Posted on 10/20/2014 4:48:02 PM PDT by ebb tide
The True Story of This Synod. Director, Performers, Assistants
New paradigms of divorce and homosexuality are now at home in the highest levels of the Church. Nothing has been decided, but Pope Francis is patient. An American historian confutes the ideas of La Civiltà Cattolica
by Sandro Magister
ROME, October 17, 2014 - The spirit of the Council is blowing again, Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio G. Tagle has said, a rising star of the worldwide episcopate as well as being a historian of Vatican II. And it is true. At the synod that is about to conclude there are many elements in common with what happened at that great event.
The most visible similarity is the distance between the real synod and the virtual synod driven by the media.
But there is an even more substantial resemblance. Both at Vatican Council II and at this synod the changes of paradigm are the product of careful coordination. A protagonist of Vatican II like Fr. Giuseppe Dossetti - the consummate strategist of the four cardinal moderators who were at the controls of the conciliar machine - asserted this with pride. He said that he had transformed the fate of the Council thanks to his capacity to pilot the assembly, which he had learned in his previous political experience as the leader of the foremost Italian party.
The same thing has happened at this synod. Both the openness to communion for the civilly divorced and remarried - and therefore the admission of remarriage on the part of the Church - and the startling change of paradigm on the issue of homosexuality that found its way into the Relatio post disceptationem would not have been possible without a series of skillfully calculated steps on the part of those who had and have control of the procedures.
In order to understand this, it is enough to review the stages that led to this result, even if the provisory finale of the synod - as will be seen - has not met the expectations of its directors.
The star of the first act is Pope Francis himself. On July 28, 2013, at the press conference held on board the plane taking him back to Rome after his voyage in Brazil, he issued two signals that had a powerful and lasting impact on public opinion.
The first on the treatment of homosexuals:
If a person is gay and is seeking the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?
The second on the admission of remarriage:
Also a parenthesis the Orthodox have a different practice. They follow the theology of what they call oikonomia, and they give a second chance [of marriage], they allow it. But I believe that this problem and here I close the parenthesis must be studied within the context of the pastoral care of marriage.
There followed in October of 2013 the convening of a synod on the family, the first in a series of two synods on the same issue in the span of a year, with decisions postponed until after the second. As secretary general of this sort of permanent and prolonged synod the pope appointed a new cardinal with no experience in this regard, but very close to him, Lorenzo Baldisseri. Beside whom he placed, as special secretary, the bishop and theologian Bruno Forte, already a leading proponent of the theological and pastoral approach that had its guiding light in the Jesuit cardinal Carlo Maria Martini and its major adversaries first in John Paul II and then in Benedict XVI: an approach explicitly open to a change of Church teaching in the area of sexuality.
The proclamation of the synod was associated with the issuing of a questionnaire throughout the whole world with specific questions on the most controversial questions, including communion for the divorced and homosexual unions.
Thanks in part to this questionnaire - which would be followed by the intentional publication of the answers on the part of some German-speaking episcopates - public opinion would be given the idea that these were questions to be considered open not only in theory but also in practice.
Proof of this breaking ahead of the pack came, for example, from the archdiocese of Freiburg in Germany, headed by president of the German episcopal conference Robert Zollitsch, who in a document from one of his pastoral offices encouraged access to communion for the divorced and remarried on the simple basis of a decision of conscience.
From Rome, the prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, Cardinal Gerhard L. Müller, reacted by republishing on October 23, 2013 in L'Osservatore Romano a note he had already issued four months earlier in Germany reconfirming and explaining the ban on communion.
But his call to have the archdiocese of Freiburg withdraw that document came to nothing. On the contrary, both German cardinal Reinhard Marx, and in more blunt terms Honduran cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga criticized Müller for his presumption of cutting off discussion on this matter. Both Marx and Maradiaga are part of the council of eight cardinals called by Pope Francis to assist him in the governance of the universal Church. The pope did not speak out in support of Müller.
