrary to a pronouncement of Pope Francis that “Diverse religions are willed by God,” that, in fact, “There is no divine positive will or natural right to the diversity of religions.” Archbishop Schneider went on to lay the misunderstanding at the feet of Vatican II’s document on world religions, Nostra Aetate, which, he said, because of its ambiguity allowed for this confusion. According to Archbishop Viganò, such confusion is symptomatic of much of the outcome of Vatican II from 1965 until today. This is not a new idea. Critics of the state of the Church over the past few decades have pointed again and again to Vatican II documents which, they say, have been fatally compromised by ambiguity — Archbishop Viganò in fact called it a studied ambiguity — and have led inexorably to misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and eventually loss of belief in some doctrines that Church “progressives” have found uncongenial to their views.

What has been less common until now is the Archbishop’s suggestion that the “hermeneutic of continuity” preached by Pope Benedict, and implicitly, by Pope John Paul II, which was to be a guide to rescuing Vatican II from those who would use it to introduce false doctrines, has “proven unsuccessful.” When asked by Catholic Culture’s Phil Lawler, “What is the solution?” Archbishop Viganò answered, “It will be for one of [Francis’] Successors, the Vicar of Christ, in the fullness of his apostolic power, to rejoin the thread of Tradition there where it was cut off. This will not be a defeat but an act of truth, humility, and courage. The authority and infallibility of the Successor of the Prince of the Apostles will emerge intact and reconfirmed.” It was an answer that set off alarm bells in the minds of many, even some of Archbishop Viganò’s ardent sympathizers. How could he imply so clearly that the Second Vatican Council must be discarded — and would this mean that the Council itself was not valid? “I have never

thought and even less have I affirmed that Vatican II was an invalid Ecumenical Council: in fact it was convoked by the supreme authority, by the Supreme Pontiff, and all of the Bishops of the world took part in it,” Archbishop Viganò replied July 3, in yet another open missive. “Vatican II is a valid Council, supported by the same authority as Vatican I and Trent. However, as I have already written, from its origin it was made the object of a grave manipulation by a fifth column that penetrated into the very heart of the Church that perverted its purposes, as confirmed by the disastrous results that are before everyone’s eyes,” he said. In the following pages, Inside the Vatican takes a look at more of Archbishop Viganò’s comments about Vatican II and its aftermath, as well as varied analyses by Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, Dr. Anthony Esolen, Fr. Thomas Weinandy, and Dr. John Cavadini, as part of an ongoing exploration of whether Vatican II has indeed fulfilled the hope Pope St. John XXIII expressed at the opening of the Council: “What is needed, and what everyone imbued with a truly Christian, Catholic and apostolic spirit craves today, is that this doctrine shall be more widely known, more deeply understood, and more penetrating in its effects on men’s moral lives.”m

ARCHBISHOP VIGANÒ ON VATICAN COUNCIL II EXCERPTS FROM SOME OF HIS RECENT ESSAYS

Viganò Essay of June 9, 2020

The Council was used to legitimize the most aberrant doctrinal deviations, the most daring liturgical innovations, and the most unscrupulous abuses, all while Authority remained silent... I confess it with serenity and without controversy: I was one of the many people who, despite many perplexities and fears which today have proven to

be absolutely legitimate, trusted the authority of the Hierarchy with unconditional obedience. In reality, I think that many people, including myself, did not initially consider the possibility that there could be a conflict between obedience to an order of the Hierarchy and fidelity to the Church herself... On March 13, 2013, the mask fell from the conspirators, who were finally free of the inconvenient presence of

Benedict XVI and brazenly proud of having finally succeeded in promoting a Cardinal who embodied their ideals, their way of revolutionizing the Church, of making doctrine malleable, morals adaptable, liturgy adulterable, and discipline disposable. And all this was considered, by the protagonists of the conspiracy themselves, the logical consequence and obvious application of Vatican II, which according to them

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN 23

DOSSIER DO WE HAVE A “PARALLEL CHURCH”?

had been weakened by the critiques expressed by Benedict XVI. The greatest affront of that Pontificate was the liberally permitting the celebration of the venerated Tridentine Liturgy, the legitimacy of which was finally recognized, disproving fifty years of its illegitimate ostracization... It is no accident: what these men affirm with impunity, scandalizing moderates, is what Catholics also believe, namely: that despite all the efforts of the hermeneutic of continuity which shipwrecked miserably at the first confrontation with the reality of the present crisis, it is undeniable that from Vatican II onwards a parallel church was built, superimposed over and diametrically opposed to the true Church of Christ. This parallel church progressively obscured the divine institution founded by Our Lord in order to replace it with a spurious entity, corresponding to the desired universal religion that was first theorized by Masonry. Expressions like new humanism, universal fraternity, dignity of man, are the watchwords of philanthropic humanitarianism which denies the true God, of horizontal solidarity of vague spiritualist inspiration and of ecumenical irenism that the Church unequivocally condemns. “Nam et loquela tua manifestum te facit [Even your speech gives you away]” (Mt 26:73): this very frequent, even obsessive recourse to the same vocabulary of the enemy betrays adherence to the ideology he inspires; while on the other hand the systematic renunciation of the clear, unequivocal and crystalline language of the Church confirms the desire to detach itself not only from the Catholic form but even from its substance. What we have for years heard enunciated, vaguely and without clear connotations, from the highest Throne, we then find elaborated in a true and proper manifesto in the supporters of the present Pontificate: the democratization of the Church, no longer through the collegiality invented by Vatican II but by the synodal path inaugurated by the Synod on the Family; the demoli24 INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL: DIFFICULTIES OF ITS INTERPRETATION CARDINAL BRANDMÜLLER DEFENDS THE “HERMENEUTIC OF CONTINUITY” EXCERPTS FROM AN ADDRESS GIVEN BY CARDINAL WALTER BRANDMÜLLER, PRESIDENT OF THE PONTIFICAL COMMITTEE FOR HISTORICAL SCIENCES, TO THE ECCLESIA MATER SCHOOL, AUGUST 2019

FORMER

German Cardinal Walter Brandmüller (left) talks to Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former apostolic nuncio to the United States (right), during a conference on St. Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical, Humanae Vitae, in Rome on October 28, 2017 (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

he decisive element of the interpretative horizon is the authentic transmission of the Faith, not the spirit of the time. This absolutely cannot mean rigidity and immobility. The way the Church keeps her eyes fixed on today must not become less. It is the present questions that demand an answer. But the elements that compose

tion of the ministerial priesthood through its weakening with exceptions to ecclesiastical celibacy and the introduction of feminine figures with quasi-sacerdotal duties; the silent passage from ecumenism directed towards separated brethren to a form of pan-ecumenism that reduces the Truth of the One Triune God to the level of idolatries and the most infernal superstitions; the acceptance of an interreligious dialogue that presupposes religious relativism and excludes missionary proclamation... the progressive legitimization of all that is politically correct: gender theory, sodomy, homosexual marriage, Malthusian doctrines,ecologism, immigrationism… If we do not recognize that the roots of these deviations are found in the principles laid down by the Council, it will be impossible to find a cure.

American Catholic journalist Phil Lawler (photo) interviewed Viganò on June 26. Viganò replied (excerpts):

do not think that it is necessary to demonstrate that the Council represents a problem: the simple fact that we are raising this question about Vatican II and not about Trent or Vatican I seems to me to confirm a fact that is obvious and recognized by everyone. In reality, even those who defend the Council with swords drawn find themselves doing so apart from all the other previous ecumenical councils, of which not even one was ever said to be a pastoral council. And note that they call it “the Council” par excellence, as if it was the one and only council in the entire history of the Church, or at least considering it as an unicum whether because of the formu-

In the small photos, American journalists Phil Lawler of CatholicCulture.com (left) and John-Henry Westen of Lifesitenews (right)

the answer can only come from Divine Revelation, offered once and for all, which the Church hands on authentically down the centuries. This transmission thus constitutes the criterion to which every new response ought to refer if it wants to be true and valid. [...] We must also take into account the fact that the hermeneutical horizon that has been so determined shifts and is modified in proportion to the chronological distance which the present interpreter has from the moment in which the text was created. This means that past interpretations, depending on how chronologically distant they are, may become to a greater or lesser extent claims that are now only of historical interest. This awareness is particularly important when we consider texts of the magisterial and pastoral ministry of the Church. One could immediately object that the truth, especially the truth of divine revelation, is an eternal and immutable truth, which cannot undergo alterations... It is, however, equally true that the recognition of this eternal truth by man, who is subject to historical change, is itself subject to change, just like the man who recognizes it. That is to say: depending on the historical moment, one or another aspect of eternal truth is grasped, recognized, and understood in a new and deeper way. Precisely for this reason, even a conciliar text, if contemplated in its spiritual and cultural context, etc., and in the light of our time, may be understood in a new, more profound, and clearer way. To the extent that we take this concept into account in our efforts to understand the teachings of Vatican II today and for today, we will succeed in overcoming various conflicts that arise in its regard.n

lation of its doctrine or for the authority of its magisterium. It is a council that, differently from all those that preceded it, called itself a pastoral council, declaring that it did not want to propose any new doctrine, but which in fact created a distinction between before and after, between a dogmatic council and a pastoral council, between unequivocal canons and empty talk, between anathema sit and winking at the world. In this sense, I believe that the problem of the infallibility of the Magisterium (the inerrancy you mention is properly a quality of Sacred Scripture) does not even arise, because the Legislator, that is, the Roman Pontiff around whom the Council was convened, solemnly and clearly affirmed that he did not want to use the doctrinal authority which he could have exercised if he wanted. I would like to make the observation that nothing is more pastoral than what

is proposed as dogmatic, because the exercise of the munus docendi in its highest form coincides with the order that the Lord gave to Peter to feed his sheep and lambs. It is painful to recognize that the practice of having recourse to an equivocal lexicon... invaded the Church starting with Vatican II.

John-Henry Westen, editor of Lifesitenews, in a July 1 letter, asked Viganò to clarify his position on Vatican II. Viganò’s response was published on July 3, 2020 (excerpts) Dear John-Henry, I thank you for your letter, with which you give me the opportunity to clarify what I have already expressed about Vatican II. This delicate argument is involving prominent persons of the

ecclesiastical world and not a few erudite laity: I trust that my modest contribution can help to lift the blanket of equivocations that weighs on the Council, thus leading to a shared solution. You begin with my initial observation: “It is undeniable that from Vatican II onwards a parallel church was built, superimposed over and diametrically opposed to the true Church of Christ,” and then quote my words about the solution to the impasse in which we find ourselves today: “It will be for one of his Successors, the Vicar of Christ, in the fullness of his apostolic power, to rejoin the thread of Tradition there where it was cut off. This will not be a defeat but an act of truth, humility, and courage. The authority and infallibility of the Successor of the Prince of the Apostles will emerge intact and reconfirmed.” You then state that my position is not clear – “whether you believe Vatican II to be an invalid council and thus to be completely repudiated, or if you believe that while a valid council it contained many errors and the faithful would be better served by having it forgotten about.” I have never thought and even less have I affirmed that Vatican II was an invalid Ecumenical Council: in fact it was convoked by the supreme authority, by the Supreme Pontiff, and all of the Bishops of the world took part in it. Vatican II is a valid Council, supported by the same authority as Vatican I and Trent. However, as I have already written, from its origin it was made the object of a grave manipulation by a fifth column that penetrated into the very heart of the Church that perverted its purposes, as confirmed by the disastrous results that are before everyone’s eyes. Let us remember that in the French Revolution, the fact that the EstatesGeneral were legitimately convoked on May 5, 1789, by Louis XVI did not prevent things from escalating into the Revolution and the Terror (the comparison is not out of place, since Cardinal Suenens called the conciliar event “the 1789 of the Church”)...m

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN 25

DOSSIER DO WE HAVE A “PARALLEL CHURCH”?

WAS VATICAN II REALLY THE “SEED OF ERROR”?

n BY JOHN CAVADINI, PH. D.

OR WAS IT “A TRUTH ONLY HALF-RECEIVED?”

n a statement dated June 20, 2020, Archbishop Viganò reduces the Second Vatican Council to a seedbed of contemporary error animated by the spirit of “Masonry.” I sympathize with his frustrations with regard to the evident confusion in the Church today, the attenuation of Eucharistic faith, the banality of much of what claims to be the Council’s inheritance liturgically, etc. Yet is it fair to blame the Council and reject it as fatally riddled with error? But wouldn’t this mean that the Holy Spirit allowed the Church to lapse into prodigious and pernicious error, and further allowed five Popes to teach it enthusiastically for more than 50 years? That claim would seem to be the triumph of “Masonry!” Viganò claims, “[T]his Council has proven to be the only one… — from the Council of Jerusalem to Vatican I — that does not harmonize perfectly with the entire Magisterium or that needs so much interpretation.” But the Council of Nicaea (325) was controversial from the moment it closed, its teaching only clarified nearly 60 years of controversy later (381, Constantinople). Was Nicaea consistent with previous magisterial teaching? Yes — as clarified in 381 — but in its immediate aftermath some thought the homoousios contradicted the condemnation of the heretical bishop, Paul of Samosata, who did not believe the Son was a distinct Person, or likewise vindicated the heresy of Sabellianism. Chalcedon (451) may be the Council whose legacy was contested the longest. The next three ecumenical Councils were attempts to grapple with its reception and its relationship to the teaching of Ephesus (431). Nor was there lack of political complexity, within both Church and society, to add to the need for clarification. Further, did the Council really pro26 INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

duce no good worth mentioning? Viganò mentions none. True, its liturgical reforms were commandeered by banality in the U.S. — for example, the introduction of hymns with no aesthetic merit but containing doctrinal errors especially regarding the Eucharist, hymns whose use de-catechize the very Catholics who faithfully attend Sunday Mass. But it is equally true, for example, that the reforms produced the beautiful inculturated liturgies in churches across Africa. I attended a Mass celebrated according to the Rite of Zaire in an isolated region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It fully expressed the spirit of the liturgy of the universal Church not in spite of its being celebrated in an unmistakably African voicing, but because of it. In chant and in movement it communicated a dignity commensurate with the “awfulness of the Sacrifice,” as Dorothy Day once put it, and yet clothed it in an un-self-conscious warmth appropriate to the “Sacrament of Charity.” Another example is a Mass I attended in Abuja, Nigeria, celebrating the ordination of five new priests. The hymnody, the languages, the liturgical gestures, were eclectic, reflecting not only traditions of Gregorian chant and English hymnody but also a variety of Ibo language hymns [Ibo is one of the half dozen main languages of Nigeria] and liturgical customs of the villages from which the new priests came. But it was all integrated by the deepest conviction

of dignity and joy flowing from the Eucharist itself. When, after Communion, the whole assembly, otherwise silent, recited in unison three times, “O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine,” it seemed as though the Holy Spirit was making the deepest possible appeal to the hearts of everyone present, reaching into our souls, helping us to “pray as we ought.” Perhaps those of us blaming our own banality of imagination and failure of nerve on Vatican II should get out of the house a little and have the humility to learn from others whom we may customarily look down upon as unenlightened. Further, what about the many beautiful truths that found their most robust magisterial expression in Lumen Gentium? Do we leave behind the exposition of the universal call to holiness? — something which seemed so sublime to me when I first read it at age 19 that the impression, and the desire to live up to it, has never worn off so many years later. What about the clarifying recovery of patristic preaching on the royal priesthood of the baptized? a project which the Council of Trent left for a future age to undertake (since Trent was necessarily more focused on correcting the Reformer’s rejection of Holy Orders). Is the most maturely developed articulation of the three degrees of Holy Orders, incorporating but surpassing in precision and clarity anything preceding, to be overlooked and discarded? Are these advances really the work of Freemasonry? And, to tackle it squarely, can’t we count as an achievement, and not an error, the characterization that the one true Church of Jesus Christ, organized as a visible society, subsists in the Catholic Church? Is it really Freemasonry to find some way of validating the genuine bonds of communion that link separated

