Birthday of Alvaro del Portillo - March 11, 1914

St. Josemaria concerning future Prelates/Fathers: “You must love those who come afterwards more than me: unite yourselves to them, love them humanly and supernaturally, obey them, consummate in unum (Jn. 17, 23)….

And now with reference to D. Alvaro in particular: “My son, you have to love him now… I love him since he was a youth and I prayed to the Lord for him. Since I have begun [the foundation], the only thing I have done is form my sons not to be necessary. You have to love him [Alvaro] now as I love him…

“Right now, from this moment on! From now on you have to pray for him and love him much.”

From a Letter from the Prelate November 28, 1995: “Since 26 June the Work has been going through a stage which Don Alvaro always referred to as the stage of continuity, the stage of fidelity to the spirit and the norms received from our Father. We are called to assimilate them fully, to make them flesh of our flesh, and so fulfill, in the service of the Church and of souls, the mission God has given us – a mission which in no way distinguishes us from the rest of the lay faithful or the diocesan clergy….

“Our Father used to call him saxum. He realized very early on that God had placed this son at his side to be a firm support, and to be the one who would eventually succeed him as head of Opus Dei. Blessed [Saint] Josemaria always kept him close at hand, making sure he became thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the Work, and he gradually prepared him for his future mission. That was how all of us, all the other children of God in Opus Dei, understood it. All of us, even the oldest members, treated him in our normal family style but with a special reverence and respect. This showed our awareness that we were dealing with a brother of ours who at the time was our Father’s most stalwart support, and who we thought would eventually succeed him, whenever God so decided.

“Therefore, when the Electors unanimously chose him on 15 September 1975 to be our Founder’s successor, Don Alvaro was able to comment on the election with that very simple expression: the Electors ‘have voted unanimously, not for Alvaro del Portillo, but once again for the Father. While he said this out of humility, to avoid standing out himself, it was really a profound truth. It made clear what a great man he was, and the special authority with which he took up his new role as Pastor and Father of the family of Opus Dei. He was so close to our Founder’s prayer, thoughts and efforts in his task of founding the Work, that not only could he lend him invaluable support over forty long years, but also, after being elected as his successor, he could act as the clear and certain echo and continuation of our Father during a decisive stage in the Work. He was well prepared to set in motion and direct the new stage then beginning, ‘the stage of continuity in fidelity’ as he stressed from the very first moment, bearing in himself our Father’s authority, which continued uninterrupted.

“His great authority, stemming from his closeness to our Founder, filled the Work wit joy and peace during the especially delicate years that followed our Founder’s death. This authority of his allowed him to carry out, with a firm, sure hand, a very important charge left by our Father: the culmination of the canonical path of Opus Dei. This came about through the pontifical establishment of Opus Dei as a personal Prelature in the Church on 28 November 1982. To him there also fell the task – a very pleasant one, but one requiring a great deal of dedication and sacrifice – of urging forward our Father’s process of beatification. This was accomplished ten years after the establishment of the Prelature, on that unforgettable day, 17 May 1992.

“Opus Dei’s establishment as a personal Prelature ensures – as regards its institutional and juridical aspects – the ecclesial identity of the Work founded on 2 October 1928. Our Father’s beatification reaffirms, in an existential and practical way, the holiness of the path our Father walked and proclaimed. In a certain sense, these two events are especially linked to the Work’s foundational stage, and they give Don Álvaro’s paternal and pastoral role as our Father’s first successor a very special quality” – “unrepeatable.”


It is worth commenting here that the “authority” that St. Josemaria exercised derived from his charism of love for each of us. “Authority” comes from “author” as progenitor of life. St. Josemaria engendered sons and daughters by loving them. And by so loving, he made them capable of forming the “communio” that is the family of Opus Dei. The gift of self that is constitutive of forming a communio originated in the love of the Father. Hence, Escriva wanted the words “genuit filios et filias” engraved on his tomb. Rather, making the same point, they engraved, “El Padre.” This charism of “Father” is apostolically oriented toward all the bishops of the Church in the relation to their dioceses.

Opus Dei is “a little bit of the Church.” Pedro Rodriguez commented that the relationship between the two sacramental (and therefore, ontological) insertions (giving “character”) into the one priesthood of Christ – Baptism (lay faithful) and Orders (ministerial hierarchy) – is the “aboriginal” one that obtained in the early Church. It antedated the clericalization of the Church that took place after Constantine’s conversion. Opus Dei and the Second Vatican Council have marked the death-knell of that clericalization. That aboriginal relationship is the service that the ministerial priesthood gives to the layfaithful in sacraments, Word and Eucharistic Sacrifice, and the need to be served that is the perennial situation of the laity. The union of the two, ministers acting in the Person of the Bridegroom, and lay faithful receptive as the Bride form the one-flesh union in the Eucharist and in the communio of the family of the Work.

Anniversary of Death of Alvaro del Portillo – March 23, 2006

Foundational Charism:

“In order to serve the Church in Opus Dei, everything must always be understood, and carried out, taking as its starting point our Father’s foundational charism. This charism, which was a gratuitous supernatural reality, endures in the Work, endowing it with well defined characteristics. The Holy Spirit didn’t place it in our Father’s soul merely with a view to his personal response to God, but so that it would give shape for centuries to come to the Work our Lord was entrusting to him. This charism cannot become, therefore, a mere historical reference taking us back to the past. It is, through God’s mercy, a living and effective reality in Opus Dei, a power, a grace, from which we all ought to draw nourishment and which we all have the duty of guarding and passing on…. We are, and always will be, living `in our Father’s time,’” said Alvaro del Portillo.[1]

Stage of Fidelity:

“Since 26 June 1975 the Work has been going through a stage which Don Alvaro always referred to as the stage of continuity, the stage of fidelity to the spirit and the norms received from our Father. We are called to assimilate them fully, to make them flesh of our flesh, and so fulfill, in the service of the Church and of souls, the mission God has given us – a mission which in no way distinguishes us from the rest of the lay faithful or the diocesan clergy.

“I shouldn’t continue without speaking to you a little more about Don Alvaro, our Father’s most faithful son and successor, a good and faithful servant, who on 23 March 1994 entered into the joy of his Master. All of us indeed have witnessed his holiness and his fatherly watchfulness. We have seen how he dedicated all his energies to guiding his daughters and sons at every moment along the path of burning love for Christ and of self-giving, in the apostolic task our Founder left clearly marked out – carved in stone, let me say once again.

“But the considerations I am putting before you in this Letter require me now to refer not directly to Don Alvaro’s saintly response, but the significance in the overall history of the Work of what he did while he was our Pastor and Father. Our Father used to call him saxum. He realized very early on that God had placed this son at his side to be a firm support, and to be the one who would eventually succeed him as head of Opus Dei. St. Josemaria always dept him close at hand, making sure he became thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the Work, and he gradually prepared him for his future mission. That was how al of us, all the other children of God in Opus Dei, understood it. All of us, even the oldest members, treated him in our normal family style but with a special reverence and respect…

“Therefore, when the Electors unanimously chose him on 15 September 1975 to be our Founder’s successor, Don Alvaro was able to comment on the election with that very simple expression: the Electors `have voted unanimously, not for Alvaro del Portillo, but once again for the Father.’ While he said this out of humility, to avoid standing out himself, it was really a profound truth. It made clear what a great man he was, and the special authority with which he took up his new role as Pastor and Father of the family of Opus Dei…. He was well prepared to set in motion and direct the new stage then beginning, `the state of continuity in fidelity’ as he stressed from the very first moment, bearing in himself our Father’s authority which continued uninterrupted.”

Domestic Tasks of D. Alvaro:

a. “the culmination of the canonical path of Opus Dei” as “the pontifical establishment of Opus Dei as a personal Prelature in the Church on 28 November 1982.”

b.“urging forward our Father’s process of beatification. This was accomplished ten years after the establishment of the Prelature on… 17 may 1992.”

