Prominent dissidents embrace Vatican authority?

I am always suspicious when well-known public figures in the Catholic world, long known for their leftist rhetoric and often dissident views, are reported to have turned coat and enthusiastically embraced the magisterial orthodoxy. Yet this is exactly what is being reported in recent news about Walter Cardinal Kasper, Peter Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., and Edinburgh Archbishop Keith Patrick Cardinal O'Brien. I have written about at least one vignette in Kasper's history of dissent from Vatican views in an essay entitled "The Kasper-Ratzinger Debate and the State of the Church," originally published in the New Oxford Review (April 2002), pp. 18-25. It's hard to imagine men like Kasper, a maverick theologian who somehow got himself appointed as President of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, and Kolvenbach, the superior general of the severely eroded and dissident Society of Jesus, could so suddenly shed their former "progressivist" identities. Yet this is what is reported by Sandro Magister at www.chiesa in Rome on March 9, 2005. Excerpts:

For example, in the closing homily for the annual week of prayer for Christian unity, last January 25, Kasper said some things out of keeping with his reputation as a progressivist.

He made strong references to faith in Jesus Christ as the "only savior of all humanity" – in full agreement with the declaration "Dominus Iesus" published by Ratzinger in 2000 and bitterly contested by the advocates of dialogue – and continued:

"But is this reality still clear to all of us? Do we keep it well in mind during our discussions and reflections? Or do we not rather find ourselves in a situation in which our primary task, our greatest challenge, is to remember and reemphasize this common foundation, and prevent its being rendered meaningless by the so-called 'liberal' interpretations which define themselves as progressivist but are, in reality, subversive? Precisely at this moment, when everything is becoming relative and arbitrary in postmodern society, and everyone creates his own religion à la carte, we need a solid foundation and a common point of reference that will be trustworthy for our personal life and for our ecumenical work. And what foundation could we have, except Jesus Christ? Who better than He to guide us? Who can give us more light and hope than He can? Where, except in Him, can we find the words of life (cf. Jn. 6:68)?"

But even more sharply in contrast with his erstwhile progressivism is what Kasper has written in a book recently published in Germany and Italy, by the publishing houses, respectively, of Herder and Queriniana: Sacrament of Unity: The Eucharist and the Church. Kasper published this book for the occasion of the eucharistic year proclaimed in 2004 by John Paul II, following hard upon the heels of the Pope's publication of an encyclical in 2003 on the eucharist: "Ecclesia de Eucharistia." The prevailing intention of the encyclical is reportedly that of denouncing the abuse, evidently widespread in central Europe and Latin America, of celebrating the Mass without an ordained priest, not only because of scarcity of priests but because of an erroneous interpretation of the "priesthood of all believers." Some in the progressivist camp even defend the practice as an innovation the Church ought to approve without reservation. But Kasper's response to this matter, in his book, is an unrserved "no." He writes:

A celebration of the eucharist without the ministry of the priest is unthinkable. The ministry of the priest is integral to the celebration of the eucharist. This is also true in cases of extreme emergency. Wherever there have been situations of extreme persecution, in which it has not been possible to have a priest for years or for decades, we have never heard of a parish community or an individual group celebrating the eucharist by their own initiative, without a priest.

Kasper goes on in his book to defend the Vatican's traditional teaching against this and other abuses within the liturgy.

Again, here is a passage from an interview with Kolvenbach (pictured right) relating to inter-religious dialogue. (The full interview, conducted by Giuseppe Rusconi, was published in issue 1, 2005, of "Il Consulente RE," a bimonthly distributed only by mail, which is sent to about 3,500 ecclesiastics and religious, published by Gruppo RE, which specializes in financial services for men and institutions of the Church):

There is no lack of authoritative voices saying that a true [interreligious] dialogue has still not taken place.

Certainly, thanks to the efforts of John Paul II the religions meet with each other, sometimes coming to agreement as in Assisi to say together that no one may kill in the name of God.

But there is a continually growing awareness, to the extent to which we come to know each other's deep religious convictions, that there is an unbridgeable gap between the religions.

It's true, an unbridgeable gap. We can of course discuss civilized coexistence among the religions, but experience shows that -- whether we like it or not -- faith in the Most Holy Trinity is for all the religions an insurmountable obstacle to a deeper dialogue.

Even the controversial Archbishop Keith Patrick O'Brien of Edinburgh, Scotland, who has a well-deserved reputation for being a progressivist and dissenter on various Church teachings, was recently reported in the New Oxford Review (February 2005) to have come out with guns blazing against Scotland's proposed sex education program as "state-sponsored sexual abuse of children." In the NOR article, entitled "Reflections on the Church Hierarchy" (pp. 34-29), Tom Bethell writes:

In an article for the (London) Sunday Times, O'Brien said that the draft program called for sex-education for pre-school children as young as three and four, dismissed abstinence and suggested a widening of access to contraception and abortions for pupils without parents' consent." He also noted that funding "for sexual health strategies appears to be inversely proportional to their success."

... How many of our home-grown mitered church-mice would have dared say (as O'Brien continued): "Yet as our health and education services drive forward plans to contracept a generation of Scots ... a more sinister agenda is emerging. It amounts to little more than the sexualization of our children and it is an agenda that should chill us all."

I cannot presume to know the minds of Kasper, Kolvenbach, or O'Brien. Their recent statements seem altogether out-of-character in many ways. A cynical construal might impugn their motives, suspecting some ulterior political design in their theological re-alignments. Whatever the case, one cannot exactly remonstrate over public statements and positions taken in support of Holy Mother Church.