The Bishop's Weekly Column from the Parish Bulletin

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

CATHOLIC CHURCH

Was Cardinal Ottaviani a Traditionalist ?

August 29th, 2006

A Surprising Answer to a Familiar Question...

Recently reading a book on the Second Vatican Council I found the following interview to be most enlightening especially where Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani is often cited by trads as a dyed-in-the-wool conservative:

On October 29, 1965, when the fourth Council session was almost half over, Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani was 75 years old. There were no big celebrations, because the nearly blind secretary of the 'Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office', as its former title read (it is now called the Congregation for the Faith), is personally very modest, and has no love for display. A correspondent for the liberal Corriere della Sera got an interview. Ottaviani abhors the 'opening to the left' of the Italian Democratic Party, but he showed himself sympathetic to the Italian Liberal Party.

The journalist asked the controversial cardinal what stand he intended to take on the innovations which are obviously coming, due to the Council. Ottaviani replied: 'I am an old policeman guarding the gold reserves. Do you think I would do my duty if I started to sell out, if I left my post, if I just winked at these things? My dear boy, 75 years are 75 years. I have lived them in defense of certain principles and certain laws. If you tell an old policeman that the laws are going to change, he will realize that he is an old policeman, and he will do everything .possible to prevent them from changing. If the laws change anyway, God will surely give him strength to defend the new treasure, in which he believes. Once the new laws have become the Church's treasure, an enrichment of her gold reserves, then there is still only one principle: loyalty in the Church's service. But this service means loyalty to her laws-like a blind man. Like the blind man that I am.'

The Council and the Future, p 187

Archbishop Fulton Sheen made the following quip about Ottaviani's tenacity in his autobiography Treasure in Clay:

The humor of the Council came out of the various characterizations that were printed and spoken about those in Council. For example, Cardinal Ottaviani had as his motto Semper Idem (Always the Same). Because he was generally opposed to any changes by the Fathers, stories soon became current that one day he asked the taxi driver to drive him to the Council but the driver took him to Trent, a town in northern Italy where a Council was held in the sixteenth century.

Treasure in Clay p 287

Obviously Sheen's caricature was less than accurate if the first quotation was true. Imagine that - Ottaviani was a man of obedience... "there is still only one principle: loyalty in the Church's service. But this service means loyalty to her laws-like a blind man. Like the blind man that I am." A lesson for us all in Catholic obedience and the acceptance of the authority of the Church !

+TF