LifeSiteNews is running a breaking story right now, the headline of which almost gets it right:
BREAKING: Archbishop Cupich lays out pathway for gay couples to receive Communion at Vatican press scrum
We must call it what it is. What Archbishop Cupich is advocating for — most likely feeling empowered by what’s happening at the Synod — is Eucharistic desecration. Sacrilege. Mortal sin. 1 Corinthians 11:27-28 territory.
Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago — who is participating in the Synod of the Family at Pope Francis’ personal invitation — said at a press scrum in the Vatican press office this afternoon that the conscience is “inviolable” and that he believes divorced and remarried couples could be permitted to receive the sacraments, if they have “come to a decision” to do so “in good conscience” – theological reasoning that he indicated in response to a follow-up question would also apply to gay couples.
“In Chicago I visit regularly with people who feel marginalized: the elderly, the divorced and remarried, gay and lesbian individuals and also couples. I think that we really need to get to know what their life is like if we’re going to accompany them,” he said.
When asked to give a concrete example of how he would accompany the divorced and remarried in their desire to receive the sacraments, Cupich replied: “If people come to a decision in good conscience then our job is to help them move forward and to respect that. The conscience is inviolable and we have to respect that when they make decisions, and I’ve always done that.”
When asked by LifeSiteNews if the notion of accompanying people to the sacraments who had a clear indication of conscience to do so also applied to gay couples in the Church who wish to receive Communion, Cupich indicated an affirmative answer.
“I think that gay people are human beings too and they have a conscience. And my role as a pastor is to help them to discern what the will of God is by looking at the objective moral teaching of the Church and yet, at the same time, helping them through a period of discernment to understand what God is calling them to at that point,” he said. “It’s for everybody. I think that we have to make sure that we don’t pigeonhole one group as though they are not part of the human family, as though there’s a different set of rules for them. That would be a big mistake.”
This man – appointed by Pope Francis as Archbishop of Chicago and personally invited by Pope Francis to the Synod should be forced to resign and censured.
Instead, we get this. Acts 20:29-31 writ large.
What a disgusting man. We must weep for him, pray for his soul. Imagine this man is the spiritual leader for millions in Chicago. Why is he so bold? On one side we have news that Pell et al are turning the tide in the Synod. The other side has Cupich vomiting out the same spew as he always has. He must know something we don’t.
This man has been suspect for a long time but has finally come out into the open. I wonder how many will follow. In any case, it’s best to know your enemy so I hope that those who think likewise do emerge rather than to sit in the shadows. I am sure Cardinals Pell, Sarah, Napier, Müller & others will be well able to handle the situation. We must continue to pray for them to be given the fortitude they will need and also believe in Christ’s assurance that He will be with His Church until the end of time. Maybe that is what we are witnessing!
And if things go the way we all seem to believe they are going because of he-of-whom-we-shant-speak, then if those ones you mentioned convene a gathering (a Council?) of resistant cardinals and bishops to condemn this synod and call for a deposition, I will be with them.
Sign me up too, Father.
Fr. J, I am adding your name to the list of priests I am praying. May Our Lady Most Powerful keep you safe under her mantle blue.
May God reward you!
What if they form a conclave instead of a council?
That’s what I think would follow a council and deposition. And that is who I would “be with.” Because, depending on how this progresses, it would only be logical.
I think you will find that most of the commenters here would hold the same opinion Fr! I will be doing the same. In fact, if it is God’s will, I am kind of looking forward to it, so the Church can come out from under this confusion and continue in her true mission, i.e. the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Thanks for your comments contributions here.
I also think that if this scenario plays out, the Kaspers/Marxs/(Bergoglios??) will keep the New Rite of Mass and use it exclusively, and the Catholics will return exclusively to the traditional Roman Rite of Mass. The liturgy will show the doctrine. Lex orandi, lex credendi.
They are craven and will not act because scandal.
Fear of causing Scandal is always their reason not to act well, that and the reality that many (a majority?) in the Hierarchy do not have the Faith once delivered.
Greetings, Fr. J. Have you thought about starting your own blog? I think that a lot of people would be interested in hearing the thought processes of a devout priest like yourself as you go through this time. Just please don’t pick blogspot/google, they are entwined most with everything we are against.
I really have no idea how one does such a thing. I suppose I could think about it though.
However, I closed Facebook in early April because it gave me just one more reason to cling to my computer and flee to the internet too many times a day. Also, I knew that with the synod coming up, it was prudent to close it because I have gotten into too many e-mail nuclear wars in my day and it is so quick and easy to post a passionate response to something going on.
Maybe I can set up even my own posts for moderation? A mandatory waiting period like with guns? lol I kinda wish I had a 30-second delay in all such manners of life.
There you go, Fr. J, you’ve just demonstrated that you have a very good style for blogging (though I hope you’re not actually in favor of gun control).
Yep, it sure would be addicting. Then again you’d presumably reach many like minded clergy worldwide – seeing as how nearly everyone would advertise your blog for you. You might not yet quite appreciate how completely inspiring it is to hear from an actual pious priest these days and not a politically correct one. Plus you’ve got that “I will actively join the resistance” thing that is so needed.
There is a learning curve, but you’d also be acquiring skills that would serve you for many years to come. There’s not a rush, we still have the new round of purges to write about, then the implementation of whatever heresy emerges. We know the bad guys are never going to stop.
Yes, I know exactly what you mean about the self restraint (or lack thereof) from experience. Plus the remorse that follows. 🙂 Yep, there is a way I can think off offhand to have a delay: have another person in charge of the actual posting, like an admin. I can also check if there is a way to have the blogging software do that for you. I am a programmer, not really a blogger, but I am somewhat familiar with using some various blog software.
I wonder if Hilary at WUWTS would like to have a guest post from you. (I have been commenting there this week myself.)
I think it’s apparent that you need to be completely anonymous, until you decide otherwise. I had some detailed discussions about that on Mundabor’s blog last year. I happen to be more than a little acquainted with the means for anonymity. I’d be more than happy to help.
Okay, enough ear bending for now 🙂 Let me know if you’d ever like to proceed. Hey, maybe this is your calling.
Here an example that I showed to Mundabor last year that is an eye opener about being careful about one’s identity online:
http://www.dcclothesline.com/2014/04/04/sharia-sweden-newspaper-hacks-disqus-goes-commenters-homes-cameramen/
The commentors involved used their actual traceable email addresses, Disqus got hacked, mobs showed up at houses. The damage suffered was so preventable.
IANS used to use his real name back in the day when AOL hosted Three Catholic Chat rooms.
Well, IANS was not too keen on some female sodomites spreading their evil and he called them out and later that day IANS got an email from one of those sodomites who said she had a friend inside AOL who had given her my home address and she warned me to be silent etc etc
I responded to her that I had guns, and that I was contacting the cops – which i did – and then I quite AOL that afternoon
There ARE reasons to be cautious
Cupich is very very unfortunately my Archbishop here in Chicago. Faithful Catholics have an uphill battle in this Diocese.
He’s bold because they think they’ve finally won and can now say what they really think.
How were these men ever permitted to make it through seminary, let alone into the hierarchy of the Church?
Cupich is either lying or ignorant when it comes to this “inviolability of conscience” garbage. From the CCC, with my emphasis:
I’m wondering if +Cupich’s take on the “inviolability of conscience” applies to
other demographics besides both the divorced & civilly remarried and to practicing
homosexuals. If others– say, pedophiles, murderers, and people who prefer
sex with animals were to “come to a decision in good conscience” that they’d
like to receive the Sacraments– is +Cupich still of the opinion that his job is still merely to “help them to move forward and to respect that”?
Are there any sins left which +Cupich and his confreres would still say should bar one
from the Sacraments? Under this pontificate, I’m assuming those might include being skeptical of the notion of man-made climate change, using an air conditioner, and preferring to receive Communion on the tongue while kneeling.
And yet Cupich is so stupid to reduce all of that careful delineation into ‘Conscience is inviolable”
He;s just an ignorant twit.
No he is not. Your being overly generous. He is a full blown Modernist heretic who PF has turned loose in Chicago and the Sodomite Synod.
Your first premise is incorrect. He has no conscience. Modernism and Conscience are incompatible. They are an oxymoron.
Possibly Archbishop Cupich is unfamiliar with the CCC?
If so, he’s culpable for his own ignorance. But I don’t think we’re dealing with ignorance here.
Are we sure he’s not one of us Canadians? Winnipeg Statement and all. What a heretical disgrace to the priesthood. What an outrageous scandal this Judas Priest is.
I thank God today that I have a good bishop. If my bishop was speaking like this, I – as a priest – would resign my position immediately. But we will all have to make difficult decisions in the coming days. Brace yourselves for these days and months.
Pray Fr., pray for all of us that the Dear Lord through His Blessed Mother gives us all the grace we need to fight this war, as we are praying for you and all the faithful Priests and Bishops as well. Archbishop Cupich is sadly my Bishop.
Standtall, have you noticed that God never fails to exhibit the most exquisite sense of humor imaginable (of course!)? Once we had Rembert WEAKLAND, as thoroughgoing an episcopal disaster as can be served up. Now we have this bloke, Blaise Cupich(ulate). And overseas we have Cardinal Marx, always dependable for a surprising manifesto or two.
🙂 What is it about ‘Chicago’? Obama’s ‘stomping grounds’ and now this guy?? I miss Cdl. George!!
Not to mention their historical mentor, Alphonse Francis.
Final perseverance. Pray for it daily.
I’m praying multiple rosaries a day and I urge you all to pray as many decades as you can squeeze in – even in the midst of activities here and there. “Rejoice, O Virgin Mary, for you alone have destroyed all heresies.”
Lest I not be taken seriously about resigning, I have been going through my belongings the last few weeks and lightening the load, preparing just in case.
You just reminded me of a ‘Novena’ that Mother Teresa used to pray. One Rosary, One Divine Mercy Chaplet and nine Memorare’s. Called the 911 Novena.
He may not be your actual Bishop for long if he goes off into a new religion. Formally that is. You may not have a bishop for a while. He sounds like he has already left the Church – and see that clerical garb he’s wearing? That’s what is called a costume.
I suggest you send him a copy of the Catechism. It appears he follows Episcopalian doctrine. he probably does not have much knowledge about what the church teaches.
But why is that Catholics talk about resigning or leaving? no, what are the options?
the people that does not conform to the Magisterium, they are the one that have to leave,
a better idea : abolish the Bishops Synod they are like the Federal Reserve …a liability, a bad idea.
Because I have few options. I am a parish priest who has only been ordained for a few years and I do not even have the luxury of being a pastor. What can I do? I am not talking of leaving the Faith, abandoning ministry outright, going into schism, running off and shacking up while opening my own church in a shopping outlet, etc. I feel like my only proper recourse may be non-compliance.
