Here is Exaudi’s interview with Cardinal Julián Herranz Casado:
“The first time he received me, after my appointment as Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Church’s Law, I explained to Saint John Paul II the theology of the donkey.”
“To oppose Benedict XVI and Francis is diabolical,” says Cardinal Julián Herranz Casado, President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts. He has been a privileged witness of the life of the Church over the past sixty years. From 1960 to today, as an expert in the Church’s Law, he has served six Popes: from John XXIII to Pope Francis. And for 21 years he lived next to the Founder of the Opus Dei until the latter’s death on June 26, 1975. Recently, he has had a book of memories reprinted. In the proximity of the anniversary of the death of Saint Josémaria Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás, he received me in his room to share with Exaudi’s readers some of his singular experience.
What has it meant for you to work with six Popes and to live with the Founder of the Opus Dei?
I’ve tried to serve six Popes and I must say that, in the history of the Church, there has not been such a chain of Holy Popes as now. Of these six, three have already been canonized: Saint John XXIII, Saint Paul VI, and Saint John Paul II. One, John Paul I is on the way to beatification, no doubt this year. And two are still alive, but I have already sanctified them in my heart. This is a huge gift that the Lord has given the Church against those somewhat pessimistic, negative views that exist sometimes, without thinking that if there is something in the world that won’t disappear it’s the Church, which is Christ Himself, yesterday, today and forever. Despite all our weaknesses and our personal sins, the Church is the Body of Christ and Christ never dies. One of the fruits of all this is the holiness of these Popes. In regard to Saint Josémaria, my experience is that he was a precursor of Vatican II and this has been said by all the Saints I alluded to; in one way or another, all of them have acknowledged it. The teaching of Saint Josémaria and of the Opus Dei was an anticipation of what Vatican Council II said regarding the absolute need to have the laity take up its responsibility again in the evangelization of the world because the Church is made up fundamentally of the laity. In the course of history, because of the ”interweaving” of the Church with the temporal power, there has been a clerical vision, as if those that make up the Church are the clerics and Bishops. For goodness’ sake, the Church is the baptized, who become children of God and, with Baptism, rights and duties are acquired that are not entrusted to the laity by the hierarchy but directly by God: the right-duty to be saints and apostles, to imitate Jesus despite human nature’s weakness and to take Christ’s message to the world.
You also worked in Vatican Council II. In your judgment, what is the most important, the most significant teaching of the Council for the life of the Church?
Many important things belong to the teaching of the Council: episcopal collegiality, the liturgical reform, ecumenism, the inter-religious dialogue . . . for me, the most important things are contained in two chapters of the Constitution Lumen Gentium. First: to present the Church as People of God, as we said earlier. Second: <to present> that which contains the universal call to holiness and to the apostolate, of which Saint Josémaria’s teaching was a precursor. What does it mean? When the Council says that the Church is the People of God, she means that one must not have a ‘hierarchological’ (literal,) and clerical vision. The Church is all those who, with Baptism, are born to a new life. They must imitate Christ, Jesus’ behavior in the Gospel. Know the Gospel, because a Christian must see reflected there the image of Christ, which he must try to embody in his own life; to be holy and, as a consequence, to take Jesus’ message to the world. A world that is sad, disconcerted, which tries to find happiness in awful things . . . sometimes when our gaze goes downwards only the puddles of the path are seen instead of the beautiful horizons of God’s children who look to eternal life. The Council wanted this: we must put ourselves on a war footing . . . better said, as someone might be scandalized <and say> I am a pacifist! –on the footing of evangelization, all the laity that live especially in the nations in which there is an abundance of wealth, comfort, wellbeing, who aren’t evil but can lead — if there is not a sense of moderation, of sobriety –, to a bourgeois, sweetish life, to a rose-colored Christianity, without grit, without apostolic and evangelizing incisiveness.
How to evangelize?
By example and word — first by example. What did Jesus do? In Matthew’s chapter 25, He tells us on what we will be judged. What Pope Francis is reminding us continually and that many don’t want to hear: to give to eat and drink to one in need of it, to clothe one who is naked . . . to live Christian charity because Jesus said to Christians, beginning with the Apostles, ‘by this they will recognize you, if you love one another. ’God’s whole covenant with humanity, which Christ recalled so forcefully, is summarized in those words. The Church developed because Christianity brought this vision to a pagan world, in which each one cared only for himself, for his own pleasure, his own interest, devoid of a transcendent dimension. A Christian that lives like this today, in the midst of a neo-pagan society, attracts others, because there is thirst in souls, a need of Christ, and they see it in one’s look, in one’s way of speaking, of behaving. It’s the great revolution of Vatican II, which is taking place. Pope Francis is pushing a lot for us to be truly Christians, to love our neighbor, to give example — fratelli tutti because there is only one boat, otherwise, it will sink.
Based on this long personal experience, you have just published in France a book of personal memories on Saint John Paul II and Saint Josémaria, published a few years ago in Italian with the title “In the Vicinity of Jericho.” What are the main novelties of this book?
I wrote about the first four Popes that I served. I’m now writing another on the other two; I don’t know if I’ll finish it, I’m 91 . . . The editorial novelty consists above all of the updating of all <foot>notes. It’s a historic book in some ways, a sort of personal blog of memories and personal interpretations of various events, with many footnotes that I had to update. Updated thus are many contents that are projected in the future. I did not want to speak of the last two Popes, because I have lived with them experiences that touch on government problems, which are very topical.
