At the Vatican There Is a “Seismograph” That Is Setting Off Tremors

The latest incident is on how Francis interprets and implements Vatican Council II. The “school of Bologna” is chanting victory. But two letters from the pope say the opposite



by Sandro Magister







20.1.2016

ROME, January 20, 2016 – The incident slid by without making a sound. But it is no small matter. Its object is nothing less than the hermeneutic with which Pope Francis interprets and implements Vatican Council II.The protagonists were:- Luis Badilla Morales, director of the Vatican website "Il Sismografo";- Massimo Faggioli, Church historian and leading exponent of the famous “school of Bologna,” according to which the Council marked a “rupture” and “new beginning” in the history of the Church;- and Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, a former diplomat and high-level curia official, the leading critic of the Bolognese interpretation of Vatican II, as well as a longtime friend of Jorge Mario Bergoglio.The spark was struck on Thursday, January 14, when “Il Sismografo” published an enthusiastic interview with Faggioli, signed by Badilla and by another curator of the site, Francesco Gagliano:In it, Faggioli maintains that Pope Francis “speaks very little of the Council,” but that “he does it, he applies it constantly, and the most fascinating thing is that he has never shown any interest in the hermeneutical question of the Council.”Francis, in fact - according to Faggioli - “is the first pope not to have uncertainties on how the Council should be interpreted,” because his thought is the following: the Council “is now in our hands and we are the ones to interpret it, without reopening controversies of thirty or forty years ago.”Naturally, the enthusiasm of Faggioli and of his interviewers is explained by the fact that they identify Francis’s interpretation of Vatican II with that of the “school of Bologna.”It was therefore to be expected that this would unleash a reaction from the most systematic critic of the Bolognese interpretation, which is Marchetto.And in fact less than three hours later a reply from Marchetto appeared on “Il Sismografo,” in which he rejects as “not true” the statement according to which Pope Francis “has never shown interest in the hermeneutical question of the Council.”As proof of this Marchetto attached two letters that Francis wrote to him and “wanted to be read publicly.”In the first of them, the pope thanks him for having corrected “an error or imprecision on my part,” congratulates him on “the purity of your studies of Vatican Council II” and on the love he has shown for “the hierarchical Holy Mother Church”; and finally calls him “the best hermeneut of the Council”:The two letters from the pope, which had been published before, are reproduced in their entirety further below. But in order to better understand the scale of the incident it is helpful to recall some other facts first.“Il Sismografo” does not figure among the official voices of the Holy See. But it is one of its outlets. It is directed and curated by journalists of Vatican Radio and falls under the supervision of the secretariat of state, at least until the responsibility is transferred to the newly created secretariat for communication headed by Monsignor Dario Viganò, former director of the Vatican Television Center.The purpose of “Il Sismografo” is to reissue in a continuous stream, with their complete text, articles concerning the pope and the Holy See that appear in the media all over the world, Catholic and not, several dozen each day, in various languages: Italian, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese.All of this, until a short time ago, without commentary, even for articles highly critical of the current pontificate.But a few months back things changed. Luis Badilla Morales, the main curator of the site, is weighing in more and more with bylined contributions that are anything but neutral.Badilla is Chilean, and after the 1973 coup d'état he emigrated as an exile to Europe. He has worked at Vatican Radio for many years. He has been in charge of “Il Sismografo” from the beginning, and for a few months now has also been omnipresent on the screens of TV 2000, the television channel of the Italian episcopal conference.Badilla’s contributions on “Il Sismografo” were particularly frequent during the synod last October. And they took sides.At first Badilla reissued without commentary, on October 8, the revelation made by the vaticanista Andrea Tornielli in “La Stampa” and “Vatican Insider” of a presumed antipapal conspiracy conducted by “thirteen cardinals and bishops”:But then, after www.chiesa on October 12 dismantled the thesis of conspiracy by publishing the letter written to the pope by the thirteen cardinals together with their names, Badilla didn’t hold back anymore. He spoke out repeatedly on “Il Sismografo” with his own highly polemical personal comments against the cardinals who signed the letter, who at the synod were among the most determined in opposing changes of doctrine and practice in the matter of marriage.And from the United States Professor