Category: Benedict XVI

HERE ARE THE NEXT FIVE PROPOSITIONS FROM THE SYNOD ON THE EUCHARIST.

Proposition 26 encourages inculturation of the liturgy but basically says nothing new since it just reiterates the responsibility of the bishops’ conferences to work the established process for obtaining permission from Rome for an adaptation they want to make in the liturgy for their territory.

Proposition 27 deals with the role of sacred art. While it doesn’t say much, it does offer a pointer in the direction of more historical art and architecture, saying: "a profound knowledge of the forms that sacred art has been able to
produce through the centuries, can help those who are called to
collaborate with the architects and artists to design appropriately, at
the service of Eucharistic life and of the present communities, both
the areas of celebration as well as the iconography."

It also stresses that the liturgical needs of the celebration according to the rite approved by the Church take priority over what amounts to new-fangled artistic impulses that might conflict with this.

Proposition 28 reiterates what the current GIRM says about the placement of the Tabernacle but does not call for always having a Tabernacle in the sanctuary–a possibility that was raised in the working document for the Synod.

Proposition 29 says that when Masses are broadcast by TV, radio, or the Internet that they must be celebrated in a dignified and proper manner, in keeping with liturgical law. It also says that this normally does not satisfy for the Sunday obligation. (This is a bit of legal imprecision on the bishops’ part: Televised Masses NEVER satisfy for the Sunday obligation. Those who cannot go for reasons of age or health or any other reason may profit from watching broadcast Masses on Sunday, but the law does not require them to do so. For people in those situations the Sunday obligation is simply not binding the way the law is presently written.)

Proposition 30 recommends greater emphasis on the observance of Sunday as the Lord’s Day, including "friendly get-togethers; formation of children, young people and adults
in the faith; pilgrimages; works of charity; and different moments of
prayer." It also notes that, although you can fulfill your Mass obligation on Saturday evening, this doesn’t let you treat Sunday like any other day.

HERE ARE THE NEXT FIVE PROPOSITIONS FROM THE SYNOD ON THE EUCHARIST.

At this point we’re out of the theological reflection stage and are into the practical stuff, so that’s more to my liking. Some of the proposals here are quite striking.

Proposition 21 states: "The Eucharistic Prayers could be enriched with acclamations, not only after the consecration but in other moments, as provided in the Eucharistic Prayers for celebrations with children and as is done in several countries." I’ll have to look up what they have in mind here.

This is a very striking proposal because we’re still in the process of getting translated the third edition of the Roman Missal (released 2000) and now they’re talking about adding elements to the Eucharistic prayer, which would necessitate a fourth edition (presumably identical to the third except for the minor adjustments they indicate).

Proposition 22 states: "The Synod hopes that the link between the epiclesis and the account of the institution will be shown with greater clarity. In this way, it would be more evident that the whole life of the faithful is, in the Holy Spirit and in the sacrifice of Christ, a spiritual offering pleasing to the Father.
"

I’m not sure (on the heels of the previous proposal) whether they’re talking again about changing the text of the Eucharistic prayers to bring out the connection between the Epiclesis (invocation of the Holy Spirit upon the gifts) and the Words of Institution (regarded as the moment of consecration in Latin theology) or if they’re just suggesting that B16 dwell on this in his apostolic exhortation. Could be either.

Proposition 23 says that the sign of peace sometimes "assumes a dimension that could be problematic, when it is too prolonged
or even when it causes confusion, just before receiving Communion. Perhaps it would be useful to assess if the sign of peace should
take place at another moment of the celebration, taking into account
ancient and venerable customs."

The ancient and venerable customs they’re referring to may be the way the sign of peace is exchanged in some of the Eastern rites, where it is not a handshake or hug but a more solemn exchange of peace that we really don’t have the vocabulary to describe succinctly in English. Basically: The priest puts his hands together palm to palm and then the ministers brush the outsides of his hands with their palms so as to receive the peace from him. Then they put their palms together and let someone else receive the peace from them, passing down the aisles to allow the peace to be passed in this fashion from person to person in the pews.

I don’t know if that’s going to be the way we do it in the Latin rite in the future, but they may well move the sign of peace so that it isn’t just before Communion.