The weightier options to be considered by those much higher than my office. These people are not going to just leave and “they are legion”. Perhaps they should be drawn out, marked for what side they represent, and cut off from communion with the authentic community of believers of the Catholic Faith.
Day by day, way back when he was still a professor priest in 1969/1970, Ratzinger’s imagining of a “diminished Church” (In terms of size, public influence, and public presence) has gone from interesting reflection, to prediction, to stunningly accurate assessment, to actual prophesy and model.
You’re quite right, Father. Our problem is that we can’t successfully lie to ourselves; we’re stuck with a revolting circumstance from which there is no escape, and clever non-compliance is all the weaponry we have left. I’ve always wondered if Ratzinger’s vision encompassed the Church’s investment by an army of heretics passing themselves off as holier-than-thou prelates.
Dear good Father. IANS prays for you and requests you remember we starboard clingers at Mass.
God Blees you and may Our Lord keep and preserve you
Since the laity can’t depose an archbishop, could be agree to insert “heretical” before any mention of his office? As in “the heretical Archbishop of Chicago, Blaise Cupich”?
For humor’s sake alone, it might be worth it. We need levity.
According to Heresiarch Blaise Cupich, archbishop of Chicago…
You people are scary.
But you know you can take it, Deej. I mean, every morning in that mirror….
Conscience is a poor judge in its own case.
If only the Pope knew!
There’s nothing to stop distribution of communion to non-Catholics. Head of the Church of Satan wants to show up at Mass, under Bp. Cupich’s reckoning, so long as he’s in good conscience, he can receive.
Well, the least we can say is that Jorge Bergoglio really knows how to pick’em, doesn’t he? What is this but unadulterated heresy? As my Canadian grandfather, a home-Baptist, used to say, “If it looks like ****, smells like ****, and tastes like ****, it very probably IS **** !”
I don’t see what all the hubbub is.
Many of our bishops have permitted this for quite some time now and even actively participated in such behavior. Are we shocked merely because they’re openly stating what they have been allowing for years? Why?
Priests who ministered under the pope when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires have publicly stated that he permitted people in irregular situations to be given Holy Communion. I see no reason to believe they lied, just like there is no reason to believe that the Anglican minister lied about the then-cardinal undermining Pope Benedict XVI’s outreach to disaffected Anglicans when he established the Ordinariate for them.
We have to face some difficult facts, but unfortunately they’re there.
Could you expand on the Anglican minister who said Bergoglio was undermining Benedict’s outreach to disaffected Anglicans? This is the first I’ve heard of it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/the-pope/9933614/Pope-Francis-dismissed-Anglican-branch-as-quite-unnecessary.html
Thanks. So many gaffes, bad moves, and outrages to read about, and so little time to do so!
It would have been easier to live in, say, India during prior centuries. Several popes lasted very short times, sometimes just a couple days, like John Paul I. They died before the Catholics in far reaches of the world even knew who they were, and sometimes several in succession.
Right. Those of us who have studied this and tried to say, well, we can accept Lumen Gentium (The Church of Christ “subsists in” the Catholic Church) and the promotion of the “Dual Covenant Doctrine” by Bergoglio and others (the “Jews” are still under the Old Covenant and perfectly fine waiting for the Messiah), are now being shown that Vatican II absolutely represents rupture in seed form and the grotesque stinking carnivorous plants that have grown up to full size now are simply the rotten fruit of the poisonous seed sewn in 1964. We know what happened. It’s obvious now. The only thing to do is join those who denounce the heresies of Vatican II. To decry and denounce them clearly and forcibly and unceasingly and call heresy heresy. That’s all. Why the hubbub? Because the seeds have grown into hideous forms that now tower over us and threaten to bite our heads off. We needn’t label ourselves as “sedevacantists” or “traditionalists” or anything of the sort, or propose canonical solutions. We simply need to identify, catalogue and denounce the heresies while proclaiming the true faith to all who will listen.
There is such a thing as an ill-formed conscience. Additionally, unrepented sin makes one blind to herself and the person literally becomes metaphysically fragmented. Has the dear Archbishop forgotten that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, brutally suffered and died for our sins? Did Jesus EVER instruct someone, “Just follow your conscience?” We all know the answer to this. To think that Jesus suffered and died so that man could just go about living “business as usual”! This is pure insanity or more to it, this man of the cloth DOES NOT BELIEVE any of it – not in Jesus Christ as Son of God, not in the abject wantonness of man, forget the Eucharist, and to heck with the need for repentance. This is a travesty, yet not surprising. We all know that many in the Church are wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Laura, you describe the state of one in unrepented sin perfectly. From a letter of St. Hildegard of Bingen to her pope: “…Wherefore, O man, you who sit in the Papal throne, you despise God when you embrace evil. For in failing to speak out against the evil of those in your company, you are certainly not rejecting evil. Rather, you are kissing it. And so the whole world is being led away by unstable error”. Evil is so predictable and the same in every age. Pray for us St. Hildegard!
Hmmm….thank you for bringing that marvelous quote to our attention. And since I stopped believing in coincidences when I became Catholic ten years ago, isn’t it interesting that our Pope Emeritus made St. Hildegard a Doctor of the Church not long before he left the Big Chair?
Very interesting. 🙂
I thought the same thing. God works in mysterious ways.
And, Laura, ill formed consciences are the majority for the last 50 years or so. There has been no real teaching of the faith since Vat. ll…….has either been severely lacking or non existent.
For some time, I have a strong suspicion that Blaise Cupich is not a believer in Christ or Catholicism but in an expansive Anglicanism that abuts the realm of pantheism and paganism Cupich’s god is the man he greets in the mirror each morning.
How can this depraved simpleton continue to talk about the “marginalized” when the marginal is the mainstream?
I feel sorry for the souls of Chicago who have this man as the chief teacher of the faith. How many souls will be lost under his watch. Too bad the faithful could not sue their bishops for catechetical malpractice. Seems if a diocese lost millions of dollars due the the sexual scandal, how many multi-millions of dollars would be lost for failing to teach the faith and losing countless souls into error and damnation?
What if those who are like-minded in the Chicago archdiocese uniformly began to withhold their weekly offerings? They could start by dropping into the collection one of the weekly envelopes with a letter explaining that until this heretical SOB of a “bishop” comes around to true Church teaching, no further monetary offerings will be forthcoming. Hit ’em where it hurts. My apologies if this sounds harsh but my charity is just about dried up; this Sin-od is causing me a lot of anxiety.
Apologies for posting below again, but it’s relevant to assessing the extent of the Kasperite influence high up in the hierarchy of the Church, and perhaps even on the Pope.
So here goes again, concerning the funding sources for the La Civiltà Cattolica conference that was held right before the synod–reportedly there were four such sources, but not disclosed yet from whence!
Important in this connection is Fr. Antonio Spadaro, S.J.’s, involvement in this conference, given that he knows the Pope.
The journalist who can obtain this information might have a great story.
Once again, then:
With respect to ongoing claims about synodal manipulation, and pursuant to the original posting copied below (for context), one of course wonders whether the symposium at La Civiltà Cattolica on the synod’s eve wasn’t just a preamble, of sorts, to the papal “shadow synod” consultations mentioned in Tosatti’s post here: http://www.lastampa.it/2015/10/13/blogs/san-pietro-e-dintorni/tagespost-c-un-sinodo-parallelo-qvvrtnCeYTUuxaoe9HPzGP/pagina.html
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Pope has access to all those La Civiltà Cattolica symposium materials, “already”; all this backroom, back-channel activity is, after all, ‘cut from the same cloth’.
**And who once again were the four funding sources for the La Civiltà Cattolica conference?**
Puzzlling that they were not disclosed. After all, if a conference is announced in a press release, one normally expects to see something about its funders, as in (just for purposes of example and illustration, not to suggest in any way that these *were* the funders, but just trying to be sadly humorous): “XYZ conference was funded through the generous support of the Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and George Soros foundations”. Is there something to hide?
Well, so much for “transparency”. Here’s the original post, again for context.
==
Insufficient attention is being paid to reports of the symposium, held on the eve of the synod at the Jesuit magazine La Civiltà Cattolica, discussed here by lifesitenews (and by Marco Tosatti). https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/rumors-swirl-about-meeting-of-liberal-theologians-prior-to-start-of-synod-o
This conferences raises many questions pertinent to assessing whether the conclusion of the synod (now Vatican III?) was pre-ordained, or whether the Pope’s designs –all along!–were for the synod to address larger issues of “reform” (the theme of the symposium!) that go way beyond questions about the family.
Notably, what funding sources brought all those people in and paid for this symposium? All those travel expenses and lodging. A press release said there were four such sources. Isn’t the laity entitled to know?
One need not attempt to contribute to the “hermeneutics of conspiracy” (what a mouthful) to ask mere common-sensical, level-headed queestions about the intent of this conference held on the eve of the synod.
It really depends on how the question is *phrased*, and in good Jesuitical fashion, it is important to carefully exegete the precise wording of anything Fr. Spadaro, S.J. or the conference attendees might say in response to the hypothesis floated by Tosatti.
*If* the question is: was this conference, and Fr. Spadaro, intending to develop talking points that would influence the synod, and as a causal consequence the Pope as well, it takes extraordinary naivete to deny that’s what was going on. Of course, themes (presumably) addressed at this pre-synod symposium have been in the air for decades. But there must have been great value for the Kasperite wing of the Church in holding a symposium that would crystallize and outline the various themes being pushed by the many bishops and cardinals at the synod who want to see the Church revamped radically.
There is the distinct question whether this conference was working on the text of a document or documents for use by the Pope post-synod, and that appears to be unknown.
Keep in mind, however, the Jesuit Spadaro’s relationship to this Pope. Moreover, it stretches the imagination to consider that the Pope was not fully aware of, and sanctioned, this group that convened right before the synod. The Pope is, after all, a Jesuit!! (and so is the Pope’s
handler, Lombardi, interestingly.)
Furthermore, it’s hard to imagine that the deliberations of this conference, via Spadaro, would
not have reached the Pope. Whether there are talking points that the Pope will adopt in his homilies or talks, or in published documents, and that were taken directly from points made at this conference, is anyone’s guess. Time may tell. After all, the results of the conference
are to be published. A really interesting open question (again) is whether–even–this conference dwelled on points the Holy Father *already* intended to make post-synod.
If so–the synod was merely window-dressing? Why was it convened, then?
Odd, isn’t it, how little is really known about this conference. (On the other hand, this is consistent with the criticisms about procedural rules at the synod.)
