(This is a google translation)
SPEECH OF PAUL VI
TO THE PARIS AND LENT PREACHERS OF ROME
Monday, February 17, 1969
Venerable Brothers,
This annual meeting with the Preachers of the next Lent and with Our Priests of Rome, with the Parish Priests and with the Coadjutors especially engaged in the pastoral ministry, with the Ecclesiastics of the Vicariate of Our Diocese and with those of the diocesan Clergy and Religious Families who dedicate themselves to it their spiritual service, and with a representation of Our Seminarians is very precious to Us. We see you here with Our dear and venerated Cardinal Vicar, to whom we are very obliged for the care of souls that he provides, with such wisdom and such dedication, to this most beloved City of Ours; we see you numerous and united; we see you attentive and eager to listen to one of our words; we see you religiously understood by charity, which at this moment unites us in the same love for God, for Christ, for the Church, and in the same longing prayer for the advent of the kingdom of heaven and for our common salvation. Let's fix the happy moment in our souls. We can see reflected in it the splendid words of the primitive Christian community, which was "one heart and one soul" (Acts 4, 32). Let's relive this miracle of charity for a moment. We would like you all to be here: and we all consider you present, dear Roman Priests, even if many, held back by the commitments of your ministry, are not physically present. We all want to hug you, thank you all, comfort everyone, bless you all. This is an hour of spiritual fullness for Us; Our apostolic office would like to enrich it with that mysterious presence which the Lord has promised to those who are gathered in his name (see Matth. 18, 20); he would like to prolong it in holy conversation, like Paul at Troas (see Acts 20, 7): and we would have many things to say and perhaps many things to listen to from you. But the simple fact of this meeting makes up for the speech, which, instead of being long and profound, is simple and short. Familiar, indeed; and this year too, rather than covering the great themes of Lenten preaching, it focuses on some aspect of our ecclesiastical life, now the subject of many serious discussions. Let's just mention it. After all, these problems are present and agitated in everyone's minds.
THE PRIEST IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
We must first of all remember some dynamic ideas, which run through the entire Church today, and which especially among ecclesiastics arouse quite a bit of disturbance. The first of these ideas concerns the figure of the priest. It is almost always considered externally, in its sociological position, in the context of contemporary society, which, as everyone knows, is entirely in movement, entirely in transformation. The priest, who remained in his place, found himself abandoned by his traditional community; the void was created around him, in many places; in others the pastoral clientele has changed; difficult to approach her, difficult to understand her, difficult to interest her in religious things, difficult to recompose her into a close-knit, faithful, prayerful community. The priest then asked himself, what is he doing in a world so different from the one he once witnessed? who listens to it? and how can he make himself heard? He felt like a strange, anachronistic, impotent, useless, even ridiculous social phenomenon. And here is the new and dynamic idea: we must do something, we must dare everything to get closer to the people, to understand them, to evangelize them. The idea, in itself, is excellent; and we saw it germinate from the charity of the desolate heart of the priest, who felt excluded from the historical, social and human world, in which he should have found himself a central figure, teacher and pastor; and in which he instead became a stranger, solitary, superfluous and derided. The inconsistency and suffering of this fate have become intolerable. The priest sought inspiration and energy in the depth and essence of his vocation. We must move, he said, and resume "mission D; and sometimes he said this to the detriment of the celebration of divine worship and the normal administration of the sacraments.
Excellent, let's say, the idea and a sign of a very high priestly conscience. The Priest is not for himself, he is for others: the Priest must chase men to make them faithful, and not just wait for men to come to him; if his church has become empty, he will have to go out "through the squares and alleys of the city" in search of the poor people, and then again "through the streets and along the hedges", and push huddled guests to enter (see Luke 14, 21-23). This apostolic urgency presses on the hearts of many Priests, whose churches have become deserted. And when this is the case, how can you not admire them? how can we not support them?
Easy, you can harass him and close his seminary - just like you did with Lefebvre who responded to the pleas of his fellow frenchmen and opened the seminary YOU ordered closed.
