Papal Rethink of Petrine Office ...

Synod of the Family Shows Papal Rethink of Petrine Office, Says Cardinal Kasper

by PETER JESSERER SMITH 

A project begun by St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI to restore the exercise of the Petrine Office to its early Church roots is coming to fruition under Pope Francis, and is being seen in the synod on the family, according to Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican’s former point-man for ecumenism.

Cardinal Kasper, the president emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, spoke at length Nov. 6 about Pope Francis and his theological vision at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he was on-hand to receive the university’s 2014 Johannes Quasten Award.

Cardinal Kasper said Pope Francis’ first introduction of himself simply as the “bishop of Rome” reflects the mind of the Second Vatican Council to renew the universal Church as a “communio” and return the exercise of the Petrine ministry of the Bishop of Rome in relation to the whole Church as envisioned by the early Church.

“As communion, the Church has its own constitutional structure,” he said. “It is not a federalist nor a centralized system, in which the local churches are provinces of the whole Church and dependent unilaterally on what comes from the center.”

“The one Church is present in the local churches, and in them the one Church takes on a concrete local form and a concrete face,” he said.

“The local churches, vice versa, must also live in this one Church.”

Cardinal Kasper explained that when Pope Francis speaks of “decentralizing” the Church, and strengthening the local bishops’ conferences, “it must be understood within this framework.”

“It is not meant to call into question the Petrine Office as the visible center of the Church,” he said.

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