I certainly do dunk on Yves Congar https://t.co/xChpMmb6Qc
— Thomas Pink (@thomaspink1) November 11, 2020
Yet, it is not clear that Christians can make complete peace with a thoroughly desacralized political order, though the Catholic Church has come a long way toward rapprochement from the time of Gregory XVI’s Mirari vos and Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors. The question still remains, however, as to the limits an integrally Christian worldview places on full reconciliation with secular modernity and liberal democracy. According to St. Thomas, men cannot adequately understand in theory, let alone fulfill in practice, the detailed precepts of the natural law without the help of its author, God, and its divinely appointed interpreter, the Roman Catholic Church. With regard to a non-sacral foundation for political order, Thomist Joseph May in the 1950s stated: “The only true doctrine is that civil society cannot prescind from the ultimate end [emphasis mine] both because the temporal welfare implies an ordering to the spiritual and supernatural, and because the individual citizens are directly and positively bound to tend to it” And even Dignitatis Humanae insists that it “leaves untouched the traditional Catholic doctrine about the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and the one Church of Christ” (Sec. 1). As Pope John Paul II often reiterated, the face of Jesus Christ is the only true mirror in which man can fully and accurately contemplate and comprehend his own nature and destiny; thus, only therein can he discern the moral values and goods most perfective of himself and the political order.
But it was Amerio's conviction – and Radaelli explains this well in his extensive afterword to "Zibaldone" – that this protection guaranteed to the Church by Christ applies only to "ex cathedra" dogmatic definitions of the magisterium, not to the uncertain, fleeting, debatable "pastoral" teachings of Vatican Council II and of the following decades.I suspect Amerio does not think infallibility is limited to ex cathedra definitions.
The result, according to Amerio and Radaelli, is that Vatican Council II is full of vague, equivocal assertions that can be interpreted in different ways, some of them even in definite contrast with the previous magisterium of the Church.
And this ambiguous pastoral language is believed to have paved the way for a Church that today is "overrun by thousands of doctrines and hundreds of thousands of nefarious customs." Including in art, music, liturgy.
What should be done to remedy this disaster? Radaelli's proposal goes beyond the one made recently – on the basis of equally harsh critical judgments – by another respected scholar of the Catholic tradition, Thomist theologian Brunero Gherardini, 85, canon of the basilica of Saint Peter, professor emeritus of the Pontifical Lateran University, and director of the magazine "Divinitas."
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Monsignor Gherardini advanced his proposal in a book released in Rome last year, entitled: "Concilio Ecumenico Vaticano II. Un discorso da fare."
The book concludes with a "Plea to the Holy Father." He is asked to have the documents of the Council reexamined, in order to clarify once and for all "if, in what sense, and to what extent" Vatican II is or is not in continuity with the previous magisterium of the Church.
Gherardini's book is introduced by two prefaces: one by Albert Malcolm Ranjith, archbishop of Colombo and former secretary of the Vatican congregation for divine worship, and the other by Mario Olivieri, bishop of Savona. The latter writes that he joins "toto corde" in the plea to the Holy Father.
So then, in his afterword to "Zibaldone" by Romano Amerio, Professor Radaelli welcomes Monsignor Gherardini's proposal, but "only as a helpful first step in purifying the air from many, too many misunderstandings."
Clarifying the meaning of the conciliar documents, in fact, is not enough in Radaelli's judgment, if such a clarification is then offered to the Church with the same ineffective style of pastoral "teaching" that entered into use with the council, suggestive rather than imperative.
If the abandoning of the principle of authority and "discussionism" are the illness of the conciliar and postconciliar Church, getting out of it – Radaelli writes – requires doing the opposite. The upper hierarchy of the Church must close the discussion with a dogmatic proclamation "ex cathedra," infallible and obligatory. It must strike with anathema those who do not obey, and bless those who obey.
And what does Radaelli expect the supreme cathedra of the Church to decree? Just like Amerio, he is convinced that in at least three cases there has been "an abysmal rupture of continuity" between Vatican II and the previous magisterium: where the council affirms that the Church of Christ "subsists in" the Catholic Church instead of saying that it "is" the Catholic Church; where it asserts that "Christians worship the same God worshiped by the Jews and Muslims"; and in the declaration on religious freedom "Dignitatis Humanae."
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In Benedict XVI, both Gherardini and Amerio-Radaelli see a friendly pope. But there is no chance that he will grant their requests.
On the contrary, both on the whole and on some controversial points pope Joseph Ratzinger has already made it known that he does not at all share their positions.
For example, in the summer of 2007 the congregation for the doctrine of the faith made a statement on the continuity of meaning between the formulas "is" and "subsists in," affirming that "the Second Vatican Council neither changed nor intended to change [the previous doctrine on the Church], rather it developed, deepened and more fully explained it."
As for the declaration on religious freedom "Dignitatis Humanae," Benedict XVI himself has explained that, if it departed from previous "contingent" indications of the magisterium, it did so precisely to "recover the deepest patrimony of the Church."
Papal Address to Social Sciences Academy
"Natural Law Is a Universal Guide Recognizable to Everyone"
VATICAN CITY, MAY 4, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is the text of the English-language address Benedict XVI gave today to the members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. The members of the academy are gathered in the Vatican through Tuesday for their plenary session, which is focused on Catholic social doctrine and human rights.
