EDITORIAL Vaticans veto is no laughing
matter
News that the Vatican has blocked an
attempt to honor Dominican Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx by naming a chair after him
at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands seems, at one level, fairly
comic, because this sort of intervention is almost always self-defeating.
It is reminiscent of similar maneuvers in 1990, when Rome
prevented the Swiss University of Fribourg from giving an honorary degree to
Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee because it didnt like his
listening sessions with women on abortion, or 1995, when the Vatican prevented
Gustavo Gutierrez from addressing students at the Gregorian University in Rome
because of his advocacy of liberation theology. In both cases, the controversy
generated favorable publicity for the intended targets, and far more meaningful
honors resulted; Gutierrez, for example, came to Rome anyway and spoke at the
Brazilian college, where scores of students from the Gregorian turned out and
applauded.
In the case of Schillebeeckx, however, the rebuff is no laughing
matter. He has been investigated three times by Rome over three decades, and in
each case Vatican officials found they could make no case against him. This
favorable verdict on Schillebeeckxs work has been well received by the
Catholic faithful; his insights in Christology and in ministry have been
central elements of the renewal that followed the Second Vatican Council of
1962-65, and his books have sold well in dozens of languages.
Yet while Schillebeeckx has been judged orthodox, he is obviously
not in alignment with the Vaticans own theological views. He once called
papal infallibility plain heresy, he has sharply criticized the
appointment of conservative bishops in the Dutch Catholic church, has predicted
that in 50 years you will no longer find a single bishop who is against
optional celibacy and has called opening ministerial roles to married men
and women a matter of basic human rights.
Moreover Schillebeeckx, though Belgian, was a central figure in
shaping the progressive consensus in Dutch Catholicism after the council.
Seemingly overnight Holland was transformed from one of the most traditional
Catholic churches in the world to a stronghold of reform. Its crowning
achievements were the National Pastoral Council, an experiment in shared
governance among priests, religious and laity, and the Dutch catechism, which
presented a version of the Catholic faith fully engaged with modern thought.
Many observers believe the powerbrokers in Rome never forgave Schillebeeckx for
his part in all of this.
So while the Vatican has not moved against Schillebeeckx in any
overt fashion, they have in various ways made their disapproval clear. From
criticism of the Dutch catechism under Paul VI, for which Schillebeeckx was the
final censor, to the latest rebuff on the theology chair, the Vatican has
surrounded Schillebeeckxs theology with a patina of suspicion.
Even now, with Schillebeeckx at 85 and battling prostate cancer,
the Vaticans low-key campaign continues. It is evocative of what Leonardo
Boff, the Brazilian liberation theologian, said when he left the priesthood in
1992 after enduring two doctrinal investigations of his own:
Ecclesiastical power is cruel and merciless. It forgets nothing. It
forgives nothing. It demands everything.
Any Catholic university would honor itself, and not just
Schillebeeckx, by naming a chair for him. One hopes the honor is not long in
coming.
National Catholic Reporter, June 30,
2000
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