Prior Tasks at the Second Vatican Council:

· May 2, 1959: named Consultor of the congregation of the Council;
· August 10, 1959: named President of the VII internal Commission De laicatu catholico;
· Named member of the pre-preparatory Commission on the states of perfection;
· August 12 elected member of the III Commission of the Congregation of the Council encharged to study the so-called peculiaria nostrae aetatis apostolatus media.
· October 4, 1962: named conciliar “Peritus.”
· November 4, 1962: named “Peritus” of the Commission for the Discipline of the Clergy and Christian People;
· November 8, 1962: named Secretary of this organism
· Named Consultor of the Commissions for the Bishops and the regime of the dioceses, the Religious and the Discipline of the Faith.
· September 29 – December of 1963: during the Second Session of the Council, the Commission for the Discipline of the Clergy and the Christian People, of which D. Alvaro was Secretary, was encharged to synthesize into a single conciliar decree (to become “Presbyterorum Ordinis). He had to coordinate the work of the members of the Commission which became a conciliar text of a single chapter subdivided into 10 parts.

“To some extent, it as Don Alvaro’s decision that a text be drafted. He argued persuasively that the priesthood was so important in the Church that it well deserved a decree of its own, rather than just a handful of propositions with a concluding message (a suggestion made at some point in the proceedings).

“The drafting of the decree was very hard work, especially because of all the tension there was at that time over the issue of priestly celibacy. That conflict, in fact, got so bad that Pope Paul himself had to intervene. Also, the commission had to reach conclusions regarding the spirituality of priests. One of its decisions was to defend centuries-old traditions against those who regarded them as mere pietism. It discussed the presence of the priest in the world, and why he needed a good formation in the basic human virtues in order to serve the men and women of his time. But it also warned that priests should not adopt lay lifestyles, much less take on commitments of a partisan political nature. Finally, it asserted the freedom to join associations which in one way or another could help them achieve personal sanctification in the carrying out of their priestly ministry.”[2]

“Not a week had gone by after the close of the Council when Cardinal Ciriaci, president of the commission of which Don Alvaro had been secretary, sent him a note expressing heartfelt gratitude and congratulations for the happy conclusion of a great achievement.” The note said: “You steered to a safe harbor your decree, which is by no means the least important of the decrees and constitutions of the Council.” The vote on the document was 2390 to 4, a nearly unanimous approval after thorough debate, on December 7, 1965. Ciriaci said: (History would regard this decree as) “a fresh, and practically unanimous, confirmation by the Second Vatican Council of ecclesiastical celibacy and the exalted mission of the priesthood.” Pope Paul VI said: “I am well aware of the extent to which this is a result of your prudent, tenacious, and courteous efforts. Without failing to respect the freedom of others to have and to express their own opinions, you never swerved from the track of fidelity to the great principles of priestly spirituality.”[3]

Icon of Alvaro del Portillo’s Fidelity to the Charism of St. Josemaria:

On June 27, 1975, with St. Josemaria lying in state in the oratory of Our Lady of Peace in Rome, Alvaro del Portillo got up from where he was praying. He approached the body of St. Josemaria, knelt down at his head, bent over and touched his forehead to the forehead of St. Josemaria. He remained in that position for some long seconds. Then, he got up, removed three red roses from a stem and deposited them at the feet of the saint pronouncing the phrase of St. Paul: Quam speciosi pedes evangelizantium pacem, evangelizantium bona!

Death of Alvaro del Portillo: At 6, 15 p.m. on the afternoon of March 23, 1994, John Paul II arrived at 173 Viale Bruno Buozzi, and descended to the oratory of Our Lady of Peace. Upon entering he said in Italian: “Sia lodato Gesu Cristo!” (Praised by Jesus Christ). All responded the same.
The Pope then knelt down on a predieu with a red stole and remained kneeling in prayer for some ten minutes in the midst of an impressive silence.
He was then invited by the Prelate to pray the response for the dead, but he preferred to intone the Salve and pray three Glory be to the Father’s. He then pronounced the invocations Requiem aeternum dona ei, Domine and Requiescat in pace. He was offered the hyssop and he sprinkled the body of D. Alvaro with holy water. Afterwards, he knelt down and prayed for a short time more. Before leaving the chapel, he blessed all those present.
The Prelate reminded the Pope of the profound love of D. Alvaro for the Church and the Pope for whom he always offered the Mass, and concretely the Mass of yesterday morning that he celebrated in the Cenacle of Jerusalem. Then, he thanked the Holy Father in the name of the Work for his coming to pray. The Pope, in Italian, answered that he considered a duty: “Si doveva, si doveva…

Then the Pope asked the Father what time D. Alvaro had celebrated Mass in the Cenacle. He calculated the number of hours that passed between the last Mass precisely there and the moment of death. The answer was seventeen (17).

Conclusion:

Opus Dei and the Church: Alvaro del Portillo pronounced that the Second Vatican Council “had assimilated and promulgated as common doctrine for all Christians the substantial lines of the charism of Opus Dei.”[1]


[1] Cfr. Romana et Matriten., Beatificationis et Canonizationis Servi Dei Iosephmaria Escriva de Balaguer, Positio super vita et virtutibus, Summarium, no. 964.


[1] Letter from the Prelate, November 28, 1995.
[2] Salvador Bernal, “Alvaro del Portillo,” Scepter (1996) 130-131.
[3] Ibid. 126-128.

Chapel of the Holy Rosary - Puebla, Mexico: Center of the New Evanglization

Second Sunday of Lent B 2009

Transfiguration: To Pray is To Give Off Light

St. Leo the Great on the Transfiguration (Office of Readings):

“The Lord reveals his glory in the presence of chosen witnesses. His body is like that of the rest of mankind, but he makes it shine with such splendor that his face becomes like the sun in glory, and his garments as white as snow.

“The great reason for this transfiguration was to remove the scandal of the cross from the hearts of his disciples, and to prenvent the humiliation of his voluntary suffering from disturbing the faith of those who had witnessed the surpassing glory that lay concealed.

“With no less forethought he was also providing a firm foundation for the hope of holy Church. The whole body of Christ was to understand the kind of transformation that it would receive as his gift. The members of that body were to look forward to a share in that glory which first blazed out in Christ their head."

The Union of the Old and New Testaments:

Moses, Elijah and Christ: The Ten Commandments (Moses), the last testifier of the faith in Israel (Elijah) at the time of Ahab-Jezebel, and the Word of God (Jesus) are revealed conversing about the Passion that is about to take place.

Benedict XVI writes: “Moses and Elijah appear and talk with Jesus. What the Risen Lord will later explain to the disciples on the road to Emmaus is seen here in visible form. The Law and the Prophets speak with Jesus; they speak of Jesus. Only Luke tells us (…) what God’s two great witnesses were talking about with Jesus: they ‘appeared in glory and spoke of his departure (his exodus), which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem’ (Lk. 9, 31). Their topic of conversation is the Cross, but understood in an inclusive sense as Jesus’ Exodus, which had to take place in Jerusalem. Jesus’ Cross is an Exodus: a departure from this life, a passage through the ‘Red Sea’ of the Passion, and a transition into glory – a glory, however, that forever bears the mark of Jesus’ wounds.”[1]

Transfiguration: Prayer as Self-Gift is the Act of Radiating Light: the Basis of the Apostolate

From “Behold the Pierced One: “As He was praying…” [to be = to be-in-relation].

“In the Gospels, ‘the mountain’ is always the realm of prayer, of being with the Father. It was to this ‘mountain’ that Jesus had taken the Three who formed the core of the community of the Twelve: Peter, James and John. ‘As he was praying, the appearance of his countenance was altered,’ Luke tells us (9, 29). Thus he makes it plain that the Transfiguration only renders visible what is actually taking place in Jesus’ prayer: he is sharing in God’s radiance and hence in the manner in which the true meaning of the Old Testament – and of all history – is being made visible, i.e., revelation. Jesus’ proclamation proceeds from this participation in God’s radiance, God’s glory, which also involves a seeing with the eyes of God – and therefore the unfolding of what was hidden. So Luke also shows the uity of revelation and prayer in the person of Jesus: both are rooted in the mystery of Sonship. Furthermore, according to the Evangelists, the Transfiguration is a kind of anticipation of Resurrection and Parousia (cf. Mk. 9, 1). For his communication with the Father, which becomes visible in his prayer in the Transfiguration, is the true reason why Jesus could not remain in death and why al history is in his hands. He whom the Father addresses is the Son (cf. Jn. 10, 33). But the Son cannot die. [Except as He wills: JHN]. Thus Luke suggests that the whole of Christology- our speaking of Christ – is nothing other than the interpretation of his prayer: the entire person of Jesus is contained in his prayer.”[2]

Necessity of Contemplative Life:

"Something else also contributes greatly to the growth of our prayer life - namely , the effort to face every circumstance with an attitude of total abandonment and powerful trust in God, to live in the present moment without fretting about tomorrow's cares, to do everything we do peacefully, without worrying about what comes next. It isn't easy, but if we put our hearts into it, the effort will bear fruit.