PERFECTING TRADITIONAL FORMS OF APOSTOLATE
But let's be careful, precisely in homage to the experimental and positive character of the apostolate. First: this is not always the case. There are still communities of faithful overflowing in number and eager for regular observance: why leave them? why change the method of ministry for them, when this is still authentic, valid and magnificently fruitful? Wouldn't we be doing a disservice to the faithfulness of so many good Christians by attempting adventures with an uncertain outcome? And, secondly, when it is enough to open a new church and welcome with loving care the people who flock there spontaneously and eager for the divine word and sacramental grace, why devise new and strange forms of apostolate of dubious success and perhaps of precarious duration? Perhaps it is not appropriate to perfect the traditional ones, and make them flourish again, as the Council teaches us, with pastoral realism of new beauty and new effectiveness, before attempting others, often arbitrary and with uncertain results, or restricted to particular groups detached from the communion of the faithful plebs? Oh! we will not forget the words of Jesus, who recommends us to leave the ninety-nine sheep that are safe to go in search of the only one that is lost (see Luke 15:4); and this especially if the proportion, as happens today in certain situations, were contrary, that is, that of only one sheep safe, while ninety-nine were missing: but always the criterion of the unity and completeness of our flock, the criterion of pastoral love and our responsibility towards souls and their inestimable value will guide us.
You have to be careful. The need, or rather the duty, of an effective mission inserted into the reality of social life can produce other inconveniences, such as that of devaluing the sacramental and liturgical ministry, as if it were a brake and obstacle to that of the direct evangelization of the modern world: that is, rather widespread today, of wanting to make the priest a man like any other, in his dress, in his profane profession, in his attendance at shows, in his worldly experience, in his social and political commitment, in the formation of his own family with the abdication of sacred celibacy. There is talk of wanting to integrate the Priest into society. Is this how the meaning of the masterly word of Jesus must be conceived, that he wants us in the world, but not of the world? Didn't He call and elect his disciples, those who were to extend and continue the proclamation of the kingdom of God, distinguishing them, or rather separating them from the common way of life, and asking them to leave everything to follow Him alone? The whole Gospel speaks of this qualification, of this "specialization" of the disciples who were then to act as apostles. Jesus detached them, not without their radical sacrifice, from their ordinary occupations, from their legitimate and normal interests, from their assimilation to the social environment, from their sacrosanct affections; and he wanted them dedicated to himself, with complete gift, with commitment without return, focusing, yes, on their free and spontaneous response, but anticipating their total renunciation, a heroic immolation. Let us listen again to the inventory of our stripping from the lips of Jesus himself: «Omnis, qui reliquerit domum, vel fratres aut sorores, aut patrem aut matrem, aut uxorem, aut filios, aut agros propter nomen meum. .» (Mt. 19, 29). And the disciples were aware of this personal and paradoxical condition of theirs; Peter speaking: «Ecce nos reliquimus omnia, et secuti sumus Te» (ib. 27). Can the disciple, the apostle, the Priest, the authentic minister of the Gospel be a man socially like other men? Poor yes, like the others, brother yes, to the others; servant yes, of others; victim yes, for others; but at the same time endowed with a very high and very special function: «Vos estis sal terrae . . . Vos estis lux mundi»! And it is clear, if we have the notion of the organic composition of the ecclesial body; St. Paul could not be more explicit in this regard: «Corpus non est unum membrum, sed nuova. . . What is omnia unum membrum, ubi corpus? Nunc autem tanto quidem membra unum autem corpus. . .» (1 Cor. 12, 14-21 ff.). The diversity of functions is a constitutional principle in the Church of God; and it concerns primarily the ministerial priesthood: let's try not to lose this specific function for a misunderstood purpose of assimilation, of "democratization", as they say today, in environmental society: "If the salt becomes tasteless, with what will it be made its taste? It is no longer good for anything other than to be thrown away and trampled on by people" (Mt. 5, 13) They are words of the Lord, which must make us reflect on the necessary discernment in the application of the formula mentioned: being in the world, but not of the world. The lack of this discernment, about which ecclesiastical education, ascetic tradition and canon law have told us so much, can actually achieve the opposite effect to what its careless abandonment had led us to hope for: effectiveness, renewal , modernity. In fact, the effectiveness of priestly presence and action in the world can thus be nullified; the effectiveness that was precisely wanted to be achieved when one reacted imprudently to the separation of the priest from the rest of society. Cancelled: in the esteem and trust of the people, and by the practical need to dedicate to profane occupations and human affections: time, heart, freedom, superiority of spirit (see 1 Cor. 2, 15), which only the priestly ministry wanted confiscated for themselves.
