The Pope who never was
Carlo Maria Martini, one of the Roman Catholic Church’s most influential thinkers, died on August 3 at the age of 85 from a rare form of Parkinson’s disease.
Martini entered the Society of Jesus in 1944 and was ordained priest in 1952. He specialised in Biblical studies and is especially remembered for his books on spiritual exercises, which have transformed the original Ignatian model.
He was appointed Archbishop of Milan in 1980 and elevated to the cardinalate in 1983. These latter appointments were unusual as Jesuits are not traditionally named bishops.
He retired in 2002 to the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem but returned to Milan in 2008 to spend his final years in the Jesuit House in Gallarate outside Milan where he had studied in his younger days in 1944.
Martini was for many years “the Pope in waiting”. To many, he symbolised the reformist spirit of the 1962-65 Vatican Council II. To traditionalists, however, he was a danger to the Church of Christ. At a Synod of Bishops in 1999, he made a veiled call for a Vatican Council III to give local bishops more leeway and “to loosen doctrinal and disciplinary knots that reappear periodically as sore points in the Church”.
The call was brusquely brushed aside by the largely conservative bishops present who were more concerned with undoing some of the previous Council’s reforms than creating new ones with a third Church summit.
Hours after his death, the leading Italian paper Corriere della Sera published his final interview. Church insiders believe that Martini wished that the interview be published after his death in the form of a last will.
Major international media agencies gave prominence to the unusual interview and it was also given due importance on TV channels, radios and newspapers all over the world. What struck most were the words: “The Church is 200 years out of date.” These very same words were headline news on major TV stations, including CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera.
Martini further declared: “Our culture has aged, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our rituals and our cassocks are pompous… The Church must admit its mistakes and begin a radical change, starting from the Pope and the bishops”.
Martini’s motto as found in his cardinal’s coat of arms was: “For the love of truth, dare to choose adverse situations.” He dared to challenge and was not afraid to face thorny questions such as contraception, beginning of human life, collegiality of bishops, right to refuse treatments by terminally-ill patients, role of women in the Church, and others.
However, the renowned Biblical scholar remained a loyal and respected son of the Church to the end. Tributes poured in for him from the Pope and the Church hierarchy. Many stressed Martini’s role as a respected cardinal who dared tackle sensitive issues with an open mind rather than push them under the carpet. “It wasn’t his role to mount the barricades,” said Belgian Catholic weekly Tertio.
Many are now asking: ‘Who will take up his mantle?’ The worldwide crisis that has engulfed the Church in recent years is crying out for a younger version of Martini. Robert Mickens, Rome correspondent of The Tablet, said of his teachings: “They must be seen in the context of coming from a man who loved the Church and who gave up his life to the institution… A whole generation has been inspired by Martini’s teachings and writings. That is his legacy”.
But, perhaps, the words of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini at the time of the calling of Vatican Council II by Pope John XXIII should also be heeded: “The holy old boy doesn’t realise what a hornet’s nest he’s stirring up.” Later Montini, as Pope Paul VI, was to bear the brunt of the storm unleashed by the Vatican Council. He died wasted and disappointed as the Church veered from one position to another satisfying neither the liberal nor the conservative elements within its fold.
The next Pope will, therefore, need to be a very unusual being. A man of vision and drive, with relative youth to see through a much needed reform in the Church’s institutions and teachings, making the Church more Christ like in its simplicity and less institutionalised. It needs to move out of the shadows and particularly to remove the dust and cobwebs that have accumulated within its institutions through more than 2,000 years of power (sometimes unlimited) and tradition.
To achieve this the Church needs a leader of deep knowledge and spirituality but with enough understanding of the world and human nature to know the limits that can be reached – a fine balance that is rarely found, unless divine intervention makes it possible.
But Christ rules over the Church and this gives us hope that the long and unrelenting passion that the Church is going through at present is only part of the necessary process of cleansing and redemption that is so necessary to make the Church more adapted and relevant to the times.
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Svetlana Borg
Sep 13th 2012, 10:30
Kien Kardinal Kbir - sibt dan l-artiklu miktub minnu, qabbiżli d-dmugħ:
http://pro-tridentina-malta.blogspot.com/2012/09/my-life-with-christ.html
Kleriku bis-sens għal min bħali jkun għaddej minn sitwazzjoni partikulari.
Martini Santo Subito!
Henry S Pace
Sep 12th 2012, 18:15
The Church needs a leader of deep knowledge and spirituality but with enough understanding of the world and human nature
Now-a-days various opinionists, commentators or whatever they may be called write about the Catholic Church. They all speak in a dogmatic way what the church should do in today’s world.
It is a fact that the late Cardinal Martini spoke his mind. He was ever faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ
who excelled himself by his Biblical teachings.
He commented that the Church fell behind with the times of today's world. However, he never expressed
himself that the TEN Commandments should be changed . He never contested the Holy Scripture . He
spoke very well about the Church. Again the late cardinal never came out with any proposals what the
Church should do to be compatible in today’s trends.
If ever he did so this was never made public other than within the Vatican walls.
