Letter #3, 2019: Ecclesia Dei

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Letter #3, 2019: Ecclesia Dei

[2019-01-21]

[Engleză]

Monday, January 21, 2019

“With a new Apostolic Letter issued 'motu proprio,' Pope Francis has suppressed the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which was established 30 years ago by Pope St. John Paul II.” —Christopher Wells, Vatican News, January 19, referring a a papal decree of January 17 suppressing the Ecclesia Dei commission (link)

"The will of the bishops [at the Second Vatican Council] was to renew the Faith, to deepen it. However, there were, more and more, other forces effective – especially journalists – who interpreted the things in a fully new way. At some point, people started to ask: 'If the bishops can change everything, why can we not do the same?' The liturgy started to crumble and to slide into randomness. In this regard, one could see that that which had been positively willed was then being pushed into another direction. Since 1965, I felt it to be my mission to clarify what we truly want and what we do not want." —Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, speaking to his biographer, German writer Peter Seewald, in a private interview either just before or just after his resignation as Pope (February 2013), cited in the book Last Testament, published in German in the fall of 2016. His words are relevant with regard to the debate over the correct interpretation of the Second Vatican Council, which is a central point in the dialogue between the Society of St. Pius X and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, now intensifying as a result of the Pope's motu proprio of January 17

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) Assumes Duties of Ecclesia Dei Commission

In a document signed January 17 and released January 19, Pope Francis has suppressed the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which was established 30 years ago in 1988 by Pope St. John Paul II.

What does it mean?

Most observers are terming it a fundamentally "bureaucratic" decision.

These observers say it which will not change the way the Holy See deals with the traditional Catholics, especially with the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X.

(Known as the SSPX — sometimes written FSSPX — the Ecclesia Dei document in 1988 was issued by Pope John Paul II in response to the decision of traditionalist French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the SSPX in 1970, to consecrate four bishops against the Pope's will on June 30, 1988, causing the first and, thus far, only official schism in the Church in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council).

Indeed, many observers are saying that doctrinal talks between Rome and the SSPX are now far advanced and that there are real hopes that there may soon be a positive conclusion to the talks, and that this is the reason the decision has been taken to have the talks handled directly by the Vatican's top doctrinal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and no longer by the Ecclesia Dei commission, which had a lesser doctrinal authority.

So some are seeing this as a hopeful step in the long, 30-year process of reconciling the SSPX fully with Rome.

However, that process still faces difficult obstacles.

That is because the dialogue must address differing positions on the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).

Especially, the dialogue must distinguish between what the Council said, and what was said after the Council (with greater and lesser authority) in the Council's name.

The doctrinal points in question between the SSPX and Rome relate to teachings that have been presented by many as fully legitimate developments of the pastoral emphases of the Second Vatican Council.

But the theologians of the SSPX contend that many of these teachings are an unacceptable departure from traditional Catholic teaching.

So the dialogue between the SSPX and CDF, now expected to intensify, will inevitably confront the very thorny question of Vatican II and its legacy — a matter that Pope Benedict XVI himself has often said is very complex and very delicate.

Here below, several items to help readers have a better idea of what this decision of Pope Francis means, beginning with two official Vatican explanations (the second by the new editorial director of the Vatican, an old colleague and friend, Andrea Tornielli), followed by the text of the recent and the 30-year-old papal decrees, followed by another article of observations, two interesting news notes about developments in the dialogue between the SSPX and Rome, and finally, a report from almost two and half years ago (September 2016) on Emeritus Pope Benedict's reflections on his own role at Vatican II, based on interviews he granted to his biographer, Peter Seewald, in recent years, both before and after his resignation in 2013.

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CDF assumes duties of Ecclesia Dei Commission (link)

By Christopher Wells

The Holy See has published the text of an Apostolic Letter, issued motu proprio on 17 January 2019, by which Pope Francis suppresses the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei.

Established by St John Paul II

The Commission was established by Pope St John Paul II on 2 July 1988, with the “task of collaborating with the bishops, with the Departments of the Roman Curia and with the circles concerned, for the purpose of facilitating full ecclesial communion of priests, seminarians, religious communities or individuals until now linked in various ways to the Fraternity founded by Archbishop Lefebvre [the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, or FSSPX], who may wish to remain united to the Successor of Peter in the Catholic Church.”

