Conclave Day 1.2: At the Provincial Chapter

STONY POINT, N.Y. - As the cardinal electors began the conclave in Rome I was participating in day two of a more humble, somewhat less noteworthy assemblage of ecclesiastics here in Rockland County.  The Salesian's of the Eastern U.S. and Canada are holding our triennial meetings known as the Provincial Chapter.  Every Salesian Province world wide are holding them at some point during this year as a way to prepare for the General Chapter taking place in Rome coming up next year.  Those world wide meetings happen every six years, so that the local chapters that don't line up with them handle issues particular to the given province.  The other difference between the chapter I'm on now and those "off year" chapters is that we will elect a delegate to accompany the provincial to Rome for the three months of meetings that will begin in February, 2014.

If it sounds exciting, it's not.  The going can be deadly tedious.  Right now is not so bad.  Actually, what we're doing is pretty important.  We are debating the very meaning of our life as disciples of Christ, and how we are and should be living it out as sons of Don Bosco in 2013.  Today focused on our life as mystics, which always a slippery wicket.  Ours is a active, apostolic congregation that sees action as a key part of our spirituality.  At the same time we are being called to explore what some consider more monastic forms of spirituality in order to avoid superficiality and an activism that can blind us from remembering why we are engaging all the hard work of our everyday life.  The small group discussions have been fruitful.  We don't always agree with each other, but it is in the disagreements and the attempt to reconcile the differences that I believe the Spirit is often speaking to us.

The tedious part will come when the writing committee comes back with an initial draft and we have to all agree on wording.  Have you ever seen 44 men argue over the placement of a comma?  It's not pretty, let me tell you. Once it's done the final document is sent off to our generalate in Rome, and hopefully it will make some impact on the proceedings their next year.

These meetings will go on until Monday, the 18th.  The cardinals will have done their work and elected a pope by then, or at least I hope and pray.  Obviously we are in meetings all day and most evenings, so we are not glued to the TV.  The advent of smart phones and tablets have made sneaking a peak at the various news feeds a bit easier.  It was like March Madness today, but we were looking to see what color the smoke was coming out of the Sistine Chapel as opposed to which teams were getting knocked off our brackets. 

Well, one bright spot is the nightly social we have where we get to just relax and enjoy eachother's company.  So I am off, and will be back soon with more thoughts on the goings on at the Vatican and Stony Point.

Conclave Day One: A New Pope and the Prodigal Son

STONY POINT, NY - This morning (afternoon in Rome) the cardinal electors will enter the Sistine Chapel, after the celebration of the Eucharist in St. Peter’s, to formally begin the election of a new pope.  Since Pope Benedict announced his retirement a month ago the press has been abuzz with speculation over a possible successor.  The U.S. media in particular have asked if the cardinals a will choose a progressive who will usher in sweeping changes or a conservative along the lines of John Paul II or Benedict XVI.  Others ask if he will be someone from Latin America or Africa.  All this speculation misses the point a bit, though I admit that a pope from outside Europe would be significant.  In the end the cardinals are not electing a political candidate who needs to conform to some kind of party platform, or at least they shouldn’t be.  They are electing the man best qualified to protect the invaluable inheritance of the Church.  The pope’s main role is to conserve the spiritual treasure handed on from the Apostles, and oversee its authentic development.

This past Sunday most of us heard the story of the Prodigal Son at Mass.  In preaching I usually focus on the loving and forgiving father who eagerly accepts his wayward son back, or maybe the hard hearted older brother who finds forgiveness difficult or the Lost Son himself in all his pitiable desperation.  I guess what struck me this time around was the line that the Lost Son had squandered his inheritance.  Was our Lord speaking of money?  On a literal level; sure.  But there is a deeper meaning as well.  If we recall, Sunday’s first reading from the Book of Joshua told of the Israelites finally entering the Promised Land after forty years in the desert.  The first thing they did was to celebrate the Passover: the memorial of their liberation from slavery in Egypt.  To this day Jews celebrate the Passover to recall the great works God has accomplished for them, and points to the great spiritual heritage encapsulated in the Law and the prophets.  At the Seder Meal, when he youngest of the house asks that ritual question of the oldest: why is this night different from all others, the answer is the story of their Exodus.  This is something to be remembered always, along with the Law received later on Sinai.  These form a spiritual inheritance to be cherished and followed in gratitude to the generous God who freed them from bondage.  What the younger son squandered by his life of dissolute living was more than a material fortune, but more importantly he wasted a spiritual inheritance beyond price given to him by his father.

