Monday, November 14, 2011

Notes: Wednesday, November 9-Monday, November 14, 2011

1. "Franco resisted bid by Paul VI to end role in naming bishops"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39637

According to the web-page to which that AQ thread-starter links,
In his letter, Paul VI recalled the Council’s appeal to governments to renounce their privilege in nominating bishops.
[http://www.osservatoreromano.va/portal/dt?JSPTabContainer.setSelected=JSPTabContainer%2FDetail&last=false=&path=/news/cultura/2011/258q11-A-Dio-quello-che---di-Dio.html&title=To%20God%20that%20which%20is%20God]
Would anyone care to let me know the Act of Vatican II in which the Council made that appeal? (I don't recall it being in Dignitatis humanæ, and I checked Lumen gentium, Gaudium et spes, and the Address of Paul VI., on behalf of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, to "all those who hold temporal power" but couldn't find it in any of them.)

Labels: Church and State, Francisco Franco, Hierarchy, John Charles I. Borbón, Paul VI. Montini, Spain

2. "The proportion of IVF cycles resulting in a live baby remained at 17 per cent in 2009, the same as in 2005, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare"

http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/big-breakthrough-for-saving-tiny-lives-but-its-an-overseas-exclusive-20111110-1n9kj.html?skin=text-only

Labels: I.V.F.

3. Fr. Zuhlsdorf and Messrs. Magister and Keener on H.H. The Pope's apparent call, in Caritas in veritate, for a World State

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2011/11/more-on-the-one-world-government-white-paper-from-pont-council-for-justice-and-peace/#comment-305633

I do not find Mr. Magister's defence of the Holy Father's vision for the governance of globalisation convincing. The word "moderamen" is used once in Caritas in veritate, in §57:
Ne periculosa quaedam constituatur universalis potestas monocratici generis, globalizationis moderamen formam induere debet subsidiarietatis, diversis in gradibus ordinibusque dispositum, qui mutuo cooperentur.
[italics in the original,
AAS 101 [2009: 8], p. 693 (53 in Adobe),
http://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/2009/agosto%202009.pdf]
The Vatican website's English section has the following translation:
In order not to produce a dangerous universal power of a tyrannical nature, the governance of globalization must be marked by subsidiarity, articulated into several layers and involving different levels that can work together.
[italics in the original,
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html]
But the same logic would apply to ordinary, non-worldwide States; so for instance, in the case of several small States uniting into a Federation, one might say that 'in order not to produce a dangerous Federal power of a tyrannical nature, the governance of interaction between member States must be marked by subsidiarity, articulated into several layers and involving different levels that can work together'; subsidiarity is, after all, a requirement of any society which is made up of other, smaller societies.

Furthermore, keep in mind the rest of §67; the proposed "true world political authority" ("vera Auctoritas politica mundialis"—italics in the original) would "need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights" ("Auctoritas sane haec ab omnibus est agnoscenda, quae reali potestate pollere debet, ut unicuique securitas, iustitiae observantia, iurium item tuitio praestentur") and would "have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums" ("facultate ipsa pollere debet suarum deliberationum observantiam sodalibus itemque simul disposita in internationalibus tribunalibus praecepta imperandi"). How is that anything other than a World State in all but name?

(Caritas in veritate in Latin is also available here.)

Labels: Benedict XVI. Ratzinger, Caritas in veritate, political science

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Josaphat, Bishop, Martyr, A.D. 2011

6 comments:

Peregrinus said...

Yo, Reggie!

Regarding the appointment of bishops, you want Christus Dominus (Decree concerning the Pastoral Office of Bishops) par. 20:

”. . . this sacred ecumenical synod declares that the right of nominating and appointing bishops belongs properly, peculiarly, and per se exclusively to the competent ecclesiastical authority.
Therefore, for the purpose of duly protecting the freedom of the Church and of promoting more conveniently and efficiently the welfare of the faithful, this holy council desires that in future no more rights or privileges of election, nomination, presentation, or designation for the office of bishop be granted to civil authorities. The civil authorities, on the other hand, whose favorable attitude toward the Church the sacred synod gratefully acknowledges and highly appreciates, are most kindly requested voluntarily to renounce the above-mentioned rights and privileges which they presently enjoy . . .”

Cardinal Pole said...

Thank you very much for that information, Peregrinus.

Matthias said...

Cardinal Fr Ray Blakes blog for Thursday 17th November reminded readers that it is the anniversary of the death of your namesake ,"the last of the Plantagenets, the last of the line of Augustine, the last Archbishop of Canterbury".
I was received into the Church on October and I have always identified with English Catholicism,even as a Proddy,it appealed to me . I told the priest who officiated at my reception that I was an Anglo Catholic- he looked askance,until I said ,yes of that stream prior to the vissititudes of Henry the VIII and his kids. ( Oh I was received by the rector of Melbourne's Latin Mass Community)

L. Crane said...

Your Eminence, I'm curious as to one aspect of Catholic teachings on government. If national administrations are to be explicitly confessional - and I presume (perhaps wrongly) from other posts of yours that this is what you would like to see - then how, in practice, do you stop massive sex abuse within the Church?

The horror stories now emerging from the Irish Church, and often dealing with the days when Ireland's governance was as openly theocratic as (say) Spain's and Portugal's, are hardly very encouraging. Clearly forces outside the Church bureaucracy itself - such as the police - were pretty much powerless to act against clerically cosseted perpetrators. I am not (of course) attempting to defend simple-minded democracy-worship: I am merely puzzled.

Cardinal Pole said...

Thanks for bringing that post by Fr. Blake to my attention, Matthias. I join with him in desiring prayers for the respective souls of Mary I. and Reginald Pole; I prayed especially for Her late Majesty yesterday and will pray especially for His late Eminence today.

And I was glad to see, originally at Mr. Schütz's blog, that you had converted to Catholicism. God bless you.

Cardinal Pole said...

Thanks for your comment, Mr. Crane. I do indeed affirm that every State must make Catholicism its State religion and that every State must make the Catholic Church its Established Church. The problem of how to prevent clergymen from abusing their status in Catholic Confessional States is, I think, not one for which it is possible to formulate universal solutions at the level of principle, since it seems to me to be a practical rather than a theoretical problem.