Francesco Arzillo Defends Ratzinger

Sandro Magister: Why Ratzinger Is Not a Heretic. The Defense Speaks. See also Antonio Caragliu.

Who would dare?

Enrico Maria Radaelli

Sandro Magister: Ratzinger Rehabilitates Müller. But the Pope Emeritus Himself Is Being Hit with Accusations of Heresy

Sandro Magister: From "Street Art" To "Street Theology." The Two Faces of the Superhero Pope

Metropolitan Hilarion Interview

in which he discusses the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI.

MosPat: Metropolitan Hilarion’s interview with the Vesti v Subbotu (News on Saturday)

The metropolitan's remarks make for a contrast with the pleas by Roberto de Mattei and Enrico Maria Radaelli - Last-Ditch Appeal: The Pope Should Withdraw His Resignation. The two traditionalists seem to have a very "high" conception of the office of the pope, but I wonder if their conception is really warranted by Sacred Tradition, or if it is tied to a brand of ultramontanism.

A Manufactured Crisis?

From The Impossible "Road Map" of Peace with the Lefebvrists (via Pertinacious Papist and Rorate Caeli):

Fr. Barsotti wrote:

"I am perplexed with regard to the Council: the plethora of documents, their length, often their language, these frightened me. They are documents that bear witness to a purely human assurance more than two a simple firmness of faith. But above all I am outraged by the behavior of the theologians.”

"The Council is the supreme exercise of the magisterium, and is justified only by a supreme necessity. Could not the fearful gravity of the present situation of the Church stem precisely from the foolishness of having wanted to provoke and tempt the Lord? Was there the desire, perhaps, to constrain God to speak when there was not this supreme necessity? Is that the way it is? In order to justify a Council that presumed to renew all things, it had to be affirmed that everything was going poorly, something that is done constantly, if not by the episcopate then by the theologians.”

"Nothing seems to me more grave, contrary to the holiness of God, than the presumption of clerics who believe, with a pride that is purely diabolical, that they can manipulate the truth, who presume to renew the Church and to save the world without renewing themselves. In all the history of the Church nothing is comparable to the latest Council, at which the Catholic episcopate believed that it could renew all things by obeying nothing other than its own pride, without the effort of holiness, in such open opposition to the law of the gospel that it requires us to believe how the humanity of Christ was the instrument of the omnipotence of the love that saves, in his death.”

I think Fr. Barsotti may have just been musing, but if he was dead set in his judgment, he may have been wrong. The pre-conciliar Church may have been in bad shape after all, a decline that first began with the rise of the modern nation-state and nationalism. In the struggle between the Church and the state [at first nominally Christian but progressively secular], the Church has been losing? What is the nature of the defeat, and how did it happen? I will leave that speculation for a future post. What if the theses of the Constantinian Church/Constantinianism/Constaninian shift are not wholly wrong? The overlap between civil society and the Church was bound to lead to problems as the different authorities, temporal and ecclesial, came into conflict. The questions of the nature of each authority and their limits must be constantly revisited and rethought, and there is no guarantee that the answers of the virtuous and wise will prevail.

But Fr. Barsotti may be right to think that some thought they could renew the Church without first renewing themselves and focusing on their duties. Or they thought they could accomplish it by merely being academics and advocates, rather than as saints and true sons of the Church.

Related:
Robert Louis Wilken, In Defense of Constantine

Enrico Maria Radaelli on Vatican 2

Sandro Magister, A "Disappointed Great" Breaks His Silence. With an Appeal to the Pope

(via Rorate Caeli)

Sandro Magister, The Defenders of Tradition Want the Infallible Church Back

The Defenders of Tradition Want the Infallible Church Back (h/t to the Pertinacious Papist)

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."

*

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."

*?
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."

Enrico Maria Radaelli

Sandro Magister, "Most Holy Father, in This Era of Irrational Barbarism..."

[Enrico Maria] Radaelli, a disciple of the great Catholic philosopher and philologist Romano Amerio, is a sophisticated scholar of theological aesthetics. His masterpiece is: "Ingresso alla bellezza [Entryway to beauty]," released in 2008, a magnificent introduction into the mystery of God through his "Imago," which is Christ. Beauty as the manifestation of the truth.

