Don’t Listen to the Africans, Says Catholic Cardinal [Kasper]

First Things ^ | 10/15/14 | Matthew Schmitz

[marshmallow]

In a stunning new interview, German Cardinal Walter Kasper has said that African Catholics “should not tell us too much what we have to do” and admitted that they are not being listened to at the Vatican’s current synod as it takes up matters including homosexuality, divorce, remarriage, and family life.

Kasper has been the main advocate for admitting to communion Catholics who are divorced and remarried—and thus living in what the Church, following the words of Christ himself, considers adultery. This would constitute an act of grave vandalism to Catholic doctrine and a serious failure in the Church’s pastoral outreach.

It would also require the silencing of the voices of Catholic leaders outside of Europe and North America, especially those from Africa, who have a very different way of seeing the tangled issues of divorce, remarriage, and homosexuality. In the interview Kasper tries to dismiss the opinions of African bishops (which need not be accepted in whole to be taken seriously) as the product of mere taboo:

Africa is totally different from the West. Also Asian and Muslim countries, they’re very different, especially about gays. You can’t speak about this with Africans and people of Muslim countries. It’s not possible. It’s a taboo. For us, we say we ought not to discriminate, we don’t want to discriminate in certain respects.

[Yossarian]

...and that’s Pope Fluffy’s right-hand man!

[yldstrk]

Stunning.

Don’t you think the things are taboo because they are unmentionable?

[redgolum]

I fear there is a break coming.

[icwhatudo]

Thats the sad sick thing. This “man of God” thinks sex with men is not taboo.

I’m a sinner, and God will judge, but at least I’m not (mis)leading the Church.

[Viennacon]

This man is a disgusting cretin. The African and Asian cardinals are CORRECT. They are reading the WORD. You, sir, are corrupted by western satanism and will burn in hell for your error.

Non-Discrimination = not in the Bible

Sodomy is a sin = in the Bible

Pretty damn clear, knucklehead. I’m getting sick of these people. Perhaps more Christians would convert to the old church if she wasn’t full of heretics like this twisted fool.

There was a time when this man would have been put to the flame. Just sayin’

[Ouchthatonehurt]

The African Bishops are on the front lines of some nasty stuff. They’re in a better position to warn us then most.

[lulu16]

And they are correct.

[lastchance]

These African bishops are on the front lines in the battle between Christianity and Islam for the souls of Africans. They know what a disaster to the faith and the faithful if Kaspar and his cronies have their way.

[WriteOn]

I think Kasper is using principles of mercy and the African bishops worry about justice. I live in a Trad community and see the over emphasis of legalisms all the time. The formula there is no salvation outside the church comes to mind, and yet that is not the teaching of the church...

[GeronL]

wow...

Not real comforting watching self-destruction on such a grand scale happening day by day.

[Oratam]

I had actually hoped for an African to be elected by the last conclave. It was not meant to be. Maybe now it will be. How old is Jorge?

[DarkSavant]

"The formula there is no salvation outside the church comes to mind, and yet that is not the teaching of the church..."

Actually, it is.

From the CCC:

"Outside the Church there is no salvation"

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337

848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."338

[Alex Murphy]

...and that’s Pope Fluffy’s right-hand man!

LOL "Pope Fluffy"?!?

[MDLION]

“I live in a Trad community”

Do you mean like SSPX or the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter?

I know what you mean by “legalisms”. In my home, the remnants of Jansenism did a bit of damage. And then when I started school, they were starting the let’s throw everything out “in the spirit of Vatican II.”

[married21]

What does it mean that you live in a Trad community? Do you mean that there are many “Trads” in your city, or that you are a brother or sister in a religious community?

[married21]

Arrogant German guy thinks he doesn’t have to listen to Africans.

The German situation is so weird, with government collecting money from believers for the operation of the Church. It’s the Germans who are anomalous, compared to the vast majority of the Church.

[Dr. Sivana]

Much as I like Hillaire Belloc in general, I never agreed with his line that “Europe is the Faith and the Faith is Europe”. The Catholic Church is universal. If the Africans and Asians are right, they are right. Over the last 150 years, no one has been more wrong on more things on a grand scale than the Germans.

Belloc was also wrong in counting 1900 as part of the 20th century.

[WriteOn]

Yes, the CCC gets it right, (and you are thinking “of course”). But Feeneyism is alive and well in the church. But even the CCC only hints at the grayness of knowing Christ in His Church, the degrees of that knowledge and its impact on culpability. A strict reading might suggest that it is binary...