H
HagiaSophia
Guest
Washington Times:
"…Progressive Catholics have not been asleep at the wheel either. This week, a book published in Italy by a liberal Catholic center in Bologna includes what amounts to a liberal wish list addressed to the newly elected leader of their church in the 21st century. The book is “The Bologna Workshop 1953-2003,” a compilation of documents spanning 50 years of activity at the Institute for Religious Sciences founded in the northern Italian city of Bologna by the Rev. Giuseppe Dossetti, a prominent liberal theologian who first came to prominence in the church as a key consultant in the Second Vatican Council.
In August 1978, as the cardinals were preparing to vote for a successor to Pope Paul VI, each received a lengthy confidential paper prepared by members of the Bologna Workshop under Dossetti’s direction. It offered detailed proposals to the new pontiff, “For the renewal of the pope’s service to the Church at the end of the 20th century.” The conclave elected Cardinal Albino Luciani as Pope John Paul I. When he died suddenly a month later, a second conclave elected Polish-born Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, who took the name John Paul II.
The document was never made public, and its publication in “The Bologna Workshop” proclaims an agenda that liberals consider as timely now as it was 26 years ago.
In what commentators consider its key section the document deals with changes in the papacy, which the new pope is urged to introduce in the first 100 days of his pontificate, when “his prestige is not yet deadened by routine.” All the proposals in this section deal with enlarging the collegial role in the central government of the church of Catholic bishops, with the pope as the first among equals rather than supreme head.
The central change is the creation of a collegial body “at the highest level of the Church” with the pope as president. Meeting on a bi-weekly basis it would consider the problems facing the church as a whole, and would take decisions. The new mechanism “would imply making the collegial manner of exercising supreme responsibility of the Church the ordinary one, and making the personal way the exception,” the document says. The document also urges the new pope to scale down both the power and size of the Roman Curia, the church’s historic central government. Its main function should be to carry out the decisions of the collegial body, the document says.
The new pope is also urged to look into new ways of appointing bishops throughout the Catholic world. Under the present system, the local episcopal conference, usually together with (name removed by moderator)ut from the papal nuncio – the Vatican’s diplomatic representative – submits three names to the pope who makes the final selection. Even so, the pope is not bound to choose a name from the proffered list. He can, and often does, nominate bishops from outside it. The Bologna document suggests that a formula should be found in which the local church picks the new bishop and then seeks papal approval.
Another controversial proposal is that the pope should close down the Vatican’s world-wide network of nunciatures, or embassies, and eventually abolish the diplomatic service of the Holy See (diplomatic speak for the Vatican) altogether. National episcopal conferences, it says, should assume responsibility for relations between their respective countries and Rome…"
"…Progressive Catholics have not been asleep at the wheel either. This week, a book published in Italy by a liberal Catholic center in Bologna includes what amounts to a liberal wish list addressed to the newly elected leader of their church in the 21st century. The book is “The Bologna Workshop 1953-2003,” a compilation of documents spanning 50 years of activity at the Institute for Religious Sciences founded in the northern Italian city of Bologna by the Rev. Giuseppe Dossetti, a prominent liberal theologian who first came to prominence in the church as a key consultant in the Second Vatican Council.
In August 1978, as the cardinals were preparing to vote for a successor to Pope Paul VI, each received a lengthy confidential paper prepared by members of the Bologna Workshop under Dossetti’s direction. It offered detailed proposals to the new pontiff, “For the renewal of the pope’s service to the Church at the end of the 20th century.” The conclave elected Cardinal Albino Luciani as Pope John Paul I. When he died suddenly a month later, a second conclave elected Polish-born Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, who took the name John Paul II.
The document was never made public, and its publication in “The Bologna Workshop” proclaims an agenda that liberals consider as timely now as it was 26 years ago.
In what commentators consider its key section the document deals with changes in the papacy, which the new pope is urged to introduce in the first 100 days of his pontificate, when “his prestige is not yet deadened by routine.” All the proposals in this section deal with enlarging the collegial role in the central government of the church of Catholic bishops, with the pope as the first among equals rather than supreme head.
The central change is the creation of a collegial body “at the highest level of the Church” with the pope as president. Meeting on a bi-weekly basis it would consider the problems facing the church as a whole, and would take decisions. The new mechanism “would imply making the collegial manner of exercising supreme responsibility of the Church the ordinary one, and making the personal way the exception,” the document says. The document also urges the new pope to scale down both the power and size of the Roman Curia, the church’s historic central government. Its main function should be to carry out the decisions of the collegial body, the document says.
The new pope is also urged to look into new ways of appointing bishops throughout the Catholic world. Under the present system, the local episcopal conference, usually together with (name removed by moderator)ut from the papal nuncio – the Vatican’s diplomatic representative – submits three names to the pope who makes the final selection. Even so, the pope is not bound to choose a name from the proffered list. He can, and often does, nominate bishops from outside it. The Bologna document suggests that a formula should be found in which the local church picks the new bishop and then seeks papal approval.
Another controversial proposal is that the pope should close down the Vatican’s world-wide network of nunciatures, or embassies, and eventually abolish the diplomatic service of the Holy See (diplomatic speak for the Vatican) altogether. National episcopal conferences, it says, should assume responsibility for relations between their respective countries and Rome…"