On February 20 and 21, 2014, the cardinals met in Rome in consistory. Pope Francis asked them to discuss the family and delegated the introductory talk to Cardinal Walter Kasper, already in the early 1990s a combative supporter of dropping the ban on communion for the remarried, but defeated at the time by John Paul II and by Joseph Ratzinger.
At the consistory, held behind closed doors, Kasper revived all of his ideas. Many cardinals opposed him, but Francis approved him with the highest praise. Afterward, Kasper would say that he had coordinated with the pope on his proposals.
Moreover, Kasper gave the pope the privilege of breaking the secrecy on the things he had said at the consistory, unlike all the other cardinals. When his talk came out by surprise on March 1 in the Italian newspaper Il Foglio, it was already being prepared for the presses by the publisher Queriniana. The coverage of the publication was immense.
In early spring, to balance the impact of Kaspers proposals, the congregation for the doctrine of the faith planned the publication in L'Osservatore Romano of an opposing presentation by a prominent cardinal. But the pope vetoed the publication of this text.
Kaspers ideas were nevertheless the object of severe and substantiated criticism on the part of a good number of cardinals, who spoke out repeatedly through various media outlets. On the eve of the synod, five of these cardinals republished their previous statements in a book, accompanied by essays by other scholars and by a leading official of the curia, a Jesuit archbishop expert in the marriage practices of the Eastern Churches. Kasper, with widespread consensus in the media, deplored the publication of the book as an affront aimed at the pope.
On October 5 the synod opened. Unlike in the past, the statements in the assembly were not made public. Cardinal Müller protested against this censorship. But in vain. One more proof, he says, that I am not one of the directors.
The operational center of the synod is made up of the general and special secretaries, Baldisseri and Forte. But alongside of them the pope has placed, selected by him personally, those who will attend to the drafting of the message and the final Relatio, all of them belonging to the pro-change party, led by his trusted ghostwriter Víctor Manuel Fernández, archbishop and rector of the Catholic University of Buenos Aires.
The fact that this is the true cockpit of the synod became overwhelmingly evident on Monday, October 13, when in front of two hundred journalists from all over the world the cardinal delegate who figures as the formal author of the Relatio post disceptationem, Hungarian cardinal Péter Erdõ, asked about the paragraphs regarding homosexuality, refused to answer and gave the floor to Forte, saying: The one who drafted the passage, he should know what to say.
To the request for clarification on whether the paragraphs on homosexuality can be interpreted as a radical change in the churchs teaching on the matter, Cardinal Erdõ again responded, Certainly, displaying his disagreement here as well.
In effect, these paragraphs reflect not an orientation expressed in the assembly by a substantial number of fathers - as one would expect to read in a Relatio - but things said by no more than three out of almost two hundred, in particular by the Jesuit Antonio Spadaro, director of "La Civiltà Cattolica, appointed a member of the synod by Pope Francis himself.
On Tuesday, October 14, at a press conference, South African cardinal Wilfrid Napier denounced in biting words the effect of the prevarication carried out by Forte by inserting those explosive paragraphs into the Relatio. These, he says, have put the Church in an irredeemable position, with no way out. Because by now the message has gone out: This is what the synod is saying, this is what the Catholic Church is saying. No matter how we try correcting that, whatever we say hereafter is going to be as if we're doing some damage control.
In reality, in the ten linguistic circles in which the synod fathers carried out the discussion, the Relatio was heading for a massacre. Starting with its language, overblown, rambling, too wordy and therefore boring, as the official relator of the French-speaking Gallicus B group mercilessly blasted it, although this group contained two champions of its language - and of its likewise vague and equivocal contents - in cardinals Christoph Schönborn and Godfried Danneels.
When the assembly resumed its work on Thursday, October 16, secretary general Baldisseri, with the pope beside him, made the announcement that the reports of the ten groups would not be made public. A protest exploded. Australian cardinal George Pell, with the physique and temperament of a rugby player, was the most intransigent in demanding the publication of the texts. Baldisseri gave up. That same day, Pope Francis saw himself forced to expand the group charged with writing the final relation, adding Melbourne archbishop Denis J. Hart and above all the combative South African cardinal Napier.
