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| The Word From Rome |
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| March 17, 2006 |
Vol. 5, No. 28
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Vatican
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Missionary activity since Ad Gentes; Oswald Gracias of Agra, India, and Nicholas Cheong Jin-Suk of Seoul; Interview with Jesuit Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach; Realignment in the Roman Curia; On relations with Muslim states; Responses from readers
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Thomas Friedman recently discovered that "the world is flat," referring to the leveling of opportunities across geographic borders as a result of globalization. If you want a companion metaphor for the impact of globalization on the Catholic Church, you might say that Catholicism is increasingly "upside down," meaning that a church once dominated by the global North, especially Europe, is more and more hearing the voice of the South, meaning Africa, Asia and Latin America. Rome offered a sounding board for "upside down" Catholicism last week, during a conference at the Urban University sponsored by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. The theme was the 40th anniversary of Ad Gentes, the document of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) on missionary activity. The malaise of Catholicism in the North, especially in Europe, hung over the event. Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne, still flush with the triumph of last August's World Youth Day, nevertheless conceded the difficulties. "We've never had as much money as in the last 40 years, and we've never lost the substance of the faith as much as in the last 40 years," he said. "In the Cologne archdiocese, there are 2.8 million Catholics, but in the last 30 years we've lost 300,000. For every one baptism, there are three funerals." "We're grateful for any help we can get from the outside," Meisner said. Prelates from the developing world radiated confidence about a looming "southern moment" in global Catholicism "There is a new self-consciousness about the church in the South, a confidence that it can stand on its own feet, reflect for itself, and influence the direction of the church's pastoral initiatives," said Archbishop Oswald Gracias of Agra, India, in a March 10 interview with NCR. In March, Gracias was elected president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India, the body for bishops of the 119 Latin Rite dioceses and administrations in India. Excerpts from our interview follow. * * *NCR: Since two-thirds of the Catholics in the world today live in the south, inevitably intellectual and pastoral energy, as well as leadership, will come more and more from the south. How will that change Catholicism? I believe the West has got to learn to respond to the signs of the times. Change and adaptation is necessary, and maybe the churches of the South, especially in Asia, can offer an example. Today, we try to be open to the Spirit with self-confidence, believing that inculturation is not going to take the church to the ruins. The West has got to start learning from Asia about how to deal with a multi-cultural, multi-religious situation. … In Europe, people are now beginning to feel, all of a sudden, that Europe may not always be predominantly Christian. They have to start now learning how to cope. You can't be insular, and at the same time you can't compromise on principles. The key question is, how do we live together in a secular world for everyone's good? You've talked about the need for simplicity in lifestyles and in facilities. Imposing edifices, you've said, can alienate us from the poor. Do you think the idea that Christ is a savior alongside Krishna or Buddha is one that many Asia Catholics would endorse? Has failure to appreciate the cultural background sometimes influenced Vatican reactions to Asian theologies, such as that of Jesuit Fr. Jacques Dupuis? The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a notification in January 2001 lauding Dupuis for raising new questions but identifying "ambiguities" in his work. Did you find that action helpful? Are the issues of sexual morality so divisive in the West -- such as homosexuality -- equally controversial in your part of the world? Cardinal-designate Nicholas Cheong Jin-Suk of Seoul, South Korea, is also the apostolic administrator of P'yong-yang in North Korea, and he spoke about the situation at the Ad Gentes conference. According to the North Korean government, there are 13,000 Christians in the country, with only 800 Catholics. Unofficial estimates, however, put the Catholic population closer to 4,000. There is only one Catholic church in P'yong-yang, and it has no priest. "In the North, persecution of the church has continued since 1948," Cheong said. "No priest has survived. No visible sign of the church really exists there." Over the last 10 years the Seoul archdiocese has donated $11.6 million to the North, he said, "one of the largest efforts by any single NGO." Cheong said the Holy See has also been able to get aid to the North through special envoys. He called for the church to prepare for an "eventual opening" in both North Korea and China. "Divine providence can break down apparently impossible situations," he said. Cheong also announced that the South Korean bishops have launched a "20/20" initiative, aimed at bringing the Catholic percentage of the South Korean population from 9.3 percent, or 4.5 million, to twenty percent by 2020. In his Blackie Ryan novels, Fr. Andrew Greeley paints his hero as an "unobtrusive and practically invisible little auxiliary bishop" who scoots around Chicago in a White Sox windbreaker, seeing everything, absorbing everything, and in the end always solving the puzzle. Swap the Sox windbreaker for a full-length clerical cassock, make