Theology Today - Vol 32, No. 1 - July 1975 - EDITORIAL - 1975: The Roman Catholic Holy Year

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1975: The Roman Catholic Holy Year
By John Deedy

The Catholic Church is into another Holy Year, with secular pragmatists wondering precisely how a Holy Year contributes materially or psychologically to conservationist attitudes towards natural resources, the world being in something of an energy crisis; with theological pragmatists wondering what the spiritual and theological contributions of a Holy Year may be in a modern age and ten years after a Council of reform and renewal; and with ecurnenists wondering about the implications of an event that exalts the place of Rome in the Christian church (and, by extension, papal primacy) and highlights once again the touchy ecumenical issue of indulgences.

Holy Years have been held on quarter-century anniversaries in Roman Catholicism since the year 1300, with only a few exceptions such as 1850 and 1875, when Italy's internal turmoil caused their suspension. Historically, Holy Years are periods of special grace, when pilgrims to the shrines of Rome receive special indulgences not otherwise so readily available. The great symbolic act of the Holy Year is, of course, the opening of the sealed right-hand door of St. Peter's Basilica on the Christmas Eve of the Holy Year, an act duplicated at Rome's three other main basilicas: St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, and St. Paul's-Outside-the-Walls. The openings of the doors are intended to signify easier access to God's grace.

Whatever the religious character of Holy Years of earlier centuries, it is hardly disputable that in the twentieth century the Holy Year has become more of a grand tourist adventure than a solemn religious involvement. A growing awareness of this development has generated some hostility to Holy Year 1975, and no little indifference. The hostility showed in a story written a year-and-a-half-ago by the Roman correspondent of Informations Catholiques Internationales describing the phenomenon of the poor occupying some churches of Rome, much as squatters would occupy an abandoned apartment building. "It makes one think," he commented angrily. "To accommodate the Holy Year pilgrims, a series of large hotels is about to be built in Rome. What is the significance of this 'holiness' which preoc-

Managing Editor of Commonweal, John Deedy has written the Church in the World section for THEOLOGY TODAY in the October 1973 issue and has contributed articles on religious topics to The New York Times, The New Republic, and other publications. He is the author of several books, including What a Modern Catholic Believes A bout Conscience, Freedom, and Authority (1972).

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cupies itself with tourists and ignores the city's most destitute inhabitants?" (The occupation produced meetings that ultimately included the Vicar of Rome, Cardinal Poletti. He directed the parishes of Rome to place themselves "and all their goods" at the service of the poor.)

Indifference, tinged with some hostility, evidenced itself in a multicountry survey of Holy Year attitudes conducted a year ago by Overview, the newsletter of Catholic trends and opinion published from Chicago by the Thomas More Association. In Ireland, Catholics were found to be viewing the Holy Year "with the same lack of interest" as they did the Year of Faith. British and Welsh Catholics were also reported to be negative. "No one seems at all bothered about indulgences or concerned to revive the exaggerated papolatry of the last century," said Overview. The same attitude held for Catholics of the Continent, and of Australia on the other side of the world.

Overview's toughest assessment came, however, with respect to American clerical dispositions: "As far as most priests are concerned, the Holy Year does not even exist. The majority are not interested in going on pilgrimages. Only a minority will bother with clergy conferences or study days. Not very many will add anything to their own devotional life or the devotional life or the devotions of their people. The Holy Year, in other words, is a non-event, an exercise in pointless futility. Nor are priests sure what piety is anymore. The devotions of the past have been swept away; the new liturgy is at best an ambiguous success; the faithful are more likely to go to Communion when they're in church but less likely to be in church. What does the Holy Year have to do with anything in the lives of the priests or their people? It is not so much that [the Holy Year] is irrelevant as it is useless. Why bother?"

One expects to find opinion such as this in maverick publications like Overview. But how does one account for the indifference found for months towards the Holy Year in the official Catholic press? When Pope Paul VI announced the 1975 Holy Year and its objectives in May of 1973, the news was dutifully reported, but with no particular sense of excitement, much less with any display of importance.

