BENEDICT XVI BREAKS SILENCE TO THANK POPE FRANCIS FOR HIS GOODNESS by Ines San Martin (Vatican Correspondent)

• In the video talk by Pope Benedict to Pope Francis, it is obvious that his whole theology is eucharistic and that he looks forward to the “transubstantiation” of the whole universe.   The eucharistic ecclesiology of Vatican II and of the ressourcement theologians is also the ecclesiology of Pope Francis.
• Pope Benedict and his successor see the Church as “communion”, with the liturgy, especially the Eucharist, as source and goal of all its powers. Liturgy is celebrated in the local Church and therefore the Holy Spirit is actively present in the local and regional churches.  Pope Francis can speak of the “magisterium” of the South American church.   What binds the Church together at a local, regional and universal level is the activity of the Holy Spirit who confects the Eucharist and who binds the people together in Christ in ecclesial love.   This makes a system of law necessary, with its powers of jurisdiction; but this is a consequence of the unity brought about by the sacrament and not the cause of the unity.
• The source of unity in the Church is the Christian Mystery, the common participation by all in the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ through the celebration of the Eucharist, as we approach the Holy of Holies out of every place and every time since the Last Supper; and we pass into the Father’s presence through the veil which is the flesh of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.
• Church History has shown that, among  those who participate in Christ through the Eucharist, real difference arise, often important differences.   There are all kinds of reasons for this and can be external or internal to the eucharistic communities who have them.  There are ordinary, everyday differences of taste, of priorities, of vocabularies and paradigms, between churches who live in different environments, cultures etc.  All this should be normal.   There are the differences between “conservatives” and “liberals”, “traditional mass” Catholics and “misa normativa” Catholics etc.  Then there are the much more serious differences between strands of Tradition that have diverged from one another, like between Catholicism and Orthodoxy,  Then, again, there are the differences between Catholicism and the Protestant Reformation.
• Pope Benedict made a distinction between differences that arise in continuity with their past, and differences that arise from a rupture with the past.  Whether they are people in the same church or churches that belong to different strands of Tradition that can  no longer recognise one  another, it must be admitted that anything that is a rupture of Tradition must be rejected, while that which is in continuity with Tradition must be accepted.
• Both Pope Benedict and Pope Francis believe we have to get used to accepting differences between people who celebrate the same Eucharist because it is the Father that make us one with Christ in the Eucharist in the Holy Spirit, not ourselves.  As Archbishop Welby said, “We can choose our friends but we are stuck with our relatives,” and we have been made one family by Christ.  Thus, Pope Benedict opened up a dialogue with Hans Kung on one wing of the Church, and both Benedict and Francis have striven to end the schism with the Society of St Pius X on the other wing.   Further afield, both popes realise that neither the Eastern Orthodox Church nor the western Latin Church were conscious of any break with the past, with their own tradition, when the break between East and West took place. Both sides believed themselves to be loyal to Tradition and did not recognise the tradition of the other.  Hence, as Pope Benedict said, it is not the job of the pope to impose a belief from the outside but to bear witness to what is already Catholic belief and thus remind those who have forgotten it: thus the pope cannot impose our belief on them.  The situation requires both sides to come together and allow ecclesial love, sign of the Holy Spirit’s presence, to illuminate both in the truth.   Both popes have indicated that they would not require anything from the Orthodox except the acknowledgement that we are not heretics for believing what we do, and let the Holy Spirit do the rest.
• Pope Francis certainly carries this principle further than Pope Benedict, as he did in  two synods on the family where, instead of smoothing over differences with the use of censorship, they were to be clearly accepted as existing.   As long as loyalty to St Peter ruled out schism, the differences were honestly brought out into the open and there was time for the Holy Spirit to do his work.   Of course, this will result on different pastoral practices in different parts of the Church; but this has been normal throughout history until it was covered over due to the fight against Protestantism.

Both popes are closer about liturgy than is often realised.   Here is Pope Francis: 

 Francis stressed that the Eucharist is not a private prayer or a beautiful spiritual experience, it’s not simply a commemoration of what Jesus did in the Last Supper.”
Rather, it is a “memorial, namely, a gesture that actualizes and makes present the event of the death and resurrection of Jesus: the bread is truly his Body given, the wine is truly is Blood poured out.”
To live in concrete communion with Jesus through the Eucharist while on earth is already the beginning of our passing from death to life, he said.

This is an account of another talk by Pope Francis:

The Lord, the pope said, speaks to His people in many ways: through the prophets, the priests, the Sacred Scriptures. But with the theophanies, He speaks in another way, “different from the Word: it is another presence, closer, without mediation, near. It is His presence.” This, he explained, happens in the liturgical celebration. The liturgical celebration is not a social act, a good social act; it is not a gathering of the faithful to pray together. It is something else. In the liturgy, God is present,” but it is a closer presence. In the Mass, in fact, “the presence of the Lord is real, truly real.”

The first phrase in italics which said that the Mass is a  “memorial, namely, a gesture that actualizes and makes present the event of the death and resurrection of Jesus” shows Pope Francis to be a disciple of Dom Odo Casel who taught that through the Eucharist we share in the event of the death and resurrection of Christ.  So is Pope Benedict.   The second phrase in italics that says the Mass is not simply a social event, even a sacred social event: In the Mass we become one, not because we are looking at each other, but because we share an encounter with God who manifests his presence to us.  He asks God to give us a real sense of the sacred.   This emphasis is the same as that of Pope Benedict.

One of his first appointments was to put Cardinal Sarah as head of the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship.  Cardinal Sarah is a faithful disciple of Pope Benedict.  When he asked Pope Francis what his function is, the pope replied that it is to continue the good work of Pope Benedict.   However, when he told a meeting of the “Reform of the reform” in London a little while ago that he wants all dioceses and churches that can prudently do so to have the priest celebrating Mass facing East from the beginning of Advent, he was wrapped over the knuckles.  I think that he failed to realise that in a Church ruled by synods, it is the function of the Congregation of Divine Worship to provide materials and services, but active projects, campaigns, pastoral decisions are made by the bishops in union with the pope.   Nevertheless, he wouldn’t have this pivotal job if it were not for Pope Francis, and this does indicate the direction towards greater awe that Pope Francis wishes to take while genuinely leaving the details to the bishops.

Finally, in keeping with Vatican II, both popes, like Pope John Paul II, are fully aware of the Eastern traditions as valid versions of the one Catholic Tradition.  Just as the Misa Normativa borrowed from the Anthiochian and Alexandran liturgical traditions for the new eucharistic prayers, so icons are becoming common in the west.  Pope Benedict likening purgatory to the loving embrace of Christ does prefer the Orthodox view over the legalistic view of the West.  His statement that the “filioque” clause in the Creed must be interpreted in a way that is in keeping with the original text used by the Greeks, rather than the other way round, showed his openness to the East.   Pope Francis  in comparing the Church to a hospital rather than a law court is using a well known Orthodox metaphor, while his statement that the only Christian authority is service and the only power the Church has is that of the Cross is music to Orthodox ears. The dialogue continues.  More important is that our Orthodox brethren see that all this is put into practice and is working.