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Dear Brothers in the Episcopate and the Priesthood,
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,
As you gather for the fifteenth Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, I am pleased to have this occasion to meet with you and to express my encouragement for your mission of expounding and furthering the Church's social doctrine in the areas of law, economy, politics and the various other social sciences. Thanking Professor Mary Ann Glendon for her cordial words of greeting, I assure you of my prayers that the fruit of your deliberations will continue to attest to the enduring pertinence of Catholic social teaching in a rapidly changing world.
After studying work, democracy, globalisation, solidarity and subsidiarity in relation to the social teaching of the Church, your Academy has chosen to return to the central question of the dignity of the human person and human rights, a point of encounter between the doctrine of the Church and contemporary society.
The world's great religions and philosophies have illuminated some aspects of these human rights, which are concisely expressed in "the golden rule" found in the Gospel: "Do to others as you would have them do to you" (Lk 6:31; cf. Mt 7:12). The Church has always affirmed that fundamental rights, above and beyond the different ways in which they are formulated and the different degrees of importance they may have in various cultural contexts, are to be upheld and accorded universal recognition because they are inherent in the very nature of man, who is created in the image and likeness of God. If all human beings are created in the image and likeness of God, then they share a common nature that binds them together and calls for universal respect. The Church, assimilating the teaching of Christ, considers the person as "the worthiest of nature" (St. Thomas Aquinas, De potentia, 9, 3) and has taught that the ethical and political order that governs relationships between persons finds its origin in the very structure of man's being. The discovery of America and the ensuing anthropological debate in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe led to a heightened awareness of human rights as such and of their universality (ius gentium). The modern period helped shape the idea that the message of Christ - because it proclaims that God loves every man and woman and that every human being is called to love God freely - demonstrates that everyone, independently of his or her social and cultural condition, by nature deserves freedom. At the same time, we must always remember that "freedom itself needs to be set free. It is Christ who sets it free" (Veritatis Splendor, 86).
In the middle of the last century, after the vast suffering caused by two terrible world wars and the unspeakable crimes perpetrated by totalitarian ideologies, the international community acquired a new system of international law based on human rights. In this, it appears to have acted in conformity with the message that my predecessor Benedict XV proclaimed when he called on the belligerents of the First World War to "transform the material force of arms into the moral force of law" ("Note to the Heads of the Belligerent Peoples", 1 August 1917).
Human rights became the reference point of a shared universal ethos - at least at the level of aspiration - for most of humankind. These rights have been ratified by almost every State in the world. The Second Vatican Council, in the Declaration Dignitatis Humanae, as well as my predecessors Paul VI and John Paul II, forcefully referred to the right to life and the right to freedom of conscience and religion as being at the centre of those rights that spring from human nature itself.
Strictly speaking, these human rights are not truths of faith, even though they are discoverable - and indeed come to full light - in the message of Christ who "reveals man to man himself" (Gaudium et Spes, 22). They receive further confirmation from faith. Yet it stands to reason that, living and acting in the physical world as spiritual beings, men and women ascertain the pervading presence of a logos which enables them to distinguish not only between true and false, but also good and evil, better and worse, and justice and injustice. This ability to discern - this radical agency - renders every person capable of grasping the "natural law", which is nothing other than a participation in the eternal law: "unde...lex naturalis nihil aliud est quam participatio legis aeternae in rationali creatura" (St. Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II, 91, 2). The natural law is a universal guide recognizable to everyone, on the basis of which all people can reciprocally understand and love each other. Human rights, therefore, are ultimately rooted in a participation of God, who has created each human person with intelligence and freedom. If this solid ethical and political basis is ignored, human rights remain fragile since they are deprived of their sound foundation.
The Church's action in promoting human rights is therefore supported by rational reflection, in such a way that these rights can be presented to all people of good will, independently of any religious affiliation they may have. Nevertheless, as I have observed in my Encyclicals, on the one hand, human reason must undergo constant purification by faith, insofar as it is always in danger of a certain ethical blindness caused by disordered passions and sin; and, on the other hand, insofar as human rights need to be re-appropriated by every generation and by each individual, and insofar as human freedom - which proceeds by a succession of free choices - is always fragile, the human person needs the unconditional hope and love that can only be found in God and that lead to participation in the justice and generosity of God towards others (cf. Deus Caritas Est, 18, and Spe Salvi, 24).
This perspective draws attention to some of the most critical social problems of recent decades, such as the growing awareness - which has in part arisen with globalisation and the present economic crisis - of a flagrant contrast between the equal attribution of rights and the unequal access to the means of attaining those rights. For Christians who regularly ask God to "give us this day our daily bread", it is a shameful tragedy that one-fifth of humanity still goes hungry. Assuring an adequate food supply, like the protection of vital resources such as water and energy, requires all international leaders to collaborate in showing a readiness to work in good faith, respecting the natural law and promoting solidarity and subsidiarity with the weakest regions and peoples of the planet as the most effective strategy for eliminating social inequalities between countries and societies and for increasing global security.
Dear friends, dear Academicians, in exhorting you in your research and deliberations to be credible and consistent witnesses to the defence and promotion of these non-negotiable human rights which are founded in divine law, I most willingly impart to you my Apostolic Blessing.
