Archbishop Chaput Warns About Dangers of Devolution to National Bishops’ Conferences

The National Catholic Register ^ | 10/11/15 | CNA/EWTN

[marshmallow]

Brothers, we need to be very cautious in devolving important disciplinary and doctrinal issues to national and regional episcopal conferences,’ he told his fellow family synod fathers on Saturday.

VATICAN CITY — Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia spoke to the synod fathers on Saturday on the importance of precision in language, particularly regarding unity in diversity, and recalled the Protestant Reformation.

“Imprecise language leads to confused thinking,” the archbishop said Oct. 10 at the Vatican, giving “two examples that should cause us some concern”: “inclusive” and “unity in diversity.”

Regarding the oft-used expression “unity in diversity,” he noted that “we need to honor the many differences in personality and culture that exist among the faithful. But we live in a time of intense global change, confusion and unrest. Our most urgent need is unity, and our greatest danger is fragmentation.”

“Brothers, we need to be very cautious in devolving important disciplinary and doctrinal issues to national and regional episcopal conferences — especially when pressure in that direction is accompanied by an implicit spirit of self-assertion and resistance.”

Then he referred to Erasmus, a priest of the early 16th century who called for reform in the Church, yet who opposed Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation.

“Five hundred years ago, at a moment very like our own, Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote that the unity of the Church is the single most important of her attributes,” Archbishop Chaput said. “We can argue about what Erasmus actually believed, and what he intended with his writing.”

“But we can’t argue about the consequences when the need for Church unity was ignored. In the coming days of our synod, we might fruitfully remember the importance of our unity, what that unity requires, and what disunity on matters of substance implies.”

[piusv]

“Imprecise language leads to confused thinking,” the archbishop

How does a Catholic not see the hypocrisy here?? Imprecise language has been with us since Vatican II.

Um, Archbishop that ship sailed a long time ago. If you truly believe that imprecise language leads to confusion, you need to go back to the Modernist Manifesto that you and your buddies have been enforcing for years now.