Faggioli - who teaches the history of Christianity at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis and theology at Villanova University in Philadelphia - backed him up with even more virulent and direct attacks, to the point of calling for the imprisonment of one of the thirteen, Cardinal Robert Sarah, guilty of having given in the synodal assembly “speeches that would carry criminal charges in some Western democracies.”Faggioli’s article containing this pearl, published on “The Huffington Post,” was promptly reissued by Badilla on “Il Sismografo,” without weakening the camaraderie of the two in the slightest.On the contrary. The camaraderie culminated precisely in the interview of a few days ago, with Badilla’s gushing introduction of Faggioli, lauded “for his intense, timely, and keen journalistic activity for various publications,” naturally in addition to “his solid formation as an historian not only of the Church.”The fact that a semiofficial website like “Il Sismografo,” whose reason for being would appear to be impartiality, should now tip out of balance with such biased onslaughts is a question that will certainly be brought under examination in the reorganization that is underway among the Vatican information outlets.But in the meantime the question of how Pope Francis interprets Vatican Council II has come to the forefront more than ever.On January 15, the day after the clash between Faggioli and Marchetto, “Il Sismografo” came back to the topic by reissuing, without comment, the position statement of a famous Italian theologian, Andrea Grillo, a professor at the Pontifical Atheneum of Saint Anselm, entirely in favor of the former and against the latter, and even derisory toward the two papal letters, dismissed as insignificant “curial letters”:In effect, in the words and actions of Francis it is easy to find pretexts that would seem to substantiate his proximity to the ideas of the “school of Bologna.”One of these pretexts is the definition of the Council that Bergoglio gave in the exhaustive interview with “La Civiltà Cattolica” of September 2013: “a service to the people” consisting in “a reinterpretation of the Gospel in the light of contemporary culture.”But after that interview came out, there was someone who confidentially notified the pope that reducing the Council to such concepts was at the least “imprecise,” if not “mistaken.”And it was precisely Marchetto who took this step. For years there has been a great rapport between him and Bergoglio, with mutual esteem. Marchetto lives in Rome at the clerical residence on Via della Scrofa, in room 204 next to the room 203 in which the then-archbishop of Buenos Aires stayed during his trips to Rome.Pope Francis not only listened to his friend’s criticisms, he willingly accepted them. To the point of thanking him in writing for the “correction,” in the first of the two letters reproduced further below, and of authorizing him to make the whole missive public: which Marchetto did on November 12, 2013.But in spite of this, the “Bolognese” did not give up. Their current commander in chief, Church historian Alberto Melloni, still leans on Francis for support, especially after the pope appointed as the new archbishop of Palermo Corrado Lorefice, author of a volume on the role at the Council of Fr. Giuseppe Dossetti and Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro, respectively the founder and patron of the “school of Bologna.”Not only that. Melloni has begun to spread the daring idea that even Paul VI - until recently the bugbear of the “Bolognese” - was in the end an admirer of Dossetti and of his conciliar battles at the final vote, in view of the creation of a new “synodal” Church.When Melloni, on October 21 of 2014, brought out these ideas in “Corriere della Sera,” Marchetto replied to him by unsheathing the previously unpublished diaries of the secretary general of the Council, Pericle Felici, which unequivocally demonstrated the aversion of Paul VI for Dossetti’s maneuvers:Marchetto was hard at work on Felici’s diaries at the time, in view of their publication. Which in effect took place last November:Felici’s diaries are a goldmine for a balanced reconstruction of the conciliar event. It should suffice here to cite three passages from them, all from 1963.The first:“When the moderators were chosen in the persons of cardinals Agagianan, Lercaro, Döpfner, and Suenens, I took the liberty of notifying the cardinal secretary of state (Amleto Cicognani) how some of them had openly chosen one side, and were therefore hardly suited to be ‘moderators.’ The secretary of state responded to me with a certain resentment. But all things considered, after painful experiences, he was the first to recognize the error made in the selection of persons.”The second:“Unfortunately more than once the moderators went by ways that were hardly prudent. They began to act on their own, setting aside the Secretariat General and making use of the work of Fr. Dossetti, whom Cardinal Lercaro presented as secretary of the moderators. I let it go until push came to shove. . . I then protested to Cardinal Agagianan, asserting that the secretary of the moderators, according to the regulations, was the Secretary General and that I would not allow any replacements except at the behest of the pope, and I saw what Fr. Dossetti had done until then as nothing. Cardinal Döpfner said the same thing. When I told the pope about it he said categorically that he did not want Fr. Dossetti in that position; he should in fact go to Bologna.”The third:“It is worthwhile to recall how hard I had to work to keep the formula of approval for the decrees, on the part of the pope, from containing those concepts of false collegiality which had been the object of voting on October 30. The intention was to reduce the pope to one who was consenting to what had been decided. When I told the pope about it, he observed: ‘But they are the ones who must agree with me, not I with them!’ ‘Optime dictum!’”Last June 23, Pope Francis received Melloni in private audience together with representatives of the Bolognese institute he directs, again leading them to believe that he was on their side.But a few months later, on November 9, Bergoglio wrote to Marchetto the second of the letters reproduced below, which began precisely with warm applause for his publication of Felici’s diaries, as radically opposed as could be to the theorems of Vatican II as “rupture” and “new beginning.”The enigma of how Francis might interpret the Council and want to implement it remains unsolved.__________Dear Archbishop Marchetto,With these lines I would like to draw near to you and join my voice with the presentation of the book: “Pontifical primacy and episcopacy. From the first millennium to the Ecumenical Council Vatican II.” I ask you to feel that I am spiritually present.The contents of the book are a tribute to the love that you bear for the Church, a love that is loyal and at the same time poetic. Loyalty and poetry are not for sale: they cannot be bought or sold, they are simply virtues rooted in the heart of a son who feels that the Church is his Mother; or to be more precise and say it with the “air” of the Ignatian family, is “the hierarchical Holy Mother Church.”You have shown this love in many ways, including by correcting an error or imprecision on my part - and for this I thank you from my heart - but above all it is manifested in all its purity in your studies of Vatican Council II.I told you once, dear Archbishop Marchetto, and today I would like to repeat it, that I consider you the best hermeneut of Vatican Council II. I know that this is a gift of God, but I also know that you have made it bear fruit.I am grateful to you for all the good that you do for us with your witness of love for the Church, and I ask the Lord that you may be abundantly rewarded for this.I ask you to please not forget to pray for me. May Jesus bless you and the Holy Virgin protect you.Fraternally,FrancisFrom the Vatican, October 7, 2013To Your Excellency the Most Reverend Agostino MarchettoTitular archbishop of AstigiDear Excellency,I would like to send you my cordial greetings on the occasion of the presentation of the book that you edited entitled: “The conciliar ‘Diary’ of Archbishop Pericle Felici, Secretary General of the Ecumenical Council Vatican II.” I ask you to feel that I am spiritually close in this circumstance.The study that you have carried out allows an exploration of the understanding of the Council through a fairly qualified source, which was the Secretary General, and the discovery of particular and ever new aspects, which help us to appreciate better this great gift that the Lord has given to the Church.Your work also permits us to understand, as you have said, the story of a friendship with God in Christ in the Holy Spirit, such as was that of then-archbishop Felici, later made cardinal, which inspired his ecclesial service, lived with love, silent dedication, and complete availability even in moments of particular difficulty. All of this helps, edifies, and supports us in the shared daily effort for the Church and the greater glory of God.Your volume is only the latest fruit of a more ample and distinguished hermeneutical study, which has already lasted for some years. I congratulate you, dear Excellency, and I thank you for your work that you continue to carry out with competence, seriousness, and great generosity. May the Lord reward you abundantly!In commending you with affectionate gratitude to the Lord, I ask you to please continue to pray for me.Fraternally,FrancisFrom the Vatican, November 9, 2015___________In order to quell the controversy that they themselves had ignited on “Il Sismografo,” Luis Badilla and Francesco Gagliano later offered Archbishop Marchetto another chance to present his arguments, posing five questions to him on the “interpretation and application” of the conciliar magisterium.Marchetto accepted the invitation and “Il Sismografo” published his responses on January 18, accompanying them with a biography of the prelate:__________English translation by Matthew Sherry , Ballwin, Missouri, U.S.A.__________For more news and commentary, see the blog that Sandro Magister maintains, available only in Italian:__________