"It is also very important little by little to learn to live out every part of our lives under God's eyes, in his presence and in a sort of ongoing dialogue with him, recalling him as often as possible in the middle of our occupations and keeping him company in all we do. The more we try to do this, the easirer mental prayer will become. (It's easier to find God in times of prayer if we have never left him!). Thus the practice of mental prayer should lead to continual prayer, not necessarily explicit, verbal prayer, but rather a constant awareness of God's presence. Living under God's gaze like that will set us free. Too often, when we feel other people's eyes on us, it is because we fear their judgment or crave their admiration; and if we are always watching ourselves, that may be complacency at work - or guilt. But in learning to live under God's merciful, loving gaze, we find only inner freedom" (Jacques Philippe, "Time for God," Scepter (2008) 40-41.

[1] Benedict XVI “Jesus of Nazareth,” Doubleday (2007) 311.
[2] J. Ratzinger, “Behold the Pierced One,” Ignatius (1986) 19-20.

Papal Address to Tribunal of the Roman Rota 2009

"The Truth About Marriage and About Its Intrinsic Juridical Nature"

January 29, 2009 Benedict XVI addressed the Tribunal of the Roman Rota on the occasion of the inauguration of the judicial year.

Distinguished Judges, Officials and Collaborators of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota,The solemn inauguration of the judiciary activity of your Tribunal offers me again this year the joy of receiving you its distinguished members: Monsignor Dean, who I thank for the noble opening address, the College of Prelate Auditors, the Officials of the Tribunal and the Advocates of the Studio Rotale. I address to all of you my cordial greeting, together with the expression of my appreciation for the important task to which you attend as faithful collaborators of the Pope and of the Holy See.

You are expecting the Pope, at the beginning of your working year, to say a word of light and guidance on carrying out your delicate duties. We could dwell upon many topics in this circumstance, but at the distance of 20 years from the Addresses of John Paul ii on psychiatry's incapacity in the nullification of matrimony, of 5 February 1987 (Address to the Roman Rota, L'Osservatore Romano English edition [ORE], 23 February 1987, p. 6), and of 25 January 1988 (ORE, 15 February 1988, n. 7, p. 7), it seems opportune to ask oneself whether and to what extent these interventions have had an adequate reception in the ecclesiastical tribunals.

This is not the moment to draw up the balance sheet, but the fact of a problem that continues to be very real is visible to everyone. In some cases one can, unfortunately, still sense the pressing need of which my venerable Predecessor spoke: that of preserving the ecclesial community "from the scandal of seeing in practice the value of Christian marriage being destroyed by the exaggerated and almost automatic multiplication of declarations of nullity, in cases of the failure of marriage, on the pretext of some immaturity or psychic weakness on the part of the contracting parties" (Address to the Roman Rota, n. 9, 5 February 1987, ORE, 23 February 1987, p. 7).

At our meeting today I am intent on recalling the attention of lawyers to the need to treat the cases with the due depth required by the ministry of truth and charity that is proper to the Roman Rota. To the need for a rigorous procedure, in fact, the above mentioned Addresses, on the basis of Christian anthropological principles, furnish the basic criteria, not only for the close examination of psychiatric and psychological evidence, but also for the judicial definition of the causes.

In this regard it is opportune to recall again some distinctions that draw the demarcation line above all between "psychic maturity which is seen as the goal of human development" and "canonical maturity which instead, is the basic minimum required for establishing the validity of marriage" (ibid., n. 6, p. 7). Secondly, the distinction between incapacity and difficulty insofar as "only incapacity and not difficulty in giving consent and in realizing a true community of life and love invalidates a marriage" (ibid., n. 7). Thirdly, the distinction between the canonistic dimension of normality, that is inspired by an integral vision of the human person "also includes moderate forms of psychological difficulty", and the clinical dimension that excludes from the concept of it every limitation of maturity and "every form of psychic illness" (Address to the Roman Rota, n. 5, 25 January 1988, ORE, 15 February 1988, p. 6). And lastly, the distinction between the "minimum capacity sufficient for valid consent" and the idealized capacity "of full maturity in relation to happy married life" (ibid., p. 7).

I then attest to the involvement of the faculties of the intellect and the will in the formation of matrimonial consent, Pope John Paul II, in the above mentioned Address of 5 February 1987, reaffirmed the principle according to which a true incapacity "is to be considered only when an anomaly of a serious nature is present which, however it may be defined, must substantially vitiate the capacity to understand and/or to consent" (Address to the Roman Rota, n. 7, ORE, 23 February 1987, p. 7).

In this regard it seems opportune to recall that the Code of Canon Law's norm concerning mental incapacity, and the application thereof, was further enriched and integrated by the recent Instruction "Dignitas connubii" of 25 January 2005. In fact, in order for this incapacity to be recognized, there must be a particular mental anomaly (art. 209 1) that seriously disturbs the use of reason (art. 209 2, n. 1; can. 1095, n. 1), at the time of the celebration of marriage and the use of reason or the critical and elective faculty in regard to grave decisions, particularly in freely choosing a state of life (art. 209 2, n. 2; can. 1095, n. 2) or that puts the contracting party not only under a serious difficulty but even the impossibility of sustaining the actions inherent in the obligations of marriage (art. 209 2, n. 3; can. 1095, n. 3).

However, on this occasion, I would also like to reconsider the theme of the incapacity to contract marriage, of which canon 1095 speaks, in the light of the relationship between human persons and marriage and recalling some fundamental principles that must enlighten lawyers.

First of all it is necessary to rediscover the positive capacity that in principle every human person has to marry by virtue of his very nature as man or woman. Indeed, we run the risk of falling into a form of anthropological pessimism which, in the light of the cultural situation today, considers marriage as almost impossible. Besides the fact that such a situation is not uniform in the various regions of the world, one cannot confuse the real difficulties confronting many, especially young people who conclude that marital union is normally unthinkable and impracticable with the true incapacity of consent. Rather, reaffirming the innate human capacity for marriage is precisely the starting point for helping couples discover the natural reality of marriage and the importance it has for salvation. What is actually at stake is the truth about marriage and about its intrinsic juridical nature (cf. Benedict XVI, Address to the Roman Rota, 27 January 2007), which is an indispensable premise if people are to understand and evaluate the capacity required to wed.

In this sense the capacity must be associated with the essential significance of marriage, that is "the intimate partnership of life and the love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws" (Second Ecumenical Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution, Gaudium et spes, n. 48), and, in a particular way, with the essential obligations inherent to it, that must be assumed by the couple (can. 1095, n. 3).

This capacity is not measured in relation to a determined level of existential or effective realization of the conjugal union through the fulfillment of the essential obligations, but in relation to the effective will of each one of the partners, who makes possible and operative this realization already at the moment of contracting marriage.

The issue of the capacity or incapacity, therefore, has sense in the measure in which it regards the very act of the marriage contract, since the bond put in act by the will of the spouses constitutes the juridical act of a lofty biblical interpretation of "one flesh" (Gn 2: 24; Mk 10: 8; Eph 5: 31; cf. can. 1061 1), whose valid subsistence does not depend on the successive behavior of the couple during their married life.

On the other hand, in the reductionist optic that fails to recognize the truth on matrimony, the effective relationship of a true communion of life and love, idealized on a level of pure human well-being, essentially becomes dependent only on accidental factors, and not, instead, on the exercise of human freedom sustained by grace.

It is true that this freedom of human nature, "wounded in the natural powers" and "inclined to sin" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 405), is limited and imperfect, but not for this reason does it become inauthentic and insufficient to accomplish that act of self-determination of the parties who form the conjugal pact, that give life to matrimony and to the family founded on it.