GENEROUS INTENTIONS AND WRONG SUGGESTIONS
THE AUTHORITY IN THE CHURCH
You have to be careful. Another dynamic idea, also laudable in root, but often intemperate in its formulation and explosive in its problematic application, is that of the so-called "structures". It is not clear what meaning is attributed to this term in ecclesiastical language, especially when one wants to have some due regard to the work of Christ, to the Church as it is, in its constitutional plan, in its doctrinal heritage, in its traditional elaboration, instrument and sacrament of salvation. But one formula prevails: the structures must be changed. Is this possible? is it legal? is useful? It seems to Us that sometimes the unreal dream of an invisible Church, or the crazy hope of being able to eliminate the difficulties and materiality of the Church-institution, to preserve a pure Christianity, of vague and free conception, or the reckless utopia of giving rise a Church of its own invention do not allow us to reflect on the superficiality of such an ambition, especially if the change in structures aims to begin by destroying, not reforming, those that exist, and if the initiative lacks authority and experience to such a serious operation. Under the transparent veil of an abstract nominalism, subversive innovations are sometimes hoped for, without taking into account two things, which should recommend wisdom and prudence; the first, that the modernization of the structures, let's say, of ecclesiastical legislation is already underway; but to be healthy and vital and promoted by the co-responsibility of those who know and those who can, it requires study and patience, which We are the first to try to encourage, especially with the revision of the Code of Canon Law; the second, that the structures, made the object of contestation, are often anything but contrary to the effects that their change would like to achieve. Whoever knows the Church inside knows it; and while lamenting certain undeniable defects, he sees how love, obedience, trust, zeal can very well reanimate the trunk, like that of an old olive tree, of the old structures for a new vegetation of genuine Christian vitality.
But that's how it is: we would like to change the structures; and by saying this, many people think of the annoyance of authority in the Church. They want to abolish it, but they can't; we want to drive it from the community; and it contravenes a constitutional character of the Church, which Christ wanted to be apostolic; service is wanted, and that is fine, as long as the service is that of pastoral power; you want to ignore it; but how will a Christianity remain authentic without teaching, without ministry, without unity and power deriving from Christ? (see Gal. 1, 8-9; 2 Cor. 1, 24; 2 Cor. 10, 5; etc.; S. IGNAZIO D'A., Ai Magnesii, c. IV). Authority in the Church! for those who experience its heavy burden, and do not aspire to its honor, it is not easy to make an apology! it is now enough for Us to have made this modest defense of it.
FAITH, CHARITY, DISCIPLINE CONSTITUTE UNITY
Our speech becomes long without having spoken to you about what matters most to us now: and that is the renewal of the fabric of relationships within our Church. We would like the Diocese of Rome to once again excel in charity (see S. IGNAZIO D'A., Ad Rom., Prologue); and we praise and encourage those of you who work to give consistency to our Roman community, to give it a breath of friendship, goodness, harmony, mutual esteem and trust, and willing collaboration. We wish that «non sint in vobis schismata» (1 Cor. 1, 10); there may be disparities in practical views, diversity of free opinions, variety of scientific research, multiplicity of pastoral initiatives, novelty of good institutions, and so on; but at the same time and above all, unity of faith, charity and discipline must reign among us. Please note, dear ones, how the style of Our ecclesiastical government wants to be pastoral, that is, it wants to be guided by duty and charity, open to understanding and indulgence, demanding in loyalty and zeal, but paternal and fraternal and humble in sentiment and in shapes. From this aspect, if the Lord helps us, we would like to be loved. So you recognize us and help us. And equally you, elderly Priests or those holding some responsible office, try to understand your Brothers, those who are required to provide you with their work, the young Priests in particular. And these, dear ones, our young Priests, should know that they are well-liked and esteemed; and yes, they want to use dialogue to establish relationships of sincerity and trust with their Superiors, without however taking away responsibility and freedom to decide from those who direct, and without depriving themselves of the merit of obedience. It is in a study of common obedience that the redemptive mystery of Christ's obedience is fulfilled and celebrated among us. Let us give life to the new ecclesial institutions that the Council prescribed: the Presbyteral Council and the Pastoral Commission; let us give diocesan problems a sympathetic interest and a renewed and generous activity; in a word, we do charity, in its internal charism of grace and love, and in its external exercise of service to every need of our brothers and society, to the needs of the poor especially, to the problems of the working and student classes , to the cause of Christ, in a word, our Lenten program, so that we can all celebrate and relive the Paschal mystery with fullness of faith and joy.
May Our Apostolic Blessing comfort you.
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