Left, ecumenism during the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, and below, interreligious dialogue in Assisi in 2006

communions to the Catholic Church? If there are no such genuine bonds, then it is also incoherent to say that the one true Church organized as a visible society “is” the Catholic Church, because recognizing it as such requires recognizing all the bonds of visible communion — including those that remain present in other communions and thus do link them to us. Wouldn’t we want to use language that allows us to celebrate the degree of communion preserved, for example, with the Coptic Christians whose recent heroic witness “to the point of shedding blood” moved the one non-Christian in the group of hostages to accept his own baptism of blood? Isn’t it beautiful to be able to say, with the CCC’s summary of this Conciliar teaching, that “Christ’s Spirit uses these [separated] Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation,” while qualifying that their “power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church” (CCC #819)? Is this Freemasonry? Or is it Catholic truth, expressed more fully than in pre-Conciliar formulations? The treatment of this issue by Msgr. Philips, L’Église et son mystère au II Concile du Vatican, Tome 1 (Paris: Desclée, 1967), 119, is worth revisiting. Relatedly, are we really willing to return to a legalistic interpretation of “Outside the Church there is no salvation” that leaves the witness of these Coptic martyrs and others in ambiguity? Philips shows how patristic understanding of this phrase arose in controversies which envisioned counter-claims by heretics, not envisioning situations, such as those considered both by Pius IX and Pius XII, regarding souls who find themselves outside of the visible bounds of the Catholic Church through no fault of their own (see Philips, 192-93). Is the rigorist understanding of the patristic dictum truly and fully Catholic teaching? Or does Vatican II, rather, express that teaching most fully? — thus enabling the CCC to sum it up (##847-48) in a way that I (at least) have found useful in releasing undergraduates from mis-

guided revulsion against the Church because of the baggage of a needless triumphalism. Viganò says the “seeds” for contemporary errors were planted at Vatican II

and that now we can see from their bad fruit that the seed itself was bad. But does this stand up to scrutiny? Dei Verbum taught that the human authors of Scripture were “true authors,” and that the interpreter must therefore “take into account the conditions of their time and culture,” etc. (DV 11-12). Is this a bad seed, because it was used by biblical scholars to so promote the hegemony of the historico-critical method that eventually no other options were even imagined? — even though Dei Verbum forcefully and equally teaches that the Scriptures, both OT and NT, “have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself,” and so, among other things, must be read “within the living Tradition of the whole Church” (see DV 11-12, CCC ##106, 113). A truth only half received can be the seed of error, but through no fault of the truth! — but rather of a certain laziness on the part of theologians (like myself!) who settled for a method of biblical interpretation that ended up regarding the exegesis of Church councils (including that of Vatican II and CCC) as “pre-critical” impositions on the text. Another example, sticking with Dei Verbum: Is the relativism that de facto if not de jure is the implicit operating assumption of much interreligious dialogue the fault of Vatican II, though Dei Verbum clearly states that “‘The Christian economy … since it is the new and

definitive Covenant, will never pass away; and no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ’” (DV 4, CCC #66)? Is it the fault of Nostra Aetate, not even a “dogmatic constitution,” that theologians (like myself!) have been content to allow the relativism of postmodern culture to operate as an implicit default mode? To emphasize Nostra Aetate’s (true!) claim that there is truth in other religions without working equally hard to articulate at the same time how Jesus Christ is the unsurpassable seal on revelation? How would one even recognize truth in other religions if we did not already in our own have the fullness of truth whereby to be able to recognize it elsewhere? Is Vatican II bad seed? Or is the “seed” in question rather the lopsided choice of theologians to develop one strand of conciliar teaching at the expense of occluding others? Not to mention pastors who have so prioritized the (true!) good of making Christian teaching accessible and intelligible to modern people that they downplay its uniqueness and distinctiveness as embarrassingly outmoded? I understand the instinct, teaching so many students who think they are looking for just such intelligibility and only that, yet they discover they were actually seeking so much more if you actually work to give them that “more,” too. Viganò’s letter has at least had the virtue of forcing myself to emerge from my complacency in accepting half-measures in the reception of the Council. Perhaps others will find themselves with me in the same boat! John C. Cavadini, Ph. D., is a Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame and Director of its McGrath Institute for Church Life. He specializes in patristic and early medieval theology, the theology of Augustine, and the history of biblical and patristic exegesis.m AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN 27

DOSSIER DO WE HAVE A “PARALLEL CHURCH”?

DE-THRONING VATICAN II

n BY ANTHONY ESOLEN

THE COUNCIL’S TIME IN HISTORY HAS PASSED

he doctrine of infallibility is, to my understanding, modest and protective: it declares that the Church will never, in matters of faith and morals, preach what is false. It does not declare that the Church will be free of folly or wickedness. Cardinal Reginald Pole whose native England had severed herself from Rome, said at the Council of Trent that the divisions in the Church were God’s punishment for the corruption of her princes. (Pole lived from 1500 to 1558 and was the last Catholic archbishop of Canterbury under Queen Mary’s brief restoration; Pole died about 12 hours after Queen Mary herself on November 17, 1558). What the sins were for which the aftermath of Vatican II was the punishment, I cannot tell, unless they were the simmering acts of treachery and apostasy that characterized some of the principals at the Council, and many priests, religious, and laymen around the world in the years that followed. About the Council documents I will have little to say here. The choice for a “hermeneutic of continuity,” which Archbishop Viganò suggests has failed, seems to me to be an absolute necessity by any conceivable understanding of what the Church is, what truth is, and what genuine “development of doctrine” is, as set forth most precisely by St. John Henry Newman. A hermeneutic of rupture — the notion that at Vatican II the Holy Spirit cut the Church clean from her past, to establish a new thing — is a flat contradiction of the promises of Christ. It denies the Church’s essence as a body maintaining her identity through all the chances and changes of the world, and, in her moral and spiritual growth, always re28 INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

From top to bottom: The Council of Trent (1588) by Pasquale Cati Da Iesi; Thomas Aquinas (between Aristotle and Plato) Defeats Heresy, by Benozzo Gozzoli; and John Henry Newman, a convert from Anglicanism, elevated to the cardinalate in 1879 by Leo XIII, proclaimed a saint in 2019 by Pope Francis

maining the same Church, coming to deeper understanding of truths already held. Marriage does not develop by divorce. If the documents of Vatican II can be brought into harmony with what the Church has always taught, then they must be, regardless of the intentions of the attending prelates and theologians. Here we come to a crux, one of three that I will look at here. The first involves the distinction between the Church and a political body. Thomas Aquinas says that judges and magistrates who execute the law must be guided by the mind of the lawgiver, rather than construing the law to negate what the lawgiver intended to do. That is because, in any political system, each officer has his proper function which he should not overstep. It is also because law is general and universal, not specific and particular; no lawgiver can anticipate every eventuality. Therefore we require the astute obedience of the judge or magistrate, who does not take the law into his own hands, but, in deference to the mind of the lawgiver, applies the law justly to the matter before him. In a severely limited sense, we may say something similar about how responsible Churchmen should have implemented certain directives laid out in the Council documents: for example, the directive in Sacrosanctum concilium to bring to the faithful the Church’s immense musical wealth, and to confirm the pipe organ as the instrument most fit for the worship of God. Such identity-conserving directives were ignored. Instead, people appealed to the “spirit of Vatican II” — what I have called “the Ghost of Vatican Past” — to justify innova-

The Council Fathers during a session of Vatican Council II

tions that were often at odds with what the documents themselves say. But the spirit of Vatican II is a fiction. Not even in the political sphere may a judge appeal to the spirit of a senate debate; he has the law before him, and the law, not excitations in the senate chamber or conversations in a cloak room, not what this or that lawgiver wanted and did not get, not hearsay, not fervid reports from priests writing under a pseudonym, not some supposed farther advance of the law, must express for him what the lawgivers intended. But the lawgiver here is the Holy Spirit and not men, and that makes all the difference in the world. We are not permitted to guess at the mind of the Holy Spirit, as if He were chief among the political actors at the Council. The Council cannot claim to speak for the Holy Spirit, simpliciter. Again, we believe that the Holy Spirit will guard the Church against preaching error. We do not believe that the Holy Spirit speaks positively through every Pope or Council Father as through a pasteboard mask. Indeed, those revolutionaries among the Fathers at Vatican II can have believed no such thing, or else there never would have been a Vatican II to begin with; Vatican I would have had to suffice. No, when we interpret any papal pronouncement or any Council document proclaiming a matter of faith or morals, we must assume that the Holy Spirit cannot change, cannot contradict himself. The words then are our concern. Unlike the words of a human lawgiver, they deal with the eternal. The first crux implies a second. The great movers of Vatican II regarded it as a new foundation for the Church. We may call this the Modernist Gambit. You scoff at the past as benighted, outworn, even stupid and wicked, but certainly determined by time and place, and therefore to be

discarded now that we have a new time and place. That is nonsense, even in secular arts and letters; who says that Bach is benighted or that Shakespeare is outworn? But almost in the same breath, the Modernist, having cut himself adrift from the ages, declares that he alone is not determined by time and place; he or the direction he travels in is absolute, inevitable, unquestionable. The Modernist sacrifices man, says Gabriel Marcel, to the Minotaur that is “history.” We are floating on a raft downriver to a thousand-foot waterfall, but if that is

where the river is going, we should flow with it too, for the river is History, or what we fancy to be History, and that fiction has become our god. That brings me to my third and final crux. The Council Fathers wanted to address the Church to the modern world. It was a pastoral Council, not a dogmatic council — so we have heard. Here I note that when you seek heaven first, you will get earth into the bargain; that is what Jesus promises. When you seek earth first, you lose both. The innovators at the Council thought in modern political terms, and therefore, unless they were devils intending to destroy, they were inept even at the

task they had set for themselves. Pastorally, the Council was a calamitous failure: vocations to the priesthood and religious life dried up; schools shut down; colleges shut down or apostasized; Catholic arts and letters, that had given the world several Nobel laureates in literature, collapsed; great music was abandoned for the stupid and treacly; and Catholics capitulated to the Lonely Revolution around them, that abandonment of the Christian sexual ethic that had shed its sweet light upon the lives of ordinary Christians, and had trained them up in virtue and sanctity. The modern world was already a dead thing, deadening all it touched. Modernism subtracts, minimalizes, obliterates. Should the Church bind herself to a corpse? If ever there was a time to be buried in forgetfulness, it was that late modern age, so rich in things and poor in soul. We say, with embarrassment, that the Spanish Inquisition was not as bad as people think, and that it should be understood in the context of its time and culture. So also Vatican II: it should be understood in the context of the time — and the time has passed. It did not affirm error. Its implementers did little good and much mischief. Enough already. The sooner we forget it, the sooner we bid it leave the throne it never deserved, the sooner we cast off its dated liturgical innovations — as dated as Godspell and the Singing Nun — the better. Anthony Esolen, Ph.D., is a faculty member and Writer-in-Residence at Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts in New Hampshire. Dr. Esolen is a renowned scholar and translator of literature, and an author of multiple books and hundreds of articles in both Catholic and secular periodicals.m AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN 29

DOSSIER DO WE HAVE A “PARALLEL CHURCH”?

VATICAN II AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT HIS HAS BEEN A SEVERE-GRACE, BUT ALSO A BENEFICENT-GRACE

n BY THOMAS G. WEINANDY, OFM, CAPUCHIN

ecently, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò and others have expressed their concerns about the present state of the Church. This has often taken the form of critiquing the Second Vatican Council and laying the blame for many of the present ecclesial difficulties at its feet. Anthony Esolen has even suggested that Vatican II should be “dethroned,” for its time has passed. I sympathize with many of the concerns expressed and acknowledge some of the stated problematic theological and doctrinal issues enumerated. I am, however, uncomfortable with the conclusion that Vatican II is, in some way, the direct source and cause of the present disheartening state of the Church. In this brief essay, I want to address the Spirit’s twofold interrelated work in the Church subsequent to Vatican II, for

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30 INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

Mass opening the third Worldwide Priests' Retreat at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, a gathering promoted by the Catholic Charismatic Renewal

only in discerning properly the Spirit’s work can one rightly judge the work of the Council. First, in the aftermath of Vatican II, many distressing things occurred within the Church. Some of these are still taking place, and others have newly arisen. They are well known — many priests abandoned the priesthood; men and women religious sought dispensation from their vows, thus leaving their orders decimated; almost the entire Catholic population of some countries discontinued the practice of the faith, Holland and Belgium being the first evident examples; Catholic theologians trumpeted dubious and erroneous theological opinions, with entire theological faculties becoming bastions of dissent against Catholic doctrine and morals. This list could be enlarged, but the above is such a well-rehearsed scenario that it has become trite. The present problem is that all of the above evils that afflicted the Church after Vatican II, and continue to do so in various ways, are said to find their cause within Vatican II itself, or more so within the so-called “spirit of Vatican II” — the liberal hermeneutic that declared that what is important about the Council is not so much what it said, but more so the new liberating spirit that it engendered. Nonetheless, the conclusion is often drawn that if it were not for the Council, the Church would have con-

tinued to thrive as it seemingly was doing prior to the Council. This, I claim, is an erroneous judgment. It is naïve to think that so many priests, prior to the Council, were men of deep faith, and then,

overnight, after the Council, were corrupted by the Council or the spirit of the Council, and so jettisoned their faith and left the priesthood. Monasteries, friaries, and convents could not have been filled with ardent religious who then subsequent to and because of the Council so swiftly lost their vowed fervor that they traipsed off into the world, leaving a remnant who were themselves often theologically confused and spiritually adrift. Catholic universities and theology faculties could not have been staffed by men and women who were alive in the faith and who enthusiastically communicated that faith to their students, yet who, upon the close of the Council, so eagerly, though often with the best of intentions, fed their students the latest theological fads and authored books that appeared to be the most theologically insightful and creative. In reality, they often turned out to

St. Peter’s Square packed with young people for World Youth Day in 2000 and, below, an image from a meeting of the Neocatechumenal Movement

be colorfully camouflaged versions of various antique and already disgraced heresies. The same is true of Catholic populations in various countries, such as Holland and Belgium. They could not have been steadfast in their faith prior to the Council and then, after it, immediately walked out of the church doors, never to return. My point is obvious. The spirit of the Council may have provided the occasion for all the present Church’s difficulties to come to light, but they were already there, deeply embedded within the Church, prior to the Council. Such evils cannot then be attributed to the Council itself. However, I now want to declare what I will call the Spirit’s “severegrace.” While the Council is not their cause, the false, so-called spirit of the Council did allow the Spirit of truth to reveal to the Church, and to the world, just how feeble in faith, how anemic in life, the Church really was and had been. This severe-grace continues to be at work and is intensifying. The apostasy taking place within the German Catholic Church is now the most concentrated expression of this severe-grace, for it is being engineered not only by many of the German hierarchy, but also, at points, seemingly countenanced by the present pontificate. These post-Vatican II graces are severe, for to behold them is be repulsed by what they reveal. One gazes upon them with fear and trembling. Until recently, many among the episcopate have refused to acknowledge the Spirit’s severegrace, pretending that affairs within the Church were really not that bad. Only a few vocal extremists would think otherwise. Now, with the pederasty abuse scandal and other sexual scandals, both heterosexual and homosexual, and the cover-up that has

come to light in so many places, bishops have been forced to admit the Spirit’s severe-grace. However, only in beholding this severe-grace, only in acknowledging the decadence within the Church, can the Church properly address the sickness that lies within it. Only if the Spirit allowed evil’s darkness to become manifestly apparent could he, and the Church, convict it of sin and con-

demn it. Ultimately, we should be grateful for the Spirit’s severe-grace, for it calls us to repentance and newness of life. My second point has to do with the fruit that Vatican II has produced, particularly bearing on the evils de-

scribed above. This fruit could be called the Spirit’s “beneficent-grace.” The principle is that where sin abounds, grace abounds even more. The following are a few examples. Without Vatican II, it would be hard to imagine Karl Wojtyla being elected Pope. Vatican II rightly created a climate wherein Cardinals, and the Church as a whole, could think outside of the “Italian” box and elect a Pole, and more so, a man of such intellectual vitality and spiritual maturity. Moreover, John Paul, through his great encyclicals, addressed forcefully, clearly, and imaginatively the doctrinal and moral evils that were and continue to beset the Church. Likewise, he, by force of his authentic charismatic personality, took up personally the task of the new evangelization, especially among the youth – the proclamation of the Gospel to tepid-in-faith and indifferent-in-spirit Catholics. In the midst of the Spirit’s severe-grace, the Spirit raised up John Paul II as a beneficent-grace, a grace that will mature and ripen as the Church strives to renew itself. Moreover, when traditional religious orders were in freefall, new religious orders, especially women’s religious orders, came to life. They have attracted, and continue to attract, many young women. Such a blossoming within religious life would have been unthinkable prior to Vatican II. Similarly, Vatican II created a climate wherein new renewal movements and communities were able to come to birth. The Charismatic Renewal within the Catholic Church has no human founder, but was the sole work of the Holy Spirit. Such a phenomenon would never have entered the mind of any Catholic man or woman, ecclesial (especially) or lay in the 1940’s and 50’s, much less AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN 31

DOSSIER DO WE HAVE A “PARALLEL CHURCH”?

among the post-Vatican II liberal elite. Many of these movements have not only brought a vibrant faith and life to its members, but they also are on the front lines of evangelization. Yes, there have been growing pains, but even my Capuchin Order was almost suppressed by the Pope shortly after its founding, its early Minister General having become a Protestant. The decline of seminarians after the Council was, and to some degree still is, troublesome. Yet, the new generation of seminarians brings hope. Notably, dioceses that have a bishop who is solid in the faith regarding doctrine and morals are more likely to attract promising young men. That the bishop now makes a difference as to the vibrancy of his diocese is also the fruit of Vatican II. Prior to Vatican II, one bishop was often just like another, and one diocese was similar to

another. Now, the pastoral vibrancy of a diocese and the spiritual fruit of a diocese can often be directly attributed to the enthusiastic Spirit-filled faith of the bishop. Similarly, in the

June 3, 2006, St. Peter’s Square. Mass for the Vigil of Pentecost, celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI with many of the new ecclesial movements in attendance

wake of the sexual scandals, diocesan seminaries have ardently worked to ensure that their seminarians receive training that is academically faithful to the Church’s doctrinal and moral teaching. Seminarians are also provided a more intense spiritual regimen, one that fosters holiness of life and human development. Would that the same could be enthusiastically confirmed in all seminaries sponsored by religious orders! Nonetheless, the new viFounded F ounded b byy R Raymond aymond L Leo eo Car Cardinal dinal B Burke urke brancy within nestled bluffs off and nes tled in the bluff ffss o seminaries is a Laa Cr Crosse, Wisconsin, off O Our osse, W isconsin, the Shrine o ur Lady beneficent-grace off Guadal beautiful place off Guadalupe is a sstunningly tunningly be autiful plac eo of the Holy Spirit, peace, prayer, pilgrimage. grimage. pe ace, pr ayerr, and pil a grace that counteracts the severegrace that manifests the failings S S    O L L     G G   of many previous La Crosse, W Wisconsin isconsin guadalupeshrine.org priests.

