Posted on 12/21/2016 1:56:45 PM PST by ebb tide
Dr. Sandro Magister, the well-respected Vatican expert, has just today published an excellent overview of the current discussion concerning Amoris Laetitia and the subsequent dubia published by the Four Cardinals. He points out that, among the eighteen bishops and cardinals who have made public statements concerning this matter, only seven have defended Pope Francis’ position. Magister says: “There are eighteen cardinals and bishops so far who have spoken on the issue. And of these not more than seven have taken the pope’s side in lashing out against the four authors of the dubia.”
On 21 December, however, an eighth cardinal has now come to the rescue of Pope Francis, with some stunningly contradictory comments, as it seems. According to an 21 December interview as published by Katholisch.de, the official website of the German Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Germany now claims – in an indirect response to the Four Cardinals – that the document is “not as ambiguous as some people claim”:
The document [AL] is not as ambiguous as some people claim. It is not about a new teaching. The pope wants that we look at reality with a new, pastoral view and that we connect our life – even if it did not always turn out well – with the demands of the Gospels and that we trust God’s mercy.
In response to a question concerning the practical consequences of the pope’s document, Marx says that he thinks that the German bishops are behind Pope Francis in this matter and that the “remarried” divorcees may, indeed, under certain conditions (unspecified), now have access to the Sacraments:
It is important for the pastoral care to form and respect the decision of conscience of the individual person. For example, the remarried divorcees shall not – for the rest of their lives and independently of the path which they went – be locked up as in a dead end. Here one has carefully to look at the biographical, sometimes very difficult, situation of the individual person on the background of the Gospel. Part of it is then, too, under certain conditions, the possibility to be able to go again to Communion and to Confession. For this, we have now to encourage the priests. Many act already accordingly. The German bishops have definitely had an impact upon the Synod on the Family. I think that they support the pope and consider his document to be a positive further development. [my emphasis]
Cardinal Marx’ comments are inherently self-contradictory. He first claims that there is “no new teaching,” yet at the same time he says that some “remarried” divorcees may now receive the Sacraments – a practice that has always been disallowed by the Catholic Church for 2,000 years. Cardinal Marx thus further participates in the undermining of the principle of non-contradiction – and subverting with it any sense of rational discourse, and as if logos still mattered.
With Cardinal Marx’s somewhat indirect response to the dubia, the number of Pope Francis’ public supporters – who are also high-ranking prelates – has risen now to eight. However, two additional episcopal voices have now come to the courteous aid of the Four Cardinal’s dubia, and they should also be noted.
For example, according to Bishop James D. Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, “the questions being posed to the Holy Father are intended to help achieve clarity”; and Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has just stated in a polite interview with Catholic World Report:
Strengthening marriage and families is the whole purpose of Amoris Laetitia. If the document has elements that some serious Catholic scholars see as ambiguous, then the issues they raise need to be dealt with honestly and directly. The differences and discussions bishops are now having over the reception of the document are probably necessary to its proper incorporation into the life of the Church. [my emphasis]
Following Sandro Magister’s summary accounting among the college of cardinals and the bishops, there are now, it appears, at least thirteen high-ranking public supporters of the dubia – whereas there are only eight clear supporters of the pope. Unfortunately, Cardinal Gerhard Müller is not yet among the public supporters of the Four Cardinals and their dubia.
Is God a democracy? Sounds progressive to me...
Cardinal Marx? Heck, we’ve already got Pope Marx.
I’m sorry, but thinking that enough Cardinals are going to join the 4 to stop this is too much like Democrats thinking they could actually flip enough of the Electoral College to stop Trump.
Most of them don’t want Benedict’s smaller, poorer, holier Church. They want bigger, richer, more influential. They’re gonna bring the divorcees back in, one way or the other.
Applaud the four for their principles and courage, but in the end they aren’t winning this one.
Must be one of the Marx brothers. Maybe the one who didn’t go to Hollywood?
Most of them don’t want Benedict’s smaller, poorer, holier Church. They want bigger, richer, more influential. They’re gonna bring the divorcees back in, one way or the other.
Applaud the four for their principles and courage, but in the end they aren’t winning this one.
