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Archives > Interview with Fr Joseph Fessio, SJ.
Interview with Fr Joseph Fessio, SJ.
(Available in August 2006 issue of Inside the Vatican
magazine.)
- by Andrew Rabel
Fr Joseph Fessio SJ was a keynote speaker
at the national conference of the Australian Catholic Students
Association on the weekend of July 7-9 in Newman College at
the University of Melbourne.
Fr Fessio is the founder and director of Ignatius Press,
the largest Catholic publishing house in the US, and the Provost
of Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida. A regular commentator
on Catholic affairs, he completed his doctoral thesis on "The
Ecclesiology of Hans Urs Von Balthasar" under then Professor
Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, at the University
of Regensburg, Bavaria in 1975.
In 1995, he co-founded Adoremus to push Cardinal Ratzinger's
goal of the "reform of the refom" pertaining to
the liturgy. As a close friend of the Holy Father, he has
a unique perspective to comment on the affairs and controversies
within the Church. At the conference, ITV was able to sit
down with Fr Fessio and discuss some of these with him.
1. With the election of Pope Benedict, many of his
supporters expected a tough crackdown on dissenters in the
Church. But it seems that the Holy Father is moving at his
own pace in those areas, to the impatience of some of his
diehard following. Is the reaction of some columnists a fair
one?
I don’t think it is fair. I think he has continued
what he has done as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith, in responding to serious problems that have
come to his attention. But he is someone who works slowly
but very surely in a certain direction, and I have not seen
any problem that he is aware of that he is not taken steps
to address. That may not please some people, but he has a
lot of things he has to do.
2. Are his recent appointments in the Curia significant,
or are they just the result of personnel who needed to be
moved, because the incumbents were aged?
I think the answer to that is both. Clearly, when he makes
a decision to merge the Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue
with Culture; and merged the Immigration Council with that
of Justice & Peace, he has a plan and I can’t believe
that plan is limited to those particular dicasteries. So I
am convinced that he from his long experience of being in
the Vatican, knows the direction he wants to move in, but
rather than imposing that as something from above, he is waiting
for opportunities to advance the plan.
I think a good example is the Secretary of State. Cardinal
Sodano was past retirement age, and it was important for the
Holy Father to have someone in that position who he could
work well with. He chose Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, someone
he has every confidence in, and worked with him for over eight
years as Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith. This will I think strengthen the Pope’s ability
to carry out reforms and plans he has.
3. What is your opinion over the appointment of your
old bishop, Cardinal William Levada of San Francisco in Pope
Benedict’s previous position as Prefect of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith?
It’s an appointment which has puzzled many people.
Certainly, Cardinal Levada is a loyal member of the Church,
and is supportive of the Holy Father. It is also difficult
for anyone to fill the shoes of Cardinal Ratzinger himself,
when he was so extraordinary at doing this job.
As a matter of fact, I am not sure that this office is quite
as important as people think it is. I think what made people
believe it was so important was the fact that Cardinal Ratzinger
was the Prefect.
There was some speculation after the election of the Pope,
there would be no one to replace him because he would bring
all of this activity under his own direction [before the election
of Pius XII, Pacelli had been Secretary of State and when
he became Pope largely seconded that dicastery]. In a sense,
we have a Pope who is a very doctrinal and theological man
and therefore while he certainly needs the help of an important
staff and in different curial offices, he doesn’t need
to find someone of his own stature which would be very hard
to find anywhere.
I think that the Holy Father picked someone that he knew
could work with him, and even in the Holy Office itself, it
wasn’t a one-man-show. One of the things Cardinal Ratzinger
did inside it was set up a collaborative structure, where
there was a very definite process by which different issues
could be handled. I think the Congregation works very well,
and functions very smoothly and therefore it is not as important
who it is that occupies any particular position inside the
office. It is kind of like the old Jesuit school system, where
it doesn’t require any particular geniuses to make it
work, it took people who were faithful to the mission, and
did their jobs as prescribed, and so that in that way you
can achieve a lot.
4. In the past year, particularly with the Synod
of the Eucharist, and the imminent publication of the post-synodal
apostolic exhortation, a lot of attention and discussion has
been given to the area of liturgy, ie the recent approval
by the American bishops of the new English translation of
the Roman Missal. Is this a fruition of the ideals you established,
when you started Adoremus and what are we in fact likely to
see happen in this very vexed area?
Well, I can’t predict what specific, concrete changes
will come about, through legislation or documents from the
Holy Father but his views on liturgy are well known and I
do not think this represents merely his own person opinions,
they represent a deeper knowledge of the history of the liturgy,
and its liturgical life.
I cannot believe that he will not take steps to move in the
direction of a real renewal of the liturgy, and he said that
publicly. Pope Benedict said we need to re-read the Vatican
Council documents in the light of tradition, and that includes
first and foremost Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Decree on the
Liturgy.
I would certainly be surprised if nothing happened, what
will happen, when it will happen, we will just have to wait
and see although I believe this post-synodal exhortation will
be a significant document.
5. For instance, are we likely to see a universal
indult granted to the celebration of the Tridentine liturgy,
and the disappearance of some liturgical concessions like
communion in the hand etc (called for by 2 bishops at the
Synod)?
I don’t know whether that is in the works or not, that
is not an area that has been in the forefront of Pope Benedict’s
writings. Certainly if you look at his writings on the liturgy,
there is a great emphasis on the tradition of church music,
the beautiful and holy Gregorian chant and polyphony. There
is the question of the direction of prayer, and the lessening
of the taboo against celebrating Mass in the direction of
the East. He is very supportive of more adoration and more
kneeling, liturgical actions.
So those things I think we can predict he will move towards
implementing because he has written so much about it. As far
as the universal indult goes, I don’t know. He certainly
said he thought it was a mistake to prohibit the pre-conciliar
Mass. But now after having been prohibited for so many years,
I am not sure what the Holy Father will do.
6. I believe last September in Castelgandolfo, a
group of you met with the Holy Father to discuss pressing
issues, and what was quoted from the meeting were Pope Benedict’s
concerns regarding Islam. Can you reiterate what the Holy
Father said then, and are these meetings to continue?
This is a meeting of former doctoral students of the Holy
Father, and the Pope wants it to continue. We will be meeting
next in September and the topic will be “Evolution and
Creation”. Last year, it was the Islamic concept of
God, and its consequences for secular society. What the Holy
Father said during the meeting basically is the same thing
he said elsewhere. So, I am not going to comment on it as
something he said at the meeting but if you want to see what
he thinks about Islam. It is public, and he has certainly
emphasised this every time he has met with the Muslims ie
the need for them to insure freedom and reciprocity for our
welcoming of them in Western societies, and for our freedoms
in their societies.
7. In 1996, after your trip to Australia, your visit
became enshrouded in controversy because of the criticisms
of the then provincial, Fr Bill Uren SJ, who charged that
you did not have the right permission to engage in a public
ministry here from him. In retrospect, was this an error on
your part?
I have made many mistakes in my life, but that was not one
of them. If I want to go into another Jesuit province, I only
need the permission of my own provincial, as I had then from
the one in California.
He was at liberty of course to take this matter up with the
Australian provincial, but that did not need my involvement.
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Inside The Vatican (ISSN 1068-8579) is a Catholic news magazine, published monthly except July
and September, with occasional special supplements.
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