Posted on 08/05/2019 2:52:05 PM PDT by ebb tide
ROME, August 5, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI met with Monsignor Livio Melina, who was recently dismissed from the embattled Pontifical John Paul II Institute in Rome. The meeting, which took place last week, comes at a time when professors are being dismissed from the institute, new statues are being adopted, and courses key to the legacy of John Paul II are being abandoned.
Benedict XVI met Msgr. Melina on Friday having invited him to a private audience. Sources told CNA that Benedict gave his blessing, prayers, and assurances of solidarity.
The monsignor, who had presided over the institute for ten years, was dismissed as chairman of moral theology once new statutes were promulgated. Pope Francis announced in 2017 that he was re-founding the Institute, giving it a new mission and focus. Melina had been chair of moral theology at the Institute until his dismissal. Pope Benedict was known to have been a close collaborator of the Institute.
Changes mandated by the Vatican included the dismissal of certain faculty members and the abolition of its chair of fundamental theology. In addition, the entire faculty and staff were temporarily suspended. St. John Paul II founded the school in 1981 as the Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. It was given the mandate by John Paul II's apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio to be an interdisciplinary school that focused on the Church's theology of sexuality, marriage, and family.
Controversy over the refounding of the Institute and dismissal of faculty continues. For example, a former professor at the Institute, Dr. Monika Grygiel — daughter of philosopher and friend of Pope John Paul II — recently wrote at Italian daily Il Foglio, denouncing the “terrible suppression” and “destruction” of a renowned academic community. She wrote that the “violence” of the Vatican’s “abolition” of the Institute was “something unheard of in academia.” She added that the reformed Institute was built upon “the injustice of dismissals, on non-existent, totally questionable or even defamatory grounds.”
Also, graduate students at the Institute are blogging their objections to the changes there, which include the dismissal of professors and elimination of courses tied to the intellectual legacy bequeathed by Pope John Paul II. On the “Gli studenti GP 2 informano” (“The students of the Giovanni Paolo 2 shall inform”) website, the students’ letter of protest can be signed by supporters who wish to show solidarity. The students objected to a July 29 press release from the Institute, which they believe did not address their concerns. Hundreds of students and alumni have signed the letter. Some say that students will not be able to complete the academic programs for which they are enrolled, and that faculty dismissals were accomplished without due process. According to CNA, some faculty members say they do not object to Pope Francis’s plan to expand the Institute’s mission. However, they object to how new administrators are implementing the changes.
Institute vice-president Fr. José Granados told CNA last week that the identity of the institution is “seriously threatened.” Fr. Granados said that “objective problems” posed by the recent changes must be addressed, warning of the "danger" that the changes pose "to the original mission of the Institute, which Pope Francis has clearly said he wants to preserve, not just as a piece of the past, but precisely because it is a source of renewal and a pathway for the Church’s accompaniment to families.”
Fr. Juan José Pérez-Soba, who teaches pastoral theology and moral theology at the Institute, told CNA that Fr. Melina's dismissal is a concern, saying that in light of the importance Cardinal Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict — gave to teaching fundamental morals at the Institute, “the suppression of the chair of fundamental morals and the dismissal of Livio Melina takes on new light,” he said.
“This set of changes now appears as a search to change the moral paradigm. There seems to be a desire to discard objective morality, which affirms the truth about the good to which man is called, following Veritatis splendor. And it seems intended to open a process of review of all sexual morality from subjectivism, starting with Humanae vitae,” he said.
On Saturday, the UK Catholic Herald reported that the Institute’s administrators plan to “formulate adequate responses” to the concerns this month.
Ping
An open disagreement between two Popes?
Didn’t you read the article? It is technically a private meeting, and any disagreement is technically private, even if it happens to be making international news.
Just as many of Pope Francis’ statements are technically private, event if they appear in the NYT.
Sometimes the Church idea of privacy is a little perverse—sort of like the privacy being demanded at a pride parade. The perverseness is a little harder to grasp in the Church if you aren’t used to the Roman way of doing things.
The meeting is no longer private if the results of it are voluntarily revealed publicly.
N.B. It was Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI who invited Melina to a meeting.
Do you think the timing is coincidental?
Can I adopt a statue too? :)
just thinking how very much better things would be had Pope Benedict not felt it necessary to retire
Depends what you mean by private.
Private can me “not an act of exercising one’s office,” and is often used that way in certain areas in the Church.
The publication of the book Jesus of Nazareth was a private act, in that it was not an exercise of the papal office, even though it was a making public of something, but of something as a private theologian not a church official.
The Pope leading a 100,000 people in the Rosary at Yankee Stadium is engaged in a private devotion.
A priest praying the divine office, or saying Mass by himself, exercises an official office on behalf of the people—and that is, in terms of public and official, a bigger deal than the Yankee stadium Rosary.
I suspect the stress would have killed him in a couple of months and then we would have ended up with Jorge without an effective check in the back ground.
That’s just my two bits, but on the whole, I’m not second guessing either BXVI or the Holy Ghost.
How about the much publicized and much touted agreement between Bergoglio’s Vatican and Red China concerning the betrayal of the the persecuted Catholics by the communists?
The agreement was made public, but neither the Vatican nor the Chicomms have released the contents of said agreement.
Public or private?
I see "an open disagreement". That's my answer to my own question.
You're free to disagree, semantics or not.
I think that God has kept B16 alive as a sort of punishment, making him watch in real-time the folly of his resignation and the disastrous consequences of his weakness. This is his purgatory. Kyrie eleison.
From how you describe it in your post, and what I have heard, I would say private—both because the contents are private and because at least from what you say it is unclear of who did what in what capacity—which means one has negotiations by officials that are authorized to explore possible official action, which may have led to unofficial action, or may eventually lead to official action, but all we have now is fog.
If I were a Chinese bishop, I would attempt to make sense of the mess. Otherwise, I’d follow the lead of Cardinal Zen, who is best positioned to know what is going on in hell, as it were, or should I say, what hell is going on.
There is also a Cardinal Tong. I do not know him at all or his stance.
From what I do know of the situation, and of yourself, I suspect that you would find Cardinal Zen consoling.
I’m sure that Pope Benedict, observing due decorum, is both making sure that, in the technical sense, there is no “open” disagreement, but is aware that his actions will be putting Francis through a little bit of purgatory.
It wouldn’t surprise me if he also has adopted a nice pet who gets to sample the food first.
could be.
i’ve no real idea what goes on there
(comment: i guess i got spoiled by the last couple of popes...this one i just can’t get on his wavelength.. which is intended to be a kindly way of expressing the thought...)
as for the ‘spirit’ -— whatever he’s doing with P. Francis is way beyond my ability to understand or figure out!
truly,
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways My ways, saith the LORD.” Isaiah 55:8
If I were a Chinese bishop I would tell both the Chicomms and Bergolio to get lost (that's the kindest thing I can say).
Off hand, I hope that I would have the grace to do that too, from what I know of the situation, but I trust that if I were a Chinese bishop I would know more, and pray that I would still have the grace and fortitude to do the right thing.
But for the grace of God go I.
I wouldn’t feel bad about not being on his wave length, in fact, I in no way judge people who have given up trying.
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