Obviously some anthropological and "humanistic" currents aimed at self-realization and egocentric self-transcendence idealize human beings and marriage to such an extent that they then deny the mental capacity of many people, basing this on elements that do not correspond to the essential requirements of the conjugal bond.

Faced with this concept, canon law experts cannot fail to take into account the healthy realism that my venerable Predecessor indicated (cf. John Paul ii, Address to the Roman Curia, 27 January 1997, n. 4, ORE, n. 6 5 February 1997, p. 3), because the capacity makes reference to a basic minimum so that the couple can give their being as a male or as a female to establish that bond to which the great majority of human beings are called.

It follows, in principle, that the causes of nullity through mental incapacity require the judge to employ the services of experts to ascertain the existence of a real incapacity (can. 1680; art. 203 1, DC), that is always an exception to the natural principle of the capacity necessary to understand, decide and accomplish the giving of self upon which the conjugal bond is founded.

This is what, venerable members of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, I wished to set forth on this solemn occasion, that is always a pleasant circumstance for me. In exhorting you to persevere with a lofty Christian conscience in the exercise of your office, whose great importance for the life of the Church emerges also from the things just said. May the Lord accompany you always in your delicate work with the light of his grace, to which the Apostolic Blessing that I impart to each one with deep affection is a pledge.

Thought Control Over Vulnerable Minds-at-Risk Revisited

I received an email from David Young who says the following:

“I am a critic of "social networking" and "social media", but I am sure that Dame Greenfield's critiques are superficial. She doesn't offer a deep enough understanding of the medium. In truth, I've seen Facebook, to take an example, used for real apostolic activity. Just like the telephone. Another medium, if you will, where there is "friendship through a [microphone]". It's just technology. A method. A signal. But not the sign.”

I would say the following to David: The reference by Greenfield to “brain” may be superficial as in “reductive” and “positivistic.” I believe the danger is to the spirit of the person and the underdevelopment of the will. To watch is not the same as to listen. God speaks and assimilation begins with hearing and listening. The danger of sight, as we know, is the tendency to turn the visible image into the replacement of the divine.

Text on Greenfield:

“Baroness Susan Greenfield, a neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, member of the House of Lords, and Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain recently warned that the instant feedback associated with social networking sites like Facebook -- what she describes as "signing up for friendship through a screen" -- as well as the impersonal manner of communication associated with them, could have perilous effects on the human brain. Greenfield foresees a future in which human adults have severely reduced attention spans, much like children. In her recent speech on the subject to the House of Lords, she underscored a number of potential dangers:"First, I would suggest attention span. If the young brain is exposed from the outset to a world of fast action-reaction, of instant new screen images flashing up with each press of a key, then such rapid interchange might accustom the brain to operate over such time scales. Perhaps when then back in the real world, such responses are not immediately forthcoming, we'll see behaviours regarded as Attention Deficit Disorder. It would be very helpful to investigate whether the near-total submersion of our culture in screen technologies over the last decade might, in any way, be linked to the three fold increase over that time in prescriptions for methylphenidate, the drug prescribed for ADHD."Related to this change might be a second area of potential difference in the young 21st Century mind, a much more marked preference for the here-and-now where the immediacy of the experience trumps regard to any consequences. After all, whenever you play a computer game, you can always just play it again."This type of activity, a disregard for consequence, can be compared with the thrill of compulsive gambling, or the thrill of compulsive eating. Interestingly, as an aside, one study has shown that obese people are more reckless in gambling tasks. In turn the sheer compulsion of reliable and almost immediate reward is being linked to similar chemical systems in the brain that also play a part in drug addiction. So my lords, we should not underestimate the 'pleasure' of interacting with a screen when we puzzle over why it seems so appealing to young people. Rather, we should really be paying attention to whether such activities may indeed result in more impulsive, more solipsistic attitudes."Attention deficits; compulsive behavior; disregard for consequence; increased solipsism. And when one considers where western civilization could go if we continue to decline in our capacity for sustained and painstaking attention to a single matter over long periods of time..."And beyond the valid concern about what social networking sites can do to the mind, I'm even more concerned about what they are doing to our ability to interact socially, and most of all what they are doing to our understanding of friendship and human love. Can you really call a person with whom you've exchanged an email and/or perhaps spoken to on the phone once or twice or met once a "friend"? That's not only a sickly impoverishment of the notion of human friendship; it's downright dangerous for a healthy culture."


I would offer some suggestions from Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.” I take this from Wikipedia on Postman. Postman, W. summarizes, argues that media of communication inherently influence the conversations carried out over them. Postman posits that television is the primary means of communication for our culture and it has the property of converting a culture's conversations with itself into entertainment, so much so that public discourse on important issues has disappeared. Since the treatment of serious issues as entertainment inherently prevents them from being treated as serious issues and indeed since serious issues have been treated as entertainment for so many decades now, the public is no longer aware of these issues in their original sense, but only as entertainment.

He goes further: “Postman draws from the ideas of the media scholar Marshall McLuhan— slightly altering McLuhan's aphorism "the medium is the message" into "the medium is the metaphor"—to describe how oral, literate, and televisual cultures radically differ in how information is processed and prioritized. He also argues that different media are appropriate for different kinds of knowledge. The faculties necessary to sustain rational inquiry simply are not normally encouraged by televised viewing. Reading, a prime example cited by Postman, is a subject of intense intellectual involvement, at once interactive and dialectical, unlike television which limits involvement to passivity. Moreover, as television is programmed for maximum ratings, its content is determined by commercial feasibility, not critical acumen. Television in its present state, he says, cannot sustain any of the conditions needed for honest intellectual involvement and rational argument.”


Personally, I think the deepest problem is still elsewhere. It lies in the retardation of experiencing the self in the action of personal interaction. The only way to access the depths of reality, that is of “Being” unmediated by sensible perception and concept formation, is in the self performing a free (moral) action. There must be interaction with a person, not merely a screen.


I repeat the remarks of John Paul II to young people:
"Young people... know they must live for and with others, they know that their life has meaning to the extent it becomes a free gift for others...” (Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Knopf, 1994, 121-123).When the culture knows nothing of this “free gift for other,” then all, but particularly the young, are tend to be reduced to a state of acedia and boredom and are vulnerable to thought control by a media that is more advertising than true-to-life news and critique.

What Are We To Do?

Precis


What’s up? The world must make the noetic shift, which is Christian faith translated anthropologically as the gift of self. Man must be defined in terms of the working person with Jesus Christ, the worker, as prototype. The working person is the ultimate economic and moral value. All economies must take the working person as measure. All morality must take the acting person as criterion.

Hence, we cannot continue to order freedom by ideologies such as Socialism, Capitalism and the rational animal. The ground has had to be cleared of conceptual constructs which become symbols of reality but which hide it in the very disclosure of it. The great move that must be made consists in accessing the really real of the self in the moment of free action. We have not been philosophically prepared for this. The realist tradition has been frightened of the turn to the subject as a turn to subjectivism, and hence to relativism and the negation of truth. Truth has been identified as a judgment of the “adequatio” of our conceptual constructs with the sensibly real. Science has immortalized this epistemology with unbelievable successes, at least until the advent of particle physics. The global situation is now demanding deeper access to Being - the very “I” - as part of the reality – in fact, the principle part – that is experienced, but on this distinct level of the “I.” The key is the disclosure of the experience, and thus the reality of the Being of the “I.” This was the work of Karol Wojtyla in his “Acting Person.” The task involves the migration from exclusive objectivized knowing to the experience and consciousness of the subject, without leaving the objective. This is what Benedict XVI is insisting on in his insistence in the last two years on “the broadening of reason.”


Consider the revolution that we are engaged in on multiple fronts at the same time: the national and international economic and political, morality and faith. On what level is the healing to take place? What have we failed to understand?