The Tablet of Brooklyn led its issue of May 17, 1973, with the Holy Year news and provided a back-up editorial. Across the East River in the Archdiocese of New York, however, the Catholic News was leading the paper with a story of a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Cooke for members of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus "under the big top at Madison Square Garden." It was not until two issues later-the Catholic News of May 31-that Catholics of the archdiocese learned of the Holy Year through their official organ. This editorial casualness was widespread. When Boston's Cardinal Medeiros announced a year-long period of prayers and "personal in-

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ner renewal" for the Holy Year in November, 1973, he was accorded a one-column headline in The Pilot, the archdiocesan newspaper, and no back-up editorial; The Pilot's lead was given over to the Cardinal's proposal of "moral power" as an answer to the energy crisis.

Of course, all this changed as the Holy Year neared. National committees were formed to call attention to the Holy Year. Publicity was synchronized. Travel agencies were encouraged to offer special tours at economy prices. A big promotion was under way.

Wittingly or not, Rome gave a boost to this promotion by scheduling six canonizations for 1975. By coincidence (or design?), those to be canonized have associations with areas of the globe that might be expected to produce large numbers of Holy Year pilgrims: the United States, Ireland, Spain, Peru, Italy, and Africa. The six are: Blessed Elizabeth Ann (Bayley) Seton, foundress of the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph, the first U.S.-born citizen to be so elevated; Blessed Oliver Plunkett, the seventeenth-century Irish martyr; Blessed Vincenta Maria Lopez y Vicuna, foundress of a Spanish religious order for women, and Blessed Juan Bautista de la Concepcion, a Spanish priest who died in 1613; Blessed Juan Macias (Matthias), a Spanish Dominican friar who worked in Peru; and Blessed Justino de Jacovis, an Italian bishop who died in 1860 after serving as Apostolic Vicar in Abyssinia (Ethiopia). The first of the canonizations-a dual ritual for Blesseds Vincenta Maria Lopez y Vicuna and Juan Bautista-will be held in May. The other four are planned for single rites at two-week intervals, roughly, in September and October, as the Holy Year builds to its climax.

The scheduling by stages no doubt reflects a concern for the visitor flow, a detail that should be greeted with relief by The Times of London. In an article this past January stating misgivings about Holy Year pilgrimages, The Times cited the formidable "logistics" and recalled that during the Holy Year celebrations of 1450 some 200 persons were trampled to death on a bridge. (The Times allowed that such a tragedy is not likely to recur. But it pointed out that largescale pilgrimages will place a great strain on tourist services in Rome, and that they are "usually attended by venality.")

III

Far more substantive is the question of the canonizations themselves. Unquestionably they strike many Christians as a theological ambiguity-or is the word presumption? Whatever, after the embarrassments of the last decade, when many "saints" were discovered never to have existed at all and the existences of many more were found to be dubious at best, it was hoped in many Christian circles (Catholic as well as Protestant) that Rome would suspend the practice of decreeing who was in heaven and worthy of honor. (By way of aside, it might be noted that the mistaken saintly identities involved figures who "lived" before 1634, before the present method of canon-

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ization came into force.) But to do away with canonizations is not Pope Paul's inclination, any more than it was Pope John XXIII's, though it was John who ripped the first big page off the calendar of saints when he stunned Catholics with news about the non-existence of St. Philomena. As for Paul, it will be recalled that he went on record early in favor of canonizations-in fact, at the November 18, 1965, public session of Vatican Council II, when he announced that he intended to facilitate the eventual canonization of his two papal predecessors, Pius XII and John himself. News reports of the day speak of a long moment of silence in reaction to the announcement, then prolonged applause. Those causes have not proceeded to the public stage, and it is unlikely that either of them will in the foreseeable future. It is undoubtedly as well; it is risky enough to canonize individuals who have been dead beyond living memories without chancing the ritual on someone as controversial as Pius XII and someone as yet not fully researched, known and understood as John XXIII.