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32 INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

Lastly, in the midst of a less than robust, and often questionable, postVatican II theology within much of the Catholic academic community, I rejoice that I am witnessing an au-

thentic theological revival, one that I never thought I would see in my lifetime. I have academic friends and colleagues all over the world who unabashedly and fearlessly teach the faith both in the classroom and in their writings. Such a renewal would not have taken place prior to Vatican II, for prior to it, theologians were basically satisfied and comfortable in their trade. There were some rumblings concerning a theological renewal, but they were often met with suspicion and disdain. However, founded upon the teaching of Vatican II itself and taking into account the sad contemporary theological climate that had overtaken the academy, a new generation of theologians has risen phoenix-like from the ashes. To be noted, teaching theology, prior to Vatican II, was almost exclusively the domain of clerics. Now, many of the best and most promising theologians are lay men and women. The renewal of theology is manifold. Scripture has ever more become, as Vatican II called it to be, the soul of theology. Study of the Fathers of the Church is no longer considered an antiquarian pursuit, but one that is relevant for today’s theological needs. Similarly, dogmatic or systematic theologians have pulled Thomas

Aquinas’ writings out of the dustbin and have imaginatively employed them to address contemporary theological issues, thus making Aquinas accessible to a whole new generation of young people. Bonaventure studies are also on the rise, and so a good old rivalry is once more in place — a “friendly” rivalry that will bear good fruit for all involved. Moreover, Vatican II called for a renewal of Catholic moral theology, a theology that would be more scriptural in orientation, and one that promoted the rightful dignity of every human person. Because of innovative, faithful, Catholic moral theologians, the postVatican II Church is now able to defend confidently, and profess more clearly, its authentic and traditional moral teaching on an array of controverted moral issues, as well as address new moral concerns that the advancement of technology and science has brought to the fore. The above is the beneficent-grace that the Holy Spirit has poured out upon the post-Vatican II Church, a Church that was in dire need of theological renewal. I have attempted to demonstrate that, while many pastoral,

theological, and moral troubles have beset the Church in the wake of Vatican II, hardships that continue to make their presence readily known, yet these did not flow from nor were they caused by Vatican II itself. Rather, they were the very issues the Council was attempting to address in order to renew the Church. That the Holy Spirit has permitted such a sad plight to plague the Church is his severe-grace — his making clear beyond all doubt how much the Church needs to be revitalized. The Spirit of truth, however, is not just the Spirit of condemnation; he is also the Spirit of life and love, and so simultaneously he has poured out his beneficentgrace of renewal, and we can witness, as I have attempted to show, its fruit being borne in our day. Although some bits and pieces of what Vatican II taught may need revision, yet it has borne authentic fruit, fruit that is yet to come to full maturity. The good fight of faith must still be waged, and pursued with the confidence that faith will win the day. Fr. Thomas Weinandy, O.F.M. Cap., was born in Delphos, Ohio, USA, in 1946. He earned a Doctorate in His-

torical Theology at King’s College, University of London in 1975. He has taught in a number of Catholic Universities in the United States and for 12 years was the Warden of Greyfriars, Oxford and taught History and Doctrine within the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oxford. An author or editor of 20 books and many articles, his specialties are Christology, Trinity, Soteriology and philosophical notions of God in the Fathers, Thomas Aquinas and contemporary theology. He is a former member of the International Theological Commission. Pope Francis conferred upon him the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice Award in 2013.m

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DEBATE

NEW OPENINGS TO MAKE MASONIC MEMBERSHIP PERMISSIBLE? BOOK LODGE AND ALTAR DEFENDS IDEA OF CATHOLIC MASONS

n BY ROBERT MOYNIHAN

Austrian Grand Master and committed Catholic Georg Semler welcomed Weninger’s book at its presentation in Vienna

n 2013, a French priest was removed from office and stripped of his public ministry for refusing to resign from Freemasonry. By contrast, in February 2020 an Austrian priest and Vatican official, quite open about his Masonic membership, held a press conference to launch his new book about the alleged compatibility of “regular” (British-recognized) Masonry and the Catholic faith, with little if any fear of punishment. This is one of many such recent, emerging efforts from Europe to Australia to “normalize” Masonic membership in the Church. What exactly is going on, and why is this happening now? Although Pope Francis is no admirer of the Freemasons, having encountered them as wheeler-dealers in his native Buenos Aires, it appears action is no longer being taken to discipline priests and prominent laymen who are known Masons, or bar them from Holy Communion. This has clearly emboldened those working to gain de facto Vatican acceptance of Masonic membership and what they undoubtedly hope will be an eventual official change to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s 1983 “Declaration on Masonic Associations.” There Ratzinger wrote: “The Church’s negative judgment in regard to Masonic association remains unchanged since their principles have always been considered irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and therefore membership in them remains forbidden. The faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion.” However, it is true that there has been confusion since the 34

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new Code of Canon Law was promulgated in 1983, as it no longer mentions Masonry by name — and dropped the previous penalty of excommunication for Masonic membership. That is why then-CDF Prefect Cardinal Ratzinger issued a statement a day before the new Code came into force, explaining that Masonic membership remains forbidden and is a grave sin. The declaration specifically stated that local ecclesiastical authorities have no power to modify the Church’s centuriesold position, but as we’ll see below, the proponents of change are chipping away at all aspects of this landmark document. The most spectacular, or if you prefer, brazen, recent event was the February 12, 2020 press conference alluded to above, which took place in Vienna and served as the launch for Fr. Michael Weniger’s new 500-page book Loge und Altar (Lodge and Altar). Fr. Weniger, a former Austrian diplomat who was ordained in 2009 following the death of his wife, is a Mason and the chaplain of three Austrian Masonic lodges. In 2012, Pope Benedict appointed him to the Pontifical Commission for Interreligious Dialogue. On the podium with Fr. Weniger was Georg Semler, a selfdescribed “committed Catholic” who is currently Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Austria. Weniger noted that copies of his book were distributed to Pope Francis and to various cardinals, including Vienna’s archbishop, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, 75, and received “with benevolence, without exception.” The book’s thesis is that there is no contradiction between being a Catholic and a member of a British-recognized “reg-

ular” Grand Lodge which requires a belief in God: focuses on basic ethical lessons grounded in natural law; offers conviviality and good fellowship and does charitable work; and specifically forbids discussion of or involvement in politics and religion. He concedes that the Church’s fears about the liberal, “adogmatic” Grand Orient-type of Masonry (deemed “irregular” and not genuine Masonry by London) are well-founded, as the notorious Grand Orient of France (France’s largest Masonic group) and similar bodies are overtly and aggressively political and anticlerical, with a membership largely made up of left-leaning atheists and agnostics. Despite all this, Fr. Weniger remains a priest in good standing as far as anyone can ascertain. In 2019, an equally surprising revelation came out of Australia, when a retired Queensland priest, Fr. Kerry Costigan, published an article in the magazine of the National Council of Priests of Australia, making similar arguments to those of Austria’s Fr. Weniger. Fr. Costigan revealed that he, too, is a Mason and lodge chaplain and, more stunningly, that British-origin Australian Freemasonry has been in official private dialogue with the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference (ACBC) for years. He cited a letter in which he said the bishops’ conference secretariat stated that “any Catholic man may join Freemasonry as exists in Australia.” It came out that several years earlier, three of the Grand Masters of Australia’s five grand lodges were Roman Catholics who wished to regularize the status of Catholic Freemasons in the country. The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference secretariat suggested that it would consider a joint proposal coming from all five Australian grand lodges. The fruits of these efforts include a now-leaked exchange of letters, one of which was written by ACBC General Secretary Fr. Stephen Hackett, MSC, which lauded the “spirit of harmony” now existing between the Church and Australian Freemasonry, and stated that “no penalty attaches to Catholic membership.” As with Fr. Weniger, it appears that Fr. Costigan is at little risk of losing his priestly faculties. Again, how different things were only a decade ago when it was discovered, in 2010, that a French parish priest in the diocese of Annecy, Fr. Pascal Vesin, was a member of the Grand Orient of France. In those last years of Pope Benedict’s papacy, Fr. Vesil’s bishop worked discreetly and gently to try to persuade him to resign, but in the end Vesil refused, and so was removed from office and suspended from public ministry in 2013, in the first months of Pope Francis’ pontificate.

Vesil, then in his early 40s, walked 900 kilometers from his home to the Vatican, a 39-day “pilgrimage” as he called it, hoping for an audience with Pope Francis or with one of his secretaries. He never got one, and the French media quipped “Père ou Frère?” — “Father or Masonic brother?” In recent years, the Church has also turned a blind eye to prominent Catholic laymen who are Freemasons. A good example is President Trump’s Ambassador to China, the conservative former Republican Governor of Iowa and Catholic convert Terry Branstad. No one disputes Ambassador Branstad’s pro-life credentials or the honor of being made a Knight of the prestigious Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher, one of the two orders officially recognized by the Vatican. Yet Branstad also remains a 32nd degree Mason and “Knight Commander of the Court of Honor” of the (US) Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite, a Masonic body known until relatively recently for its rather open hostility to the Catholic Church. It’s also worth noting that while Masonry is in a steep decline in much of the English-speaking world, in parts of Europe (such as France) and Latin America it continues to grow, have influence and advance the business and political careers of its initiates. Catholics may recall the story of the courageous late French police colonel Arnaud Beltrame, who voluntarily exchanged his life for an Islamist prisoner in 2018, and who was still nominally a member of the Grand Lodge of France at the time of his execution but was increasingly drawn to his Catholic faith before his death. (Some have even called for his canonization, saying that what matters are his actions in his last hour, as a kind of martyr.) Inside the Vatican‘s hallmark has always been fidelity to the Magisterium, and also a scrupulous attention to the facts. Yes, we recognize that Freemasonry is a very heterogeneous phenomenon around the world, and even includes, in most of Scandinavia, a Christian-only form of Masonry that is a kind of Lutheran confraternity very different from lodges in other parts of the world. At times, Catholics have indeed been too quick to give credence to questionable or unreliable anti-Masonic exposés. However, the Church’s official position on all forms of Masonry remains unchanged, though clearly it is being flouted more and more without consequence. We should remember the Roman legal maxim that custom is the best interpreter of laws. It seems those who wish to alter the Church’s position think they may have found a pathway to regularization, step by de facto step.m AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

SAINTS

THE CAUSE OF JOHN PAUL II’S PARENTS OPENS “I AM DEEPLY CONVINCED THAT THEY CAN BECOME EXAMPLES AND PATRONS OF MODERN FAMILIES.” — ST. JOHN PAUL II’S PERSONAL SECRETARY, CARDINAL STANISLAW DZIWISZ

n BY ANNA ARTYMIAK, SPECIAL INSIDE THE VATICAN CORRESPONDENT John Paul II as a child with his parents, Emilia and Karol Wojtyła

Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, the Archbishop Emeritus of Krakow, and the present archbishop, Marek Jędraszewski

(Galazka photo)

adowice is a tiny town 31 miles southwest of Krakow, Poland. Here on May 18, 100 years ago, the future Pope John Paul II, Karol Jozef Wojtyła, was born; here he was baptized, served as an altar boy, and was confirmed. As St. John Paul II said himself during his visit to Wadowice in 1999: “…here in this town, Wadowice, everything started.” Once again this place drew international attention on May 7, the vigil of St. Stanislaus’ feast and just 11 days before the late Pope’s 100th birthday, when the beatification process of Emilia and Karol Wojtyła, St. John Paul II’s parents, was officially inaugurated in the Papal Basilica of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. As Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, Archbishop Emeritus of Krakow and even more well known as Karol Wojtyla’s personal secretary for more than 40 years, in his request to the present archbishop, Marek Jędraszewski, to open the Wojtylas’ cause, said: “I would like here in this place to testify, in the presence of the Archbishop and gathered priests, that in my many years as standing secretary to Cardinal Karol Wojtyła and Pope John Paul II, I heard many times from him that he had saintly, holy parents.” First announced publicly in 2018, the initiative to start the Wojtyłas’ beatification process came from the faithful not only in Poland but worldwide. Now a long study of their lives, any writings, and the testimony of witnesses has begun. A significant and unique witness will be John Paul II himself; he left a record of several memories, especially of his father. The cause will confirm not only his huge respect for his parents, but also that they lived their Christian lives in a heroic way—which helped form the young future Pope in the Christian faith. “St. John Paul II was a man of a deep interior life,” said Cardinal Dziwisz. “What was dearest he kept in his heart and presented it to God. His relationship with his parents 36

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he didn’t display, but he always had with him small portraits of his father and mother. He did so also in the Vatican, where he placed their portraits on his desk. It was so until the very end. He was hearkening back to his experience of home when he spoke about the importance of our parents in our lives…” A second step in the process will be to obtain a miracle due to their intercession. In his address, Cardinal Dziwisz related that the day before, one parish priest told him that already in his parish one girl was healed in an inexplicable way, thanks to prayers to the Polish Pope’s parents. Maybe this miracle will be the one which opens a path to their beatification soon. The public session began with the hymn to the Holy Spirit, Veni Creator, and the prayer to the Holy Spirit which Karol Wojtyła, Sr., taught his sons when he noticed young Karol’s attention waning at Mass. Later, John Paul II confessed that he remained faithful to this prayer his whole life. Msgr. Sławomir Oder, the postulator of St. John Paul II’s canonization cause, and president of the Court of Appeal of the Vicariate of Rome, was chosen as postulator of the Wojtylas’ cause; he could not be present in Wadowice, however, because of the epidemic. Cardinal Dziwisz asked the members to “work fast, but not half-heartedly.” The Pope’s secretary wished that John Paul II’s parents might become in the future patrons of the family. “In today’s reality, dominated by loneliness, uncertainty of tomorrow, but also by the seeking of the meaning of life, Karol and Emilia Wojtyła become witnesses of everlasting values, among which, in the first place, there is the family. I am deeply convinced that they can become an example and patrons of modern families, especially now when families need—in the context of ideologies rebelling against the need for and appreciation of marriage and family—an authentic example of marriage and family life. ”m

“THE SAINTS NEXT DOOR” AN INTERVIEW WITH MSGR. SLAWOMIR ODER, POSTULATOR FOR THE CAUSE OF EMILIA AND KAROL WOJTYLA, SR.

n BY ANNA ARTYMIAK, SPECIAL INSIDE THE VATICAN CORRESPONDENT

nna Artymiak: What type of beatification cause is the cause of John Paul II’s par-

ents? MSGR. SLAWOMIR ODER: It is not quite an historical cause. When it comes to an historical cause, as it was defined in 1930 by Pius XI, it is a process in which there are no contemporary eyewitnesses of the candidate, but only written depositions. In this case, there are still a few eyewitnesses alive who personally met at least John Paul II’s father, Karol Wojtyla, Sr.; his mother Emilia died in 1929. It will be necessary, if possible, to prove heroicity of virtues based on the facts present in people’s memories and of course also on the documentation we have. Is it your goal now to shine light on the Wojtylas’ sanctity, to bring their own holiness into view, out from the shadow of their canonized son, St. John Paul II? As Pope Francis has said about “the saints next door,” the holiness of John Paul’s parents was a kind of holiness that is realized in ordinary life. Pope John Paul II used to say that holiness is a high standard but it is also the remarkable characteristic of an ordinary Christian life. When we speak about saints, we don’t say that they did something extraordinary, moved mountains, saved the world from disaster. The Catechism of the Catholic Church published by John Paul II indicates love as the soul of holiness. So, if we think about holiness, we think about the spirit, the measure of one’s love of God and of others, fulfilled in daily, ordinary life… We know that John Paul’s parents faced challenges that were not easy, both economic and concerning their health. It wasn’t a wealthy family. There were serious health problems. His mother, Emilia, died young after years of sickness… Are the Wojtylas the first Polish married couple whose causes of beatification were started together?