Sure, the topics of discussion were identified for the public. But what was *said* there? Do we really need to wait for a published proceeding to hear more about this from Fr. Spadaro and the attendees? Especially what concrete recommendations were made about “reform”, on the very eve of the synod?
And perhaps Father Spadaro can explain the difference in days between the official date of the conference “September 28 to October 2” versus the 12 days of activity? What were all those conference-goers doing all that time? Sightseeing?
Scroll down on this webpage for the telling comment that “the seminar also collected criteria for action and concrete proposals for reform.” That doesn’t sound to me like abstract theological discourse, but rather something more…programmatic.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/la-civilt%C3%A0-cattolica/presso-la-civilt%C3%A0-cattolica-un-seminario-sulla-riforma-della-chiesa-ita-eng/10156182231835245
Also,not so incidentally, consider that this conference, right before the synod, is on “the reform and reforms in the Church”, a far broader theme than the much more circumscribed theme of this synod. What grandiose designs! You’d think it had been held on the eve of Vatican III.
According to the link above, “The seminar, [was] an unofficial initiative of men and women theologians both lay and ordained”. Was it really completely “unofficial” and, if so, in what sense? After all, “The participants reportedly came from 13 different countries, prominent among them were Italians as well as Argentinians; and among them also was the close friend and collaborator of the Pope, Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez. . . .Both Father Spadaro and Archbishop Fernandez are also known proponents of both the “Kasper proposal” and a more liberalizing and indulgent moral teaching in the Church. Both men are papal appointees for the 2015 Synod”. So, again: the conference was “unofficial”? Perhaps, just partially? Officially Unofficial?
In sum, let’s not be naive. Anyone should take with a big grain of salt any blanket rejection by Spadaro might want to make that this conference was not in some sense influential, and possibly quite influential, in “priming” (‘lo, “rehearsing”) discussion for the synod. Not to mention that it may have been one more stream of input into whatever the Pope has to say post-synod. Whether it will influence *documents* is another matter.
Whether the will of the Pope, or the Pope’s views or predilections, are reflected in the particular array of views represented at that conference is also a matter of speculation. But
won’t it be really interesting if it turns out that most or all of the points at the conference (once published) reflect a theologically liberal, even dissident, ideological bias of the kind represented by the vast majority of Jesuits.
Again: not to contribute to the “hermeneutics of conspiracy”! But, just asking some plausible questions, in a reasonable and systematic way.
Note in this context that the Kasperite claims about “lived experience”, and Spadaro’s comments that appeared here
http://www.agensir.it/pls/sir/v4_s2doc_b.stampa_quotidiani_cons?id_oggetto=323450
The Kasperites will claim that they attend to “lived experience”, the “deposit of life”, and that their adversaries are stuck on doctrine and theory. But all this talk of life experience, meeting people where they are, the pretense that what’s being discussed is fresh and new, etc etc is all a red herring, a distraction from the real issues–which have to do with clashing theoretical ecclesiological visions of the relationship between Pope and bishops. Not to mention: on obedience to the magisterium, and theoretical differences about the nature of the human person. Do not be fooled by the Kasperite claims that they are not interested in theoretical positions–they are. And these positions are intimately conjoined to the pastoral questions.
One has the sense that the Pope, if Spadaro is correct, is attempting to “write large” a particular interpretation of Ignatian spirituality–and impose it on the entire Church. Very troublesome, since the Jesuits are such a source of dissident theology.
Some final notes: someone should do textual analysis, using the appropriate software, to demonstrate that the locutions and diction of assorted Jesuits, including those attending, also appear in public statements or documents issued by the Pope.
Sobering thought: I really, really doubt Cupich would have been so bold to publicize these views, if he did not have express support from . . . the Pope.
We don’t know what the Pope is going to say at the Synod’s close, or after it, but I’m finding it far more plausible now to believe he’s going to agree publicly with Cupich. None of us knows, though.
Of course he has express support from the “Pope”. The “Pope” appointed him precisely *because* he holds these views.
In fact, what he wants *is* a different set of rules for them.
Read the actual words that are quoted. Forget th article. Especially forget the title of the article. Where does the Archbishop say anything about facilitating sacrilege? This is incendiary, click-bate, BS. The writer ought to be ashamed.
Read the quotes. Here:
[persons of any background you like] could be permitted to receive the sacraments, if they have “come to a decision” to do so “in good conscience”
[When is it permissible for anyone regardless orientation, or even condition of soul… whatever the situation… When is it permissible to receive the Eucharist? When is it permissible for YOU to receive the Eucharist? Or Hitler, or Judas, or whatever other good or bad character you prefer? It’s permissible to receive when it can be received /in good conscience/. And when it’s not in good conscience, it’s not permissible. More quotes:]
“In Chicago I visit regularly with people who feel marginalized: the elderly, the divorced and remarried, gay and lesbian individuals and also couples. I think that we really need to get to know what their life is like if we’re going to accompany them,”
[Anything un-Christlike there? More quotes:]
“If people come to a decision in good conscience then our job is to help them move forward and to respect that. The conscience is inviolable and we have to respect that when they make decisions, and I’ve always done that.”
[Yes. The assumption is that their conscience is good. That’s why he says “good conscience”. And before you get bent out of shape, here’s the kicker:]
“I think that gay people are human beings too and they have a conscience. And my role as a pastor is to help them to discern what the will of God is by looking at the objective moral teaching of the Church” [pause. Read: objective moral teaching of the church] “and yet, at the same time, helping them through a period of discernment to understand what God is calling them to at that point,” [the goal we all have: to understand what God is calling us to at any given point.]
Read the quotes. And please pray for the Archbishop!
“Where does the Archbishop say anything about facilitating sacrilege?” Oh, please! What astonishingly ingenuous nonsense you write here! Cite where Hitler ever said in plain German that he planned to exterminate every Jew, Gypsy, or Slav he could get his hands on, or cite for us where Stalin ever admitted he was running a slave-camp empire across the Soviet Union. Others have already pointed out at this site (see Murray below) why the archbishop’s goo-goo talk is code for a major change in Catholic teaching, so I won’t bother repeating it.
So he won’t come out and admit that he wants to make sweeping changes. And that leads you to conclude that he wants to make sweeping changes? Seems unreasonable.
I already answered what you say in your rejoinder. Clearly you read my post as perceptively as you read Cupich’s weasel words.
Sorry. Not seeing a clear answer to my first post. Just some stuff about bad guys (who under pain of conscience should not receive communion) and a lot of projection about what you imagine the Archbishop to be saying. I’m not sure what Murray said and can’t seem to find that. I was talking about the archbishops words. I don’t understand your objection to what he’s saying. Have you read his words?
Oh! I see Murrays post now. And yeah, aside from Murray’s implications that he thinks the Archbishop is off script, I don’t see the issue. The quotes from the achbishop contained in the article are exactly in line with the points from the CCC. So…??
Well, you’re making the “good” in “good conscience” do an awful lot of work in your argument, and I’m not sure it can bear the weight. The question is, are you understanding “good” in the same way as Heseriarch Cupich? To answer that question, we need to look at both the immediate context and the larger one.
In the immediate context, “good” could either mean “allowing someone to receive communion after determining whether they have made a careful discernment of their own actions, inclinations, and tendency to self-interested biases in light of the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church.” Or, it could mean “blithely trusting in the inscrutable private judgment of another, however arrived at.” You clearly favor the former interpretation; most of us here believe the latter to be more credible.
Which is correct? For that, we have to look at the larger context.
We are in the midst of a synod in which several Catholic prelates have felt free to unburden themselves to the world about their fervent wishes that the Catholic Church upend her unchanging teachings on such matters as female ordination, communion for unrepentant adulterers, blessings of same-sex unions, devolution of authority to bishops’ conferences, and the like. It is clear that the Synod Fathers have formed two camps, which we might call the heresiarchs and the orthodox.
With which camp does Cupich align himself? To ask the question is to answer it. The man has form: as bishop of Rapid City and Spokane, he has a track record of hostility and obstructionism towards faithful Catholics involved in (e.g.) the pro-life and Latin Mass movements. In response to the 2006 South Dakota abortion referendum and the 2012 Washington State same-sex marriage referendum, he issued on both occasions milquetoast, equivocating statements in that pseudosacral homopoetic prose so beloved of modern bishops, effectively saying little at great length. He has repeatedly endorsed the erroneous “seamless garment” approach to life issues. He allowed Catholic charities to enroll people under the Affordable Care Act. As Archbishop of Chicago, he has mischaracterized the use of Canon 915 as “politicizing the altar rail”. In all respects, Cupich is the very model of a modern liberal bishop.
To be sure, we should generally endeavor to interpret people in the most charitable way possible, but that doesn’t mean emptying our brains or engaging in painstaking parsings in an attempt to reach a conclusion at clear variance with reality. (We have had altogether too much of that over the past 31 months.) We are men, and it does not become us to indulge in starry-eyed wishcasting in response to troubling events.
The other thin reed on which you hang your argument is Cupich’s reference to the “objective moral teaching” of the Church. Once again, if you ignore the greater synodal context and the Heseriarch’s track record of dissent, I could see how someone could just about take some comfort in this. But in light of the above, it is clear that, for Cupich, the objective moral teaching of the Church is a mere adornment, to be trotted out in its glass case and gestured at when convenient, but otherwise to have no concrete impact on the life of the faithful.
Thanks for your thoughts (and Wow! Good vocab!)
Yeah, either way you interpret “good” still works, until you add your nifty little “however arrived at” which IS NOT WHAT HE SAID!!!!
This may help. Try reading the archbishop’s words without all your baggage. But substitute yourself or one of your friends in place of “gay people, etc.” Then ask yourself if what he’s saying makes sense when applied to you.
Here you go!
[Murray and Johnny] could be permitted to receive the sacraments, if [Murray and Johnny have] “come to a decision” to do so “in good conscience”
“In Chicago I visit regularly with who feel marginalized [and would probably meet willingly with Murray and/or Johnny]. I think that we really need to get to know what [Murray’s and Johnny’s] life is like if we’re going to accompany [then],”
“If [Murray or Johnny] comes to a decision in good conscience then our job is to help [Murray/Johnny] move forward and to respect that. The conscience is inviolable and we have to respect that when [Murray/Johnny] makes decisions, and I’ve always done that.”
“I think that [Murray/Johnny is a] human being too and [he has/they have] a conscience. And my role as a pastor is to help [Murry/Johnny] to discern what the will of God is by looking at the objective moral teaching of the Church and yet, at the same time, helping [Murray/Johnny] through a period of discernment to understand what God is calling [them/him] to at that point…”
Makes sense to me!
Steve: Heresy and ignorance seem to have snuck back into the comment box under the back of the tent. At least KJJA has the good sense in his post above to reduce himself mostly to lower case where he belongs. But that seems to be about as far as good sense could carry the poor fellow. Once into his post, he continues to write his sustained Ode to Sodomy.