Proposition 24 also deals with a change that would necessitate an alteration in the Roman Missal: "To make more explicit the relationship between Eucharist and mission,
which belongs to the heart of this Synod, it is suggested that new
dismissal formulas be prepared (solemn blessings, prayers over the
people or others), which underline the mission in the world of the
faithful who have participated in the Eucharist."

Proposition 25 is devoted to correcting liturgical abuses. Among other things, it states: "The value, importance and necessity of the observance of the liturgical
norms must be underlined. The Eucharistic celebration must respect the
sobriety and fidelity of the rite desired by the Church, with a sense
of the sacred that helps to live the encounter with God and also with
sensible forms that favor it."

Unfortunately, there is nothing more here than a general exhortation to greater fidelity. No specific program is suggested to promote greater fidelity.

This may be because they’ve already done the major obvious things they can on this one (e.g., releasing a new GIRM, a new Missal, a new and improved set of translations that are in the works, and the document on liturgical abuses that came out recently–i.e., Redemptionis sacramentum). Shy of esatablishing a liturgical secret police, there’s not many more obvious ways to crack down on liturgical abuses at the moment. They may want to let the effect of the recent efforts continue to work their way through the Church before undertaking a major new anti-abuse initiative.

Wow, I was just saying in one of the comboxes how I hoped that His Holiness B16 would put the smackdown on secularized American Catholic universities by yanking their "Catholic" designation.
Now it looks like that may happen sooner than later.

OO-RAH! I for one want to encourage the Pontiff to confiscate these school’s fake I.D.s as soon as possible.

Maybe this will help people to know who to believe when it comes to Catholic doctrine.

The article quotes Archbishop Michael Miller, the Vatican’s #2 education official (from a talk given at Notre Dame, no less);

The Pope has
argued "that it might be better for the Church not to expend its
resources trying to preserve institutions if their Catholic identity
has been seriously compromised," Miller said.

The Archbishop indicates that B16 may be doing some "evangelical pruning" in the coming months.
GET THE STORY.

HERE’S THE NEXT FIVE PROPOSITIONS FROM THE SYNOD ON THE EUCHARIST.

Proposition 16 continues the discussion of how to catechize the faithful properly, particularly children receiving the sacraments. This is pretty standard stuff.

Proposition 17 is much more interesting. It proposes that either the Vatican or the episcopal conferences write

a Eucharistic Compendium project, or an instrument of pastoral aid that
brings together, at the same time, liturgical, doctrinal, catechetical
and devotional elements on the Eucharist, to help develop faith and
Eucharistic piety.

This compendium could propose the best of patristic teaching, the
experience of the Latin Church and of the Eastern Churches, and
devotional prayers. It should include an appropriate catechesis on the
nature and structure of Eucharistic prayers.

This sounds like a really good idea, but (1) I’d want the Vatican to do it and (2) they need to KEEP IT SIMPLE AND PRACTICAL. They’ll hamper its effectiveness if they get too flowerly and high flown in it.

Proposition 18 deals with the role of the Liturgy of the Word in Mass. Much of it is pretty standard, but it does say some interesting things. Among these, it praises "the impulse of parish groups that prepare the Sunday Mass with a
prayerful study of the Readings themselves, and liturgical practices
such as silence or a few introductory words that help for greater
understanding."

It also praises lectio divina, Bible study groups, and small parish groups.

It also say, mysteriously:

An expression must be found for the prayer of the faithful that is
related better with the Word of God, with the needs of the assembly and
more broadly with those of the whole of humanity.

I’m not sure what they mean by this, but it could be that they have in mind a kind of fleshed-out guide for how to relate the prayer of the faithful at Mass to the Scripture readings.

I’d welcome any help in that area that could serve to depress the relentless liberal politicization of the intentions of the faithful that I hear at Sunday Masses in my parish.

Proposition 19 deals with the problem of BAD HOMILIES. The news here is that the fathers propose:

taking recourse —
stemming from the triennial lectionary — to "thematic" homilies that,
in the course of the liturgical year, could address the great topics of
the Christian faith: the Creed, the Our Father, the parts of the Mass,
the Ten Commandments and other arguments.

These thematic homilies should correspond to what has again been
authoritatively proposed by the Magisterium of the Church in the four
"pillars" of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and in the recent
Compendium. With this objective, the elaboration of pastoral material
was proposed, based on the triennial lectionary, which puts the
proclamation of the Scriptures in relationship with the doctrines of
the faith that spring from the same.

YEE-HAW! This would be great!