Are their causes the first causes of parents of a successor of Peter? As far as I know, yes on both counts. In practice, it is not actually one common cause, but two separate causes, one for Emilia, the other for Karol; there are two tribunals. Coming back to John Paul II, it was his inspiration. From the very beginning of his priestly life, he, who had been able only briefly to savor the joy of his own family of origin because he lost his mother early, then soon after his brother and father, sought to create the atmosphere of a family around himself. As a young priest, he took care of young people. He guided many in their engagements, he accompanied them Above, the wedding in their marriages and he was bound portrait of John Paul II's parents and, left, to them throughout his whole life.... Msgr. Slawomir Oder, Under John Paul II’s pontificate, postulator for the cause he stressed the universal call to holi(Galazka photo) ness. Just to remind you, he beatified and canonized more people than all his predecessors since St. Peter. It is what the Church is about. The Church must sanctify her members. So John Paul II himself will play a special role in their causes, as a witness to the holiness of his own parents? Yes. The Holy Father of course alluded to his family, the atmosphere in his family home, when he spoke about the roots of his own religious devotion, his vocation, the examples of Christian life or prayer that moved him....The Holy Father did say that he hardly remembered his mother. He had only dim memories of her. Nevertheless, he recalled that his mother’s desire was that one of her two sons would be a doctor, and the other, a priest. This wish came true. Do you still receive testimonies concerning St. John Paul II himself? Yes, I do. I must say that the correspondence is still very lively, even 15 years after his death. Still now there come to my office testimonies of received graces, or letters addressed directly to John Paul II. We don’t open those; we lay them on John Paul II’s tomb…m AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

SCRIPTURE

n BY ANTHONY ESOLEN

THE QUALITY OF MERCY “There are no spiritual shortcuts”

few days ago, the Reverend Daniel Moloney, Catholic chaplain at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was made to resign from his job. His crime was that he had sent an email to the Catholic students, saying two opprobrious things. One was that we do not know whether the policeman responsible for the recent death of a black man, George Floyd, was motivated by racism, though his actions were clearly wrong. The other was that Floyd had not lived a virtuous life. The intolerant tolerant — who seek occasion to denounce, who are proud to live on a political hair-trigger — moved into swift action, both in the Boston chancery and at M. I. T. According to Suzy Nelson, dean of students: “By devaluing and disparaging George Floyd’s character, Father Moloney’s message failed to acknowledge the dignity of each human being and the devastating impact of systemic racism — especially within the criminal justice system — on African Americans, people of African descent, and communities of color. Moreover, his message dismissed the need for urgent action and change in America. Now more than ever, we need people in positions of power and influence to call upon each one of us to examine the ruinous impact of hate and racial violence in America.” Cardinal Sean O’Malley had issued a statement before Father Moloney’s e-mail, alluding appreciatively to the “1619 Project,” describing with great precision and deep feeling his experience in Washington on the day the Reverend Martin Luther King was assassinated, and clearly assuming that the death of George Floyd was racially motivated. “To know that fifty years later,” he said, “four police officers would see themselves entitled to murder a black man with impunity makes clear how far we must yet go to achieve racial equality.” Dean Nelson and Cardinal O’Malley have assumed a fact not in evidence. Father Moloney did not say that the officer was not motivated by racism. He said that we did not know that. And we do not know it. The officer directly responsible for Floyd’s death, Derrick Chauvin, is married 38

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to a Lao woman. One of the other three officers is Cambodian. A third appears to be part African-American. The four together formed a veritable “community of color,” to use Nelson’s phrase. Nelson appears to assume that it is wrong to say of anyone, “He did not lead a virtuous life.” Surely, she cannot mean that it is only wrong to say it of George Floyd. That does not mean that Floyd deserved to die, and Father Moloney explicitly said that what the officers did was wrong. Perhaps she means that it is wrong to say it of African Americans. But that is degrading. It is to treat African Americans as moral mascots, not responsible for the evil they do. Cardinal O’Malley likewise does not address why the officers were on that scene in the first place. He assumes villainy on the part of those officers, attributing that villainy to the nation which gave them the idea that they could murder Floyd “with impunity.” The Cardinal thus goes farther than the Dean. He has set himself up as judge and jury, condemning the men as callous murderers without considering the evidence, and showing not one trace of clemency. He does not ask two obvious questions. If Chauvin and his colleagues were guilty of murder, what was the motive? And how, in this time of cell-phones and surveillance and social media, surrounded by people crying out against them, can they possibly have expected “impunity”? Both O’Malley and Nelson assume that policemen work in a racist system, probably because, for example, a black man is much more likely than a white man to see the inside of a prison. But that by itself proves nothing. The same system condemns many times more men than women, yet we do not say that it is sexist. It condemns many times more young people than old people, yet we do not say that it is prejudiced against youth. Men commit far more crimes than women do, and young men far more than old men. To prove that the “system” is racist, you would have to do hard and sober work examining the facts, and neither critic appears interested in doing that. They are remarkably dismissive of questions regarding truth. The Cardinal should know better. For several decades, faithful Catholics have been shouting from the

housetops about the bad results occasioned by the breakdown of the family, itself occasioned by the collapse of the Christian ethos as regards sex: a breakdown harming everyone, of all races, but blacks especially (ten percent of black children in 1950 were born out of wedlock; it is more than seventy percent now). But no one wants to talk about systemic family breakdown, because that would require a revolution in our personal lives, right now, today, with painful specifics. Politics would afford no place to hide. Much easier to talk about supposititious systems and the sins of other people. Meanwhile, Fr. Moloney has written a long blog post full of the most temperate, intelligent, and compassionate comments I have read about this dreadful incident. He says that when something terrible happens, we in America think only of justice, and not of mercy: “Some people think that the right thing to do is to enact reforms of the police; others think that the right thing to do is to kill the police and bomb the precinct. Some people think that nonviolent protests are an appropriate response; others think that injustice justifies robbing the local Target. Some people are satisfied when the bad cops are arrested, prosecuted, and convicted; others want to overthrow the government. Some are just so upset that they don’t know what to do. All agree that something deeply wrong happened to

George Floyd, but our consensus stops there, at the level of justice.” But it is just at this point that mercy, he says, should come into play. We fallen human beings will always find cause for hatred, breaking solidarity with others, until we make of ourselves a tribe of one, raising our fists against everyone, even against God. Mercy, not an option but a command by the Lord, restores that solidarity, not in sentimentality but in the humble awareness that we are all sinners who need mercy most urgently. If we regard the meekness of Jesus and the steep price he paid for our sins, Fr. Moloney says, we can “regard people with his merciful eyes and love them with his merciful heart.” “There are no spiritual shortcuts,” he says. We have come to expect politics to do what it cannot. Politics by its nature is a realm of enmity. Political reforms may or may not be necessary; there we must examine facts, without ideological prejudice, as dispassionately as possible. But our aim goes beyond the political. We aim for friendship, for love. I will let Fr. Moloney have the last word: “To conquer racism requires a conversion to holiness, and a willingness to spread grace and charity to hardened hearts. Only through baptism into Christ’s Ascension can any fallen human being participate in the inner charity of the Trinity. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to transform our lives.”m

You’re You ree Invited! In d! Join us for a Live Conversation w ith

Antthony Esolen Inside t he Va Vatican is br ing ing you some of the world ’s most informed and insight f u l Cathol ic w r iters... in person! Join us for a LIV E “ Wr iter’s Chat ” inter v iew w ith one of IT V ’s fe feat u red w r iters and questions fr from on l ine pa r ticipants. Visit ou r webpage, Insidet heVat ica n.com /w r iterschat, to see ou r upcoming ffeeat u red w r iters and schedu u l e . R e g i s te r t he r e to pa r ticipate in ou r on l ine ZOOM meeting and even submit y o u r o w n q u e s t ion ! We lloook ffoor ward ttoo seeing you at our next W Wrriter’s Chat! AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

EDUCATION

AUSTRALIA’S GROUNDBREAKING CATHOLIC COLLEGE

DEFENDING THE EMBATTLED CHRISTIAN HERITAGE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION

n BY DR. PAUL MORRISSEY*

Occupying the site of a former Marist seminary, the campus is filled with native Australian gum trees and wildlife

here can be no doubt in anyone’s mind that we are living in extraordinary times. As many of us have shifted to home-based lifestyles, we may find ourselves reflecting more on our lives and the world around us. It’s not just the pandemic that has changed our world so drastically; our culture is nearly unrecognizable from just a decade ago. With the rise of identity politics influencing education, not to mention a relativistic morality pervading the fabric of our culture, one can reasonably ask: what has gone wrong with education? How can we fix it? And how can I be sure that my children are being educated and not indoctrinated? What is a classical education? A classical education (or “liberal arts” or “humanities”) focuses on four key areas: philosophy/theology, the natural sciences, social sciences and arts. Historically, it relates to the great traditions of higher learning going back to Plato’s Academy and the medieval univer40

INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

Below, students meet and discuss issues with their professors Opposite page, Paul Morrissey, president of Campion College since 2015, and the University’s logo

sities (hence “classical”). Campion College, located in storied Sydney, Australia, a land which includes both European and Aboriginal culture, offers a three-year Bachelor of Arts degree that is a journey through Western Civilization, from Ancient Greece through today, studying history, philosophy, theology, literature and classical languages. This “Great Books”-style course of study has been used in Western education for centuries. Why is a classical education relevant in the 21st century? Opinion writer S.A. Dance once wrote, “To study the humanities is to explore nothing less than the meaning of life itself, which leads to a greater understanding of virtue and justice.” In other words, a true education is one which helps form not just the mind but also one’s moral judgment, furnishing a student with the ability to think, and judge, for him- or herself. More importantly, it illuminates that which tran-

scends the material world: truth, beauty and goodness, otherwise known as the Transcendentals. The greatest intellectual and artistic works sprang from pursuit of the true, the good and the beautiful. Writers such as Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky and Austen, philosophers like Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, artists like Da Vinci and such musicians as Victoria and Palestrina, not to mention moderns like Dawson, McIntyre and St. John Paul II, were all motivated by the Transcendentals. All have contributed to the formation of what we know as Western Civilization. And studying Western Civilization fundamentally affects how one sees the world. You can’t truly appreciate the perennial relevance of Milton’s Paradise Lost without studying medieval theology and philosophy. Those who pursue law or politics approach them differently from those who haven’t studied Plato or Aquinas. Is Campion the only liberal arts institution in Australia? Unlike the U.S., Australia has no long and proud tradition of the liberal arts. Campion, founded in 2006, is a pioneer — the first and the only Catholic tertiary liberal arts college in the country.

And it is increasingly apparent just how crucial Campion’s existence is: a recent study identified it as one of only three tertiary institutions in the country that adequately taught Western history — and that Campion’s course was the stand-out of the three. Campion has a distinct Australian flavor. Occupying a former Marist seminary, the campus is filled with native Australian gum trees and wildlife. It’s quite remarkable to be neck-deep in board reports, emails and essay marking, only to be interrupted by the call of kookaburras or native magpies just outside your window. Campion’s mission is to pass on the West’s vast repository of knowledge, ideas, art, faith and, just as importantly, a sense of wonderment, to the next generation - and to be a corrective to the corrosive influence of identity politics infecting society. We are convinced the understanding of these things makes all the difference to our graduates, their work, their faith — and our world.

*Paul Morrissey, president of Campion College since

2015, has a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Lateran University in Rome and his Doctorate from the Catholic Institute in Sydney.m

Join us ffor or V Virtual irtual Pilg Pilgrimages rimages St. Francis col lected stones to rebu i ld the cr umbl ing physica l c hu r c h a r o u n d h i m . Today many of ou r “ l iv ing stones” of the ffaa ith a re cha l lenged, conff used and tired.

Experience amazing encounters! Hear the Bishop of Assisi’s spiritual reflection on the crucifix that spoke to St. Francis, or visit St. Peter’s Basilica with an art historian who makes the Church built over the tomb of Peter come alive with the communion of saints!

Intimate, Spiritual and Beautiful!

We a re gather ing up a col lection of “ l iv ing stones” to rebu i ld the universa l Chu rch into a l iv ing body of people to k now Chr ist, to love C h r i s t a n d to s e r v e C h r i s t s o to k n o w o u r s e l v e s m o r e , a s w e a r e c r e a t e d i n H i s i m a g e a n d l i k e n e s s , a n d to l o v e o u r n e i g h b o r s . O u r h o p e — a s we sea rch for ou r hol iness, we find justice and peace, a happy l ife... a n d h a p p y d e at h .

You Y ou can can n join jjoi oin aall ll of of our our Virtual Viirtuall Pilgrimages V Pilgrimages live! lliive! E x per ience interactive pa r ticipation and robust conversation a f ter each Vir t ua l Pi lg r image.

Register R egister here: here: InsideTheVat ica nPi lg r images.com /pi lg r image/v i r t ua l-pi lg r images View recorded pi lg r images at Y YoouTube: InsideTheVaticanPi lg r images. Visit us, subscr ibe, l ike and sha re!

∞

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

OBITUARY

MSGR. GEORG RATZINGER, Older Brother of Benedict XVI

enedict XVI’s older brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, 96, died on July 1 in Bavaria, just a little more than one week after the Pope Emeritus came from Rome to visit him. The Pope Emeritus was able to say a last goodbye on June 22 at the end of a four-day trip to Germany to spend time with his ailing brother. “One can only wish everyone such affection, such a fraternal togetherness, as witnessed in the relationship of the Ratzinger brothers. It lives on fidelity, trust, selflessness and a solid foundation: in the case of the Ratzinger brothers, this is the common, living faith in Christ, the Son of God,” Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg said June 22. Voderholzer said that the Eucharist was offered every day at Georg’s bedside during Benedict’s visit.

The bishop said that when he participated in the Mass with the two brothers, he felt that this “is the source upon which they live.” Msgr. Ratzinger was born in Bavaria on January 15, 1924 as the first son of Joseph and Maria Ratzinger. He expressed an early talent for music, learning to play the violin and the church organ as a child. Georg and his brother Joseph were ordained together on the same day in 1951. Georg went on to serve as the choir master of the Regensburger Domspatzen, the famous cathedral choir of Regensburg, from 1964 to 1994. —Courtney Mares (CNA)

“HE HID HIS BRILLIANCE BEHIND HIS HUMILITY” Dr. Michael Hesemann talks about Georg Ratzinger — priest, musician, choirmaster, brother

n BY DEBORAH CASTELLANO LUBOV (ZENIT)

Dr. Michael Hesemann is a Ratzinger family friend, author, historian, and co-author with Georg Ratzinger of My Brother, the Pope.

ZENIT: How did you first get to know Monsignor Georg Ratzinger? Dr. Michael Hesemann: In 2009, when the attacks on Pope Benedict XVI started, we founded an association to defend him and called it “Germany pro Papa.” Our Regensburg representative, Roswitha Biersack, kept Georg Ratzinger informed about all our activities and eventually, in December 2010, introduced me to him. I can say that I loved him from the very first moment: He was the wise, gentle, humorous elderly gentleman we all wished to know. I brought him some of my books, he checked with his brother and eventually he 42

INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

trusted me. When I realized what a brilliant memory he had and how good he was in telling stories from his life, I said to myself: “This is something we have to preserve for the world, for the future.” This is how the project of our common book My Brother, The Pope was born. He was 86 at that time, in rather good health and best spirits, and the time was just ripe. What struck you most about him? He was a man who hid his brilliance and greatness behind his even greater humility. A kind soul, a true gentleman, so warm-hearted and friendly to everyone, with a wonderful, charming, typical Bavarian mischievous sense of humor. At the same time, he was down to earth and much more extroverted than his rather shy brother. He loved to have people around him, his house sometimes resembled a beehive, with visitors in the morning and

Opposite, the late Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, older brother of Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI; the former died on July 1. Below, a concert given in the Sistine Chapel of Regensburg Domspatzen in honor of Benedict XVI, directed by the Pope’s brother, Georg Ratzinger. (Photo Grzegorz Galazka) Below opposite, the cover of the book My Brother, The Pope by Dr. Michael Hesemann, co-authored with Msgr. Georg Ratzinger

afternoon. Many of his former Regensburg Cathedral Choir Boys (“Regensburger Domspatzen”) stayed in contact with him for decades, visited him regularly as if he became a member of their family and came to help him when he was nearly blind and unable to walk. They read books for him, they wrote letters for him or just came to talk and enjoy coffee, tea and a piece of cake which was always offered in his house. He really changed their lives and became an inspiration for so many. So, he indeed left a big family of friends and students behind. Dr. Hesemann, please tell us a little bit about Msgr. Georg Ratzinger. For instance, what were some of his hobbies, favorites, priorities, hopes… Although he was nearly blind, he was extremely well-informed about so many new books and publications, because he had his volunteer readers and a brilliant memory. You could really talk with him about everything, from Church-matters over policy up to football. But his great love, of course, was music. I think the best birthday gift I ever made to him was when I invited a good friend, the world-famous pianist Anastassiya Dranchuk, to play for him. We repeated that on his next name’s day and his last birthday. His weakness was sweets and I always brought him cookies and cakes, but he most liked Christmas cookies. Generally, Christmas was very important for him and I once, in a laudatio given on his 90th birthday which we celebrated at the Vatican, I called him “a Christmassy person.” He was born on January 15, which was still in the Christmas season, and as we all know, Christmas was the birth not only of Christ, but also of Church music: It was when the angels sang their “Hallelujah” in Bethlehem. So, the “spirit of Christmas” influenced his life, work and vocation and it was no coincidence that his most successful CD with the Regensburger Domspatzen was the one with German Christmas carols; nearly every German family has it at home. This also reflected his upbringing in a very pious family which really celebrated the feasts of the Church in the most solemn way, which prayed the rosary together every day, kneeling on the hard kitchen floor and, since it prayed together always

stayed together in good and in bad times. What was his relationship with his brother, Joseph Ratzinger—Benedict? A deep, brotherly love. The Ratzingers were always a very close, loving, caring family. The siblings got even closer when their parents died in the 1960s; their older sister Maria became the housekeeper, secretary and assistant of Joseph Ratzinger and Georg went to Regensburg as musical director of the Regensburg Cathedral, Domkapellmeister. But they regularly met, celebrated the feasts together and

visited the parent’s grave which they transferred to Regensburg. In 1969, when Joseph Ratzinger received the call from Regensburg University and from then on taught dogmatics there, began the happiest time of their adult life, since all three siblings were united again. Unfortunately, the Lord had other plans. In 1977, Joseph Ratzinger became Archbishop of Munich and Freising and had to move, and in 1983, Pope John Paul II called him to Rome as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. In 1991, Maria Ratzinger passed away, which only strengthened the bond between the two siblings who remained. They were so much looking forward to being together again after Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s retirement. Cardinal Ratzinger kept his house in Regensburg for all those years, to come there for vacations, to meet his brother and to have a place to stay after retirement from Rome. But once again, the Lord had other plans. AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

