A period of change in the Church

Jan 29, 2016

By Massimo Faggioli
The Roman Catholic Church has always been cautious to speak of change, especially in these last couple of centuries.

Rather, it has employed synonyms in order to save defenders of the status quo from the embarrassment of having to acknowledge when actual change has occurred in the Church.

This is evident in the historiographical and theological debate surrounding the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).

The impact of Benedict XVI’s famous speech in 2005 on the two hermeneutics of Vatican II (continuity and reform vs. discontinuity and rupture) is a good example.

The talk created much misunderstanding, evidenced by the reaction of many of those Catholics who are obsessed with continuity.

But there is real complexity in the nature of change within the Church.

The changes ushered in by Vatican II were certainly linked to theological ressourcement (going back to the sources of the great tradition), spiritual renewal (change related to conversion) and reform (restoring a previous, more original form). But they were also of a more radical aggiornamento (a change that does not necessarily have in mind a previous form as normative).

Pope Francis’ pontificate has been, without a doubt, a period of change in the Church. But what is the most appropriate way to identify this change?

Biographers of the Pope have approached the issue in different ways.

Austen Ivereigh focuses on “reform” while Elisabetta Piquè talks about “revolution” and Paul Vallely speaks of “struggle”, suggesting a radical change that has taken place within both Francis and the Church.

All these ways of defining Francis and his action are insightful and accurate, in the sense that they represent part of the reality. But the idea of change in the Church cannot be defined only theologically, that is as a function of its relationship with tradition. Change is also defined historically and politically: the perception of what is going on in the Church is not immune from the perception of what is going on in the world.

A recently published book by Paolo Prodi, one of Italy’s most important Church historians, talks about the eclipse of the idea of “revolution”. Even though his little book, Il tramonto della rivoluzione (Twilight of revolution), never mentions Pope Francis, Prodi’s words are key to understanding the present moment.

Prodi claims that we live in a world where the idea of social and political change has lost legitimacy, even in the great democracies. The myth of the revolution as positive change is over. So, when a leader talks about real change, it is immediately seen as “a revolution,” and only in the Marxist sense.

But historians know that the Church’s development on earth has also been due, at times, to revolutions. The radical reforms enacted by the papacy in the 11th and 12th century were begun with Pope Gregory VII (1073- 1085) and his so-called the “Gregorian revolution.” It was a revolution that created an “imperial papacy” (similar to the one Francis inherited at his election) that had consequences for the entire Church, especially its prophetic element. The result was a vertically and juridically structured Church that saw every prophetic voice as dangerously heretic. -- Global Pulse