sourceIf this is a bishop
By Redazione Blog by Sabino PaciollaJune 19th, 2023...the article written by prof. Leonardo Lugaresi and published on his blog.
I read the statement with which the Vatican press office announced the dismissal of Mgr. Georg Gänswein. I know it would not be entirely correct to call it that, but the tenor of the very short notification published in the bulletin sounds, at least to me who am a "man in the street", very similar to the dry company statement with which a company makes known the expulsion of an unfaithful or incapable employee.
Here is the text: "On February 28, 2023, H.E. Msgr. Georg Gänswein concluded his office as Prefect of the Papal Household. The Holy Father has ordered that Bishop Gänswein return to his diocese of origin from 1 July."
Basically, nothing to complain about the first sentence (apart from the strangeness of communicating only on June 15 what happened on February 28). The lack of the minimum union of "institutional courtesy", in the form of a nod of thanks for the work done, I think is now part of the style of the company, so let's gloss over.
The second sentence, on the other hand, is a little surprising and seems to me to raise some concerns. On what basis does the pope "dispose" that Mons. Gänswein go and live "in his diocese of origin", that is, Freiburg im Breisgau, rather than in any other part of the world he decides to reside?
Does the pope have the juridical power to determine where each individual member of the Catholic Church should live? I've never heard that. Is it then a power that can be exercised over the members of the clergy, by virtue of the hierarchical subordination to which they are bound? I am not a canonist and therefore it is possible that I am wrong, but I believe that, apart from the case of religious, such an obligation can exist only in relation to the institutional position of each of them and the tasks with which they are invested: it is logical, for example, that a priest should normally reside in the diocese to which he belongs and not in another part of the world, unless his bishop asked him or at least allowed him to live elsewhere. Otherwise, I believe that an obligation to reside in a given place can only be given as a disciplinary sanction, if and as canon law provides for it. And this is not the case with Mons. Gänswein, of course.
If he were a simple priest, his return, once the office in the Vatican has ceased, to the diocese to which he belongs would be taken for granted, without the need for any papal provision. But Gänswein is a bishop of the Catholic Church. Now, for what little I know, when a priest is made bishop he ipso facto ceases to be "incardinated" in a diocese, because with episcopal ordination he himself becomes, so to speak, the "cornerstone" of a particular Church. One is not a bishop "for oneself", in fact, but one is a bishops "for the church" and "of a church". So much so that, since the practice of conferring episcopal ordination even on priests who are not at the head of particular churches (but for example hold certain roles at the Holy See or in aid of other bishops) has been established in the Church, in those cases recourse is made to the juridical fiction of assigning them a "title", that is, a diocese that in fact no longer exists, But of which they virtually become "titular bishops": in this specific case, Mons. Gänswein is precisely bishop of Urbisaglia, a charming village in the Marche region (where, if I were him, I would prefer a thousand times to go and live rather than return to Freiburg, where I assume that they do not want to see him even from afar. What would he do, after all, as a bishop what he is?).
Minutiae, it will be said; Unpleasant but basically private events: why deal with them? In my opinion, this last episode is also a symptom, minor if you want but not entirely irrelevant, of how serious the crisis of the episcopate is in the present Church. I remember that in the years immediately following the Second Vatican Council the theme of episcopal collegiality and the responsibility of bishops in the governance of the universal church una Petro was considered very important, at least in words. At that time it even seemed one of the first urgencies of the reform of the Church. It was in this perspective, in fact, that the synod of bishops was introduced as a permanent institution in the church. What happened to that instance, sixty years later? I would say that we are in the presence of one of the most striking examples of heterogenesis of ends: never has the church been governed in such an uncollegial way, never has the authority and I would even say the dignity of the bishops been questioned so much as now. It seems clear to me that they are in difficulty: crushed on the one hand by a papal style of government that – by widespread opinion even of the most favorable observers – is the most centralizing that has been seen at least since the end of the pontificate of Pius XII onwards; on the other hand, coerced in their action by the weight of the schemes imposed by increasingly cumbersome episcopal conferences; Finally, subjected to the nerve-wracking pressure of lay fringes, perhaps not numerous but fierce and well integrated into the ecclesiastical bureaucracy, which claim "more power", as has been seen amply in the sad story of the German "synodal path". The much-vaunted synodality, from what we have seen, thus risks becoming another factor in the crisis of episcopal authority and collegiality.
At the catechism we were taught that bishops are the successors of the apostles. We were also told that episcopal ordination impresses, in the one who receives it, "a sacred character, so that the bishops, in an eminent and visible way, support the parts of Christ himself, Master, Pastor and Pontiff, and act in his person" (thus says Vatican II, Christus Dominus, 2). Big stuff. Nowadays, however, it often seems that they are considered as simple peripheral executives of a multinational company. If the central management does not like the way they manage the branch, they can be sent for a walk without many compliments. Or Freiburg.
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