Pope Assails ‘Disobedience’ Among Priests
Apr 5, 2012 10:07:00 GMT -5
Post by shann0 on Apr 5, 2012 10:07:00 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/world/europe/pope-assails-disobedience-among-priests.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss
Pope Assails ‘Disobedience’ Among Priests
Max Rossi/Reuters
Pope Benedict XVI at Saint Peter's Basilica on Thursday.
By RACHEL DONADIO
Published: April 5, 2012
ROME — Striking the tone that once earned him the moniker “God’s Rottweiler,” Pope Benedict XVI in a stern pre-Easter homily on Thursday denounced “disobedience” in the church, cutting down reform-minded priests who seek the ordination of women and the abolition of priestly celibacy.
Pope Benedict XVI's message on Thursday was one of the strongest — and most direct — speeches of a seven-year-old reign.
Readers’ Comments
Referring to recent initiatives by clerics in Austria and elsewhere, Benedict said that while such priests claim to act “for concern for the church,” they are driven by their “own preferences and ideas,” and should instead turn toward a “radicalism of obedience” — a phrase that perfectly captures the essence of the theologian pope’s thought.
While there was nothing new in the contents of Benedict’s message, it was one of the strongest — and most direct — speeches of a seven-year-old reign that has more often been dominated by a sexual abuse scandal, repeated tangles with other faiths and a Vatican hierarchy in disarray. It also showed Benedict back in his element as a defender of orthodoxy, favoring a smaller church of more ardent believers over a larger community that resorts to watered-down doctrine.
Vatican analysts said that in his homily, the pope was clearly referring to an Austrian group called Preachers’ Initiative, started by Father Helmut Schüller, which has issued a “Call to Disobedience,” asking the church to allow the ordination of women, to remove the obligation of priestly celibacy and to permit priests to allow divorced people to receive Communion. His followers say they are doing so to keep the church healthy and to combat a shortage of priests.
More than 400 Austrian priests have endorsed the initiative, according to media reports, and priests in the United States and across Europe have also signed on in the past year, most recently in Belgium, Ireland and Slovakia.
The Vatican fears that the initiative could cause a schism within the church. But in interviews, Father Schüller, a former director of the Catholic aid agency Caritas in Austria, has called the Vatican an “absolutist monarchy” and said that the church’s resistance to change might lead to rupture anyway.
Although Benedict, who turns 85 next week, appeared and sounded tired as he sat on a golden throne in Saint Peter’s Basilica with an off-white and golden miter on his bowed head, his remarks showed him to be in fighting form.
Addressing the Vatican hierarchy on Holy Thursday, the day priests recall the vows they made when ordained, the pope singled out “a group of priests from a European country” who had recently “issued a summons to disobedience.”
They had done this to the point of “disregarding” church teaching and encouraging “women’s ordination, for which Blessed Pope John Paul II stated irrevocably that the church has received no authority from the Lord,” Benedict said.
In 1994, with the future pope Benedict as his doctrinal adviser, John Paul issued an apostolic letter saying that that the church “has no authority whatsoever” to ordain women, citing among its reasons that the apostles of Jesus Christ were all men.
“We would like to believe that the authors of this summons are motivated by concern for the church, that they are convinced that the slow pace of institutions has to be overcome by drastic measures, in order to open up new paths and to bring the church up to date. But is disobedience really a way to do this?” Benedict continued in his homily.
Striking a characteristically inquisitive yet uncompromising stance, he asked whether such moves were aimed at “true renewal,” or “do we merely sense a desperate push to do something to change the church in accordance with one’s own preferences and ideas?” Instead, the pope said, Christ’s concern “was for true obedience, as opposed to human caprice,” and priests should look to renewal in a “radicalism of obedience,” and turn to the saints, not modern convention, for guidance.
“The saints show us how renewal works and how we can place ourselves at its service,” Benedict said. “And they help us realize that God is not concerned so much with great numbers and with outward successes, but achieves his victories under the humble sign of the mustard seed,” he added. He was referring to a parable in which Jesus compared the church to the tiny seed that grows into a towering plant.