OBITUARY

MSGR. GEORG RATZINGER, OLDER BROTHER OF BENEDICT XVI

when they met: Georg cooked, and Joseph washed And, believe me, for Georg Ratzinger the election the dishes afterwards. Once again, greatness hiding of Benedict XVI was quite a shock. All common behind humility! Just keep in mind that only in the plans they were looking forward to were smashed last 15 years of his life, Georg Ratzinger was “the once and for all. For a whole day he was unable to go Pope’s brother.” For a long time, at least until 1977, to the phone, so frustrated he was. Thank God they Georg was much better known. At this time, Joseph found a way to stay close. They spoke nearly every Ratzinger was sometimes called “the little brother of day on the phone and Georg visited his brother in the famous musical director.” Rome about four times a year, the last time in January Even after Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope, his 2020. brother Georg used to call him “Joseph.” What are some memories of what they used to “Anything else would not be natural,” he told me. do together? Some anecdotes? He was so much down to earth, when his soul reached He was brilliant in telling anecdotes, always out to heaven. But to summarize, they always were reflecting his warm humor. And there are hundreds “one heart and one soul,” as we say in German, and of photos of sightseeing trips they made together. Georg, as the older one and the first who had the This was a long tradition with them. In the middle of vocation to become a priest, was the role model of his World War II, in 1941, when because of the War no younger brother Joseph. international audience came What about some memoto the world-famous Salzries with their parents? burg Classical Music FestiWell, what impressed me val, he managed to buy sevmost was what turned out to be eral cheap tickets and both the Ratzinger family secret. brothers made the trip on How did it happen that a rather their bicycles, spending the simple family, a country nights in a small hotel. Georg policeman and a hotel cook, was 17 at that time, Joseph raised two sons who were both just 14! Indeed, this trip geniuses, each one of his kind became providential. Joseph — Georg Ratzinger, as the discovered his love for famous musician, composer Mozart and became the “Mozart of theology.” Georg Joseph Ratzinger, top right, is pictured with his family in a 1951 and choir leader who toured saw, for the very first time, photograph. Next to the future Pope Benedict XVI is his brother, the world, and Joseph Ratzare his sister, Maria, and his parents, Maria and inger, the greatest German the legendary Regensburger Georg. Seated Joseph (CNS photo from Catholic Press Photo) theologian and 265th succesDomspatzen, the Regenssor of St. Peter? Eventually, I found out that their burg Cathedral Boys’ Choir, and fell in love with source of inspiration was the intense Catholic faith them. Twenty-three years later, he became their and strong piety of this family. musical director! They got all their inspiration from the richness of Another beautiful story which he tells in our book the Bavarian Catholic culture, a culture which gave was when the war was over and he returned from the birth to Mozart and so many other geniuses, because American POW camp; Joseph, who was too young to its beauty and richness reflects the beauty and magbecome a soldier, had already arrived at their parents’ nificence of heaven. At the same time, the common home earlier. On this day, after a very brief greeting, prayer and devotion became the source for the strong Georg just marched into the house, sat down at the love that united this family, their powerful source piano and started to play the Te Deum. Then all of which helped them to overcome the temptations of them started to cry and hugged each other. these turbulent times, made them immune against the But besides those highlights in their lives, there blasphemous Nazi ideology and caused their vocawere their daily lives which which were so normal tion. Interestingly, both brothers were, each in their and down-to-earth, in spite of their prominence. way, a synthesis of their parents: The strict, perfecEven when Joseph Ratzinger was already a cardinal tionist police officer who also had a gentle side, a and prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of great love for music and a deep faith; and the hardFaith and Georg Ratzinger a musical genius celebratworking, loving and caring mother who was not only ed by the world, they were just two ordinary brothers 44

INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

days and spent many hours in the morning and late a beauty (as photos show) but also just a wonderful, afternoon with his brother. They talked, celebrated warm-hearted woman. the Holy Mass together, prayed together or just held When Georg used to visit the Vatican what did their hands. It gave both of them so much. When you their time consist of? see pictures of Pope Benedict when he arrived and Georg Ratzinger had his own room in the when he left, it’s like he rejuvenated. The tension Monastery Mater Ecclesiae and a sister who took had gone, he was smiling. He knew it was their last care of him. Their day started with the highlight, the encounter in this world. But he also felt his brother Holy Mass they celebrated together. They had breakwould go in peace now. So, they gave a wonderful fast, lunch and dinner together and in between prayed testimony of both, brotherly love and Catholic trust together, played or listened to music together, talked in God and eternal life. They knew, they were confiwith each other and in the evening, they sometimes dent, that their next reunion is in heaven, where all watched TV. It was a quiet, harmonious time and the burden of this material Georg Ratzinger was always existence is gone and they both looking forward to going there will live in the eternal joy of and being with his brother. But at the presence of God. the same time, he never wanted to How has Monsignor move there... And, be sure, Pope Georg’s prayer life prepared Benedict envied him. He always him for a return to his heavmissed his beloved, beautiful enly home? Bavaria, its green meadows, its Even in his old age, his colorful flowers on the balconies prayer life was intense. Until of the houses, its mountains, its he became physically too people, its baroque monasteries weak, he used to celebrate and medieval cities. Whoever has Holy Mass every morning, visited Bavaria will fully underFifteen years ago, Pope Benedict XVI visited his brother, originally in St. Johann, a stand that. Nowhere in the world Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, in the Gemelli hospital in Rome on small church just next to the are you closer to heaven! August 5, 2005. The 81-year-old priest was released from the hospital the next day, three days after receiving a large, gothic Regensburg Why did Benedict go to visit pacemaker (CNS photo from L'Osservatore Romano) Cathedral, then in his private his brother recently? chapel in his house. Together To say a last farewell. In Janwith his dear housekeeper, Sisuary, Georg Ratzinger had been ter Laurente, he prayed the to Rome for the last time. The rosary and the hourly prayer. next trip was planned for March, He also loved to listen to musibut was impossible due to the ca sacra, just to get an idea of Corona crisis. In January, we all heavenly beauty. Music, as I celebrated his 96th birthday and said before, is the language of he was just in great shape. He the angels and he spoke this had his ups and downs, but this is language very well. normal at this age. But then came In the last weeks, he conthe weeks and months of isolatemplated all his life in an tion. Of course, he had his houseintense way and prepared for what he called the keeper, a wonderful sister, but not the five to ten vis“heavenly exam.” I am confident he passed it easily itors a day which kept him young. Around Pentecost with the brilliance, charm and sense of humor he he started to feel weak, his heart gave him trouble. always had. We who were privileged to meet him, When the situation became serious, his brother will always remember him with gratitude as a man decided that he had to act. For all his life Pope Benewith a golden heart. For all his life, he inspired peodict regretted that he was unable to be with his ple to search for God in the beauty of music. Now he beloved sister when she died in 1991, because he himself sings in the heavenly choirs. He went the was sick himself at that time. This time he knew he way he showed and prepared for so many and is now could not wait too long. So he decided, more or less receiving his divine reward.m overnight, to come. He was in Regensburg for four AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

C AT H O L I C I S M A N D O R T H O D O X Y E D I T E D B Y: C H R I S T I N A D E A R D U R F F

The Message of the Icon

BY ROBERT WIESNER

TRANQUILITY OR STRIFE?

the resolution to finally make a beginning in monastiany these days style themselves as “spiritual” cism. There will always be some new form of self to and practice all manner of prayer techniques master or some hitherto unsuspected tendency to sin and forms of inner pacification. Outward needing conquest. The combat with self is a never-endcalm, tranquility and lower blood pressure seem to be ing conflict. The monk faced with gluttony will eat the benefits of such practices. But the question must less, the monk tempted to seek fame will flee further be asked, “Does technique actually advance a relationinto the desert, the temptation to laziness will result in ship with God?” While calm and healthy blood presless sleep. The monk cannot afford the slightest indulsure are good things in themselves, aiming for them gence of self; such would be to violate the innermost and calling it prayer misses the point entirely. The benspirit of monasticism, to betray his vocation. efit seems to lie with the self rather than with divine A Benedictine monk in recent years described his friendship. Prayer techniques with an end-point of battle in private conversation. He was misunderstood tranquility do little to advance one’s contact with God. by his fellow monks, thought something Our icon depicts Saint Anthony, faof a foolish traditionalist and had a long ther of desert monasticism. His example series of health concerns. He then was has nurtured almost two thousand years diagnosed with throat cancer. His reacof asceticism in the wastes of Saharan tion was typical of the man: “Oh, come Egypt. To this very day, monasteries on, Lord. Is this the best You can do? abound in the area. Visitors are greeted Come on, give me Your best shot!” with a great deal of silence, broken Another ascetic priest was once sometimes by the chanting of the Coptic asked, “What is Christianity all about?” psaltery. If calm and tranquility might He answered, “Well, it’s about trials, be found anywhere, one could easily tribulations, suffering, pain, agonies…” place the Egyptian desert near the top of His questioner broke in: “I thought it the list. Monks abide in their cells with was all about love!” The priest fixed her as little contact with the world as possiwith a piercing glare: “My dear young ble, with blood pressure of little conSaint Anthony, father woman, that’s precisely what I’m saycern. And, as is so often seen in the of desert monasticism ing!” These two clearly had one of the spiritual realm, appearances deceive. in Egypt in late 200s more striking monastic models in mind, Within each monastic cell, something that of Jacob wrestling with the angel of God, resulting akin to a bar-room brawl is actually taking place. A in Jacob’s giving of self to the works of God. They unmonk noticing an inner tranquility or complacency derstood that coming to grips with divinity involves a knows he must immediately change his approach to great deal of inner turmoil, even if an outward tranprayer; he realizes he is in danger of gratifying some quility appears to the world. aspect of self. The spiritual model of inner tranquility and calm The monk does not seek to gratify the self with trancan lead to nothing but ultimate disappointment. Comquility; the desire is to gratify God with the crucifixion ing to grips with God (even for the laity) necessarily of self. The battles with gluttony, greed and lust effect involves the Cross and fixing the self upon it; this is a constant strife in the life of a monk; they relate the rarely a tranquil experience!m almost universal experience of greeting each day with

INSIDE THE VATICAN PILGRIMAGES made a special pilgrimage to Russia to take part in the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the murder of Tsar Nicholas and his wife and five children in 1918. Contact us at insidethevaticanpilgrimages.com for information about joining us for upcoming special pilgrimages like this one.

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Spirituality

BY FATHER EL MESKEEN

INITIATED INTO TRUTH

ORTHODOX PRAYER, PART 6 CHAPTER 2 OF THE BOOK ORTHODOX PRAYER, BY MATTA EL-MESKEEN (1919-2006), COPTIC MONK AND SPIRITUAL FATHER OF THE MONASTERY OF ST. MACARIUS, EXPOUNDS ON THE CHURCH’S TRADITION ON THE DEGREES OF PRAYER. THIS TRADITION OF PRAYER CERTAINLY ORIGINATED IN THE EARLY MONASTIC FATHERS, WHO WERE EASTERN. A STRIKING CONTRAST CAN BE NOTED BETWEEN THIS TRADITION AND THE CURRENT NOTIONS OF OUR MODERN “WESTERN WORLD.”

refrains from meditation thus; “Their heart is gross he word of God is actually a beginning and like fat, but I delight in thy law” (Ps 119.70). also an end. Through the word of God, man is This means that meditating on the law of God initiated into truth, and with the word of God, keeps the heart warm and glowing with the fire of the he ends up in truth. For this reason, meditation was a divine word, for meditation intrinsically implies a conprofitable undertaking for the Fathers. They lived it tinual delving into the spirit of the Bible. It is also a and practiced it to their last breath. We thus hear from continual discovery of one truth after Palladius, the author of the Paradise of another, each hidden behind the comthe Fathers, that St. Mark the Ascetic, mandments. This brings about a perwho was a hundred years old at that petual renewal in man’s ideas. His time, recited before him the four emotions become, as it were, biblical Gospels! and refined, and his conduct easygoHe also says that St. Aaron memoing, flexible, and adaptable to all conrized the hundred and fifty psalms by tingencies. heart, together with the Letter of St. For this reason, we find that mediPaul to the Hebrews, the whole Book tation, in its advanced stages, beof Isaiah, part of the Book of Jeremiah, comes gradually detached from the Gospel of St. Luke, and the Book reading. It eventually enters upon of Proverbs! The traveler Rufinus also conceiving divine truths as well as the saw and bore witness to the like. But interactions of God’s commandments this does not mean that meditation for and his discipline for the ascetic life. the Fathers merely meant memorizaDavid in prayer, miniature by Meditation introduces us into the first tion. It was only an inevitable result, Jacopo Filippo d’Argenta stage of contemplation. It moves from since they habitually relished the books delving deep into the word of God to fathoming the of the Bible. They reiterated them daily, which left an truth that that word contains. Continual meditation indelible impression upon their memory. Thus, the on the living word of God inevitably fills the heart words of the Bible flowed easily from their tongues. and mind with sacred thoughts and images. These The ability to persevere in the continual practice of later become the raw material from which conteminward meditation on the Bible is an actual expression plation forms its airy wings. By these wings, it soars of the life that genuinely flows in one’s heart. For the up in the heaven of spirit without the agency of readword of God is spirit and life, as the Lord defined it ing. However, there has to be perpetual meditation for us. on the divine word and the commandments and Hence, persistence in meditation on God’s word inpromises of the Lord. evitably reveals a mystical affinity and, therefore, a [...] It also counts for him as a mental offering, altrue life flowing within one’s heart. On the other hand, ways acceptable and pleasing to God: “Let the words the heart to which meditation on the word of God is of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acrepellent betrays an impasse and hardness of spirit. We ceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my rehear the Prophet David showing the contrast between deemer” (Ps 19:14).m the heart that meditates on God’s law and that which www.InsideTheVatican.com t Urbi et Orbi Foundation is a project of Urbi et Orbi Communications

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East-West Watch

BY PETER ANDERSON

SOCIAL ETHOS OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH ince the promulgation of the enthe Orthodox to be conservatives, this is cyclical letter Rerum Novarum in not a conservative document. For example, it states that every government 1871, the Catholic Church has develshould seek “to provide universal healthoped through the Second Vatican care” and for those who cannot procure Council and various encyclical letters such care for themselves, such care a well-defined set of social teachings. should be provided at public expense. In 2005, these teachings were sum(§40) It advocates a liberal immigration marized in the Compendium of the Sopolicy and, with respect to the United cial Doctrine of the Church. Due in States, specifically criticizes “political part to the existence of multiple autoleaders not only encouraging fear and hacephalous Orthodox churches and the tred of asylum-seekers and impoverished past persecution of many of these immigrants, but even employing terror churches in Communist states, the Oragainst them.” (§67) It also states that the thodox Church has lagged behind the “Orthodox Church rejects capital punishCatholic Church in articulating a set Chairperson of the theological ment.” (§48) of social teachings. commission: Greek Orthodox The document does depart from the In 2000, the Bishops’ Council of the Archdeacon John Chryssavgis social doctrine of the Catholic Church in Moscow Patriarchate adopted a docucertain respects. For example, it states that the “Orthoment entitled The Basis of the Social Concept. It condox Church has no dogmatic objection to the use of sists of 16 chapters and is a long and fairly safe and non-abortifacient contraceptives within the comprehensive document. In June 2016, 10 of the 14 context of married life” as “a provisional concession autocephalous Orthodox churches met at the Council to necessity.” (§24) It provides that “the Church also in Crete and approved a number of documents includallows for remarriage, albeit acknowledging in its rite ing one entitled, The Mission of the Orthodox Church for second marriage that this is an accommodation, not in Today’s World. Although the Crete documents cover an ideal.” (§22) Nevertheless, the document’s similara number of important current issues, they do not conities with Catholic social teachings far outnumber the stitute a comprehensive set of social teachings. differences. In an effort to provide such a comprehensive set, The document is an important step but cannot be Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew established in considered the final word from the Orthodox Church June 2017 a commission of theologians “to prepare a as a whole. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew reformal document on the social doctrine of the Orthoferred to it as an “exceptional essay.” Greek Orthodox dox Church.” The commission consisted of its chairArchbishop Elpidophoros of America has called it “an person Archdeacon John Chryssavgis and 11 other initiation of a continuing meditation.” Perhaps because theologians. Of the 12 theologians, nine, including the of preoccupation with the pandemic, other Local Orchairperson, reside in the United States. thodox Churches have given relatively little attention The commission produced a document entitled For to the document to date. Some of the provisions of the the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Ordocument are controversial among Orthodox theolothodox Church. The document was based in part on gians, such as the approval of contraceptives. input from 25 dioceses of the Ecumenical Patriarchate The authors of the document express the hope that throughout the world and was approved for publication all of the Orthodox faithful will prayerfully discuss the by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in document, which has been published in 13 languages. January 2020. It is indeed an excellent document which should be The entire document can be read at goarch.org/sowidely read.m cial-ethos. Although one might sometimes consider

