After the speech of Mons. Rino Fisichella, we wish to examine the erroneous interpretations about the Church conception which have come out after the Vatican Council II.

We know that the Vatican II is a Council that in the History of the Church, has deeply analysed the reality of the Church, in order to expound it coherently. Consequently, about the characteristic aspects of unity, holiness, catholicity, apostolicity, some questions have directly asked on these aspects, or also in its entirety, the way the Council has been receipted from different people who, although they haven’t directly asked questions about the distinctive aspects of the Church, however, they have necessarily adopted a position which is for or against the councillor expositions about the Church, because the Vatican II has principally been a Council ecclesiological. Moreover, the Church is "mystery," "institution and community". As "mystery", the Church is linked to all the salvific economy of God in his Son Jesus Christ and then, it is intimately and indissoluble associated to this mystery. This then necessary to precise and remember that in this case, the word "mystery" has not the semantic connotation, that is something that can not be explained and that is incomprehensible . For the Holy Scripture, the word "Mysterium", is synonym of "plan ", "design", and "the "good intention" of God will of creating, saving and glorifying the man and all the things, trough his Son Jesus Christ.

Knowing that, it is necessary to take into account the first erroneous interpretation , we find here, that, although, in any form, it is not only and exclusively post councillor, it still occurs.. And it is then the affirmation pronounced by someone "Jesus Christ yes, not the Church!". The "misterium Ecclesiae", transmitted by the revelation and receipted by the theological faith, not at the same but analogical degree, with the faith of the Lord, is the main idea and the first meaning of what we call Church.

It is the indissoluble correlation of the" misterium Christi" is a binding element of our theological faith.. As mystery which has been hidden for centuries in God, and which has been revealed recently is, hypothetically a pre-existing mystery that is former to any historical organisation, as it is pre-existing in the unfathomable mystery of God, the word that long time ago came to live with us.

As an historical institution we have to relate it to Jesus Christ, it means , to the reality established in him, in the historical totality truth. The Vatican Council II has, with result, affirmed : " for deep analogy to the mystery of the Embodied Word" (cfr. L G 8): That means that the "misterium Cristi", became history in temporally spaced co-ordinates, so that, "the word became body" (Jn 1,14) in a determined reality and in a historical worldliness. The "misterium Ecclesiae" parallely became world historical, and tangible institution..

The liberal followers of the exegesis and in a more tangible way the members of the Imminent Eschatology School started to express the concept that Jesus was dominated by the perspective of the total forthcoming arrival of the kingdom and at the same time he never desired to establish a Church which would continue his operate. On the contrary, according to the members of the Consequent Eschatological School, the Church likely took origin on the basis of the Parusia deferment., apart from any previous intention of Jesus, the ecclesial community and institution would probably sprang off the permanent form and structures, not before the second Christian generation. In this context the wit affirmation of Loisy takes its origin: " Jesus announced the kingdom and what came after was the Church.".

The principle that the Gospels are the witness of the Church on Jesus and not the witness of Jesus on the Church is now accepted., so that the text of (Mt 16,18) must be considered an isolated text for proving the historical foundation of the Church. But the Church, from the Easter perspective places this text in the historical intention of Jesus of going on with his salvific work. The Church takes origin rises, or comes from, all the being , doing and saying of Jesus and not from a punctual act of foundation of the historical Jesus. This is the acquaintance experienced and transmitted by the Church on its –self in the evangelic witness.

But it could be uncompleted perception of the fondant character of the Church from Jesus. If it could exclusively consider this fact as historical, generating event , like those who say: "Bolivar is the founder of five south American republics"; no, the Church does not live exclusively "for Christ" because he is its founder in the past, but "it lives of Christ", as Christ is alive, present , irreplaceable in it, making continuously possible the access to the Father, continuously recreating our old historical fraternity.