In this context, the canonizations planned for the Holy Year are less attended by liabilities. All of the elect are dead at least 85 years, some as many as several centuries. It may be interesting, nonetheless, to observe that in order to canonize Mother Seton this Holy Year, it was necessary to waive the requirement of a second miraculous occurrence in the step from Blessedness to Sainthood. Pope Paul confirmed and settled for a single miracle (that of Carl Kalin of "fulminating meningo-encephalitis" in St. Joseph's Hospital, Yonkers, N.Y., in October, 1963) as fulfilling the requirements for canonization.

Many hopes are held out for the Holy Year. Officially, the Year is dedicated to "spiritual renewal and the reconciliation of men with God and each other." In this context, Church institutions such as Vatican Radio are emphasizing an ecumenical dimension and anticipating a "new advance" towards Christian unity. Elements within the Church, on the other hand, are more modest. The executive board of the National Federation of Priests' Councils, for instance, would apply the Holy Year purposes to internal Roman Catholicism. It asks that reconciliation be considered in terms of alienated youth, liberal-conservative Catholics, divorced and remarried Catholics, and resigned priests. Several calls have been made from other quarters that the Pope highlight the Holy Year by declaring an "amnesty" for Catholics who have entered so-called invalid second marriages, for priests who have departed from their ordination vows, and for other Catholics in problem situations.

That much is likely to result from such recommendations is very doubtful. Pope Paul is too much the traditionalist for dramatic actions of this sort, too much the cautious one to gamble on decisions of such potentially sweeping import. The guess is that Holy Year 1975 will come and go unspectacularly, with reconciliations that do occur

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being of an individual, as distinct from a group (much less a mass) nature.

Still, the Pope's heart is in the right place (condescending as that may sound, though it is not so intended). Paul, too, has a sophisticated appreciation of what renewal and reconciliation mean in Modern World, '75. He made this clear in statements proclaiming and explaining the Holy Year, as the following: "In today's world ... the problems which most disturb and torment mankind-economic and social questions, the question of ecology and sources of energy, and above all that of the liberation of the oppressed and the uplifting of all men to a new dignity of life-can have light cast on them by the message of the Holy Year." The sentiment of those words is not far removed from that of the board of the Federation of Priests' Councils.

By the same token, the "daughters" of Elizabeth Seton-by which is meant the 7,500 Sisters of Charity in the North American federation of the Seton order-are approaching the Holy Year and the canonization with admirable purpose. At one point, the possibility was being pushed of the Seton canonization being held in the United States; the members decided, however, that this would be overbearing, an unwarranted exercise of the country's affluence, and unfair to the other countries which have saints being canonized. Instead, representatives of the "daughters" will attend the canonization in Rome-and, more particularly, will mark the canonization year "by simplicity and awareness of the crying needs of the poor." "We hope it will provoke each of us to reflect more deeply on the significance of womanhood, manhood, oppression, liberation, ministry, gospel, church, and the ramifications of being true persons in the Lord," said Sister Mary Elizabeth Earley, assistant to the president of the Sisters of Charity. The sisters, therefore, are planning such programs as a lecture series on the "principles of personhood and liberation." They are also raising a fund to be presented to Pope Paul at the time of the Mother Seton canonization ceremony (September 14, 1975) to help alleviate the needs of the starving peoples of the world. It is difficult to nit-pick with that.

Abortion and Divorce: A Change in Attitudes?

Meanwhile, of course, there are those seemingly perennial issues of Catholic life: abortion and divorce. Though official stances on these topics are still what they traditionally have been-negative-some flexibility seems to be evidencing itself on the matter of divorce. The clues are slight, but I think nonetheless revealing. There was, to begin with, the failure of ecclesiastical authority to intervene in last October's convention of the Canon Law Society of the United States,

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when much of its business was devoted to the questions of divorce and second marriages. Nor did authority seek to bar a subsequent meeting at the Paulist Center in Boston of a new pro-divorce/remarriage organization known as the Divorced Catholics' Conference. Nor was there any flak when an article appeared in the Jesuit magazine America urging changes in discipline and new directions in the pastoral approach to the divorced and the remarried. (Among other things, the article by Father Charles Whelan, S.J., proposed that Catholics in irregular marital situations "be officially readmitted to full communion in the church" on the basis of certain conditions.)