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NEWS from the EAST

SYNOD OF THE ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE SAYS “NO NEED” TO CHANGE DIVINE EUCHARIST DISTRIBUTION

BY BECKY DERKS

that with a pastoral sensitivity, responsibility, and consciousness, to temporarily make, by economia, accommodations to problematic situations that arise from local laws of the State for the greater spiritual benefit of the Christian people, always in coordination with the Sacred Center at the Phanar. (OrthodoxTimes)

Between June 23 and 25, 2020, the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of the Byzantine Orthodox Church was convened for its regular meeting of the current month at the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambésy, FAITHFUL GATHER TO SUPPORT SERBIAN Geneva, Switzerland. ORTHODOX CHURCH UNDER SIEGE During this meeting, the Official Letters of Their Thousands of Orthodox faithful flocked to the Beatitudes the Orthodox Primates that had been reSerbian Orthodox Cathedral of the Resurrection in ceived thus far in response to the letter of the EcuPodgorica, the capital city of Montenegro, on June menical Patriarch to them of May 17th of this year, 15 to show their support for the rights of the canonon the issue of the mode of distribution of Holy ical Serbian Church and to pray to God to help proCommunion that emerged after the appearance of tect the Church there. The parishioners gathered at the coronavirus pandemic, were read and discussed. the call of His Eminence Metropolitan Amfilohije of It was satisfactorily determined that their opinion coMontenegro and Littoral, the head of the largest Serincided with that of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. bian diocese in Montenegro, This consists of the followreports Sputnik-Serbia. ing: The Orthodox faithful a) The Mystery of the gathered in protest of the onDivine Eucharist is non-negoing persecution being gotiable, because we befaced by the canonical lieve that through it is Church in Montenegro, espetransmitted to the faithful cially concerning the new the Body and Blood of the bill according to which the Savior Christ “unto the restate can seize properties mission of sins and life from the Serbian Church and eternal” and it is impossible transfer them to what they that through this Mystery of consider the schismatic Mysteries any disease Montenegrin Orthodox might be communicated to those who partake. For this The Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate spoke on the issue of Church, currently headed by the mode of distribution of Holy Communion “Metropolitan” Mihailo reason, the Church remains Dedeić, who was defrocked, excommunicated, and steadfast and immovable in its teaching towards the anathematized while serving as a priest of the Patriessence of the Mystery of Holy Communion. archate of Constantinople in Italy. b) As to the mode of distributing the ineffable The state has also refused to grant or extend visas Mysteries to the faithful, the Church, respecting to a number of clergy and monastics of the Serbian Holy Tradition that is interwoven inextricably with Church, forcing them to leave Montenegro, and is the daily ecclesiastical practice and kenotic experialso aiming to destroy certain Serbian Orthodox ence, and as the guardian and vigilant watchman of sites. those traditions handed down from the Holy Father, The recent measures are part of President Milo finds no need for a change of this mode, especially Đjukanović’s ambitions to acquire a recognized auunder pressure from external factors. tocephaly status for the tiny “Montenegrin Church,” At the same time, the Mother Church, mindful of in the same vein as President Poroshenko did for the the special needs of Her children in the Diaspora, Ukrainian schismatics. urges the Chief Shepherds who serve in the Diaspora www.InsideTheVatican.com t Urbi et Orbi Foundation isaprojectofUrbi et Orbi Communications

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Bucharest, the Romanian subsidiary of the American At the end of the service, His Grace Bishop company, received a misdemeanor fine of $2,325 Joanikije of Budimlja-Niksic read out the Serbian (10,000 lei) by unanimous vote. The CNCD believes Church’s appeal to the Montenegrin authorities, in that the situation constitutes an act of discrimination which he noted that the authorities do not even hide and violates the right to dignity. the fact that the bill is aimed against the Serbian Google Bucharest is also obliged to publish a sumChurch, whose parishioners make up 95% of the popmary of the decision on the front page of the Romanulation of Montenegro. The bill is aimed exclusively ian version of Google. (OrthoChristian) “against the Church” and “the rights and freedoms of Orthodox priests and believers,” Bishop Joanikije said, asking the authorities to withdraw the draft law PUBLIC MOVEMENT CREATED IN KIEV TO and prepare a new one that would UNITE UKRAINIAN Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev correspond to both Montenegrin CHURCHES and Metropolitan Epiphany Dumenko law and international standards of A new public movement has freedom. been launched in Kiev, aimed at “Today,” said the bishop, “befinding ways to unify the Ukrainfore the Cathedral of the Resurian Orthodox Church under Metrection of Christ, we promise and ropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and we swear that we will keep, reAll Ukraine and the Orthodox store, and defend our sacred Church of Ukraine under Metroplaces, the lives of our saints, our politan Epiphany Dumenko, both churches, monasteries, cemeterof which it considers canonical. ies, and the graves of our ances“Orthodox Unity of Ukraine,” tors!” President Aleksandar Vučić launched June 11 within the framework of the public organiof Serbia has also called on the zation Spiritual and Religious Montenegrin authorities to abanPerspective of Ukraine, looks to don the bill, citing concern for the “work out forms of unification acceptable to both Serbian population in Montenegro and the desire to churches,” reports the Religious Information Service maintain good relations between the states. ( www.orthochristian.com) of Ukraine. The Coordinating Council of the public organization includes politicians, religious figures, scholars, GOOGLE BUCHAREST FINED FOR and journalists who will work to achieve the goals and BLASPHEMOUS RENAMING OF ORTHODOX objectives put forth in the “Memorandum on restoring CATHEDRAL ON GOOGLE MAPS the unity of the Orthodox in Ukraine,” drafted by the Google Bucharest was sanctioned on June 17 by Organizing Committee. the National Council for Combating Discrimination The authors of the memorandum claim that both (CNCD) for not taking any action concerning the blasthe clergy and laity of the UOC and the OCU are phemous renaming of the Romanian Orthodox Cathe“dominated by the desire to unite,” which gives the dral of the Nation’s (or People’s) Salvation on Google new movement the right to work towards creating an Maps. environment where means of unification and real coThe name of the new church was left as “Cathedral of the Stupidity of the Nation” in the app for several operation acceptable to both the UOC and the OCU days, reports the Basilica News Agency. can be found. The emergence of a free Ukraine 30 years ago was The name change was first noticed by Android users on May 2. The Orthodox faithful quickly took accompanied by “bursts of search for the independto social media, demanding that the issue be remedied ence of Orthodox Ukrainians,” which culminated in as quickly as possible. Patriarchate spokesman Vasile the creation of the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” the memorandum reads. Bănescu noted that the cathedral was built “in memory Nevertheless, the organization also expresses its of the best of the people of this country—its heroes.” “The Christophobia of some people … indicates a dissatisfaction with the “unification council” organdangerous moral pathology that is already causing ized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople and former much harm in Europe and the world that Christianity President Poroshenko in December 2018, which has civilized over two millennia,” he said. united the schismatic “Kiev Patriarchate” with the According to the CNCD communiqué, Google “Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church,” but page 50

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which was not participated in by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. According to the founders of “Orthodox Unity of Ukraine,” the result of this council was the appearance of two “canonical Orthodox Churches—the OCU and the UOC, which continue to exist separately for purely political reasons.” (OrthoChristian)

millions of Christians around the world against Islam.” (from ChurchMilitant and Orthodox Times)

FIRST ORTHODOX MONASTERY IN CENTRAL EUROPE TO OPEN

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew will lay the foundation stone for the first Orthodox monastery in Austria – which CONVERTING HAGIA SOPHIA INTO MOSQUE: will be the first in Central EuOBJECTIONS rope, on September 26. In a historic verdict, Turkey’s top court this summer It was originally supposed returned the world’s greatest Byzantine basilica to its to occur on June 27; howprevious status as a mosque ever, it was postponed due after it abolished President to the coronavirus panAtatürk’s 1934 decision to demic. turn Hagia Sophia into a The official foundation museum. will be laid by the EcumeniHagia Sophia, construccal Patriarch together with ted in the 4th century in what is now Istanbul, was Metropolitan Arsenios of the main cathedral of the Austria and Exarch of HunByzantine Roman Empire gary and Central Europe, until the 15th century, when the Catholic Bishop of BurOttoman conquerors congenland, Egidio Zivkovic, verted it into a mosque, and others. Hagia Sophia was the main cathedral of the Byzantine Roman which it remained until it was First announced in 2014, Empire from the 300s until the 1400s — almost 1,200 years. secularized in 1931 and bethe monastery will be built in The Turks under Sultan Mehmet conquered Byzantium in 1453 came a museum. the eastern Austrian federal Turkey’s highest adminisstate of Burgenland on the trative court, the Council of State, reached a unaniborder with Hungary. Metropolitan Arsenios also exmous verdict declaring that president Kemal Atatürk’s pressed his belief that it would be a “bridge” that cabinet had no right to turn Hagia Sophia into a muwould unite Austria with Greece. The construction of seum as part of his secularist reforms and has rendered the other buildings will follow – the dorms for the the decision unlawful. monks, reception halls, library, dining room, adjoinByzantine Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Baring rooms and workshops, while a hostel is also tholomew, in a June 29 sermon, said, “Hagia Sophia planned. belongs not only to those who own the monuIn Austria, the number of Orthodox Christians ment, but also to all of humanity... any converis about 500,000 in seven jurisdictions of Orthosion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque will turn dox Churches. (GreekCityTimes)m

The Christian Churches, the communities of the disciples of Christ, were intended to be united as one; Pope John Paul II proclaimed, “The Church must breathe with two lungs!” Unfortunately, the Churches are not united. This is a great scandal, an impediment to the witness of the Church. Since unity was desired by Christ Himself, we must work to end this disunity.

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page 51

LATIN

PROFILE OF A LATIN SECRETARY CARDINAL BACCI GETS HIS MERCEDES

n BY JOHN BYRON KUHNER* Here, Cardinal Antonio Bacci (1885-1971), one of the great Latinists in the Roman Curia. Below, his book, translated into English by Anthony Lo Bello as With Latin in the Service of the Popes, published first by the Latin Liturgy Association and now by Arouca Press

or a picture of the world of Latin at the Vatican in the notso-distant past, you can hardly do better than to investigate the works of Cardinal Antonio Bacci. His memoirs are a great place to start. Entitled Con il Latino a Servizio di Quattro Papi and published in 1964, it was translated into English by Anthony Lo Bello as With Latin in the Service of the Popes, published first by the Latin Liturgy Association and now by Arouca Press. Bacci was born in 1885, in the days of Leo XIII, and died in 1971, after watching — to his great sorrow — Latin driven from the vast majority of the altars, seminaries, and monasteries of the Church. Bacci came to work in the Vatican’s Latin office in 1922, at the age of 37. He was teaching in the seminary of Florence at the time, and describes being called aside from a class he held outdoors one morning by the cardinal-archbishop of Florence, who told him to come see him at eleven o’clock and added somewhat ominously, “Habeo aliquid tibi dicere” — “I have something to say to you.” I then went to the Cardinal’s apartment and had myself announced. He received me paternally, as he always did, and invited me to sit down. Then he began, “You know that today, September 30, is the feast of St. Jerome, who was the Latin secretary of Pope Damasus. The people at Rome have asked me for a Latinist, and I thought that you were just the right man to send, so you will go to the Secretariat of State as Latinist; then, later on... who knows?” At these words I was astounded, and could not express anything but thanks and obedience. The “later on... who knows?” is a sign of the importance of the Latin office at this time in history. Indeed, before Vatican II, the Latin office was a road to high preferment in the Church: to rise to the position of one of the two Latin sec52

INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

retaries to the Pope assured an eventual promotion to the cardinalate. To be sent to the Latin office in one’s 30s was to be put on track to become one of the princes of the Church. Bacci began as a mere junior Latinist in the office, but was made full Latin secretary nine years later, when he was elevated to the title of Secretarius Brevium ad Principes, Secretary of Briefs to Princes. But already the Church was changing, and Latin was losing its importance. Bacci would wait almost 30 more years to get his red hat, which he received from John XXIII in 1960, when he was 75 years of age. The following story about Bacci is most assuredly not found in his memoirs, but is one of the legends I heard about him while I was a student in Rome; and se non è vero, è ben trovato, as the Italians say — loosely translated, “if it isn’t true, it should be.” As far as I know, this is the first time this story is appearing in print, though perhaps my readers will correct me. In Rome at the time it was widely bruited about that Bacci had long been exasperated about his long-delayed promotion, and once he got it, he made sure to be seen around Rome in his new cardinalian regalia. We’re all familiar with the black cassock with scarlet piping, the scarlet biretta, the scarlet fascia (that sash), and perhaps even the scarlet socks of a cardinal. But more visible on the streets of Rome is the fact that cardinals traditionally ride in Mercedes-Benz automobiles (the Popemobile is traditionally a Mercedes as well). Well, Bacci showed up one day to the Gregorian University with his chauffeur and Mercedes to transact some business. It was the 1960s, and the students at the “Greg” were seminarians but they had caught the spirit of the 60s just like anyone else, engaging in lively

A typical Mercedes used in the 1960s by Church authorities and, below, Cardinal Antonio Bacci’s coat of arms. His motto was “Non nomen sed virtus” — “Not the name but the virtue”

debates as to whether or not the traditional trappings of Church life really were compatible with the Gospels. And so someone went over to Bacci’s Mercedes with a bar of soap to make a politicaltheological point. When the cardinal returned to his car, he found soaped onto it the Latin phrase, RECEPISTI MERCEDEM TUAM. In the context it would be the way you would say in Latin, “You have received your Mercedes.” But it’s a much larger, more ingenious theological comment. The word “mercedem” in Latin means “reward,” and it’s a word commonly found in the Bible. Indeed the soaped message is an adapted line from the Gospels, when Jesus tells us to do our good works and to pray unbeknown to others: “So when you give alms, do not have a trumpet playing before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and the streets, so that they may be honored by people; Amen, I say to you, they have already received their reward (receperunt mercedem suam).” (Matthew 6:2). Or, in this context, they have already received their Mer-

cedes. The comment throws some good Gospel shade on the people jockeying for preferment in the Church, with all its attendant perks (“scarlet fever,” the wags of Rome call it). The Gospel calls us to something deeper. This is not to cast aspersions on the character of Bacci himself, who in his writings shows himself as a generous, caring human being (I will go into further detail in my next column). But insofar as he was ambitious, he may well have merited this pasquinade. And one way or another, it’s a great example of the kind of theological richness you can get from a continual linguistic tradition: because the Gospels are so central to Church Latin, even a simple comment — “you got your Mercedes!” — carries with it a whole host of theological questions about the relationship of our enjoyment of the good things of this world to our eternal salvation. It serves as a continual reminder of the spiritual in this world. *John Byron Kuhner is the editor of the Paideia Institute’s online journal In Medias Res, and is working on a biography of papal Latinist Fr. Reginald Foster.m

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

Of Books, Art and People

CHURCH VS. STATE

WHO SHOULD OWN ITALY’S RELIGIOUS ART?

