The Bishop in His Local Church
What is the place that God in His goodness assigns to a bishop within the Church? From the outset, as one belonging to the apostolic succession, he sees before him the universal Church. He is sent out into the whole world and, precisely for this reason, he becomes a sign of the catholicity of the Church. I have been aware of this universal dimension of the Church since my earliest childhood, ever since I first learned to recite the words of the creed: “I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.” It is this universal community that embraces the witness of so many times, places, and people, all those chosen by God and gathered together into one, “from the time of Adam, from Abel the just one, to the last of the elect” (Lumen Gentium, 2). This great witness and these bonds of fellowship are eloquently expressed in the liturgy of episcopal ordination, so as to call to mind the entire history of salvation with its proper end, which is the unity of all people in God.
Every bishop, while he bears within himself a responsibility for the universal Church, finds himself placed at the center of a particular Church, namely the community that Christ has entrusted specifically to him, so that through his episcopal ministry the mystery of the Church of Christ, the sign of salvation for all people, may be realized ever more perfectly. In the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, we read: “This Church of Christ is really present in all legitimately organized local groups of the faithful, which, insofar as they are united to their pastors, are also quite appropriately called Churches in the New Testament. . . . In each community gathered around the altar, under the sacred ministry of the bishop, a manifest symbol is to be seen of that charity and ‘unity of the mystical body, without which there can be no salvation.’ In these communities, though they may often be small and poor, or existing in the diaspora, Christ is present through whose power and influence the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is constituted” (n. 26).
The mystery of the bishop’s vocation in the Church consists precisely in the fact that he is situated both in this particular visible community, for which he was made a bishop, and at the same time in the universal Church. It is important to understand clearly the singular connection between these two aspects. It would undoubtedly be an oversimplification and a serious misunderstanding of the mystery to think that the bishop represents the universal Church in his own diocesan community—in my case, Kraków—and, at the same time, represents this to the universal Church, in the way in that, for example, ambassadors represent their respective states or international organizations.
The bishop is the sign of Christ’s presence in the world, going out to meet men and women where they are: calling them by name, helping them to rise, consoling them with the Good News and gathering them into one around the Lord’s Table. For this reason, the bishop, while belonging to the whole world and to the universal Church, lives out his vocation physically removed from the other members of the Episcopal College, so as to be close to the people whom, in Christ’s name, he calls together in his particular Church. At the same time, he becomes for these very people a sign that their isolation is ended, because he brings them into fellowship with Christ and, in Him, with all those whom God chose beforehand since the world began, with those whom He calls together today throughout the world, and with those whom He will call into His Church in the future, until the very last of the elect. All are present in the local Church through the ministry and the sign of the bishop.
The bishop exercises his ministry in a truly responsible way when he is able to call forth in his people a lively sense of communion with himself and, through his person, with all believers throughout the world. In Kraków, I had personal experience of this living sense of unity in the hearts of priests, religious orders, and the laity. May God reward them! Saint Augustine, seeking help and understanding, was accustomed to say to the faithful: “There are many people who reach God as Christians without being in charge of anything, and no doubt have all the easier a journey for traveling light, and carrying less of a burden. But we bishops, apart from being Christians, as which we shall render God an account of our manner of life, are also in charge of you, and as such will render God an account of our stew-ardship.”22
This is the mystery of the mystical encounter with men “from every nation, race, people and language” (Rev. 7:9), with Christ present in the diocesan bishop, around whom the local Church is gathered at a specific moment in history. What a strong union this is! With what magnificent bonds they are united and held together! I experienced this during the Council. In a particular way, I experienced collegiality: the entire episcopate with Peter! I relived this experience afresh in 1976, when I preached the retreat to the Roman Curia, assembled around Pope Paul VI. But I shall return to this later.
Collegiality
Let us cast our minds back to the beginnings of the Church when, by the will of our Lord and Master, the apostolic office was instituted. The community of “those whom he wanted” (cf. Mark 3:13) grew around Him. Within that group, different personalities were formed and deepened, beginning with Simon Peter. It is into this college of disciples and friends of Christ that every new bishop is introduced, through the call and the consecrationthathereceives.Thecollege!Our participationinthis community of faith, of witness, of love, and of responsibility is the gift that we receive together with our call and our consecration. What a wonderful gift it is!
We bishops all find that the presence of our brothers provides us with support expressed through the bonds of prayer and ministry, through our witnesss, and through sharing the fruits of our pastoral labors. A particular comfort for me today, from this point of view, are the meetings and exchanges that I have with bishops during their visits ad limina Apostolorum. My great desire is that the workings of God’s grace in their hearts, minds, and actions should be recognized and cherished by all. Today’s rapid communications make it possible to meet more often and more fruitfully. This enables each of us, bishops in the Catholic Church, to look for ways to reinforce our episcopal collegiality, including active collaboration within Episcopal Conferences and joint discussion of our experiences within the great family of the Church throughout the world. If bishops meet together and confide in one another their joys and their concerns, this will surely help them to maintain that “spirituality of communion” of which I wrote in the Apostolic Letter Novo millennio ineunte (cf. nn. 43–45).
