Leo begins Vatican II catechesis as liturgy row looms
The Pope emphasised the ‘journey of the Council’ at the extraordinary consistory on 7-8 January, where the cardinals received a paper on its liturgical reforms.
The Second Vatican Council calls the Church to “friendship” with God, Pope Leo said at the start of his catechesis on its documents, amid renewed controversy over pre-conciliar liturgies.
After announcing last week that he would deliver a cycle of catechesis on the Council at his general audiences, the Pope began on Wednesday with an address on Dei Verbum, its dogmatic constitution on Divine Revelation, which he said “reminds us [that] Jesus Christ radically transforms man’s relationship with God, which is henceforth a relationship of friendship”.
“The Revelation of God, then, has the dialogical nature of friendship and, as in the experience of human friendship, it does not tolerate silence, but is nurtured by the exchange of true words,” Leo said, explaining how Dei Verbum reminds the Church that “God speaks to us”.
“It is important to recognise the difference between words and chatter: this latter stops at the surface and does not achieve communion between people, whereas in authentic relationships, the word serves not only to exchange information and news, but to reveal who we are,” he said.
“The word possesses a revelatory dimension that creates a relationship with the other. In this way, by speaking to us, God reveals himself to us as an ally who invites us into friendship with him.”
This relationship demands listening and speaking to God, Leo continued, and hence “the need for prayer, in which we are called to live and to cultivate friendship with the Lord”.
“This is achieved first of all in liturgical and community prayer, in which we do not decide what to hear from the Word of God, but it is he himself who speaks to us through the Church,” he said. “It is then achieved in personal prayer, which takes place in the interiority of the heart and mind.”
Pope Leo had emphasised the importance of the Council during the extraordinary consistory he called on 7-8 January, reading out the first paragraph of Lumen Gentium – the dogmatic constitution on the Church – in his opening address to the cardinals assembled.
“We can never emphasise enough the importance of continuing the journey that began with the Council,” he said in his concluding address the next day, discussing its relevance to mission and synodality, the two main subjects of the meeting.
They had been chosen by the cardinals from an initial agenda of four subjects, the other two being liturgy and the Roman Curia which are expected to feature more prominently at the next consistory planned for June.
Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the prefect of the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Mario Grech, the secretary-general of the Synod Secretariat, respectively delivered reflections to introduce discussions of mission – through Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium – and of the Synod on Synodality.
The cardinals also received papers on the other proposed subjects: one on the curial reforms of Pope Francis’ apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium by Cardinal Fabio Baggio, the secretary to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human development, the other on the liturgy by Cardinal Arthur Roche, the prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
Cardinal Roche’s paper subsequently appeared on online outlets, although the Vatican had asked the cardinals to keep the details of the consistory’s work confidential.
The text drew criticism from some quarters for its argument that opposition to liturgical reform undermined acceptance of the Second Vatican Council, which sought “to render more full the participation in the celebration of the Paschal Mystery for a renewal of the Church”.
“The primary good of the unity of the Church is not achieved by freezing division but by finding ourselves in the sharing of what cannot but be shared,” Cardinal Roche wrote, citing Pope Francis’ 2022 apostolic letter on the liturgy Desiderio desideravi.
“The use of liturgical books that the Council sought to reform was, from St John Paul II to Francis, a concession that in no way envisaged their promotion. Pope Francis – while granting, in accordance with Traditionis Custodes, the use of the 1962 Missale Romanum – pointed the way to unity in the use of the liturgical books promulgated by the holy Popes Paul VI and John Paul II, in accordance with the decrees of the Second Vatican Council, the sole expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.”
Cardinal Roche is responsible for the implementation of Traditionis Custodes, Pope Francis’ 2021 motu proprio restoring the restrictions on the celebration of the old rite which Benedict XVI had lifted in 2007.
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