Posted on 04/22/2019 10:48:08 AM PDT by ebb tide
The “notes” by pope emeritus Benedict XVI on the scandal of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church have ignited a lively discussion all over the world, an example of which is presented on this page.
The following text is the reply of a respected American theologian, Robert Imbelli, to the frontal attack launched against Joseph Ratzinger by two prominent representatives of the German Association of Moral Theologians, professors Christof Breitsameter and Stephan Goertz.
The German original of the text by the two moral theologians can be read on the website of the episcopal conference of Germany:
> Moraltheologen kritisieren Benedikt-Text: “Misslungener Beitrag”
While the English and Italian versions are available on these other pages of :
The author of the reply is Priest of the Archdiocese of New York, and Associate Professor Emeritus Boston College.
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THEOLOGIANS WITHOUT THEOLOGY
by Robert P. Imbelli
Two representatives of the “German Association of Moral Theologians” have issued a critical “Commentary” on the recent analysis by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI regarding the origins and causes of the abuse crisis afflicting the Church.
Professors Christof Breitsameter and Stephan Goertz level several charges against Benedict XVI. They contend that he places unique blame for the crisis upon the sexual revolution and the social upheaval of the Sixties, rather than acknowledge the Church’s own institutional culpability.
They are particularly incensed at his criticism of developments in moral theology since the 1960s which, according to Benedict, promote a situationist approach that ultimately eventuates in a moral relativism. They insist this indictment is unfair and inaccurate, and that the moral theology practiced by the members of their Association does indeed affirm moral absolutes, such as the inhumaneness of the death penalty.
Without seeking to endorse every jot and tittle of the Pope Emeritus’ analysis, two features of his critics’ statement appear to me both regrettable and symptomatic.
First, the whole style of their indignant response suggests the concern of a self-regulating guild intent on defending their privileges and prerogatives against outsider criticism.
Second, though the signatories refer to themselves as “moral theologians,” their statement contains little that is recognizably “theological.” At the center of Benedict’s concerns are the distinctive theological matters of the loss of a meaningful sense of God in contemporary culture and the grievous decline in Eucharistic reverence and practice in great parts of the contemporary Church.
In stark contrast, the statement of the eminent professors, officers of an Association of Moral Theologians, contains no reference to God or to his Christ. There is absolutely no hint of normative commitment to a Eucharistic vision and practice founded in the real Presence of Jesus Christ.
Though they have the effrontery to accuse Joseph Ratzinger of pursuing an “escapist approach to theology,” they themselves fail to manifest any sense of theology as an ecclesial disciple governed by “the rule of faith.” Rather, the impression conveyed is that contemporary culture provides the standards of authentic living to which the Church must submit. This is not the approach of true “aggiornamento,” but of rank capitulation.
One need not be a “contextual” theologian, therefore, to wonder whether the Association of Moral Theologians is instead an association of professors of ethics, groping toward some understanding of the good life that State-endowed university chairs in a late-capitalist society make possible for their occupants.
Ping
I love all of this hand wringing.
If a priest is accused of a crime—a civil crime—they have a moral obligation to turn them over to civil authorities. They don’t need their own investigation. They don’t have to protect the priest.
It’s pretty simple—what is the problem?
Many of the things that went on aren’t civil crimes.
Tossing someone out of seminary for reading Cardinal Ratzinger while allowing seminarians to engage in homosexual relations is only against civil law in some jurisdictions.
Crimes may eventually result from running a seminary this way, but of itself, this isn’t against civil law.
It is, arguably, against canon law.
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