"There are historical examples which show that the missionary testimony of a "non-worldly" Church emerges more clearly.
Freed from its burdens and from material and political privileges, the Church can dedicate itself more fully and in a truly Christian way to the world; it can truly be open to the world.
It can live with more fluency again its call to the ministry of worshipping God and serving others": this is somewhat surprising appeal launched by Pope Benedict XVI in Fribourg, at the end of his recent trip to Germany.
Words that have profoundly affected Roman Catholics, and not just German ones, and that probably will continue to cause discussion and reflection for months to come.
The Vatican correspondent Sandro Magister summed up the issues raised by Pope Ratzinger's speech: "Before his third trip to his homeland, Benedict XVI had never put such strong emphasis on the ideal of a Church poor in structures, wealth, power. At the same time, however, he has also insisted on the duty of a vigorous 'public presence' of this same Church. Are the two things compatible?"
Vatican Insider asked church historian Daniele Menozzi, professor at the Scuola Normale of Pisa, where the pope's appeal to a "non-worldly" Church comes from - and what impact could it have on its present and future.
What - if any - are the historical precedents of the Pope's appeal?
The invitation to the Church to free itself from the "material and political burdens" in order to rediscover the authenticity of her spiritual message, is linked to a very long tradition. Benedict XVI summed up his intervention by recalling the need for a "purification and inner reform" of the Church. Frequently in the bi-millenial history of Catholicism, voices have emerged from within the church community, denouncing a "deformation", and calling for her to return to a purer "form".
To which Church do they wish to "go back" when making these appeals?
Typically, these appeals have been based on concrete models of historical reference, in particular the calls have harked back to the "Ecclesiae primitivae forma" (the early Church, ed). In Ratzinger's speech, instead, he makes an analogy between the worldly poverty of the Church and the tribe of Levi. This Old-Testament paradigm is rather vague: it gives the impression of a literary, rhetorical reference more than of a line of effective intervention.
The call to return to the origins is a current that has never run out ...
The search for a link between the spiritual renewal of the Church and the recovery of its missionary capacity spans many seasons of Church history. Just think of the debates leading to the Gregorian reform of the eleventh century, or the Catholic reform movement that precedes and accompanies the Protestant Reformation and the Council of Trent, to then become inextricably intertwined with the counter-Reformation's proposals. In more recent times, some members of the current that would later be condemned in 1907 as the modernist heresy - one may recall for instance the novel The Saint, by Fogazzaro - formulated the belief that dialogue with the modern world passed through a spiritualization of the ecclesiastical institution. But perhaps the most immediate precedent is the hope for a "Church of the poor" that a group of Council fathers, in the wake of some aspects of Johannine teaching, launched during Vatican II, going so far as to define elements of structural reform of the ecclesiastical institution.
How successful have these impulses been in the past?
Every moment has its irreducible specificity. Results have varied but I think you can make two general observations. First, the appeal to spiritualize the Catholic presence in history has been effective when it has been made by the heads of ecclesiastical government. The case of the "Church of the poor" is significant: Paul VI entrusts the study of this theme to a committee that later submitts to him some specific suggestions, but he doesn't welcome their proposal and so it sinks. Second, the success is linked to institutional changes: the missionary thrust of the post-Tridentine Church was founded on establishing religious orders whose initial intent was to reject any worldly inducement, to devote themselves to the salvation of men and the glory of God.