it Rome instead of Chicago, and change "auxiliary bishop" into "superior general," and you've got a pretty good handle on Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, the diminutive Dutchman with a sly smile who has guided the Jesuits for a quarter-century. Many observers credit Kolvenbach with healing the relationship between the Jesuits and the Vatican after the earthquake of 1981, when John Paul II refused their request to elect new leadership and instead imposed two Italians, Fr. Paolo Dezza and Fr. Giuseppe Pittau. Two years later, in 1983, when John Paul allowed an election to proceed, Kolvenbach was tapped on the first ballot. Kolvenbach recently announced that he will step down in 2008, and he sat down with me this week for a rare interview. Excerpts follow: NCR: How did you improve relations with the Holy See? People should credit Fr. Dezza and Fr. Pittau. I just followed their steps, assisted by a large experience of my own as a go-in-between man in the Near East. You are in regular contact with the Vatican. What do you think is commonly misunderstood about it? You worked closely with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger prior to his election as Benedict XVI. What did that experience teach you about the man? One early controversy of his papacy centered on Fr. Tom Reese from America magazine. What are the lessons of that episode for Jesuit-sponsored publications? Did the initial concerns about America come from the United States rather than the Vatican? What do you expect from Benedict XVI on religious life? Some are asking the popes, 'Do you still believe in religious life?' But there's really no choice. Our charisms come from the Lord, not from the church. The Lord is asking for this. Last Saturday, the first significant realignment in the Roman Curia under Benedict XVI was announced, as the President of the Pontifical Council for Culture, French Cardinal Paul Poupard, was also named President of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, and Italian Cardinal Renato Martino, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, was assigned the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Refugees. In both cases, the appointments were announced per ora, "for now." "We've been put on a bus, but we don't know where we'll get off," is how an official in one of the offices described the situation. Poupard broke the news to the staff at the Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, meeting with them Saturday at noon, the same time it was announced publicly. (A month earlier, the staff learned that their former president, Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, had been named nuncio in Egypt at 11:30 a.m., a half-hour before the rest of the world). Martino met the staff at Migrants and Refugees on Monday. Cardinal Stephen Hamao, the former president who retired for reasons of age, had informally let it be known a week before that the change was coming. Early reactions differed. Some experts on inter-religious dialogue worry about an overly tight identification of culture and religion. "Religion is certainly a part of culture, but neither can it be identified with culture," a Vatican official said March 15. "That's what religious nationalists try to do. Hindu fundamentalists say that you have to be Hindu to be really Indian. Some Buddhists in Thailand, and some Muslims in majority Islamic states, say similar things." This official said it will be important how the move is explained. Word in diplomatic circles in Rome is that following the transfer of Fitzgerald, and now the "unification" of inter-religious dialogue with culture, several ambassadors, especially from majority Muslim states, have expressed concern about a perceived diminishment of the Vatican's commitment to inter-faith relations. One diplomat from an Islamic state said Benedict XVI told him personally that the Council for Inter-religious Dialogue will continue, but that he wants to think carefully about who should be in charge. On the other hand, some officials on migrant and refugee issues took a pragmatic stance, saying that if the new arrangement means Martino will bring the force of his personality to bear on their issues, it could turn out to be a blessing. "Hamao is a very holy person, but he's not a strong leader," one official said. "He's not good with the press. If Martino sees a problem, he just goes. He's a much more effective advocate." "If this is better for refugees, why not?" he said. Interviewing is a fine art, and one of the best on the Vatican beat is Gianni Cardinale, whose Q&A pieces with cardinals and other newsmakers in 30 Giorni are required reading. In the January-February issue, Cardinale talks with Bishop Giovanni Bernardo Gremoli, a Capuchin and former Apostolic Vicar for the Arabian Peninsula, a territory that includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Yemen. He said there are currently 48 priests in the vicariate and about 3 million Catholics, with half in Saudi Arabia and half scattered across the remaining nations. Most are migrant laborers, with the largest groups being Filipinos and Indians. There are roughly one million Filipinos in Saudi Arabia alone. Outside Saudi Arabia, Gremoldi said, there is a surprising degree of openness to the Catholic presence. There are 11 churches and parochial structures in the region, he said, the majority in the Emirates, but with four in Oman and one in Bahrain. A 12th church is going up in Qatar, which has never had a Catholic place of worship. There are also eight Catholic schools, seven in the Emirates and one in Bahrain, with more than 16,500 students, roughly 60 percent Muslim. The improved climate is reflected in the fact, Gremoldi said, that the Holy See opened diplomatic relations with Yemen in 1998, Bahrain in 2000 and Qatar in 2002. In the Emirates, he said, the apostolic vicar is considered the pope's