Posted on 10/19/2015 9:17:34 AM PDT by ebb tide
Pope Francis yesterday gave an address to the profoundly divided Synod on the Family in which he confirmed his plans to decentralise the Catholic Church – giving local bishops’ conferences more freedom to work out their own solutions to the problems of divorce and homosexuality.
This is the nightmare of conservative Catholic cardinals, including – unsurprisingly – those in the Vatican. They thought they had a sufficient majority in the synod to stop the lifting of the ban on divorced and remarried Catholics receiving communion, or any softening on the Church’s attitude to gay couples.
But in yesterday’s keynote speech, delivered as the synod enters its last week, Francis told them that the decentralisation will be imposed from above.
While deliberately referring to himself as ‘Bishop of Rome’, to underline his solidarity with local bishops everywhere (as opposed to the Roman Curia – i.e., ‘the Vatican’), he invoked the power of the Supreme Pontiff to overrule mere cardinals. ‘The synod journey culminates in listening to the Bishop of Rome, called to speak authoritatively as the Pastor and Teacher of all Christians,’ he said. This is more authoritarian language than I can remember Benedict XVI using as pope. It means: I call the shots. In the end, you listen to me, not the other way around.
One statement in particular horrified the conservatives. Francis told them that ‘the sense of faith impedes the rigid separation between the Teaching Church and the Learning Church, because the flock possesses its own “sense” to discern the new roads that the Lord reveals to the church…’ Meaning? We shall have to wait until the Pope delivers a final response to the synod next year.
This is such a startling development that it deserves fuller analysis once the synod is over. I was going to say ‘once the dust has settled’, but I don’t expect any dust-settling in the foreseeable future – at least until after the next conclave, which lots of conservative Catholics want to happen as soon as possible.
Here’s why I think Francis’s decentralisation won’t work:
1. This is the synod at which the African church flexed its muscles. And it’s very conservative. Cardinal Robert Sarah from Guinea declared that the gay lobby was as much a threat to Christianity as ISIS. Sarah is Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and therefore a top-ranking curial cardinal. But in his ‘intervention’ he wanted us to understand that he was speaking on behalf of nearly 200 million African Catholics. Whether he really represents them is a matter of opinion, but I doubt that many of them would dissent from the cardinal’s (literal) demonisation of homosexuality. NB: Sarah and other African cardinals aren’t saying ‘We’ll never tolerate communion for the divorced and remarried etc – but so long as you leave us alone, western dioceses can do their own thing’. They are saying the existing prohibitions must apply to the entire Catholic Church. Sarah regards Cardinal Kasper’s proposal to allow local bishops (meaning, in practice, local priests and probably divorcees themselves) to decide whether they can receive the sacrament as heretical.
2. The more liberal Synod Fathers, sensing that Pope Francis will use the papal trump card on their behalf, have all but endorsed a version of the Kasper plan – and may soon allow priests to put it into practice. Archbishop Blaise Cupich of Chicago (a Francis appointee who will soon be a cardinal) gave a press conference on Friday in which he said the following about communion for the divorced and civilly remarried: ‘[People must] come to a decision in good conscience…Conscience is inviolable and we have to respect that when making decisions and I’ve always done that.’ If by that he means that divorced Catholics can make up their own minds ‘in good conscience’ about receiving the sacrament, that puts him at odds with Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, one of the signatories of a letter also signed by senior Vatican cardinals warning the Pope that his synod could tear the church apart. Of all the routes to schism, squabbling in public about Holy Communion is the quickest.
3. Pope Francis is no longer trusted by many conservative Catholics, and the number who don’t trust him has grown enormously since the synod process – which I think he has gravely mismanaged – began last October. Priests and lay Catholics who originally liked the man if not his liturgical style, and thought he was fundamentally conservative despite his impromptu ‘who am I to judge?’-style comments, now believe he threatens the unity of the church. Some liberals agree that disunity is inevitable but reckon the Holy Spirit has already factored that in: eventually, Africans will come to share their own compassionate impulses towards Catholics who have been forced by the turmoil of modern life to bypass church teaching on sexual behaviour. They’re hoping for a miracle, in other words. In the meantime, they have become the new ultramontanists.
4. It’s not entirely clear what the Pope means when he talks about ‘synodality’, but it certainly doesn’t involve empowering the curia. By brushing aside a letter from the prefects of the Congregations of the Doctrine of the Faith, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Secretariat for the Economy, Francis was distancing himself from the Vatican. He may not have decamped to Avignon, but his refusal to live in the papal apartments is looking more significant by the day. He has picked a fight with the Vatican – and that is something popes do at their peril. Cardinals Müller, Sarah and Pell (and other important cardinals too nervous to sign the letter) see the curia as the guardian of the Magisterium, the deposit of faith. It was to preserve that deposit that St John Paul II centralised the church. Conservatives interpret Francis’s speech on Saturday as a manifesto for reversing that process – and, at a deeper level, marginalising the legacy of John Paul, which contains teachings hard to reconcile with the current pope’s agenda. So, in their eyes, Francis is taking on the greatest pope in modern history – who, now that he has been canonised, is officially recognised as a supernatural presence in the life of the church. He may even be trying to change the nature of the papacy itself – and during the lifetime of his predecessor, who must be wondering whether God really intended him to resign.
