Benedikt XVI auf Kardinal Meisner

Grußwort des emeriteirten Papstes Benedikt XVI. in der Beisetzungsfeier von Kardinal Joachim Meisner, am 15.0.2017

PEK Dokumentation

Vatikanstadt
11.7.2017

In dieser Stunde, in der die Kirche von Köln und gläubige Menschen weit darüber hinaus Abschied nehmen von Kardinal Joachim Meisner, bin auch ich in meinem Herzen and meinen Gedanken bei Ihnen und folge deshalb gern dem Wunsch von Kardinal Woelki, ein Wort des Gedenkens an Sie zu richten.

Als ich vergangenen Mittwoch durch ein Telefonat den Tod von Kardinal Meisner erfuhr, wollte ich es zunächst nicht glauben.  Am Tag zuvor hatten wir noch über das Telefon miteinander gesprochen.  Aus seiner Stimme klang die Dankbarkeit dafür, dass er nun im Urlaub angelangt war, nachdem er am Sonntag zuvor (25. Juni) noch an der Seligsprechung von Bischof Teofilius Matulionis in Vilnius teilgenommen hatte.  Die Liebe zu den Kirchen in den Nachbarländern im Osten die unter der kommunistischen Verfolgung gelitten hatten, wie die Dankbarkeit für das Standhalten in den Leiden jener Zeit hat ihn zeitlebens geprägt.  Und so ist es wohl doch kein Zufall, dass der letzte Besuch in seinem Leben einem der Bekenner des Glaubens in jenen Ländern gegolten hat.

Was mich an den letzten Gesprächen mit dem heimgegangenen Kardinal besonders beeindruckt hat, war die gelöste Heiterkeit, die innere Freude und die Zuversicht, zu der er gefunden hatte.  Wir wissen, dass es ihm, dem leidenschaftlichen Hirten und Seelsorger, schwerfiel, sein Amt zu lassen und dies gerade in einer Zeit, in der die Kirche besonders dringend überzeugender Hirten bedarf, die der Diktatur des Zeitgeistes widerstehen und ganz entschieden aus dem Glauben leben und denken.  Aber um so mehr hat es mich bewegt, dass er in dieser letzten Periode seines Lebens loszulassen gelernt hat und immer mehr au der tiefen Gewissheit lebte, das der Herr seiner Kirche nicht verlässt, auch wenn manchmal das Boot schon fast zum Kentern angefüllt ist.

Zwei Dinge haben ihn in der letzten Zeit immer mehr froh and gewiss werden lassen.

Zum einen hat er mir immer wieder berichtet, wie es ihn mit tiefer Freude erfüllt, in Bußsakrament zu erleben, wie gerade junge Menschen, vor allem auch junge Männer, die Gnade der Vergebung erleben — das Geschenk, wirklich das Leben gefunden zu haben, das ihnen nur Gott geben kann.

Das andere, was ihn immer neu berührt und freudig gestimmt hat, war das leise Wachsen der eucharistischen Anbetung.  Beim Weltjugendtag in Köln war ihm dies ein zentraler Punkt — dass es Anbetung gebe, eine Stille, in der nur der Herr zu den Herzen spricht.  Manche Experten der Pastoral und der Liturgie waren der Meinung, dass sich eine solche Stille im Hinschauen auf den Herrn bei einer so riesigen Anzahl von Menschen nicht erreichen lasse.  Einige waren wohl auch der Meinung, eucharistische Anbetung sei als solche überholt, da ja der Herr im eucharistischen Brot empfangen und nicht angeschaut werden wolle.  Aber dass man dieses Brot nicht essen kann wie irgendwelche Nahrungsmittel und dass dem Herrn im eucharistischen Sakrament zu "empfangen" alle Dimensionen unsere Existenz einfordert — dass Empfangen Anbeten sein muss, ist inzwischen doch wieder sehr deutlich geworden.  So ist die Weile der eucharisitischen Anbetung beim Kölner Weltjugendtag zu einem inneren Ereignis geworden, das nicht nur dem Kardinal unvergesslich blieb.  Dieser Augenblick war ihm seither immer inwendig gegenwärtig und ein großes Light für ihn.

