Replies

Kasper:

"A large portion of our people, including priests, could not understand the reason behind the regulations coming from the center; they tended, therefore, to ignore them. This happened concerning ethical issues, sacramental discipline and ecumenical practices. The adamant refusal of Communion to all divorced and remarried persons and the highly restrictive rules for eucharistic hospitality are good examples."

Kasper is quite open about the background to this spurious autonomy he seeks. It is not autonomy from Rome so much as autonomy from God's Law. If his priests are giving Holy Communion to adulterers living in sinful relationships, and all kinds of common or garden heretics, then he as their bishop has the responsibility to teach the truth of the Faith and uphold the law of the Church. He should have disciplined his priests rather than whining about changing the Law to accomodate their sin and the sin of those desiring to make sacreligious communions.

His main problem is that he has lost the Catholic Faith himself so he is quite incapable of teaching or shepherding anyone else. You can't give what you haven't got.

His whole argument has nothing really to do with the issue of ecclesiology - it all boils down to how to accomodate infidelity.

"Has not the Second Vatican Council enjoined every bishop to listen to the faithful, especially to the clergy?"

No, you plonker! It enjoined you to teach the Catholic Faith!

"If the bishop attempts to enforce the general norms ruthlessly?as his Roman superiors sometimes expect?his effort is likely to be useless, even counterproductive."

What has Rome got to do with it? You're not an altar boy, you're supposed to be a Catholic bishop. Christ appointed YOU to teach and uphold the truth, you don't need to hide behind Rome's skirts all the time.

"Yet there is a solution: the bishop must be granted enough vital space to make responsible decisions in the matter of implementing universal laws."

You already have it - you just don't have any right whatsoever to disregard morality, faith and the law in the name of an infidel pastoral infantilism.

"Beyond the immutable articles of faith and morals, however, there is the broad field of ecclesiastical discipline, which is essentially changeable, even when the norms were created to support, closely or loosely, some doctrinal position."

Bollocks, you sauerkraut nutmunch! You can't change the 10 commandments. All you need to remember in this case is :

Thou shalt not commit adultery

and

If anyone brings you a different gospel from the one you have received, let him be anathema.

If you can't handle these basic articles of the faith - resign now!

"Our people are well aware of the flexibility of laws and regulations; they have experienced a great deal of it over the past decades. They lived through changes that no one anticipated or even thought possible."

Nutz! They know you are a compromiser, Jesus never said anything about "Blessed are the compromisers."

"The Eastern church developed the doctrine and practice of oikonomia, ?economy?: a superior wisdom that guides bishops and allows them to resolve problems that the laws cannot handle."

Read Meyendorff on the subject - not all the Easterners believe it was a good idea.

"The local church is neither a province nor a department of the universal church; it is the church at a given place."

That's why it has the same laws and doctrines as the rest of the local churches. What you want is a schismatic church with its own doctrines, its own laws, and the ability to enshrine sin and call it good.

"The local bishop is not the delegate of the pope but is one sent by Jesus Christ. He is given personal responsibility by Christ. He receives the fullness of power through his sacramental consecration?the power that he needs to govern his diocese. This is the teaching of the Second Vatican Council.

This understanding of the bishop’s office should have led to decentralization in the church’s government. The opposite happened: the trend toward centralization returned after the council."

That's because so many local churches were put into the apostate hands of modernists like you. Once we get Catholic bishops again, there won't be any need for centralization.

"Less desirably, the local churches themselves can promote centralization whenever they abdicate their responsibility and turn to Rome for a decision?a ruse to evade their duty and find cover behind a superior order."

Its a symptom of non-Catholics needing to find a Catholic to take the blame for the Catholic Faith.

"The right balance between the universal church and the particular churches has been destroyed. This is not only my own perception; it is the experience and complaint of many bishops from all over the world. [In a note Cardinal Kasper refers to a talk given at Oxford by Archishop John Quinn, archbishop emeritus of San Francisco, and to reported statements by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, archbishop of Milan, and Cardinal Franz Koenig, archbishop emeritus of Vienna.]"

And there you have it - Quinn, Martini, Koenig and Kasper - not a Catholic bone in their bodies. Of course they have/had problems with Rome - Rome still thinks its Catholic.

""The Eastern church developed the doctrine and practice of oikonomia, ?economy?: a superior wisdom that guides bishops and allows them to resolve problems that the laws cannot handle."

Read Meyendorff on the subject - not all the Easterners believe it was a good idea."

Not all Easterners believe reading Meyendorff is a good idea! :)

I'll grant you this, however, +Kasper's idea of how oeconomia works is not at all Orthodox. It is not a carte blanche to bishops to ignore the canons, it is always to be applied on an individual, case by case basis and if there is no consensus among the bishops that a certain type of situation is appropriate for the application of oeconomia, it cannot be applied.

It is interesting that +Kasper's examples of where oeconomia should be applied in light of, "The adamant refusal of Communion to all divorced and remarried persons and the highly restrictive rules for eucharistic hospitality...." are among those areas where oeconomia is not applied (you should note that the Orthodox rules on how to deal with divorce are different from those of Rome, but one cannot simply get divorced, get remarried and show up for communion; similarly, if one is married outside the Church and doesn't get the marriage blessed by the Church, no communion, in fact, no sacraments at all.). The issue of "highly restrictive rules for eucharistic hospitality" was actually taken up by representatives of the Orthodox Churches in the early 1990s. They decided that as there was no consensus on inter communion with Rome (the question of Protestants never came up) by oeconomia, the exercise of oeconomia in that area would be forbidden.

It appears to me that +Kasper is trying to use an Orthodox theological and ecclesiological concept and practice for purposes other than what it was designed for.