(via NLM)

Accademia Aurea Domus / Enrico Maria Radaelli

“La Civiltà Cattolica” Breaks the Silence – On Romano Amerio

“La Civiltà Cattolica” Breaks the Silence – On Romano Amerio
He was the most authoritative and erudite representative of criticism of the Church in the name of Tradition, but for decades the discussion of his thought was barred. The magazine of the Rome Jesuits has broken the taboo. Authorized from on high

by Sandro Magister

ROMA, April 23, 2007 – In “La Civiltà Cattolica,” the magazine of the Rome Jesuits printed with the prior scrutiny and authorization of the Vatican secretaiat of state, a review has been published that signals the end of a taboo.

The taboo is the one that has obliterated from public discussion, for decades, the thought of the most authoritative and erudite representative of criticism of the twentieth century Church in the name of the great Tradition: the Swiss philologist and philosopher Romano Amerio (in the photo), who died in Lugano in 1997, at the age of 92.

Amerio, although he was always extremely faithful to the Church, condensed his criticisms of it in two volumes: “Iota unum: Studio delle variazioni della Chiesa cattolica nel XX secolo [Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the Twentieth Century],” begun in 1935 and finalized and published in 1985, and, and “Stat Veritas. Séguito a Iota unum [Stat Veritas: Sequel to Iota Unum],” released posthumously in 1997, both issued by the publisher Riccardo Ricciardi, of Naples.

The Latin words in the title of the first volume, “Iota Unum,” are those of Jesus in the sermon on the mount: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter [iota] or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” (Matthew 5: 17-18). The iota is the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet.

“Iota Unum,” 658 pages, was reprinted three times in Italy, for a total of seven thousand copies, and was then translated into French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Dutch. It thus reached many tens of thousands of readers all over the world.

But in spite of this, an almost complete blacklisting fell upon Amerio in the Church, both during and after his life.

The review in “La Civiltà Cattolica” thus signals a turning point. Both because of where and how it was published – with the authorization of the Holy See – and because of what it says.

Strictly speaking, the review concerns a book about Amerio published in 2005 by his disciple Enrico Maria Radaelli. But without a doubt it is the great Swiss thinker who is at the center of the reviewer’s judgments.

And the judgments are largely positive, both on “Amerio’s intellectual and moral stature,” and on “the importance of his philosophical-theological vision for the contemporary Church.”

The reviewer, Giuseppe Esposito, is a psychologist who is well read in theology. Although he does not agree with Amerio in everything, he maintains that his thought “deserves more extensive discussion,” and “without prejudice.”

In particular, he writes, “it seems simplistic to relegate his reflection – and that of Radaelli – to the sphere of nostalgic traditionalism, as a position now irrelevant, incapable of comprehending the new movements of the Spirit.”

On the contrary, the reviewer maintains, Amerio’s thought “confers a form and a philosophical framework upon that ecclesial component which, following in the path of Tradition, reaches out to safeguard Christian specificity and identity.”

For Amerio, this form and philosophical framework are found in “the primacy of the truth about love.”

As is well known, the link between truth and love is at the center of Benedict XVI’s teaching.

Here, then, is reproduced the review that appeared in “La Civiltà Cattolica” on March 17, 2007, n. 3762, pages 622-623.

The reviewed book, the first one systematically dedicated to Romano Amerio’s life and thought, is the following:

Enrico Maria Radaelli, "Romano Amerio. Della verità e dell’amore [Romano Amerio: On Truth and Love]", Marco Editore, Lungro di Cosenza, 2005, pp. XXXV-340, 25 euro.


"In love with the truth and with the Church..."

by Giuseppe Esposito


A passionate devotee of Romano Amerio (1905-97), Enrico Maria Radaelli presents his life, word, and thought, placing the reader before an intellectual production that unfolded over a period of about 70 years.

And so here is Amerio as philosopher, philologist, historian, and also theologian, with his important contributions on Descartes, Giacomo Leopardi, Alessandro Manzoni, but above all on Tommaso Campanella.

The author’s primary intention is that of bringing back to light the figure of his master after the ostracism that followed the publication, in 1985, of his “Iota Unum.” This is the text that synthesizes Amerio’s thought, and, for the author, it is a true “metaphysical compendium of Catholic knowledge” (p. 135), capable of furnishing convincing and solid arguments in support of the faith.