The fact is that many priests you encounter today have been so badly formed in seminary that they aren’t capable of preaching a good, content-rich homily without help, and official Church help oriented toward getting more of the content of the faith into homilies is an outstanding idea.

They’ve been taught to put too much emphasis on style over substance (and their style is often more polished than Protestant preachers), but they’ve really got to get substance back into their homilies.

Proposition 20 is another theological reflection that doesn’t say much except that human work is related to the Eucharist because everything is related to the Eucharist.

HERE’S THE NEXT FIVE PROPOSITIONS FROM THE SYNOD OF THE EUCHARIST.

Having raised the question of "Sunday assemblies awaiting a priest" in Prop 10, the fathers go on to discuss vocations in Proposition 11.

They basicallly ask for a greater push for vocations–particularly by parish priests serving as recruiters.

They also reaffirm the discipline of priestly celibacy for the Latin Church and ask that the reasons for it to be explained to the faithful. Hopefully, B16 will go into some detail about that in his apostolic exhortation, because there is an annoying tendency in ecclesiastical documents for requests to be made for the reasons for something to be explained to the faithful but then (as here) there is NO ENUMERATION OF THOSE REASONS, meaning that the explainer just has to make his best guess at figuring out what the Church has in mind (and on some subjects it’s not even clear what the Church has in mind).

It would be so much nicer if, whenever an ecclesiastical document asks that the reasons for something be explained to the faithful if it then went on to say "And here’s what those reasons are."

I’ve seen Pre-16 offer his personal thoughts on the reasons for clerical celibacy before. Hopefully he’ll give us some official reasons in his apostolic exhortation.

One other note in this proposition is a push to have "a more equitable distribution of the clergy," which means moving priests around from high-vocation centers to low-vocation centers. In principle, that’s fine as long as it doesn’t serve to mask the PROBLEMS in a particular area that are CAUSING it to have a lack of vocations (e.g., heterodox vocations officers who drive away the best candidates for the priesthood or regional seminaries whose faculties are consciously trying to eliminate orthodox seminarians).

Proposition 12 continues the vocations theme by suggesting practical steps the fathers of the Synod hope will be taken to get more vocations. This is pretty standard stuff (priests giving their vocation stories, setting up vocation centers, having Eucharistic adoration for vocations).

A couple of items, while logical, have been unfortunately handled in recent years.

One is the recommendation of focusing on altar servers as potential vocations. The problem here is that you can’t just tell altar servers that they need to consider a vocation to the priesthood because MANY of the altar servers are INCAPABLE of becoming priests since the previous pontificate decided to allow girls into the altar server pool.

Had that not been the case it would be possible to make a stronger push for altar servers to consider becoming priests, but now it’s harder to deliver that message because of the extra nuances that have to be built into its delivery to the target group.

This could be solved, of course, by ceasing to have female altar servers, but I don’t see that happening. (Imagine the outcry. B16 has bigger problems he needs to spend his public capital on.)

Another suggestion that will be complicated in the light of recent events is the suggestion that priests mentor young people (meaning, young boys) and steer them towards vocations.

The problem here (at least in this country) is that in light of the recent priestly sexual abuse scandal parents in many places are frequently going to want to MINIMIZE CONTACT between their sons and parish priests. The less time priests get to spend with boys, the less they can encourage them to consider becoming priests.

Proposition 13 deals with the order of the sacraments of initiation (baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist). This section suggests an in-depth study of Confirmation to more clearly bring out its role and connection to the Eucharist, which would be good since the three sacraments of initiation share a common orientation that is often not understood.

The big news here, though, is that the fathers suggest that the Latin right RECONSIDER THE AGE AT WHICH CONFIRMATION IS TO BE ADMINISTERED.

YEE-HAW!!! This is something that is long overdue.

For a start, the age of confirmation in the United States is A TOTAL MESS. Basically, the U.S. bishops years ago got permission out of the Vatican to basically let each bishop set his own age for confirmation in his diocese (within certain limits). This is AN ENORMOUS PROBLEM and A TRAGIC MISTAKE in a society as mobile as ours, because it is GUARANTEED TO RESULT IN CHILDREN FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS AND NOT GETTING CONFIRMED as families move from diocese to diocese.

