Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, S.J., 64, Archbishop of Luxembourg, President of the Commission of Episcopal Conferences of the European Community. (link) On July 8, 2021, Pope Francis appointed him Relator General of the next Synod of Bishops on Synodality. So he is the man guiding the synodal process. On February 2, 2022, Hollerich told Germany’s Catholic News agency (Katholische Nachrichetn-Agentur, KNA) that he considered the Church’s teaching that homosexual relationships are sinful to be wrong: “I believe that the sociological-scientific foundation of this teaching is no longer correct.” (link; see also link). The cardinal said it was time for a fundamental revision of Church teaching on this matter. In a recent article, Vatican journalist Sandro Magister said he believes that Pope Francis would like Hollerich to be his successor as… the next Pope (see here and here)

    Letter #126, 2022, Tuesday, December 13: Reading Hollerich    

    Today is the Feast of St. Lucy.

    Here is an account of her life from Catholic News Agency, a service of EWTN News (link):

    St. Lucy is a virgin and martyr from Syracuse in Sicily. Her feast is celebrated on December 13th. According to tradition, St. Lucy was born to rich and noble parents in the year 283. Her father was of Roman origin, but his early death left her dependent upon her mother, whose name, Eutychia, seems to indicate that she was of Greek heritage.

    Like so many of the early martyrs, Lucy had consecrated her virginity to God, and she hoped to devote all her worldly goods to the service of the poor.

    Her mother, Eutychia, arranged a marriage for her, but for three years she managed to postpone the marriage. Lucy prayed at the tomb of Saint Agatha to change her mother’s mind about her faith. As a result, her mother’s long haemorrhagic illness was cured, and she consented to Lucy’s desire to live for God.

    St. Lucy’s rejected bridegroom, Paschasius, denounced Lucy as a Christian. The governor planned to force her into prostitution, but when guards went to fetch her, they could not move her even when they hitched her to a team of oxen. The governor ordered her to be killed instead.

    After a gruesome torture which included having her eyes torn out, she was surrounded by bundles of wood which were set afire, but the fire quickly died out. She prophesied against her persecutors, and was then executed by being stabbed to death with a dagger.

    According to later accounts, Lucy warned Paschasius he would be punished. When the governor heard this he ordered the guards to gouge out her eyes. However, in another telling, it was Lucy who removed her eyes in an attempt to discourage a persistent suitor who greatly admired them. When her body was being prepared for burial, they discovered her eyes had been restored. This and the meaning of her name (“light” or “lucid”) led to her patronage of everything to do with eyes; the blind, eye trouble, and other eye ailments. (CNA)

    ***

    Reading Hollerich: “Openness and change are the paradigm of Christianity”    

    On November 13, 2020 — so, two years ago — the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, published a brief interview (link) with Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, S.J., then 62, under the title “This is the Gospel,” in which Hollerich commented on the then-recently published encyclical of Pope Francis, Fratelli tutti (October 3, 2020, link).

    In this interview (full text below), Hollerich is quite eloquent and quite evidently very intelligent, befitting one of the leading Jesuits in the Church today.

    But his thought seems to de-emphasize the core proclamations of the Christian faith — essentially, that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world because of his sacrificial death and resurrection on the third day — and to emphasize rather amorphous concepts like “openness” and “change.”

    In addition, Hollerich gave a longer, more comprehensive interview just two months ago, in October, to the Vatican News website, in Italian (link). I have not found an English translation, so I did a rough translation myself, and include this text also below.     

    Given the important role that Hollerich is now playing in the “Synod on Synodality” process (he is the head of the upcoming Synod, link), and given that he may play a still more important role in the future (Sandro Magister thinks that it is clear the Pope Francis would like Hollerich to be his successor, link), it seemed fitting to present some of the things Hollerich has been saying in order to begin to better understand his mind and heart.

    I do not wish to mis-characterize Hollerich’s thought.

    Therefore, I felt it was fitting to let him speak at length for himself.    

