Mystery Undermined
A 2018 Festschrift to Fr Elmar Salmann described him as being ‘neither conservative nor liberal, but rather classical and liberating’. The source of the description is not given, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes from Fr Salmann himself, enunciated as an aspiration. He is a deeply aspirational man, ever in via. This comes across in a recent, readable interview with the Osservatore Romano. Among other things he says: ‘The Council led to a humanisation of the kerygma, spiritualising it in a Lucan key – we are living in the era of the third Gospel – a dramatic and extraordinary passage that has run its course in parallel to my own life. But this humanisation hasn’t made us more human. I mean, it has given no profile to the mystery. The Eucharist today is a ‘fraternal meal’, which is fair enough, but what have we done with the Mystery, the real presence, the making-present of Jesus’s passion? Tension has been pushed in the direction of making the Mystery comprehensible. As a result, we have lost it as such. Thus the humanised Christian undermines the framework of the mysteries and with them the role of the Church.’