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger hazarded to assert that the Second Vatican Council had not been understood as of 1984, nor as of his own election as pope in 2005. Cardinal Karol Wojtyla wrote in 1968 that “the Pastors of the Church [i.e. “the Conciliar Magisterium as a whole”] were not so much concerned to answer questions like ‘What should men believe? ‘What does it mean to be a believer, a Catholic and a member of the Church?’ ‘What is the real meaning of this or that truth of faith?’ and so on, but rather to answer the more complex question: ‘What does it mean to be a believer…”[1]

The Revolution in Philosophy: Doing Precedes Being; Hence Doing “Broadens Reason” as Required by Benedict XVI

Faith Activates and Enlarges the Self

Consider the following text in the light of philosophy following on the dynamic of faith:

“Metaphysics can no longer provide the first principles of ethical life when philosophy has itself become a mode of ethical life. This is precisely the revolution under way in the history of modern philosophy. It is ethics that now provides the foundation of metaphysics, for we have no access to the order of being other than through our participation in it. Speculation is not a separate avenue toward what is but rather the result of a prior existential openness.”[2]

Exploration:

The real question for the Second Vatican Council was: What does it mean to be a subject believing? What does it mean to be a believing person?

The Council in Dei Verbum #5 answered: the obedience of the whole person as self-gift. It read: “‘The obedience of faith’ (Rom. 16, 26; cf. Rom. 1, 5; 2Cor. 10, 5-6) must be given to God as he reveals himself. By faith man freely commits his entire self to God, making ‘the full submission of his intellect and will to God who reveals.’”

Wojtyla commented: “Man’s proper response to God’s self-revelation consists in self-abandonment to God. This is the true dimension of faith, in which man does not simply accept a particular set of propositions but accepts his own vocation and the sense of his existence. This implies, at least in principle and as an existential premises, that man has the free disposal of himself, since by means of faith he ‘abandons himself wholly to God.’ This dimension of faith is supernatural in the strict sense of the world.”[3]

Revelation, then, is a Person and the act of faith is the act of the total person of the believer – quite literally – “becoming” the Person of the Revealer and experiencing the consciousness of the revelation as within his very self. It is not primarily conceptual knowing as in propositional knowing. Hence, it is not concepts formed by so called “instrumental reason” whereby we cognize Jesus Christ.

This is why Ratzinger says that “faith in God is not a form of knowledge that can be learned like chemistry or mathematics, but remains a belief. That is, it has a perfectly rational structure… It is not just some dark mystery or other with which I have dealings. It gives me insight. And there are perfectly comprehensible reasons for accepting it. But it is never simply knowledge.

“Since faith demands our whole existence, our will, our love, since it requires letting go of ourselves, it necessarily always goes beyond a mere knowledge, beyond what is demonstrable. And because that is so, then I can always turn my life away from faith and find arguments that seem to refute it.”[4] But faith is the consciousness of the experience of self-gift and therefore transcends the conceptual. The knowledge of a person is not a concept but a consciousness arising from experiences. They are inexpressible conceptually. Hence, St. Cyril of Jerusalem says: “These are the secrets which the Church unfolds to him who passes on from the catechumens, and not to the heathen. For we do not unfold to a heathen the truths concerning Father, Son and Holy Spirit; nay, not even in the case of catechumens, do we clearly explain the mysteries, but we frequently say many things indirectly, so that believers who have been taught may understand, and the others may not be injured.” And again, “We must hide that wisdom, spoken in mystery, which the Son of God has taught us. Thus the Prophet Isaias has his tongue cleansed with fire that he may be able to declare the vision; and our ears must be sanctified as well as our tongues, if we aim at being recipients of the truth. This was a hindrance to my writing…”[5]

[1] Karol Wojtyla, “Sources of Renewal,” Harper and Row (1979) 17.
[2] David Walsh, “The Modern Philosophical Revolution – The Luminosity of Existence,” Cambridge University Press (2008) 93.
[3] Ibid 20.
[4] J. Ratzinger, “God and the World” Ignatius (2002) 33.
[5] John Henry Newman, “Arians of the Fourth Century,” UNDP (2001) 48-49.

Thought Control Over Vulnerable Minds-At-Risk

Baroness Susan Greenfield, a neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, member of the House of Lords, and Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain recently warned that the instant feedback associated with social networking sites like Facebook -- what she describes as "signing up for friendship through a screen" -- as well as the impersonal manner of communication associated with them, could have perilous effects on the human brain. Greenfield foresees a future in which human adults have severely reduced attention spans, much like children. In her recent speech on the subject to the House of Lords, she underscored a number of potential dangers:


"First, I would suggest attention span. If the young brain is exposed from the outset to a world of fast action-reaction, of instant new screen images flashing up with each press of a key, then such rapid interchange might accustom the brain to operate over such time scales. Perhaps when then back in the real world, such responses are not immediately forthcoming, we'll see behaviours regarded as Attention Deficit Disorder. It would be very helpful to investigate whether the near-total submersion of our culture in screen technologies over the last decade might, in any way, be linked to the three fold increase over that time in prescriptions for methylphenidate, the drug prescribed for ADHD.

"Related to this change might be a second area of potential difference in the young 21st Century mind, a much more marked preference for the here-and-now where the immediacy of the experience trumps regard to any consequences. After all, whenever you play a computer game, you can always just play it again.

"This type of activity, a disregard for consequence, can be compared with the thrill of compulsive gambling, or the thrill of compulsive eating. Interestingly, as an aside, one study has shown that obese people are more reckless in gambling tasks. In turn the sheer compulsion of reliable and almost immediate reward is being linked to similar chemical systems in the brain that also play a part in drug addiction. So my lords, we should not underestimate the 'pleasure' of interacting with a screen when we puzzle over why it seems so appealing to young people. Rather, we should really be paying attention to whether such activities may indeed result in more impulsive, more solipsistic attitudes.

"Attention deficits; compulsive behavior; disregard for consequence; increased solipsism. And when one considers where western civilization could go if we continue to decline in our capacity for sustained and painstaking attention to a single matter over long periods of time...

"And beyond the valid concern about what social networking sites can do to the mind, I'm even more concerned about what they are doing to our ability to interact socially, and most of all what they are doing to our understanding of friendship and human love. Can you really call a person with whom you've exchanged an email and/or perhaps spoken to on the phone once or twice or met once a "friend"? That's not only a sickly impoverishment of the notion of human friendship; it's downright dangerous for a healthy culture."

Contrast, for just a moment, social networking's potential corruption of true human friendship with the free-flowing thought of John Paul II about young people and the common vocation to love:

"Young people... know they must live for and with others, they know that their life has meaning to the extent it becomes a free gift for others... It is this vocation to love that naturally allows us to draw close to the young...It is necessary to prepare young people for marriage, it is necessary to teach them love. Love is not something that is learned, and yet there is nothing else as important to learn! As a young priest I learned to love human love... If one loves human love, there naturally arises the need to commit oneself completely to the service of "fair love," because love is fair, it is beautiful" (Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Knopf, 1994, 121-123).

Such a population is vulnerable to thought control by a media that is more advertising than true-to-life news and critique.

Benedict's Diagnosis and Prognosis of the [European] American - Global Crisis

The Economy is Secular Trust that is Grounded on Christian Faith

Benedict XVI asserts that only the “Word of God” is reality. Read this again:

If We Don't Trust Christ, We Will Not Trust Each Other

"Even more, the Word of God is the foundation of everything, it is the true reality. And to be realistic, we must rely upon this reality. We must change our notion that matter, solid things, things we can touch, is the most solid, the most certain reality. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord speaks to us about the two possible foundations for building the house of one’s life: sand and rock. He who builds on sand only builds on visible and tangible things, on success, on career, on money. Apparently these are the true realities. But all this one day will vanish. We can see this now with the fall of two large banks: this money disappears, it is nothing. And thus all things, which seem to be the true realities we can count on, are only realities of a secondary order. Who builds his life on these realities, on matter, on success, on appearances, builds upon sand. Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality, it is as stable as the heavens and more than the heavens, it is reality. Therefore, we must change our concept of realism. The realist is he who recognizes the Word of God, in this apparently weak reality, as the foundation of all things. Realist is he who builds his life on this foundation, which is permanent."[1]


"Everything else is “secondary reality.” That includes matter, success and money. Money is simply numbers that are assigned for the ontological value of the working person. He also insists on the “broadening of reason” – something which could only take place if reason were informed by the “Word of God.” But the “Word of God” is not primarily the spoken word, not even Sacred Scripture. Benedict’s habilitation thesis asserts that “revelation precedes Scripture and becomes deposited in Scripture but is not simply identical with it. This in turn means that revelation is always something greater than what is merely written down.”[2] The Word of God is primarily a Divine Person – the Logos of St. John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”[3] – Who can only be known by becoming that Person.