n BY LUCY GORDAN

Duccio Buoninsegna's Madonna Rucellai

n June 2, 1946, Italy held Child flanked by six angels on a referendum to choose April 15, 1285, from the Laudesi, between remaining a a lay confraternity devoted to the monarchy or becoming a repubVirgin. It, the largest (180 inches lic. This year the Government by 110 inches) extant 13th-century decided to commemorate this anpainting panel, was to decorate the niversary by reopening its stateconfraternity’s chapel in the thenowned museums after three newly-built Dominican church, months of lockdown. A few days Santa Maria Novella. In 1591 the before, at the reopening ceremopainting was moved to the adjany of Palazzo Pitti, a comment cent much larger Rucellai chapel, by Eike Schmidt, the Director of hence the origin of its present the Uffizi Galleries, sent shockname. waves through Italy’s museum “The altarpiece’s return home,” community. said Schmidt, “would not only be “I believe it’s time,” he said, a due act of historical justice, but “for state museums to perform also an appropriate way to celean act of courage and return brate, in 2021, the 800th anniverpaintings to the churches for sary of the Dominican Order’s inwhich they were originally creatvestiture in Santa Maria Novella. ed. Perhaps the most important example is here in the In short, a commitment to the evermore fruitful dialog, Uffizi: the Rucellai Altarpiece by Duccio di Buoninsegboth culturally and spiritually, between Church and na, which in 1948 was removed from the Basilica of State.” Santa Maria Novella. Since the 1950s it’s been on dis“Obviously,” added Schmidt, “in order to return to play with works by Giotto and Cimabue, but hasn’t ever their original ecclesiastical homes, these artworks’ safeofficially become property of the Uffizi.” ty from theft and vandalism, and their proper climate “With regard to Florence,” continued Schmidt, “I’m control, has to be guaranteed first. Once resituated, not talking about works-of-art bought over the centuries these works would regain their original spiritual signifby the Medici and the Hapsburg-Lorraine Grand Dukes icance.” of Tuscany, often for conspicuous sums, and added to Some clerics and art historians, in particular, their vast, ever-growing collections, but rather about alGiuseppe Bertori, Cardinal of Florence since 2012, and tarpieces originally created for polemical critic Vittorio Sgarbi, specific churches which have endapplauded Schmidt’s proposal. ed up in museum storages or Sgarbi even pinpointed Titwhich were put in museums temian’s Annunciation and Carporarily, but have remained there avaggio’s Flagellation, both in without ever officially changing Naples’ Capodimonte Museum, ownership.” saying they should both return Duccio di Buoninsegna (c. to the Church of San Domenico 1255-60-c.1318-9) is considered in Naples. one of the greatest Italian painters Instead, Antonio Paolucci, of the Middle Ages. He received Italy’s former Minister of Culthe commission for this altarpiece ture and former Director of the of the enthroned Madonna and Monsignor Timothy Verdon and Professor Antonio Paolucci Vatican Museums, suggested 54 INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

Carpaccio and Caravaggio paintings which inspired Verdon's love of art. Bottom, Michelangelo's David

that such drastic action would deprive museums of their important didactic role and all transfers should be decided on a one-to-one basis. Schmidt’s proposal was not new — the art historian Giorgio Bonsanti proposed it during the 1990s — but many of Schmidt’s colleagues reacted indignantly. Marco Pierini, Director of Perugia’s Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, said: “Churches are a favorite target of thieves, so it won’t be easy to protect important works of art even during opening hours. A second problem: acclimatization. Works of art long-accustomed to a controlled museum climate would have to adapt to an oftenhumid climate and almost certainly suffer damage. A third problem: the churches’ hours: much more restricted than museums.” The harshest criticism came from distinguished Florentine art historian Tomaso Montanari. He accused Schmidt of “conflict of interest.” In October 2019 Matteo Salvini, Minister of the Interior at the time, appointed Schmidt President of the Ministry’s FEC, Fondo Edifici di Culto, the Italian Government’s authority in charge of all church buildings and their contents. “So, Dr. Schmidt,” he asked, “FEC or the Uffizi?” On May 29, members of Stampa Estera interviewed via Facebook Monsignor Timothy Verdon, Hoboken, New Jerseyborn, but a resident of Florence for more than 50 years. He’s a distinguished art historian (Yale Ph.D. and Fellow at I Tatti, Harvard’s Center for Italian Renaissance Studies), a contributor to L’Osservatore Romano’s cultural page, Director of the Diocesan Office of Sacred Art and Church Heritage and of Florence’s Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, the first museum to reopen in Tuscany after lockdown on May 22. In addition he’s a professor at Stanford University’s Florence program and the Academic Director of the Ecumenical Center of Art and Spirituality “Mount Tabor” at Barga near Lucca.

“I believe,” Verdon said in impeccable Italian, “that Schmidt’s statement was a very positive provocation because the correct interpretation of works of art is always facilitated and enhanced by their appropriate context or location. Schmidt’s is a ‘revolutionary,’ perhaps outspoken and unpopular, proposal because it’s exactly the opposite of museum policy during the last centuries. I agree with Schmidt, but only if the designated work of art’s subject is 100% ‘religious.’ We all know that Schmidt’s proposal, if ingenious, would be almost impossible to achieve. Even if the Italian government agreed, it would have to guarantee to the Church the artworks’ safety from theft, their correct acclimatization, lighting, and installation. Such a decision implies not only the desire for historical justice, but the financial responsibility to look after their safety and conservation. I also agree with Schmidt, that it’s a question open to ‘constructive’ debate, although at this uncertain time, certainly not Italy’s most urgent cultural problem. Moreover, we experts have to be careful that, by returning artworks to their original homes, these churches don’t then become museum deposits themselves.” When asked about returning Michelangelo’s world-famous David, commissioned with other statues for the buttresses of Florence’s Cathedral, Verdon pointed out: “Although it’s a religious subject, it was never installed on the Duomo. Not to mention that, from its very beginning, so now for more than 500 years, the David has been considered more a political than religious work — considered by the Florentines as the symbol of their liberty. So to insist on returning the David to the Cathedral would be almost incomprehensible.” Verdon’s love of art was inspired as a boy by Caravaggio’s Four Musicians and Carpaccio’s Meditation on the Passion, both in New York’s Metropolitan Museum. m AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN 55

THE END EXCERPTS FROM LORD OF THE WORLD

“In the chair sat the figure of a man”

MORE THAN A CENTURY AGO, MONSIGNOR ROBERT HUGH BENSON FORESAW THE RISE OF SECULAR HUMANISM, THE CONTRACTION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, AND THE COMING OF THE ANTICHRIST...

n BY ITV STAFF

Editor’s Note: The passage below is from the novel Lord of the World, written by the English Catholic convert Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson (the son of the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury) in 1907. He attempts a vision of the world more than a century in the future — in the early 21st century… our own time… predicting the

LORD OF THE WORLD BY ROBERT HUGH BENSON (1907)

Chapter V, Part I (continued) Again Percy was conscious of that slight touch of fear at the mention of that name. “I understand there is to be peace,” he said. The girl rose and her husband with her. “Yes,” she said, almost compassionately, “there is to be peace. Peace at last.” (She moved half a step towards him, and her face glowed like a rose of fire. Her hand rose a little.) “Go back to London, Father Franklin, and use your eyes. You will see him, I dare say, and you will see more besides.” (Her voice began to vibrate.) “And you will understand, perhaps, why we have treated you like this—why we are no longer afraid of you—why we are willing that my mother should do as she pleases. Oh! you will understand, Father Franklin, if not to-night, to-morrow; or if not to-morrow, at least in a very short time.” “Mabel!” cried her husband. The girl wheeled, and threw her arms round him, and kissed him on the mouth. “Oh! I am not ashamed, Oliver, my dear. Let him go and see for himself. Goodnight, Father Franklin.” As he went towards the door, hearing the ping of the bell that some one touched in the room behind him, he turned once more, dazed and bewildered; and there were the two, husband and wife, standing in the soft, sunny light, as if transfigured. The girl had her arm round the man’s shoulder, and stood upright and radiant as a pillar of fire; and even on the man’s face there was no anger now— nothing but an almost supernatural pride and confidence. They were both smiling. Then Percy passed out into the soft, summer night. II Percy understood nothing except that he was afraid, as he sat in the crowded car that whirled him up to London. He scarcely even heard the talk round him, although it was loud and continuous; and what he heard meant little to him. He understood only that there had been strange scenes, that London was said to have gone sud56

INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

rise of Communism, the fall of faith in many places, the advance of technology (he foresees helicopters) and so forth, up until... the Second Coming of the Lord, with which his vision ends. For this reason, and also because Pope Benedict and Pope Francis have repeatedly cited Benson’s book, saying its clarification of the danger of a type of humanitarianism without God is a true danger that we do face, we are printing selections from it in ITV, now and in the months ahead.

denly mad, that Felsenburgh had spoken that night in Paul’s House. He was afraid at the way in which he had been treated, and he asked himself dully again and again what it was that had inspired that treatment; it seemed that he had been in the presence of the supernatural; he was conscious of shivering a little, and of the symptoms of an intolerable sleepiness. It was scarcely strange to him that he should be sitting in a crowded car at two o’clock of a summer dawn. Thrice the car stopped, and he stared out at the signs of confusion that were everywhere; at the figures that ran in the twilight between the tracks, at a couple of wrecked carriages, a tumble of tarpaulins; he listened mechanically to the hoots and cries that sounded everywhere. As he stepped out at last on to the platform, he found it very much as he had left it two hours before. There was the same desperate rush as the car discharged its load, the same dead body beneath the seat; and above all, as he ran helplessly behind the crowd, scarcely knowing whither he ran or why, above him burned the same stupendous message beneath the clock. Then he found himself in the lift, and a minute later he was out on the steps behind the station. There, too, was an astonishing sight. The lamps still burned overhead, but beyond them lay the first pale streaks of the false dawn. The street that ran now straight to the old royal palace, uniting there, as at the centre of a web, with those that came from Westminster, the Mall and Hyde Park, was one solid pavement of heads. On this side and that rose up the hotels and “Houses of Joy,” the windows all ablaze with light, solemn and triumphant as if to welcome a king; while far ahead against the sky stood the monstrous palace outlined in fire, and alight from within like all other houses within view. The noise was bewildering. It was impossible to distinguish one sound from another. Voices, horns, drums, the tramp of a thousand footsteps on the rubber pavements, the sombre roll of wheels from the station behind—all united in one overwhelmingly solemn booming, overscored by shriller notes. It was impossible to move. He found himself standing in a position of extraordinary advantage, at the very top of the broad flight

God as seen by William Blake as the Architect of the world, in Ancient of Days, held in the British Museum, London

of steps that led down into the old station yard, now a wide space that united, on the left the broad road to the palace, and on the right Victoria Street, that showed like all else one vivid perspective of lights and heads. Against the sky on his right rose up the illuminated head of the Cathedral Campanile. It appeared to him as if he had known that in some previous existence. He edged himself mechanically a foot or two to his left, till he clasped a pillar; then he waited, trying not to analyse his emotions, but to absorb them. Gradually he became aware that this crowd was as no other that he had ever seen. To his psychical sense it seemed to him that it possessed a unity unlike any other. There was magnetism in the air. There was a sensation as if a creative act were in process, whereby thousands of individual cells were being welded more and more perfectly every instant into one huge sentient being with one will, one emotion, and one head. The crying of voices seemed significant only as the stirrings of this creative power which so expressed itself. Here rested this giant humanity, stretching to his sight in living limbs so far as he could see on every side, waiting, waiting for some consummation—stretching, too, as his tired brain began to guess, down every thoroughfare of the vast city. He did not even ask himself for what they waited. He knew, yet he did not know. He knew it was for a revelation—for something that should crown their aspirations, and fix them so for ever. He had a sense that he had seen all this before; and, like a child, he began to ask himself where it could have happened, until he remembered that it was so that he had once dreamt of the Judgment Day—of humanity gathered to meet Jesus Christ— Jesus Christ! Ah! how tiny that Figure seemed to him now—how far away—real indeed, but insignificant to himself—how hopelessly apart from this tremendous life! He glanced up at the Campanile. Yes; there was a piece of the True Cross there, was there not?—a little piece of the wood on which a Poor Man had died twenty centuries ago…. Well, well. It was a long way off…. He did not quite understand what was happening to him. “Sweet Jesus, be to me not a Judge but a Saviour,” he whispered beneath his breath, gripping the granite of the pillar; and a moment later knew how futile was that prayer. It was gone like a breath in this vast, vivid atmosphere of man. He had said Mass, had he not? this morning—in white vestments.—Yes; he had believed it all then—desperately, but truly; and now…. To look into the future was as useless as to look into the past. There was no future, and no past: it was all one eternal instant, present and final…. Then he let go of effort, and again began to see with his bodily eyes. ***** The dawn was coming up the sky now, a steady soft brightening that appeared in spite of its sovereignty to be as nothing compared with the brilliant light of the streets. “We need no sun,” he whis-

pered, smiling piteously; “no sun or light of a candle. We have our light on earth—the light that lighteneth every man….” The Campanile seemed further away than ever now, in that ghostly glimmer of dawn—more and more helpless every moment, compared with the beautiful vivid shining of the streets. Then he listened to the sounds, and it seemed to him as if somewhere, far down eastwards, there was a silence beginning. He jerked his head impatiently, as a man behind him began to talk rapidly and confusedly. Why would he not be silent, and let silence be heard?… The man stopped presently, and out of the distance there swelled up a roar, as soft as the roll of a summer tide; it passed up towards him from the right; it was about him, dinning in his ears. There was no longer any individual voice: it was the breathing of the giant that had been born; he was crying out too; he did not know what he said, but he could not be silent. His veins and nerves seemed alight with wine; and as he stared down the long street, hearing the huge cry ebb from him and move toward the palace, he knew why he had cried, and why he was now silent. A slender, fish-shaped thing, as white as milk, as ghostly as a shadow, and as beautiful as the dawn, slid into sight half-a-mile away, turned and came towards him, floating, as it seemed, on the very wave of silence that it created, up, up the long curving street on outstretched wings, not twenty feet above the heads of the crowd. There was one great sigh, and then silence once more. ***** When Percy could think consciously again—for his will was only capable of efforts as a clock of ticks—the strange white thing was nearer. He told himself that he had seen a hundred such before; and at the same instant that this was different from all others. Then it was nearer still, floating slowly, slowly, like a gull over the sea; he could make out its smooth nose, its low parapet beyond, the steersman’s head motionless; he could even hear now the soft winnowing of the screw—and then he saw that for which he had waited. High on the central deck there stood a chair, draped, too, in white, with some insignia visible above its back; and in the chair sat the figure of a man, motionless and lonely. He made no sign as he came; his dark dress showed vividedly against the whiteness; his head was raised, and he turned it gently now and again from side to side. It came nearer still, in the profound stillness; the head turned, and for an instant the face was plainly visible in the soft, radiant light. It was a pale face, strongly marked, as of a young man, with arched, black eyebrows, thin lips, and white hair. Then the face turned once more, the steersman shifted his head, and the beautiful shape, wheeling a little, passed the corner, and moved up towards the palace. There was an hysterical yelp somewhere, a cry, and again the tempestuous groan broke out. (End Book I. Next month, Book II, The Encounter) m

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN

VATICAN WATCH By Becky Derks with CNA Reports - Grzegorz Galazka and CNA photos

MAY

JUNE

WEDNESDAY 13

MONDAY 1

THOUGH MAJOR DEFICITS PROJECTED, VATICAN SAYS HOLY SEE NOT AT RISK OF DEFAULT The new head of the Holy See’s financial office said the Vatican is not at risk of fiscal default, even while reports in the Italian media indicate dire deficit projections for the Holy See. Speaking to Vatican Media May 13, Jesuit Fr. Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves said the Holy See is sure to see its deficit grow due to the coronavirus pandemic, but is not in danger of default. “That doesn’t mean that we are not naming the crisis for what it is. We’re certainly facing difficult years,” the priest said. In fact, the Vatican had been facing difficult financial prospects before the coronavirus pandemic. In 2018, the Holy See had a budget deficit of 70 million euros in its 300 million euro budget.

VATICAN MUSEUMS REOPENING UNVEILS RESTORED RAPHAEL ROOMS The Vatican Museums reopened revealing newly restored frescoes in the Raphael Rooms depicting scenes from early Church history to the public. “Today is a way that we can in some way share [beauty] with the entire world ... thanks to Raphael,” Vatican Museums Director Barbara Jatta told CNA June 1. After being closed for three months due to Italy’s coronavirus outbreak, the Vatican Museums opened their doors June 1 allowing only 1,600 visitors — under 10% of its usual tourist traffic — to enter the museums, with additional safety measures. These visitors to the museums were some of the first to see the restoration of two paintings that art historians believe to be the last works of Raphael, the Renaissance painter responsible for The School of Athens and The Transfiguration. POPE FRANCIS DONATES AN AMBULANCE TO AID THE HOMELESS Pope Francis has donated an ambulance that will be set apart to serve Rome’s poor and homeless population in need of emergency medical care. “It is a new gift from the Holy Father, entrusted to the Office of Papal Charities, in favor of the poorest, in particular of the homeless who face the difficulties of the streets,” a Vatican communiqué stated June 1. The Pope blessed the ambulance before Mass on Pentecost Sunday. The Vatican City ambulance will be used in coordination with the Vatican’s medical aid initiatives for service to the poor who arrive sick at the Vatican’s homeless shelter and medical clinic.