    I do comment a bit on these interviews, and will publish the letters of comment readers send to me, if they seem helpful in better understanding this important leader of the Church. —RM

    ***

    Here is the text of the 1st interview, from November 13, 2020, including some of my own comments interspersed:

    (1) “This is the Gospel”

    “Openness and change are the paradigm of Christianity; since the time of the Apostles”

    Cardinal Hollerich on November 13, 2020 (link)

    Interview by Andre Monda of Cardinal Hollerich

    “You know me, director, and you know how I shy away from rhetoric. But if I have to specify an adjective that shows my state of mind in reading Fratelli Tutti, the only word that comes to mind is ‘enthusiastic.’”

    This is how Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, Archbishop of Luxembourg and President of the Commission of Episcopal Conferences of the European Community, began a conversation on the new papal Encyclical, which he offers us despite his many commitments.

    Cardinal Hollerich: “I would have preferred to subscribe to your invitation to write an organic commentary on Pope Francis’ beautiful text, but the situation of the pandemic is, here in Luxembourg just as in the rest of Europe, extremely serious, and pastoral commitments are mounting: if the sheep are not gathered, it is the shepherd in this moment who must search for the flock.”

    “I am enthusiastic,” he said at the outset, “because in this Letter we taste the flavour of the Gospel. There is nothing more and nothing less than the Gospel. There is nothing other than what Christ tells us in the Gospel.

    “Fratelli Tutti means first and foremost that ours is a community religion: we are never alone before God. Jesus taught us to pray the Our Father in the first person plural. But, especially here in Europe, it is now common to pray the ‘My Father,’ to indulge a very personal piety, to consider God as ‘my’ God.

    “This is not simply incorrect; it is not Christian.

    “Jesus is very explicit in this sense: I am with you when ‘two or three’ are gathered in my name.

    “The essential nature of the very Incarnation is in fraternal sharing. God became man and brother in order to share Himself.

    “From this point of view I find prophetic tones in the Letter, with respect to the rising individualism in the post-modern era.

    “And also with respect to the renewal of the Church, which is largely overcoming a tendency toward individualism which unfortunately also persists within her.”

    [Comment: These thoughts and beliefs of the cardinal — that “ours is a community religion”; that Jesus taught us to pray the “Our Father” and not “My Father,” which, if anyone would pray in this way, would be “to indulge a very personal piety” (Note: though I actually have never encountered anyone in Europe who prays “My Father” for the “Our Father,” and wonder if and where European Catholics really do pray this way…); that we suffer from “rising individualism in the modern era” — all stress the danger of individualism, and the goodness of a type or “communal” or “collective” piety. But the “community” or “collective” is made up of individuals, each of whom has made a personal commitment of faith, each of whom engaged in a personal pilgrimage toward God, along with other fellow pilgrims in this world. This emphasis on the “collective” seems to downplay the essentially personal nature of… each believer’s relationship with Jesus… a personal relationship which Hollerich seems to be saying is “not simply incorrect; it is not Christian” [because it is individualistic). Yet is it not the very essence of the Christian faith (and of traditional Jesuit spirituality) that we, one by one, come to believe in Jesus, come to enter into a relationship with Him, and in this way undertake to live… a Christian life?]

    Pope Francis invites us to a new globalization: that of love and fraternity. I am deeply touched by the reference to the Good Samaritan, and by the necessary modernizing of the parable: today I am, I must be, a neighbour to the refugees in Lesvos, be they Christians or Muslims; I am a neighbour to the millions of people suffering from the pandemic everywhere in the world. From the perspective of fraternity, new fields open out to us, new possibilities to our being Christians.

    [Comment: Again, the emphasis here is not on loving God, or on loving Christ, or on venerating the Virgin Mary, and that “cloud of witnesses,” the saints, and as a result of this love, of this veneration, of this loving and venerating one’s heroically holy fellow man and woman, both in and out of the Church. Rather, the emphasis is on an amorphous concept: “a new globalization of love and fraternity.” The personal is de-emphasized, the collective — here the global — is emphasized.]

    “And on the contrary, certain options that are intrinsically opposed to being Christian close, first and foremost populist and nationalistic ideologies.”