Clearly I’m upsetting you. I’m sorry to have excited such a lack of charity. You won’t find me here again. I’ll pray for you.
Gracias.
Of course that’s not what he said. I was presenting two alternative interpretations of “good” in this context, not quoting him verbatim.
But that’s precisely my point: when someone provides their personal opinion on a controversial matter, we always interpret their words in light of their previous actions and statements; that is to say, their baggage. This is only common sense, and we do it all the time. If we insist on considering only these words uttered at this specific moment, and performing exegesis on each phrase to arrive at our preferred conclusion, we deliberately make ourselves stupid.
By all means, you should feel free to do so if it helps, but understand that you are applying a standard that we extend to no other public figure.
I’m not going to address your [Murray and Johnny] thought experiment, because it doesn’t seem to add anything concrete to your argument.
I disagree that we always interpret people’s words in light of their previous actions and statements or that it’s common sense—or even wise—to do so.
Unless you have been following the Archbishop around, your assumptions are actually based not on what he said or did, but on what others report that he said or did. Don’t misunderstand: I’m not calling them liars, but there’s ample room for facts to be misinterpreted / misconstrued, especially where complex and controversial issues are concerned. I’m fairly sure we can agree on one thing: the devil does not like the truth and is very creative in obscuring it.
All reporting is biased. It’s critical to read primary sources. Case in point: the author of the blog and I both used the same quotes and arrived at nearly opposite conclusions about what the Archbishop is saying. The source provides true context.
What else was said before and after the first quote, which is a partial sentence (and ‘taken out of context’)? What questions were asked? How were they worded? He answered “affirmatively”?… well, what did he say in affirmation? Talk about painstaking parsings! How else do you start with words that are nearly verbatim from the CCC and end up with the title of this blog post?
That’s why we rely on other materials for church teaching: encyclicals, apostolic letters, general audiences, homilies: official statements. It’s why the official syondal statement will eventually come from the Holy Father (and we should wait for that before ‘unburdening’ ourselves with reports about what’s come from ‘several Catholic prelates’.)
As for the historical context you mentioned earlier.. It’s clear that there’s quite a bit of controversy surrounding the archbishop—indeed a lot of the stuff you mentioned sounds very controversial. I didn’t know about many of those things! Perhaps the pope knows! Do you think he does? Unless we look at his words with background clarifying context for his actions it’s impossible to know what happened, or judge the reasons something was or was not done. I’m not going to take your word for it! What did he actually say? What came from a blog post? Or worse: a comment on a blog post? What have others inferred (perhaps incorrectly) or misunderstood? What are the facts? We are not experts. (No you are also not an expert.)
In another comment you posted “How were these men ever permitted to make it through seminary, let alone into the hierarchy of the Church? Cupich is either lying or ignorant when it comes to this “inviolability of conscience” garbage. From the CCC, with my emphasis, etc”… Well, he /was/ permitted to make it through seminary and into the hierarchy of the Church. And that makes him—along with the other apostolic successors—the experts.
I’m not saying they’re infallible (except when the pope is speaking ex-cathedra, of course), but they are experts who have dedicated their lives (long lives mostly) to understanding and serving the Church. Do you doubt the Pope? The college of Cardinals? Do you not believe they’re in control? Do you doubt the actions of the Holy Spirit in the Church? Maybe you do! Perhaps you should read 1 Peter 5! (The real one, I mean… not this blog.)
The author of this post (and you apparently) make assumptions and jump to (erroneous) conclusions. Then you publish your conclusions, mislead others to the same erroneous conclusions. You risk causing damage to reputations. You stir up fear and cause disunity. (You do some pretty nasty name calling.) This is wrong!
As for your unwillingness to address the rest of my comment… I cannot force you, but if you open ears and eyes you may learn something worthwhile from the Archbishop’s actual words.
I wasn’t going to bother replying to this, since it pretty much stands on its own as an example of the obfuscation and wilful blindness that has afflicted so many Catholics during this pontificate, but I thought this was worth addressing:
Were the laity wrong in doubting the large number of “expert” bishops who adhered to the Arian heresy? Did Eusebius err in criticizing the “expert” patriarch Nestorius? Was St. Thomas More justified in doubting the near-unanimous consent of the “expert” English bishops (all save St. John Fisher) to Henry VIII’s usurpation of papal authority? Should we accept the “expertise” of Bishop Cauchon who oversaw the travesty of justice which saw St. Joan of Arc put to death on fabricated charges? Was St. Paul transgressing by confronting the “expert” St Peter to his face?
More: Were lay theologians sinful in criticizing the “expert” Pope John XXII, who privately taught heresy and briefly attempted to proclaim it by definitive act? Could we be forgiven for questioning the motives and actions of the “expert” Pope Stephen VI, who disinterred the body of his predecessor Formosus, tried him at the Cadaver Synod, nullified all his acts and declared invalid all orders conferred by him, cut off three fingers from his right hand, and had the body thrown into the Tiber?
Perhaps you get my meaning. The history of the Catholic Church furnishes countless examples of incompetent, vicious, corrupt, weak, and foolish bishops and even popes. This should come as no surprise to a believing Catholic: We have been told to expect “wolves in sheeps’ clothing” (Mt 7:15), and that “ravening wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock.” (Acts 20:29). There is no guarantee whatsoever that those days are permanently behind us, let alone that the men chosen for high ecclesial office will always be wise, prudent, strong, or holy.
To answer your questions: No, I do not trust many of the men in the current College of Cardinals. Yes, I do believe they are in control, which is what concerns me. Yes, I trust the Holy Spirit, though with the understanding that he may well choose to allow his Church to go through a great tribulation.
And no, I regret to say that I do not trust this particular pope. If he were to die tomorrow, I expect he would be remembered as a very poor pope indeed, one who–whether through weakness, incompetence or malice–opened the gates of the sheepfold to the wolves. But while there’s life, there’s hope: perhaps he may yet turn and strengthen his brothers. But as of now, the outlook is bleak.
You’re oversimplifying and piling on some very complex historical issues… Issues which the church has resolved through official statements (not through the writings of wacko bloggers and their commentators).
This still does not change the fact that the archbishop has not, in fact said, said anything incorrect according to the CCC points that you yourself have quoted, which is my original point and the one you all seem intent on ignoring/ censoring/ refusing to address.
Certainly calling for him to centured/ resign (along with other names you’ve called him) is extreme. You’re entitled to your opinion and your fears. I’m glad the leaders of the church, especially the Holy Father, are in charge. And not you. In agreement with at least one other comment I saw (maybe it has been censored by now), you people are scary.
Yeah, they made me almost toss my cookies. But I have no intention to further rake over Cupich’s rhetorical legerdemain with you. As the old Spanish adage has it, “No hay nadie más ciego que él que no quiere ver” (“There is no one more blind than the man who refuses to see”).
Participation in this comment box hinges upon (among other things) basic literacy and average deductive reasoning. Those who lack both — especially when they deprive themselves willfully — will find themselves cast into the outer darkness, where they will wail and gnash their teeth.
Uh, yeah. That’s a weird and very dramatic way to put it, Hey in essence, that is also the point behind the archbishop’s statements!
So, you all seem pretty dead set on closing your ears and your hearts and vilifying the archbishop regardless of what he actually said. Clearly not interested in intelligent debate. And I’m not sure what (or if) you’re actually reading, or if you and your friends are just spouting things that make you sound smart. Regardless, I’m not sure there’s much value in continuing this conversation, so do what you gotta do and censor me or kick me out or whatever. I’ll be praying for you and all my new friends here at 1 Peter 5.
By the way, somewhat ironic name. Have you read 1 Peter 5? Check out 1 Peter 5:5, especially. Hope you’ll pray for the good archbishop and all the clergy in Holy Mother church. They need all the support they can get!
KJJA couldn’t leave well enough alone. Since he can’t read and doesn’t, therefore, know how to field a cogent argument, he’s been disinvited from the party.
I’ll have no advocates for heresy in the comment boxes, thanks.
Y’all are crazy, anyway. Peace!
We have read the quotes, and we’re praying for Cupich and everyone else involved in this Synod.
And maybe you didn’t notice that much of the language he uses is patterned quite closely after the way Kasper and Marx have been talking for months. Actually, in Kasper’s case, for years. They speak very carefully without ever openly admitting what is their underlying point. Nevertheless, whoever has ears ought to hear. What appears is that Cupich very likely has a twisted notion of the real meaning of conscience in Catholic moral theology, as Murray pointed out above by his quotations from the Catechism.
Before he became Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote an excellent little book called “On Conscience”, in which he explored this very complex and critical subject, highlighting why it does not and cannot mean what most “progressives”, both in and outside of the Church, appear to think it means, i.e., that conscience is essentially subjective. As a parish catechist I have to fight this battle a lot, showing people the fundamental error of “I prayed on it and studied it and decided that my conscience is telling me it’s OK to [_____________].” Fill in the blank with just about any objectively mortally sinful act, especially sexual sins. The sad fact is that in my experience, most people equate “conscience” with “whatever I decide is right for me.” That equation is pernicious, at best.
Actually that quote from the CCC supports my point exactly. That’s what the archbishop is saying. You’re looking too hard for patterns and you’ve overlooked the obvious: the archbishop is actually Catholic and teaching Catholic doctrine to those who may—with God’s grace—find solid Catholic faith too. No thanks for the extra color. I’ll take his words at face value.
Well, I respectfully disagree. I’m very glad I do not live in the Archdiocese of Chicago. If I’m reading things into his remarks it’s because of his long track record of extremely “progressive” views and actions. God bless you and your family.
Primacy of conscience is meaningless if the conscience is not well formed. A person with a well formed conscience does not approach the communion rail in a state of mortal sin. Simples.
Right. That’s why we rely on the church… to form consciences.
It’s not that simple. But in any event, whether or not an individual conscience is well formed or not, it is incumbent upon the bishops to ensure that sacrilege and scandal ate avoided, and to defend the faith. A murderer can’t say “in my conscience, following the advice of bishop x, and after reflecting on the teachings of the Church, I’ve decided that murder is okay and that I’m not going to repent and change my mind on this, but give me communion anyway”. Even if an angel from heaven were to declare to them that their personal decision was okay, they would still be objectively wrong to take communion. They would be objectively wrong period. In such cases it is the duty of the Church to uphold the truth, regardless of what even an angel said to the contrary. But then, I suspect you know this already.
You’re right. I do know that. And I agree with you.
The first part is pretty much my point, the second is (I believe) St Paul’s.
