Denver Catholic

18 OCTOBER 24-NOVEMBER 13, 2015 | DENVER CATHOLIC Perspectives Let's remember John Paul II S o, a few years ago we had this Pope. He was very popular. First Pope to travel a lot. Huge crowds every- where he went. He wrote extensively on marriage, family and human sex- uality. His writings, his exam- ple and his holiness changed count- less lives, including mine. Perhaps you remember him? Hand- some guy. Charming Polish accent. His given name was Karol Wojtyla. Pope name: John Paul II. I ask only because it seems we as a Church have come down with a sudden, massive case of amnesia where our beloved St. John Paul II is concerned. Only last year, over seven million people showed up to witness his canonization in Rome. And yet, as our Church continues to grapple with issues surrounding mar- riage, family and human sexuality, it's as if nobody has ever heard of the man. Perhaps St. John Paul II's best known work is a series of talks collectively known as the "Theology of the Body." It is essentially a theological explora- tion of God's creation of man as male and female, and how our human bodies refl ect our divine Creator. One of the central themes is that there is a lan- guage — and inherent meaning — in human sexual expression. Sex speaks the language of permanent self-dona- tion, the language of marriage. And the marital love of husband and wife is a refl ection of the relationship between Christ and His Church. Certainly St. John Paul II didn't come up with these truths on his own. The Church has taught them from the beginning. To me, and to others whose understanding of human sexuality has been transformed, the beauty of the Theology of the Body is that he lays out in great detail how the Church's sexual morality all boils down to love. The human person — each human person — carries the incredible dignity of being created in the image and likeness of God. Love means always looking out for what is best for that person — that image and likeness of God. And taking sexual expression out of the context for which God designed it always does damage, in some way, to the human person. Of course, two paragraphs couldn't possibly do justice to fi ve years of catechesis. I'd encourage you to read more. (You can start with his apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, writ- ten after a similar synod on the family held in 1979.) But the point is that the starting place for discussion is always these cohesive, underlying truths — the truths of the faith that has been handed down to us from Christ. And yet, in the discussions I've seen leading up to, and coming out of, the Synod on the Family, you would think that we were starting from scratch. I have seen no mention, even, of the beauty of God's plan, or the damage wrought when we abandon it and take matters into our own hands. What I am seeing instead is a lot of talk about "eliminating exclusionary languages" and "embracing complex situations." There is discussion of practical situ- ations that people and families fi nd themselves in, and practical ways to deal with those situations. But I see scant attention paid to the underlying truths that should inform those deci- sions. The discussion of doctrine seems to revolve primarily around "where is the line between doctrine and disci- pline?" and "how far can we cut into the doctrine without formally changing it?" Pope Francis, God bless him, has repeat- edly made it clear that doctrine cannot be changed. But I don't see anybody delving into the content of that doc- trine, and how it can inform the mercy that everybody acknowledges needs to be applied in abundance to people in "irregular situations." And yet, the truths explained in the Theology of the Body impact directly on each "irregular situation" — divorce and remarriage, homosexuality, polygamy, etc — that the Synod is wrestling with. It's not just that they aren't referring back to St. John Paul II, which is a great loss in itself, as the cohesiveness of his presentation would do a lot to unite the fragmented discussion I'm seeing. But in my reading of the reports coming out of the Synod, I am seeing far to little acknowledgement of the Christ to Whom John Paul II was leading us — the One on Whom our Church is built. The focus of many of the cardinals seems to be on mercy. Which is, of course, vitally important. I doubt that there is a single person reading this who does not know and love a Catholic in an "irregular" situation revolving around divorce and remarriage, cohabitation, homosexuality or some other issue. We love our loved ones, we see good in their lives, and we want to see them recon- ciled with the Church. But while talk about "open doors" and "welcoming " is crucially important, it is incomplete unless we