Even before my election to the See of Peter, I met numerous bishops from every country, although, naturally enough, I saw more of the bishops from neighboring European countries. These meetings were a source of mutual comfort. At times, especially when the bishops were from countries under a communist dictatorship, they could be quite dramatic. I am thinking, for example, of the funeral of Cardinal Stefan Trochta in the then Czechoslovakia, when contact with the local Church was either impeded or made outright impossible by the communist authorities.
Before the cardinals decided that I should be the one to occupy the See of Peter, my last pastoral encounter with bishops from a neighboring country was in Germany, where I went together with Primate Wyszyński in September 1978. This was an important sign of reconciliation between the two nations. All these meetings have been continued in an extraordinarily intense way in the daily meetings with bishops from various parts of the world that I have been privileged to experience since my election to the Chair of Saint Peter.
The visits ad limina Apostolorum are a particular expression of collegiality. On principle, every five years (sometimes there can be delays), bishops from more than two thousand dioceses all over the world take it in turns to come to the Vatican. Now it is my turn to receive them, just as I was received at the time of Paul
VI. I greatly appreciated my meetings with Paul VI, from whom I learned a great deal about how to structure these visits and how to conduct them. Now I have devised a pattern of my own: Firstly I receive each bishop personally, then I invite the group to lunch, and finally we celebrate morning Mass together and have our for
mal group meeting.
I draw great profit from meeting bishops: I could say in all simplicity that from them I learn about the Church. I need to do this constantly, because I am always learning new things. From my conversations with them I come to know about the situation of the Church in different parts of the world: in Europe, in Asia, in America, in Africa, and in Oceania.
The Lord has given me the strength to be able to visit most of these countries. This is very important, because to spend time personally in a country, even if only briefly, allows one to see all sorts of things. Besides, these meetings allow me to establish direct contact with the people, and this has great value both at the interpersonal and at the ecclesial level. It was the same for Saint Paul, who was constantly traveling. Precisely for this reason, as one reads his letters to different Christian communities, one senses that he lived among them, that he knew the people of each locality and their problems. The same is true at every stage in history, including our own.
I have always enjoyed traveling, and I am convinced that this task has in a sense been given to the Pope by Christ Himself. Even while I was a diocesan bishop I enjoyed pastoral visitations and I considered it very important to be aware of what was happening in the parishes, to know the people and to meet them directly. While it is true that pastoral visitations are a canonical requirement, experience of life would be enough to recommend them. Saint Paul is the model here. Peter too, but Paul first and foremost.
The Council Fathers
During the first session of the Council, when I was still an auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese of Kraków, I had occasion to thank Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini for the generous and valuable gift that the archdiocese of Milan had made to the collegiate church of Saint Florian in Kraków: three new bells (a symbolic and most eloquent gift, not least because of the names given to the bells: Virgin Mary, Ambrose-Charles Borromeo, and Florian). Father Tadeusz Kurowski, provost of the collegiate church of Saint Florian, had requested them, and Archbishop Montini, always very generous toward the Polish people, took the project to his heart and showed great understanding toward me, a very young bishop at the time.
My Italian colleagues, who took charge, so to speak, of the council proceedings and the work of the Vatican in general, always astounded me by their courtesy and their sense of the universal Church. During the first session, the universality of the Church was brought home to me in an extraordinary way by my contact with a number of bishops from Africa. They were distributed throughout Saint Peter’s Basilica, where, as everyone knows, the work of the Council unfolded, and among them were some eminent theologians and zealous pastors. They had plenty to say. More than anyone else, Archbishop Raymond-Marie Tchidimbo of Conakry left an impression on me; he suffered greatly at the hands of the communist president of his country and was eventually forced into exile. I had cordial and frequent contact with Cardinal Hyacinthe Thiandoum, an exceptional personality. Another eminent figure was Cardinal Paul Zoungrana. Both men were formed in French culture, and spoke that language as if it were their mother tongue. I established a close friendship with these two prelates when I lived in the Polish College.
I also felt very close to the French cardinal, Gabriel-Marie Garrone, twenty years my senior. He was extremely courteous toward me, I might even say affectionate. We were made cardinals together, and after the Council he became prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education. I seem to remember that he also took part in the conclave. Another Frenchman with whom I established a close friendship was the theologian Henri de Lubac, S.J., whom I myself, years later, made a cardinal.
The Council was a privileged period for becoming acquainted with bishops and theologians, above all in the individual commissions. When Schema 13 was being studied (later to become the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the modern world, Gaudium et spes), and I spoke on personalism, Father de Lubac came to me and said, encouragingly: “Yes, yes, yes, that’s the way forward,” and this meant a great deal to me, as I was still relatively young.
