Witness to Hope

by George Weigel

163.Ibid., 87.

  164.Ibid., 88.1.

  165.Ibid., 87.

  166.Author’s interviews with John Farren, OP, September 29 and November 17, 1997.

  167.“Editor’s Introduction to Vita Consecrata,” in Miller, Exhortations, pp. 625–626.

  168.For an analysis of the growth of religious communities that take a more classic view of the consecrated life and a refutation of the stereotype of these communities as anti–Vatican II, see Albert DiIanni, SM, “A View of Religious Vocations,” America 178:6 (February 28, 1998), pp. 8–12.

  169.“Sunday Angelus from Gemelli Hospital,” OR [EWE], October 16, 1996, p. 1.

  170.“Vatican Number Two” was Castel Gandolfo.

  171.Citations from Josip Stilinovic, “The Witness of Suffering,” Catholic World Report, June 1998, pp. 30–31.

  172.John Paul II, homily at 50th anniversary Mass, OR [EWE], November 13, 1996, pp. 1–2.

  173.John Paul II, Sunday Angelus address on November 10, 1996, OR [EWE], November 13, 1996, p. 2 [emphases in original].

  174.John Paul II, Gift and Mystery, pp. 89, 100.

  CHAPTER 20

  A Reasonable Faith: Beyond a Century of Delusions

  1.“The Pope in Cuba: Arrival at Jose Martí Airport in Havana,” OR [EWE], January 28, 1998, p. 2 [first emphasis added; second emphasis in original]. On the alleged parallels between John Paul II and Castro, see Tad Szulc, “When the Pope Visits Castro,” Parade, December 14, 1997, pp. 6–9.

  2.On July 10, 1993, the bishops of the Upper Rhine province, Bishop Karl Lehmann of Mainz, Archbishop Oskar Saier of Freiburg, and Bishop Walter Kasper of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, issued a joint pastoral letter and a set of “principles of pastoral care” that they hoped would advance discussion of the situation of the divorced-and-remarried. The bishops urged Catholics to be “in the forefront of the struggle for successful marriages of lifelong fidelity” and to “work against the trend that would regard divorce-andremarriage as something normal.” The Church, they proposed, has no “right to disregard the teaching of Jesus regarding the indissolubility of marriage,” which was rooted, not in arbitrary legalities, but in the original order of creation; moreover, the defense of the indissolubility of marriage “renders an indispensable service to humankind.” But neither could the Church, which carried on Christ’s ministry of mercy and redemption, “shut its eyes to the failure of many marriages.”

  Confirming classic Catholic doctrine that was too often ignored or misunderstood, the bishops insisted that divorced-and-remarried people “are and remain members of the Church,” who deserve “special care” and must be made to feel “that they are accepted by the congregation,” which “understands their difficult situation.” But as divorced-and-remarried Catholics returned to active participation in the lives of their congregations, the question inevitably arose: could that participation include the reception of communion at Mass? The bishops affirmed the Church’s teaching that “divorced-and-remarried people cannot be admitted to the Eucharistic feast as they find themselves in life situations that are in objective contradiction to the essence of Christian marriage.” Anyone who acted otherwise “does so contrary to the order of the Church.”

  But a distinction should be made, the bishops argued, between “admitting” the divorced-and-remarried to communion (which was a public act that contradicted the Church’s teaching) and the divorced-and-remarried “approaching” communion after an intense pastoral dialogue with a priest had led them to the conviction, in conscience, that this was appropriate. That conviction, the bishops proposed, “must be respected by the Church and the congregation.” The bishops suggested that this distinction, which they believed guaranteed the integrity of the Church’s teaching and responded faithfully to extremely difficult pastoral circumstances, might be particularly appropriate in three particularly hard cases: one in which a remarried person had been abandoned by a first spouse; one in which a prior marriage could not be annulled according to canon law for lack of evidence, despite the remarried person’s conscientious conviction that no sacramental marriage had been entered into; and one in which the abandonment of a second, civil marriage would involve a serious injustice to others, including the children of that marriage. [See “Pastoral Ministry: The Divorced and Remarried,” Origins 23:38 (March 10, 1994), pp. 670–676).]

