The Princess & the Cardinal...

A few days ago, Seraphic mentioned that it was the Dianaversary - the anniversary of the late Princess Diana of Wales. The public response to her death was enormous and is popularly perceived as somehow changing the relationship between the British Monarchy and the people.  The popular narrative is that the official behaviour of the traditionalist Royals was deemed inadequate by the general public.  The press judged that the populace's grief at the loss of the 'People's Princess' was more authentic than that of the Royal family and put pressure on them to leave Scotland and come to Buckingham Palace where floral tributes were stacked high outside the railings.  Headlines such as Where is our Queen? Where is her flag? and Show us you care challenged the traditional protocol and in response, Queen Elizabeth gave orders for the Union Flag to be flown at half-mast on the day of the funeral - a break from the traditional protocol, but (more importantly) touted by press and politicians as a sign of some sort of seismic shift in relations between the Monarchy and People in Britain. It was taken to represent the public will overcoming the traditions of the Royal family and forcing the Monarchy to engage in a new way with its subjects.

Not being British, I'm not sure I can comment intelligently on the extent to which that narrative is true -  it certainly suited the newspapers to congratulate themselves as the influential and powerful mouthpieces of the British people capable of bending the will of the Queen herself and I suspect that the self-consciously modernising 'New Labour' government of Tony Blair found it a useful story as well. Regardless of whether it effected change within the Monarchy or not, that's the accepted story out there and I suspect that newspaper editors everywhere are looking to repeat the job again - to seize on something that strikes a chord with the public and seem to play an influential role bringing about change and progress.

I'm inclined to think that today's Leading Article in London's Independent newspaper is an attempt to stir up some of same emotions that swirled about at the time of Princess Diana's death.  The occasion is the death of the Archbishop Emeritus of Milan, Carlo Cardinal Martini SJ, and in particular the international attention given to his last interview (text here in Italian) where (a month before his death) he argued that the is Church behind the times and urged a re-thinking of some areas of Church life. Non-Italian speakers will find this automated translation a help in understanding what the Cardinal said.  The juicier parts of the interview have been widely reported and put out there as a challenge to Pope Benedict.  Shorn of their context, they seem to have become a rallying cry for people who had probably never heard of Cardinal Martini until last week.

The article in the Independent begins with a challenge, trying to set up its Diana-moment:

If Pope Benedict does attend the funeral in Milan of Cardinal Martini, whose body, robed and mitred, crosier at his side, was laid out for the veneration of the faithful at the weekend, it will surely be with mixed feelings. The danger of not attending the last obsequies of such a high-ranking prince of the Church is that it might appear cowardly, tantamount to a public admission that a rift had grown up between them.          

 A nice opening, but one totally detached from reality. The protocol - no matter how well-regarded or important a Cardinal might be - is that the Pope sends a delegate to funerals on his behalf.  In this case, Cardinal Comastri will attend on the Pope's behalf and read a message at the funeral. Cardinal Marini's successor, Cardinal Scola will celebrate the funeral Mass. The Independent would like to have us think that this might appear cowardly and a public admission of a rift between Pope and Cardinal - but that's only the case if you know nothing about the protocol surrounding these funerals and the absurdity of the idea that the Pope's attendance was ever a possibility.
If you look at this list of the Cardinals who have died during Pope Benedict's papacy, you'll see that between 5 and 10 Cardinals die each year. Some were close collaborators of the Pope in the Roman Curia. Others headed important dioceses throughout the world. Some were retired scholars or churchmen who were honoured by the Holy Father for their life's work. Some were men whose thought was close to that of Pope Benedict, others might called part of the 'loyal opposition' or have theological opinions which differ from the Popes.  All were - for one reason or another - significant in the life of the Church.  To the best of my knowledge, the Pope didn't attend the funerals of any of them - not even the funerals of those who worked in the Vatican and had their funeral Mass in St. Peter's with the exception of doing some of the prayers for Cardinals whose funerals were celebrated in St Peter's Basilica. The Pope was represented at all of them and he mourned their passing, but he doesn't celebrate their funeral Masses and doesn't attend them in person. I suspect that one of the reasons why he doesn't attend these funerals is precisely so as to avoid the kind of insinuation made by the Independent article - if one Cardinal is honoured by the Pope's presence at his funeral, then the Cardinal who does not have the Pope attend is immediately presumed to have been snubbed and dishonoured by the Pope. As it is not practical or possible for the Pope to honour all Cardinals with his personal presence at their funeral, then the protocol must be that he honours them all equally by sending a representative and by offering Mass himself each November for the Cardinals who died during the year.
There is also a practical point to consider - a Papal trip to Milan for Cardinal Martini's funeral would, in effect, be a pastoral visit of the Pope to that North Italian city with all the attendant diplomatic and security hullabaloo. Is it really to be expected that the necessary preparations could be accomplished in a couple of days? Or that it would even be appropriate for the Pope to take away from the funeral liturgy by the fuss which would inevitably accompany his own presence?
No, this whole false question of whether the Pope would attend Martini's funeral in Milan is either the ill-informed pondering of someone who knows next-to-nothing of Church affairs or a speculation dishonestly raised by someone who knew it was not a possibility, but wanted to fling some mud in Pope Benedict's direction with the expectation that it would stick.