If there is only one and unique Church of Jesus Christ, as John Paul II has undoubtedly reminded us in his recent document ." Dominus Jesus"- about the salvific oneness and universality of Jesus Christ and to the Church, where at n° 16 he writes: "Lord Jesus, the only Saver, did not establish a simple community of disciples, but he established the Church as" Salvific Mystery": Him-self is in the Church and the Church is in him. (cf. Gv 15,1 ss, Gal 3,28; Ef 4,15-16, At 9,5); Therefore the ….of the salvific mystery of Christ also belongs to the Church, inseparably united to its Lord. Jesus Christ, in fact, goes on with his presence and salvific work in the Church and trough the Church (cf Col 1,24-27), that is his body (cf 1 Cor 1, 12-13. 17; Col 1,18): And in this way, as the head and limbs of an alive body even if they don’t identify one an other, they are inseparable, Christ and the Church can not be either blurred or separated. And they form a unique "total Christ"

For that in connection with the oneness and the universality of the salvific mediation of Jesus Christ, the oneness of the Church must be "firmly conceived as verity of catholic faith. So, as there is just one Christ, there is a single body of him and only one spouse of him: "a single catholic and apostolic Church".

As "community", the Church is formed by persons in the succession of Jesus . As system of evangelic relation of persons, the Church is the "community of brothers"(adelfoi: Mt 23,8; adélfotes, fraternity <<<. 1Pe 5,9). As community of those who are faithful to the walk Jesus, the Church is the "congregation of the believers"" (pistoi: Ef 1,1): As theologal community of those who have been summoned and redempted, and holied, the Church is "the Communion of the saints" (coinonia ton agion: Rom. 12,13; 1 Cor. 14,33). Rightly in these perspectives of communion, the Church is, "ikona" (holy image) of the community of the Father of the Son and the Holy Spirit, community of life in total communion of love and intentions.

The Holy Trinity is a model, not because the mysterious Trinity can declare the reality of the Church, but because it performs the Church. It is not possible for the Church to go on through the history, by refusing all that is contradictory to the community essence of communion, of relation, and of the participation in God, but by accepting all the erroneous manners that are contradictory to the community condition, the communion and the participation to the in the Church. The Church is not believable as image and sacrament of the Trinity, if it keeps on living in orthodox way the doctrine of the Trinitarian community and practising the Church community. On the contrary, what we refuse as being erethical in the Trinitarian community (monarchism, modalism, adoptionism, subordinatism and, tritheism), is also erethical in the forms of the ecclesial community. And what we practice in the relations of persons, similar, different and united in a relation of love, must be prologue of what we believe, means and love of the adorable Trinity.

By that we do not want oppose to the charismatic functions of the Church, in reflexion to those of the holy Trinity. Because if there is equality among the people the origin and missions are different and about our participation to the divine life, it completes starting from the Envoy, from the Word, from the Son, as we receive the origin and neither the paternity, nor the pneumatology.

How it has been affirmed till now, is above all for the essential Trinitarian inspiration of the Church in contradiction with forms of Church and ecclesiology, which are founded on a monochristism and neither Trinitarian, nor pneumatological, that does not respect either the tradition and neither performs in pastoral way for facing such an impetuous anti ecclesial and anti community current which is today shaped on the individualism on the personalism on the solipsism, on the neo-liberalism, on the narcissistic religiosity that considers the salvation without the need of community, and community bindings of theologal coinonia that is to say without the Church.

In the introduction of such a wide treatment of the possible real and erroneous post councillor interpretations about the Church, I would like to remind you now some painful episodes occurred after the conclusion of the Vatican Council II. more than 35 years ago.

It might be generally possible to abandon an institution because if we refuse its identity and the proposal of variants that modify its essence and that do not belong to it, they determine our abandon. But it is also possible to abandon an institution because it is reduced and it realises that even if it remains loyal its mission, it is necessary to modify, not the essential components, but the functional characteristics . For the Church is to announce and diffuse the Gospel of the salvation of God through Jesus Christ, to the men and the women of a determined era and context, to renounce to that is to renounce to our own identity as the Church lives as it is apostolic, that is to say, missionary and led to cultural and different contexts, which are not supinely accepted, but by leaving them the new imprint of the salvation of God.