are sharing with them the full message of the love of Jesus Christ, and reasons for the doctrines that we believe fl ow directly from Him and His Spirit. S.t John Paul II gave us a masterful template for that. I wish somebody at the Vatican would dig it out and start using it again. Bonacci is a syndicated columnist based in Denver and the author of We're On a Mission from God and Real Love. Guest Column MARY BETH BONACCI R OME. During Synod-2015, I've been reading John Martin Robinson's Cardinal Consalvi: 1757-1824, a biography of Pope Pius VII's sec- retary of state, one of the most impressive churchmen of his day, or indeed any day. Ercole Consalvi, born into the Roman nobility as the winds of Enlightenment-driven change were about to transform Europe, was educated for a career in law and admin- istration, which in his case meant life as an o¨ cial of the Papal States: that broad swath of central Italy that constituted the pope's "temporal power." A favorite of Pope Pius VI, Consalvi followed that pope into exile when the forces of revo- lutionary France seized the Papal States and Rome. Then, when Pius VI died under house arrest, Consalvi organized the conclave that, after three and a half months, elected the Benedictine monk, Barnaba Luigi Chiaramonti, as Pius VII. It was an inspired choice, for the integrity and open-mindedness of Pius VII restored the prestige of the papacy, while his quiet acceptance of su„ ering when Napoleon turned against him con- fi rmed the esteem in which he was held and helped bring about the downfall of the auto-crowned Emperor of France. One of Pius VII's wisest decisions was to name Ercole Consalvi his sec- retary of state, creating this layman a cardinal – Consalvi was ordained a deacon at the time – and putting him in charge of virtually the entire apparatus of papal governance. Reading the story of Consalvi as de facto prime minister of the Papal States is a step back into a long-vanished world with striking par- allels to our own time. Against the entrenched opposition of those who had long profi ted from the cronyism of economic life in the Papal States, Consalvi worked hard to reform and rationalize Vatican fi nance, and insti- tuted a program of free trade in the Papal States. It's a story of hard work against recalcitrant local interests that Cardinal George Pell, Pope Francis's deputy for the reform of 21 st -century Vatican fi nance, might fi nd eerily familiar. Then there was Consalvi's decades- long e„ ort to gain local churches and the papacy as much breathing room as possible, clear of the stifl ing embrace of state power. State by state, concordat by concordat, Consalvi worked to create the legal conditions in which the Church could be itself and govern itself, and in which the pope could communicate freely with his fl ock. It was no easy busi- ness then, any more than it is today, and the parallels between the attempts by various regimes, both reactionary and lib- eral, to get control of the Catholic Church suggest that today's battles for religious freedom in full are not without their 19 th -century precedents. (HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell may seem, at fi rst blush, a curious contemporary ana- logue to the Austrian foreign minister, Prince Clemens von Metternich; but both tried to use the Church for state pur- poses, and both had to be resisted.) Cardinal Consalvi also reminds us that the world owes the Roman pon- ti„ an enormous debt of gratitude for preserving so much of its classical heritage. To take one striking example: When Pius VII and Consalvi returned to Rome from exile, only the top halves of the arches of Septimus Severus and Constantine were visible, the rest being buried under centuries of rubble. It was Consalvi who had these two great arti- facts and much of the rest of the Roman Forum excavated, as it was Consalvi who built a new wing onto the Vatican museums in order to display the art recovered from French looters. Yet for all that is admirable in the life and work of Pius VII and Ercole Consalvi, it strikes me that the Church and the popes are well rid of the Papal States these two remarkable men tried to preserve and defend. The temporal power was a ball- and-chain for the papacy, impeding its essentially spiritual character and work. And it's no accident that the dramatic rise in the moral prestige of the papacy – which gives popes a unique form of power in international public life – was preceded by the collapse of the pope's role as auto- crat of a C-league European power. Loss, in this case, was manifest and blessed gain. A blessed loss George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. The Catholic DiŸ erence GEORGE WEIGEL

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