Who, however, had seen correctly. Because no matter what may be the outcome of this synod, intentionally devoid of any conclusion, the effect desired by its directors has to a large extent been reached.
On homosexuality as on divorce and remarriage, in fact, the new talk of reform inserted into the global media circuit is worth much more than the favor actually gained among the synod fathers by the proposals of Kasper or Spadaro.
The match could go on for a long time. But Pope Francis is patient. In Evangelii Gaudium he has written that time is greater than space.
*
In steering the Synod toward the admission to communion of the divorced and remarried, La Civiltà Cattolica has shown itself to be particularly enterprising, with the publication of an article according to which the Council of Trent itself had opened a loophole in this direction:
> Second Marriages in Venice for La Civiltà Cattolica
La Civiltà Cattolica is directed by the Jesuit Antonio Spadaro, and each issue is printed after examination and approval by the highest Vatican authorities, in this case it is easy to imagine with the personal placet of the pope, with whom Fr. Spadaro has a close and confidential relationship.
But how well-founded, historically, is the notion of the Council of Trent as a forerunner of the openness of the pontificate of Jorge Mario Bergoglio in the matter of marriage and divorce?
The following is a confutation of the article in La Civiltà Cattolica. Its author is a professor of moral theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, in the United States, and has thoroughly studied the proceedings of the Council of Trent with regard to marriage.
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DAMNATIO MEMORIAE ?
by E. Christian Brugger
Jesuit priest Giancarlo Pani, professor of Christian history at the University of Rome La Sapienza, recently published an essay in "La Civiltà Cattolica" entitled "Matrimony and 'Second Marriages' at the Council of Trent." In it he defends the Greek matrimonial practice of oikonomia by which failed marriages can be dissolved and spouses permitted to remarry, or, whats more often the case, to have their new marriages declared valid by the Church after penance. He plainly hopes that this tolerant tradition may find its way into the Catholic Church.
For that aspiration, he claims no less an authority than the Council of Trent, which he believes implicitly sanctioned the Greek divorce practice in its "canones de sacramento matrimonii".
His argument has two flaws. The first and more serious I can only mention here. In his essay, he not only assumes, but states several times that this form of divorce and remarriage is not in conflict with the doctrine of indissolubility without providing an argument to vindicate the claim. The claim was refuted by Germain Grisez, John Finnis and William E. May twenty years ago in their critical response to German Bishops Walter Kasper, Karl Lehmann, and Oskar Saier, who had proposed a compromise to allow divorced and remarried Catholics in Germany to return to the eucharist.
The second problem is with Panis interpretation of Trents Canon 7 on indissolubility. He follows the popular interpretation of Flemish Jesuit Piet Fransen (1913-1983), whose account, though widely followed, is badly flawed (1). Panis article summarizes adequately the events of August 1563 so they need not be repeated here. But the wider story he tells deserves consideration.
Although the Eastern Orthodox Church [ Pani writes ] rigorously affirmed and recognized the indissolubility of marriage, nevertheless it permitted divorce and remarriage in some cases. The Fathers and theologians at Trent knew of the Easts ancient ritus (custom) and respected it. Many council Fathers were doubtful about the exceptive clause in Matthews Gospel (except in cases of porneia). They doubted whether divine revelation absolutely excluded remarriage in cases of adultery. Given the doubt, they resolved to speak clearly on the indissolubility of marriage, but also to say that the doctrine cannot be regarded as a constituent part of revelation. Their doubts came to a head in August 1563 with the famous intervention of the Venetian delegation, which urged the council Fathers for the sake of the divorce practices of the Greeks in Catholic lands not to directly condemn divorce and remarriage in cases of adultery. The petition won the day, and in the end the Council published an indirect formulation of Canon 7. This was obviously because a large majority of Council Fathers preferred leaving open the question of the legitimacy of the Greek divorce practices.
