_WORLD WATCH______________________________
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Pope views the world picture
Address to diplomatic corps
In his annual address to the diplomats accredited to the Holy See, Pope John Paul II pointed to several world trouble spots, including the Middle East, Indonesia, and Spain.
The papal audience, held in the Apostolic Palace on January 13, provides the Pontiff with an opportunity to meet the Vatican diplomatic corps, and to provide an overview of world affairs as seen from the perspective of the Holy See. Nearly 400 people—ambassadors and their wives—were in attendance, and each offered personal greetings to the Pope at the conclusion of his address. There are now 175 countries with ambassadors at the Vatican (as opposed to only 93 at the beginning of the current pontificate), along with a handful of envoys with special diplomatic status.
Regarding the Middle East, the Pope warned that the international community should not accept the “routinization of a sort of guerilla warfare, the persistence of injustice, the contempt for international law” that still prevails there. He added that Israelis and Palestinians “cannot contemplate a future except their future together.”
“It is high time to return to the principles of international law,” he said. In a clear rebuke to the government of Israel, he said that the problems of the region had been compounded by the acquisition of territory by force, and could be resolved only by the respect for the right of all people to self-determination, and adherence to the terms of UN resolutions and Geneva conventions. If these principles of international law are not respected, he continued, “everything is at risk,” and the potential for “an escalation of violence will be difficult to control.”
Next the Holy Father spoke of the “tragedy” suffered by Christians in Indonesia in recent months, including decrying the “blatant discrimination” that Christians suffer “in other countries with Marxist or Islamic regimes.” Such injustice, he said, calls for “vigilance” and “unfailing solidarity.”
The Pope mentioned that solidarity had been a powerful force for progress in the dialogue between North and South Korea, and applauded the effort to establish an independent government in East Timor. But he lamented the “terrorist attacks which have brought death to Spain,” and which, he said, “humiliate all of Europe.”
John Paul observed that arms trafficking, the fragility of democratic structures, and “devastating corruption” have wreaked havoc on the continent of Africa. He pointed to three particular sources of concern there: the “Algerian tragedy,” the “massacre without mercy” of civilians in southern Sudan, and the “chaos into which the countries of the Great Lakes region have plunged.” But he saw some positive developments, in the establishment of a peace pact between Ethiopia and Eritrea and the efforts to bring peace to Somalia.
Elsewhere around the world, the Pope pointed to dangers in some countries of South America, “where the socio-economic and cultural disparities, the armed violence and guerrilla activity, and the setbacks for democracy” have exacerbated tensions and suffering. In Europe, he continued, there is an urgent need to recover “the Christian roots” of the civilization, and to be “generous to those—both individuals and nations—who are knocking on the door.”
Speaking of worldwide social trends, the Holy Father noted that some people find it “repugnant to invoke the religious dimension of man and his history,” and would prefer to “reduce religion to the private realm.” That approach is unacceptable, he said, because religion is a real part of the human experience. He also expressed grave concerns about trends in science that suggest men can become “masters of nature and of history,” and in the process threaten to make human lives “objects of dissection, to be bought and sold.”
A common Christian calendar?
Pope suggests an ecumenical accord
During an ecumenical service in Rome that marked the close of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Pope John Paul II proposed a concrete step toward that unity: an effort to agree on a single date for the celebration of Easter.
At a Liturgy of the Word ceremony at the basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls, the Holy Father suggested the common Easter celebration as a realistic step toward Church unity. The current year is a rare one, in which the different liturgical calendars used by Christian communities all agree in marking April 15 as Easter Sunday. “This should encourage us to find a consensus on a common date for this feast,” the Pope suggested, provoking hearty applause.