Dialogue with FSSPX

In the Letter, Pope Francis notes the “sincere solicitude and praiseworthy care” with which the Commission undertook its work. He explained, however, that “the conditions that led the holy Pontiff John Paul II to the institution” of the Ecclesia Dei Commission have changed since its foundation. Notably, the dialogue with the FSSPX is now focused primarily on questions of a doctrinal nature. For this reason, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith requested, in November of 2017, that the dialogue with the priestly fraternity be conducted directly by the CDF.

The new motu proprio effects that change through the suppression of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei.

In addition to the dialogue with the FSSPX, the Pontifical Commission had also exercised the authority of the Holy See “over various institutes and religious communities which it has erected which have as their ‘proper Rite’ the ‘extraordinary form’ of the Roman Rite and observe the previous traditions of the religious life.”

It was also tasked with looking after and promoting “the pastoral care of the faithful attached to the antecedent Latin liturgical tradition, present in various parts of the world.”

In the motu proprio suppressing the Ecclesia Dei Commission, Pope Francis notes that “the Institutes and Religious Communities which habitually celebrate in the extraordinary form have today found their own stability of number and life.”

New Section of CDF

With the Apostolic Letter, the Holy Father assigns the duties of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei in their entirety to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “within which a specific Section will be set up in order to continue the work of vigilance, promotion, and protection” of the suppressed Commission.

Finally, Pope Francis disposes that the budget of the Ecclesia Dei Commission fall within the ordinary accounting of the CDF.

——————

Editorial: Ecclesia Dei, exceptional nature ends (link)

The Editorial Director of the Dicastery for Communication comments on the significance of Pope Francis’ decision to assign the duties of the Ecclesia Dei Commission to a special section of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

By Andrea Tornielli

The Apostolic Letter motu proprio with which Pope Francis suppressed the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei and transferred its competence to a special section of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has a two-fold meaning.

Exceptional nature ends

In the first place, the Pope notes that the exceptional character for which Pope St. John Paul II had instituted it in 1988 – following the break with Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the subsequent episcopal ordinations that took place without pontifical mandate – has disappeared.

The Commission was meant to encourage the recovery of full ecclesial communion with the priests, seminarians, and men and women religious linked to the pre-conciliar Roman Rite, allowing them to maintain their own spiritual and liturgical traditions.

The emergency no longer exists, thanks also to the decision of Benedict XVI to permit the use of the 1962 Roman Missal (promulgated by Pope St. John XXIII before the beginning of the Second Vatican Council).

For this reason, Pope Francis said in the motu proprio that “the Institutes and Religious communities which habitually celebrate in the extraordinary form have today found their own stability of number and life”. Their existence is therefore consolidated, and all the functions are transferred to the new section which, among other things, will consist of the same staff previously employed by the Commission.

The second meaning of the decision is related to the specific competence of the Doctrinal Dicastery.

Pope Francis’ decision is part of a process already begun by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who in 2009 decreed that the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith should preside over the Ecclesia Dei Commission.

This most recent change is motivated by the fact that the aims and questions dealt with by the Commission “are of a primarily doctrinal order.”

This is a reference to the dialogue between the Holy See and the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, or FSSPX, founded by Archbishop Lefebvre.

As is well known, with the revocation of the excommunications of the bishops ordained illegitimately in 1988, the free use of the Roman Missal of 1962, and the faculties granted to the priests of the FSSPX by Pope Francis, the doctrinal issue remains the only issue still open, though it is also the most important – especially since the FSSPX has changed its superiors.

In fact, its new leaders have announced their desire for further discussions with the Holy See regarding the texts of the Second Vatican Council: a delicate issue which will be addressed by the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Luis Ladaria.

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TEXT #1

The Pope's New Decree: The Complete Text (link)

Here below is a LifeSiteNews translation of today’s motu proprio on the suppression of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei. (The working translation is by Diane Montagna, Rome correspondent for LifeSite.)