Pani laments that this page in Trents teaching on marriage seems to have been forgotten by history. But how can it have been forgotten when Walter Kasper (2), Charles Curran (3), Michael Lawler (4), Kenneth Himes (5), James Coriden (6), Theodore Mackin S.J. (7), Victor J. Pospishil (8), Francis A. Sullivan S.J. (9), Karl Lehmann (10), and Piet Fransen S.J. (to name just a few) have repeated it continuously over the past fifty years? The story actually goes back to the 17th century. The anti-Roman theologian Paolo Sarpi and the Jansenist Jean Launoy (12) argued that the Council meant to leave open the question of whether remarriage after divorce was sometimes legitimate (13).
Pani indicts the secretaries and diarists of the Council for their eloquent silence about this story. An alternative interpretation of their silence seems to me more obviously correct: Panis story is a post-conciliar creation. Not that the events he cites, especially the Venetian intervention, did not occur. They plainly did. But there is no historical basis for his claim that the Council by which I mean the vast majority of voting bishops saw Canon 7 as excluding the divorce practices of the Greeks. Many scholars before the middle of the 20th century argued that Trent intended to define absolute indissolubility as a "de fide" truth, for example, Dominic Palmieri (14) and Giovanni Perrone (15), the eminent author and editor of the French "Dictionnaire De Théologie Catholique" Alfred Vacant (16), and dogmatic theologian George Hayward Joyce, S.J. (17). More recently the same has been defended by future pope, Joseph Ratzinger (18), and moral theologians, Germain Grisez and Peter Ryan, S.J. (19).
To demonstrate conclusively the falsity of the Pani-Fransen interpretation would take a book length treatise. But several things can be said to show that it is questionable. To understand the true intentions of the Fathers at Trent, we must not first look, as Pani does, to the intervention of the Venetian delegation. We must first look at the rock solid consensus of the Fathers and theologians in every discussion of marriage from 1547 till August of 1563.
When Canon 6 (which became Canon 7) was presented to the Fathers on July 20, 1563, after undergoing several iterations, it read as follows:
"If anyone shall say, that on account of the adultery of a spouse the marriage can be dissolved, and that it is licit for both, or at least the innocent spouse who gave no cause for adultery, to remarry, and that he is not an adulterer who dismisses an adulteress and marries another, nor she an adulteress who dismisses an adulterer and marries another: let him be anathema" (20).
There is nothing extraordinary about this formulation, since its content is more or less the same as the content of the very first condemned propositions (numbers 3-5) proposed by Angelo Massarelli, Secretary General, to the Council in April 1547 (21). It directly condemns the propositions that marriage can be dissolved on account of adultery; that it is ever licit for adulterous spouses to remarry; and that a spouse who divorces an adulterous spouse and remarries is not guilty of adultery.
From Trents earliest discussions this was the consensus of the Council Fathers. As to authorities, the prelates referenced Our Lord and St. Paul, the Canons of the Apostles, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Chrysostom, Origin, Hillary, Popes Innocent I, Leo I, Alexander III, and the Councils of Mileve, Elvira, Constance, Florence, and Lateran IV, among others. When Catholic thinkers of the 16th century, such as Erasmus and Catarinus, suggested that the doctrine of absolute indissolubility should be watered down, their proposals were condemned by the faculties of theology of the Universities of Cologne, Leuven, and Paris. Augustines conclusion that the exceptive clause in Matthew should be read in accordance with the more restrictive teachings found in Luke 16, Mark 10, and Romans 7:1-3 was held by most everyone; separation of bed, not bond was the maxim of the day.
