Centenary

Well, say what you like, the centenary of the birth of S John Paul II is a great deal more significant than a lot of the rubbish we are asked to 'celebrate'.

I intend now a briefish summary of points I have made before. I know that the line I will be taking is unpalatable to many. I am prepared to accept comments which make this clear, but not if they seem to me long, or even longish, or even a bit long.

I see the combined pontificates of S John Paul and of Pope Bebedict, lasting together about a quarter of a century, as essentially a single Magisterial period in which the two men worked both collaboratively and effectively. I see it as one in which large parts of orthodoxy were normatively restored. I regard the document Veritatis splendor as being of great importance.

During this period, and particularly after his own Election, Benedict worked to establish precedents which, in an organisation which works on precedent, matters.

He declared in Summorum Pontificum  that the Old Rite had, canonically, never been abrogated. And to this he added a theological assertion that it cannot  be abrogated. Pushed to explicit clarity, this means that a pope who tried to do so would be acting ultra vires. So this is on the record.

By his choice of liturgical vesture, Benedict emphasised that he was the successor both of the pre-Conciliar popes and of the post-Conciliar popes. He asserted evolution-with-continuity by replacing the heraldic triregnum with a heraldic mitre which recalled the tiara by its three horizontal bands.

He made theologically significant changes to the rites of canonisation. These have now been undone by his successor; but it is the programmatic intention to which I am drawing attention.

Acute readers will be able think of additional examples.


And Assisi ... and its, er, 'spirit' ... (Here I draw upon Chiesa ...).


I believe that Benedict considered the model for the Assisi Event bequeathed by his predecessor to have been unsatisfactory. He had declined to attend the first such event. In my view, he desired to put in place a changed model which, he hoped, would be the precedent to which his own successors would look back for guidance.

So, at Benedict's Assisi, there were no times of visible and organised prayer among the participants, not even 'in parallel'. Instead, the (300) guests were given individual rooms for "a time of silence, for reflection and/or personal prayer". In a letter (2006) to the Bishop of Assisi, he wrote
"In order not to misrepresent the meaning of what John Paul II wanted to achieve in 1986, and what, to use his own words, he habitually called the Spirit of Assisi, it is important not to forget the attention paid on that occasion to ensuring that the interreligious Prayer Meeting did not lend itself to syncretist interpretations founded on a relativistic concept. For this very reason, John Paul II declared at the outset 'The fact that we have come here does not imply any intention of seeking a religious consensus among ourselves or of negotiating our faith convictions. Neither does it mean that religions can be reconciled at the level of a common commitment in an earthly project which would surpass them all. Nor is it a concession to relativism in religious beliefs.'".


And it was Joseph Ratzinger who issued the very fine CDF document Dominus Iesus. The measure of its orthodoxy and its importance can be gauged by the uproar which it caused among the the bad, the mad, the stupid, and the unorthodox.

And it is a measure of the littleness of PF that, instead of building on the quarter-century of work and prayer and Magisterium which he inherited, he apparently is willing to give countenance to those who wish to unravel it and to create new and contrary 'facts'.