  In late December 1993, the three bishops received a letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith [CDF] indicating that they had not “fully upheld” the Church’s doctrine in their letter and pastoral guidelines. In February 1994, the bishops met with officials of CDF for a lengthy and frank discussion of the issues, which, they reported, cleared up certain misunderstandings based on distorted media reports and unauthorized, edited translations of their letter and guidelines. But “no full agreement… could be reached on the question of the reception of communion.” After a further discussion with the Germans in June 1994, CDF issued a letter to all the world’s bishops, reiterating that the divorced-andremarried “cannot receive communion” as long as they “find themselves in “a situation that objectively contravenes God’s law.”

  The theological gravamen of the issue, CDF continued, was the spousal nature of the Church: to be divorced-and-remarried was to be living in a situation that contradicted, objectively, the indissoluble “union of love between Christ and his Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist.” To admit the divorced-and-remarried to communion would be to concede that marriages could be dissolved; that seemed to suggest that the love of Christ for the Church could be dissolved. But the indissolubility of that spousal love was the truth of faith celebrated in the Eucharist and by the reception of communion. The CDF letter acknowledged that the German proposal was not for a “general admission of the divorced-andremarried to eucharistic communion,” and went on to note that canon law “offers new ways to demonstrate the nullity of a previous marriage.” Yet CDF’s conclusion did not admit the possibility of what the German bishops proposed: that in specific cases divorced-and-remarried Catholics could “approach holy communion when they consider themselves authorized [by] a judgment of conscience to do so,” and that a priest could “respect [this] decision in conscience to approach holy communion, without this implying an official authorization.” This was impossible, according to CDF, because the reception of communion, like a marriage, was an inherently public reality. [See “Reception of Communion: Divorced-and-Remarried Catholics,” Origins 24:20 (October 27, 1994), pp. 337, 339–341.]

  In a letter to their priests and people dated October 14, 1994, the three German bishops wrote that there was no doctrinal disagreement between them and CDF; nor had they been attempting a unilateral revision of canon law. They further admitted that “we could not and do not wish to claim that we… found a solution that is satisfactory in every respect.” The CDF letter was not, the bishops had been assured, addressed “to our position in particular,” but was a response to a widespread discussion throughout the Church. Yet it was the German distinction between “admitting” to communion and a conscientious decision to “approach” communion which CDF had rejected, and the bishops admitted as much when they wrote that “certain statements in our pastoral letter and in the principles are not accepted by the universal Church and therefore cannot be the binding norm of pastoral practice.” They concluded by promising to continue the dialogue, “to come up with answers that are capable of generating a consensus and that are theologically and pastorally responsible.”

  Reaction to the CDF letter in Germany was harsh: priests were defiant and petitions were organized denouncing John Paul as a shepherd who drove his straying sheep “mercilessly over the cliff.” The Central Committee of German Catholics, the country’s leading lay organization, was critical. Professor Norbert Greinacher of Tübingen, who had previously condemned the Pope’s “declaration of war” on theological liberals, now argued that the Church was entering its Götterdammerüng, the twilight of its spiritual authority. [Patricia Clough, “
German Catholics Rebel Against Rome,” The Sunday Times (London), November 27,1994.] Although the three German bishops avoided doing so, it was not difficult for others to present the case as one of doctrinal rigidity vs. pastoral sensitivity. The understandable emotions involved were, in this as in other instances, compounded by the image of “authoritarian” many German theologians had successfully pinned on John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger.

  But perhaps this was a situation where there was no new solution at the legal level. Cardinal Ratzinger suggested as much in a 1996 interview. There, he proposed that, while the principles remained unchangeable, “experienced pastors” could perhaps make “an extrajuridical determination that the first marriage did not exist.” [Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Salt of the Earth, p. 207.] Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, the general editor of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, also believed that this was an area of the Church’s life in which what he termed an “ultimate clarification” was simply impossible at the legal level. [Author’s interview with Archbishop Christoph Schönborn, OP, December 11, 1997.] Could the nullity of a marriage become a pastoral rather than juridical determination without jeopardizing the truth about marriage? In a world accustomed to thinking that every problem was susceptible to a legal solution, this was another sign of contradiction; given the degree to which that distinctively modern assumption had entered Catholic consciousness, it also seemed unlikely to meet the criticism of divorced-and-remarried Catholics who felt that they were being treated as second-class members of the Church. But it was the point to which the German bishops’ proposal had led the discussion, which was certain to remain one of the most difficult in the Catholic world well into the twenty-first century.

