Scola's interview of de Lubac

In the July 1985 issue of 30 Giorni, Angelo Scola published an interview with Henri de Lubac. The following is his last question of the interview and de Lubac's response to this question:

I would also like to ask you about the manner in which Cardinal Ratzinger conducts the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He dictates books, convenes journalists, holds press conferences, speaks on television, often appears on the front page of newspapers, as the center of lively polemics. Which link is there between this very public mode of governing [the CDF] and the traditional one, steeped in mystery?

De Lubac: The things you have just enumerated do not constitute acts of government. But it appears to me very fortunate that the one who exercises such an office should break with certain habits of silence that his predecessors were criticized for.

Dr. Ratzinger is an excellent theologian by profession. Just before he left Regensburg, the best doctoral students were still rushing there to place themselves under his direction. He is not afraid to take up in broad daylight either fundamental questions or current problems, always with calm, simplicity, a sense of measure, great respect for people and a smile. His foremost concern is certainly not to please. He does not try to escape from his role, which is occasionally not a very agreeable one.

Neither does he forget the distinction, in him, between the private theologian and the head of a congregation. Nor does he neglect one of the essential ends of his own congregation, which is to promote in a positive way the study of doctrine. He seizes the opportunities of helping in that himself. If he is now and then at the center of polemics, as you say, that is certainly not his own wish. The defamatory campaign which is even now being conducted against him is also, to use the term again, a complete falsehood - or at least, the result of a most regrettable carelessness. Perhaps we can hope that it's only, as Father Duprey said quite recently about just one of these publications, "the inevitable re-apparition of the Loch Ness monster."

To end on a light note, may I add a remark about vocabulary? The stir which was made recently in France about [Ratzinger's use of] the word "restoration" is ridiculous. There are some patriots among us French who cannot imagine that the world is vaster than our own hexagon and that others have the right not to shape their language or their experience on the basis of our little political history. Further, let me note in passing that this word, which has suddenly become so controversial, is a conciliar word. It's the French translation - and the only one possible - of the word instauratio, which occurs in the very title of one of the council constitutions and several times afterwards. All the translations I have been able to consult agree on this point. Moreover, the word is so far from being backward-looking that it fits in well with another word in the conciliar test, translated in French by "progress": "ad instaurandam atque fovendam..." It even seems to me that this pair would make an excellent motto for the upcoming synod: Restore (re-establish), where necessary, the true meaning of the council, and progress in its application.

May I, finally, recall something else from the council? Ratzinger, a peritus there, was also the confidential secretary of Cardinal [Joseph] Frings, the archbishop of Cologne. The old cardinal was blind and relied very much on Ratzinger for writing the statements he made at the council. Well, one of these will remain memorable: It is a criticism, calm but radical, of the methods of the Holy Office. In spite of a response from Cardinal [Alfredo] Ottaviani, Frings stood by his criticism.

It is not exaggeration to say that the old Holy Office, in the image it presented, was destroyed by Ratzinger, in union with his archbishop. Cardinal Franjo Seper, a man full of good will, began the renewal; Ratzinger is continuing it. It would be good to keep this episode in mind...