Because the post-Second Vatican Council is still so difficult?
Father Piero Gheddo *
ROME, Friday, July 30, 2010 ( ZENIT.org ) .- The last 50 - 60 years of the Catholic Church are hard to read. To understand this claim, we must remember the watershed of Second Vatican Ecumenical Council (1962-1965), that it was the Church before and after the big distinction. Being born in 1929 and priest in 1953, I lived long enough to say that the Church before the Council was very different from what we live today. Certainly, more united and more secure for Truth announced that (the study of theology in our young seminarians and priests gave certainties, now planting questions, hypotheses and doubts), but also plastered in formal, schematic, clerical, legal authoritarianism, ... triumphalism.
Pius XII , speaking to reporters in the Holy Year 1950 , urged to form a "public opinion" in the Church (his speech was often cited in School of Journalism), ie the freedom to form a mature conscience, to discuss and even disagree with regard to the line held by the church authorities, for discussion and sharing, so as not to stave off new ideas that could arise even in faithful and the clergy. But this exhortation of the Pope was understood in the context of faith and obedience are essential to maintain the unity and love among the members of the flock of Christ.
Then came the unexpected and extraordinary John XXIII (the Papa di Sotto il Monte) and its Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), a wonderful and providential turning point in the history of the Church of our times. In those years, the Spirit blowing really strong and urged the Church to "update," as John XXIII. The issues most felt at the base and between the council fathers were sincerity, transparency, collegiality, poverty, and the condemnation of the triumphalism of clericalism, the opening to "dialogue" with the ecumenical and non-Christian religions ( the first encyclical of Pope Paul VI in 1963 was on the box), in short, everyone felt the urgency for the Church to rejuvenate and renew itself to be effective in witnessing and transmitting the message of Christ to the people of our time.
I attended in Rome on the Council as director of Mondo e Missione (then was "Catholic Missions") and journalist of L'Osservatore Romano, was also "expert" appointed by John XXIII, the decree "ad gentes". I remember that during and immediately after the Council we were excited young priests of the Church and mission, we had a strong charge of evangelism that we had just come from the Council. These were the years when the Spirit stirred many vocations to the priesthood and the consecrated life.
But shortly after the end of that fascinating time, Church was founded in a spirit of criticism, of any dispute, controversy, which was the result of the atmosphere created by the "Sixty" denunciation of a cultural movement of revolt against the existing society and every kind of "power" and "authority" which he created, along with positive things, even irreparable damage to the family (free sex), school (the vote Political same for everyone), society (the spirit of denunciation and protest) and the Church (the dispute permanent and militant of the Pope). These are just examples summary to say the result is often Sixty-eight of the anarchist.
In the Church, especially among theologians and the Catholic press, have formed two currents of thought that much easier, had the following characteristics:
1) On the one hand it was thought that the council was over and was studied, lived and implemented, the other work that the council was incomplete, unfinished, that remained in midstream, and that, to update the Church at the time moderni, era necessario proseguire non tanto secondo la lettera (cioè i testi ufficiali approvati), ma secondo “lo spirito del Concilio” sulla via dei dibattiti e delle sperimentazioni, accelerando il cammino verso il prossimo inevitabile Concilio Vaticano III. Si incominciò a discutere fra la lettera e lo spirito del Concilio: la lettera erano i testi dei documenti approvati, lo “spirito” era quello rappresentato dalle idee dei “progressisti” e dei “profeti”. Allora, bastava andare contro quanto il Papa diceva o scriveva (penso ad esempio alla Humanae Vitae del 1968!) e si veniva proclamati “profeta dei tempi nuovi”.
2) Da un lato si guardava al Concilio come alla conclusione di un lungo cammino storico di “aggiornamento” della Chiesa, ma nella continuità col passato; dall’altra il Concilio era inteso come una rivoluzione, una rottura col passato, l’inizio di un cammino nuovo che andava reinventato giorno per giorno; quasi un punto di partenza per una nuova Chiesa, che nel suo passato vedeva solo i fatti negativi.
3) La collegialità nel governo della Chiesa era interpretata in modi molto diversi, direi opposti: da un lato la libertà di esprimere e discutere esperienze e new guidelines, but in obedience to the Pope and the bishops united to him, the other the freedom and autonomy of local churches took an absolute value, so any intervention of Rome was seen (and sometimes still seen) as a brake renewal, an obstacle to the implementation of the "spirit of the Council". Not only that, but the authority in the Church, dioceses, seminaries and religious institutes and missionary, was strongly undermined by the prevalent idea that the People of God must be ruled with "collegial" and "democratic." The authorities in fact, they said, comes from below, stems from the base, by the people, while according to Scripture and Tradition, the Church is not a "republic" but a "monarchy" because the authority comes from God (I am simplifying a lot to understand the consequences of a certain spirit of that time!).
4) The interreligious and intercultural dialogue was welcomed with joy, but some saw it as a play, a comparison and collaboration with members of other faiths and beliefs, although they had firmly rootedness in faith, in Christian tradition and the unity of the Church, the other was seen as a reach out to others, know and appreciate the "values", "Take a walk together," until you reach a kind of mutual integration. The story of how they were born and sunset the "Christians for Socialism" (the absurd illusion!) And those that promoted dialogue with Marxism and with the communist movement amply demonstrates, just as many among those who were launched in the box ( not properly understood) with Hinduism and Buddhism.
5) Another new feature of the council was the Church's awareness about hunger and extreme poverty of most of humanity and injustice at the international level between nations rich and poor peoples. La soluzione che il Concilio proponeva, oltre alle riforme per orientare come Cristo i credenti verso i poveri e gli “ultimi”, era la “Dottrina sociale della Chiesa” (più volte nominata nella Gaudium et Spes). Ma nell’atmosfera dei tempi post-conciliari e sessantottini, alcuni interpreti “profetici” dello “spirito del Concilio” affermavano che la Chiesa non ha nulla o ben poco da dire in campo politico-sociale-economico. Se si voleva veramente fare il bene dei poveri, bisognava seguire l’unica “lettura scientifica della società” a favore dei poveri, che era quella marxista. Non per diventare comunisti e approvare tutto quello che faceva il comunismo nel mondo, ma per “fare a journey together, "the popular forces that challenged capitalism and preparing a new world more just and egalitarian. "The only hope of the poor is socialism," he said the great father David Turoldo in November 1973 in Turin, at the congress of the "Christian solidarity with Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia" (to which I was invited to give my testimony at the request Cardinal Pellegrino). No wonder then why the dominant culture in much of the Catholic world (and in youth associations) was this: today, no Catholic common sense would tell more, as many as they finished the experience of "real socialism" .
6) In the confusion of ideas of that time, which among other things away (or disaffected) not a few priests and faithful from the Church, the Italian bishops for the precise point of reference was the Pope But the other school of thought claimed that Paul VI (the "Pope hesitates," "Paul the sad") was motivated by "fear of the new." And after the opening time of reconciliation had been pulled on the brake with many decrees of the Council (as the " Ecclesiae Sanctae " of 1966), re-establishing the authority of Rome over the local churches, taking away their autonomy and experience necessary to take forward the Council's innovations. Paul VI, at the time, was snubbed, questioned, even ridiculed. At times I say "the Pope martyr" of the twentieth century was Paul VI. Some, to save his person, said he was not really so, but that the mythical "Roman Curia" had caged and forced to take a different path from what he expected or wanted.
The Church, also in Italy, today still suffers from this division, which is not of the Council and its documents, incorrect interpretation but that many have given. So while in the past, becoming a priest was quite simple though costly in terms of sacrifice, sacrifices and mortifications, then it became more difficult because the way ahead for many, is no longer so clear and safe.
* Father Piero Gheddo ( http://www.gheddopiero.it/ http://gheddo.missionline.org/ ), già direttore di Mondo e Missione e di Italia Missionaria, è stato tra i fondatori della Emi (1955), di Mani Tese (1973) e Asia News (1986). Da Missionario ha viaggiato nelle missioni di ogni continente scrivendo oltre 80 libri. Ha diretto a Roma l'Ufficio storico del Pime e postulatore di cause di canonizzazione. Oggi risiede a Milano.
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