At St. Paul’s Basilica, the Pontiff was joined at the ceremony by 23 other Christian leaders, representing Orthodox and Protestant groups. In his remarks, the Pope noted that there is “no ecclesial pride in the Catholic Church.” He said that the Catholic Church is totally committed to ecumenical progress. “Despite the misunderstandings and the many problems that still prevent us from enjoying full unity, we can also see—at the visible frontiers of the Catholic Church —important elements of sanctification and of truth that the one Church of Christ is moving us toward true union,” the Pope said.
Church leaders should not see it as their goal to “diminish the differences” that separate one body from another, the Pope cautioned. Theological disagreements, he explained, should be seen not as “obstacles to dialogue” but rather as “an invitation to a frank and charitable exchange” that would ultimately serve the cause of truth. “Real ecumenical work is not looking for compromise, and does not make concessions that involve the truth,” he insisted.
Renewing the call that he made at the start of the Jubilee year, the Holy Father called for a “purification of memory” among all Christian believers. “During the course of the second millennium, we opposed each other, we were divided, we issued mutual condemnations,” he observed. Now, he challenged Christians to “forget the shadows and scars of the past,” and turn together to the task of restoring unity.
“Purification of memory also means building a spirituality of communion,” the Pope continued. “We must live concretely the communion which—even if it is not full—already exists among us.” The exchanges between representatives of different Christian groups, he argued, should be marked by “signs of love” and a real willingness to establish “reconciliation and peace among all Christians.”
Christ on the Internet
Papal message on communications
In his message for World Communications Day, Pope John Paul exhorted Christians to use all available means of spreading the Gospel, “so that the Good News may be heard from all the housetops of the world.”
“In today’s world,” the Pope observed, “housetops are almost always marked by a forest of transmitters and antennae sending and receiving messages of every kind, to and from the four corners of the earth. It is vitally important to ensure that among these many messages, the Word of God is heard.”
Despite the enormous potential of modern communications technology, the Pope continued, roughly two-thirds of the world’s people still have not come to know Jesus Christ. That fact presents a challenge for all Christians, he said. “Media of every kind can play an essential role in direct evangelization,” he remarked.
The papal message warned that the modern media culture “can sometimes seem indifferent and even hostile to Christian faith and morality.” John Paul observed that the power of the media can mold public opinion and influence behavior. “Where once the media reported events, now events are often shaped to meet the requirements of the media,” he noted. “Thus the relationship between reality and the media has grown more intricate, and is a deeply ambivalent phenomenon.”
Nevertheless, the Pope stressed, believers must not be deterred from entering the world of media, and bringing Christian moral principles to bear on the media culture. The Church cannot afford to ignore the media market, he said, since it affords the opportunity to reach the entire world. “Such a wide audience,” he concluded, “would have been beyond the wildest imagination of those who preached the Gospel before us.”
World Communications Day will be observed this year on May 27, but the Pontiff’s message was dated January 24: the feast of St. Francis de Sales, the patron of journalists.
Ad limina visits resume
After a pause for Jubilee celebration
The ad limina visits to the Holy See by bishops from around the world resumed in January, after having been suspended during the Jubilee year.
The bishops of Hungary met with Pope John Paul II in the first ad limina visits of the year, from January 24 through 31. The last group of bishops to make their visits before the year-long hiatus had been those of Portugal, in November 1999.
Every bishop is expected to make an ad limina visit every five years. Today bishops generally come to Rome in groups, organized by national or regional conferences. In 2001, Pope John Paul is scheduled to receive 23 visits, from bishops representing 40 episcopal conferences. There will be three groups of bishops traveling to Rome from Africa, five from Europe, 10 from the Americas, and 22 from Asia. The final visit of the year will bring bishops from Iran and Iraq to Rome on December 10-15.
Pope John Paul II will also resume his pastoral visits to parishes in Rome —another practice which he suspended during the Jubilee year. His first parish was scheduled for February 4. Since he began his visits, two months after his election in 1978, John Paul has been to 291 of the 331 parishes in the Rome diocese.