WEDNESDAY 20

VATICAN CAUTIONS ISRAEL OVER WEST BANK ANNEXATION PLAN The Holy See is concerned about an Israeli plan to unilaterally annex a large portion of land in the West Bank, said a May 20 Vatican statement. The Vatican press office said the statement came after Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican foreign minister, was contacted by telephone by Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator and secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Erekat, it said, wanted “to inform the Holy See about recent developments in the Palestinian territories and of the possibility of Israeli applying its sovereignty unilaterally to part of those territories, further jeopardizing the peace process.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised to bring a proposal to the full government to annex the land on which some 130 Jewish settlements are built in the West Bank, settlements the U.N. Security Council has declared a “flagrant violation” of international law. The Vatican statement said, “The Holy See reiterates that respect for international law and the relevant United Nations resolutions is an indispensable element for the two peoples to live side by side in two states, within the borders internationally recognized before 1967.” 58 INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

MONDAY 8

POPE FRANCIS TEAMS UP WITH OLYMPIC ATHLETES FOR CORONAVIRUS CHARITY AUCTION Pope Francis teamed up with Olympic athletes for a charity auction in June to support hospitals in the regions of Italy hardest hit by the coronavirus. Three-time world champion cyclist Peter Sagan donated a custom racing bike with the Vatican crest and colors for the Pope’s fundraiser, and 2018 Olympic gold medalist Sofia Goggia autographed ski racing boots. Other athletes, such as Italian runner and record holder

Opposite page, three-time world champion cyclist Peter Sagan donated a custom racing bike with the Vatican crest and colors for the Pope’s fundraiser. In the circle below, Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for the Divine Liturgy and the Discipline of the Sacraments

Filippo Tortu, are offering the opportunity for a day of training, followed by dinner. The Olympic rowing duo Giuseppe and Carmine Abbagnale are auctioning off a dinner for two together with them near Sorrento. SATURDAY 20

POPE FRANCIS ADDS THREE TITLES TO CATHOLIC LITANY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY Pope Francis has approved the inclusion of three additional invocations in the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also called the Litany of Loreto. In a June 20 letter to the presidents of bishops’ conferences, Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for the Divine Liturgy and the Discipline of the Sacraments, said the invocations “Mater misericordiae,” “Mater spei,” and “Solacium migrantium” should be inserted in the Marian litany. The Latin titles in English are “Mother of Mercy,” “Mother of Hope,” and “Comfort of Migrants,” respectively. “The titles and invocations which Christian piety has reserved for the Virgin Mary over the course of the centuries, as the privileged and sure way to an encounter with Christ, are innumerable,” Sarah wrote. “Even in this present moment which is marked by feelings of uncertainty and trepidation, devout recourse to her, which is full of affection and trust, is deeply felt by the People of God,” the cardinal continued. FRIDAY 26

POPE FRANCIS DONATES 35 VENTILATORS TO DEVELOPING COUNTRIES BATTLING CORONAVIRUS The Vatican announced that Pope Francis has donated 35 ventilators to overwhelmed hospitals in developing countries as the number of coronavirus cases worldwide nears 10 million. The Pope donated four ventilators each to Haiti, Venezuela, and Brazil, a country which has suffered more than 50,000 deaths from COVID-19. Ventilators were also distributed to Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, Ecuador, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Ukraine, and the Dominican Republic through the local apostolic nunciatures, or Vatican embassies. MONDAY 29

POPE FRANCIS GREETS ORTHODOX PATRIARCH AFTER CORONAVIRUS CANCELS ANNUAL VISIT Pope Francis extended a special greeting to Patriarch Bartholomew, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and head of the Orthodox Churches, on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. Speaking to the crowd in St. Peter’s

Square, Pope Francis noted that it is tradition for a delegation from the Patriarchate of Constantinople to visit Rome on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, but that the visit could not happen this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. “I spiritually embrace my dear brother, the Patriarch Bartholomew, in the hope that our reciprocal visits may resume as soon as possible,” said Pope Francis. Pope Francis also mentioned his sadness that the annual visit with the delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarch could not take place. He said that he felt a connection “in his heart” to Patriarch Bartholomew when the latter visited the tomb of St. Peter. “[The Orthodox Christian delegation] are here with us,” he said, even though they were not able to be present in person in Rome.

JULY SATURDAY 11

HEROIC TEEN The Vatican announced July 11 that Pope Francis has recognized the heroic virtues of a 14-year-old Italian boy who died in 1963. The Pope advanced the cause of Angiolino Bonetta, born on Sept. 18, 1948, in Cigole, northern Italy. A lively but virtuous boy, he excelled at school as well as at sports. He was diagnosed with bone cancer at the age of 12; he underwent chemotherapy and his leg was amputated. According to an account of his life in “Saints for the Sick,” a 2010 book by Joan Carroll Cruz, Bonetta remained cheerful and his acceptance of his illness inspired conversions. When a nun suggested that he should offer up his sufferings, he replied: “I have already offered all to Jesus for the conversion of sinners. I am not afraid; Jesus always comes to help me.” To a woman who expressed sympathy on seeing him walking painfully on crutches, he said: “But don’t you know that at every step I could save a soul?” MONDAY 20

POPE VISITS SUMMER CAMP Pope Francis made a surprise visit to a childrens’ summer camp at the Vatican, walking there alone from his residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae. “The kids were so stunned they stayed completely silent,” Salesian Father Franco Fontana, a chaplain at the Vatican overseeing the program said. The Pope greeted the children, who were finishing their breakfast, and asked them how they spent their day and if they were happy. Fontana said he was struck by the way the children interacted with the Pope, sensing his “simplicity and paternal nature.”n AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN 59

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BECKY DERKS with G. Galazka, CNA and CNS photos

n POPE CLEARS WAY FOR BEATIFICATION OF KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS FOUNDER Pope Francis has approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of Father Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, clearing the way for his beatification. While the Vatican announced May 27 that Pope Francis had signed the decree, no date was announced for the beatification ceremony due to a pandemiccaused backlog. For beatification, the Vatican requires proof of a miracle attributed to the candidate’s intercession, unless the candidate was martyred for his or her faith. A statement from the Knights of Columbus said, “The miracle recognized as coming through Father McGivney’s intercession involved an unborn child in the United States who in 2015 was healed in utero of a lifethreatening condition after prayers by his family to Father McGivney.” (CNS)

n DURING PANDEMIC, NAIROBI NUNS EXPAND THEIR REACH Normally, the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood feed about 200 children in Nairobi’s informal settlements of Kawangware and Riruta. But with the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, the sisters are expanding their reach. “We are using the telephone contacts of the children to reach these poor and needy families,” Precious Blood Sister Grace Njau told Catholic News Service during a mid-June distribution. The sisters set up distribution tents outside Amani Rehabilitation Center and Primary School, where the children normally go for breakfast and lunch. Kenya’s bishops predicted the pan60 INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

VATICAN ORDERS FOUNDER TO LEAVE ECUMENICAL COMMUNITY

The Vatican has ordered the prominent Italian Catholic layman Enzo Bianchi to leave the monastery he founded in 1965. The Holy See made the ruling in a decree dated May 13, signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and approved by Pope Francis, following an apostolic visitation. A statement on the Monastic Community of Bose’s website said the Pope had approved the apostolic visitation in response to “serious concerns” about “a tense and problematic situation in our community regarding the exercise of the founder’s authority, the governance, and the fraternal climate.” Bianchi founded the ecumenical community in Biella, northern Italy, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. It is a mixed community, composed of both men and women, who pray the Liturgy of the Hours and follow a rule influenced by St. Benedict and St. Basil the Great. Members include Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Christians. (CNA) demic would hit vulnerable people the hardest, including the 2.5 million living in informal settlements. (Union of Catholic Asian News)

n POPE FRANCIS PRAISES LATE CARDINAL’S “GENTLENESS OF SPIRIT” Pope Francis has paid tribute to the Italian Cardinal Renato Corti, who died May 12 aged 84. In a telegram, the Pope said the cardinal was “animated in all things by a passionate desire to communicate the Gospel of Christ.” Corti preached the spiritual exercises to the Roman Curia in 2005 in the presence of St. John Paul II, who died later that year. In 2015, he wrote the meditations for the Good Friday Way of the Cross at the Colosseum in Rome. A year later, he received the red hat from Pope Francis. The Pope addressed his condolence telegram to Bishop Franco Giulio Brambilla of Novara, Corti’s diocese from 1991 to 2011. (CNA)

n CARDINAL PELL’S PRISON JOURNAL WILL BE “SPIRITUAL CLASSIC,” PUBLISHER SAYS The publisher of the prison diary of Cardinal George Pell said the text reveals the courage, conviction, and Christian charity of the cardinal. “This journal reveals the Cardinal Pell I know and that every faithful Catholic should get to know,” Fr. Joseph Fessio, SJ, of Ignatius Press told CNA June 20. Pell “proclaimed Christ and the Church’s moral teachings without fear and with full knowledge of what the cost would be. And he paid the price with good humor and, like Christ, a love of his enemies,” Fessio added. The publisher expects to publish in Spring 2021 either an abridged version of Pell’s prison journal, which runs to 1,000 pages, or the first volume of the full text, Ignatius Press said. News of

the text’s publication was first reported by AP. (CNA)

n FOR FIRST TIME, POPE APPOINTS LAY PERSON AS NEW APSA SECRETARY For the first time, a lay person has been appointed as Secretary of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, which oversees all of the Vatican’s properties in Italy. Pope Francis’ APSA nomination of Dr. Fabio Gasperini was published in a June 15 Holy See Press Office bulletin. Born in Rome on October 17, 1961, Dr. Gasperini is an auditor and chartered accountant. With a degree in economics and commerce, he has more than 25 years of experience in consulting and auditing services at leading financial institutions: banks, insurance companies, asset management companies, securities brokerage firms and financial companies. (Zenit)

n POPE FRANCIS OFFERS CONDOLENCES TO BENEDICT XVI FOLLOWING HIS BROTHER’S DEATH Pope Francis offered his condolences to Benedict XVI following the death of his brother this summer. In a letter to the Pope Emeritus

dated July 2, the Pope expressed his “heartfelt sympathy” after the death of Msgr. Georg Ratzinger on July 1 at the age of 96. “You were kind enough to be the first to tell me the news of the departure of your beloved brother Georg,” Pope Francis wrote in the letter released in both Italian and German by the Holy See Press Office. “In this hour of mourning I would like to express to you once again my heartfelt sympathy and my spiritual closeness.” Benedict XVI’s older brother died a little more than a week after the Pope Emeritus made a four-day trip to Regensburg, Germany, to be by his bedside. On each day of the visit the brothers celebrated Mass together, according to local Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer. (CNA) n BEATIFICATION DATE SET FOR COMPUTER PROGRAMMING TEEN CARLO ACUTIS Venerable Carlo Acutis, an Italian teenager and computer programmer who died in 2006, will be beatified October 10 in Assisi, Italy. “The joy we have long awaited finally has a date,” Archbishop Domenico Sorrentino of Assisi said in a statement June 13.

POPE FRANCIS ADDS ST. FAUSTINA KOWALSKA’S FEAST TO ROMAN CALENDAR

Pope Francis has decreed that St. Faustina Kowalska’s feast day be added to the Roman Calendar as an optional memorial to be celebrated by all on October 5. The Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship issued the decree May 18, the 100th anniversary of the birth of St. John Paul II, who canonized St. Faustina on April 13, 2000, making her the first saint of the new millennium. The decree said that Pope Francis had taken the step in response to petitions from pastors, religious men and women and associations of the faithful, and “having considered the influence exercised by the spirituality of St. Faustina in different parts of the world.” (CNA)

The beatification will take place in Assisi at 4 p.m. at the Basilica of Saint Francis. It will be chaired by Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who is Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Acutis died of leukemia at the age of 15. He offered his suffering for the Pope and for the Church. He was born in London on May 3, 1991 to Italian parents who soon returned to Milan. He was a pious child, attending daily Mass, frequently praying the rosary, and making weekly confessions. Acutis is currently buried in Assisi’s Church of St. Mary Major. (CNA)

n NUNS PRAYING FOR LOOTERS AFTER ATTACK ON CATHOLIC BOOKSTORE On May 31, protests in Chicago over the death of George Floyd turned violent. As rioters targeted the city’s Magnificent Mile shopping district, shattering glass and raiding stores, they picked an unlikely target: a bookstore run by nuns. As the Daughters of St. Paul cleaned up the broken glass the next day, they said they saw more clearly their mission to evangelize a wounded culture. Today “there is a lot of fear, there is a lot of confusion” and “many conflicting messages,” Sister Tracey Matthia Dugas of the Daughters of St. Paul told CNA in an interview. “All we can do is bring them Jesus and the Gospel, and His Word, and allow Him to speak to them. So what we’re trying to do is foster every person, every child of God, to know God as a good father who will provide,” Dugas said. (CNA).m AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020 INSIDE THE VATICAN 61

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

n BY MOTHER MARTHA

Stefano Navarrini illustration

y last month’s “Religious Stays in Italy” cited many convents offering hospitality to tourists. Instead, the premises of the VOI (standing for Vera Ospitalità Italiana) Camilla Savelli Hotel, reviewed here, still belong to the religious order of nuns, the Agostiniane dei Sette Dolori, but are administered by the tour operator Alpitour. It’s a four-star oasis at Via Garibaldi 27 in the pulsing heart of Trastevere. At the foot of the Janiculum Hill, it’s a 10-minute walk uphill to the Acqua Paola fountain, once part of the Emperor Trajan’s aqueduct, transformed by Pope Paul V Borghese between 1608-10. It is also near the church of San Pietro in Montorio built on the site (according to one tradition) of St. Peter’s crucifixion; Bramante’s Tempietto, the model for Michelangelo’s dome of St. Peter’s Basilica; and the Spanish and American Academies in Rome. Five minutes downhill is one of Rome’s most acclaimed restaurants, Antica Pesa; the Villa Farnesina, once the Roman residence of Agostino Chigi, the Sienese banker and art patron, frescoed by Raphael; the Palazzo Corsini art museum; and the Santa Maria Trastevere Church on the neighborhood’s main piazza. The hotel owes its name to Camilla Virginia Savelli (1601-1668), the only daughter of Giovanni, the impoverished Duke of Palombara, Church official and Custodian of the Conclave, and of noblewoman Livia Orsini. Around 1621, Camilla, surpressing her religious vocation, married much older but wealthy Pietro Farnese, for financial reasons. When they had no children, deeply impressed by the religious devotion of her sister-in-law, Francesca Farnese, a Clarissa, who’d founded convents in Albano, Palestrina, and Rome, Camilla decided to follow her example of a life of charity. Thus, thanks to her husband’s generosity, Camilla bought the land at the foot of the Janiculum, and around 1642, work on her desired convent complex began with the highly esteemed architect Francesco Borromini in charge. Its purpose was to shelter young noblewomen too sickly to join other religious orders. Camilla put her heart, soul and all her economic resources into this project, but in 1655 construction stopped for lack of finances. This explains the unfinished brick façade of the church, similar in style, but without the marble facing of Borromini’s wavy façade on the Palazzo Filippini across the

Tiber. Nonetheless, Camilla wrote the rules of her order, which Pope Alexander VII approved. At her death, Camilla requested to be buried in her complex’s church and left it all her inheritance. Camilla’s complex was not the first building on this site. Below it are the remains of a 1st-century AD Roman bath, a tepidarium. Later this bath, now known as the “grotto,” probably became the warehouse of a wealthy merchant, for Trastevere was an industrial storage area for the nearby port Ripetta. Centuries later, amazingly, during World War II, the nuns successfully hid Jewish families in this grotto despite the SS headquarters directly across Via Garibaldi. Today the grotto is rentable for private parties (30 guests at most) and every year on April 21 General Manager Elena Prandelli invites guests to celebrate the city of Rome’s birthday here. Inaugurated in 2008 after extensive but tasteful restoration and reopened, after the COVID-19 lockdown, on June 8, the VOI Donna Camilla Savelli counts 99 rooms (from 180 euros a night) and suites, once nuns’ cells, furnished primarily with antiques, but also equipped with every possible state-of-the-art convenience. Although not a guest, Woody Allen filmed scenes of “To Rome With Love” in Suite 504. In addition to regional Italian dishes revisited served à la carte, Neapolitan Chef Emidio Gennaro Ferro offers a seasonal tasting menu of Renaissance dishes in the restaurant, “Il Ferro e Il Fuoco” (“The Iron and the Fire”). Prandelli discovered their recipes in Rome’s historical Casanatense Library. Other guest perks are private access to the church, the once-frescoed refectory (rentable for private events), the magnificent view over Rome from the rooftop terrace, and the peaceful Italian Renaissance-style garden with a citrus grove and 17th-century fountain. Here it’s possible to enjoy drinks, snacks, and supper. Another fountain, attributed to Borromini, decorates an inner cloister. Here the restorers uncovered the ancient tombstone of an early Christian martyr. Its inscription, in Greek, states his name “Gordian” and that he was beheaded. There are several VOI 5-star seaside resorts in Calabria, Puglia, Sardinia, and Sicily, not to leave out Asia and Africa, so Donna Camilla Savelli is VOI’s only urban setting until Ca’ di Dio 5 opens near the Arsenale in Venice around Easter of 2021.m

AN OASIS IN TRASTEVERE

Camilla Savelli Hotel in Trastevere: The hotel's garden, a typical room, the church, the chef Emidio Gennaro Ferro, and the grotto

62 INSIDE THE VATICAN AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020

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