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Volume 3, Chapter
III
POPE
WARNS CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS
The Remnant
–
31 May 1979
ACCORDING
to a St. Paul Pioneer Press/Dispatch report of May 26,
Pope John Paul II decreed last week that professors at Catholic
universities "should refrain from challenging basic Church
doctrine or face dismissal from their posts." The report went
on to say that the Pontiff's warning is contained in an 87-page
" Apostolic Constitution" and that it "tightened
Vatican control over some 126 Church-run universities around the
world." The decree reportedly puts an end to a controversial
experimental period which Pope Paul VI had launched in 1968 in the
wake of Vatican II. The present Holy Father insists that "new
research (experimental or otherwise) should never be at the expense
of the Church's Magisterium."
Meanwhile,
in the current issue of Our Sunday Visitor, appears the report
that the anti-papalist Hans Kung has again placed himself squarely
in opposition to yet another Pope, this time Pope John Paul II.
During an interview regarding his notorious views, Kung is said
to have proposed that inter-communion begin at once, saying: "I
would first start by giving a general permission to Catholics –
especially those in mixed marriages, but others also –to go to other
churches for the eucharistic meal. And we should open our doors
for others to come to us."
As Our Sunday
Visitor observed editorially, "Küng's 'one eucharist is
as good as another' is directly contrary to Catholic teaching and
is in direct opposition to what Pope John Paul II told Catholic
bishops from the Caribbean, where occasionally ecumenical activity
has gone beyond good sense. "Sharing the Eucharist presupposes
unity in faith," the Pope declared. "Inter-communion between
divided Christians is not the answer to Christ's appeal for greater
unity."
It will be
interesting to see how Pope John Paul II reacts to Hans Kung's latest
defiance of papal teaching and whether the University of Tübingen,
where Kung still holds forth, will feel free to dismiss this unorthodox
gad-fly. Also, whether the Catholic University of America, where
the notorious heresiarch, Father Charles Curran, still holds forth,
will take such disciplinary action as Pope John Paul has now prescribed.
*
* * *
The reaction
to Küng's defiance was to deprive him of the right to teach as a
Catholic theologian, a step which would be taken before the end
of the year. The same decision would be taken in the case of Father
Curran, but not until 1986.
DECLINE
IN PRIESTS AND SEMINARIANS IN ITALY
The
Remnant – 31 May 1979
The number
of Catholic seminary students in Italy has dropped from 30,595 in
1962 to 9,953 in 1978. During the same 16-year period, the number
of priests in Italy dropped by more than 2,000 – from 43,538 to
40,866.
The figures
were disclosed by Bishop Attilio Nicora, an Auxiliary Bishop of
Milan, at a plenary meeting in Vatican City of the Italian Catholic
Bishops' Conference.
To put the
numbers in clearer perspective, Bishop Nicora pointed out that Italy's
population had increased by six million between 1961 and 1977. Italy
has a current population of 56,675,000, with Catholics constituting
97.5% of the total.
Bishop Nicora
called the figures "objectively serious and worrisome."
*
* * *
The decline
in the numbers of both priests and seminarians is common to all
Western countries. It might have been hoped that the bishops of
these countries would have noted the success of the seminaries founded
by Mgr. Lefebvre, and followed his example by introducing a traditional
formation in their own seminaries; but, alas, most would prefer
to cease ordaining priests rather than admit that the policies they
have adopted have been disastrous. This is also true of their equally
disastrous policies in such spheres as religious education and the
liturgy. The prestige of the bishops depends upon the success of
these new policies, ergo the policies are successful.
CARDINAL
OTTAVIANI DIES AT 88
The
Remnant – 17 August 1979
Cardinal Alfredo
Ottaviani, a major spokesman for traditionalism during the Second
Vatican Council and one of several cardinals responsible for the
so-called "intervention" against the New Mass brought
into being by that Council, 1
died on 3 August in his apartment after a long illness, Vatican
Radio reported.
The Cardinal,
who together with the late Cardinal Bacci, protested against what
they called the "theological deviation" of the New Mass
from the position taken by the Council of Trent, held the honorary
title of Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith, the Vatican department concerned with guarding the Church's
doctrine on faith and morals.
It was Cardinal
Ottaviani, who, in his letter to His Holiness Pope Paul VI (3 September
1969), pleaded with the Pope "not to deprive us of the possibility
of continuing to have recourse to the fruitful integrity of that
Missale Romanum of St. Pius V, so highly praised by Your
Holiness and so deeply loved and venerated by the whole Catholic
world… The Cardinal was an uncompromising defender of theological
orthodoxy and an unyielding foe of Modernist trends which have swept
through the Church for the past many decades. His loss to the Church
is great. He will be sorely missed. R.I.P.
Cardinal
Wright Dies
The same issue
of The Remnant reported the death of Cardinal John Wright
who, as Prefect for the Congregation for the Clergy, had initially
given wholehearted support to Mgr. Lefebvre and the Society of St.
Pius X, but then succumbed to pressure from Liberal forces within
the Vatican and became a member of the commission of three cardinals
which condemned the Archbishop and demanded the closure of the seminary
at Ecône.2
1.
A fully documented account of the “Ottaviani Intervention” is available
in chapter XXIII of Pope Paul’s New Mass. It is explained there
that fifteen Cardinals had agreed to sign a covering endorsing the
critique of the New Mass sent to Pope Paul VI, but, for reasons
which are explained in this chapter, thirteen of them lost their
nerve and the covering letter was signed eventually only by Cardinals
Ottaviani and Bacci. This does not detract in any way from its historic
importance, or from the fact that Mgr. Lefebvre’s misgivings charged
with upholding the orthodoxy of Catholic doctrine.
2.
See Apologia, Vol. I, Index: Wright, John Joseph, Cardinal.
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Press, Regina Coeli House
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