    [Comment: Here Hollerich states clearly that he believes that “populist” and “nationalistic” ideologies are “intrinsically opposed to being Christian.” But is this really, and fully, exhaustively, the case? Is there not, in the natural realm, a certain place for a group of people (a family, a community, a city, a nation) to have a somewhat exclusive common identity, a common sense of pride in a shared history of joys and sorrows, of successes and failures? Is all of this annihilated by becoming Christian? Or does the Christian faith, as it were, “baptize” the sense of family, the sense of one’s hometown, the sense of one’s area of a city (Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx…), the sense of one’s city, the sense of one’s nation? Again, Hollerich’s thought seems to move toward the abstract and impersonal, away from the concrete and personal…]

    “Every ‘closed’ system poses risks. And this also applies to theology and the Church: to always flee from identity-based closures. Openness and change are the paradigm of Christianity; since the time of the Apostles.

    [Long Comment: Here Hollerich warn again against “every ‘closed’ system” and says this even applies to the Church, which may suffer from “identity-based closures.” He again repeats his key insight: “Openness and change are the paradigm of Christianity.” The phrase is, once again, impersonal and amorphous. Hollerich — in these phrases, in the way he chooses words and examples — seems uncomfortable with what is personal, with personal beings with clear contours and identities. Persons who have a clear individual “identity” seem to leave him cold; what he is enthusiastic about seems to be what is general: principles, collective groups of things.     Yet Christians from the beginning have said: “We seek about all to encounter Jesus Christ, to be open to encountering Him, to preparing ourselves to encounter Him, in prayer, in the sacraments, in Scripture, in the lives of his imitators, the saints.

    St. Paul in his 1st Letter to Timothy, Chapter 6: 12-16 writes of the very personal and unique identity of Jesus, and of the very particular judgment Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate, and of the necessity to hold fast, without change or alteration, to the commandments of Christ in order to see, in the end, the “King of kings” who “dwells in unapproachable light.” Here is that passage of Paul’s letter to Timothy:

    12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.

    13 I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession;

    14 That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ:

    15 Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords;

    16 Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.    

    Human beings wish to encounter Christ, to be in communion with Christ, because He enables us to also be open to what is the final goal of our being: to encounter the Father, who dwells in unapproachable light, whose being is eternal, outside of time, changeless, untouched by any “shadow of changing.”

    So there is something in Hollerich’s keynote phrase — “openness and change are the paradigm of Christianity” — which seems at odds with the proclamation of the early Christians: that they wished to encounter and be open to Christ, then not to change, but to remain unchangingly faithful to the teachings about Him, and given by Him, so that they might order their lives in such a way as to follow Him as His (unworthy) disciples. End of Long Comment. Hollerich then continues:]

    “It is the very presence of Christ in the Church that allows the propensity toward openness. I’ve said it before: the Gospel is in this Letter [he means the papal encyclical, Fratelli tutti], and the Gospel always comes first. In this sense I can say that in the Encyclical there is the entire pre-existing Doctrine of the Church, but in Francis’ language, which is a language that makes it fragrant, that is able to speak to the heart.”

    [Comment: Here Hollerich proposes that “It is the very presence of Christ in the Church that allows the propensity toward openness.” This statement seems incomplete. It might, perhaps, better be said that “the presence of Christ in the Church draws us ever more toward Him, then… (then allows the propensity toward openness).”

    Andrea Monda: Particularly in the first two chapters there are various references to Europe. What impression have they made on you, Your Eminence?

    Cardinal Hollerich: “I found it really beautiful that it speaks of Europeans. They are people who have come to know and experience the concept of fraternity. The same concept expressed in lay terms was at the basis of the European project, just as the founding fathers intended.

    A united Europe is a project of fraternity. The Pope says that if it did not exist, it would have to be invented. It is a model for the world. Nowhere else in the world is it given that nations renounce portions of their sovereignty in order to transfer it to a common project.

    But this project is in grave difficulty today. The transfer of sovereignty is opposed to ‘sovreignism.’ That is, fraternity is opposed to egotism.

    Look at the situation of the displaced: compromise cannot be found, and if it is found, it is certainly to the detriment of the refugees who pay the price for European indecision and selfishness.

    No, this is not our history. It is not the best history of Europe, of that united Europe that we want. And this also applies to religions that appear on the European theatre: overcoming the temptations of closure, and with them the generalizations, isolating separatism, and violence. To always recognize that the Other is a wealth. To always see the good that is also always there in the Other. To speak of what unites us, not of what divides us.

