Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 6—The Georgia Bulletin, May 30, 1985
Cardinal Suenens Interview:
Last Living Council Moderator Says
Church Should Not Be A Democracy
BY SISTER
MARY ANN WALSH
BRUSSELS, Belgium
(NC) — People who see the
church as a democracy
have misinterpreted the
Second Vatican Council,
Cardinal Leo Suenens of
Belgium, the last of the
four moderators of the
council still living, said
May 19 in Brussels.
“The church is not a par
liament with one member,
one vote,” Cardinal
Suenens said, assessing
what he said was the chief
misunderstanding of
“Lumen Gentium,” the
council document on the
church, considered to be
the “Magna Charta” of
Vatican II.
Cardinal Suenens as
sessed the council, which
wili be the topic of an extra
ordinary synod of bishops
in late November and early
December, in an interview
with National Catholic
News Service.
Cardinal Suenens, con
sidered one of the progres
sives at the council, said
that misinterpretation of
the document stemmed
from a sociological reading
of the text which cannot be
read sociologically.
“People read democracy
where there was not
democracy,” he said. “The
church is not a democracy
and not an aristocracy. It is
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a collegial reality.”
Another misreading of
“Lumen Gentium,” said
Cardinal Suenens, was the
view that left members of
the hierarchy out of the
"people of God.”
“The term people of
God,” said Suenens,
“includes all baptized peo
ple, including the pope and
bishops,” he said. Many
have misinterpreted it to
mean the laity versus the
hierarchy, he explained.
Cardinal Suenens said
that “Lumen Gentium”
has to be reread and called
it the most difficult docu
ment of the council,
because it deals with the
church as a mystery.
Cardinal Suenens said
that the Vatican II texts
are still valid, but suffer
from the tendency of peo
ple to read lines out of
context.
“Today people do not
read the documents,” he
said, “they just remember
titles.”
Cardinal Suenens said
that when Pope John Paul
II announced that a synod
to evaluate Vatican II
would take place, he was
surprised, but pleasantly.
“I think it’s a good idea
to bring heads of the
church together,” he said.
“We should do it after 20
years, sort of a look at
where we are, an examina
tion of conscience.”
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He said he had no fears
that the pope will try to go
back on what the council
called for.
“I’m not concerned that
there will be any pulling
back,” he said. “He can’t
do it. There’s no question of
going back and I am sure
the pope will say that very
clearly.”
Cardinal Suenens said
that Vatican II was called
in order to balance the
First Vatican Council
which was cut short when
war broke out between the
French and Germans. Vati
can I, he explained, defined
the role of the pope.
“Vatican I only dis
cussed a few topics, such as
the primacy of the pope,”
he said, “and had to be put
into balance. Vatican II
tried to give a balanced
view of the church by dis
cussing the role of the
bishops and the laity.”
Cardinal Suenens also
said, however, that one key
concept of “Lumen
Gentium” is co-responsibi
lity of the laity.
“Passivity of lay people
is dying,” said Cardinal
Suenens. “There’s a
general conviction that
every Christian by right of
his baptism has the duty to
be an apostle. We’ve all
been created to know God
and make him known.”
One of the four constitu
tions of the council,
“Verbum Dei,” Latin for
word of God, is hardly
known by laity, Cardinal
Suenens said, adding that
the document was “too
theological” for common
understanding.
He said, however, that
the council brought a new
appreciation of Scripture
through the Constitution on
the Liturgy, which en-
Cardinal Suenens
couraged daily Scripture
reading and required
priests to give a homily at
daily Mass.
But “many people in
vented liturgies,” he said.
“New canons were written
by people who were theo
logically incompetent
regarding the meaning of
the Mass. The problem was
terrible in Holland, where
at one point they had a
canon which dropped the
deep sense of the words of
the consecration.”
“The invention, of new
liturgies is a danger,” he
added. “The Mass is not a
matter for individualistic
inventions.”
“Gaudium et Spes,” the
Constitution on the Church
in the Modern World, has
been a difficult one to ap
ply, said Cardinal Suenens,
noting that it deals with a
world that is changing.
“The document was try
ing to give an answer to
problems in the world,” he
said, “but the Gospel does
not have technical
answers. And the problems
now are not what they were
20 years ago.”
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He pointed to the docu
ment’s teaching on war as
an example.
“Gaudium et Spes,” he
said, “generally is anti-war
but not in such a way as to
exclude a defensive war.”
“But now,” he added,
“the question is how far
can you go to defend your
self?
“You cannot deny a per
son’s right to defend
himself, but now the ques
tions are how one does so
and to what extent one
goes?”
Nuclear weapons were
not as developed 20 years
ago as they are now, he ad
ded, and the U.S. “Star
Wars” space defense con
cept was not even talked
about.
Catholics Reply:
Cardinal Suenens said
that in recent years
Vatican II has been blamed
for problems it did not
cause.
“Disarray and confusion
of the last 20 years did not
come out of Vatican II,” he
said. “A great part of the
trouble in the church came
from the trouble in the
world. There was a reac
tion against authority in
the family and in the
school. A materialistic
climate advanced. The per
missiveness in morality
began.
“While we were discuss
ing the church in Rome at
the council, people in the
United States were talking
about the death-of-God
theology.”
Are You Better Off
Than 20 Years Ago?
BY TRACY EARLY
NEW YORK (NC) -
Bishop James Malone of
Youngstown, Ohio, presi
dent of the National Con
ference of Catholic
Bishops, said May 23 that
this fall’s extraordinary
Synod of Bishops will give
the church a chance to
regain the enthusiasm of
the Second Vatican Coun
cil.
Such a renewal at the
synod could spread to
renewal in each diocese, he
said. He rejected the view
that Pope John Paul II call
ed the meeting as a step
toward retrenchment from
post-conciliar develop
ments in the church.
The pope announced in
January that he is convok
ing an extraordinary
assembly of the world
Synod of Bishops this Nov.
25-Dec. 8 to assess the work
of Vatican II 20 years after
the end of the council.
Bishop Malone will be the
NCCB representative at
the synod, which will be
made up chiefly of the
presidents of bishops’ con
ferences around the world.
He made his comments
in a teleconference produc
ed by the National Pastoral
Life Center of New York
and transmitted across the
country by satellite by the
Catholic Telecommunica
tions Network of America.
Other teleconference
participants were Ernie
Cortes, a staff member of
the Industrial Areas Foun
dation, founded by the late
Saul Alinsky, and a consul
tant on parish and diocesan
planning in the Southwest;
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Dolores Leckey, executive
director of the NCCB Com
mittee on the Laity; and
Sister Catherine Pinkerton,
a Sister of St. Joseph and
former president of the
Leadership Conference of
Women Religious.
Father Philip Murnion,
director of the National
Pastoral Life Center,
moderated the program
Paraphrasing a question
made famous by presiden
tial candidate Ronald
Reagan in 1980, he asked
participants if they were
better off now than they
were 20 years ago.
Mrs. Leckey said that
she as a lay person was bet
ter off because of an in
creased sense that “it is
our church" and that the
laity are now “evange
lizing as well as being
evangelized.” But she said
many lay people were
wondering “when we are
going to connect with the
outward mission.”
Sister Pinkerton said the
Religious were better off,
and “nothing is more wor
thy of celebration than
what happened in religious
communities as a result of
Vatican II.” But she ques
tioned how ready church
leaders are to accept
women in decision-making
roles and how ready
Vatican officials are to
recognize the renewal ex
perience of religious com
munities as valid.
Cortes said that as a
Hispanic member of the
church he was better off
because the Hispanic role
in the U.S. church had
grown and gained increas
ed recognition.
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