"The supreme priority of the Church is love": The Pope's new letter

Today, the Holy Father released an amazing, moving letter that strikes me as historic in its content and tone. “Never before in his Pontificate has Benedict XVI expressed himself in such a personal manner and with such intensity on a controversial subject,” comments Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, head of the Vatican Press Office.

The letter, addressed by the pope to his “brother bishops,” is his personal reflection on the recent painful controversy brought on by his lifting of the excommunications of four Lefebvrite bishops, one of whom turned out to be a notorious denier of the historical reality of the Holocaust.

The letter is moving precisely because it is personal and humble. It is clearly written by an intellectual, and is characterized by the depth and nuance, the elegance and delicacy that are the hallmarks of Joseph Ratzinger’s writing. But this is also clearly a letter written from the heart, addressed to the heart. One senses that the Pope is seeking to respond to the hurt and bewilderment caused by his act, and hoping to contribute a measure of healing.

Without defensiveness or arrogance, the Pope tries to explain why he chose to lift the excommunications as an act of mercy. More importantly, he expresses real regret that the manner in which this was carried out created unnecessary confusion and pain. What he had intended to be a modest gesture of reconciliation was interpreted instead as a retrograde stepping away from all the recent efforts of the Church at Jewish-Christian reconciliation and a repudiation of Vatican II.

What is touching about the letter is the willingness of the Holy Father to show himself so vulnerable and human. His suffering at how he was misinterpreted is on clear display, as is his surprise at the controversy he unleashed. He admits mistakes and expresses a willingness to learn. To paraphrase him, the Pope says: we should have done our homework better; we should have paid more careful attention to the information available on the Internet; we should have made the announcement more carefully, explaining what it meant and what it did not mean.

As Father Lombardi points out, the Pope does not blame any of his collaborators in the Roman Curia, although he easily and justifiably could have done so. "With great nobility," Fr. Lombardi observes, "he doesn't make others shoulder the responsibility."

For me, the most significant part of the letter comes when Benedict addresses the anguished question raised by many bishops (most notably by the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna): even if the act of lifting the excommunications was defensible, was it necessary? At a time when the Church faces so many challenges, aren’t there more important problems to address, more urgent priority tasks?

What IS the priority of the Church today? I was deeply struck by the simplicity and the accuracy of Benedict’s articulation:

“In our days, when in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel, the overriding priority is to make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to God. Not just any god, but the God who spoke on Sinai; to that God whose face we recognize in a love which presses “to the end” (cf. Jn 13:1) – in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. The real problem at this moment of our history is that God is disappearing from the human horizon, and, with the dimming of the light which comes from God, humanity is losing its bearings, with increasingly evident destructive effects.”

It is within the struggle for faith, hope and love in an unbelieving world, Benedict explains, that his act finds meaning: “Leading men and women to God, to the God who speaks in the Bible: this is the supreme and fundamental priority of the Church and of the Successor of Peter at the present time. A logical consequence of this is that we must have at heart the unity of all believers. Their disunity, their disagreement among themselves, calls into question the credibility of their talk of God.”

The world cannot believe when believers are divided. Their divisions call faith into question. So the building up of unity, the healing of polarizations, the prevention of extremism, the promotion of ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue are all concrete steps which contribute, however modestly, towards responding to the greatest challenge of our time: “If the arduous task of working for faith, hope and love in the world is presently (and, in various ways, always) the Church’s real priority, then part of this is also made up of acts of reconciliation, small and not so small.”

I find that there is much in the letter to reflect on, beyond the immediate issue that gave rise to it. How do we overcome the “biting and devouring” that, quoting St. Paul to the Galatians, Benedict sadly observes continues in the Church today? How do we, in his words, “always learn anew the supreme priority, which is love?” These are searching questions worthy of serious consideration, particularly during this Lenten season.