Pani mentions the significant doubt against absolute indissolubility posed by the Bishop of Segovia on August 14, 1563, as does every author who follows this interpretation (22). He does not mention that from the earliest discussions of marriage, a consistent and substantial majority affirmed, contra the Segovian view, the Augustinian maxim "bed, not bond," no exceptions. A few names should suffice to demonstrate this: Council President and Papal Legate, Cardinal Cervinus; Archbishops Materanus, Naxiensis, Aquensis, and Armacanus; Bishops Aciensis, Sibinicensis, Chironensis, Sebastensis, Motulanus, Motonensis, Mylonensis, Feltrensis, Bononiensis, Sibinicensis, Chironensis, Aquensis, Bituntinus, Aquinas, Mylensis, Lavellinus, Mylensis, Caprulanus, Grossetanus, Upsalensis, Salutiarum, Caprulanus, Veronensis, Maioricensis, Camerinensis, Thermularum, Mirapicensis, and Vigorniensis.
In a summary statement recorded in the Acta on September 6, 1547, we read: The responses of the fathers varied; but the vast majority agreed that adultery cannot dissolve a marriage; that if one marries another when his spouse is still alive, he commits adultery; and that for no reason can they be separated except as far as the bed (23). To authorities who oppose this view, the majority agreed that separation should be understood only so far as separation of bed and not bond according to the interpretation of the doctors (and declaration of St. Paul in 1 Cor. 7:10ff and Romans 7:2ff, and Mark 10:11 and Luke 16:18 as well as Matthew 5:32 itself). Finally, the majority agreed the understanding of scripture should be according to the declaration of the Church (24).
When presented with the July 20, 1563 draft of Canon 6, more than 200 Council Fathers (Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, and Generals of Congregations) commented on it. All knew that the end of the debates on marriage was drawing near. If there were widespread doubts or dissatisfaction among the Fathers about the directness of the formulation, the inclusion of the anathema, or its implications for the divorce practices of the Greeks (25), we would expect a significant number of Fathers to register an objection non placet to the canon. Only 17 register disapproval, mostly on account of the opinions of the Greeks. More than 85 percent of the voting prelates were satisfied with a direct formulation of an anathema condemning remarriage after adultery, with a large majority explicitly approving its content ("placet").
Three weeks later, on August 11, came the Venetian proposal for an indirect formulation. Approximately 136 prelates spoke out in favor of the proposal. What accounts for this change? Was it because the Council Fathers preferred leaving open the question of the legitimacy of the Greek divorce practices, as Pani et alii suggest? This conclusion must be rejected. Is it plausible that within three weeks the vast majority of voting prelates abandoned absolute indissolubility in order to permit some instances of divorce and remarriage? In the final version of Canon 7 the Council adopts four other important changes that contradict this conclusion.
First, it added the phrase iuxta evangelicam et apostolicam doctrinam to ensure that the following propositions condemning the denial of indissolubility in cases of adultery are understood to have their origin in divine revelation.
Second, it replaced the normative term should not contract (non debere contrahere) with the substantive term cannot contract (non posse contrahere) making it clear that not only is remarriage after divorce always wrong, but impossible.
Third, to ensure that the canon transparently addresses the indissolubility of the bond of marriage, it adopted the term vinculum matrimonii to replace matrimonium.
Finally, it adopts for the first time a doctrinal preface to precede its canons on marriage. This is plainly meant establish a doctrinal framework within which to read and interpret the canons. The introduction grounds the truth of indissolubility in the natural law (the created order), the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, and in the will and teaching of Jesus as expressed in the New Testament. And it asserts that not only are the schismatics condemned, but also their errors (eorumque errores), that is, their erroneous propositions about the nature of marriage, including their unquestionable denial of the absolute indissolubility of marriage.
The more plausible explanation for the sudden turn is that the Council Fathers remained convinced that marriage cannot be dissolved on account of adultery, or anything else, and that they should teach this as a truth of faith. They had been willing to teach it in the form of a direct anathema condemning its denial. But Venices intervention had alerted them to a possible consequence of doing so, namely, the disrupting of the delicate balance of relations between Greek Christians and the Roman hierarchy on the Mediterranean Islands.
