What happened?
The co-existence of a Pope Emeritus and a Pope does not represent two people in competition but an “expanded Petrine” ministry, Archbishop Georg Gänswein has claimed.
During a presentation of a new book on Benedict’s pontificate at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in May, the prefect of the papal household said: “The papal ministry is not the same as before … and yet it is a foundation that Benedict XVI has profoundly and lastingly transformed.”
What the Vatican-watchers are saying
David Gibson of Religious News Service thought Archbishop Gänswein was contradicting the Pope Emeritus’s own words: “Benedict himself has always stressed that Francis is the one legitimate pope, but Gänswein’s remarkable argument for a ‘transformed’ papacy and an ‘expanded ministry’ with two popes working in tandem raises all manner of questions given the Catholic Church’s clear teaching on the supreme authority and central role of the pope, the successor of St Peter.”
The blog Rorate Caeli said the idea that the papacy has been “transformed in its very depths, and that to effect this transformation Benedict XVI’s will and actions in February 2013 were enough, raises extremely sensitive, nay, disturbing questions about the very theology of the Church”.
What British blogs are saying
The priest-blogger Fr John Hunwicke argued that election to the papacy was a “purely administrative act”, unlike ordination as a priest. So “there can only be one pope, and that pope is Francis … Being elected pope does not mean that through all eternity you will be, in some mystical mysterious sort of way, a pope. When you die or abdicate, you cease being a pope.”
Fr Ray Blake suggested that the role of the papacy had changed due to mass communications, and consequently the pope was no longer a “prisoner of the Vatican” as he was recognised by both Catholics and non-Catholics as a “moral” and “world leader”. He concluded: “The ‘expanded papacy’ is presumably a reference to the fact that as long as Benedict is alive Pope Francis has to take his legacy into account.”
The most overlooked story of the week
✣ Liturgy chief urges priests to face east
What happened?
Priests should face east when celebrating Mass, said Cardinal Robert Sarah in an interview last week.
In the magazine Famille Chrétienne, the cardinal, who is prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, said: “it is essential that the priest and faithful look together towards the east”.
Why was it under-reported?
For anyone outside the Church, which way the priest faces is hardly a matter of any great import. The secular media do not understand why this is a topic that can raise such passions in the Church.
Within the Church, many might ask if there is anything new in what Cardinal Sarah is saying. After all, he made exactly the same point in a public letter a year ago.
So Cardinal Sarah’s comments have not been covered prominently; but they have been greeted with enthusiasm by more than a few Catholics.
What will happen next?
Cardinal Sarah made the point that for the priest to face the people is “a possibility, but not an obligation”. He is not using his powerful position to force change on the Church, but rather to express his personal preference.
But there is no getting away from his role in charge of the liturgy. His opinion does count. And there are many in the Church, priests and laity, who are in agreement with him. Priests are likely to consult both their bishops and their congregations on this – but whether or not they do so, more priests may soon be turning ad orientem.
✣ The week ahead
Pope Francis will canonise two new saints in St Peter’s on Sunday following the Jubilee of Priests. The 17th-century priest Stanislaus Papczyński, or Blessed Stanislaus of Jesus and Mary, was the founder of the Marian Fathers, while Swedish Religious Sister Blessed Maria Elizabeth Hesselblad (1870-1957), a convert to Catholicism, founded the Bridgettine Sisters.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, will celebrate a solemn Mass and preach at the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Norwich at 6.30pm today, for the 40th anniversary of the formation of the Diocese of East Anglia.
In Jesus’s Steps is a two-week event at Our Lady’s Church in Fleet, Kent, beginning on Sunday. The intention is to bring the Holy Land to Fleet with art, music and flowers. “It is a wonderful opportunity to view sites of the Holy Land created in art form, using music, plants and flowers to create images and atmosphere,” says the church. More at ourladyfleet.org.uk.