    [Comment: At the center of this paragraph, Hollerich makes this astonishing assertion: “The transfer of sovereignty is opposed to ‘sovreignism.’ That is, fraternity is opposed to egotism.” He is suggesting that any transfer of authority from the individual nations of Europe to the European Union continental authority in Brussels is “fraternity” and any desire to retain sovereignty in the individual countries is “egotism.” This is a type of thought that is, it would seem, almost dualistic, polarizing, stark, un-nuanced, even… ideological. Is there not a way of viewing nations and their governing bodies as an expression of the common good will of each separate people? Is there not a way of seeing the continuing existence of sovereign independent nations as a form of good in our world? Can these independent sovereign nations not forms a harmony of voices seeking the common good of a continent, or of the world? Is it “egotism” to desire to honor the struggles and sufferings of one’s own nation in the past, of one’s ancestors? Or is it not rather, indeed, a type of piety — if it is understood that other people, in other nations, may also have a similar respect and affection for their own national identity — all moved by a similar emotion of love of country? Is this not possible?]

    “We have the duty to make an appeal to everyone’s conscience. It is not (only) an issue of politics. But above all of conscience. The Union needs values, but I do not see a great circulation of ideals at this time. The Union survives on compromises; it does not live on ideals. We have to return to the original ideal of a common Home. The one dreamt of and built by the founding fathers. Which undoubtedly needs updating (for example also in relation to the coexistence of different religious beliefs), but which in its foundations is still valid.

    “I would like to add one last thing. I see Fratelli Tutti as the continuation and the consequence of Laudato Si’. We live as brothers and sisters in a common home. Only if we are brothers and sisters can we protect our common home. Being brothers and sisters, then, means contributing to the protection of creation with our brothers and sisters of Amazonia and with those of generations to come. There is a consequential nexus between the two Encyclicals which will be further explored. I have no doubt that both documents are the bases on which to build a new humanism for all men and women of good will.”

    —By Andrea Monda

    ***

    (2) “The Church must change, we risk speaking to a man who no longer exists”

    And here below is a second long interview given by Hollerich, again to official Vatican News journalists, published on October 34, 2022 — less than two months ago.

    I refrain from commenting on this long text.

    I limit myself to citing one passage, which has become somewhat controversial, where Hollerich says that human nature itself is changing and that he fears that “our pastoral care speaks to a man who no longer exists.”

    Here is what Hollerich says on this point:

    “You see, my generation has experienced and is experiencing changes that no generation has experienced before. I would say the greatest since the invention of the wheel. With the difference that today everything changes with an unusual speed only a few decades ago… Today we are not even able to imagine it, but there will be very, very big anthropological transformations. In the awareness that man can only partially influence his own evolution… Very frankly, our pastoral care speaks to a man who no longer exists. We must be capable of proclaiming the Gospel, and making the Gospel understood by today’s man who mostly ignores it. This implies a great openness on our part, and also a willingness — while remaining firm in the Gospel — to let ourselves be transformed too.”

    I hesitate to risk commenting on this, and on the conclusions about the need to change Church teaching on sexual morality which Hollerich seems to draw from this.

    I would appreciate receiving commentary and analysis from readers, interpreting Hollerich’s position and what it means for Church teaching.

    [The interview text below is from the Italian text that was published in the Osservatore Romano on October 24 (link). It is in my own translation into English.]

    ***

    Hollerich: “The Church must change, we risk speaking to a man who no longer exists”

    In a long interview with L’Osservatore Romano, the cardinal president of the Commission that brings together the European episcopates talks about how much the preparation phase for the next Synods is bringing out the urgency of a change of pace in pastoral care: even though we are firm in the Gospel we must be capable of announcing it to today’s man who mostly ignores it and this implies the willingness to let ourselves be transformed too

    October 24, 2022

    By Andrea Monda and Roberto Cetera

    Jean-Claude Hollerich, 64, cardinal archbishop of Luxembourg, is president of the Commission of the Episcopal Conferences of the European Community and vice-president of the Council of the Conferences of European Bishops, as well as Relator General at the Synod on Synodality.

    With the opening of the continental phase of the Synod on Synodality, he gladly welcomes a conversation with the “Osservatore Romano” on the progress of the most widespread consultation of the history of the Church in Europe, and its contents.

