Time for 'God's Rottweiler' to show his bark – and his bite

Published on Tuesday 10 February 2009 20:37

The Pope must show strong leadership in dealing with some groups within the Catholic Church, says JOHN HALDANE

THE Catholic Church sometimes describes itself as thinking in centuries, but it is learning that a month can be a long time, and that responses cannot always be delayed. The year has hardly begun and already the Vatican is facing challenges for which it seems ill-prepared and ill-equipped. Unless a secure grip is taken, there is the prospect they will overshadow the remainder of the current papacy.

Four years ago, at the time of the election of Benedict XVI, I wrote a Scotsman opinion piece from Rome, in which I reflected on the character of the new Pope, and on his likely priorities and manner of dealing with them. I noted he was not a Church administrator but said he strongly believed in the Christian revelation as something to be preserved and preached with authority, and that he recognised this required a Church free from serious error and moral corruption.

I suggested that Benedict would want to reform and renew Catholic institutions, and enhance the liturgy and rituals of the Church, which he regards as channels of grace. Finally, I remarked that he was a gentle man and not at all the strict and harsh disciplinarian suggested by the tabloid title "God's Rottweiler". In view of recent events, however, it may be that some barking and biting are now called for.

Pope Benedict is an intellectual who sees things through the prisms of historical, philosophical and theological analyses.

He has also had an eye to restoring the unity of Catholic Christianity, which he believes is the only effective defence against atheism.

Benedict shares with his predecessor, John Paul II, a strong desire to reunite Christendom by healing the rift with the Orthodox and encouraging those among western denominations who regard themselves as also Catholic to rejoin Rome. A thousand years after the "great schism" and 500 after the reformation, one might think there was little chance of this, but in fact things seem more favourable than ever before.

This month, the Russian Orthodox, the second largest Christian denomination after Roman Catholicism, has a new leader who is open to developing relations with Rome. Prior to his election, Patriarch Kirill had met Benedict on three occasions and been involved in joint talks with Vatican representatives. Pope Benedict sent Kirill a chalice, and there are hopes there might be a meeting between these two "popes", beginning the process of reconnecting ancient Christendom.

At the same time, there are strong rumours the Pope wishes to admit members of the Traditional Anglican Communion, an alliance of breakaway Anglican churches founded in 1991, as a "personal prelature". Basically, this would involve half a million Anglicans converting to Rome but being allowed to retain their own organisation and dioceses.

One key to these developments is that, like Pope Benedict, the Orthodox and the Anglo-Catholics lay great stress on the sacredness of liturgy and the value of ancient Church traditions. So, too, however, do some groupings within Roman Catholicism who took against the "modernising" of the Mass and other innovations following the Second Vatican Council.

Principal among these is the Society of Pius X, founded in 1970 by the French Archbishop Lefebre. In 1988, in defiance of Rome, Lefebre consecrated four bishops in his order and, on that account, he and they were automatically excommunicated. For some while, particularly since the death of Lefebre in 1991, the Vatican has been trying to reintegrate the society, and evidently Pope Benedict believed sufficient progress had been made for the excommunication of the illicit "bishops" to be lifted.

This does not mean they are recognised as bishops or that they have any authority within the Catholic Church, but, as we now all know, one of them – Richard Williamson – is an arrogant, vain Holocaust denier and 9/11 conspiracy advocate who thinks Jews and freemasons are aiming at world domination.

The upshot is that a move designed to contribute to a broader restoration of Christendom has blighted Roman Catholicism in the eyes of the world and harmed relations with Jews. The last is particularly unfortunate, as Benedict has made a point of emphasising the Jewishness of Jesus and favoured John Paul II's visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

It is not unlikely that Pope Benedict was unaware of Williamson's opinions, and he has now demanded he retract them. The Society of Pius X has also denounced his opinions and removed him from his position as a head of one of its seminaries. None of this fails to excuse the Vatican, however, which stands open to the charge of either knowing and not caring about Williamson's views, or being ignorant of them. The former would be a kind of evil, the second culpable incompetence.

If this were not enough, in the past few days, it has been revealed that the founder of another traditionalist Catholic movement, the Legionnaries of Christ, fathered at least one child by a girl of 15 when he was 68. Marcial Maciel had long been the subject of accusations of sexual predation, but his movement produced hundreds of priests and he found favour with John Paul II.

In the weeks before his own election, however, the then Cardinal Ratzinger denounced the "filth" within the Church; and the same year, Maciel "stepped down" as head of the Legionnaries and in 2006 was instructed to devote himself to "a reserved life of penitence and prayer", relinquishing any form of public ministry.

His movement, however, was not reformed. Benedict had acted, but the Vatican had not followed through, and members of the Legionnaries behaved as if it were business as usual. So, again, the charge arises: did the Vatican not care or did it not know. Either way, its failure imperils Pope Benedict's project of reform, renewal, and restoration.

&#149 John Haldane is Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews and Consultor to the Pontifical Council for Culture.