Last Vatican II Father outs himself

The last living bishop at Vatican II is dead.

I'll leave it at that.

MiL - Messainlatino.it: In morte di un vescovo rosso, anzi arcobaleno

MiL - Messainlatino.it: In death of a red bishop, indeed rainbow

The funeral of Bishop Emeritus Mons. Luigi Bettazzi, who died last Sunday at the age of 99, was celebrated by his current successor Mons. Edoardo Cerrato. Born in 1923, Mons. Bettazzi was the only Italian bishop still alive to have participated in the Second Vatican Council (he was consecrated bishop in 1963, as auxiliary of Bologna, becoming then ordinary of Ivrea in 1966). 

Last Italian exponent of Vatican II and perhaps also of that "Vatican III" dreamed of by those who already in the aftermath of the assembly was not yet satisfied with the earthquake of changes that took place in a few years. To the point that, even before the council ended, 42 bishops (Bettazzi was the only Italian) gathered at the Catacombs of Domitilla to sign a pact in the name of... "Church of the poor" (a slogan that has often ended up impoverishing the Church by reducing its message to mere social accompaniment). 

In his thirty-year episcopate of Eporedi and also in the long years that followed him as emeritus, Bettazzi remembers above all the letters to Berlinguer, the battle on the fiscal objection for military spending, the pacifist marches and finally the openings – in open support of the Prodi government – on the subject of Dico and various positions that have made the elderly prelate a (red) flag. 

In the cursus honorum of Mons. Bettazzi lacks nothing, including a rather fanciful exegesis in November 2022 in which the prelate admitted to "subverting the Church's conception of abortion," hypothesizing in summary that the embryo is not automatically a person, or at least not immediately (speeches that we have recently heard echoing at higher levels.). In short, it was undoubtedly a "prophetic" voice – whereas "prophetic" usually means "left-wing priest". Prophetic was, however, actually in the famous interview of February 2012 when he spoke of the possible resignation of Benedict XVI, then actually happened a year later. Benedict died, in a new interview in January 2023 he repeated the experiment announcing the resignation of Francis (who will live, will see). And even the remote "prophecy" of the catacombs has come true, but in the sense of impoverishing above all the action of the Church of its spiritual dimension and thus depriving the poor themselves. Also thanks to the contribution of "prophetic" voices like his.

A small detail of the funeral of Mons. Luigi Bettazzi: on the coffin the book of the Gospels and... the "flag of peace" (the one with the colors of the rainbow, not to be confused with the similar but not identical LGBT flag). Better still would be to call it a "pacifist" flag, to remember that ism that marks the difference with Christian peace that does not need flags. 

A symbol inevitably marked by a political connotation, typical of a certain left-wing movement – and also raised in certain parades where there is never a lack of someone animated by excessive non-violent zeal that leads him to smash cars and shop windows. A symbol, however, made its own, especially in the early 2000s, also by a part of the Catholic world to which the cross is no longer enough and ends up being "prey to easy enthusiasms and fashionable ideologies" (quoting Battisti). 

A "divisive" symbol, we would say, towards those who do not share those "easy enthusiasms and fashionable ideologies" and yet would be part of the flock entrusted to the rainbow clergy who, opening up to the "world", end up excluding rather than including, moreover, overturning the evangelical dictate: the good ... left. 

Let us pray to the Lord of the harvest to send us shepherds, not faction-leaders.