But it is necessary to proceed , by taking into consideration that in all the cultures there are already some previous elements of the Gospel, these elements have been defined by Saint Irene: " the signs of the word that was mentioned by Pope Paul II in the "Evangelii Nuntiandi", and that the fourth general conference of the American-Latin Episcopate, gathered in Santo Domingo, has reconsidered. The evangelisation, must start again not

from the periphery but from the centre, from the heart of the cultures from of the heart of men, from his values, dreams and intentions, in the historical –geographic co-ordinates.

The historical path of the men undoubtedly shows the route at the moment of the important decisions. I think this is the case of Mons. Marcel Lefèbvre, Archbishop of Dakar, till his community nominated him as General Superior, he abandoned this role for the integrals positions that brought him to really abandon his congregation to join with the first seminarists in Friburg

From the one hand, Mons. Lefèbvre desired to obey to the "eternal Rome, teacher of Wisdom and truth" but on the other hand he firmly opposed" the "neo -modernist and neo-protestant trend of Rome that was clearly showed in the Vatican Council II".(2)

The Lefèbvre position was consolidated in the period from the closing of Vatican II to the beginning of the 1970’s. In his first attack Mons.tried to relatives the goals of the Vatican II affirming that the inner and personal renewal was essential, and that this council did not oppose either to the Council of Trent or to the Vatican I, but it was its development.

Later he affirmed, first privately, and then in public, that the Vatican II is "the biggest calamity of this and the past centuries since the foundation of the Church" and that the Vatican II encouraged the socialism, the liberalism, the modernism, and the Zionism,". It is the year 1789 (the French Revolution of the Church). "the liberty is presented as religious liberty or liberty of the religions; the "equality, as collegiality that introduces into the Church the principles of the democratic equalitarianism , and finally the "fraternity" as ecumenism, that incorporates all the heresies and the mistakes, and helpes the enemies of the Church".(3)

The Vatican II is consequently contrary to the tradition and it represents a schism in the heart of the Church that, is a vacant see since the death of Pious XII. The reformed and liberal Church is out of the truth. "We are in the schism – he says in the 1976- we are the continuers of the Catholic Church, those who run into the schism are the innovators , we followthe tradition.(4)

In particular we remember how Lefèbvre and some integralists refused the councillor reformations about the sphere of the liturgy, in particular the reformation about the celebration of the eucharistic and those about the status and the priestly ministry. He forgot that the ‘tradition’ to which he constantly appealed, is transmission but also reception, adhesion, progress, heritage, creation.

At the end of the 1970, Mons. Lefèbvre founded in Econe (Swiss), the International Priestly Fraternity "Saint Pious X" and in 1974 he wrote a faith profession where he opposes the Church of the Vatican II" to the "usual Church". In the 1976 he ordained 13 priests and on July the 23d of the same year he was deferred a "divinis "by Pope Paul VI. Successively, either Paulus XI and Paul John II tried in any way to have a talk with Lefèbvre, till they signed a Protocol, on May the 5^th 1988, between Lefèbvre and the cardinal Ratzinger, where there are some concessions, for avoiding the schism. But, at the end, on June the 2^nd, the elderly Archbishop, wrote to the Holy Father denouncing the Protocol, and declaring him-self back to the Vatican II. On June the 30^th 1988, he decided the ordination of four bishops, without the permission of the Pope, for promoting the work he created and running so into the excommunication of the catholic Church. The public decision is expressed by John Paul II on July 2^nd with the publication of the "Motu Proprio" "Ecclesia Dei adflicta", that foresees the possibility of returning to the Church for the repentant members of the schismatic Fraternity "Saint Pious X", allowing them to keep "spiritual and liturgical traditions", according to what was granted by the Protocol of the Cardinal Ratzinger.

