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I suppose that was the reason why a plenary indulgence was granted to people who gathered together before the basilicas on the great feast days while the Pope gave his blessing Urbi et Orbi. Fair enough. For, although such attendance was not precisely earth-shattering, it had important consequences: the large numbers made a great contribution to the honour of the Apostolic See and to the public profession of faith in the rock on which the firmness of the whole Church is built. This in fact was the object of granting the indulgence. The same reasoning could be applied to the indulgences proclaimed in Luther’s time by the people who collected alms for the building of St. Peter’s.
So now we know. Hans Küng’s massive criticism of the critics of his views on infallibility reached me with the newspapers announcing that the Pope was to proclaim a Holy Year. It was the same week in which sensational headlines about the Lambton case gave way to the reassuring news that the heart of the establishment was sound: fox-hunting, hard-riding Anne would really marry her stalwart and even more hard-riding Mark.
The juxtaposition is hardly fair. The announcement of Anne’s engagement may well have been timed without regard for less edifying events in high places. And Kiing’s worst enemies only find fault with him for his purely intellectual activities. Nor would the most narrow-minded curialist conceive the Holy Year as a counterblast to one theologian’s suspect views on infallibility. But institutions under attack have a way of seeking the support of the simple masses by providing them with an occasion for junketings: a marriage in England, a jubilee and indulgences in Rome.
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- Copyright © 1973 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 lta sane concedebatur plenaria indulgentia Us qui thebus solemnibus prae foribus basilicarum assistebant, dum Ponlifex benediceret Urbi et Orbi, et rationabiliter quidem. Nam huiusmodi assistentia etsi in se levis, ordinabatur tamen ad finem magni momenti, eo quod frequentia populi maxime tunc conferebat ad honorem Sedis Apostolicae, at ad publicum professionem fidei de ipsa petra supra quam totius Ecclesiae construitur soliditas; et hie erat finis concessionis indulgentiae. Et simili modo ratiocinaberis de illis indulgentiis quae tempore Lutheri publicabantur a coilectoribus eleemosynarum pro aedificatione basilicae S. Petri. L. Billot, S.J., De Ecclesiae Sacramentis, Vol. II, Rome 1922, p. 251.Google Scholar
2 Fehlbar? Eine Bilanz, Benziger, Ziirich‐Einsiedeln‐Cologne, 1973.
3 Documentation Catholique, June 3, 1973.
4 Summa Theologica, Pars III, Supplement,Google Scholar Q.25 a.2: Indulgentiae simpliciter tantum valent, quantum praedicantur. Cf. Galtier, P. S.J., De Paenitentia, Rome, 1950, p. 531Google Scholar.
5 ‘Last August during my visit to Assisi I wished to enter the holy chapel at Portiuncula to pray, and to obtain the Plenary Indulgence, but was unable to do so by virtue of the fact that two nuns were standing stork‐like across the threshold of the chapel, each with one foot in the chapel and the other foot inside the basilica, but in mid‐air, i.e. not touching the basilica's marble floor. As these nuns finished the prayers necessary for obtaining the Plenary Indulgence they would lightly touch the floor of the basilica with their second foot, immediately resuming their former curious stance on their one foot in the holy chapel as they renewed their prayers.’ Letter in The Tablet, January 20, 1962. Will such scenes be repeated in Rome?
6 ‘I did not describe you as a “liberal Protestant”, but merely said that on this one question 1 could only argue as if I were dealing with a liberal Protestant’ Correspondence reproduced in The Tablet, June 23, 1973, and America, July 7, 1973.
7 Of course Bishop Butler didn't put it quite in this way. In fact he said that we could accept the definition of the Immaculate Conception even if our notion of original sin was foggy, hoping to understand it better later (The Tablet, April 3, 1971). But all our notions of original sin are a little foggy today and Rahner's attempt to provide an up‐to‐date interpretation of the dogma provides a distinctly dusty answer to seekers after enlightenment. Incidentally Küng has an amusing footnote on the way in which theologians rush forward with ‘reasons of convenience’ when confronted with the definition of a dogma which they had formerly questioned: Supposing the Pope were to define the immaculate conception of St Joseph I have no doubt that modern Catholic theologians would be able to put up a spirited defence of the definition, based on reasons of convenience drawn from the present‐day understanding of man and society. The reasons might be theological (“chosen foster‐father”), ecclesiological (“patron of the Church”), moral‐pedagogical (“exemplary paterfamilias and husband”), social‐critical (“worker”, perhaps “proletarian”, and certainly “refugee”), and finally basically anthropological (“true human being and man of his time”). (Fehlbarl p. 375.)
8 Fehlbar1 p. 405.
9 The Tablet, I.e.
10 Karl Rahner, Strukturwandel der Kirche, Freiburg, 1972, p. 103. A translation of this book is being published by SPCK, London.
11 ‘Christus oratione certe efficaci postulat pro Petro ut primate indeficientem in fide firmitatem seu, quod idem est, infallibilitatem. Atqui praerogativae Petri, ut primatis, transeunt ad eius successores. Ergo….’ Zapelena, T. S.J., De Ecclesia Christi, Pars Altera, Rome, 1954, p. 204Google Scholar.