“Like is known by like.”[4] Scripture reads: “No one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son and him to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Mt. 11, 27). The Son is nothing but pure relation to the Father. His very “to be” is the act of obedience and glorification of the Father. Joseph Ratzinger does this metaphysical equivalency of Person and act when he says: “what faith really states is precisely that with Jesus it is not possible to distinguish office and person; with him, this differentiation simply becomes inapplicable. The person is the office, the office is the person. The two are no longer divisible. Here there is no private area reserved for an ‘I’ which remains in the background behind the deeds and actions and thus at some time or other can be ‘off duty;’ here there is no ‘I’ separate from the work; the ‘I’ is the work and the work is the ‘I.’”[5]

To know the Person of Jesus Christ is the work of faith. But faith as a way knowing is a mimicking of the action of the Logos revealing. In that same explanation of his thesis, Ratzinger remarked that as revelation is an “act in which God shows himself,” so also faith is an act where by the Word is received in the believer. It is important to be precise and clear in this – for us steeped in objectified knowing – revolutionary point, Ratzinger says: “the receiving subject is always also a part of the concept of ‘revelation.’ Where there is no one to perceive ‘revelation,’ no re-vel-ation has occurred, because no veil has been removed. By definition, revelation requires a someone who apprehends it.” In a word, the believer must become “another Christ” in act in order to experience in oneself and “know” (become conscious of) Christ. That is to say, “only God knows God, only his Son who is God from God, true God, knows him.”[6] Faith, then, is not merely knowing “about” God, but experiencing God in Jesus Christ. “God cannot be made known with words alone. One does not really know a person if one knows about this person second handedly. To proclaim God is to introduce to the relation with God: to teach how to pray. Prayer is faith in action. And only by experiencing life with God does the evidence of His existence appear.”[7]

Faith as prayer is an anthropological act. It is aptly described as the metaphysics of self-gift, which when in place as a steady attitude toward God becomes a persistent attitude of relation among created persons. As such, that attitude of trust is the foundation of human society in all its parts, including the economic. Where the experience of the human face of God has decayed, which is the Person of Jesus Christ, then God has effectively disappeared from the experience of a society in its intrinsic working parts. He is not denied outright, but relegated to a “hobby.” He survives, but is not a “player.”

N.Y. Post op ed columnist Linda Chavez wrote quoting Niall Ferguson: “Money is a matter of belief, even faith: belief in the person issuing the money he uses or the institution that honors his checks or transfers. Money is… trust inscribed.”[8] She continued: “And once trust breaks down, the system itself collapses. What is worrisome in today’s troubled economy is that trust seems to be dissolving before our eyes.

“Why have banks stopped lending? Why are people pulling their money out of the stock market, driving down the Dow and NASDAQ? Why are people afraid to buy houses? It all boils down to trust.

“Banks don’t trust that debtors – companies, individuals, even other banks – will pay back the money they lend, so they stop lending. Investors don’t trust that companies will be able to earn profits in the near future, so they stop investing. Ordinary people don’t trust that the home they buy will be worth what they paid for it in a year or even a few months, so they hesitate buying.

“This breakdown in trust feeds on itself. Distrust becomes a self-perpetuating and contagious.”[9]

Recent Remarks of Benedict XVI on the Economic Crisis

DENOUNCING THE ERRORS BEHIND THE ECONOMIC CRISIS Vatican City, 27 Feb 2009 (VIS) -

During a meeting with pastors and clergyof the diocese of Rome which took place yesterday in the Hall of Blessingsin the Vatican's Apostolic Palace, Benedict XVI answered eight questions putto him concerning such matters as the world economic crisis, the formationof priests, evangelisation, the educational emergency and the value of theliturgy. Benedict XVI explained that the Church has the duty to present areasonable and well-argued criticism of the errors that have led to thecurrent economic crisis. This duty, he said, forms part of the Church'smission and must be exercised firmly and courageously, avoiding moralism butexplaining matters using concrete reasons that may be understood byeveryone. Referring to his forthcoming social Encyclical, the Pope then presented asynthetic overview of the crisis, analysing it at two levels. First heconsidered the macroeconomic aspects, highlighting the shortcomings of asystem founded on selfishness and the idolatry of money, which cast a shadowover man's reason and will and lead him into the ways of error. Here theChurch is called to make her voice heard - nationally and internationally -in order to help bring about a change of direction and show the path of truereason illuminated by faith, which is the path of self-sacrifice and concernfor the needy. The second aspect of the Holy Father's analysis concerned the sphere ofmicroeconomics. Large-scale projects for reform, he said, cannot come aboutunless individuals alter their ways. If there are no just people, then therecan be no justice. Hence he invited people to intensify their humble,everyday efforts for the conversion of hearts, an undertaking that above allinvolves parishes whose activity is not just limited to the local communitybut opens up to all humanity.

Ratzinger on Spengler and Toynbee

[In Place of “Europe,” Read “United States”]


“At the hour of its greatest success, Europe seems hollow, as if it were internally paralyzed by a failure of its circulatory system that is endangering its life, subjecting it to transplants that erase its identity. At the same time as its sustaining spiritual forces have collapsed, a growing decline in its ethnicity is also taking place.

“Europe is infected by a strange lack of desire for the future. Children, our future, are perceived as a threat to the present, as though they were taking something away from our lives. Children are seen—at least by some people—as a liability rather than as a source of hope. Here it is obligatory to compare today’s situation with the decline of the Roman Empire. In its final days, Rome still functioned as a great historical framework, but in practice its vital energy had been depleted.

“Which brings us to the problems of the present. There are two opposing diagnoses of the possible future of Europe. On the one hand, there is the thesis of Oswald Spengler, who believed that he had identified a natural law for the great moments in cultural history: First comes the birth of a culture, then its gradual rise, flourishing, slow decline, aging, and death. Spengler argued his thesis with examples culled from the history of cultures demonstrating the law of the natural life cycle. His thesis was that the West would come to an end, and that it was rushing heedlessly toward its demise, despite every effort to stop it. Europe could of course bequeath its gifts to a new emerging culture—following the example set by previous cultures during their decline—but as a historical subject its life cycle had effectively ended.

“Spengler’s “biologistic” thesis attracted fierce opponents during the period between the two wars, especially in Catholic circles. Arnold Toynbee reserved harsh words for it, in arguments too readily ignored today. Toynbee emphasized the difference between technological-material progress and true progress, which he defined as spiritualization. He recognized that the Western world was indeed undergoing a crisis, which he attributed to the abandonment of religion for the cult of technology, nationalism, and militarism. For him this crisis had a name: secularism. If you know the cause of an illness, you can also find a cure: The religious heritage in all its forms had to be reintroduced, especially the “heritage of Western Christianity.” Rather than a biologistic vision, he offered a voluntaristic one focused on the energy of creative minorities and exceptional individuals.

“Which leads us to the question of whether Toynbee’s diagnosis is correct. If it is, then we must ask whether it is in our power to reintroduce the religious dimension through a synthesis of what remains of Christianity and the religious heritage of humankind. Which factors will guarantee the future, and which have allowed the inner identity of Europe to survive throughout its metamorphoses in history? To put it more simply, what can still promise, today and tomorrow, to offer human dignity to life?”[10]


[1] VATICAN CITY, OCT. 7, 2008
[2] J. Ratzinger, “Milestones…” Ignatius (1998) 109.
[3] John, 1, 1
[4] J. Ratzinger, “Behold the Pierced One,” Ignatius (1986) 25.
[5] J. Ratzinger, “Introduction to Christianity,” Ignatius (1990) 149.
[6] Benedict XVI, Brazil, October 17, 2007.
[7] J. Ratzinger, “The New Evangelization,” 2000.
[8] “The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World.”
[9] Lind Chavez, “As Trust Dissolves Before Our Eyes,” N.Y. Post, Saturday, December 20, 2008 A 23.
[10] Benedict XVI First Things 159, January 2005, 16-22

February 24, 1947: Opus Dei's First Pontifical Approval

1943 was all about the discovery and approval of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross on the local diocesan level. “On November 8, 19446, Fr. Josemaria once again left Spain for Rome… (H)e passed through Barcelona where he again entrusted to our Lady of Ransom the negotiations awaiting him in the Eternal City to win pontifical approval….

