Too harsh and yet too tame

I believe the recent six-month ban on Fr Mark Montebello OP - ordering him to refrain from speaking in public on matters relating to morality, ethics, the faith and the Church - is a popular one. Since I think the ban was partly imposed in response to public opinion, I want to say something in the name of those who think the response is out of proportion to what Fr Montebello wrote in a newspaper article about the new Pope.

Essentially, four charges have been made against Fr Montebello. First, his article was written in an offensively dismissive tone - beginning with the title that likened the election of Pope Benedict XVI as a "bad joke".

Second, he descended into bad taste: Many people, wrote Fr Montebello, "are probably expecting that Ratzinger, being of advanced age and having cardiac problems, will pass away as quickly as possible". While he did not identify himself with this expectation, the article's title does suggest he is not completely out of sympathy with it.

However, errors of bad taste and disrespectful tones bring with them their own punishment. They devaluate one's word and do considerable damage to one's moral authority - as is shown, in fact, through publicly and privately expressed reaction against Fr Montebello. There is no need to take disciplinary action against Fr Montebello for these lapses.

The third charge concerns a raft of claims that Fr Montebello makes about certain statements made and actions taken by Joseph Ratzinger when Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. These statements and actions, Fr Montebello wrote, "badly compromised" Cardinal Ratzinger with diverse groups.

Now, it is simply a matter of fact that the cases Fr Montebello mentions represent instances where the former cardinal's statements and actions were received badly by one group or another within and beyond the Church. Of course, these statements and actions can be presented and clarified in a sympathetic, contextualised way (in one case, on homosexual persons, Fr Montebello interprets rather than paraphrases Cardinal Ratzinger) and some of the published responses to Fr Montebello tried to do just this.

Surely, given that the controversial reputation the Pope, when still a cardinal, precedes him, the opportunity to clarify what he has said and done should be seized.

Suppressing someone who reminds us of that reputation will not suppress the reputation itself. It will leave many devout Maltese Catholics wondering, as they do, how to square the reputation with the Pope's disarming, charming smile. In my experience, they have tended to arrive at the provisional conclusion of "He's holy but, you know, German" (perhaps because ordinary people tend to find more ethical authority in a shining face than in an angry, partisan priest). Surely it is a pity to let linger a defence of the Pope that is mildly racist and largely unclear about the rationality of the stands taken by the former cardinal.

The fourth charge is that Fr Montebello should not question the appropriateness of the choice of Pope Benedict. But Fr Montebello questions this while acknowledging that the Pope is highly intelligent, highly learned and highly dedicated. His claim is that Joseph Ratzinger was so controversial as cardinal that doubts are raised about his ability to bring unity rather than further division in the Church.

That Cardinal Ratzinger was a controversial figure is challenged by no one. The harshest published reply to Fr Montebello's article, matching it in tone, stated that the cardinal "was not afraid to be a sign of contradiction". So surely the way forward, once again, is not to suppress someone who wonders if Joseph Ratzinger is adequate for the office of Peter but to address the doubt squarely, in the way that Cardinals Kasper and Martini (both known for their disagreements with the former cardinal) have done.

The problem with the silencing of Fr Montebello, therefore, is not just that he did not say anything that warranted the ban. It also does not make good sense to issue it. It misses an important opportunity to clarify the teaching and thought of Benedict XVI. It is, in a sense, too tame a response because it does not tackle the issues raised energetically enough.

It also lets pass opportunities to clarify important misconceptions about the nature of the Church, which probably do more harm than any disrespect heaped upon the Pope. One of these misconceptions, often voiced to me when outraged Catholics were telling me that the Archbishop ought to take steps against Fr Montebello, is that the Church is a club, and you either sign up for the rules or resign.

But the Church is not a club. A club, even an international one, is exclusive; the Church is universal. It is because of this that when the Pope and bishops speak they address all humanity, not just their members. Membership of the Church is never complete - because conversion is a life-long process. And the Spirit moves, as we say, where it wants, beyond the confines of the visible Church.

A misunderstanding of the Church that gets wrong the nature of episcopal authority, of conversion and of the mystery of grace is a serious misunderstanding. Yet, it is not being addressed, even though Fr Montebello's article has accidentally raised it.

The alternative way to handle an article like Fr Montebello's would be to present it side by side with a viewpoint (or more) that places matters calmly in context, that addresses doubts in a theologically refined but accessible way.

To those who ask: "But can the Maltese take this?" the answer is that this is how a few decades ago many matters of doctrine used to be presented (though orally), even to children: as a debate between orthodoxy and the devil's advocate (played ludically by a priest).

The presentation would be itself part of the message: a calm confidence in reason, in reaching the truth together. As Timothy Radcliffe, the former Master General of the Dominican Order to which Fr Montebello belongs, has recently written, if there is one thing that Europe needs to be reminded of in our age is that one can have confidence in the use of reason to arrive at truth. And surely there is no more appropriate way to defend a Pope whose motto is Cooperatores Veritatis.

ranierfsadni@europe.com