Posted on 11/17/2017 3:03:09 PM PST by ebb tide
As an outsider, I can’t help but wonder whether the pope and the USCCB were particularly provoked by Weinandy’s suggestion that Jesus had allowed this controversy in order “to manifest just how weak is the faith of many within the Church, even among too many of her bishops.” Catholics will have to make up their own minds—but I’ll admit I have questions about the faith of Pope Francis, which seems, if not weak, at least different from that of the Catholic tradition.
Even before the release of Amoris Laetitia in March 2016, Francis had caused many to question his fidelity to that tradition. In 2014, the midterm report of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family recommended that pastors emphasize the “positive aspects” of cohabitation and civil remarriage after divorce. He said that Jesus’s multiplication of bread and fish was really a miracle of sharing, not of multiplying (2013); told a woman in an invalid marriage that she could take Holy Communion (2014); claimed that lost souls do not go to hell (2015); and said that Jesus had begged his parents for forgiveness (2015). In 2016, he said that God had been “unjust with his son,” announced his prayer intention to build a society “that places the human person at the center,” and declared that inequality is “the greatest evil that exists.” In 2017, he joked that “inside the Holy Trinity they’re all arguing behind closed doors, but on the outside they give the picture of unity.” Jesus Christ, he said, “made himself the devil.” “No war is just,” he pronounced. At the end of history, “everything will be saved. Everything.”
Weinandy and other Catholic critics have pointed to alarming statements and suggestions in Amoris Laetitia itself. The exhortation declares, “No one can be condemned for ever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel!” In December 2016, the Catholic philosophers John Finnis and Germain Grisez argued in their “Misuse of Amoris Laetitia” that though this statement reflects a trend among Catholic thinkers stemming from Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, it contradicts the gospels’ clear statements and the Catholic tradition’s teaching that there is “unending punishment” in hell. Finnis and Grisez charge that, according to the logic of Amoris Laetitia, some of the faithful are too weak to keep God’s commandments, and can live in grace while committing ongoing and habitual sins “in grave matter.” Like (Episcopalian) Joseph Fletcher, who taught Situation Ethics in the 1960s, the exhortation suggests that there are exceptions to every moral rule and that there is no such thing as an intrinsically evil act.
I take no pleasure in Rome’s travails. For decades, orthodox Anglicans and other Protestants seeking to resist the apostasies of liberal Christianity have looked to Rome for moral and theological support. Most of us recognized that we were really fighting the sexual revolution, which had coopted and corrupted the Episcopal Church and its parent across the pond. First it was the sanctity of life and euthanasia. Then it was homosexual practice. Now it is gay marriage and transgender ideology. During the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, we non-Catholics arguing moral theology could point to learned and compelling arguments coming out of Rome and say, in effect, “The oldest and largest part of the Body of Christ agrees with us, and it does so with remarkable sophistication.”
Those of us who continue to fight for orthodoxy, in dogmatic as well as moral theology, miss those days when there was a clear beacon shining from across the Tiber. For now, it seems, Rome itself has been infiltrated by the sexual revolution. The center is not holding.
Though we are dismayed, we must not despair. For the brave and principled stand made by Tom Weinandy reminds us that God raises up prophetic lights when dark days come to his Church.
Gerald McDermott holds the Anglican Chair of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School.
“Fact:
Bergoglio Vatican celebrates Protestant Revolt with a stamp”
At least he’s done one good thing!
“He’s Pope, ergo he’s Catholic.
So says the non-Catholic.”
What say ye...the catholic?
Thanks for the ping.
It’s A terrible thing to see Luther kneel before Christ!!! /s
Ever hear of liberation theology? Dominant in Catholic clergy in Nicaraugua, Guatamala,... Agentina.
But not in Mexico where Catholicism is far more Conservative than in the US.
Except Roman Catholicism seems to want to keep Him there.
Francis is not a Protestant.
He’s a Catholic, elected by the Catholic church college of cardinals to fill the highest position within the Catholic church.
Like it or not, he’s all yours.
You can try to disown him, but that isn’t going to fly unless there’s an official action of the Catholic chruch to ex-communicate him.
So, the question remains, does the Holy Spirit guide the college of cardinals in the selection and election of the new pope? Simple question that just needs a simply *Yes* or *No* answer.
Unam Sanctam....the pope has exclusive authority over you.
It seems fine to remember His moment of sacrifice... though what you say is true also...
He is Risen!!!
Cop out answer that does not exonerate the Catholic church.
Jesus did not select Judas to head up His church so that argument falls flat.
Do not question God.
I guess that's a de facto admission that the Holy Spirit guided the college of cardinals in picking Francis.
And apparently you feel free question that decision as you are rebelling against the authority instituted by God by not accepting it. How dare you question or challenge God's selection of pope for your church?
Men like Francis are what caused Luther to speak out.
Otherwise all elections would have occurred on this first vote with an unanimous decision.
And how is that determined?
Every time non-Catholics say something that indicates questioning a Catholic's salvation, we get shredded for it and chastised with *Judge not* and who are we to know someone else's heart?
Well, on what basis do Catholics feel they have the right to do to others what they forbid others to do to them?
Then explain why Francis is celebrating his hero's (Luther's) revolt with a Vatican stamp.
Your examples and criticisms fall flat.
.
Pretty sure ebb is innocent on both counts.
Pretty sure he DOES qualify as schismatic based on your definition.
Ebb, are you really in communion with the Roman Pontiff?
Even Catholics can see that he does not hold to Catholic teaching, but until and unless he is formally and officially ex-communicated by the Catholic church, he is yours.
Like him or not.
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