Oh yes they are winning, one way or another. To be with the four Cardinals in affirming the indissolubility of marriage is to be with Christ, who said "And it hath been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a bill of divorce. But I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, excepting for the cause of fornication, maketh her to commit adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery." (Mt. 5:31-32)
That majority you speak of that don't want Benedict's "smaller, poorer, holier Church" are shaping up to be precisely the ones who may bring it about -- if they as the majority depart from the Faith, then they would be the ones who will have committed heresy and schism against Christ's One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
Most average lay Catholics won't even understand what was put into motion at the last two synods until it comes to its rotten fruition; to paraphrase St. Jerome: the whole world awoke with a groan to find itself Modernist.
Pray that orthodoxy and orthopraxy find their victory through efforts of the four cardinals -- the alternative will be a much harder road.
“Holy Father, at the same time, wishes to help all people whose marriages and families are in a crisis to find a path in accordance with the ever-merciful will of God. We can always assume that the just and merciful God always wants our salvation in whatever need we find ourselves. But it does not stand in the power of the Magisterium to correct God’s Revelation or to make the imitation of Christ comfortable.”
"Only in fidelity to the teaching of the Apostles, to the whole of the revealed Faith, can the bishops of a conference speak, for example, about the pastoral application of Amoris Laetitia. Otherwise, the Church would disintegrate into national churches and, in the end, would atomize. The Sacrament of Marriage, however, is in Korea just as valid as it is in Germany. "
"The binding declarations of the popes, of the Councils of Trent and of the Second Vatican Council and of the Congregation for the Faith on the essential characteristics of marriage and on the precondition for a fruitful reception of the Sacraments in the state of justifying [i.e., sanctifying] grace may not be pushed aside by anyone under the pretext that marriage is, after all, merely an ideal which only can be reached by a very small number of people."
"Marriage is in truth not a wishful image produced by ourselves, but, rather, a Sacrament, that is to say a reality founded by God Himself. It is an expression of the Mercy of the Creator and of the Redeemer. God does not put excessive demands upon us so that he then can show His Mercy toward us in the face of our own failure. With the help of Grace, we are able to fulfill the Commandments – among them the Sixth Commandment – and thus find peace of heart in a life in accordance with God’s will."
“Nor can the individual bishops do whatever they want according to their own private taste. They are servants, not masters [Herren] of the Faith.”
"The applause coming from a published opinion is not a [sufficient] proof that one is correct in questions of the Faith. A bishop must – whether opportune or inopportune – teach nothing else but 'the sound words and doctrines of Our Lord Jesus Christ.'"
In his coverage of the story at EWTN, Deacon Nick Donnelly observes:
“Though Cardinal Müller doesn’t come out and say it, his interview with Kathpress strongly implies that Pope Francis has told him that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith must not reply to the four cardinals’ dubia on Amoris Laetitia. Having stated that the CDF will not get involved in the debate, his comment that the Holy Father could commission the CDF to settle the dispute ad hoc suggests a degree of frustration at having his hands tied.”
Mueller is a wimp.
There will be a smaller, holier, poorer Church—whether the sodomite hierarchy (Wuerl, Cupich, McElroy, Dolan, O’Malley, Kasper, Marx, Bergoglio) want it or not. They just won’t be part of it. They may well succeed in expelling the Catholics from Vatican City.
Which is the pope’s side? That's exactly the issue.
The pope’s side is well known. He has stated Schonborn is correct and he has told the bishops of Argentina the same. It’s OK to give Holy Communion to unrepentant active adulterers while they remain in a state of mortal sin.
Oh, dubia ... whatever that is ... Nevermind ...
Further to my post #10:
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna and repeatedly accredited by Francis as his most authoritative doctrinal interpreter, has denied that “Amoris Laetitia” contains statements that are ambiguous or erroneous in doctrine, and therefore - he has said - it must not be attacked but obeyed, in that it is a “magisterial document.”
Schönborn made these observations on November 18 in Rome, during a course of formation for bishops organized at the tribunal of the Roman Rota. And they became public over the following days, on a par with analogous statements made by another speaker at the course, Dimitrios Salachas, apostolic exarch for the Byzantine-rite Catholics living in Greece.
One man and the Holy Spirit, is a majority.
Agree. Müller should defend the Four Cardinals. According to Card. Burke in EWTN this week, Cardinals have the responsibility to defend the Magisterium using John Fisher (1469-1535) as a role model. Time to take a stand.
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