    We meet him in the parish church of Rome of which he the titular cardinal, while he talks like a “good parish priest” with the children of the first communion course. “The Church is not this building,” he explains to them. “Church means assembly. You are the Church. Because, as Pope Francis says, without young people there is no Church, because God is young.” Then he comes towards us: “I’m really happy to be the titular cardinal, not of one of the beautiful churches in the historic centre, but of this parish on the outskirts; when I come here I find the joy of being a priest among the people.”

    Last month, Cardinal Zuppi gave us a long interview on the Synod of the Italian Church, in which, with great honesty, he did not hide that he had recorded a lower than expected participation, in quantity and quality. What vision do you have of the progress of the Synod on the European scene?

    Cardinal Hollerich: Yes, I read that interview with great interest. With equal honesty, it seems to me that Zuppi’s observations can also apply to other European countries, even if with the necessary distinctions between countries.

    You see, I believe that today in Europe we are suffering from a pathology, that is, that we are unable to see clearly what the mission of the Church is. We always talk about structures, which is certainly not a bad thing, because structures are important and certainly need to be rethought. But there is not enough talk about the mission of the Church.

    Which is to proclaim the Gospel. Proclaim, and above all testify, the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.

    A testimony that the Christian must interpret mainly through his commitment in the world for the protection of creation, for justice, for peace.

    The teaching of Pope Francis is everything and nothing other than the explanation of the Gospel.

    It’s not difficult to figure it out. In today’s secularized world, direct announcement is not always understood, but our testimony is. We are observed and evaluated in the world for how we live the Gospel.

    It’s a bit like teachers at school: what they say is certainly important, but what they communicate about themselves is even more important.

    In our case what matters is consistency with the Gospel. Take, for example, the encyclical Laudato si’. Many have read it, even among non-believers, even among those who do not know the Gospel. And all those who have read it have shared the value, the importance, the urgency. I have had direct feedback on this in my daily contacts with politicians from the European Parliament and Commission in Brussels. So everyone has read Laudato Sì, and admires it.

    And the same was also true for Fratelli tutti. That is, everyone recognizes Pope Francis as the author of the proposal for a new humanism. Which he often proposes in solitude among the great world leaders.

    But it is then up to us to know how to explain that the humanism of Francis is not just a political proposal, but is the proclamation of the Gospel. Those who are outside the Church sometimes understand the Gospel better than those who are inside.

    Pope Francis has therefore indicated this way of proclaiming the Gospel, which starts from reality, that reality which sees us all as creatures and children of the same Father. But to answer your initial question: in all European countries at the synods there was much talk of communion, of participation, but very little of mission.

    Surely the difficulties encountered in the synods of the various countries were influenced by a certain instinctive defense of their status on the part of the clergy and, on the other hand, by a persistent delegating attitude of the laity.

    Cardinal Hollerich: The concept of synodality was introduced by Pope Paul VI as a requirement of collegiality, of communion among bishops. The Second Vatican Council had the preliminary need to complete what had remained pending with the First Vatican Council, whose focus was entirely on the figure and prerogatives of the Roman pontiff. So the effort of the assembly was first of all to define the role of the bishop.

    But in Lumen Gentium the concept of “the people of God on the journey” and of the Church as “temple of the Holy Spirit” is introduced for the first time, the “universal priesthood” which concerns all the baptized is made explicit.

    Well, I think that these gigantic intuitions of the Council Fathers have not yet been adequately developed.

    But I very much agree with Pope Francis when he says that it takes a hundred years to implement a Council. Only 60 have passed… we’re not late (he says it laughing heartily, ed)!

    But, joking aside, we must be aware that the baptismal priesthood takes nothing away from the ministerial priesthood. Indeed, all of us priests must understand that there is no ministerial priesthood without a universal priesthood of Christians, because it originates from this.

    I am well aware that the difficulty of assimilating a concept, basically so elementary, is opposed by a presbyterial formation that still lingers on an “ontological diversity” that does not exist.

    Theologians must get to work on this and provide more certain definitions around the theme of character and sacramental grace.