Now it is possible, admittedly, to argue too much from too little. But in a church where authority is prone to make its mind known, even though it may not be able to exercise its will, it is a matter of surprise, and reason for a little psyching, when tolerances of this sort make themselves suddenly and consistently evident.

There are no such tolerances, on the other hand, towards abortion, and it very well may be that on that issue Catholic authority has drawn the hard line beyond which compromise is impossible and change unthinkable. The indicators abound: the dispatch with which the O'Rourke case was handled (Jesuit Father Joseph O'Rourke was expelled from his order last fall for the public baptizing in Massachusetts of a baby whose mother had taken a stand in favor of an abortion clinic); widespread anguish at the highest levels over France's decision to legalize abortion; the letter from the committee of American bishops to the legislative groups conducting hearings on the Vice Presidential nomination of Nelson A. Rockefeller, counseling the members to ascertain that Mr. Rockefeller would not use his office "to promote a personal viewpoint on permissive abortion"; finally, the 4,500-word document from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stating that nothing may justify abortion-neither threat to a mother's life, extenuating circumstances, damaged fetuses, nor anything else.

The Vatican statement made official Catholicism's opposition to abortion unqualified and unequivocal. It further struck at the opinion that would place the abortion question within the context of the pluralistic society, arguing therefrom that Catholics may seek to persuade others on the morality of abortion but have no right to force others to accept the Catholic viewpoint beyond that of persuasion. Accordingly, the Vatican document specified that Catholics "may never take part in a propaganda campaign" to legalize abortion laws, nor vote for them-words reminiscent of Pope Pius XII's 1949 directive prohibiting Catholics from voting for Communists.

In the United States, this document is likely to translate into continued Catholic effort to seek legislative change of abortion laws. On the state level, this would mean pressure to have permissive laws

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rescinded, or at least made less permissive. On the national level, it would mean renewed pressure to secure a constitutional amendment restricting or outlawing abortion. The effort faces a difficult test, particularly on the latter-and more crucial-level. Recent elections have shown a perceptible decline in voter preoccupation with abortion. People just are not as responsive to the issue as they were a few years ago. For example, nine of ten candidates opposed by National Right-to-Live News because of their support for abortion rights won handily in the last elections, according to Options, monthly newsletter of the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights. At the same time, some of the strongest anti-abortion voices have been stilled, electorally. These would include Congressmen like Harold Froehlich, R-Wis., Lawrence Hogan, R-Md., and Angelo Roncallo, R.-N.Y. It is a development (whatever the other issues involved in their respective defeats) that hardly bodes favorably for the anti-abortion forces.

Right-to-Life sources profess to see a net gain of four in its count of pro-life versus anti-life Representatives in the Lower House of Congress. In the Upper House, the Senate, the picture is somewhat more obscure. "Of the thirty-four up for election [last November], twenty-six Senate seats remain essentially unchanged in terms of their occupants' attitudes towards abortion," says Alice Hartle, editor of National Right-to-Life News. "In four states we [anti-abortion advocates] have either improved our position or defined it more clearly. In the remaining four, we do not have enough information to make a judgment. Of the twenty-six remaining unchanged, we view ten of those as basically pro-life, seven who could go either way, and nine who for the present must be placed in the minus column."

Stranger things could happen-yet it would be surprising if out of such narrow pro-and-con divisions could come the decisiveness necessary to produce major legislative change on something as emotionally heated as abortion-law revision. The guess here is that permissive abortion will continue to agitate segments of the American public; that legislators will continue to give the issue attention, but that their concern will reflect lip-service rather than determination to change laws; and that 1975 will see abortion take a stronger place in the surgical/moral commonality of the United States. Catholics may not like it, but they are going to have to learn to live with it.