The wide theological production of Leonard Boff, about the method of the Theology of the Liberation that, according his supporters, rather than new contents, it is about a different approach to the theology, about the poor people and the social- analytical mediation of Marxist impression, he mad it possible that the christological production first, and the Boff ecclesiology, later, was criticised, firstly by the Doctrinal Commission of the Brazilian Episcopate and later by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the agreement of the Pope John Paul II, on March 11^th 1985, communicated to Leonard Boff that his book "Church Charism and Power" had been served (4), The theologian was granted an audience by Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation, on September 7^th 1984, for a talk about this publication. On May 15^th the Congregation it-self had already sent him a letter about that. Leonard Boff had the chance to have a talk where he could show his observations about the document of May 15th. But the Congregation thought that, it was necessary to publish the reservations about the volume: "Church: Charism and Power". even after the talks and the presentation of the documents by Father Boff , reminding his different acts of fidelity to the Church and to the Magistry and his good intentions.

In this document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, there are some references about the "Doctrinal Premises" that underlines the importance to have a thought on the Church. Although the Church is a development of the singularity of the particular Church, that does not mean that the Church is not one, catholic and universal, in the different times and places. So, the universal Church grows and improves as far as the particular Churches do, whereas the particular Church would decrease and decline as far as the unity would lessen. For that, the real theological speech cannot be restricted to the interpretations and the animation of the reality of a particular Church, but it almost tries to penetrate the contents of the holy shed of the word of God, given to the Church, and authentically interpreted by the Magistry.

The praxis and the experience, that are always the result of a limited and determined historical situation, help the theologian and force him to make the Gospel comprehensible in the time when the theologian lives. However the praxis does not either replace or produces the reality, but it remains on the service of the reality given to us by the Lord. Then, the theologian is called to decipher the language of the different situations,- the signs of the times- and he opens this language to the understanding the faith (cf. Redemptor ominis, n°19).

The analyses of the structure of the Church presented by Boff starts from here. It is clear how the author has given a countrary interpretation to the meaning of the text of the "Lumen Gentium" (8) saying: "Hec Ecclesia (sc. Unica Christi Ecclesia)…subsistit in Ecclesia Catholica". But Boff says:" In reality, it, (that is the only Church of Christ) can subsist in other Christian Churches" (p. 131) (6), when the Council expressly searched the "subsistit" for declaring a unique "subsistence", whereas outside of it, there are only" elementa Ecclesia", that by being elements of the same Church they lead to the catholic Church. (7). From this erroneous interpretation, Boff establishes the relation between Catholicism and Protestantism when he affirms that "the roman Christianity (Catholicism) differs for the brave affirmation of the sacramental identity and the protestant Christianity differs for a brave affirmation of the non identity" (pag. 130; Cfr pp.132 ss., 149) .

In the same time he affirms that the Church as institution, was not present in the mind of the historical Jesus but it rose from the process of de- eschatology, then, the hierarchy is the result of one "strict necessity of institutionalisation", of " being mundane ", according to the roman and feudal style" (pa. 70). The result of this interpretation is the necessity of a permanent transformation of the Church" (pag.112) and so today there is the necessary that a new Church rises up (pag.110 and following) that will be " a new embodiment of the ecclesial institution in the society, whose power will be a simple function of service" (pag111).

Although Boff makes a distinction between dogmatism and dogma, by refusing the first and accepting the second, however, he hardly criticises the doctrinal understanding of the revelation, and he thinks that the dogma, in its formulation, only worthies "for a determined time and circumstance" (pag. 134) and that "in a second phase of the same dialectic process, the document must be overcome, for leaving place to the other document of the today faith ""(pag. 135). How it is showed, the relativistic position of Boff is explicit and unacceptable. On the contrary, for Boff the real understanding of the dogma in the Church is subject to the verdict of the "dogmatism", and so he affirms:" As far as this kind of dogmatic and doctrinal understanding, of the revelation and the salvation of Jesus Christ will exist, it will always be necessary to irreparably face with the repression of the diverging conception of the Church". (pag. 74).