The rest of the article is the usual boiler-plate criticism of the Church.

The rest of the Catholic hierarchy is afraid of its authoritarian leader, and seems unwilling even to question, let alone oppose, his hard-line views on contraception, homosexual relationships, the remarriage of divorced people in church, the admission of women to the priesthood, the abolition of clerical celibacy and a lot of other issues.

It's very easy to fulminate about Pope Benedict the 'hard-liner' and 'authoritarian leader' if you approach these issues with the presumption that the tradition of the Church has nothing to add to the discussion. It's easy to paint Pope Benedict as the big bad wolf if you set aside his evident humility and the fact that as a theologian and a Cardinal, he did indeed scrupulously and seriously question the Church's position on many of those issues. The trouble with Benedict from the Independent's point of view is that when Ratzinger/Benedict raises these questions and seriously discusses them, he doesn't come up with the answers the Independent was looking for. For example, just last June at the 'World Meeting of Families' in Milan, as part of a Q&A session, the Pope dealt with the question of Divorced and Re-married couples. Interestingly, both Cardinal Martini and Pope Benedict see engagement with and support of families in just that situation as being a key pastoral priority for the Church. In his final Cardinal Martini asked:

 The question of whether the divorced can take Communion should be reversed. How can the Church get to help with the power of the sacraments to those who have complex family situations?

 Speaking in Milan, Pope Benedict XVI dealt with precisely this problem and said:

 As regards these people - as you have said - the Church loves them, but it is important they should see and feel this love. I see here a great task for a parish, a Catholic community, to do whatever is possible to help them to feel loved and accepted, to feel that they are not “excluded” even though they cannot receive absolution or the Eucharist; they should see that, in this state too, they are fully a part of the Church.

Certainly Pope Benedict and Cardinal Martini were not in full agreement on this matter.  However, responsible journalism would do more to make clear that Pope Benedict is exercised by the same concerns for people's situations and their relationship with the Church that troubled Cardinal Martini. It is not fair to imply he is blind to these problems and that he hasn't encouraged Catholic thinkers and pastors to do their best to bring the love of Christ and His Church in seeking to respond to these pastoral situations.
I think too that the media has a responsibility to the memory of Cardinal Martini as well. Even though I profoundly disagree with some of the things said by the Cardinal and frankly believe some of them to be irresponsible and in error, it would be fairer to him and to those who hold him in high regard to report what he said fully and in context, rather than mining his interviews for stones to throw at the Pope.  At times I believe the Cardinal spoke out of line and spoke in error. I fear that in some ways he misled a great many people.  At other times, however, he raised genuine and serious questions to assist the Church in responding to the challenges of the world in a manner faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Accurate and nuanced reporting would enable us better to sift the wheat from the chaff in Martini's contribution to the debate. (Blog post corrected to take account of more accurate information received about Cardinals' funerals in St Peter's.)