The Pope’s pastoral program for the year 2001 will be interrupted at least twice. On March 4 through 10, he will participate in the annual Lenten retreat at the Vatican—which will be preached this year by Cardinal Francis George, OMI, of Chicago. Then in October he will clear his schedule in order to attend the deliberations of the Synod of Bishops.
New constitution
Fundamental law for Vatican City government
A new Fundamental Law, or constitution, for the Vatican City-State took effect on February 22, the anniversary of the Lateran accords between Italy and the Vatican.
After the Lateran accords recognized the Vatican as a tiny state, with the Pope as sovereign, Pope Pius XI promulgated a constitution for the governance of the Vatican. This constitution has been periodically amended. Since 1969, a “pontifical commission” composed of five cardinals, each serving 5-year terms, has supervised the government of the Vatican. That commission is currently headed by Cardinal Edmund Szoka, who is assisted by a “special delegate”: an Italian layman, Giulio Sacchetti.
The new Fundamental Law, composed of 20 articles, makes some new distinctions between the legislative, executive, and judicial powers of the Vatican government. It also sets up the position of Secretary General, who will be charged with studying the Vatican’s relations with Italy in the context of the recent changes in the European community. Cardinal Lorenzo Antonetti, a member of the pontifical commission, observes that this is “the most significant change, in a document that is very technical and does not have any great concrete consequences.”
The new fundamental law includes no significant changes in the way the Vatican will be governed. Rather, the fundamental law incorporates various practical changes that have been made in recent years. The new text is also couched in more idiomatic modern language, eliminating some archaic terms.
The constitution serves a unique and highly specialized purpose: to establish the powers of a secular government in the world’s smallest sovereign state. This is no ordinary government; the text of the Fundamental Law makes it clear that the top priority for the Vatican city-state is to ensure the independence of the Holy See. The law stipulates that the Pope is the sovereign, the chief executive, legislator, and judge of the Vatican. Diplomats from other countries are formally accredited not to the Vatican, but to the Holy See.
Pope Pius XI took a personal interest in the details of administering the government when the Vatican city-state was first established. But with the passage of years, pontiffs drew back from strictly governmental affairs, and today most of the powers of government are delegated to the Secretary of State, working through the commission of cardinals. The Lateran Treaty set forth a complex series of political and legal relationships between the Kingdom of Italy and the Vatican. But today most of the accords between the Vatican city-state and the Italian government involve practical details, such as the provisions for electrical service, telephone lines, and monetary exchange.
Formally, the Vatican city-state has a tiny population of citizens—less than 1,000—consisting primarily of cardinals and diplomats whose work requires a Vatican passport. There are about 300 people living within the geographical confines of the Vatican, and another 2,000 who work on the premises. Access to the Vatican grounds is strictly controlled.
Marriage as natural reality
Not a “proprietary” Christian institution
Pope John Paul II met with the judges of the Roman Rota on February 1, and told them that marriage should be understood as a natural reality, not specifically as a “proprietary” institution of the Christian faith.
The tribunal of the Roman Rota— the equivalent of an appeals court—handles the canonical cases that have been settled by lower ecclesial courts, and sent to Rome on appeal. The most common cases involve marriages and annulments. Each year, as the Roman Rota begins a new judicial term, the members of the tribunal are received in an audience with the Pope, who offers some general guidance on how they should approach their work.
“When the Church teaches that marriage is a natural reality, she proposes a truth that is evident to reason, for the good of the partners and of society,” the Holy Father told the members of the tribunal. The Church “confirms” this reality through the sacrament of matrimony, but in this case—unlike the other sacraments of the Church—the sacrament builds on “a reality that already exists.”
This understanding is important, the Pontiff continued, because the “many equivocations” regarding the nature of marriage today have led to “deviations” such as acceptance of common-law unions and same-sex partnerships. These errors, he said, stem from an understanding of marriage as a “specifically cultural” institution, founded on social conventions rather than on unchanging laws of human nature. The “profound inclination of man and woman” that leads toward marriage is not “the fruit of their own invention,” the Pope argued. Rather, the union of man and woman is “a tie prefigured in their nature.”