If you’re in a diocese where the confirmation age is 16 and you’ve got a 15-year old kid and then you move to a diocese where the age of confirmation is 7, guess what! Your kid is past the age of confirmation in this diocese and will either have to go to special classes or be shoehorned in with a bunch of 7 year olds.

Conversely, if you have a kid who’s been confirmed at 7 and then you move to an age-16 diocese then when he’s 16 he’s going to sit out what all the other kids his age in the parish are doing because he’s already been confirmed.

We’ve really got to get a single age for confirmation in the United States, and any Church-wide revisiting of the age of confirmation is a good thing in that it could result in that.

The re-examination may have even more dramatic results than that, though, because what they’re talking about (at a minimum) is whether we should mandate that kids get confirmed BEFORE they have First Communion and (at a maximum) whether they should be confirmed immediatley after baptism (as done in many of the Eastern Catholic churches).

Either of these would be an improvement, as they would both restore the ideal order of reception of the sacraments of initiation (baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, not baptism, Eucharist, confirmation).

They would also get around a lot of the nuttiness that goes on in high school confirmation classes (which are also frequently a friction point between teens and parents if the kid is going through a rebellious stage and isn’t sure if he wants to be confirmed).

My preference on this question tends to be Eastern, so I’d love it if they had confirmation administered immediately after baptism, the way it was typically done in the early Church. But I’d be happy if they just mandated that confirmation be administered before First Communion.

(Note that the preceding commentary may tell you more about my concerns about the celebration of confirmation than it does about the Eucharist, though the question of the sequencing of confirmation relative to the Eucharist is a Eucharist-related question.)

Proposition 14 basically calls for renewed Christian education in parishes, focusing on the Eucharist and the Catechism of the Catholic Church and other recent Magisterial teachings.

It also stresses that seminarians "must understand as well as possible the meaning of each liturgical norm."

Proposition 15 basically calls on the family and the parish to be involved in preparing kids for sacramental initiation.

Okay, now that I’ve got my computer situation squared away, back to the propositions from the Synod on the Eucharist.

HERE ARE THE NEXT SIX PROPOSITIONS FROM THE SYNOD OF BISHOPS.

Proposition 5 is another theological review proposition. It discusses the relationship of the Eucharist to the Church. One thing it says is rather interesting:

The ecclesial character of the Eucharist might also be a privileged
point in the dialogue with the communities born with the Reformation.

I’m not sure which communities they’re thinking of (probably Lutherans first and foremost) or what hay they think they may be able to make in this direction, but it stood out.

With prop 6 things get more interesting. #6 is devoted to Eucharistic adoration and forcefully recommends it (even using the word "forcefully"). This is in reaction to an erroneous theology that took hold in some quarters after the Council that dissed Eucharistic adoration, arguing that the celebration of the Mass is what’s important, so all our attention needed to be on the celebration of the Mass, not on Jesus himself as the Eucharist after Mass.

JP2 had been dinging away at that mindset for a while, and this is a continuation of same.

Of note in this section is a recommendation that churches be kept open as much as possible to allow people to come for Eucharistic adoration and that this practice be part of preparation for first Communion.

One thing that it’s important to note here: As encouraging as all this is, the document doesn’t call for any changes in the rules regarding Eucharistic EXPOSITION. People often talk as if exposition and adoration are the same thing, and they’re not. The law imposes VERY SIGNIFICANT restrictions on when exposition can be done, so the call for greater Eucharistic adoration does not translate directly into a call for greater Eucharistic exposition. What they’re envisioning is having churches open so that people can go adore Jesus in the tabernacle, not having Eucharistic exposition available in every parish. That being said, the faithful in different parishes can certainly appeal to the Synod’s recommendation for greater adoration and argue that this would be facilitated if they had exposition available in their parish.

Prop 7 deals with the Eucharist and the sacrament of reconciliation. Noting that the state of grace is necessary for reception of the Eucharist and encouraging frequent confession, the document calls for bishops to do a number of things: (1) start educating people more about the need for conversion and confession, (2) eliminate general absolutions (I’ve never seen one of those, but they appear to be a problem in some countries; Austrailia, for example, from what I understand), (3) make sure there are suitable places for confession in parishes, and (4)–oddly–for the bishop to "appoint the confessor." I’m not sure if the latter is a translation problem or what, for it makes it sound as if each parish would have only one confessor even if it had multiple priests, and I don’t think that’s what they mean.

