Alfons Maria Cardinal Stickler SDB died yesterday, aged 97. Earlier this year, he celebrated the 70th anniversary of his priestly ordination.Gillibrand at Catholic Church Conservation has a translation of his obituary in Der Standard (Cardinal Stickler, one of the all time great cardinals has died).
The Cardinal was always a friend of the traditional liturgy. Here is a link to an address that he gave to the Latin Mass Society at its annual meeting in 1992. Summorum Pontificum was a vindication of his consistently held position that the old rite of Mass had never been abrogated.
His book The Case for Clerical Celibacy, published by Ignatius, was an accessible summary of the conclusions reached by the research of Cochini, Cholij and others on the question. He made the telling point:
These studies have either not yet penetrated the general consciousness or they have been hushed up if they were capable of influencing that consciousness in undesirable waysHere is the announcement of the Holy Father's telegrams of condolence from today's Vatican Information Service:
VATICAN CITY, DEC 13, 2007 (VIS) - Benedict XVI has sent two telegrams of condolence for the death, at the age of 97, of Cardinal Alfons Maria Stickler S.D.B., archivist and librarian emeritus of Holy Roman Church: one to the late cardinal's brother and sisters, and another to Fr. Pascual Chavez Villanueva, major rector of the Salesian Society of St. John Bosco.Full text of the telegrams (Italian)
The Holy Father describes the cardinal as a "sincere and zealous collaborator of the Holy See" who in all his duties "provided precious testimony of fervent faithfulness to Christ and to the Church." He also mentions the "cultural and ecclesial industriousness of the distinguished jurist and illustrious cardinal."
The office of Liturgical Celebrations has announced that the funeral will take place tomorrow, at 5pm in St Peter's, at the Altar of the Chair, presided over by the Holy Father.
Requiescat in pace
5 comments:
Cholij later recanted his errors.
Forget about this study concerning celibacy - read "Celibacy, Gift or Law?" by Heinz-Juergen Vogels for an unanswerable case, in entirely traditional and orthodox terms, against compulsory priestly (not to mention episcopal) celibacy.
Nevertheless, God rest the cardinal's soul.
I hope the Pope offers the Mass in the Traditional Rite for him, not for any reason other than that it would be so fitting. God Bless Him.
Cholij later recanted his errors.
I don't think that even the most ardent of Cholij's opponents would accuse him of heresy. I would be genuinely interested to see anything published by him that calls into question what he wrote in his doctoral thesis. But the argument essentially goes back to the controversy between Bickell and Funk and has been discussed by many others apart from Cholij
I see that the original of Vogels' work was published in 1975, some years before Cholidh started his research. I note that he got married in 1979. I'll read his book, though.
For a more recent treatment, I would recommend Stefan Heid's "Celibacy in the Early Church" (Ignatius)
Co-incidentally, on the FishEaters forum, an Eastern Rite Catholic had this to say on the Cholij work:
"You can easily find statements by popes that the custom of clerical celibacy/continince is disciplinary rather than doctrinal. The belief in the "Apostolic Origin of Priestly Celibacy" was introduced in recent times, in a book of the same name by Fr.Christian Cochini, and popularized in books by his student, Fr. Roman Cholij, and the late Cardinal Stickler (R.I.P.), both of whom rely on Cochini's "research". If you read Cochini's book, you'll see that he quotes all the statements he can find in favor of universal celibacy, and ignores the evidence of the contrary practice."
Actually, the false idea that compulsory celibacy is of apostolic origin dates back to the Council of Konstanz, I think (or was it Basel??). Such a non-dogmatic statement was made by the council in the face of justified (and incresing) agitation (even at the council itself) by the mediaeval clergy to have the law repealed.
The bulk of Cochini's book is an examination of all the documented cases of clerical marriage (Bishops, priests and deacons) until the end of the 7th century.
The thesis is not that celibacy was compulsory but that in practice, those who were ordained lived continence (abstained from sex) from then, even if they were married. The wife also often entered religious life. Cholij's doctoral thesis examines the origin of the contrary practice (married clergy continuing to live as married men.)
Cochini's thesis was examined by Jean Danielou who encouraged him to pursue the matter further in a second edition. It takes up the debate between Bickell and Funk, as Stickler and Heid explore.
The debate is still alive but a sweeping statement from "an Eastern Rite Catholic" does not cut much ice in the debate without some further evidence, I'm afraid.
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