The Council according to Kasper.
With Vatican II, which is celebrating its 50th Anniversary, «the Church is back on the road», points out the neoliberal Cardinal Walter Kasper, but «it is necessary to enter into the concept of renewal for a correct interpretation of the Council».
No, therefore, to the «myth» of Council, the Church will be facing the future as a “creative minority” so it needs a new spiritual springtime.
On January 26th in Rome, a book was presented at the «Centro Pro Unione» on «Catholic Church: Essence-reality-mission» written by the President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
The German Cardinal of the Curia Walter Kasper sees the future of the Church not in maintaining structures for the «Church of the People» which is now anachronistic, but shares the view of the great historian Arnold J. Toynbee, according to whom, in particularly difficult situations in the history of humanity, it was always the qualified and creative minorities who found a way out, followed later also by the majority.
Minister of ecumenism in the days of John Paul II and for some years also with Benedict XVI, usually accustomed to playing, on big issues of Church reform, a partially different tune from the institutional one of the Roman Curia, Kasper is one of the Cardinals with the greatest pull in the Roman Curia.
In the analysis that the German cardinal makes of the crisis of the Church, the figure of the Church fully rooted in the people, which has played great role in history and has made its great contribution, is not coming to an end when faced with a today's pluralistic situation and it cannot be a future-oriented model of the Church in the third millennium.
«The experience of the Second Vatican Council became for me a very effective Church experience and a permanent point of reference – recalls Kasper. When on January 25, 1959 Pope John XXIII announced the Council, the surprise was enormous. There followed a long breathtaking, exciting and interesting period such as the young theologians of today cannot imagine. We experienced how the venerable old Church showed a new vitality, as it flung open the doors and windows and entered into internal dialogue as well as dialogue with other Churches, other religions and modern culture».
It was a Church that was back on track, a Church that did not repudiated nor deny its ancient tradition, but remained faithful, and yet scraped away encrustations and tried to make tradition new, alive and fruitful for its move to the future.
On the reading of the Council, in the years of the duo Wojtyla-Ratzinger, Kasper was an interpreter an intelligent countermelody aimed at the inside of the Roman curia. «I have always been convinced that the sixteen major documents of the council are, as a whole, the compass for the Church’s journey into the twenty-first century - emphasizes Kasper. The Vatican Council II has often been referred to as the council of the Church over the Church. The Church, which has been on its journey through history for two thousand years, during this Council became more fully aware of its own essence, by virtue of which it has lived and acted till then».
Already in his opening speech, held on October 11, 1962, John XXIII said that the task of the Council was to retain in its entirety and without falsifications the sacred heritage of Christian doctrine and teach it effectively.
Paul VI said the same thing on November 21, 1964, on the occasion of the solemn promulgation of the Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, together with the Decree on Ecumenism UR. He said: «This promulgation does not really change anything of the traditional doctrine. What Christ wants, we too want. What was, still is. What the Church has taught for centuries, we also teach. Only that which was assumed is now explicit, that which was uncertain is clear; that which was mediated, discussed and sometimes argued over, has now been peacefully formulated».
The charm and excitement of the council have since vanished.
«The time has come made of sober consideration of the facts, partly also of critical appraisal of Council and especially post-Council events - admits the Cardinal. A new generation has succeeded for which the Council is a very distant event and belongs to another time, a time when they were not even born yet, and with whom they have no personal relationship, as my generation did. This new generation must be given an explanation of what happened then and feed their enthusiasm. For this a solid hermeneutic of the Council is needed».
We should not doubt make a myth out of the Council, where each one «projects and finds their own desires».
According to Kasper, a fairly accurately interpretation the Conciliar texts should be made according to the universally valid rules of theological hermeneutics. When doing so «the so-called real or presumed spirit of the Council should not be separated from the letter of the council», but rather the spirit of the council should be deduced from its history and its texts.
The texts of the council must be understood in light of its history and in the light of the often controversial discussions in its course. Then it is necessary to interpret every single formulation within the complex of all the texts of the Council and take into account, in doing so, the inherent hierarchy of the different Council documents.
Lastly, according to Kasper, the council must re-interpret the Conciliar texts in light of the sources, to which the Council itself was bound and from which it drew copiously».
For an adequate hermeneutical balance it is important to note the reception which the conciliar statements found in the doctrine and life of the Church after the council.
«Properly understood, receiving does not mean mechanically adopting, but is a live ecclesiastic process guided by the Holy Spirit, which takes place in the doctrine as well as throughout the life of the Church - specifies the cardinal. In the post-conciliar period the experience of the entire history of the council found its sequel. The controversy around the definition always follows the controversy surrounding its receipt».
Already during the Second Vatican Council two factions were formed which were soon called «conservative» and, respectively, «progressive». These terms originally had a different meaning from what they would have had after the council.
«Those who were then called progressives were in fact actually conservatives, who wanted to reaffirm the greatest and most ancient tradition of sacred Scripture and the Fathers of the Church, while those who were then called conservatives were unilaterally set on the post-Tridentine tradition of past centuries - points out Kasper. In order to take into account the justified demands of both parties and reach a good conciliar tradition, the widest possible consensus, in many cases compromising formulas was necessary, this too a phenomenon that is not at all new for anyone who knows the history of the councils».
Kasper’s word has great influence in the Curia.
When in 2000 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published the dogmatic declaration «Dominus Iesus» to reiterate the absolute uniqueness of Jesus Christ for the salvation of all men, it was Cardinal Walter Kasper, who still led the ecumenical relations, who said that «some of the wording of the text was not easily accessible to our partners».
Among these the Jews. Joseph Ratzinger, at that time prefect of the former Holy Office, had to explain and say that remained «clear that dialogue between us Christians and the Jews is on a different level than with other religions. The faith shown in the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament of the Christians, for us it is not another religion, but the foundation of our faith».