    But above all, the bishops must seriously and profoundly put their hands on the formation of future priests. We still have seminaries today that I call “liberalized Tridentine.”

    We must not take further steps towards “liberality,” but take the path of “radicalism.” Formation must consist in putting oneself to the test of knowing how to live the Gospel in a radical way today.

    Here too we look at Pope Francis: in Europe we often hear that Francis is a liberal Pope. Pope Francis is not liberal: he is radical. He lives the radical nature of the Gospel. It is the integral paradigm not only of his mission, but of his life, because he has internalized the radical nature of the Gospel. Think of his radicalness in mercy, and also in the proclamation of the kingdom of God.

    You see, you cannot keep a young man separated from the world, in a monastic-type life for six years, and then complain that he ends up assuming his own diversity. Also in this case it is not a problem — I repeat — of structures but of mission.

    We need to understand, or rather re-understand, what it means to be pastors today. Just as we all have to ask ourselves what it means to be Christian today. That’s the point.

    And this question is also the hallmark of this pontificate: accepting the inadequacy of a pastoral care born of bygone eras and rethinking the mission. A choice that has heavy and courageous theological implications.

    And the attitude of the laity?

    Cardinal Hollerich: I think that, both due to the results of this Synod and due to the reduction in vocations, the balance between laity and clergy will be very different in the future from the current one. However, there is an obstacle to the development of a constructive dialogue which must first be removed. I am referring to the fact that the comparison often revolves around the theme of “power.”

    The German synod, for example, is heavily influenced by this topic. I think that limiting intra-ecclesial confrontation to the question of power is profoundly wrong. Both by those who “contest” power, and by those who “defend” power.

    Synodality goes far beyond the discourse on power. If people perceive the authority of the bishop or parish priest as “power,” well then we have a problem. Because we are ordained for a ministry, for a service. Authority is not power.

    You speak of an inadequacy of pastoral care with respect to the times. Because? What times are we living?

    Cardinal Hollerich: It is very interesting, what Zuppi says in the interview given to you, when you deal with the theme of anthropological change. And I agree with him that this is the issue that must challenge us the most.

    You see, my generation has experienced and is experiencing changes that no generation has experienced before. I would say the greatest since the invention of the wheel. With the difference that today everything changes with an unusual speed only a few decades ago. Impressive how, for example, a 15-year-old boy is already radically different from a 20-year-old.

    Today we are not even able to imagine it, but there will be very very big anthropological transformations. In the awareness that man can only partially influence his own evolution. The point you have made and which needs to be further developed is that we are not talking about cultural anthropology, but about changes that also pertain to the biological, natural sphere.

    And therefore pastoral care should also take this into account

    Cardinal Hollerich: I don’t want to sound trenchant but, very frankly, our pastoral care speaks to a man who no longer exists. We must be capable of proclaiming the Gospel, and making the Gospel understood by today’s man who mostly ignores it. This implies a great openness on our part, and also a willingness — while remaining firm in the Gospel — to let ourselves be transformed too.

    When we talk about anthropological changes, our thoughts turn first of all to that of the man-woman relationship. The biggest change. Paul VI had already prefigured it…

    Cardinal Hollerich: Yes. Humanae Vitae is a wonderful text. It is truly a pity that he has gone down in history only for his judgment on contraceptives. Think, for example, of the idea he proposes of spousal love as an image of the Trinitarian God.

    When I was teaching on these topics in Japan, I drew an explanatory triangle whose vertices were: sexuality, the gift of life and spousal love.

    Today things in the world have radically changed. First sexuality and the gift of life separated, and now also sexuality and affectivity. Many young people experience sexuality in a totally detached way from affectivity. And they didn’t invent it themselves, they learned it from the adult world.

    Marriage — not just the sacramental one — is a practice now in disuse in much of Europe. And the same goes for the transmission of heritage, people in Europe now know how to live without the cultural heritage of their parents. Every generation is practically a new beginning.

    And the personal distancing given by an increasingly older population hinders this transmission even more.

    Cardinal Hollerich, remaining on this level there is the theme of adapting pastoral care to these anthropological changes.

    Cardinal Hollerich: Of course. And it is precisely the pastoral necessity that has given rise to a reflection on the theme of genres, which has given rise to some criticism.

