Don Divo Barsotti with Cardinal Biffi (1998)
Reflections by Don Divo Barsotti,
“Christians want to be Christians”
“To think that in two months they threw out what we held most sacred. Gregorian chant is truly religious singing. It was thrown out with such conviction and so easily – actually, with a total sense of irresponsibility. At first they even wanted to throw out the Blessed Virgin, but we had a Pope who was very devoted to Her and so She found Her place again in the heart of the Catholic Church.
"I don’t know what they wanted to accomplish with all this.
"Now we have a pastoral Council, a Council for priests, but do we also have a Council for the Bishops to discuss how we worship? In the Church nowadays, all you hear is talk about helping the poor and feeding the hungry and so on. Certainly the Church must have Her say also in these matters, but the Church doesn’t have the means and therefore will never be able to resolve these problems completely. I repeat, even if She wanted to, She is not able to and will never be able to, if She doesn’t first have in mind the redemption of the structures that negate love.
They talked about peace at the Council, but in the last three years, 48 wars have broken out. The Church has a prophetic mission: to be the sign of proclaiming the future redemption”. (From the book “I cristiani vogliono essere cristiani” (Christians want to be Christians) Edizioni San Paolo).
“…We need to have clear ideas about the Church. Perhaps Vatican II didn’t stress the Church’s extraneousness to the world enough […]The world will never be able to expel or destroy the Church, but it opposes Her, at times with violent persecution, at other times by trying to assimilate Her into itself, by [trying] to swallow Her up, and this would be the most horrible victory for the Evil One. Christians today run the terrible risk of living this sort of worldly life. Now I don’t deny that history is important, but I deny that the Church can ever be swallowed up and assimilated into the world, seeing that, She is, in any case, unconquerable. […] It is grave that there is no perception of this deceitful battle through which the world is trying to “emasculate” the Church. We need to be awake in the Faith to understand the danger threatening us…
"I have never understood why Monsignor Lefevbre was treated so harshly […] but those like Kung, Curran and Schillebeeckx are allowed to question dogma. Today, in fact they want to make the Church an instrument for social life, reducing Her to a Church that suits everyone… Woe to us if we don’t stay awake…!” (Don Barsotti, Servant of God, from an interview by Antonio Socci, IL SABATO, September 23rd 1988).
Source: Cordialiter blog
Translation: Contributor Francesca Romana