I also established friendships with Germans: Cardinal Alfred Bengsch, a year my junior, Joseph Höffner of Cologne, and Joseph Ratzinger, churchmen of exceptional theological competence. I particularly remember the then very young Professor Ratzinger. At the Council he was accompanying Cardinal Joseph Frings, archbishop of Cologne, as a theological expert. He was later named archbishop of Munich by Pope Paul VI, who also made him a cardinal, and he took part in the conclave that elected me to the Petrine ministry. When Cardinal FranjoŠeper died, I asked Cardinal Ratzinger to take his place as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I thank God for the presence and the assistance of this great man, who is a trusted friend.
Unfortunately very few of the bishops and cardinals who took part in the Second Vatican Council (October 11, 1962–December 8, 1965) are still alive. It was a most wonderful ecclesial event, and I thank God that I was able to participate in it from the first day to the last.
The College of Cardinals
In a certain sense, the heart of the Episcopal College is the College of Cardinals, who surround the successor of Peter and sustain him in his witness of faith before the whole Church. I became a member of this College in June 1967.
The gathering of cardinals is a particularly visible expression of the principle of collaboration and mutual support in faith on which the Church’s whole missionary endeavor is built. Peter’s task is the one assigned to him by Jesus: “And you, when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22:32). From the earliest centuries, the successors of Peter have availed themselves of the collaboration of the College of bishops, priests, and deacons, who shared in their responsibility for the city of Rome and for the neighboring dioceses (the so-called suburbicarian sees). They began to be designated as viri cardinales. Obviously, as the centuries have gone by, the forms of this cooperation have changed, but their essential significance remains unchanged, as a sign for the Church and for the world.
Since the pastoral responsibility of the successor of Peter extends to the whole world, it has become increasingly opportune that all over the Christian world, viri cardinales should be present, particularly close to Peter both in sharing his responsibility and in their total readiness to witness to the faith, even to the shedding of their blood (hence they wear scarlet, like the blood of the martyrs). I give thanks to God for the support and the sharing in responsibility for Church government that the cardinals of the Roman Curia and throughout the world so generously offer me. The readier they are to support others, the more they confirm them in their faith and, in consequence, the more able they are to fulfill the enormous responsibility of electing, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the one who is to assume the Office of Peter.
Synods
My life as a bishop began at almost the same time as the announcement of the forthcoming Council. As is well known, one of the fruits of the Council was the institution of the Synod of Bishops, created by Pope Paul VI on September 15, 1965. Since then, several Synods have taken place. An important role in their planning and execution falls to the general secretary. The first to hold this office was Cardinal Władysław
Rubin, whose wartime adventures brought him via Lebanon to Rome. Paul VI entrusted him with the creation of the Synod secretariat, no easy task. I did what I could to support him, principally by offering advice. Later he was succeeded by Cardinal Jozef Tomko, who in turn was followed by Cardinal Jan Pieter Schotte.
As I mentioned, there have been several Synods. Besides those celebrated under Paul VI, there have been Synods on the family, on the sacrament of reconciliation and penance, on the role of the laity in the life of the Church, on priestly formation, on consecrated life, on the episcopate. There have also been some with more specific themes: one for the Netherlands, one for the twentieth anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, and one for the Special Assembly for Lebanon. Then there have been the Synods on the various continents: Africa, Americas, Asia, O
ceania, and two Synods for Europe. The idea was to cover all the continents before the new millennium, to come to know them and to note their problems, in preparation for the Great Jubilee. This program was carried out. Now our thoughts must turn to the next Synod, on the sacrament of the Eucharist.
As a bishop, I had already had experience of a Synod—a most important one had taken place in the archdiocese of Kraków, to mark the nine-hundredth anniversary of Saint Stanislaus. Obviously this was just a diocesan Synod, concerned not with the affairs of the universal Church, but with the far more modest situation of the local Church. Nevertheless, diocesan Synods are also significant for a community of the faithful who live day by day the same problems associated with the practice of the faith in specific social and political circumstances. The task of the Synod of Kraków was to introduce the decisions of the Council into the life of the local community. I planned this Synod for the period 1972 to 1979 because, as I mentioned earlier, Saint Stanislaus was bishop from precisely 1072 to 1079. I wanted those dates to be relived nine hundred years later. The most important experience was the work of the numerous synodal groups, all deeply committed. It was a truly pastoral Synod: bishops, priests, and laity all working together. I concluded this Synod when I was already Pope, during my first journey to Poland.
The Retreat for the Curia During the Pontificate of Paul VI
I shall never forget that truly unique retreat. Making a retreat is a great gift from God. It is the one time when everything else can be put aside so as to encounter God and listen to Him alone. This is without a doubt a most valuable exercise for the retreatant. For that reason, no one should ever be put under pressure to make a retreat, but, if anything, the interior need for it should be awakened. Yes, there are times when one might say to someone: “Go and stay with the Camaldolese or at Tyniec for a break,” but in principle, it should really come from an interior need. The Church, as an institution, recommends priests in particular to make retreats, but the canonical norm is just another element alongside the desire arising from the heart.23
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