Punishing dessent

...And that further question might be the beginning of a fruitful conversation, not the end of all discussion...

...It was with some disappointment, then, that I read the remarks attributed to the now Cardinal Vlk, during the presentation to the press of Pope John Paul II's apostolic letter Apostolos suos ("The Theological and Juridical Nature of Episcopal Conferences...

...Whether, in God's Providence, this is what the coming third millennium requires should be a matter of prayerful discernment on the part of "liberals" and "conservatives" alike...

...One of the high points was a concelebrated Mass in the cathedral on the feast of Saint Wenceslaus, the patron of Bohemia...

...As he stood in the cathedral on that late September day, preaching with crozier in hand, I imagined I saw a squeegee attached to the end of the crook, an image that only enhanced his authority...

...Commonweal | 4 August 14, 1998...

...This is, of course, true, even though it's a clich6...

...During the years of persecution, the archbishop had offered his people an impressive witness of integrity and commitment...

...Now, as the century nears its end, a series of edicts from Rome seems to many to stress once again, in almost exclusive fashion, the institutional and juridical element...

...This is the formula which he added to the canons and reinforced with a penalty by this recent letter...

...ROBERT P. IMBELLI is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York and teaches theology at Boston College...

...Perhaps the spirituality of Saint Benedict can offer guidance...

...And, though that is not necessarily equatable with a majority vote, it would seem to require the widest possible consultation among the spiritually experienced and mature...

...Now, one certainly gives grateful assent to the distinctive Catholic belief in the special ministry of the See of Peter...

...Or that the Creator Spirit only blows south of the Alps...

...In the rule, the abbot is instructed that before making a decision that will affect all in the monastery, he is to convene the monks and ask their advice...

...Indeed, such consultation of the faithful seems a moral imperative...

...In the same press conference, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (who seems to be working overtime this summer) is quoted as saying: "Truth is not determined by a majority vote...

...Then, in a striking insight, Benedict continues: Let the abbot pay particular heed to the views of the young, for it is often the way of the Holy Spirit to speak through the young (see, Rule of Saint Benedict, ch...

...He insisted that all three were indispensable, but that they had to be kept in creative tension for the spiritual well-being of the Body of Christ...

...In the opening sentence the pope states that it is "to defend the faith of the Catholic church against errors arising from some of the Christian faithful, especially those engaged in the study of theological disciplines...

...I, for one, would tend to the view of Alasdair Macintyre in After Virtue that our great spiritual need is, rather, for a new, doubtless different, Benedict...

...At another time a list of the same category of teachings might have included: the existence of limbo, the permissibility of slavery, the illicitness of lending money at interest, the episcopacy as a dignity but not a part of the sacrament of orders, the coercion of religious observance by the state...

...9 The pope, on May 30, 1997, specifically granted to the CDF an exception to the canons which permits the Congregation to declare the excommunication of someone it judges to be guilty of heresy, based on its own internal regulations, without giving that person the benefit of the ordinary canonical penal procedures, for example, access to evidence and representation by counsel...

...As reported in the New York Times, Cardinal Vlk, referring to Rome, insisted: "Creativity can be found here--this is the place for creativity...

...And one acknowledges, among other debts, the providential role Rome played in preventing the Eastern European Communist dictatorships from fracturing the unity of the church into so many state-controlled organizations...

...He had been prevented from exercising his ministry during the Communist regime and had worked for many years as a window washer...

...n the fall of 1993, I made a memorable first trip I to Prague...

...One would think that the determination of spiritual truth requires a profoundly spiritual discernment...

...Third, what is the content of this category of doctrines which are now canonically enforced...

...Initiating a penal trial after the Congregation had reached its conclusions was seen to be "pure and unjustified juridical formalism...

...but it does not answer the further question: "How, then, is truth determined...

...But does it follow that there is no room for creativity save on Tiber's shore...

...At the beginning of our troubled century, the Catholic theologian and spiritual guide, Baron Friedrich von Hfigel, reflected upon the Petrine, Pauline, and Johannine hmctions within the church, associating them, respectively, with its institutional, intellectual, and mystical elements...

...No one needs to ask for whom this letter was intended...

...The archbishop embodied a personal authority that went beyond the ecclesial office he held...

...The main presider and preacher was Archbishop Miloslav Vlk of Prague...

...The CDF offered a short list of examples of those noninfallible truths which are so connected to divine revelation, either historically or logically, that they must be given firm and definitive assent by all of the faithful: the infallibility and primacy of jurisdiction of the pope before they were defined at the First Vatican Council, the reservation of priestly ordination to men, the illicitness of euthanasia, the illicitness of prostitution and fornication, the legitimacy of the election of the pope or of the celebration of an ecumenical council, the canonization of saints, the declaration of the invalidity of Anglican ordinations...