I admit I get lost in these arguments. When I read the lives of the saints or scripture my heart catches fire ..as it does with the many spiritual posts and topics on the forum. But when I read on this subject my heart feels hard and dry. There is no spiritual nourishment. only harsh wards and enmity, confusion, a sense of loss...
I realize that there has been a back and forth in the Catholic world since the synod on the law and mercy. I think Mark Mallet has it as the thin line between heresy and mercy. I'm not going to get pulled into the vortex of supporting one cardinal vs another vs the Pope. My only thoughts on this is his it impacts me as an individual Catholic on my own journey. I've come to conclusion and I'm not saying I'm right, but to me it's easier to say to someone "follow the law" because if you don't there are bad consequences. The harder path to me is to get into the "mess" with the person and say I'm here with all my failings and weaknesses to try and help you. Most of all, I want you to know that no matter that you broke the law God loves you and I want you to know that. When you love someone, you generally don't intend to hurt or go against them. Does a sinner need to know they broke the law or feel the love God gas for them? I guess ultimately both, but until they know and have this sense of relationship with god, maybe they don't care too much about the law? I guess it's similar to raising your kids. If they break a rule or get themselves into trouble, I still love them. And if it's a serious violation, then they might even need more of at love initially before we get into the consequences of breaking a rule. Well, I'm no theologian but I just feel that being an agent of mercy is more of the calling of Christians than looking for law violators. I thought today's Gospel on the Feast of All Saints perhaps gives insights to what Jesus expects of us. I do not see among any of these Beatitudes any thing around following the law but more around the harder work of bringing the Good News to life. "When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.”
From Fr. Z this morning: The lesson of Thrasybulus Posted on 2 November 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf As I contemplate certain things going on in the Church right now, I am reminded of Thrasybulus of Miletus. The story of Thrasybulus is in Book V of Herodotus’ Histories. A messenger from Periander, a 7th c. BC tyrant of Corinth, asks Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus, for advice on how to govern. Thrasybulus doesn’t immediately respond. Instead he leads the messenger into a field. Then, drawing his sword, he slashes the tallest ears of wheat off their stalks. The message: eliminate potential threats to your absolute rule by preemptively cutting down any men who are prominent enough to raise a challenge. If anyone sticks his head up, chop it off. Eliminate excellence by all necessary means and with extreme prejudice.
Brian, It is obvious that you sincerely respect and trust your contact. And certainly I was disturbed by the laxity in leadership that allowed such an interim report to be published about the Synod. The media is having a heyday with it all. On top of that, Pope Francis' warning that we avoid putting law above mercy makes me want to shout, "What about truth?" Law without love is a dead end, but so is mercy without truth. As I stated recently on another thread, I must be patient. As Bishop Chaput has chosen to wait for the facts from an eyewitness, then I will await his trustworthy assessment. The Church has had both great popes and lousy popes in the past, but the Church is still here. And so she shall remain. ...the gates of Hell shall not prevail! A promise from Jesus! Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!
I have found reading the life of St Catherine of Siena always helpful for our own times. She lived at a time when the Pope resided in Avignion and the Church not only went into schism but multi schism, I think at one time there were three or four guys claiming to be Popes and saints often supported one Pope , one an other. A tie time when there were not only lousy Popes but some pretty rotten ones. Yet St Catherine always had this huge respect and loyalty to the Pope and to the Church even when it looked like beating him over the head with a baseball bat would have seemed a better option. I think a sense of history gives us good perspective. An anchor. That there in nothing new under the sun. Poor St Catherine she must often have felt as we do a temptation to choke certain Cardinals. Be still my soul.