For Boff, the exertion of the power in the roman Church is a grave pathology we have to rid of . In the same way he compares the Church to a social organisation marked out by a specific way of producing in its own organisation. For Boff, then, there was an historical process of expropriation of the means of religious production by the clergy at the expense of the Christian people, who was deprived of the possibility to the decision, of teaching, atc. (Cfr. p. 75,222 ss., 259-260). Moreover, the holy power has gravely been deformed and it is subject to the same defects of the profane power. In terms of supremacy, centralism, triumphalism, (Cfr. pp. 100, 85, 92 ss. ) The consequence is that the power in a new model of Church must be conceived without theological privileges, as a pure service and articulated according to the necessity of the community. (Cfr. pp. 224,111).

Proceeding like Boff does, it means to classify both the Word of God and the sacraments in the plan of "production and consumption", reducing the communion in the faith to a mere sociological phenomenon. The sacraments are not a symbolic subject, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith states, also reminding that the administration of the sacraments is not pure production and to receive them doesn’t mean to consume them. The sacraments are a gift from God, no one "produces them", as by them we receive the grace and the love of God. The man must correspond to these incommensurable gifts of the Lord, by the faithful acceptance to his will by which we will all be judged, because we are, in front of him, -priests and seculars- "useless serves" (lc. 17,10). However, the assumptions and proposals of Leonard Boff are unacceptable.

Boff affirms that the hierarchy and the ecclesial institution have taken the gifts and the charisms, revenging, in particular, the prophetess (cfr. pp. 258-261,268). The hierarchy would simply have the function of co-ordination, promoting the unity and the harmony of the different services, of "keeping the circularity by preventing any deviation and superimposition", eliminating, so that, from this function "the sudden subordination of all the members of their hierarchy" (cfr. p. 270).

Undoubtedly all the people of God enjoys the participation to the prophetic office of Christ (cfr. LG 12,32), but it is not less evident that the prophetic denounce in the Church, in order to be legitimated, must stay on the service of its establishment. This denounce not only must accept the hierarchy and the institution, but it must co-operate positively for the consolidation of the internal communion. The hierarchy must identify its exercise as organised and authentic. (cfr. LG 12 ).

I had the idea of showing these elements, unknown by many, in this assembly and I followed the text of the Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for its objectivity and utility and for the typical authority of the Congregation.

The Magazine "Tierra Nueva" n° 56 of the 1986, pag. 85-94, shows some explanations about theological arguments where Leonard Boff withdraws some mistakes. At the end we can read:" I think that these classifications will clear up my positions written on the books "Christ Passion- Passion of the world and ecclesio genesi", but he doesn’t talk of the books commented by us, however he follows a "final observation" (pag.93).

It is particularly significant what he says in n°( 5 ). The theology is "fides quaerens intellectum", the faith that must try to understand. Consequently, the theologian is a man of faith and a man who integrally accepts the revealed truths, showed in the Magistry of the Church. It is necessary to penetrate the sense of such truths, not straying from the Magistry, but, on the contrary, collaborating with it (whose word is not always definitive, but, it is sometimes just an orientation). And at n° 6 after having realised that "the theologians are not on the top of the Magistry", but they are subordinated to it, "giving that, it has the charism of the truth, as the Vatican II remembers: "the tradition progresses in the Church (….) by the announcement of those who, with the succession of the episcopate, received the certain charism of the truth" (DV. 8), that Boff him-self has underlined.

And I conclude by affirming:" these truths show the interest of the Holy See for the works of Father Leonard Boff, which, as the same author has recognised, don’t lack of theological erroneous propositions.

NOTES OUTSIDE THE TEXT

1) LOISY, A. L’Evangile et l’Eglise, Paris 1902, 153.

2 ) LEFEBVRE, M. Un Evêque parle. Ecrits et allocutions (1963-1975), Ed. Dominique Martin Morin 1976, 270.

3) Letter of LEFÈBVRE to Paul VI of July 17^th 1976.

4) Cf Chalet, J.A. Mons Lefèbvre, Paris, 1976, 133-148.

4) Cf Acta Apostolicae Sedis, Vol 77/2 ( 1985) 756-762.

59 Ibidem 757.

6) For the quotations of Boff L, there are the pages of the Italian translation used in the Document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

7) Cfr. UR 3-4 and Mysterium Ecclesiae, N. 1, AAS LXV (1973) 396-398..