The prop also says "it would also be necessary to further the dimension of reconciliation
already present in the Eucharistic celebration (cf. CCC 1436),
specifically in the penitential rite," which might be interpreted as a call for beefing up the penitential rite at Mass in some way.

And it calls for a renewed catechesis of the faithful on indulgences and encourages bishops and priests to request more indulgences from the apostolic penitentiary.

Proposition 8 is an attempt to relate the Eucharist the the sacrament of matrimony, but like many of these theological-reflection type propositions, it seems rather thin–like butter spread across too much bread.

The problem is that, because the Eucharist is Jesus and Jesus is God and God is related to everything in the universe (as its Creator) there is a tendency to try to relate the Eucharist to everything in the universe. Anything that one values may get related to the Eucharist in some theological documents, even though there may not be a direct connection between them and so there may not be that much to say about them that is relevant to the Eucharist.

Things that one does not value don’t get this treatment. Thus one never finds attempts to relate the Eucharist to cockroaches or to Smurf dolls or to pebbles on the surface of Mars. The things that the Eucharist gets related to in a document thus often tell one more about the values of the person or people who wrote the document than tells you about the Eucharist itself.

In this proposition the fathers of the Synod are expressing the value of marriage and thus trying to relate it to the Eucharist, but there is not much of a direct connection as the two sacraments (while they are both sacraments).

Some of the interesting stuff in this proposition thus isn’t really about the Eucharist but about marriage. For example, it states: "The Synod recognizes the singular mission of woman in the family and in the society."

That’s interesting. It acknowledges that women have a unique (singular) mission in the family–a proposition that is currently under heavy attack in western culture, where many wish to see husbands and wives as having fully interchangeable roles, with no uniqueness to the mission and role of either. Unfortunately, they don’t go into any detail about what that unique mission in the family may be.

They also allude to women having a unique mission in society. This is probably a clause put in to avoid the charge of wanting to view women as if they only have a contribution to make to the family and no role outside the home. They don’t really go into any detail here either about what the mission of women in society is, though if I had to guess I’d say that one of the things they may have in mind is that "Women: Teachers of Peace" theme that found a place in John Paul II’s writings.

Proposition 9 is TOTALLY BIZARRO if you don’t recognize the style of relating the Eucharist to everything that I mentioned in the previous point. I mean, why on Earth would one want a section titled "Eucharist and Polygamy"? I mean, the Eucharist has NO DIRECT RELATIONSHIP TO POLYGAMY WHATSOEVER.

The reason for this proposition being here is that the fathers of the Synod have just raised the subject of matrimony in the previous point and, having done that (more to show us the value of marriage than to tell us anything about the Eucharist), they then want to address a pastoral problem connected with matrimony.

You see, a polygamy is still a social reality in many parts of Africa, which is also rapidly becoming Catholic in many areas. As a result, the Church is having to tell a bunch of African guys, "Listen, we want you to become Catholic, too, but you’re going to have to give up a bunch of your wives, while also making equitable provision for them and for the children you’ve had by them."

This is an important and delicate subject, but it really doesn’t have a place in a document about the Eucharist because it doesn’t have a direct connection with the Eucharist. One can pick up any social problem one wants and relate it to the Eucharist in this fashion (e.g., "Eucharist and Abortion," "Eucharist and Gay Marriage," "Eucharist and Pornography," "Eucharist and Tax Evasion," "Eucharist and Copyright Violation").

And so we see, once again, this proposition in the document revealing more about the values of the authors (what they consider an important subject that needs to be addressed) than it reveals about the Eucharist.

Proposition 10 actually gets us back to talking about something that has to do with the Eucharist: Communion services celebrated on Sunday becaues there is no priest to say Mass.

The Holy See has recognized a need for these in many places but it also has been quite nervous about them, not wanting people to see them as a replacement equivalent to Mass or a way of promoting the laity who often lead them into a quasi-priestly status.

There is thus a general endorsement of them but a stress on the need to differentiate them from Mass in the imnds of the faithful and a mandate for bishops’ conferences to come up with norms regulating them in their own territory–including when Communion can be distributed at them (it is envisioned that some Sunday assemblies might just be celebrations of the Word).

There’s also something new here that is not obvious unless you’ve read the background documents: There’s a new language introduced for talking about these services. They’ve taken to calling them "Sunday assemblies awaiting a priest." This is meant as a replacement for descriptors like "Sunday assemblies without a priest."

