216 PART TWO: AN EMPIRICAL ACCOUNT without breaking off... with his family, or his origin, and so he started, he kept on saying this for many, many years, until the end of his life he said this... And I don't think many people, not many people took it seriously, I don't think that people saw what it meant, really, it's... when there was that Communion and Cardinal Ratzinger gave Communion at the funeral of John Paul II, then I think people started to think, well, what's... what is he? No? What is he? And there were rumors going around, but this.... And then I think people started to realize, not maybe the, not maybe several months afterwards, maybe a couple of years, after a year or two after, we underestimated... what he was living. That he was really something living something very original, no? And so, Cardinal Kasper helped, when he wrote, you know, that text, you saw it. Cardinal Kasper helped to explain to a degree.484 In the end, by accepting that Brother Roger would receive Communion on a regular basis in Taizé as well as in Rome and other places, the Roman Catholic Church embraced the new path initiated by Brother Roger. It accepted that this particular man, by way of exception, would live in a double fidelity, a double belonging. Providing Eucharistic hospitality has played a crucial role in this process. Brother BE, who has spent a significant period in Taizé and has found his home in Bose, speaks about his own experiences, which echo Brother Roger’s history. It is worthwhile taking a closer look at his narrative. He starts with contrasting his own belief with the thoughts of a friend with whom he visited Taizé: Now I remember also with one friend at the university, we, so he was very… … he had the idea to become a Catholic, because of how Taizé was and if the Catholic Church is what one can experience in Taizé, one has to become a Catholic and enter in communion with this world, while I have the impression, one can live his own faith also in communion with this other church, while remaining part of, of, of uh, of the church, or of the tradition of the origin of the person, so….485 484 TC-1,8a. *Henri Fesquet, “Une double appartenance catholique et protestante ? Le coup de force spirituelle de Frère Roger,” Le Monde, January 5, 1981, https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1981/01/05/une-double-appartenance-catholiqueet-protestante-le-coup-de-force-spirituelle-de-frere-roger_3041075_1819218.html. **Brother TC refers to the interview with Cardinal Kasper in Guenois, “Something That Was without Precedent.” 485 BE-1,14a.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw