Posted on 01/04/2017 7:48:01 PM PST by ebb tide
An Austrian bishop has given a sweeping interview claiming that "remarried" Catholics now have the "blessing of the Pope" to receive Communion, the use of contraception is "a decision of conscience" for couples, and homosexuals can constitute a "family."
Bishop Benno Elbs, who heads the Feldkirch diocese in west Austria, made the comments in an interview with Die Presse on December 23.
Regarding the admission of “remarried” divorced Catholics to Communion, he said, “The teaching [of the Church] has changed insofar as she has opened the door. People have made decisions of conscience in the past, but now they can do it – so to say – with the blessing of the Pope. That is an essential progress.”
Asked about the strongest tensions during the Synod for the Family in 2015 that presaged the release of the Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, Elbs responded that it involved remarried and divorced Catholics. “Another point of strong tension was how to deal with people of homosexual orientation,” he said.
During the Synod, the Church leaders in the German language circle had a huge influence on the discussion, Elbs said. While the group included Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it also included Cardinal Walter Kasper and was led by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the latter two being strong proponents of the “Kasper proposal” to admit divorced and remarried to Communion.
“We had unanimity in everything, and the Pope has taken up a lot,” Elbs said. “Thus the German language group has had a great influence.”
For Elbs, the entirety of Amoris Laetitia is about the decision of conscience: “If that is written in a footnote or not is not important. The whole paper breathes the spirit that the individual person can find a way in his conscience to deal with situations of life.”
He added that the admission to Communion of those in question is irreversible. “That has been in the pastoral praxis for quite some time. Even theologically. Now we should not make the mistake of inventing new rules. The progress is an attitude that surpasses norms.”
As to why the Synod did not allow artificial contraception, the bishop answered: “The Synod paper recommends natural methods of regulating conception. Recommends. The regulation of conception is a decision of conscience of the couple.”
With regard to homosexuals, Elbs was asked how he defined family. “Family is a place where people are raised, grow up, become strong, where they learn, what they need for life.” The reporter then asked: “Is this also true for homosexuals?” And the bishop responded: “Yes.”
Elbs authored the book in German, Where the Soul Learns to Breathe: A New Vision of Marriage and Family with Pope Francis, published in 2016.
The interview brings to light what many fear: that due to the obscurity and ambiguity in which Amoris Laetitia speaks of “borderline cases,” what will be set in place as normative for a moral choice is the conscience of the individual alone. Elbs leaves aside the Church's teaching, elaborated in Pope St. John Paul II's encyclical Veritatis Splendor, that the conscience can be malformed or ignorant and that the Church’s teaching is precisely the “compass” that guides the conscience in decision making.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says in No. 1777: “Moral conscience present at the heart of the person, enjoins him at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil. It also judges particular choices, approving those that are good and denouncing those that are evil. It bears witness to the authority of truth in reference to the supreme Good to which the human person is drawn, and it welcomes the commandments. When he listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking.”
There are plenty of churches outside the Catholic church which do NOT support divorce, contraception, and/or homosexuality.
... and this from the religion whose FR apologists tell us ‘the church’ does not change, is the same since the Passover meal before the Crucifixion.
They must attend a different Catholic Church.
The rcc seems really hung up on sex within a normal marriage.
If only there were mortal sins you might have a point. But I’m familiar with your logic on the issues.
Yes, there are, and God Bless each and every one of them!
So it's not *Once a Catholic, always a Catholic* after all?
As we've been told so many times before on this forum? Which is the OFFICIAL teaching on the church and where is that found?
Based on threads I’ve been seeing posted on FR about how liberal churches are dying and conservative ones are growing, He is.
Once baptized as a Catholic, a person is juridically a Catholic forever, unless he leaves the Catholic Church by a formal act.
A person who judges for himself that the Catholic Church teaches error—e.g., about what is and is not a sin—is no longer a practicing Catholic.
Care to name the "plenty of 'churches'"?
Once baptized as a Catholic, a person is juridically a Catholic forever, unless he leaves the Catholic Church by a formal act.
So which is it??
I answered your question, but you dishonestly edited that part out when you copied-and-pasted the text.
Since you are dishonest, I am not going to waste my time with you.
No you didn’t. Reread your posts. Is a person always a roman catholic?
The word “conscience” was never needed, and should be abolished. It is nothing but the intellect.
So, since you feel competent to make such a sweeping assertion, tell us how the spirit and soul and body are connected, such that moral choice is possible? To make your sweeping assertions you must have this data from which to derive such an assertion. Tell us ...
So people who are mentally deficient or challenged don't have a conscience?
And you mock the idea that a person can hear God speaking to them?
Moral character is not a result of intellect. They are different realms as the number of brilliant people in the past who were morally bankrupt can attest to.
So if God does not speak in some "special, magical, mystical voice" then how does the Holy Spirit convict a person of their sin?
I haven’t run across a church yet that has official church sanctioned divorce, repackaged and renamed like the church does with annulment.
And most churches do not support official church sanctioned contraception repackaged and renamed as *Natural Family Planning*.
Only liberal denominations who have abandoned solid Scriptural teaching do not condemn homosexuality. Interestingly It’s the Catholic church which accepts priests from one of the main purveyors of homosexuality, that is the Episcopalian church.
AND the catholic church allows homosexual clergy to exist within it. Because as long as they don’t practice it, once a priest, always a priest. They use the Bill Clinton defense. What a person does in his private life does not affect his ability to perform his job. So if the priest’s intent is *pure* (whatever that means), viola, he can continue to serve communion and administer other sacraments.
Explain to us again how the Catholic church is supposed to be some kind of light on the hill setting the moral example for the rest of the world to see.......
In other words, you can't name one "church".
And what’s with your “and/or” exception on homosexual activity?
An attempt at precision because i knew if I didn’t include it someone would get after me about that, too.
I know..... It’s damned if I do and damned if I don’t.
I don't see a one of them offering church sanctioned, repackaged or relabeled, divorce and contraception, nor do I see one of the condoning homosexuality.
Assemblies of God
http://ag.org/top/Beliefs/Position_Papers/index.cfm#
Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church
http://arpchurch.org/documents/confession-of-faith/
Calvary Chapel
http://calvarychapel.com/home/about/
The Christian and Missionary Alliance
http://www.cmalliance.org/about/history/
Elim Fellowship Churches
http://www.elimfellowship.org/about-us/statement-of-faith/
The Father's House
http://tfhny.org/the-house/what-we-believe/
Osais LA
http://www.oasisla.org/about/what-we-believe/
Presbyterian Church in Americahttp://www.pcaac.org/resources/wcf/
United Reformed church in North America https://www.urcna.org/sysfiles/site_uploads/custom_public/custom2642.pdf
Westside Christian Fellowship
http://westsidechristianfellowship.org/about-wcf/statement-of-faith/
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