The shift in language–borrowed from France if I recall correctly–is meant to underscore the fact that the norm we have to work toward is having a priest saying Sunday Mass and that we can’t treat a Sunday service without a priest as equivalent to Mass.

HERE’S THE FIRST FOUR OF THE BISHOPS’ PROPOSITIONS FROM THE SYNOD ON THE EUCHARIST.

Proposition 1 basically does two things: It formally gives the pope certain synod-related documents for his reflection and it asks him to produce "a document on the sublime mystery of the Eucharist in the life and mission of the Church."

Proposition 2 praises the liturgical reform following Vatican II. It goes on, however, to note:

Abuses were verified in the past [i.e., following the liturgical reform]; they are not even lacking today,
although they have diminished greatly.

This is an interesting statement. From what I can tell, it’s true. I wasn’t a Catholic back in the 1970s and 1980s, but my understanding is that liturgical abuses were MUCH worse back in the wild and wooly days following the reform. Folks were doing things that are virtually unheard of today, like reading passages from Jonathan Livingston Seagull in place of the gospel and such.

I can verify that, in the thirteen years I’ve been Catholic, the celebration of the liturgy HAS improved. There are still abuses, still things that really rankle, but they’re better than they were before. The release of the new GIRM did a lot to improve things, as has the steady hand that Rome has been exercising the last number of years in liturgical matters. Cardinal Arinze is definitely the right guy to have at the helm of the CDW right now for helping to guide the celebration of the liturgy in a continued positive direction.

No, compliance is not what it needs to be. Yes, there is still much improvement to be made. But the number of outright, flagrant abuses is down–at least in this country.

The second proposition goes on to say that the abuses don’t mean that the liturgical reform was bad or not a valid decision but that they call for greater attention to the way liturgy is celebrated, with the goal of fostering the "actuosa participatio" of the faithful–which is a technical term meaning that the faithful should pay attention and absorb what is going on at Mass.

Propositions 3 and 4 begin a section on the theology of the Eucharist. Now, I must confess that this is a style of writing that does not natively appeal to me. I don’t know why, whenever there is a document like this, the pastors of the Church feel the need to recapitulate the whole theology of whatever subject they’re dealing with.
They seldom say anything new in this part of the document, and it’s at this point that my eyes start to glaze over and I find it a long hard slog to get through to the interesting developments.

I recognize that there can be a catechetical value to such material and that people need to be reminded of the basic beliefs of the faith, but this was written as a private document for the pope, and of all people the present pope is least in need of such basic catechesis.

I think, instead, that what they’re trying to do is offer to the pope suggestions for the themes they want him to hit in the apostolic exhortation–as well as trying to show their appreciation for the Eucharist by celebrating it through the recapitulation of its theology in a meditative manner.

My own lack of appreciation for this style of writing I therefore take as revealing myself to have a more practical rather than meditative bent. Instead of wanting to meditate on the recapitulation, I find myself wanting them to cut to the chase. So this may say more about me than anything else.

My commentary on propositions of this nature is thus likely to be rather sparse.

Proposition 3 stresses the novelty of what Jesus did in instituting the Eucharist, as well as a number of other themes.

Proposition 4 stresses that the Eucharist is both a gift from God and a right of the faithful–that is, it is a gift to which God has given the faithful a right that the pastors of the Church must strive to accomodate so that the faithful can partake of the gift God wishes them to have.

More as more propositions become available in English.

B16 is such a cool dude. His papacy, thus far, is shaping up as a series of refreshing surprises. He’s marking his own course as pope, either breaking with papal tradition or restoring old papal traditions that have lapsed, and thus far I’ve been really delighted with the direction he has been moving things.

F’rinstance:

Following the recent Synod on the Eucharist, B16 did something unprecedented. Now, he’d already done some unprecedented things in terms of how the synod ran–allowing bishops to have "open mike" time for three minute speeches, for example, to better foster discussion amongst them–but at the close of the synod he did something really amazing.

He released the document of private recommendations that the bishops gave him regarding the Eucharist.

Y’see, normally each synod draws up a list of recommendations that are given privately to the pope. At the first few synods, that was ALL that happened. The pope got the recommendations and that was it. Then, after the Synod on Evangelization, Paul VI decided to write an apostolic exhortation (the one now known as Evangelii nuntiandi), and that became a new papal tradition. At the end of each synod the bishops would turn in their private advice to the pope and then he’d write an apostolic exhortation based on the private advice.