Pope Assails ‘Disobedience’ Among Priests
Max Rossi/Reuters
Pope Benedict XVI at Saint Peter's Basilica on Thursday.
By RACHEL DONADIO
Published: April 5, 2012
ROME — Striking the tone that once earned him the moniker “God’s Rottweiler,” Pope Benedict XVI in a stern pre-Easter homily on Thursday denounced “disobedience” in the church, cutting down reform-minded priests who seek the ordination of women and the abolition of priestly celibacy.
Pope Benedict XVI's message on Thursday was one of the strongest — and most direct — speeches of a seven-year-old reign.
Readers’ Comments
Referring to recent initiatives by clerics in Austria and elsewhere, Benedict said that while such priests claim to act “for concern for the church,” they are driven by their “own preferences and ideas,” and should instead turn toward a “radicalism of obedience” — a phrase that perfectly captures the essence of the theologian pope’s thought.
While there was nothing new in the contents of Benedict’s message, it was one of the strongest — and most direct — speeches of a seven-year-old reign that has more often been dominated by a sexual abuse scandal, repeated tangles with other faiths and a Vatican hierarchy in disarray. It also showed Benedict back in his element as a defender of orthodoxy, favoring a smaller church of more ardent believers over a larger community that resorts to watered-down doctrine.
Vatican analysts said that in his homily, the pope was clearly referring to an Austrian group called Preachers’ Initiative, started by Father Helmut Schüller, which has issued a “Call to Disobedience,” asking the church to allow the ordination of women, to remove the obligation of priestly celibacy and to permit priests to allow divorced people to receive Communion. His followers say they are doing so to keep the church healthy and to combat a shortage of priests.
More than 400 Austrian priests have endorsed the initiative, according to media reports, and priests in the United States and across Europe have also signed on in the past year, most recently in Belgium, Ireland and Slovakia.
The Vatican fears that the initiative could cause a schism within the church. But in interviews, Father Schüller, a former director of the Catholic aid agency Caritas in Austria, has called the Vatican an “absolutist monarchy” and said that the church’s resistance to change might lead to rupture anyway.
Although Benedict, who turns 85 next week, appeared and sounded tired as he sat on a golden throne in Saint Peter’s Basilica with an off-white and golden miter on his bowed head, his remarks showed him to be in fighting form.
Addressing the Vatican hierarchy on Holy Thursday, the day priests recall the vows they made when ordained, the pope singled out “a group of priests from a European country” who had recently “issued a summons to disobedience.”
They had done this to the point of “disregarding” church teaching and encouraging “women’s ordination, for which Blessed Pope John Paul II stated irrevocably that the church has received no authority from the Lord,” Benedict said.
In 1994, with the future pope Benedict as his doctrinal adviser, John Paul issued an apostolic letter saying that that the church “has no authority whatsoever” to ordain women, citing among its reasons that the apostles of Jesus Christ were all men.
“We would like to believe that the authors of this summons are motivated by concern for the church, that they are convinced that the slow pace of institutions has to be overcome by drastic measures, in order to open up new paths and to bring the church up to date. But is disobedience really a way to do this?” Benedict continued in his homily.
Striking a characteristically inquisitive yet uncompromising stance, he asked whether such moves were aimed at “true renewal,” or “do we merely sense a desperate push to do something to change the church in accordance with one’s own preferences and ideas?” Instead, the pope said, Christ’s concern “was for true obedience, as opposed to human caprice,” and priests should look to renewal in a “radicalism of obedience,” and turn to the saints, not modern convention, for guidance.
“The saints show us how renewal works and how we can place ourselves at its service,” Benedict said. “And they help us realize that God is not concerned so much with great numbers and with outward successes, but achieves his victories under the humble sign of the mustard seed,” he added. He was referring to a parable in which Jesus compared the church to the tiny seed that grows into a towering plant.