Thus, Cupich’s yielding to primacy of conscience is meaningless when considered objectively, and in any event, his duty is not to yield to someone’s claimed conscientious position but rather to uphold the teaching of the Faith regardless. He is clearly dissembling, and not doing his duty, either to the truths of the Faith or to the poorly formed consciences of practicing homosexuals and adulterers.
Yes. But are you assuming something about the state of the souls of the people you refernce? Is it not possible for a grave sinner to have met with a priest to have their sins formally forgiven? Maybe a logical jump to think that might happen, but it’s more plausible, I think, than your messenger-from-elsewhere scenario.
And I think that’s the archbishop’s stated goal!
Additionally, unless someone is engaged in public sin (politicians who support abortions, for instance) it would be difficult, it seems, to divine the state of someone’s soul and determine whether they were in fact worthy to receive the Eucharist or not. I believe that’s the point: he has to get to know them.
Should he stop every potential sinner (that would be everyone) at the “communion rail” and ask about the state of their soul? Maybe? If I hold my girlfriend’s ringless hand on the way into the church, should he assume we’re cohabiting and not allow us to receive until we’ve been formally cleared with thorough line of questioning?
I think you and I are on the same page. I’m not sure what you’re suggesting.
I don’t assume anything about the state of someone’s soul. I merely advocate for the judgement we are required to make about the objective state of their life, their acts. “Repent, and be converted” is the call that goes out, which implies both that their state is objectively one which requires repudiation and turning away from, and something to convert or turn to.
Come on, you don’t really need someone to point these basic facts out to you? Surely. Be honest now.
Actually, it’s a side point, but you and I are required–or at least strongly advised–/not to judge/ anyone else. “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” Ring any bells?
[Hmm… More problems with my posts?]
I don’t know. We’re on the same page as regards the sinfulness of the lifestyle, but we have pretty clear instruction not to judge others. “Judge not lest ye be judged.” “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” I’m sure there are many other examples. Certainly the call to repentance and conversion is also important. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. The archbishop states fairly clearly that he’s addressing that piece too.
Look. I’m not sure what keeps happening to my posts. I’m trying to reply and it seems there may be a problem with the site, or my phone, or maybe I’m being censored. But I’m going to try again: I see your point but I think you’re making some big assumptions.
1. The state of the soul of the would be communicant. Should we stop everyone at the “rail” to examine consciences?
2. That the archbishop is not providing guidance. He states above that he is, and that he’s doing so according to the objective teachings of the church. Implication/ inference/ indictment that he’s not adhering to or somehow skirting church teaching comes from the author’s commentary, which is the issue I take with the blog post.
Well, you can toss and dress the word salad however you like it, but the clear implication of Cupich’s statement is plain to anyone willing to apply a modicum of logic. He clearly implies that he is willing to give communion to anyone in a state of mortal sin if their conscience permits them to approach the rail (not that he has a rail, mind, but that’s another matter). That is either his clear intention or he’s an imbecile and doesn’t realise the implications of his own logic. No amount of Pollyanna-ing is going to change that.
I’ve got better things to do than engage in this game any longer, so I’m going to unsubscribe from this discussion.
Fwiw, Steve already blocked your previous account for what amounted to argument in bad faith, and I won’t draw any conclusions from your readiness to abandon that account and start a new one just so that you can continue apologizing for Cupich on this site. But if you insist on trying to continue at this point then I can only presume that you have an agenda, thus all the more reason to ignore it.
You’re right: I do know that. And I agree with you.
It’s important to note that the person in your scenario could not reasonably claim to have a good conscience, if they had reflected on the teachings of the church, and under advice of any bishop.
And no angel would ever say that – not one from our side anyway.
The Cardinal Walter Kasper Institute
http://www.kardinal-kasper-stiftung.de/en/institute.html
Who funds it? As always: follow the money.
Cupich will soon be a Cardinal, if he continues to tow the line for liberalizing Catholic belief and doctrine. Everything he’s done since he became a minor bishop points in that direction…
http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/the-last-periphery.html
Wow! I just read this to my wife here at the breakfast table. Beautiful ! Whatever you do this morning, don’t deprive yourself of this treat ! In six fuel-air-bomb paragraphs charged with exquisite sarcasm, Fr. Hunwicke reduces Fort Mercy on the Tiber and its American agent Cupich(ulate) to a pile of smoking ashes. THIS is what priests rigorously trained in Latin and Greek are capable of offering us; THIS is the kind of defense of orthodoxy real intellect is capable of. Bravo! And thank you, Fr. Blake.
I hope and pray that neither Steven Skojec, nor Patrick Archibald, nor the two unnamed veteran Catholic journalists, nor the unnamed Catholic theologian, I believe, want to be known, in the long view of history, as another Fr. Johann Joseph Ignaz von Dollinger or Bishop Joseph Hubert Reinkens or the petition currently circulating to become another Declaration of Nuremberg.
Lest we forget, our Lord knowing Judas Iscariot would betray Him, gave Holy Communion to him at the Last Supper.
Is anyone’s example or ideas more normative or reasonable than our Lord’s? All of this hand wringing and lobbying to effect the outcome smacks of the very Americanism that was condemned in the 19th century by the very pope that George Weigel has pointed to as the beginning of “evangelical Catholicism” Pope Leo XIII in His Holiness’s “Testem benevolentiae nostril”. Agitators of every stripe would benefit from reading the Church is not a pure democracy and truth is not made by majority opinion. Jesus Christ is “King of kings and Lord of lords” and Christianity is a divinely revealed religion.
What balderdash! First of all, you have to know that the reception of the Eucharist by Judas is a debated (and debatable) topic. Even assuming, though, that he did receive, what is the difference between this and Jesus’ repeatedly exposing his personal vulnerability to the world? What is undeniable — except perhaps on the part of some of the rebels at the current Synod — is that, if Judas received Christ’s body while in a state of mortal sin, he was swallowing his own condemnation, as St. Paul makes crystal clear. Even today priests and bishops can warn Catholics not to receive the Eucharist in a state of serious sin, but if the reprobates insist, the sin is theirs.
Vatican II types like you frequently make me laugh. You understand and applaud lay participation in the affairs of the Church as encouraged by the Council only up to the point where it challenges your own peculiar notions; then, mirabili dictu, you suddenly become disciples of the “pray, pay, and obey” school of Catholicism. Pope Benedict said of the laity that they “should not be regarded as ‘collaborators’ of the clergy, but, rather, as people who are genuinely ‘co-responsible’ for the Church” (Message to the International Forum of Catholic Action, August 10, 2012) And, that in mind, it’s simply common sense that, if laymen and women perceive that heresy is being urged, they should speak up.
And your caricature of the Americanism controversy is as superficial, self-serving, and misleading as the rest of what you write. In fact, Testem benevolentiae nostrae, indeed, attacked notions quite popular in certain corners of this month’s Synod, viz. ecumenicalism and liberalism. Leo specifically condemns the notion that, in order to make converts, the Church needs to “adapt herself to our advanced civilization and relax her ancient rigour as regards not only the rule of life but also the deposit of faith, and should pass over or minimize certain points of doctrine, or even give them a meaning which the Church has never held” (from Catholic Encycl.). Would that Danneels, Marx, Kasper, Wuerl, Forte, Baldisseri, and others of their cohort would condemn these notions as forthrightly.
Hardly. When one is willing to sweep aside the plain testimony of the divinely inspired sacred Scriptures to explain away a point an interlocutor is making one can be assured one is reasoning from a superficial, self-serving and misleading basis. In ALL three synoptic Gospel accounts, Satan had already entered Judas who had already plotted to betray him and had accepted blood money (cf. Matthew 26: 14- 16; Mk. 14: 10-11; Lk. 22: 3-6) – the thirty pieces of silver – prior to His reception of the bread and wine at the Last Supper and needed only lead them to His location in the garden of Gethsemane to betray Him with a kiss (cf. Matthew 26: 20-30; Mk. 14: 17-26; Lk. 22: 14-23). AND YET, our Lord served him Holy Communion. As I said, I am NOT agitating FOR the reception of communion for the divorced and remarried as either a doctrinal or pastoral solution to this problem. HOWEVER, it IS worth considering what Jesus Christ Himself did with one of His chosen, who had betrayed Him, in relation to the reception of the Last Supper. That you do not consider it germane, I find instructive.
I do not understand what you mean by “Vatican II types” or what that rant is all about. Is not the Second Vatican Council one of the twenty ecumenical councils of the catholic Church? Is it not binding on the consciences of the faithful, just as the other nineteen are? Just what do you mean by “up to the point where it challenges your own particular points”? What point do you believe I am challenged by? I have no problem, in fact, quite the contrary, I encourage lay men and women who perceive heresy is being taught to speak up. There IS however, A MANNER of doing that, that DOES NOT involve attempting to subvert the collegial, synodal process by signing a petition that encourages an episcopal walk out. This is what I meant by the reference to Pope Leo XIII’s “Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae”. “Americanism” was the Pope Leo XIII’s concern that the American model of representative civil liberties would undermine the doctrine of the Church (as if factions could lobby for this or that doctrine or moral prescription, or ignore this or that doctrine or moral prescription because a 51% majority decided it was so; keeping in mind the background context of 14th century ‘conciliarism’, 16th century ‘Erastianism’, 18th century French ‘Gallicanism’, 18th century German ‘Febronianism’, and the 18th century ‘Josephinism’ of Joseph Benedict Anton Michael Adam, etcetera it was not an unfounded concern on the part of the Holy Father). In my opinion, this business of circulating a petition encouraging “orthodox” bishops to walk out of the synodal process in protest of the “heterodox” bishops is just the kind of factionalism, lobbying, and Americanist tendency exhibited by by Fr. Dollinger and His Excellency Bishop Reinkens.
Synodality / collegiality was an aspect of the Second Vatican Council that was SO necessary to BALANCE the ONE SIDED prescription of papal infallibility which could not be completed at the First Vatican Council because of the looming Franco-Prussian War that threatened to and did sweep into Rome, involved the annexation of the Papal States by Napoleon III AND the imprisonment of Pope Piux iX. It was as a result of that UNFINISHED BUSINESS (the balancing of “papal infallibility” with a collaborative, episcopal, synodal mechanism of fraternal collegiality at Vatican I that the “Old Catholics” eventually went into schism (hence my reference to Fr. Dollinger and Bishop Reinkens.
The whole point of my post pertains to the circulation of a petition that the synod Fathers who are faithful to the Magisterium of the Church should “walk out” which could potentially be a first step that could lead down a road that no one, hopefully, desires. But this whole ‘choosing up sides’ business and lobbying bishops to walk out of a synodal process that is SO NECESSARY for the Pope to be informed by the world’s bishops on what the state of the flock is in their respective dioceses around the world, that they should be concerned to ACCURATELY reflect where their people are, good or bad, without fear of reprisal or recrimination of failure or an accusation of disloyalty.