***

Apostolic Letter

issued Motu Proprio

on the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei

For over thirty years the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, established with the Motu proprio Ecclesia Dei adflicta of 2 July 1988, has carried out with sincere solicitude and praiseworthy concern the task of collaborating with Bishops and the Dicasteries of the Roman Curia, in facilitating the full ecclesial communion of priests, seminarians, communities or individual men and women religious, linked to the Fraternity founded by Bishop Marcel Lefebvre, who wished to remain united to the Successor of Peter in the Catholic Church, preserving their own spiritual and liturgical traditions.[1]

In this way, it was able to exercise its authority and competence in the name of the Holy See over these societies and associations, until otherwise provided.[2]Subsequently, by virtue of the Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum of 7 July 2007, the Pontifical Commission extended the authority of the Holy See to those Institutes and Religious Communities which had adhered to the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite and had assumed the precedent traditions of religious life, supervising the observance and application of the provisions established.[3]

Two years later, my Venerable Predecessor Benedict XVI, with the Motu Proprio Ecclesiae unitatem, of 2 July 2009, reorganized the structure of the Pontifical Commission, in order to make it more suited to the new situation created by the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated without pontifical mandate. And, furthermore, considering that after this act of grace, the questions dealt with by the same Pontifical Commission were of a primarily doctrinal nature, he more organically linked it to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, while maintaining its initial aims, but modifying its structure.[4]

Now, since the Feria IV of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on 15 November 2017 formulated the request that dialogue between the Holy See and the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X be conducted directly by the aforementioned Congregation, as the questions being dealt with are of a doctrinal nature, to which I gave my approval in an audience with the Prefect on 24 November 2017, and this proposal was accepted by the Plenary Session of the same Congregation celebrated from 23-26 January 2018, I have arrived, after ample reflection, at the following decision.

Considering that today the conditions which led the Holy Pontiff John Paul II to institute the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei have changed; noting that the Institutes and Religious Communities which habitually celebrate in the extraordinary form have today found their own stability of number and of life; recognizing that the aims and questions dealt with by the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei are of a predominantly doctrinal order; and wishing that these aims be made ever more evident to the conscience of the ecclesial communities, with this Apostolic Letter ‘Motu proprio data’,

I decree that

1. The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, instituted on 2 July 1988 with the Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei adflicta, is suppressed.

2. The duties of the Commission in question are entirely assigned to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, within which a special Section will be established that is committed to continue the work of vigilance, promotion and protection conducted thus far by the suppressed Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei.

3. The budget of the Pontifical Commission returns to being part of the ordinary accounting of aforementioned Congregation.

I also establish that this Motu proprio, to be observed notwithstanding anything to the contrary, even should it merit particular mention, be promulgated by publication in L’Osservatore Romano in its 19 January 2019 edition, coming into immediate force, and that subsequently it be inserted into the official Commentary of the Holy See, the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.

Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on 17 January 2019, Sixth Year of Our Pontificate.

+ Francis

[1]Cf. JOANNES PAULUS PP. II, Litterae Apostolicae ‘Motu proprio datae’, Ecclesia Dei adflicta’, 2 Iulii 1988, AAS, LXXX (1988), 12 (15 Nov. 1988), 1495-1498, 6a.

[2]Cf. Rescriptum ex Audientia Sanctissimi, 18 Oct. 1988, AAS, LXXXII (1990), 5 (3 Maii 1990), 533-534, 6.

[3]Cf. BENEDICTUS PP. XVI, Litterae Apostolicae ‘Motu proprio datae’, Summorum Pontificum, 7 Iulii 2007, AAS, XCIX (2007), 9 (7 Sept. 2007), 777-781, 12.

[4]Cf. BENEDICTUS PP. XVI, Litterae Apostolicae ‘Motu proprio datae’, Ecclesiae unitatem, 2 Iulii 2009, AAS, CI (2009), 8 (7 Aug. 2009), 710-711, 5.

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TEXT #2

The Old Decree of Pope John Paul II Now Rendered Obsolete: The Complete Text of the 1989 "Ecclesia Dei" motu proprio

APOSTOLIC LETTER

"ECCLESIA DEI"

OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF

JOHN PAUL II

GIVEN MOTU PROPRIO

1. With great affliction the Church has learned of the unlawful episcopal ordination conferred on 30 June last by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, which has frustrated all the efforts made during the previous years to ensure the full communion with the Church of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X founded by the same Mons. Lefebvre. These efforts, especially intense during recent months, in which the Apostolic See has shown comprehension to the limits of the possible, were all to no avail.(1)

2. This affliction was particularly felt by the Successor Peter to whom in the first place pertains the guardianship of the unity of the Church,(2) even though the number of persons directly involved in these events might be few. For every person is loved by God on his own account and has been redeemed by the blood of Christ shed on the Cross for the salvation of all.