    You see, there is an assumption that inspired me. I try, as far as I can in the efforts of my role, to maintain a lively personal relationship with young people. Because before being a cardinal I am a priest; a shepherd. And what I see constantly is that young people stop considering the Gospel if they feel that we are discriminating.

    For today’s young people, the highest value is non-discrimination. Not only that of gender, but also ethnicity, origin, social class. They really get angry about discrimination!

    A few weeks ago I met a 20-year-old girl who told me “I want to leave the Church, because it does not welcome homosexual couples.”

    I asked her: “Do you feel discriminated against because you are homosexual?”

    And she: “No, no! I’m not a lesbian, but my closest friend is. I know her suffering from her, and I don’t intend to be part of those who judge her.”

    This made me reflect a lot.

    But Cardinal, the Protestant churches that have a more liberal approach, and bless homosexual couples, do not seem to meet with greater approval among young people…

    Cardinal Hollerich: Of course not. Because it’s not enough. A deeper change of cultural paradigm is needed, and a conversion of the spirit. It is not a problem of canon law, norms or structures. This is what the Pope told the German Church. “Be careful not to start with the structures; start rather from the life of the people of God, from the mission, from evangelization.”

    Proclaiming the Gospel today means announcing the joy of life in God, finding the meaning of life in Jesus Christ. Which is not a made-up phrase, because we must be able to communicate that living in Christ’s footsteps means living well, it means enjoying life. We are called to announce good news, not a set of rules or prohibitions.

    Where the good news is the original kerygma

    Cardinal Hollerich: Yes, of course. You see post-modernity, like the rationalism that preceded it, collides with an insurmountable limit. Which is the distressing perception of human finitude.

    The more man’s intellectual and cognitive capacity grows, the more evident is his inability to answer the question that accompanies him — rationally but also unconsciously — throughout his existence: “Why does life end?”, “Why is this my ‘I’ that no one else knows in its depth, destined to die?”

    The clever move of the consumer society in which we live is to obscure and exorcise the question, with the deception of the myth of eternal youth.

    So the “new evangelization” today is to show a raised host saying “Whoever eats this bread will never die again.”

    An ethic of love — and of mercy — is therefore substituted for the revelation that “We never die again.”

     We should shout it in the squares and from the terraces “We don’t die anymore!.” And if we don’t shout it, limiting ourselves to proposing an ethic of good living, we can’t then complain that there are no more believers!

    However, believing in eternal life means believing that eternal life is already here, now. And that as such it must be lived, and enjoyed.

    In this sense, I am very frightened by a growing functionalist conception of life, whereby if it doesn’t work, it is thrown away. I was terrified to see in the Netherlands the extension of the practice of euthanasia to psychological patients as well.

    This too is the result of the pervading consumerist ideology: once upon a time if the television broke you took it to the repairman, and the shoes to the shoemaker; throw them away today. And they would like to do the same with life, if it doesn’t “work,” if you become a burden to society they throw you away.

    The same goes for the beginning of life: I am concerned to hear in the European Parliament those who invoke the attribution of the status of “fundamental” right to abortion, because if it is a fundamental right then it is an absolute right and therefore no longer admits a denial of conscience. This is also absurd. Let us always remember that life, even if limited, is beautiful.

    So starting again from an empty tomb on a spring Sunday morning in Jerusalem…

    Cardinal Hollerich: Of course. This is the good news!

    And I want to add: everyone is called to you. None excluded: even the divorced and remarried, even homosexuals, everyone.

    The Kingdom of God is not an exclusive club. It opens its doors to everyone, without discrimination. To everyone!

    Sometimes in the Church the accessibility of these groups to the Kingdom of God is discussed. And this creates the perception of an exclusion in a part of the people of God. They feel excluded and this is not right! Here it is not a question of theological niceties or ethical dissertations: here it is simply a matter of affirming that Christ’s message is for everyone!

    However, objectively there is a theological problem. You yourself have referred to it in past interviews, hoping for a rethinking of the doctrine.