  3.John Paul II, homily in Paderborn, Germany, OR [EWE], July 3, 1996, pp. 3, 9 [emphasis in original].

  4.John Paul II, address to the German Bishops’ Conference, in ibid., pp. 6–8.

  5.John Paul II, homily in Berlin, OR [EWE], June 26, 1996, pp. 1–2. The Pope’s homily also included a defense of Pope Pius XII:

  On the basis of his clear principles, Bernhard Lichtenberg spoke and acted independently and fearlessly. Nevertheless, he was almost overcome with joy and happiness when his Bishop, Konrad von Preysing, upon his last prison visit at the end of September 1943, relayed to him a message from my predecessor, Pius XII, in which he expressed his deepest sympathy and paternal appreciation. Whoever is not hampered by cheap polemics knows full well what Pius XII thought about the Nazi regime and how much he did to help the countless people who were persecuted by that regime. [Ibid., p. 2.]

  6.John Paul II, Angelus address, in ibid., p. 3.

  7.Author’s interview with Rocco Buttiglione, February 25, 1997.

  8.John Paul II, homily in Reims, OR [EWE], September 25, 1996, pp. 1, 4.

  9.Those contributions were given official recognition on October 19, 1997, when John Paul proclaimed St. Thérèse of Lisieux a Doctor of the Church, Catholicism’s highest accolade for theological accomplishment. The announcement of this, made after the closing Mass at Longchamp on August 24, produced a great burst of applause and much waving of the French tricolore on the racecourse infield.

  10.The texts of John Paul II’s pilgrimage to France during WYD ’97 may be found in OR [EWE], August 27, 1997, and September 3, 1997.

  11.Author’s interview with Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, November 14, 1997.

  12.In addition to roiling domestic Polish politics, Wałęsa, during his presidency, had considered an offer from rogue ex-KGB elements to sell Poland nuclear weapons. It was made clear to him that the Pope would regard any such acquisition as a very bad idea. For numerous reasons the scheme was dropped. [See Sikorski, Full Circle, pp. 214–216; author’s conversation with Pope John Paul II, December 16, 1998.]

  13.One of the country’s most knowledgeable interpreters of John Paul’s thought, the Dominican Maciej Zięba, did a three-month long series of weekly interviews on Polish public television before the Pope arrived, laying to rest the image of “two Wojtyłas” (the enlightened social progressive and the doctrinal reactionary) by demonstrating how John Paul’s teaching was a seamless garment; gathered into book form and published by Znak under the title Niezwykły Pontyfikat [Extraordinary Pontificate], the book sold briskly throughout the country. Father Zięba’s Kraków-based Tertio Millennio Institute also sponsored a year-long series of intellectual encounters at which Church leaders, politicians, and journalists—believers and unbelievers alike—met to consider the question, “To what Poland will the Pope return?” Other institutes picked up the idea and conducted similar dialogues.

  14.Author’s interview with Henryk Woźniakowski, June 5, 1997.

  15.Unless otherwise noted, citations of papal addresses during the June 1997 pilgrimage are taken from texts provided by KAI.

  16.The texts of John Paul II’s 1997 Polish pilgrimage may be found in OR [EWE], June 11, 1997, June 18, 1997, June 25, 1997, and July 2, 1997.

  17.In the years after communism, Polish Catholicism had not suffered the meltdown many Western observers predicted. In 1993, a survey indicated that eighty-three percent of the population practiced Catholicism “systematically” (fifty-two percent) or “occasionally” (thirty-one percent). Another eleven percent said that they “rarely” practiced. Among eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds, fifty-four percent practiced “systematically” and another twenty-eight percent “occasionally.” The percentage of “systematic” practitioners was two points higher among those with advanced academic degrees than among less-educated workers. While recruitment to the priesthood diminished somewhat in the immediate aftermath of the Revolution of 1989, Polish seminaries remained remarkably full by Western standards. Ordinations each year from 1988 to 1992 averaged about 1,100 young men, many of whom were sent to Latin America or Africa as missionaries. The first-year seminary class in 1992 was larger than in 1991, reversing a trend since the peak year of 1987. Poland’s religious orders also remained vigorous in the 1990s. [For further data, see George Weigel, “Poland, The Church in, New Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 19.]