The situation in Europe MUST be very bad or Mass attendance in France and Germany would not be at 3 to 4% of Catholics. The United States is supposedly “religious” (the Pew Center research polls show 80% of Americans consider themselves religious) AND YET only 25% of Catholics on any given Sunday attend the Eucharistic Mass and receive Holy Communion, THE sacramental lodestone, “the source and summit of the faith”, the hypostatic, sacramental union of Jesus Christ with His People. The laity lobbying for a walk-out is puerile and counter-productive. It smacks of the very regional, national, Americanist 51% majority politicking of doctrine, morals, and pastoral practice that occasioned the address of “Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae” to Cardinal Gibbons. I have seen a priest on his blog question why Bishop Cupich was ever confirmed, ordained to the priesthood, and raised to the episcopacy. These are angry, discordant actions. They do not produce unity, harmony, or synchronicity.
Let me say this as succinctly and as charitably as I can: your English is insufferably pompous, tortuous, and bloviated (for Pete’s sake, quisutDeusmpc, I counted over a hundred words — it’s a slow morning chez moi — in just one of your unbounded sentences!). This verbal jungle simply is not instructive, and I find THAT germane, amigo mío.
You want bullet points? Fine, my brother.
– drink more coffee, earlier in the morning.
-the Church is two thousand years old. It is always “in crisis”, and it is still here, but adding to the problem doesn’t solve the problem.
-less theology and more history and tradition will help fill the vacuum of ‘sentire cum ecclesia’ (thinking with the Church). In other words, theology needs historical context.
-the demographic axis of rotation for the Church has shifted south and east. The Church didn’t grow in the 19th century during the French Revolution by preventing ‘laicite’ but by evangelizing the New World (North and South America) and Africa. Turn (conversion) or burn (get left out in the cold), baby. Brazil, Mexico, the United States and Italy are currently the countries with the largest Catholic populations; and Africa and the Far East have the largest Catholic demographic growth.
-I suggest reading Phillip Jenkin’s “The Next Christendom”, the Aparecida documents of the Latin American Bishop’s Conference, and Cardinal Robert Sarah’s “Christ’s New Homeland – Africa” & “God or Nothing: A Conversation on Faith”
Your English has improved (pourrait-il en être autrement?) but not your thinking; drink more beer in the late afternoon. (Why am I not surprised that you recommend Phil Jenkins [not Jenkin, as you would have it], a Catholic who apostatized?)
I see. Caught up in the minutiae. God bless you. Bien destin. A Dieu.
Is that a promise? No more BS? Really?
“Oh, Martha, pour me a celebratory one, will you, dear?”
Is not the Second Vatican Council one of the twenty ecumenical councils of the catholic Church? Is it not binding on the consciences of the faithful, just as the other nineteen are?
Show me one doctrine defined in this “pastoral” council, one item proposed for belief with the full power and authority of the See of Peter, one dogma held to be divinely received and promulgated for acceptance in docility. If you can do so, or cannot, in each case you will have answered your own question.
For me, I will use prudential judgement regarding the propositions adopted by VII, and judge them against the prior 2000 years of Catholic teaching, including Trent and VI in particular. In which case I find, no, the ecumenical “pastoral” council of VII does not rise to the level of previous councils at the level of demanding obedience of conscience. On the contrary, it comes close to – if not outright achieves – sinking to the level of those false councils in history which were condemned and which the faithful were bound to reject. Learn to Catholic. Maybe listen to some talks by Michael Davies for a start.
http://catholicaudio.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/michael-davies.html
i.) “GUARDING THE DEPOSIT OF FAITH IS THE MISSION WHICH THE LORD ENTRUSTED TO HIS CHURCH, and which she fulfills in every age. The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, which was opened 30 years ago by my predecessor Pope John XXIII, of happy memory, had as its intention and purpose to highlight the Church’s APOSTOLIC and pastoral mission, and BY MAKING THE TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL SHINE FORTH to lead all people to seek and receive Christ’s love which surpasses all knowledge (cf. Eph 3:19).
The principal task entrusted to the Council by Pope John XXIII was TO GUARD AND PRESENT BETTER THE PRECIOUS DEPOSIT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE in order to make it more accessible to the Christian faithful and to all people of good will. For this reason the Council was not first of all to condemn the errors of the time, but ABOVE ALL TO STRIVE CALMLY TO SHOW TH STRENGTH AND BEAUTY OF THE FAITH. “Illumined by the light of this Council”, the Pope said, “the Church. . . will become greater in spiritual riches and gaining the strength of new energies therefrom, she will look to the future without fear. . . Our duty is to dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fear to that work which our era demands of us, thus pursuing the path which the Church has followed for 20 centuries.”1
With the help of God, the Council Fathers in four years of work were able TO PRODUCE A CONSIDERABLE NUMBER OF DOCTRINAL STATEMENTS and pastoral norms which were presented to the whole Church. There the Pastors and Christian faithful find directives for that “renewal of thought, action, practices and moral virtue, of joy and hope, which was the very purpose of the Council”.2″
Pope John Paul II’s “Fidei Depositum” promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church
ii.) There were no less than three “Dogmatic Constitutions” in the sixteen major documents of the Second Vatican Council
iii.) Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph no. 884 “The college of bishops exercises power over the universal Church in a solemn manner in an ecumenical council.”405 But “there never is an ecumenical council which is not confirmed or at least recognized as such by Peter’s successor.”406
iv.) CIC Can. 754 All the Christian faithful are obliged to observe the constitutions and decrees which the legitimate authority of the Church issues in order to propose doctrine and to proscribe erroneous opinions, particularly those which the Roman Pontiff or the college of bishops puts forth.
And?
Look, quoting texts and capitalising sections at random won’t cut it. You can quote any authority you like, but until you can demonstrate that you actually understand the doctrines of The Church in their continuity over the centuries you’re simply blovating . I can read those documents, I have, they don’t contradict my point. I know what a legitimate shepherd speaks like. Clue: he doesn’t espouse heresy. We are all responsible for using our own prudential judgement, for ensuring our own conscience is well formed. We are not called to blindly follow whatever some bloke says because he wears a cassock. If we did that then the Gnostic heresy would never have been opposed, Arianism would have had the final word, etc etc. LEARN TO CATHOLIC! Use your power of reason, look to history, the examples of countless saints. And for goodness sake stop trying to be a teacher.
-I stand by my condemnation of the petition. Synodality is the necessary balance to the unfinished business of the First Vatican Council. It was necessary and instituted by Pope Paul VI, has been maintained and extended by St. Pope John Paul II and the emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis. Just as Pope Paul VI can TOTALLY disregard the recommendations of a commission and produce a “Humanae Vitae”, the Holy Father can totally disregard the recommendations of the Pastoral Synod on the Family or uphold it, or some combination of both. We are talking about a SYNOD, a consultative body, about the Church’s current PASTORAL situation regarding the family. For Pete’s sake, let the process play out and wait for the final report or the Apostolic exhortation.
-I stand by my historical analysis. The last two schisms in the Church (the Old Catholics in 1870, and the Lefebvrists in 1981 were from rigid dogmatists of the right who had proclaimed themselves the guardians of ‘orthodoxy’). Sounds disturbingly like, in my opinion, the authors of this petition – a la ‘Give us what we want (doctrinally or in discipline) or we walk out’. Counter…productive.
– It takes a lot more reason, and is much more difficult, having been on both sides, to think with the mind of the Church, than it ever did to “make up my own mind” (which is nothing more than reverting to my own narcissistic navel gazing). Welcome to the real world and grow up.
Your information on what constitutes the last 2 schisms is in error, friend, which indicates an incapacity on your part to speak logically about what constitutes rigid dogmatism or the necessity of Synodality.
…comments such as, “Welcome to the real world and grow up,” rather convince those reading them that you have yet to either.
God bless.
No, it’s not, my brother. The Old Catholics left due to the promulgation of the doctrine of ‘papal infallibility’ and the Lefebvrists left over the Second Vatican Council and the Mass of Pope Paul VI.
Catholics are called to think with the mind of the Church. We are not Protestants who reinvent the wheel with each generation that seeks to personally appropriate the faith. Each year at Easter we covenant to hold completely and faithfully all that the Church proposes for our belief. It has been my experience that those who throw out the accusation of “blindly following anyone with a cassock” really mean, they are going to pick and choose what it is they are going to believe or not, whether it be with regards to doctrine or morality. Manning up and leaving behind an adolescent, “I’ll do what I want, when I want, how I want” IS what is needed. St. Teresa of Avila died with the words on her lips, “I am a daughter of the Church”. Would that we all aspired at least to that.
Sorry, my brother, I’m a sister. Your “schism” information on the Lefebvrists as you call them is in error. No schism.
“…Catholics are called to think with the mind of the Church. We are not Protestants who reinvent the wheel with each generation that seeks to personally appropriate the faith.”
Indeed, we must “think” with the mind of the Church, all of it. Not catapult into brave-new-heresy so long as it is seemingly ushered in via “official” channels that define themselves as pastoral and then assert themselves as novel doctrine. That is why you should indeed man up and get a thorough understanding of the topics you think you understand.
There is more to being a daughter or son of the Church than accepting whatever is proposed each year. If such were the case, then St. Teresa of Avila would never have endured the marginalization and suffering she did when fighting against the established Church hierarchy to reform what had become that which it should not. But those in her era most assuredly did not think of her as a daughter of the Church – one reason to repeat it at her death.
God bless.
As you wish, Sorry, my sister. That is true. The excommunications of the individual bishops has been lifted, nevertheless the SSPX “do not possess canonical status” in the Church (i. e. the SSPX is in formal schism) and their ministers do not “exercise ministry” validly as a result. Certain concessions on an extraordinary and “emergency” basis have been extended, but the SSPX IS in schism. Its members believe they are not, that they are the guardians of ‘orthodoxy’ against the Second Vatican Council and the Mass of Pope Paul VI, but they are objectively in schism. ‘Roma locuta est, causa finita est’.
Sorry, friend, but you are in no position to declare schism. Again, the fact that you attempt to do so marks you as, perhaps, a victim of a certain media outlet that fancies themselves not to be criticizing His Holiness while at the same time attempting to rule in his stead. (i.e. Making unauthorized declarations of schism.)
But this plays right into the idea that you put forward about having to accept whatever is placed before us on a yearly basis, apparently without regard for said offering being in legitimate and clear union with that which came before – all of it. So while you may have some grasp of the Synod debacle of today, thanks to the internet, Vatican II still shines forth as some bastion of must accept without any factual understanding of the novelties therein. Look to the fruit and the root, friend, and don’t forget to identify the blazing can of Miracle Grow that made it all possible.