The marital bond is based on the “intrinsic” differences between, and complementarity of, men and women, the Pope continued. And that bond is by nature a permanent one. Marriage should not be based merely on mutual attraction, nor even on fond sentiments, since these things can change, he observed. The permanence of the marital bond is based on “the power of the will, which already exists in nature.”
The Pope’s affirmation of the indissolubility of marriage comes at a time when the requests for annulments coming before the Roman Rota increase every year. At the close of the year 2000, there were over 1,000 cases pending. There is also a steadily rising number of students in the canon-law courses supervised by the Roman Rota. At the start of this judicial term, 139 students were enrolled, including representatives from Italy, Poland, Romania, the Philippines, Nigeria, and India. Msgr. Raffaello Funghini, the dean of the Roman Rota, observed that with more qualified canon lawyers being trained, more Catholics would benefit from the “right to defense” in ecclesial affairs.
A visit from Russia’s foreign minister
No talk of papal visit
Pope John Paul II met privately with Russian foreign minister Igor Sergievich Ivanov in January, and the Vatican reported that their talks centered on the peace process in the Middle East.
Papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls disclosed that the talks had allowed “an exchange of points of view on the international situation.” In particular, he said, the Pontiff had used the occasion to “illustrate the position of the Holy See regarding Jerusalem.” Other topics discussed during the session, Navarro-Valls said, included the status of Catholics in Russia, where new laws requiring the registration of religious organizations have sometimes caused difficulties for Catholic parishes and especially for Catholic priests who come to Russia from other countries.
In his own remarks to reporters after the session, Ivanov dismissed reports that the topics had included the possibility of a papal trip to Russia. “We did not discuss that subject,” he said.
The Russian foreign minister met with the Pope two days after he attended the groundbreaking ceremonies for a Russian Orthodox church in Rome—the first church in the city that will be under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. Previously, Russian Orthodox in Rome had worshipped together with other Orthodox believers in a chapel maintained by the Patriarch of Constantinople.
Cardinal Gantin celebrates anniversary
Dean of College of Cardinals
Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, the former prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, celebrated the 50th anniversary of his priestly ordination on January 13, with a solemn ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica in which 30 other cardinals participated.
Cardinal Gantin is now the dean of the College of Cardinals. The dean has the responsibility, when the pope dies, of summoning the other cardinals into conclave and presiding over their discussions and votes until a new pontiff is elected. The dean is elected from among the six “cardinal bishops” who stand first in preference among the cardinals. Four of the other cardinal bishops—Cardinals Joseph Ratzinger, Angelo Sodano, Roger Etchegaray, and Lucas Moreira Neves—joined with Cardinal Gantin in concelebrating his anniversary Mass.
Born in 1922 in Benin, Cardinal Gantin became auxiliary bishop of Cotonou, Benin, when he was only 34, and archbishop of the same city in 1956. In 1971 he was called into service in the Roman Curia by Pope Paul VI, working at the Congregation for Evangelization. In December 1976 he was named president of the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace, and in June 1977 elevated to the College of Cardinals. In 1984 Pope John Paul II—with whom he had become friendly during the Second Vatican Council—named him prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, where he served until his retirement in 1998.
Among his more noteworthy moments while in service to the Vatican, Cardinal Gantin signed the letter of excommunication for Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in July 1988, after the Swiss prelate had ordained two bishops in defiance of Pope John Paul II. He also announced the Pope’s decision to strip the renegade French Bishop Jacques Gaillot of his diocesan responsibilities in January 1995. Today, although his health is fragile, Cardinal Gantin continues to serve as a special envoy for Pope John Paul for special occasions—such as, most recently, the January celebration of the 100th anniversary of the evangelization of Burkina Faso.