  18.It also had a public effect. In September 1997, John Paul II’s politics of culture, combined with exceptional post-communist incompetence in handling a series of catastrophic floods in July, resulted in an election that returned a reconfigured Solidarity coalition to power in the Sejm.

  19.See “Holy Father Begins ‘Great Prayer for Italy,’” in OR [EWE], March 30, 1994, pp. 7–8, and John Paul II, homily at Loreto, in OR [EWE], December 21–28, 1994, pp. 3–4.

  20.John Paul II, address to the young at a prayer vigil during the National Eucharistic Congress in Bologna, OR [EWE], October 8, 1997, p. 7.

  21.Author’s interviews with Rocco Buttiglione, February 25 and 27, 1997.

  22.Author’s interview with Leonardo Mondadori, January 16, 1997.

  23.Author’s interview with Massimo D’Alema, December 10, 1997.

  24.The printing press, which would have enabled the Cuban Church to print religious books and catechetical materials, had been purchased by the New York–based Northeast Center for Hispanic Catholic Activities, an agency sponsored by the Catholic bishops of the northeast United States. Under the skillful leadership of its director, Mario Paredes, the Center played a quiet but crucial role in facilitating the “dance” between the Castro regime and the Holy See.

  25.Author’s interview with Mario Paredes, June 27, 1997; Lorenzo Albacete, “The Poet and the Revolutionary,” The New Yorker, January 26, 1998.

  26.Author’s interview with Joaquín Navarro-Valls, December 18, 1997.

  27.John Paul II, homily in Santa Clara, OR [EWE], January 28, 1998, pp. 3–4 [emphasis in original].

  Later that day, four Americans lunching in a restaurant located on the cove from which Ernest Hemingway’s “old man” had set off to the sea, were stopped by a guitar-playing gentleman in his seventies. He wanted to tell somebody, he said in broken English, how moved he had been by the Pope’s words about the family; for forty
years he had been trying to hold his own together under the pressures of an atheistic, totalitarian regime.

  28.John Paul II, homily in Camagüey, in ibid., p. 4 [emphases in original].

  29.“The Pope in Cuba: ‘Meeting at the University of Havana,’” OR [EWE], February 4, 1998, p. 4 [emphasis in original].

  30.John Paul II, homily in Santiago de Cuba, in ibid., pp. 5, 7.

  31.John Paul II, homily in Havana, in OR [EWE], January 28, 1998, pp. 1–2 [emphasis in original].

  32.John Paul’s address to the Cuban bishops is in OR [EWE], June 24, 1998, p. 5.

  33.On the slow evolution of a civil society in Cuba, see Carl Gershman, “Thanks to the Pope, Civil Society Stirs in Cuba,” Wall Street Journal, September 18, 1998, p. A11.

  34.On this and other points, see Richard John Neuhaus, “The Cuban Revolutions,” First Things 83 (May1998), pp. 23–28.

  35.The Catholic Review [Baltimore], June 25, 1997.

  36.“Pope Welcomes Bishops of Vietnam on Ad Limina,” Vatican Information Service VIS 961216 (490), December 14, 1996.

  37.Author’s interview with Archbishop Claudio Celli, October 15, 1998. Celli also visited Laos, Myanmar (Burma), and Cambodia in attempts to “regularize” the Church’s position in those countries; the Holy See and Cambodia established diplomatic relations in 1994.

  38.“In Brief,” National Catholic Register, September 28–October 4, 1997, p. 1, citing the news service “Fides,” published by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

  39.National Catholic Register, August 23–29, 1998, p. 1.

  40.“The Pope in Sarajevo: Arrival at Sarajevo Airport,” OR [EWE], April 16, 1997, p. 2 [emphasis in original].

  41.“The Pope in Sarajevo: Vespers with Priests and Religious,” in ibid., p. 3 [emphasis in original].

  42.John Paul II, homily in Sarajevo, in ibid., April 16, 1997 [emphasis in original].

  43.John Mintz, “Men in Papal Bomb Plot Termed Close to Bin-Laden,” Washington Post, August 22, 1998.