www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Pope's shift of emphasis to that of a local bishop?

Of course there will be divisions. Those who do not accept the true faith will split.

Do you think that maybe the cardinals chose this man for more than one reason?

Of course they feel that he's the right man at this point in time. But maybe with His Holiness, Pope Emeritus Benedict's, example, the time may be right to consider that this type of succession might be the new normal: about a decade. Maybe it's time to think that a Pope shouldn't die with his boots on unable to function as did Pope John Paul II of thrice blessed memory.

At his first appearance on the loggia of the basilica of St. Peter, the newly elect Jorge Mario Bergoglio wanted two cardinals at his side. At his right his vicar for the diocese of Rome, Agostino Vallini, and at his left his Brazilian friend Cláudio Hummes, a Franciscan. A pair that personifies his program.

The new pope wants to be the bishop of Rome for all intents and purposes, as he implied immediately on the first Sunday of his pontificate, with the Mass celebrated in the parish of St. Ann on the border of the Vatican and the Borgo, amid a rejoicing crowd. He will go from church to church, he will visit center and periphery, “for the evangelization of this city that is so beautiful.” In direct contact with the people of the diocese which now is his “bride.”

Above all, Pope Francis loves to call himself “bishop of Rome.” But he also holds firm, and said so immediately, that “the Church of Rome is that which presides in charity over all the Churches.”

They are the words of Ignatius of Antioch, a bishop and martyr of the second century, which since then have served as a guide for the difficult balance of power between the successor of Peter, the bishop of Rome, and the successors of the college of the twelve apostles, the bishops of the whole world, between the exercise of papal primacy and the exercise of episcopal collegiality. At the beginning of the second millennium this balance was toppled and schism divided the Church of Rome from the Churches of the East.

But within the Catholic Church as well papal primacy, pushed to the limit, is waiting to be balanced by the college of bishops. This was called for by Vatican Council II, so far with scarce practical application, and again forcefully by Benedict XVI in one of his last discourses as pope, a few days before his resignation. His successor Francis has already made it known that this is precisely what he means to do.

To do this he has available to him a rough and ready implement, the synod. It consists of the approximately two hundred bishops, the elite of the almost five thousand bishops of the whole world, who every two years meet in Rome to discuss an issue of particular urgency for the life of the Church.

Its powers are purely advisory, and its twenty-eight editions so far, since the first in 1967, have risen only rarely above tedium. Pope Francis could make it deliberative, naturally “together with and under” his power of primacy.

The highest priority on the Pope's agenda is a reform of the Curia Romana, followed by a "demythologization" of the office of the Pope. Insisting that the Pope is first and foremost the Bishop of Rome is essential to both of these, which in turn, will change the conception of how the Roman Primacy is both defined and exercised, opening the door for serious discussions of restoring community.

See Popes, Bishops, Curia: the Reforms That Are Coming. [chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it]

Should I really care?

In the last analysis, the solution to Roman Catholic liturgical problems lies not in an idealization of the Council of Trent or the East. Western Catholics, largely ignorant of the riches of their own living tradition, mistakenly look elsewhere for what they already have. I am disappointed at the failure of contemporary Catholics to understand, appreciate and market the riches of their own Latin tradition. Stuck in the aridity of late-medieval theology, the Catholic West has stalled the great movement of patristic ressourcement initiated in postwar France by authors like Yves Congar, O.P., Marie-Dominique Chenu, O.P., Jean Daniélou, S.J., and Henri de Lubac, S.J.

The Catholic West does not need to turn East, or to a dead-and-gone-forever medieval or Tridentine past; it needs to return to its roots. Latin Christianity is just as apostolic, ancient, traditional, patristic, spiritual and monastic as that of the East. A Christian culture that produced Chartres and Mont-Saint-Michel; Augustine and Cassian; Benedictine monasticism and Cîteaux; Francis of Assisi, Dominic, Ignatius Loyola, John of the Cross and Charles de Foucauld; Teresa of ávila, Thérèse of Lisieux and Blessed Mother Teresa; and the popes of my own lifetime does not have to copy anybody except Jesus Christ.

Well, it seems to me the health of the Roman Church is best served by celebration of its normative liturgy according to its established texts and rubrics. That said, the local bishop remains the liturgiarch. It is up to the people to defend their liturgical tradition. Unfortunately, few people know what that is. Some are stuck in a rose-colored cloud of Tridentine smog, others in the hippy-dippy delights of creativity.

The truth is, as Robert Taft wrote it:

Well said by Taft and I mostly concur. What is the source?

You don't know in this case what you're talking about, and neither does Ft. Taft, I'm afraid.

When you are lost, you must return to the point at which you started to be lost before there is any point going on. There was a fruitful liturgical movement underway before Vatican II, but everybody involved is dead or nearly dead. The faithful and most of the clergy have no surviving sense what the liturgy is, and most of the individuals with control or influence over such matters are revolutionaries, even if they don't mean to be. Everybody just needs to calm down and figure out where we are before we try anything new.

In the interim, some of us would like to raise out children with a liturgy that does not contradict in its execution the very essence of liturgy. This is what the Latin Mass is about. Some of weaker intellect do believe that St Peter delivered the Tridentine Mass, whole and perfect, and never to be changed. Most of us, however, see it as an interrupted, but living tradition, which ought to be under gradual and organic development toward many of the goals of the liturgical movement of the last century. Many more of us understand more simply, that it is a liturgy somewhat more immune to the stupidity and frivolity that grips so much other Roman liturgical practice. There is utility in that.