Posted on 12/11/2016 5:04:05 PM PST by ebb tide
Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, Australia, claims that the four cardinals who submitted the dubia to Pope Francis are "unnerved" by the Holy Father introducing a "pastoral" approach to the Church involving a "process of discernment, which deals in shades of grey, messy and unnerving.” In his interview with the US Jesuit Journal, America Magazine, Archbishop Coleridge went on to advise against "a false clarity that comes because you don’t address reality, and there’s a false certainty that can come for the same reason.”
The title of the document containing the dubium submitted by the four cardinals to Pope Francis is "Seeking Clarity: A Plea to Untie the Knots in 'Amoris Laetitia' ". Cardinal Caffarra, Cardinal Burke, Cadinal Brandmüller, and Cardinal Meisner explained that the purpose of their dubium is to bring clarity to the ambiguity in Amoris Laetitia that is causing "grave disorientation and great confusion". Their explanatory note states:
"Motivated by a pastoral concern for the faithful, four cardinals have sent a letter to the Holy Father under the form of dubia, hoping to receive clarity, given that doubt and uncertainty are always highly detrimental to pastoral care."
Archbishop Coleridge, a participant at the 2015 Ordinary Synod on the Family, argued that those who sought after "false clarity" had "never grappled with the real question or never dealt with the real facts":
"At times at the synod I heard voices that sounded very clear and certain but only because they never grappled with the real question or never dealt with the real facts,” he said in a recent interview. “So there’s a false clarity that comes because you don’t address reality, and there’s a false certainty that can come for the same reason.”
Archbishop Coleridge went on to contrast those who sought "artificial clarity or certainty" with Pope Francis who seeks "genuine clarity and genuine certainty":
“I think what Pope Francis wants is a church that moves toward clarity and certainty on certain issues after we’ve grappled with the issues, not before,” he continued. “In other words, he wants a genuine clarity and a genuine certainty rather than the artificial clarity or certainty that comes when you never grapple with the issues.”
Archbishop Coleridge made much of Cardinal Pell recently observing during a speech in London that Catholics are "unnerved":
“I think that’s probably the right word, and I sensed in the words of the four cardinals men who were unnerved. Clearly, they had been spoken to by a lot of people who were unnerved. I can understand that.”
Archbishop Coleridge did not go on to explain the reason why Cardinal Pell thought Catholics were unnerved by recent events in the Church. The Catholic Herald explained:
Asked whether some Catholics’ unease about the state of the Church was related to false theories of conscience, Cardinal Pell said: “Yes, that’s correct.” He added: “The idea that you can somehow discern that moral truths should not be followed or should not be recognised [is] absurd”.“We all stand under the truth,” the cardinal said, pointing out that objective truth may be “different from our understanding of the truth”.
Cardinal Pell went on to support the four cardinals submitting their dubia to the Holy Father, saying their questions were "significant":
Asked whether he agreed with the cardinals’ questions, Cardinal Pell replied: “How can you disagree with a question?” He said that the asking of five questions was “significant”.
In his interview with America magazine, Archbishop Coleridge expressed disagreement with Cardinal Pell about the dubia:
But where Cardinal Pell went on to suggest the pope needed to offer clarity on the issue, Archbishop Coleridge said Francis is simply acting like a pastor. The pope, he said, is “bringing out into the very public setting of the papacy what any pastor does in his parish or diocese.” He noted that pastors are “very often dealing in a world of grays and you have to accompany people, listen to them before you speak to them, give them time and give them space, and then speak your word perhaps.”
Ultimately, individual believers have to discern where God is at work in their own lives—a process that doesn’t always lend itself to simple yes or no answers. “Some people expect from the pope clarity and certainty on every question and every issue, but a pastor can’t provide that necessarily,” he said.
He said Francis is moving the church from a static way of doing business to one that is kinetic, something those used to a different kind of papacy are finding difficult.
“But there are still people who are more comfortable, for various reasons, with a more static way of thinking and speaking,” he said. “And there are people who are perhaps more comfortable in a world of black and white and who find the process of discernment, which deals in shades of gray, messy and unnerving.”
Comment
Archbishop Coleridge presents Pope Francis as a successor of St Peter who is introducing a unique perspective to the Church -- that of a pastor. Were Pope St John Paul II or Pope Benedict XVI not pastors? Does Archbishop Coleridge think that Cardinal Caffarra, Cardinal Burke, Cardinal Brandmüller, and Cardinal Meisner are not pastors who have no experience of "grappling with the real question or have never dealt with the real facts"?
Archbishop Coleridge's characterisation of some Catholics who prefer clarity and certainty as being people who have never grappled with real questions, never dealt with the real facts, and failed to face reality is unjust. Sadly, its another example of the insults being levelled at Catholics who uphold the Catholic Faith expressed in Familiaris consortio, Veritatis splendor, Fides et ratio and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Do these documents represent the static Church that Archbishop Coleridge thinks Pope Francis is moving the Church away from?
The Church will become small.
I believe this and while lamenting it, it is necessary.
Sophistry.
How do we know his certainty in denouncing the four cardinals isn’t false?
So, asking Francis to clarify the paragraph is based on hysteria?
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