What is your most beautiful memory of your relationship with Saint John Paul II?
A purely anecdotal event: we saw one another often for questions of government, but I once explained to him the theology of the donkey and he was really impressed. It was the first time I went to him, after my appointment as Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Church’s Law. I had to take to him some practices but also a small gift to thank him for his trust. And I thought I would take to him the statuette of a donkey. I know a lot about it because I learned the theology of the donkey from the founder of the Opus Dei: to take Christ to the world it’s necessary to be humble, to think that one is taking Christ, not oneself. The statuette was a small iron donkey, which Saint Josémaria gave me at the start of the Council when I was called to work there and he said to me: ’you’ll have to work a lot, the donkey is the image of the Opus Die, God’s work.” When I arrived, I said to him, Holy Father, I brought you some practices and this small gift.” He put it aside. It was a truly a very small thing. However, as we spoke I saw that while we were talking he was looking at the bag in which I put it. In the end, he asked me what it was and asked me to explain to him the theology of the donkey. The Pope, who was curious, made me speak and I began to make reference to the donkey of the manger that warmed the Child Jesus; then Christ’s entrance in Jerusalem, for which the Lord didn’t choose a horse but a donkey. It’s the only time in the Gospel that Jesus says: ”the Lord needs it” . . . a donkey! At that moment, the Pope’s Secretary, Father Stanislaw (Cardinal Dziwisz,) arrived at the door, reminding him that there was an Ambassador waiting. And John Paul asked that ‘he wait a bit . . . he continued to ask me. I started again remembering that the donkey in Jerusalem had its eyes covered; it could hear the Hosanna’s but was not filled with pride . . . we too, must be humble, if we want to enter men’s cities: to take the Lord to others is not our merit . . . Father Stanislaw appeared again and the Pope said again “he must wait a bit!’ And then I talked to him about the donkey and the waterwheel, which turns around the well to draw water, an image that the Founder used to describe ordinary work, always the same, the same schedule . . . work thanks to which a garden or a vegetable garden flourishes. In the end, the Pope took leave of me, saying that we should have continued to talk about the theology of the donkey.
What are your saddest and most joyful memories of the Founder of the Opus Dei?
The saddest was the day of his death. As a doctor, they called me to his side; he was on the ground because of a cardiac attack. I tried, with another son of his, also a doctor, to do artificial respiration but we didn’t succeed. At that moment I asked the Lord to take me, as I felt I wasn’t useful for anything, while the Work needed the Father (the Founder was called so in the Opus Dei and now he is called the Prelate, ndr). I wept; it was the saddest day of my life. The most joyful, instead, was when I concelebrated with Saint John Paul II and heard him declare the Founder of the Opus Dei a Saint. I had canonized him before the Pope, but what I thought didn’t count, rather than the Church to propose him as a star to illumine humanity.
Beyond the book, how were your years next to Benedict XVI and how would you judge his pontificate? Do you still have a personal relationship with the Pope Emeritus?
For me, Benedict XVI has been a Father of the Church for the modern world. I’ve said it often. The Fathers of the Church were concerned first of all to make Christ known to all those that were baptized, and Benedict XVI’s grandiose work has given so much doctrinal light. And then, they illumined a pagan world through evangelization, and it’s what the Pope Emeritus has done with his monumental theological work. There are four addresses in his ministry that I regard as fundamental: that of the United Nations, in which he took up the theme of the dictatorship of relativism, a central point of his teaching; that of Paris, center of world culture – quaerere Deum, to seek God by living rationally; then that to Berlin’s Bundestag, where he talked about ecology, about respect for the laws of Creation, but also about the Natural Law; finally, that before Queen Elizabeth, on relations between the Church and politics. I still go every now and then to see him, to take Roman sweets to him, which he likes very much.
To conclude, one of the objects of the “Exaudi” agency is to reinforce Catholics’ unity with the Holy Father. From your experience, what do you think of the divisions, of the opposing tendencies that exist in the Church today?
There is good and evil in the world; there is Christ and there is the father of lies, who seeks to divide Christians. All the Popes, at least the six I’ve known, have had oppositions. What we must be very careful about — Father Cantalamessa also said it in his Good Friday sermon –, is to live fraternally, to give witness to humanity that we are all brothers, because there is a Creator God and we are all in the same boat. We have a common home and we must defend it. The saddest thing is when Christians are divided over politics, in which there are above all economic interests. It’s sad when there are people that bow before human power and forget the need to love, which is the great power with which revolutions are made. We, priests, are also to blame for this, because we have often talked about politics instead of Christ. It’s true that in dramatic circumstances it’s necessary to do so, but once the exceptional situations are surmounted, political freedom must be an integral part of the human person. However, not because of this should oppositions arise as, instead, happens. There is a tendency now, which is to oppose two pontificates. It’s absurd to use faith at the service of political-economic interests; to make use of Christ, to use the Cross as a sort of trampoline. This is a most diabolical thing. Benedict XVI and Pope Francis esteem one another very much; I am a direct witness of this. Christian spirituality is like a diamond, with many facets. Benedict XVI has Christ’s doctrine shine; Pope Francis has the facet of charity emerge. But they aren’t opposed. In history, the Lord makes the diamond spin of this richness of the Christian message to the world, and, according to the historical time, He makes one or another aspect shine. One who uses them to oppose them is diabolical.
Translation by Virginia M. Forrester