They believed the proposition asserting the absolute indissolubility of marriage was true and that it pertained to divine revelation, and they intended to teach both of these, but to do so in a way that minimized undesirable consequences. They did not turn to an indirect formulation because of doubts about the interpretation of the exceptive clause, for fear of scandal by anathematizing Ambrose, or because they wished to leave the Greeks free to follow their ancient divorce customs. The Venetian appeal won the day on the pastoral ground that an indirect formulation was less likely to disrupt Greek-Roman relations in Venetian territories.
Panis idea that the Fathers when publishing Canon 7 intended only to condemn Luther and the Reformers but leave uncriticized the divorce practices of the Greeks is inconsistent with the reasoned judgment on the absolute indissolubility of marriage of the vast majority of Council Fathers and theologians from Spring 1547 to the end of Summer 1563. As Ryan and Grisez state: Although Trent does not [explicitly] anathematize the practice of 'economia', canon 7 entails that its application to remarriage after divorce is contrary to faith (26).
Panis ironic term damnatio memoriæ is indeed fitting. But it is not the Council Acta, secretaries, diarists or commentators who impose a silence on Trents true teaching. Rather, it is those who in the name of evangelical mercy would replace a "de fide" truth with a tolerant fancy.
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NOTES
(1) Fransens doctoral thesis on canon 7 ("De indissolubilitate Matrimonii christiani in casu fornicationis. De canone septimo Sessionis XXIV Concilii Tridentini, Jul.-Nov. 1563") was submitted to the Gregorian in 1947. In the 1950s, Fransen went on to publish six influential essays in the journal "Scholastik" on Trents teaching on marriage, which are reprinted in a collection of Fransens essays entitled "Hermeneutics of the Councils and Other Studies", eds. H.E. Mertens and F. de Graeve, Leuven University Press, 1985. He summarized the conclusions of these essays in a widely read English essay entitled Divorce on the Ground of Adultery The Council of Tent (1563), printed in a special edition of the journal "Concilium", entitled "The Future of Marriage as Institution", ed. Franz Böckle, New York, Herder and Herder, 1970, 89-100.
(2) Kasper, "Theology of Christian Marriage", New York, Crossroad, 1977, note 87, p. 98, also p. 62.
(3) Charles Curran, "Faithful Dissent", Sheed & Ward, 1986, 269, 272.
(4) Michael Lawler, Divorce and Remarriage in the Catholic Church: Ten Theses, New Theology Review, vol. 12, no. 2 (1999), 56.
(5) Kenneth Himes and James Coriden, The Indissolubility of Marriage: Reasons to Reconsider, Theological Studies, vol. 65, no. 3 (2004), 463.
(6) Ibid.
(7) Theodore Mackin, "Divorce and Remarriage", New York, Paulist Press, 1984, 388.
(8) Victor J. Pospishil, "Divorce and Remarriage", New York, Herder and Herder, 1967, 66-68.
(9) Francis Sullivan, "Creative Fidelity: Weighing and Interpreting Documents of the Magisterium", New York, Paulist Press, 1996, 131-134.
(10) Karl Lehmann, "Gegenwart des Glaubens", Mainz, Matthias-Grünwald-Verlag, 1974, 285-286.
(11) Paolo Sarpi (1552 -1623), Istoria del Concilio Tridentino, London, 1619; English translation: "History of the Council of Trent" (1676). His "Istoria", much read by Protestants, has been criticized as slanted against the Roman Curia; see L.F. Bungener, "History of the Council of Trent", New York, Harper & Brothers, 1855, xix-xx.
(12) Jean de Launoy (16031678); see "De regia in matrimonium potestate" (1674), par. III, art. I, cap. 5, no. 78; in "Opera", Cologne/Geneva, 1731, tom. 1, cap. I, p. 855.
(13) Bossuet wrote of Sarpi: He was a Protestant under a religious habit, who said Mass without believing in it, and who remained in a Church which he considered idolatrous. See Bertrand L. Conway, C.S.P., Original Diaries of the Council of Trent, The Catholic World, vol. 98 (Oct. 1913-March 1914), 467.