    Cardinal Hollerich: Pope Francis often recalls the need for theology to know how to originate and develop starting from human experience, and not remain the result of academic elaboration alone. So many of our brothers and sisters tell us that, whatever the origin and cause of their sexual orientation, they certainly didn’t choose it. They are not “bad apples.” They are also the fruit of creation. And in Genesis we read that at each step of creation God is pleased with his work saying “…and he saw that it was good.” That said, I want to be clear: I don’t think there is room for a sacramental marriage between people of the same sex, because there is no procreative purpose that characterizes it, but this does not mean that their emotional relationship has no value.

    However, the bishops of Belgium have expressed themselves in favor of the possibility of blessing these unions.

    Cardinal Hollerich: Frankly, the question does not seem decisive to me. If we stay with the etymology of “good-saying,” do you think God can ever be “bad-saying” about two people who love each other? I would be more interested in discussing other aspects of the problem. For example: what is the conspicuous growth of homosexual orientation in society determined by? Or, why is the percentage of homosexuals in ecclesial institutions higher than in civil society?

    Cardinal Hollerich, you are the president of the Commission of the Episcopal Conferences of the European Community. We are living in a dramatic moment. After nearly 80 years, war has reappeared in Europe. Incredibly, the nuclear threat has never become as present as today. In the face of this, the active presence of political Europe as an effective promoter of peace appears weak, feeble, not listened to…

    Cardinal Hollerich: We have to make peace. Making peace between nations is like making peace between men: there is always a compromise between the respective presumed reasons.

    Everyone must try to identify with the reasons of others, even if he does not share them. And from there find a compromise.

    Otherwise we may have a respite from armed conflict, but not real peace. History teaches us that latent conflicts sooner or later explode into wars.

    This too was a conflict that had been dragging on for some time, but nobody really wanted to work for peace.

    That said, I confirm what you say: political Europe is very weak. It is because Europe’s political priority is to keep the countries that make it up, and which present great differences from each other, united with its institutions, especially after the enlargement to 27.

    Obviously, by focusing more on internal dynamics, the ability to act externally is weakened, the ability to take a leading political role. But European leaders should understand that the balance is not achieved ad intra, but ad extra, through policies of confrontation and original proposition with the other powers.

    And this today constitutes a serious vulnerability in the world balance, because Europe has the inspiration for peace in its DNA. Even the forces that are inspired by populism, I believe, must commit themselves to redefining their identity.

    Now “popular” in the common European lexicon is identified with “conservative,” and this is not good. It is therefore necessary to specify the “popular” in the tradition of Christian Democrats, which have had so much significance in many European countries. That is, recovering that “social” profile of the peoples’ parties (popularism) that liberalism has somewhat obscured. Also because popularism is the only serious antidote to populism.

    However, populism still seems to be growing in many European countries…

    Cardinal Hollerich:Where populism wins, it faces the challenge of government. The problem with populism is that it provides simplified answers to the increasingly complicated questions posed by today’s world. Let’s think, for example, of the sovereignist recipes proposed to a world that is instead increasingly inextricably connected. I worry about what will happen if the populists fail to challenge the government. They would hopelessly blame someone else: migrants, refugees, Brussels. I exacerbate social tensions even more. And there’s really no need for that.

    But do you think there can still be authoritarian tendencies, or as they say today, autocratic tendencies, in Europe today?

    Cardinal Hollerich: I do not know. I hope not. But I believe that we must all begin a reflection on the conditions of democracy. We thought until now that democracy was the only possible political form in the West. But even in the West there is some crunch. We have to think about what it means to be a democratic country, a democratic continent, today. A harsh winter awaits us, in which many will suffer from the cold, poverty, unemployment: it will be a test for the stability of democracy. Until now democracy was supported through the well-being of the majority, today this is not enough. It’s easy to be friends and democrats at a rich Sunday dinner, more complicated on a day of fasting…

    One last cardinal question. How do you imagine the Church in Europe in 20 years?

    Cardinal Hollerich: She will be much smaller. The majority of Europeans will not know God and his Gospel. Smaller, but also more alive. I believe that this reduction in numbers is, in God’s plan, necessary to gain new momentum. In some parts of northern Europe it will be predominantly a migrant Church; the rich natives are the first to abandon the lifeboat, because the Gospel clashes with their interests. It is the desire of Pope Francis: a poor Church, a living Church.

    [End, 2nd interview with Cardinal Hollerich]

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