Posted on 10/30/2016 2:20:18 PM PDT by ebb tide
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the bishop of Vienna, Austria, and one of the closest collaborators of Pope Francis with regard to the post-synodal exhortation Amoris Laetitia, has recently made new morally troubling statements with regard to marriage and the family. In a recent talk, he gave the appearance that he publicly condones the idea of “remarriage” after the divorce (but not the annulment) of a Catholic couple who were validly and sacramentally married, using his own mother’s case as an example.
According to the Austrian website Kath.net Cardinal Schönborn gave the address in question in Vienna on 19 October 2016 for the initiative Theologische Kurse, where he spoke once more about Amoris Laetitia and again stressed that Pope Francis’s document “is firmly rooted in the Church’s tradition.” He explained: “The Church’s teaching is developing, but it is developing organically. One continues to write it.” The Austrian cardinal also added: “The Faith does not change, but the form, the presentation of the Faith and the experiences which are being made within the Faith are changing,” because the times and life situations of the people are likewise changing.
Cardinal Schönborn stressed that Pope Francis has not given in Amoris Laetitia‘s Eighth Chapter “a solution for all” with regard to the matter of access for “remarried” divorcees to the sacraments, but that a responsible dealing with each individual case is necessary. The important point, according to the prelate, “is to look a little bit more closely” into each case.
According to Kath.net, Schönborn then said the following with regard to his own mother who was abandoned by her husband and who at the time was raising four children:
If his mother had remarried, his siblings and he would have understood it, even if it would have been difficult for them, according to the cardinal. “It is something else when someone is ready to walk a path together with this woman with four children, but it is different when someone willfully leaves an intact family and thus breaks the relationship. [my emphasis]
Coming from a cardinal – the highest office in the Catholic Church after the pope – this statement is quite scandalous, inasmuch as he proposes the idea that a “remarriage” might even sometimes be something good. He publicly states here that it would have been acceptable, even if his own mother would have “remarried” thereby putting her own soul – and the soul of her new partner – at risk of eternal loss of the beatific vision. He also uses positive words (“walking a path together with this woman with four children”) in order to describe a relationship which violates the indissolubility of marriage and thus is an objective offense to God.
It seems that certain prelates are now more and more losing their reluctance to make public statements that are unmistakably contrary to the teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ and who thus put in jeopardy before God the faithful who are entrusted to their own accountable care.
On the flight returning from Greece, Pope Francis was asked if the Apostolic Exhortation contained a "change in discipline that governs access to the sacraments" for Catholics who are divorced and remarried. The Pope replied, “I can say yes, period.” Adding, however, that this would be "too small" of an answer, the Pope then urged reading the presentation of Cardinal Schönborn, calling Schönborn a “great theologian who knows the doctrine of the Church.”
Schonborn:
Naturally this poses the question: what does the Pope say in relation to access to the sacraments for people who live in “irregular” situations? Pope Benedict had already said that “easy recipes” do not exist (AL 298, note 333). Pope Francis reiterates the need to discern carefully the situation, in keeping with St. John Paul II’s Familiaris consortio (84) (AL 298). “Discernment must help to find possible ways of responding to God and growing in the midst of limits. By thinking that everything is black and white, we sometimes close off the way of grace and of growth, and discourage paths of sanctification which give glory to God” (AL 205). He also reminds us of an important phrase from Evangelii gaudium, 44: “A small step, in the midst of great human limitations, can be more pleasing to God than a life which appears outwardly in order but moves through the day without confronting great difficulties” (AL 304). In the sense of this “via caritatis” (AL 306), the Pope affirms, in a humble and simple manner, in a note (351) that the help of the sacraments may also be given “in certain cases”. But for this purpose he does not offer us case studies or recipes, but instead simply reminds us of two of his famous phrases: “I want to remind priests that the confessional should not be a torture chamber but rather an encounter with the Lord’s mercy” (EG 44), and the Eucharist “is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak” (EG 47).
Is it an excessive challenge for pastors, for spiritual guides and for communities if the “discernment of situations” is not regulated more precisely? Pope Francis acknowledges this concern: “I understand those who prefer a more rigorous pastoral care which leaves no room for confusion” (AL 308). However, he challenges this, remarking that “We put so many conditions on mercy that we empty it of its concrete meaning and real significance. That is the worst way of watering down the Gospel” (AL 311).
I understand that children have no control over what their parents do, but I would suggest that a boy who grows up with this kind of home life is completely unsuited even to be a parish priest — let alone sit there as a cardinal of the Catholic Church making statements on the sanctity of marriage.
So the man’s father abandoned a mother and left her with four children. And the man feels compassion for the mother, and would have understood had she decided to remarry and provide both financial stability and a father figure for her children....
Well obviously the man feeling this sense of compassion is a creep.
Why not become a prostitute instead?
God forbid that a woman abandoned by her husband would want to remarry. What’s this world coming to? She needs to be consigned to live a life of loneliness and want and privation for the rest of her life with no companionship.
That’s the ticket, punish her for her husbands wrongdoing, she’s just as bad as a prostitute.
What an evil wench....
This man entered the priesthood with a distorted view of marriage. It’s one thing for him to feel what he described that, but when he verbalizes this in a position — as a prominent Catholic cardinal — in the context of a discussion about divorce and “remarriage,” he exposes himself as a snake and a fraud.
Would it be morally acceptable if his mother had taken up a career as a bank robber to pay the bills after the husband left her?
Pick your poison.
Either way, she becomes an adulteress. But I guess you guys have your own views on mortal sin.
Adultery is a mortal sin??
Matthew 5:28:
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Yes, heaven forbid that a Catholic Cardinal verbalize compassion. Its better that he remain outwardly cold and judgmental.
Yes.
No, it would be better if he remained an orthodox Catholic, if he ever was one, instead of becoming a heretic.
Really? Do you have the biblical backup for that?
And you didn’t reference the verse I posted. If you’re a male, are you going to honestly tell me you’ve never done what Jesus described?
So blaming the victim huh? Are you a Christian?
Keep in mind that non-Ctholic Christian have been told, on this form, that a pedophile priest can admisister the wafer to the people in the building.
Even if he just came from behind the curtain where he molested a child and used those same hands to do the "holy" bringing Jesus from heaven and MAKING Him inhabit a piece of bread.
Such a sickness as that is appalling. But it's apparently your choice of a belief system.
Legalism is bringing in death throes of the Catholic Church.
Yes, because showing compassion clearly makes one a heretic.
Uh — whut?
Did God show compassion on Sodom?
How about the Egyptians pursuing Moses and the Jews? Did God show mercy on them?
Some of y’all lucked out. Others of us married people who are bad. The point is this: If you are annulled you can marry and God is love not rules
Oh, really? Why did God give Adam and Eve one rule, that they couldn't even obey?
Why did God give Moses ten "rules"?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.