“…Certain concessions on an extraordinary and “emergency” basis have been extended,” is the key to understanding. The why is because the “emergency” didn’t just begin with this Synod.
God bless and happy learning!
Stand by what you like. One day we will all stand before the only place that matters, to render our own accounts.
Agreed.
Good. Hopefully we’re also agreed that quoting the catechism etc won’t cut it there either.
Alas and alack, no. It is a “sure norm” for teaching the faith.
I hope The Eternal Judge is impressed by your appeals to authority. For me, if He asks what use I made of my God given faculties, the graces received, the fine examples of faith I had to draw on in forming my own faith and in working out my own salvation, I’m truly fearful for the inadequacy of my response. I won’t be quoting the Catechism at Him, that’s for sure.
Oh, I see where you’re going now, because unless God’s got a Disqus account, I quoted the catechism to you. You’re not God, are you? I’m not, but I do have an opinion, and that was arrived at by using my God given faculties, and the graces I have received, and the examples of faith I have had to draw from as well. I don’t pretend to have cornered the market on truth, but I do call a spade a spade. Factionalism (“I am of Paul. I am of Apollos. I am of Peter.”) is counter productive, in my humble opinion. And I laid out how and why I had come to that conclusion. I’d say I did a fair to middling job of providing an adequate personal response.
Cool story bro.
You are to be commended for wading through the linguistic/ideological slop that issues regularly from quisutDeusmpc’s keyboard. All one really needs to know about the fellow is that, fifty some odd years after it closed, he thinks Vatican II produced a vibrant, healthy, and feisty Catholicism. Knowing that, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he also thinks the Argentines won the Falklands War.
Wading might not be the right word for it. More like powering across in a mega-yacht, but that’s what traditional Catholicism with a sacramental life supported by sound priests amounts to, basically.
Yeah, by their fruits we can judge them (VII included). I was asked recently by a good none-Catholic friend if anything good had come out of Vatican II, and I had to admit that the question stumped me. I’m not anti VII, in the sense that I wholeheartedly denounce it, indeed much of what is in the actual documents is fine, good even, just that there is nothing ground-breaking there, nothing that any well-formed Catholic of the time wouldn’t have known already.
Please list the specific propositions in the Second Vatican Council documents to which the faithful are bound. Do not include any that are restatements of prior dogmatic teaching, since there is no dispute over those.
To my knowledge there were three “Dogmatic Constitutions”:
“Sacrosanctum Concilium” – Dogmatic Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 1963.
“Lumen Gentium” – Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 1964.
“Dei Verbum” – Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, 1965.
Specific propositions, please.
Here, I’ll make this easier for you.
From the Code of Canon Law (my emphases):
Again: Are there any propositions within the Second Vatican Council documents that are to be held definitively, that are not restatements of prior magisterial teachings?
Perhaps you’re thinking more along these lines:
If so, can you enumerate all such doctrines?
No, I am thinking along these lines,
“CIC Canon 754. All the Christian faithful are obliged to observe the constitutions AND decrees which the legitimate authority of the Church issues in order to propose doctrine and to proscribe erroneous opinions, particularly those which the Roman Pontiff or the college of bishops puts forth.”
That is all sixteen documents of the Second Vatican Council including those on ecumenism, and religious liberty.
You are dodging the question, dear fellow.
Let’s look at your citation, with my emphases
Boom. There it is: We are to observe the constitutions and decrees which the Church issues to propose doctrine and proscribe error.
Again, which doctrines were proposed by the Second Vatican Council? Which errors were proscribed?
This is roughly the umpteenth time I have had this conversation about the Second Vatican Council. Each time I have asked the same questions. Each time I have received no concrete answer.
No. Murray. You’re rationalizing away the plain sense of the text. We are to observe that which the Church issues. All sixteen documents of the Second Vatican Council proposed the doctrine and policy of the Church moving forward from 1965. The Church is the “the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth.” (cf. I Tim. 3: 15). We don’t get to say, well “Dignitatis Humanae” is proposing religious liberty and freedom of conscience, or “Nostra Aetate” is promoting ecumenism and I believe that isn’t new or I think it contradicts the “social kingship of Christ” therefore I don’t have to observe that part.
OK, but that’s off-topic for this exchange. I was asking if you could enumerate the specific binding propositions unique to the Second Vatican Council. It’s clear that you cannot, because there are none, and no amount of hand-waving in the general direction of conciliar documents is going to get you there.
The Catholic Faith is clear and concrete: Holy Mother Church has always bound Catholics to specific doctrinal propositions and condemnations of error bearing on faith and morals, as your own citation of Can. 754 bears out.
What’s more, we have it from three pontifical horses’ mouths that the Second Vatican Council produced nothing of that sort.
Excerpts from St. John XXIII’s opening address to the Second Vatican Council, with my emphases:
From Bl. Paul VI, March 6, 1964:
Paul VI, January 12, 1966:
Paul VI, August 6, 1975:
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, July 17, 1988:
I am rationalizing nothing, only reading the plain, authoritative words of the Holy Catholic Church and her pontiffs.
Note well: I am not claiming that the Council is devoid of authority, merely that it contains no specific new propositions on faith and morals, to which we are bound to provide religious submission of intellect and will. You have not produced one piece of evidence to the contrary.
Watch out, Murray, this guy has Google translate for Latin, which apparently makes him an expert in “Catholic tradition”.
Is not the Second Vatican Council one of the twenty ecumenical councils of the catholic Church?
It’s one ecumenical council among twenty. It happens to be the most recent.
Is it not binding on the consciences of the faithful, just as the other nineteen are?
Is the Council of Vienne binding? What about Lateran II? If so, in what way?
But this whole ‘choosing up sides’ business and lobbying bishops to walk out of a synodal process that is SO NECESSARY for the Pope to be informed by the world’s bishops on what the state of the flock is in their respective dioceses…
This would be a comforting rationale, if it were true. But in truth, no pope since the Council has really used the synodal process for anything but internal diplomacy and appearance’s sake. In each case, a preordained outcome was fixed before any proceedings began, with at most the very smallest of tweaks made to final exhortations as a result of the proceedings. That was true of John Paul II’s synods, and Benedict’s, as well as Francis’s. The only difference seems to be that JPII and BXVI had in mind the reaffirmation of traditional teachings and disciplines, whereas Francis seems to have in mind departures from them.
…only 25% of Catholics on any given Sunday attend the Eucharistic Mass and receive Holy Communion
…which is almost certainly an overestimate, given that people surveyed in such polls tend to overreport, for obvious reasons.
These are angry, discordant actions. They do not produce unity, harmony, or synchronicity.
In fairness, we have not had unity, harmony, or synchronicity in the Church for some decades now.
You trolls are extremely entertaining ,especially your ostentatious piety, which is always just a tad overdone. “OUR LORD” ha ha … And you thoughtfully always include just a bit of Latin — “Testem benevolentiae nostril”, ooooh — a nice touch. Good job!
Why am I a “troll” because I disagree with the petition and its methodology and know Catholic tradition?
How amusing. There’s a lot more to Catholic tradition than a few words in Latin.
Yes there is and I haven’t seen you address the example of Fr. Dollinger or Bishop Reinkens.
Not before you address the example of every saint canonized before 1963. Go!
That’s what I thought. ‘Ad hominem’ and vitriol. God bless you.
Wrong again! An “ad hominem” attack would be, for example, “This guy thinks he knows what ad hominem means, but can’t use it correctly because he’s not very bright.”
“Is anyone’s example or ideas more normative or reasonable than our Lord’s?”
You mean like calling remarried divorcees adulterers?
Indeed. But only one who would deny the Triune nature of God would wave away the rest of divine revelation as irrelevant. The Spirit who also proceeds through the Son spoke in 1 Corinthians 10-11 about the poor example of Moses’ flock and the dangers of receiving the Body and Blood unworthily. It’s almost as if the Almighty anticipated arguments involving the Last Supper and the communing of Judas…. Uncanny, that.
Besides, none of these pastoral preachers of mercy and conscience would ever dream of brutalizing those who present themselves for communion as being modern day Judases. I imagine they would heartily rebuke you for suggesting any such thing.
Here we have side by side the concern of a faithful bishop (Chaput) and those of … well, another kind of bishop (Cupich[ulate]) in an AP report:
”
“If people come to a decision in good conscience, our job with the church is to help them move forward and respect that,” Cupich said. “The conscience is inviolable.”
While he acknowledged the synod may not come up with a clear-cut answer to the question, Cupich said he didn’t share Chaput’s anxiety. And he said he didn’t think Francis did, either.
“He just looks so refreshed, calm, at peace,” he said. “If the Holy Father is at peace with the way things are going, I think that each one of us should put aside the fears or anxieties that might be present in our hearts and pay attention to (the pope) at this moment.”
Oh, my, I just feel SO much better knowing the Pope is at peace with the way things are going. Don’t you?
Wildly disconcerting.
Maybe Blase just theologically choked that day. Maybe we should hold a catechism on either side of his throat?
Gates of hell won’t prevail. And because of that, I’m going to bed.
Murray, just look up the name Bella Dodd and that explains a lot. She alone put over 1000 communists into the Catholic seminaries as plants. She reverted in the 60’s and was received into the Church by Abp Fulton Sheen. Imagine How many other Bella Dodds were/are at work without our knowledge and then keeping in mind freemasonry’s penchant for rushing people through the ranks and I think the mystery is solved.
Cupich is the model of the consummate Pansy Prelate produced by the rampant apostasy infecting the Conciliar Church. As to how he was admitted to the seminary let alone made Archbishop? A two word answer….Lavender Mafia. The family is the stalking horse in this supposed Synod. It’s more like the excuse and cover for this Synod of Sodomites to approve their agenda.
By the way, whatever happened to that 300+ page report delivered to PB16 a couple months before his resignation? Reportedly it concerned the homosexual problem within the Curia. Are these the wolves he asked to be protected from at his investiture as Pope? Could this Synod be the inside in-your-face answer to it?
PF’s appointment of Cupich to Chicago and selection to the synod speaks volumes about the degeneracy of both. They represent the apostasy of the Modernist Manifesto aka
“Truth is Transient”, “Faith is Feelings” summed up by “God Be Gone and Man Be God”
Do you have proof that Cupich is in fact a sodomite or are you saying what you do because you suspect he may be? I’m not trying to be disputatious, only accurate in my thinking. During the homosexual scandals of the 90s and early 2000s, it was always easier to proceed once we knew whether a priest or bishop was himself saddled with a disordered personality. For example, I know of at least two convictions for theft by priests that were explained by their funding their filthy sexual habits and practices.
