Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith withdraws negative evaluation of 1958 book
April 22, 2014
Cardinal Giuseppe Betori of Florence said in an interview that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has withdrawn its negative evaluation of the late Father Lorenzo Milani’s Pastoral Experiences.
In 1958, the Holy Office, without condemning the author or the work, asked that it be withdrawn from circulation, Cardinal Betori told Toscana Oggi.
“The intervention had a clearly prudential character and was motivated by contingent situations,” said Cardinal Bertori, who added he had sent a dossier to Pope Francis in November about the book and that the Pope had referred the matter to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
“Today the Congregation tells me that now the circumstances have changed and therefore this intervention has no reason to exist,” said the cardinal.
Catholic News Service reported that “Don Milani wrote that the modernization of Italy was bringing ‘development but not progress,’ and that the Church had become less important to ordinary people ‘than the cut of a pair of trousers, a good snooze, making money, having a good time.’ The Church itself, he wrote, had become more involved in ‘ritual’ than faith.”
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Further information:
- Il Vaticano rivaluta «Esperienze pastorali» (Toscana Oggi)
- Vatican rehabilitates writings of controversial Italian priest (CNS)
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