representative and takes part in diplomatic functions. The situation in Saudi Arabia, however, Gremoldi described as "reminiscent of the catacombs." Neither priests nor celebration of the Mass is legally permitted except in embassies. Catholics may only pray at home, never in groups, even with friends or relatives. The religious police, called the mutawa, whom Gremoldi described as "very efficient," intervene whenever there is suspicion of a non-Islamic religious assembly. Gremoldi attributed this climate to Wahabi Islam, which sees the entire Arabian Peninsula as sacred territory and thus closed to any cult except Islam. Even so, Gremoldi said he manages to make a pastoral visit every year to administer confirmations and the other sacraments, and to celebrate Mass for various groups. From time to time, he said, "visiting priests" manage to reach different Catholic communities. Gremoldi downplayed long-standing complaints that the Saudis were able to build a $65 million mosque in Rome while Catholics are subjected to such tight restraints in Saudi Arabia. "It's good the mosque is there," he told Cardinale. "For one thing, even though it was financed mostly by the Saudis, many Muslims from countries where we are permitted to have places of worship use it. In addition, authorization was requested by then-King Faisal, a sovereign …who was killed precisely for his openness." Gremoldi rejected suggestions of a "clash of civilizations," which he called "useless and dangerous." In 1926, the Lutheran bishop Martin Dibelius prophesied that the 20th century would be the "century of the church," meaning that while other theological topics -- the Trinity, Christology, grace and redemption -- had dominated earlier periods, ecclesiology would be the preoccupation of his era. Despite what calendars say, in this sense the 20th century is still very much alive for Benedict XVI. On Wednesday, the pope launched a new series of catechetical reflections at his Wednesday audiences. It's the first truly his own, since he just completed a series of reflections on the Psalms inherited from John Paul II. The new series is devoted to the relationship between Christ and the church. In contrast to liberal German theologian Adolf von Harnack, who saw the call of Jesus as directed exclusively to individuals, Benedict insisted that Jesus aimed to gather a new "People of God." Symbolic of this intention, the pope said, was Jesus' call of the Twelve, which signified that the twelve tribes of Israel were being reconstituted into a universal people, which is the church. "For this reason, the fashionable slogan of a few years ago, 'Jesus Yes, Church No' is entirely incompatible with the intentions of Christ. This individualistically chosen Jesus is a Jesus of fantasy. We can't have Jesus without the reality that he created, and in which he communicates himself," the pope said, referring to the church. Christ now lives, the pope said, in the succession of the apostles. A new book appeared this week, Lascatemi andare ("Let Me Go"), written principally by Renato Buzzonetti, the personal physician of Pope John Paul II. Buzzonetti confirms what we all knew, i.e., that John Paul may have been a great pope, but he was a lousy patient. In 1992, for example, when the pope had a tumor removed from his colon, Buzzonetti said that John Paul kept silent about his pain for several months, and then refused expedited procedures, fixing dates for treatment himself. In 1994, John Paul took a serious fall in his bath, but insisted on going to Sicily the next day anyway; only an emergency x-ray convinced him to stay put. Buzzonetti also relates an anecdote from 1981, after John Paul returned to the Vatican following the assassination attempt and complained of pain. Doctors tried to take an x-ray of his abdomen, but electromagnetic impulses from Vatican Radio interfered. The number two official in the Secretariat of State had to get on the phone to persuade Vatican Radio to shut down briefly, attributing it to non-existent "technical problems." Officials at the radio apparently feared an earlier call from a papal aide had been an act of sabotage by the Red Brigades, an Italian terrorist movement in the 1970s and early 1980s. Last week, in writing about Benedict XVI's decision to drop the traditional papal title "Patriarch of the West," I referred to a 1969 essay in which then-Fr. Joseph Ratzinger discussed the idea of creating new patriarchates in the Western church, such as in Africa or North America. Chris Ruddy, author of The Local Church: Tillard and the Future of Catholic Ecclesiology, brought to my attention that Ratzinger was more dubious in 2000's God and the World: Also last week, I translated a response Benedict XVI gave about women in the church during a meeting with Roman clergy. I summed it up as "no" to women's ordination, but "yes" to other ways to empower women. Phyllis Zagano, an expert on women deacons, wrote to insist, correctly, that the pope had spoken of women priests, not women's ordination. In 2002, the International Theological Commission, the main advisory body to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, published a study on the diaconate. It concluded that deaconesses in the ancient church "cannot purely and simply be compared to the sacramental diaconate" today, since there is no clarity about the rite of institution that was used or what functions they exercised. Second, it asserted that "the unity of the sacrament of orders" is "strongly imprinted by ecclesiastical tradition, the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar magisterium." The document said there is a need for "discernment about what the Lord has established for the church." Zagano is right that Benedict's comments to the Roman clergy do not enter into this question.
The e-mail address for John L. Allen Jr. is jallen@natcath.org |
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