What he said throughout his life, he expressed himself that he was not in agreement in the circumstances.
What he wished to see remained for himself .
Martini further declared: “Our culture has aged,” However, again he just said that and he stopped there.
We should be realistic and say that no pope , cardinal, bishop or priest can ever change the Lord’s
Teachings.
Though the Church is run by human beings we have to go to the basis and say WHAT Pope Paul VI wrote in
his Encyclical
Ecclesiam Suam (HIS CHURCH):
What Christ willed, we also will.
What was, still is.
What the Church has taught down through the centuries, we also teach."
Philip Micallef
Sep 13th 2012, 16:34
Are you sure, you are not missing the wood for the trees.
Monica Muscat
Sep 12th 2012, 17:58
I do not wonder at the proposition Martini is said to have made for another Vatican Council III. I think it is needed, mostly, to enforce what Vatican II set down. I sincerely believe that the Blessed Pope John XXIII, has not yet been declared Saint, but because he has not performed any other First Class Miracles, but because the oldies at the Vatican still look uphim as a "problem maker" who was not aware of the "hornet's nest" he was meddling with!
I do hope that the next one - if there is still time for one, before "the end of time" !!!! - will do just that. Take stock of the present unhappy situation, and 1st, implement certain Vatican II rules and regulations which have been suppressed or ignored, and 2nd, call another Vatican Council and update the rules to get back in touch with the true practicing Christian believers who are not at all happy with all that goes on behind the Vatican State walls.
Kurt Waschnig
Sep 12th 2012, 17:36
Cardinal Martini´s books on spiritual exercises are very interesting to read. He was an outstanding academic and a hope for lot of Christians all over the world, who longed for a brotherly church.
It does not play any important role any longer that Cardinal Martini was for many years “the Pope in waiting”.
He passed away and the possibility for a renewal and transformation of the Catholic Church will probably never occur.
Cardinal Martini said” “The Church is 200 years out of date.” And this sentence struck really because it describes the reality the Catholic Church is facing.
He challenged and was not afraid to face thorny questions such as contraception, beginning of human life, collegiality of bishops, right to refuse treatments by terminally-ill patients, role of women in the Church, and others.
It is good to know that the majority of Christians do not follow the teaching of the Church they decide by themselves to use contraceptive.
Especially Europeans are used to democracy and democratic institutions, gender balance, equality,
women enjoy the same rights like men.
European vote their governments and presidents. Science, technology, globalisation, the internet have made the world a global village.
Information are available in seconds.
People in liberal and open and secular societies are independent and meet their own decision.
Hierarchical and undemocratic institutions like the Catholic Church have no chance to play a relevant role within these societies.
Women are subordinated to men within the Catholic Church. Women have no right to be ordained as Catholic priests or as a deacon.
One must say that is a breach of human rights. Women are not seen as equal within the Church.
Cardinal Martini said” ”"Our culture has aged, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our rituals and our cassocks are pompous.”
"The church must admit its mistakes and begin a radical change, starting from the Pope and the bishops. The paedophilia scandals oblige us to take a journey of transformation."
Clerical child abuse and the cover up of clerical child abuse by the Catholic Church are heinous crimes against innocent children.
The Church lost credibility and reputation all over the world.
There is no answer how the Church can ever play again a relevant role in the society without a renewal and a radical transformation.
Cardinal Martini also questioned the church's line on gay relationships and divorce, calling on it to reconsider what constituted a family in the 21st Century or risk losing even more of its flock.
He said” A woman is abandoned by her husband and finds a new companion to look after her and the children. A second love succeeds. If this family is discriminated against, not just the mother will be cut off but also her children.”
In this way “the church loses the future generation” said Cardinal Martini in the interview, he gave Corriere della sera, an Italian newspaper.
To all important questions the Church has no answers, the only answers the Church have are dogmatic and a traditional language is applied modern educated and skilled human beings do not understand or do not want to hear.
The church should be scared and alarmed that the majority do not pay attention what the Church says.
Cardinal Martini was an outstanding human being, loved by so many, he represented a brotherly church, a Church for all minorities.
Best regards
Kurt Waschnig Oldenburg Germany
e-mail: [email protected]
Andy Farrugia
Sep 12th 2012, 17:50
More copy and paste.......hilarious Herr Waschnig!
Victor Rodenas
Sep 12th 2012, 12:09
The Church does not want to change with the times, it is full with old people with their heads buried in the sand.Gerry will tell us that is the way it should be...unchanged.
Gerry Cowie
Sep 12th 2012, 11:34
Perhaps Louis Cilia should make his next opinion a full job profile for the next pope and explain what it is he personally wants to see from the man. Clearly he is hinting here that he wants a change and with that change certain criteria to be met.
But as he says, Martini stayed totally loyal to the Church and, indeed Christ must be at the centre of it.
Maryann Borg
Sep 12th 2012, 11:27
An excellent article....if only another Martini emerges from the ashes of the present Church!
Mr Joseph Carmel Chetcuti
Sep 12th 2012, 10:59
Excellent article. Pity Martini never became pope.
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