“Once in Rome, he resumed conversations with members of the Roman Curia to expedite a juridical framework suitable for papal approval of the Work… (O)n the feast of the Immaculate Conception he was received in audience by Pope Pius XII. On the 16th he wrote again to those in Madrid: ‘Do not forget that it has been during the octave of the feast of the Immaculate Conception that the solution in Rome began to jell’…

“On February 2, 1947, Pope Pius XII gave his consent to the apostolic constitution Provida Mater Ecclesia. Thus a juridical framework was established within which it was possible to proceed to the pontifical approval of Opus Dei. On February 14 the ‘Congress’ of the Sacred Congregation for Religious… voted favorably on this proposal. The Roman Pontiff in an audience granted to Cardinal Lavitrano on February 24 ratified their opinion. Thus Opus Dei with the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross was approved as a Secular Institute of pontifical right together with its constitutions. The decision of Pius XII was formalized in the Decretum laudis, entitled Primum Institutum and dated February 24, 1947… Opus Dei was thus given its international charter. But he [Escriva] doesn’t hide the need to take further steps along the juridical path.”[1]

That done, the way was now open for the Second Vatican Council (as will become evident in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium - The People of God) that was an epistemological turn from object to subject to affirm the radical equality of both lay faithful and ministerial priests in the Church, all with an equal call to sanctity, and yet with essentially different ways of sharing in the one priesthood of Christ (LG #10). I offer the mind of D. Alvaro del Portillo on the common legal status of all the faithful [as “other Christs”] in the Church:

Vatican II (Lumen Gentium): The Key to the Radical Equality of All the Baptized:“The basis of this whole problem and the key to its solution lies in one incontrovertible fact, emphasized with unprecedented vigour by the Second Vatican Council, namely that all persons who belong to the Church have a common fundamental legal status, because they all share one and the same basic theological condition land belong to the same primary common category. All the faithful, from the Pope to the child who has just been baptized, share one and the same vocation, the same faith, the same faith, the same Spirit, the same grace. They are all in need of appropriate sacramental and spiritual aids; they must all live a full Christian life, following the same evangelical teachings; they must all lead a basic personal life of piety – that of children of God, brothers and disciples of Christ – which is obligatory for them before and above any specific distinction which may arise from their different functions within the Church. The all have an active and appropriate share – within the inevitable plurality of ministries – the single mission of Christ and of the Church. Therefore it follows logically that within the Church all members have certain fundamental rights and obligations in common.”[2]

The Final Juridical Step: The Personal Prelature

The Final Step: The Prelature as guardian of 1) the oneness of the subjective vocation of both laity and priests forming a "communio": each, being sacramentally irreducible [by Baptism and Orders], makes the total gift of self being dynamized to do so by the pastoral charity (fatherhood) of the Prelate; and 2) secularity as “characteristic” whereby the world of work and family is the occasion of the self-giving.The Conciliar Decree Presbyterorum Ordinis #10 reads: “Where the nature of the apostolate demands this, not only the proper distribution of priests should be made easier but also the carrying out of special pastoral projects for the benefit of different social groups in any region or among any race in any part of the world. For this purpose there can with advantages be set up some international seminaries, special dioceses, or personal prelatures and other institutions to which, by methods to be decided for the individual undertaking and always without prejudice of the rights of the local ordinaries, priests can be attached or incardinated for the common good of the whole Church.”

On August 6, 1966, Paul VI wrote the Apostolic Letter Ecclesiae Sanctae for the implementation of, in our case, Presbyterorum Ordinins #10: It read:

“There is no reason why laymen, whether celibate or married, should not dedicate their professional service, through contracts with the prelature, to its works and enterprises.

“Such prelatures shall not be erected without first hearing the views of the episcopal conferences of the territory in which they will serve. In the exercise of their function care is to be shown that the rights of the local ordinaries are not infringed and that close relations are kept with the episcopal conferences at all times.”John Paul II erects Opus Dei as a personal prelature: November 28, 1982: Apostolic Constitution Ut Sit of universal extension.

[1] Rodriguez, Illanes… “The Canonical Path of Opus Dei” Four Courts Press (1994) 167-168.
[2] Alvaro del Portillo, “Faithful and Laity in the Church,” Ecclesia Press (Shannon, Ireland) (1972) 19.

Subsidiarity and Nationalization of Private Institutions

Just a reminder that pragmatism must not trump truth, particularly when that truth is the truth of the human person, who becomes and finds himself by the sincere gift of himself (Gaudium et spes #24). This truth of the human person emerges from the Christology elaborated in the Second Vatican Council that Jesus Christ, not Adam (the type), is the prototype of man (Gaudium et spes #22).

The talk of the media at the moment is all about the nationalization of the banks that are “too big to fail.” As one pundit remarked, “If a bank is too big to fail, then it is simply too big.”[1] The pragmatism of not letting them fail leads to taking ownership out of the hands of the person who alone must “own” because it is only by the work of the person that the earth becomes “gift” to the other. The truth of private ownership is not a “conservative” political stance as opposed to liberal socialism. It is a fundamental truth of the social doctrine of the Church that has its ontological center in the working person.

Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation (SCDF)

“As an ‘expert in humanity,’ the Church offers by her social doctrine a set of principles for reflection and criteria for judgment and also directives for action so that the profound changes demanded by situations of poverty and injustice may be brought about, and this in a way which serves the true good of humanity.

Fundamental principles: “The supreme commandment of love leads to the full recognition of the dignity of each individual, created in God’s image. From this dignity glow natural rights and duties. In the light of the image of God, freedom, which is the essential prerogative of the human person, is manifested in all its depth. Persons are the active and responsible subjects in social life

“Intimately linked to the foundation, which is man’s dignity, are the principle of solidarity and the principle of subsidiarity.

“By virtue of the first, man with his brothers is obliged to contribute to the common good of society at all its levels. Hence the Church’s doctrine is opposed to all the forms of social or political individualism.

“By virtue of the second, neither the state nor any society must ever substitute itself for the initiative and responsibility of individuals and of intermediate communities at the level on which they can function, nor must they take away the room necessary for their freedom. Hence, the Church’s social doctrine is opposed to all forms of collectivism.”[2]

Further on, the Instruction states: “The priority given to structures and technical organization over the person and the requirements of his dignity is the expression of a materialistic anthropology and is contrary to the construction of a just social order.”[3]


[1] Gerald F. O’Driscoll, Jr., WSJ Monday, February 23, 2009, A 15.
[2] SCDF, “Insturction on Christian Freedom and Liberation, #73
[3] Ibid #75.

Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Relgion

Obama to GOP Leaders: "You can't listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done."


Limbaugh: "Is it your intention to censor talk radio through a variety of contrivances, such as 'local content,' 'diversity of ownership,' and 'public interest' rules - all of which...are the death knell of talk radio and the AM band?"



The issue of freedom of speech is not merely political. Freedom of speech is grounded in the metaphysical anthropology of self-determination that is rooted in Christology as the prototype of anthropology(Gaudium et spes #22). The "I" of Christ masters his human will to obey to death. Self-determination is the precise locus of human freedom whereby man takes possession of himself and thus is able to transcend himself and express this determination and transcendence in speech.

If you shut down freedom of speech, you shut down freedom of religion, which is tantamount to shutting down man as image of God with the inherent right to communicte that truth. And since the being of the "I" is the supreme locus of reason's encounter with beingt (Fides et ratio #83), to prohibit the self-transcendence that is speech, you prohibit the truth and light that reason yearns for. Reason needs the activation of the believing subject to access being in its fullness. As Christ became transfigured when he prayed to the Father, so all acting believers radiate the light of being that reason seeks. When that action of faith as self-transcendence is lacking, reason “wilts”[1] under the burden of endless facts from data-bases. It lacks the consciousness that gives "meaning" to facts.

