Catholic Online Forum

Given the inflationary use of the word “reform” nowadays, the initial question arises also in talking about Rome’s reform of the liturgy: what is to be understood sensibly by “reform” in light of the Christian faith? This is a question about the fundamental alternative: Is a reform a matter of a rupture with history thus far, so that with it something new has begun that is no longer identical to the previous thing needing to be reformed? Or must we understand “reform” according to the meaning of the word, so that reform has to do with being able to rediscover the original form of the reality that has to be reformed, so that a liturgical re-form takes its orientation from that fundamental form of the Christian worship service that is prescribed by the Church’s Tradition? The question of liturgical reform is therefore very closely connected with the question of the correct interpretation of the Second Vatican Council.

Because the reform of the liturgy after the Council was often regarded and carried out with a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture, this view departed in quite a few points from the great liturgical vision of the Council, which is centered on the Paschal Mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ. With reference to this Pope Benedict XVI, already when he was a Cardinal, judged that most problems in the post-conciliar development of the liturgy are connected with the fact that the Council’s approach to this fundamental mystery was not sufficiently kept in mind.

The call for a “reform of the reform” therefore includes the critical further inquiry, whether in the post-conciliar development of the liturgy the wishes and decision of the Council Fathers were really implemented or whether the results independently went beyond them. Or to put it positively: a “reform of the reform” can have no other aim than to reawaken the true heritage of the Council and to make it fruitful in the Church’s situation today. Just as the Council was preceded by a liturgical movement, the ripe fruits of which could be brought into the Council, so the Holy Father sees today also the necessity of a new liturgical movement, which he of course considers in light of a larger liturgical tradition. Only in this more comprehensive horizon can it be fruitful in an ecumenical respect also.

When a group of Swiss intellectuals and theologians called for John Paul's resignation on 20 May 2004, Koch described the act as "disgusting and disloyal" as it was, moreover, the Pope's eighty-fourth birthday. In 2006, in an interview for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung he supported Muslim's freedom to build minarets in Switzerland, but also asked for greater religious freedom for Christians in Muslim countries.

In July 2007, Koch defended the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's document clarifying the expression of subsistit in in Lumen Gentium, while he acknowledged that the document could appear confusing or hurtful to Protestants; and he observed that the document and its reception showed the difference between the ecumenical goals of Catholics and the Orthodox on the one hand and that of Protestants on the other.

Cardinal Koch in his role as president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews spoke to reporters 16 May, after delivering a speech on Catholic-Jewish relations in light of Vatican II's declaration "Nostra Aetate" on the church's relations with non-Christian religions. The speech followed Cardinal Koch's participation in a meeting of the doctrinal congregation to examine the latest progress in the Vatican's reconciliation talks with the traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X. "There are questions to clarify in discussions with this community. I can't say more than that," he told reporters, echoing a Vatican statement saying the reconciliation talks are ongoing. Cardinal Koch noted that "All the doctrinal decisions of the church are binding on a Catholic, including the Second Vatican Council and all its texts," Cardinal Koch said, when asked if the SSPX would be expected to accept all the teachings of Vatican II. "The 'Nostra Aetate' declaration of the Second Vatican Council is a clear decree and is important for every Catholic," he added.