(14) Dominic Palmieri, "Tractatus de Matrimonio Christiano", Typographia Polyglotta S. C. de Propaganda Fide, Rome, 1880, p. 142.
(15) G. Perrone, SJ., "De Matrimonio Christiano", vol. 3, Rome, 1861, bk. 3, ch. 4, a. 2, p. 379-380.
(16) A. Vacant, s.v., Divorce",Dictionnaire de théologie catholique", 1908, vol. XII, cols. 498-505.
(17) George Hayward Joyce, S.J., "Christian Marriage: An Historical and Doctrinal Study", London: Sheed and Ward, 1933, 395.
(18) In a 1972 essay, Zur Frage nach der Unauflöslichkeit der Ehe: Bemerkungen zum dogmengeschichtlichen Befund und zu seiner gegenwärtigen Bedeutung (in Ehe und Ehescheidung: Diskussion Unter Christen, eds. Franz Henrich and Volker Eid, München, Kösel, 1972, 47, 49), Ratzinger says he follows Fransen on Canon 7. By 1986 he shows that he changed his mind: The Churchs position on the indissolubility of sacramental and consummated marriage was in fact defined at the Council of Trent and so belongs to the patrimony of the Faith (see quote in Charles Curran, "Faithful Dissent", Sheed & Ward, 1986, p 269).
(19) Peter F. Ryan, S.J. and Germain Grisez, Indissoluble Marriage: A Reply to Kenneth Himes and James Coriden", Theological Studies 72 (2011), 369-415.
(20) CT, IX, 640.
(21) See CT, VI, 98-99.
(22) CT, XI, 709.
(23) _CT, VI, 434.
(24) CT, VI, 434-435.
(25) Non placet, quia ferit Graecos and Ambrose (Archbishop Cretensis), CT, IX, 644.
(26) Op. Cit., footnote 180.
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Ping
If you have the Bible, you don’t need a “Synod.”
Though pretending to encourage "dialogue", his obvious goal is to normalize mortal sin. He is trying to accomplish his evil plan while hiding his manipulations behind carefully chosen mouthpieces.
"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them."
Every Catholic needs to read this column slowly carefully and prayerfully. This column gives the best overview of this subject that I’ve seen.
Key point: Pope Francis is a disciple of Cardinal Martini and praises his writing, calling him a churchman for our age. So too is Archbishop Bruno Forte, who Pope Francis named special secretary to the synod.
Cardinal Martini was an open dissenter to Humanae Vitae, and promoted both homosexual civil unions as well as sacraments for the divorced and remarried.
Cardinal Martini was too old to be elected in the 2005 conclave so all his supporters threw their votes to Bergoglio. Bergoglio barely lost to Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. He won in 2013.
RI Bishop: Synod Process is ‘Rather Protestant’
Crux ^ | 10/21/14 | Michael O’Loughlin
http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2014/10/21/ri-bishop-synod-process-is-rather-protestant/
Pope Francis is fond of creating a mess. Mission accomplished, Bishop Thomas Tobin said.
He argued against what he called the popes suggestion that the Church accommodate the needs of the age. If that happens, he wrote, the Church risks the danger of losing its courageous, counter-cultural, prophetic voice, a voice that the world needs to hear.
Comment: When H.H. Pope Paul VI saw how Vatican II was separated from its original intend, with heartbroken words said: It seems like smoke from Hell penetrated through the windows of the Vatican.
It seems that now the smoke from Hell entered the Church embraced to the liberation theology.
Cardinal Martini was for Pope Francis, what Saul Alinsky was for Obama.
Cardinal Martini - “Pope of the Liberal Catholics”
http://on-this-rock.blogspot.com/2012/09/cardinal-martini-pope-of-liberal.html
Cardinal Martini of Milan passed away last week. Many referred to him as the “Pope of liberal Catholics.” He was for abortion, same sex marriage, condoms in Africa, etc. In his last interview before his passing, the Cardinal famously noted that the Church is 200 years behind the times. William Doino on First Things blog has a lovely response:
“Cardinal Martini was vastly underestimating the situation. The Church is not 200 years out of dateit is 2,000 years out of date, and will remain so, for the eternal truths of Jesus Christ are timeless and not subject to the trends of any particular age, however forward it thinks it is.”