Reason needs faith as anthropological act of self-transcendent to experience answers to its ontologically grounded tendency toward the absolute. This is the reason for insight and invention in the Christian West which has been the cradle of the scientific, political and economic development.

This is the major reason for the non-development of Islamic society. The God of Islam is so utterly transcendent, that He is even beyond reason. Consider Benedict XVI’s remarks at Regensburg: “for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.” And John Paul II said: In Jesus Christ, “God has gone too far! ... Precisely because He called God His Father, because He revealed Him so openly in Himself, He could not but elicit the impression that it was too much… Man was no longer able to tolerate such closeness, and thus the protests began.

“This great protest has precise names – first it is called the Synagogue, and then Islam. Neither can accept a God who is so human. ‘It is not suitable to speak of God in this way,’ they protest. ‘He must remain absolutely transcendent; He must remain pure Majesty. Majesty full of mercy, certainly, but not to the point of paying for the faults of His own creatures, for their sins”[2]

Consider also the suppression of freedom by the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union until such time as there would be plenty to go around. The suppression precluded any possibility that there would be plenty of whatever since its source was precisely the freedom that was suppressed.

The remarks of President Obama below smack of precisely of that tactic: please curtail your freedom of speech and fall in line with me since I won and I have the power. This is a serious practical situation that demands that we all work together as I say. There must be no dissent. Curtail your freedom of speech. (And, once that is done, we will have curtailed your freedom of religion… and your reason).


Exhibit A: President Obama

WASHINGTON -- President Obama warned Republicans on Capitol Hill today (January 23, 2009) that they need to quit listening to radio king Rush Limbaugh if they want to get along with Democrats and the new administration.

"You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done," he told top GOP leaders, whom he had invited to the White House to discuss his nearly $1 trillion stimulus package.

One White House official confirmed the comment but said he was simply trying to make a larger point about bipartisan efforts.

"There are big things that unify Republicans and Democrats," the official said. "We shouldn't let partisan politics derail what are very important things that need to get done."
That wasn't Obama's only jab at Republicans today.

While discussing the stimulus package with top lawmakers in the White House's Roosevelt Room, President Obama shot down a critic with a simple message.

"I won," he said, according to aides who were briefed on the meeting. "I will trump you on that."

The response was to the objection by Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) to the president's proposal to increase benefits for low-income workers who don't owe federal income taxes.

Exhibit B: Rush Limbaugh

“I have a straightforward question, which I hope you will answer in a straightforward way: Is it your intention to censor talk radio through a variety of contrivances, such as "local content," "diversity of ownership," and "public interest" rules -- all of which are designed to appeal to populist sentiments but, as you know, are the death knell of talk radio and the AM band?
‘You have singled me out directly, admonishing members of Congress not to listen to my show. Bill Clinton has since chimed in, complaining about the lack of balance on radio. And a number of members of your party, in and out of Congress, are forming a chorus of advocates for government control over radio content. This is both chilling and ominous.

“As a former president of the Harvard Law Review and a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, you are more familiar than most with the purpose of the Bill of Rights: to protect the citizen from the possible excesses of the federal government. The First Amendment says, in part, that "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." The government is explicitly prohibited from playing a role in refereeing among those who speak or seek to speak. We are, after all, dealing with political speech -- which, as the Framers understood, cannot be left to the government to police.

“When I began my national talk show in 1988, no one, including radio industry professionals, thought my syndication would work. There were only about 125 radio stations programming talk. And there were numerous news articles and opinion pieces predicting the fast death of the AM band, which was hemorrhaging audience and revenue to the FM band. Some blamed the lower fidelity AM signals. But the big issue was broadcast content. It is no accident that the AM band was dying under the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which choked robust debate about important issues because of its onerous attempts at rationing the content of speech.

“After the Federal Communications Commission abandoned the Fairness Doctrine in the mid-1980s, Congress passed legislation to reinstitute it. When President Reagan vetoes it, he declared that ‘This doctrine… requires Federal officials to supervise the editorial practices of broadcasters in an effort to ensure that they provide coverage of controversial issues and a reasonable opportunity for the airing of contrasting viewpoints of those issues. This type of content-based regulation by the Federal Government is … antagonistic to the freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment… History has shown that the dangers of an overly timid or biased press cannot be averted through the freedom and competition that the First Amendment sought to guarantee.’

“Today the number of radio stations programming talk is well over 2,000. In fact, there are thousands of stations that sir tens of thousands of programs covering virtually every conceivable topic and in various languages. The explosion of talk radio has created legions of jobs and billions in economic value. Not bad for an industry that only 20 years ago was moribund. Content, content, content, Mr. President is the reason for the huge turnaround of the past 20 years, not ‘funding’ or ‘big money,’ as Mr. Clinton stated. And not only the AM band been revitalized, but there is competition from other venues, such as Internet and satellite broadcasting. It is not an exaggeration to say that today, more than ever, anyone with a microphone and a computer can broadcast their views. And thousands do.
“Mr. President, we both know that this new effort at regulating speech is not about diversity but conformity. It should be rejected. You've said you're against reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, but you've not made it clear where you stand on possible regulatory efforts to impose so-called local content, diversity-of-ownership, and public-interest rules that your FCC could issue.
“I do not favor content-based regulation of National Public Radio, newspapers, or broadcast or cable TV networks. I would encourage you not to allow your office to be misused to advance a political vendetta against certain broadcasters whose opinions are not shared by many in your party and ideologically liberal groups such as Acorn, the Center for American Progress, and MoveOn.org. There is no groundswell of support behind this movement. Indeed, there is a groundswell against it.

“The fact that the federal government issues broadcast licenses, the original purpose of which was to regulate radio signals, ought not become an excuse to destroy one of the most accessible and popular marketplaces of expression. The AM broadcast spectrum cannot honestly be considered a "scarce" resource. So as the temporary custodian of your office, you should agree that the Constitution is more important than scoring transient political victories, even when couched in the language of public interest.
“We in talk radio await your answer. What will it be? Government-imposed censorship disguised as "fairness" and "balance"? Or will the arena of ideas remain a free market?”

Remarks of Cardinal Ratzinger on the Conditions of Freedom:

“The modern idea of freedom is thus a legitimate product of the Christian environment; it could not have developed anywhere else. Indeed, one must add that it cannot be separated from this Christian environment and transplanted into any other system, as is shown very clearly today in the renaissance of Islam;

the attempt to graft on to Islamic societies what are termed western standards cut loose from their Christian foundations misunderstands the internal logic of Islam as well as the historical logic to which these western standards belong, and hence this attempt was condemned to fail in this form. The construction of society in Islam is theocratic, and therefore monist and not dualist; dualism, which is the precondition for freedom, presupposes for its part the logic of the Christian thing.

In practice this means that it is only where the duality of Church and state, of the sacral and the political authority, remains maintained in some form or another that the fundamental pre-condition exists for freedom. Where the Church itself becomes the state freedom becomes lost.

But also when the Church is done away with as a pubic and publicly relevant authority, then too freedom is extinguished, because there the state once again claims completely for itself the justification of morality; in the profane post-Christian world it does not admittedly do this in the form of sacral authority but as an ideological authority – that means that the state becomes the party, and since there can no longer be any other authority of the same rank it once again becomes total itself. The ideological state is totalitarian; it must become ideological if it is not balanced by a free but publicly recognized authority of conscience. When this kind of duality does not exist the totalitarian system in unavoidable.

“With this the fundamental task of the Church’s political stance, as I understand it, has been defined; its aim must be to maintain this balance of a dual system as the foundation of freedom. Hence the Church must make claims and demands on public law and cannot simply retreat into the private sphere. Hence it must also take care on the other hand that Church and state remain separated and that belonging to the Church clearly retains its voluntary character.”[3]



[1] John Paul II, “Fides et ratio” #5.
[2] John Paul II, “Witness to Hope,” Knopf (1994) 40-41.
[3] J. Ratzinger, “Church, Ecumenism and Politics – Theology and the Church’s Political Stance,” Crossroad (1988) 162-163.