There are other things to say about the impact of Francis’s attempted revolution on secular and religious divisions that are widening outside the church, all over the world. But that’s for another time. My final thought is that, if the Pope wants to make far-reaching changes to pastoral practice, even to doctrine, then there are smarter ways of achieving this than by hosting a catastrophically divided synod and then hinting that he intends to do his own thing anyway.
That solution split the Episcopal church, with conservative churches switching to African bishops when American synods raised a homosexual man with a live in partner to the level of bishop.
The episcopal Church is an offshoot of the Catholic Church, founded by people who did not like the rules of Catholicism which are still in place
Not at all, considering the fact that he has made no secret of his ambition to devolve doctrinal authority to individual bishops' conferences.
"...The Second Vatican Council stated that, like the ancient patriarchal Churches, episcopal conferences are in a position “to contribute in many and fruitful ways to the concrete realization of the collegial spirit”.[36] Yet this desire has not been fully realized, since a juridical status of episcopal conferences which would see them as subjects of specific attributions, including genuine doctrinal authority, has not yet been sufficiently elaborated.[37] Excessive centralization, rather than proving helpful, complicates the Church’s life and her missionary outreach...
#32
Exactly. The opposition to church teaching began decades ago.
Insightful.
“If Pope Francis is somehow implying that the decision about admittance of re-married couples to Communion should be a local matter,...”
I think Catholic divorced and/or divorced/remarried people should be allowed communion. Also, the annulment of a marriage by the Catholic church is a farce. I was divorced 45 years ago, could not stay married to that person. I was not a Catholic then, was a Baptist and that had nothing to do with the divorce.
Sometimes, a divorce is absolutely necessary. I did remarry and am a Catholic now. I think a Catholic Pastor, who knows the members of his church, is sufficient to evaluate the situation of the person and decide if communion is proper for that person.
Now, I have a problem with people like Pelosi who promote abortion, having the right to communion, if fact, even being allowed to be a member of a Catholic church.
Yes, we all know that, Henry VIII. Your point?
I am awaiting Pope Piel I, the Pocket Fisher of Men.
Of course not. But popes can fall into heresy.
Which is closer to cultism than the NT church. Peter's shared apostolic power, non-assertive street level leadership as one among the 11, as a primary elder in the church, and one of those who seemed to be pillars, and later general pastoral function notwithstanding, not a single letter to the churches reminds or commands them to submit to Peter or even regularly pray for him, nor is submission to him commended, despite the many issues, commendations and condemnations, problems and remedies
Which includes the Lord's critiques to the 7 representative church in Rv. 2,3, not even lack of submission to him being as part of the problem or submission being a solution.
The closest there is to such is that of Paul's voluntary presentation of his ministry to the apostles in Jerusalem (not Rome. Paul does not even include Peter among the 35 souls he mentions in Rm., 16). But in which Peter is named after James, and is the only apostle publicly rebuked after Pentecost, by the same man of God whose ministry he affirmed, along with James and John. (Gal.2) E
Nowhere did Peter refer to himself as the chief apostle or pope, or in a uniquely gifted head office, or call a ecumenical council (unlike Paul), nor is the church seen looking to him as its universal supreme infallible head. As the non-exalted leader among the 11, he was the first to use the keys of the kingdom (the gospel, by faith in which souls are placed into the kingdom of Christ: Col. 1:13) but it is James is the one who provides the Scripture-based conclusive judgment in Acts 15, confirmatory of what Peter briefly testified to and exhorted, and which Paul preached).
Moreover, Rome's claimed successors fail of both the qualifications and credentials of Biblical apostles. (Acts 1:21,22; 1Cor. 9:1; Gal. 1:11,12)
Finally, nowhere is any apostolic successor after Judas seen, which was (in order to maintain foundational number of apostles (cf. Rv. 21:14) and which was by the non-political Scriptural means of casting lots. (cf. Prov. 16:33)
Which is starkly contrary to the propaganda of the NT church looking to Peter as the first of a line of infallible heads reigning in Rome as their exalted supreme head, which even Cath scholarship provides testimony against.
Are you forgetting an important quote from the Bible? “And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Which presumes what is disproved , that Rome uniquely is that church. Or even a true church.
But which is unwarranted unless you show why that is ignorant. Some of your own have expressed more negative charges.
And V2 and thus the present CCC does in fact affirm that Muslims worship the same god as Catholics, despite the damage control spin which certain RCs engage in explaining it.
So just what WOULD solve the problem?
Seems like the Catholic church is having a bit of trouble trying to figure out just what the answer is.
As always, well said.
Hoss
Gates are defensive. Not offensive.
Jesus has kicked down the Gates of Hell.
Some FRoman Catholics think Protestants are their worst enemy.
Just look at this mess they are in.
When I see all of this junk, I think to myself—I do not want to hear one critical word about Protestants. They need to take care of their own mess before saying a word against us. Frankly, I do not understand how anyone can still defend the Roman Catholc Church.
You think, maybe, that would help?
Instead, we have a Pope who kissed a queeran. Once. Decades ago. Which apparently prevents some folks from seeing anything else.
We have lesbian Lutheran bishops. Seriously ... that's wrong on several levels. Luther had a vision for the Church. THIS IS NOT IT.
We have the protestant "Episcopal Church" promulgating a formal ceremony for sodomite unions. The English Reformers had a vision for the Church. THIS IS NOT IT.
And we have the ongoing bizarre "Synod on the Family" which is bringing all manner of things, good and bad, out of the woodwork.
And what, pray tell, is YOUR church (whatever it may be) doing to solve the problem?
Just responding to the headline
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