The particular circumstances, both objective and subjective in which Archbishop Lefebvre acted, provide everyone with an occasion for profound reflection and for a renewed pledge of fidelity to Christ and to his Church.

3. In itself, this act was one of disobedience to the Roman Pontiff in a very grave matter and of supreme importance for the unity of the church, such as is the ordination of bishops whereby the apostolic succession is sacramentally perpetuated. Hence such disobedience - which implies in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy - constitutes a schismatic act.(3) In performing such an act, notwithstanding the formal canonical warning sent to them by the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops on 17 June last, Mons. Lefebvre and the priests Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta, have incurred the grave penalty of excommunication envisaged by ecclesiastical law.(4)

4. The root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition. Incomplete, because it does not take sufficiently into account the living character of Tradition, which, as the Second Vatican Council clearly taught, "comes from the apostles and progresses in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on. This comes about in various ways. It comes through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts. It comes from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience. And it comes from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth".(5)

But especially contradictory is a notion of Tradition which opposes the universal Magisterium of the Church possessed by the Bishop of Rome and the Body of Bishops. It is impossible to remain faithful to the Tradition while breaking the ecclesial bond with him to whom, in the person of the Apostle Peter, Christ himself entrusted the ministry of unity in his Church.(6)

5. Faced with the situation that has arisen I deem it my duty to inform all the Catholic faithful of some aspects which this sad event has highlighted.

a) The outcome of the movement promoted by Mons. Lefebvre can and must be, for all the Catholic faithful, a motive for sincere reflection concerning their own fidelity to the Church's Tradition, authentically interpreted by the ecclesiastical Magisterium, ordinary and extraordinary, especially in the Ecumenical Councils from Nicaea to Vatican II. From this reflection all should draw a renewed and efficacious conviction of the necessity of strengthening still more their fidelity by rejecting erroneous interpretations and arbitrary and unauthorized applications in matters of doctrine, liturgy and discipline.

To the bishops especially it pertains, by reason of their pastoral mission, to exercise the important duty of a clear-sighted vigilance full of charity and firmness, so that this fidelity may be everywhere safeguarded.(7)

However, it is necessary that all the Pastors and the other faithful have a new awareness, not only of the lawfulness but also of the richness for the Church of a diversity of charisms, traditions of spirituality and apostolate, which also constitutes the beauty of unity in variety: of that blended "harmony" which the earthly Church raises up to Heaven under the impulse of the Holy Spirit.

b) Moreover, I should like to remind theologians and other experts in the ecclesiastical sciences that they should feel themselves called upon to answer in the present circumstances. Indeed, the extent and depth of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council call for a renewed commitment to deeper study in order to reveal clearly the Council's continuity with Tradition, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church.

c) In the present circumstances I wish especially to make an appeal both solemn and heartfelt, paternal and fraternal, to all those who until now have been linked in various ways to the movement of Archbishop Lefebvre, that they may fulfil the grave duty of remaining united to the Vicar of Christ in the unity of the Catholic Church, and of ceasing their support in any way for that movement. Everyone should be aware that formal adherence to the schism is a grave offence against God and carries the penalty of excommunication decreed by the Church's law.(8)

To all those Catholic faithful who feel attached to some previous liturgical and disciplinary forms of the Latin tradition I wish to manifest my will to facilitate their ecclesial communion by means of the necessary measures to guarantee respect for their rightful aspirations. In this matter I ask for the support of the bishops and of all those engaged in the pastoral ministry in the Church.

6. Taking account of the importance and complexity of the problems referred to in this document, by virtue of my Apostolic Authority I decree the following:

a) a Commission is instituted whose task it will be to collaborate with the bishops, with the Departments of the Roman Curia and with the circles concerned, for the purpose of facilitating full ecclesial communion of priests, seminarians, religious communities or individuals until now linked in various ways to the Fraternity founded by Mons. Lefebvre, who may wish to remain united to the Successor Peter in the Catholic Church, while preserving their spiritual and liturgical traditions, in the light of the Protocol signed on 5 May last by Cardinal Ratzinger and Mons. Lefebvre;

b) this Commission is composed of a Cardinal President and other members of the Roman Curia, in a number that will be deemed opportune according to circumstances;

c) moreover, respect must everywhere be shown for the feelings of all those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition, by a wide and generous application of the directives already issued some time ago by the Apostolic See for the use of the Roman Missal according to the typical edition of 1962.(9)

Sursa: www.InsideTheVatican.com

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