AMEN Posted by Father John Hollowell Sept 10, 2012
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350623?eng=y
http://www.cfnews.org/page88/files/065837621bedf51d45b91a5e75699ef5-174.html
Archbishop Bruno Forte, the man Pope Francis personally appointed as Spdcial Secretary to the Extraordinary Synod and who inserted the pro homosexual language in the relatio:
http://athanasiuscm.org/2014/10/21/aude-sapere-006-meet-archbishop-bruno-forte/
Excerpt:
Protege of Kasper and Martini
In the hey day of his academic appointments in the 70s, Forte began to run in various other circles, where he met the rector of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, the future Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, Carlo Maria Martini.
A lot of conservatives have forgotten about him, since he has passed on to his reward, and were pretty glad of it. Nevertheless we should not forget him, because his influence lives on, right on through this most recent synod. Martini distinguished himself in the post-conciliar years as a strong opponent of religious orthodoxy and a champion of liberals in the curia. He formally denied Humanae Vitae, and strongly opposed it long after it was issued, he believed in religious indifferentism, recognition of same-sex civil unions, basked in the praise of the world, and when exiled to Milan by John Paul II, became even more of a media star by regularly attacking the Church. Martini, as the champion of the liberals, also pushed for changes in the Churchs teaching on divorce and remarriage, and it has been said correctly that the recent synod, while short on the Holy Ghost, is not short on Martinis ghost. The then Monsignor Bruno Forte was very impressed by Martinis stardom and became a part of his circle. Whether out of ideological conviction or to ride the Cardinals coat tails to fame we dont know, though Forte would make a name for himself on his own. In 1985, at an Ecclesial conference in Loreto, which was about questions on the Church and government and the Churchs voice in public, Martini declared that the old model of an authoritative Church had to give way to a synodal Church, with no more timeless dogmas but instead, where the Church would adjust her teachings based on the subjective experience of the world. It is this which caused the major break between Martini and John Paul II, who opposed Martinis vision. The keynote address at this conference, in 85, was given by none other than Monsignor Bruno Forte, in full support of Martinis program. Little wonder we see him today actively doing this same thing at the synod.
His relationship and proximity to Martini blossomed into a lifelong friendship, for, when Martini was dying, Forte frequently visited him. Forte has just recently written a book commemorating Martini for the second anniversary of his death, loaded with glowing praise for him, titled Cardinale Carlo Maria Martini, fedele alla storia, fedele alla eterna, Cardinal Martini, faithful to history, faithful to the Lord. He he said I speak of him with a heavy heart adding that the effort of objectivity affection, gratitude and deep admiration.iMoreover, Forte tells us in his own words about his relationship with Martini: [Audio from Australian lecture].
This glowing book and these gracious words of course, are not disturbed by the novissima verba of the late Cardinal Martini, who in his last interview, said: The church is tired, in the Europe of well-being and in America. Our culture has become old, our churches and our religious houses are big and empty, the bureaucratic apparatus of the church grows, our rites and our dress are pompous. Do these things, however, express what we are today? Well-being weighs on us. We find ourselves like the rich young man who went away sad when Jesus called him to be his disciple. I know that we cant let everything go easily. At least, however, we can seek people who are free and closest to their neighbor, like Archbishop Romero and the Jesuit martyrs of El Salvador. Where are the heroes among us who can inspire us? By no means do we have to limit them by the boundaries of the institution .The question of whether the divorced can receive communion ought to be turned around. How can the church reach people who have complicated family situations, bringing them help with the power of the sacraments? The church is 200 years behind the times. Why doesnt it stir? Are we afraid? Is it fear rather than courage? (Source) In other words, everything in the Church is wrong, unless we discard dogma and surrender to the world. This is the man, whom Forte himself tells us, he calls every week and looks to as a father.
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