When we sin, especially when we have allowed sin to become a vice, we are turning away from the path of the Lord, in a way rejecting the great spiritual heritage that has been passed on to us from the Apostles.  This is an inheritance that we should hold close to and not squander.  Is God a forgiving, compassionate Father?  YES!  We should never despair that He will turn us away when we sin if we come back in sincerity of heart.  But we are called to something great, and offered a treasure greater than can be stored in all the bank vaults of the world.  It is not to be squandered but preserved, lived and passed on to future generations.

The role of the pope is to preserve both the moral teachings of Christ and His Church and the Apostolic Tradition in its entirety.  His first duty is not to create new doctrines, alter old ones, or change long standing disciplines that are unpopular.  His main responsibility is to preserve.  This is the heart of papal infallibility.  Over the centuries the Church has seen charismatic figures like Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Sienna, Don Bosco and Dorothy Day, to name a few, who have challenged the status quo.  It was the pope, along with the college of bishops in general, who asked if the movements they inspired represented authentic promptings of the Spirit in harmony with Tradition and Scripture or if they were passing novelties out of step with the living tradition of the Church.  Each of these examples represents a positive response, but only after periods of trial and testing.  There is a constant tension between charism on the one hand and authority on the other; one seeking to push ahead and the other looking to hold fast to the tried and true.  Both have their place, and it is the pope, who represents authority, to test, probe and finally make a judgement with the help of the Spirit.

We are the inheritors of a great heritage passed on by the Apostles, that in reality goes back even farther to Moses and Abraham.  This inheritance is to be lived and cherished.  No matter who the pope ends up being his first job will be to foster, protect and spread this gift from God.  I certainly hope he is open to where the Spirit wants that Tradition to move, and the courage point out where it is being squandered by false teachers.

As the Cardinals Gather: Sede Vacante Part II. Or "I'm Dreaming of an American Pope?"

Boston's Cardinal O'Malley: Papabile?

I must admit that I feel more than a bit inferior as Catholic bloggers go.  I don't keep in contact with any cardinals, curial or otherwise.  I have no inside track on the Papabili, those poor souls most talked about in the press as contenders to be the next to wear the red shoes.  My one claim to fame is that I was ordained a priest by Oscar Cardinal Rodriguez, SDB of Tegucigalpa, whose name emerged in pope watching circles as early as 2001 and continued to get a lot of buzz before the conclave of 2005.  While he's not on most "experts" short lists now, he's still getting some mentions this time around.  I really don't even have enough time these days to scan the press so I can give you my penetrating inexpert analysis.

But I have done some superficial reading and listening, which has lead me to the conclusion that March 2013 is shaping up to be much like August 1978, and April 2005.   In both 1978 and 2005 voices in the press and in some quarters of the Church were calling for a pope who would follow through on what they considered the logical conclusions of Vatican II: an end to mandatory priestly celibacy, the ordination of women, the relaxing of the traditional prohibitions of contraception and premarital sex.  Today we can add the call for some type of recognition of same sex unions, even if it falls short of actually considering them sacramental marriages.  Along with these very specific reforms, there was a desire to see a more decentralized Church, where local dioceses had more autonomy, much like in the Orthodox Churches or the Anglican Communion.

As I wrote the last time out, I think all this talk of doctrinal shifts is a chasing at shadows.  Every new pope since at least Pius IX in 1846, with the possible exception of Leo XIII, was thought to be the one who was going to "modernize" the Church.  In each case doctrine remained substantially unchanged, with the exception of the two Marian pronouncements.  Some did make structural changes in how the Church apparatus functioned, or made adjustments to certain practices, like the lowering of the First Communion age by Pius X, but none can be called doctrinally progressive in the contemporary sense.  Even Paul VI, seen as the progressive implementer of Vatican II, reaffirmed the Church's teaching on contraception, priestly celibacy and the all male priesthood, as well as speaking of Satan as a real force rather than as an abstraction or metaphor. 

Judging by what I am managing to catch in the press the cardinals right now are not so caught up with doctrinal questions as they are with structure issues.  La Stampa's English edition is setting things up as a fight between the Italians in the Curia against the Americans.  The U.S. contingent is looking for broad reforms including greater transparency in the Vatican, and a Church bureaucracy that serves the interests of the pope and not it's own counter agenda.  The curial Italians want to maintain the status quo.  What I'm hearing is that while Europeans and Latin Americans are leery of an American candidate, the African and Asian contingents have a great deal of respect for the U.S. cardinals, and so a Papabili from the New World is not as far fetched as it has been in the past.  