Als an seinem letzten Morgen Kardinal Meisner nicht zur Messe erschien, wurde er in seinem Zimmer tot aufgefunden.  Das Brevier war seinen Händen entglitten: Er war betend gestorben, im Blick auf den Herrn, im Gespräch mit dem Herrn.  Die Art des Sterbens, die ihm geschenkt wurde, zeigt noch einmal auf, wie er gelebt hat:  Im Blick auf den Herrn und im Gespräch mit ihm.  So dürfen wir seine Seele getrost der Güte Gottes anempfehlen.  Herr, wir danken dir für das Zeugnis deines Dieners Joachim. Lass ihn nun Fürbitter für die Kirche von Köln und auf dem ganzen Erdenrund sein! Requiescat in pace!

(gez. Benedikt XVI.)

Bishop Forester on Concelebration

9. Extract from letters to two Parish Priests on the subject of concelebration. Both letters are dated Tuesday, January 18th,1977.

I am vaguely surprised that you should feel so strongly in favour of concelebration because I happen to hate it myself. After all, we concelebrate with Jesus. To have Tom, Dick and Harry concelebrating as well does not add to the intimacy of the Divine Co-Celebrant. It may not detract but can certainly distract from that intimacy. You obviously feel otherwise since you talk of the sense of comradeship in Christ which you feel at concelebrations. Mind you, comradeship in Christ is not the same as comradeship with Christ.

However, to come to your specific question: Yes. The Immemorial Rite and my hybrid are not intended for concelebration and are in fact unsuitable since they are silent. Concelebrants should consequently use the New Ordo plus, of course, the Offertory prayers from the Tridentine missal. Such, at least, is my present view.

I am grateful to you for bring up this matter as I should probably never have thought of it myself. Moreover, I am so prejudiced against concelebration that I doubt my ability to give a fair ruling on it. Your letter has the merit of reminding me that others think otherwise. In view of all which, I shall submit the whole question to the Chapter when it meets on Thursday. I shall ask it to make a careful study of concelebration under every aspect and submit to me its recommendations in due course. This may take six months or more, so, in the meantime, please follow my recommendation above: New Ordo plus old Offertory. I shall hand your letter to the Provost but perhaps you would care to write to him directly.

You may well ask why I should be so anti-concelebration. I have already given you the fundamental reason: we are co-celebrant with Jesus and a thousand human co-celebrants still only make one Mass. To put it very mildly, the multiplication of human co-celebrants makes it appear as though the efficacy of Mass was dependent on the presence and intention of priests rather than on the presence and will of Christ. For two priests to concelebrate one Mass is not the same as for them to celebrate two Masses.

But I have other reasons as well—notably the abuses to which concelebration is prone. You remember the requiem for poor Father Roy Burns last June? Unfortunately I was unable to be present; had I been I should have stopped the whole proceedings. Perhaps you were one the co-concelebrants? Fortunately I do not know. However, the last straw occurred in July. Admittedly I was in France but we need not imagine that such things do not happen here.

I was staying with a priest friend in the South of France. We did not concelebrate: I said Mass first, then he. Incidentally, we used the Immemorial Rite. On the second day my friend was reading the Gospel when a couple of scruffy individuals plonked themselves down in the pews. Having finished the Gospel, my friend turned to them and asked if they wished to receive Holy Communion—in order to consecrate the small hosts as, of course, there was no reservation in the church. They did. When Mass was over they followed us into the sacristy. One of them said to my friend: “Mon Dieu! That was difficult; we have both forgotten the old Mass—but we probably got the words of the consecration close enough.” I was horrified. “So you are both priests,” I asked, “and you concelebrated that Mass?” “Yes.” “And did you take a stipend for it?” “Of course. Pourquoi pas?”

“Am I being fussy? Certainly there was no great sense of comradeship in Christ at such a concelebration. But even at the best of times, surely it is monstrous for every priest to take a stipend for one and the same Mass? Please send your comments to the Provost.

—Bryan Houghton, Mitre and Crook

Repost: "I feel something within me that compels me to burn Rome."

Original. Links that no longer work have been removed.

MONDAY, JUNE 05, 2006

“I feel something within me that compels me to burn Rome.”

It has been asked why “progressive” religious and laymen are often intolerant to those who disagree with them, while being very receptive to those who disagree with their Church.

A good, because tame, example is a recent speech given by Father Timothy Radcliffe, OP:

Saturday morning’s festivities started off with British priest Timothy Radcliffe, former master of the Dominicans, who gave a keynote address on “The Church as Sign of Hope and Freedom,” drawing on the congress theme, “Step Into Freedom” and the Gospel account of Jesus’ raising of Lazarus from the dead. Radcliffe delivered his speech before an audience of approximately 6,000 in the Anaheim Convention Center arena, with Cardinal Roger Mahony and congress organizer Sister Edith Prendergast seated on stage behind him.