The book, translated into seven languages, was not received well in Italy, and Amerio was branded as a traditionalist, preconciliar, Lefebvrist. But according to Radaelli, it is an error to reduce all of Amerio’s thought to his position on Vatican Council II.

This is, in the first place, because “Iota Unum” did not originate directly from the Council, nor from esteem for the schismatic bishop Marcel Lefebvre (whom Amerio criticizes for his separation from ecclesial communion), but is instead a collection of reflections begun thirty years earlier, and pertaining to more general topics.

In the second place this is because dwelling on controversy trivializes the important fundamental question Amerio raises, well represented by the author in the title: “On Truth and Love.”

This is the nucleus of Amerio’s thought: the primacy of truth over love. Subverting this order, and thus producing a “metaphysical dislocation of essences,” for Amerio is inevitably translated into an attack against Christ, the Word of God, the Logos. It is for this reason that he wrote “Iota Unum,” and, presenting it to Augusto Del Noce, defined it as an attempt to “defend essences against the waywardness and syncretism of the spirit of the age” (p. 231). And to Del Noce, who was fascinated by his argument, it seemed that “the ultimate philosophical problem for the ‘Catholic restoration’ that the world needs is that of the order of essences” (p. 233).

In love with the truth and with the Church, preoccupied with the secularization of Christianity, with its reduction to morality and works at the expense of the primacy of Christocentrism, Amerio criticizes “fundamentalist ecumenism,” the dissolution of the Christian identity in religious relativism, the renunciation of the Truth in favor of respect for other-truths, the reduction of the one true religion to one of the various possible religions.

It is decisive to pose the absolute centrality of the Word: “The absolute value attributed to the divine reality of the Word (Logos), as well as of the facts that religion derives from it, [...] shelter man from the disorientation of relativism” (p. 19).

This is a reminder not to undervalue the risks inherent in naturalism, and in any “conception of the Spirit cut down from the supernatural to the natural, [...] from the religious to the cultural, from the spiritual to the intellectual” (p. 130).

For Radaelli, what happened in the end was precisely what his master feared: “The subversion of the principles according to which reason is replaced in its first causality by love, plans by realization, intellect by freedom, ideas by praxis, [...] the classical values of religious naturalism seem to have the upper hand against the supremacy of the supernatural” (p. 206).

The author, with carefully chosen and deliberately apologetic language, highlights Amerio’s intellectual and moral stature, and clarifies the importance of his philosophical-theological vision, for the contemporary Church as well. The result is certainly a defensive, impassioned harangue that is sometimes grating, but it is above all a provocation to engage Amerio’s “powerful thought.”

Of course, it is not possible to share the negative judgment extended to the Council in its entirety and to all the positive things it produced.

Furthermore, there is a questionable attempt to explain all of Christianity’s current difficulties as if they were almost entirely the result of a deviation from the dogma of the Logos, of the demotion of Truth to second place after love. The reality is more complex, and one cannot trace everything back to just one aspect: in this case, there is the risk of philosophical reductionism.

And yet the Amerian hypothesis deserves more extensive discussion, and it seems simplistic to relegate his reflection – and that of Radaelli – to the sphere of nostalgic traditionalism, as a position now irrelevant, incapable of comprehending the new movements of the Spirit, if it is not in fact – with allowances for due caution – almost an obstacle to His action.

But if one frees oneself from fundamentalist prejudice, the nucleus of Amerio’s reflection becomes a stimulus for thought.

And this is not a matter of an isolated metaphysical view of Christianity: it confers a form and a philosophical framework upon that ecclesial component which, following in the path of Tradition, reaches out to safeguard Christian specificity and identity.

In this perspective, the work of Radaelli, by reproposing the deep Amerian theoretical questions, invites one to confront these without prejudice, in a more serene way.

The text, knowledgeably introduced by Antonio Livi, dean of the faculty of philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University, is also accompanied by interviews with Amerio and reviews of “Iota Unum,” as well as by a small glossary to aid the reader. Together with the list of Amerio’s works, the indices of names, persons, places, and topics are complete and very useful.