But this time B16 has made that private advice public.

YEE-HAW!  KEWL!

There were rumors that this might be ALL that B16 would do–that he might just release the advice and not follow up with an apostolic exhortation (despite the fact that point #1 in the advice was to ask him to write an apostolic exhortation). That’s apparently not going to be what happens. B16 has announced that he plans on offering further elaboration on the points raised by the bishops in the exhortation, so we should be getting one.

But having the advice in hand at this stage gives us a greater insight into what the pope is likely to say in the exhortation. He will go beyond what they said, offering his own personal thoughts, but we still have an unprecedented insight into what the final document will be like.

Unfortunately, the complete text of the advice is only out in Italian right now.

Fortunately, Zenit is releasing it in English in a series of parts over the next few days (or that seems to be the plan).

The advice consists of fifty numbered "propositions" (though they’re really short passages rather than single propositions), and I’ll be taking the opportunity to comment on them as they’re released.

More later.

Although I have seen howls of indignation from certain right-fringe corners of the Catholic cyberspace, personally I was tickled to see that Pope Benedict XVI met at Castel Gandolfo last week with his onetime colleague and friend, Fr. Hans Küng:

"[W]hy did Benedict, 78, open his doors to Küng? The first answer may be as simple as the desire to catch up with an old friend and colleague: the two men had taught together at the University of Tübingen, and both had served as theological advisers during the Second Vatican Council. Küng , 77, was quoted in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera on Tuesday as saying the Saturday dinner meeting at the papal summer residence in Castel Gondolfo was ‘a reciprocal joy to see each other after so many years.’ A Vatican statement said that the pair’s standing doctrinal disputes were not broached. Among the topics reportedly covered were the relationship between faith and science, and interfaith dialogue.

"But if this was simply a personal catching-up or theological rap session, Ratzinger might have invited Küng for dinner during his two decades as a Rome-based cardinal. Instead, it appears that the new pope wants to establish an ongoing open dialogue with those who may have different views. The Küng dinner is, in fact, Benedict’s third potentially controversial encounter in the past month. In late August, the pope met with the Italian writer Oriana Fallaci, who has penned fiercely anti-Muslim books since 9/11, and then two days later he welcomed Bishop Bernard Fellay, the excommunicated head of an ultraconservative movement founded by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

"It’s hard to know the specific motivation behind Benedict’s desire to meet with each of these surprise visitors. But it is by now clear that the new Pope is conscious that his job description has radically changed. As Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for 20 years, Cardinal Ratzinger had been responsible for keeping certain arguments on theological lock-down. But when you become father to a flock of 1 billion, your dining-room door must be kept as open as possible."

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I think in these stories of Pope Benedict’s meetings with various individuals, representative of different movements of concern to the Church, we can see one difference in pastoral approach between John Paul II and Benedict. John Paul was a master at connecting to crowds of people and, by doing so, showing them how they were united; Benedict is proving himself to be a connector with individuals, and perhaps, by his approach, will show individuals — and possibly their representative movements — how they can connect themselves to the wider human family and ultimately to Christ.

If press reports are accurate, one of the cardinals who attended last April’s conclave has broken his oath regarding the secrecy of the conclave.

According to him:

In the first round of voting, Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, received 47 votes and Bergoglio, the Jesuit archbishop of Buenos Aires, received 10. Italian cardinals Carlo Maria Martini and Camillo Ruini had nine and six votes, respectively.

Ratzinger also led the second ballot with 65 votes, while Bergoglio received 35. In the third round of voting, Ratzinger got 72 votes and Bergoglio 40.

Ratzinger needed 77 votes in the final round to win the necessary two-thirds majority of the 115 voting cardinals. He got 84, Bergoglio got 26, and three other cardinals also registered one vote apiece in the last round: Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, Italian Cardinal Giacomo Biffi and American Cardinal Bernard Law, according to the diary.

The Vatican has not confirmed or denied these numbers, but I did see one comment from a Vaticanista expressing dismay at the secret being broken, which could be taken as indirect confirmation (or not).

This still has to go into the rumor category until and unless more info emerges, but it’s an interesting rumor, particularly because those candidates who do well in voting in one conclave often do well in the voting in the next conclave if they are still young enough.

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