Radcliffe said society has “two models” for making moral decisions. “One is to think that it’s about choosing just what you feel like doing, and the other is a morality that’s about submission to the rules,” he said. “Think about sex. Often we think that sexual morality is really just doing what I feel like, it’s just a lifestyle option, what feels right for me. The other extreme is the people who think that it’s just a question of submitting to the external rules. But this Gospel summons us beyond those alternatives. . . . Christian morality is about obedience, but not obedience as an infantile submission. It’s about obedience in the original meaning of that word . . . about learning to hear the voice of the Lord. And what that voice says is, ‘stand up and be free.’

“Holiness isn’t about obeying all the laws,” continued Radcliffe. “Holiness is about acting from the core of our being, where God is.”

Saying he didn't “actually understand why,” Radcliffe noted that homosexuality has “become a very hot topic in all the churches at the moment. . . . Usually when we think about” homosexuality, Radcliffe said, “we ask, ‘what is forbidden or permitted?’ But I’m afraid I’m an old-fashioned, traditional Catholic, and I believe that’s the wrong place to start. We begin by standing beside gay people as they hear the voice of the Lord that summons them to life and happiness. We accompany them as they wrestle with discovering what this means and how they must walk. And this means letting our imaginations be stretched open to watching Brokeback Mountain, reading gay novels, having gay friends, making that leap of the heart and the mind, delighting in their being, listening with them as they listen to the Lord.”

Noting “the violence of the language used by Pope Benedict when he was the cardinal prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith” and “the violent language of conservative Catholics against so-called liberals,” Radcliffe drew applause as he said, “we are not a sign of God’s freedom in Jesus until we can dare to belong with each other across every theological boundary. That means we have to see with other people’s eyes, and hear with their ears, and feel with their skin, regardless of whether they’re Legionnaires of Christ or militant feminists.”

— Allyson Smith, “Step Into It: The 2006 L.A. Archdiocesan Religious Education Congress”, Los Angeles Lay Catholic Mission, June 2006

In this speech, what the reporter heard was that there were two mistaken models for making moral decisions, but she only heard “submission to the rules” deplored. She heard about militant feminists, but the only violent language referred to was that of Cardinal Ratzinger and conservative Catholics. She heard about “standing beside gay people,” but she did not hear, “Neither do I condemn you. Go: from now on do not sin any more.” She heard “Be free,” but did not hear, “The truth will set you free. Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.”

Since these religious and laymen have given up on truth, and deny that we sin, what are we to be free from? In a word, guilt; in a phrase, the White Man’s Burden and Depredations; culturally, the last five hundred years since the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation; psychiatrically, the superego; personally, one’s own heritage and upbringing; developmentally, the fear of becoming like one’s parents; biblically, Adam's sin; theologically, submission to the Father.

If, as some have written, we are at the end of an age, then for many the past will seem tyrannical, and freedom from the past the hope of a new age. And as for those stuck in the past, they shall be forced to be free. As Bishop Donald Trautman, Chairman of the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on the Liturgy said, “Liturgy belongs to the people of the Church here and now.” And if not all the people agree — as how could they? — let there be a People’s Church like a People’s Republic.

One should acknowledge the strength of this feeling, and the numbers who feel it, and their sensitive response to the historical condition of the West. Nor condemn them, nor be the first to throw a stone.

But they sin, and they say, “We see,” so their sin remains. They say, “We hear,” so they do not hear. They say, “We know,” so they do not know. They sin by thinking not as God does, but as human beings do, and poorly. In doing this they are Satan. To say this is not to condemn them, as Jesus did not condemn Simon Peter.

One should also acknowledge their power in the Church, and that their power is waning. Do not argue with them, since they do not argue. Do not reason with them, since they do not reason. They are enemies of the Church: fight them for the Church and love them. Pray that they become friends of the Church, that we may love them as we love one another, and that all will know that we are his disciples.

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Compare Caryl Johnston, The Virginity Monologues.

For the title of this article, see Jacques Barzun, “The State of Culture Today,” in Garraty and Gay, eds., The Columbia History of the World, 1972, 1155.

This article is listed in The Catholic Carnival is Here: Living the Faith in the blog Universal Call: Answer It!, quoted in The cafeteria is closed. . . . ., and mentioned by The Anchoress.

For light on the American Catholic scene, see Donna Steichen, Can Reform Come? and Mrs. Steichen’s own report on the Los Angeles conference, A Church They Didn’t Expect.

POSTED BY LEO WONG AT 1:56 PM [MONDAY, JUNE 05, 2006 ]