Many thanks to Fr. Murray and Robert Royal for their coverage of the synod on The World Over. Very illuminating.
On the show, one or both of them criticized Father Antonio Spadaro, S.J.’s tweet from the other day with the picture of a mummy. Thanks to them for doing so.
Spadaro has a huge social media following. He’s also close to the Pope, apparently. His area of expertise is “cybertheology”. The mummy tweet certainly certainly put on display the crude and unprofessional sort of commentary that social media encourages!
As for Spadaro: as yet undisclosed is the funding sources of the conference (heavily
attended by other Jesuits) that his journal held right on the eve of the synod.
(La Civilta Cattolica http://www.laciviltacattolica…. )
The conference had to do with reform of the Church. Most of us had assumed
that the synod was just about the family. How grandiose.
In any case: it should only take a Vaticanista a few phone calls to identify those funding sources. There are four.
Why is this relevant and why have I been so persistent about it? Spadaro is on the drafting committee for the synod!!
Will
we find out that this symposium provided talking points for that
drafting, or for the Pope? Surely the Pope now has a copy of the
proceedings. One naturally wonders if he had a phone patch to the
conference.
He reacted negatively of course to Marco Tosatti’s story about the conference.
Why hasn’t more information about this conference and its funding sources been disclosed??
Is it an … embarrassment? What of…”transparency”?
If one is to gage matters by this article from the Catholic Herald (UK), failure, even breathtakingly spectacular failure, at episcopal governance is no barrier at all to papal favor nowadays. While Cardinal Danneels can’t be made to shoulder all the responsibility for the mess described in the Herald, he has become a poster boy for it, and he was deeply mired in terrible scandal. Yet the pope extended a personal invitation to Danneels to come to the Synod. You really have to wonder why.
Here is the article:
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/october-16th-2015-2/belgiums-crisis-of-faith/
And now, from the very HQ of respectable East Coast opinion and liberal orthodoxy, THIS !!!! I read it and re-read it. My mind whirled– “Did Steve Skojec kidnap Ross Douthat and submit a Sunday column under Ross’ name???!!!” The only question not asked blatantly here in the pages of the New York Times, but still hinted at every turn is: “IS THIS POPE A HERETIC?”
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/opinion/sunday/the-plot-to-change-catholicism.html?_r=1&referer=
It only gets worse, more delusional by the hour. Read the pope’s words about the wonders of a “Synodal Church.” Of course, you won’t recognize what he’s talking about there because it bears no resemblance to the unmitigated disaster we Catholics have been treated to since roughly 1965, but it reveals his thinking starkly. If you think to yourself, “Hey, this sounds a lot like Orthodox Christianity!”, you’re obviously beyond your first coffee this morning and fully awake. Many of us have wanted reunion with the good people in Orthodox churches, but we didn’t envision that it would involve making the Church of Rome just another branch of the international Orthodox communion. Jorge Bergoglio was evidently not among that “many of us.”
The title of this is “Walking together.” I see it that way too, but just down the trail we are walking on, I see the Cliffs of Moher.
The Synod: walking together
Vatican City, 19 October 2015 (VIS) – On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the institution of the Synod of Bishops, the Holy Father addressed the Synod Fathers in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall. An introduction was given by Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, and the president of the Episcopal Conference of Austria and cardinal archbishop of Vienna Christoph Schonborn pronounced a commemorative discourse.
Below are extensive extracts from the Holy Father’s discourse, in which he reiterated that the very name “Synod” – “walking together” – indicates what the Lord asks of us.
“From Vatican Council II to the current Synod Assembly on the family, we have experienced in an increasingly intense way the beauty of ‘walking together’. … We must continue on this road. The world in which we live, and which we are called upon to love and serve even in its contradictions, demands of the Church a strengthening of synergies in all areas of her mission. The path of synodality is the path that God expects from the Church in the third millennium. … In the Apostolic Exhortation ‘Evangelii Gaudium’ I underlined how ‘the People of God is holy thanks to this anointing, which makes it infallible in credendo’, adding that ‘all the baptised, whatever their position in the Church or their level of instruction in the faith, are agents of evangelisation, and it would be insufficient to envisage a plan of evangelisation to be carried out by professionals while the rest of the faithful would simply be passive recipients’. … It was this conviction that guided me in my wish that the People of God be consulted in the preparation of the dual Synod on the family. … How would it be possible to speak of the family without speaking with families, listening to their joys and hopes, their sorrows and their troubles?”.
“A Synodal Church is a Church who listens, aware that listening is more than hearing. It is a process of mutual listening in which each person has something to learn. The faithful, the Episcopal College, the bishop of Rome: each one listening to the others, and all listening to the Holy Spirit, the ‘Spirit of truth’. … Synodality, as a constitutive dimension of the Church, offers us the best interpretative framework for understanding her hierarchical ministry … in which no-one may be ‘higher’ than the others. On the contrary, within the Church it is necessary to stoop to put oneself in service to one’s brothers along the way. Jesus constituted the Church, placing at the summit the apostolic College, in which the apostle Peter is the ‘rock’, he who must ‘confirm’ his brothers in the faith. But in this Church, as in an upturned pyramid, the summit is below the base. Therefore, those who exercise authority are called ‘ministers’: because in accordance with the original meaning of the word, they are the least of all”.
“In an synodal Church, the Synod of Bishops is only the most evident manifestation of a dynamism of communion that inspires all ecclesial dimensions. The first level of the exercise of synodality occurs in the particular Churches. … The Code of Canon Law reserves ample space to those who are usually referred to as the ‘organs of communion’ of the particular Church: the presbyteral Council, the College of Consultors, the Chapter of Canons and the pastoral Council. These instruments, that at times proceed wearily, must be accorded their due value as offering opportunities for listening and sharing. … The second level is that of the Ecclesiastical Provinces or Regions, the Particular Councils and, in special way, the Episcopal Conferences. … In a synodal Church, as I have already stated, ‘it is not advisable for the Pope to take the place of local bishops in the discernment of every issue which arises in their territory. In this sense, I am conscious of the need to promote a sound decentralisation’. … The final level is that of the universal Church. Here the Synod of Bishops, representing the entire Catholic episcopate, becomes an expression of episcopal collegiality within an entirely synodal Church”.
“I am convinced that, in a synodal Church, more light could also be cast on the exercise of the Petrine primacy. The Pope is not alone and above the Church, but rather within her, baptised among the baptised, and within the episcopal College as a bishop among bishops, called upon at the same time, as the Successor of the apostle Peter, to guide the Church of Rome who presides in love among all the Churches. While I repeat the need and urgency to think of a ‘conversion of the papacy’ … I am convinced that I have, in this respect, a particular responsibility, above all in ascertaining the ecumenical aspiration of the majority of Christian communities and in listening to the request that is presented to me to find a way of exercising this primacy that, while not renouncing in any way the essence of its mission, is open to a new situation”.
“Our gaze also extends to humanity. A synodal Church is like a standard borne among the nations in a world that, while invoking participation, solidarity and transparency in public administration, frequently leaves the destiny of entire populations in the rapacious hands of small powerful groups. As a Church who ‘walks together’ with mankind, participating in the labours of history, we cultivate the dream that the rediscovery of the inviolable dignity of peoples and the function of the service of authority may also help in the edification of civil society in justice and fraternity, giving rise to a world that is more beautiful and worthier of humanity for the generations to follow us”.
Another article that indicates why that book “None Dare Call It Heresy” will soon appear on the Barnes & Noble “Bargain Priced Books” table. Everyone seems to have caught on to the dirty game at the Vatican all at once.
http://blogs.new.spectator.co.uk/2015/10/pope-francis-is-now-effectively-at-war-with-the-vatican-if-he-wins-the-catholic-church-could-fall-apart/
Forester contra Cupich: Bishop Forester’s Pastoral Letter on Penance
Fascinating post, Mr. Wong; thank you. While reading it, I wondered how many bishops could still write something similar — how many would even dare! — and how many of their flock could still read it. Fewer than four decades since he penned it, but literacy and common sense have declined in that time more than they had in the previous four centuries.
The revealing articles keep pouring in. Here’s one from an unimpeachable source (unimpeachably liberal, that is), National Catholic Reporter.
The focus of the article (link below) is one of three women invited to speak to the Synod. Read her words here and, if you can parse phrasing and have some knowledge of history, you will catch sounds reminiscent of the Protestant rebellion. Oh, just as the current pope does, she gives a tip of the hat to traditional sentiment….but then “it’s off to where we really want to go.” Soon we’re at the dog and pony show about how times have changed and, oh, we’re just soooo different now, and we really have to look at things perhaps differently in these extraordinary times, et cetera ad nauseum! We need to go back and read Jesus’ words about divorce through the eyes of modern language experts, you know, guys who will probably be able to show how the Church has been dead wrong about them for about 2000 years! (Makes you wonder how the Church survived two millennia, doesn’t it? I mean there’s been just so much jackass thinking before now!)
While Sister Maureen thinks tradition is as malleable as Play-doh, the attitudes of her fellow delegates are like carbon steel — the males, you know, that Chaput fellow and Tom Collins from Canada. Why they seem to be as stiff-necked as bird-watchers on a spring day, just oh-so condescending to women! Tradition can change, but the old boys’ club? No way! Sister’s hypersensitive antennae can pick up slights almost before they happen; she’s so well-trained. She’s a lawyer, you know, one who helps lawbreakers in the US get around already frayed immigration rules, so she knows all about the little fella against big, bad mean guys. And let’s not talk about little gals against those same big, bad mean guys!
So read what Sr. Maureen has to teach you about the Church. I’m sure you’ve heard it all before from other liberals, but sister has an especially heady way of concentrating it, of giving us an instructive taste of what awaits us in the years following this Synod.
http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/us-sister-auditor-synod-shows-cultural-divide-between-bishops-laypeople
The idea of men in a gay union being empowered in conscience to receive our Lord in Holy Communion is far more egregious than civil gay marriage – because it directly implies that there is a sacramental goodness to their relationship. As such, Bishop Cupich’s statement encouraging such action constitutes a grievous assault upon the Catholic faith. Every Catholic in good conscience must oppose this unlawful use of his teaching office. The Bishop should be requested to repent or to immediately resign. He has broken with the faith, and encourages others to do so.
Abp. Cupich will also be the metropolitan who can take a final decision on any petition for annulments, right?
IANS can not see any problem with his merciful use of authority…
But why the citations of doctrine and canon law when the great helmsman tell us such things are the weapons of Pharisees?
Y’all are, like IANS. clinging by your fingertips to the starboard side of the Barque and the great helmsman has walked away from the wheel and he is standing directly overhead urinating on us and there ain’t a damn thing we can do about it other than to offer-up and never let go of the Barque while we wait on The Lord.