Among the Americans New York's Cardinal Dolan is the name that gets the most press, but Boston's Sean Cardinal O'Malley's name is emerging as well.  He's seen as someone who reformed the Archdiocese of Boston, epicenter of the sex abuse scandal, with both Sunday collections and enrollment at the local seminary on the rise in the last few years.  While an American being elected pope is still a long shot, it's nice to know that simply being from the United States doesn't automatically disqualify someone from ascending to the See of Peter.

I wrote that this time around was shaping up to be much like interregnums of the past.  But there is at least one big difference, I think.  Since this conclave has followed on the heals of a retirement as opposed to a death, the cardinals have had more time to think dispassionately about what they are doing. There is no mourning a beloved Holy Father, or sentimental feelings that a new pope needs to continue someone's legacy.  While Benedict is loved still, there is a recognition that a new direction, at least in terms of governance, needs to happen, and many of the cardinals are willing to spend the few extra days to make sure they do it right.  I pray they are doing the spiritual preparations as well as they appear to be doing the administrative due diligence.

Next week, as the conclave begins (I hope) I'll be in Provincial Chapter meetings.  We don't get locked in or anything, and there's no smoke, white or otherwise, but these are official deliberations in which we set out an agenda for the next three years and prepare for the General Chapter in Rome next year.   In the midst of the general sessions and small group break outs I'll keep one eye on Rome and the other on the keyboard.

Sede Vacante

 

Port Chester, NY-The Chair of Peter is officially vacant.

As some of you know, I've been pulling double duty of sorts, filling in at Holy Rosary Parish here in Port Chester, while still maintaining some office hours at St. Anthony's in Elizabeth, NJ.  The Lord willing I'll be back to my old post at St. Anthony's by June.

Yesterday was one of those office days in Jersey.  Between consulting with my vicar Fr. George (who's done a great job filling in for me) and my secretary (who's had to have the patience of Job) I caught the coverage of Pope Benedict's last hours as the Vicar of Christ.  I felt very emotional watching the coverage.  It is true that Benedict isn't the charismatic figure that John Paul II was, but he still has a presence that radiates the love of Christ.

I recalled my trip to Australia for World Youth Day in 2008.  At the end of the closing Mass the Holy Father was saying his thank yous, and announced the worst kept secret of the week: that Madrid would host the next WYD.  Before he gave the final blessing, he simply told us that he was going.  I spontaneously said, just above a whisper, "No."  I wasn't the only one.  It felt like there was a quiet wave no's spreading through the crowd.  It was the no of a child who didn't want his father to leave.  It was the no of the two disciples along the road to Emmaus who tried to convince our Lord to stay for the hour was late and the night was drawing near.  I felt in a very visceral way that Peter was here with us, our link back to Christ, and I didn't want him to go. It had nothing to do with being close to power, and everything to do with the fatherly presence he exuded.

I felt that yesterday at 2pm local time when I went to the switch that controls our church bell.  As the top of the hour struck I flipped the switch and the bells rang signifying that the Seat of Peter was vacant.  Although the Pope is not dead, Peter was gone, and it was hard to see the difference. 

Opinion on the Holy Father's decision is split.  Some, including Cardinal Pell from Australia, have questioned the decision.  While being critical of Benedict's governing style, he fears this could lead to future pontiffs being pressured to step down by those who oppose them.  Others, of a more progressive stamp than His Eminence, are happy with the move, and are wasting no time offering their two cents to the cardinal electors as they prepare for the conclave.  For them the Church needs a more practical leader who will listen to others after two intellectual popes.  Popes, they argue, who were so smart they didn't think they needed to listen to anyone.

As for the first opinion, I agree that there is a danger that what Cardinal Pell is afraid of could happen.  In this case I trust the Holy Father:  this retirement was long in the planning, and reputedly included that surprising consistory from late last year that added seven new cardinals, all from outside Europe.  I didn't care, though, for the critique of the Pope Emeritus' reign.  I think Princes of the Church should reserve such comments for pre-conclave meetings and not give the press more reasons to speculate on Church divisions.  As for the second, many of these same liberal voices will criticize Pope St. Pius X for not being sufficiently intellectual to address the subtleties of the Modernist crisis, a crisis they claim was imaginary.  In fact the only pope that they will hold up is Blessed John XXIII, and maybe Paul VI.  They are chasing at phantoms, always hoping that the next pope will give them the "reforms" they itch for but will never come. There may very well be reforms coming, but not the kind I think many of the intellectual class will expect.

Yes, Peter is gone.  But we are not abandoned.  The Lord will supply, not always the pope we want, but the pope we need.  Let us pray that the cardinals are open to God's will, and the man chosen is prepared to say yes, and follow through on it.