"There exists a hidden treasure, a wealth remaining unexploited and in no way appreciated at its true worth, which is nevertheless that which is the greatest in heaven and on earth: the Holy Spirit. The world of souls itself does not know Him as it should. He is the Light of intellects and the Fire which enkindles hearts. If there is indifference, coldness, weakness, and so many other evils which afflict the spiritual world and even My Church, it is because recourse is not had to the Holy Spirit." Jesus' words through Ven. Conchita de Armida
Exclusive - Cardinal Burke: Church Risks Serious Tensions in Months Ahead by Edward Pentin6 Nov 2014193post a comment Cardinal Raymond Burke has said he is at the service of Pope Francis, has no personal animosity towards him, and those who claim the American cardinal is an opponent of the Pontiff are trying to discredit him. The head of the Vatican’s highest court also told Breitbart Tuesday the Catholic Church risks schism if bishops are seen to “go contrary” to the Church’s established and unchangeable dogmas in the months ahead. The Vatican prelate was speaking in Vienna Tuesday, at the launch of the German translation of Remaining in the Truth of Christ, a book to which he contributed. The work is a response to Cardinal Walter Kasper’s proposal to allow some remarried divorcees to have access to holy Communion. The Catholic Church has always barred such a possibility, based on Christ’s teaching that remarrying after divorce constitutes adultery. “Certain media simply want to keep portraying me as living my life as an opponent to Pope Francis,” he said. “I am not at all. I’ve been serving him in the Apostolic Signatura and in other ways I continue to serve him.” The Wisconsin-born prelate was responding to comments he made in an interview he gave the Spanish weekly Vida Nueva last week. The article misconstrued him as criticizing the Pope--despite his stressing in the interview that he was not at odds with Francis. He told the Spanish publication there is a “strong sense” the Church is like a “ship without a helm, whatever the reason for this may be.” But he made it clear in the interview he was not “speaking out” against the Pontiff. He said the Pope is right to call on Catholics to “go out to the peripheries” but added “we cannot go to the peripheries empty-handed.” “I wasn’t saying that the Holy Father’s idea is this,” he explained, “but I’ve seen other people using his words to justify a kind of ‘accommodation’ of the faith to the culture which can never be so.” Burke told Breitbart his wish is “to present the Church’s teaching around which there’s been a great deal of confusion.” He pointed to last month’s synod on the family in Rome as partly to blame, and said those who identify with a “so-called reformist agenda” of Pope Francis are now trying “to discredit what I say by attributing it to some personal animosity toward the Holy Father, and that’s not right.” Asked about the singer Elton John’s recent praise of Pope Francis as a hero of gay rights, Burke said the Church needs to be “diligent” in explaining "very carefully" her teaching, making proper distinctions between the sinner and the sin. He also reasserted the Pope’s concern for people with same-sex attraction, one which “understands that even though they have this attraction, it is an attraction to disordered acts” and that they need to seek God’s “healing and grace" to deal with their “very profound suffering.” Burke has been one of the most outspoken opponents of Kasper’s proposal, saying it is not Catholic, threatens the indissolubility of marriage, and is therefore unacceptable. “The Church must do everything she can when, once again, the integrity of marriage is under attack,” he told the Viennese audience. He said he “often heard” prelates at last month’s two-week Synod on the Family in Rome say that because the culture has changed “so radically,” the Church “cannot teach as we had in the past.” But Burke responded by saying such a view betrays a “loss of hope in Jesus Christ, Who alone is the salvation of the world.” He acknowledged that the culture is “very corrupt” but added that doesn’t mean “we go chasing after it, but rather bring to the culture that which will save it and be full of hope.” Talk of possible schism has increased in the Catholic Church after the recent synod appeared to be leading the Church in a more “progressive” direction on moral issues. A controversial document issued by bishops midway through the meeting (which Burke called a “total disaster”) pointed to radical changes in the area of homosexuals, divorce, and remarriage among other things, but the proposals were largely toned down or failed to reach a consensus in the final report. Questioned about whether there is a genuine risk the Church might split, Burke said if, in the runup to a second synod on the family next October, bishops are seen to move “contrary to the constant teaching and practice of the Church, there is a risk because these are unchanging and unchangeable truths.” He also pointed out that the head of the synod of bishops, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, has “identified himself very strongly” with Kasper’s thesis and “subscribes to that school.” Warning that this battle will continue, he called on Catholics to “speak up and act.”
Thursday, 6 November 2014 http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuit.../bishop-athanasius-cardinal-burke-and-st.html Bishop Athanasius, Cardinal Burke and St Basil Bishop Athanasius Schneider is well-known for his excellent books Dominus Est: It is the Lord, and Corpus Christi: Holy Communion and the Renewal of the Church in which he argues for greater reverence for the Blessed Sacrament and particularly for a return to the practice of receiving Holy Communion in the traditional manner, kneeling and receiving on the tongue. I heard him speak and had the privilege of meeting him in 2009 in Estonia and again earlier this year at a meeting of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy. Bishop Schneider is a holy man and has a great love for the Church, the priesthood and the Blessed Sacrament, so it was interesting to read his reaction to the recent Synod in an interview that he gave to Polonia Christiana (H/T Rorate Caeli) Bishop Schneider is a scholar of the Fathers and one can sense his lively shock at the similarity of our present situation with those that have gone before, notably the Arian crisis, in which the defenders of orthodox doctrine were labelled intransigent and traditionalist. He has an apposite quotation from Saint Basil the Great: "Only one sin is nowadays severely punished: the attentive observance of the traditions of our Fathers. For that reason the good ones are thrown out of their places and brought to the desert” (Ep. 243). The whole interview is worth reading because he does not stop with deploring the situation but offers sound advice on how we should respond. Meanwhile, Gloria TV has a report on the presentation by Cardinal Burke in Vienna, of the German edition of the book “Remaining in the Truth of Christ”, a gathering organised by Una Voce Austria. Cardinal Burke said that the Relatio post disceptationem issued half way through the Synod was “one of the saddest documents that I could imagine ever coming from the Church.” He continued, “Many of us were horrified with this idea that was presented in the report, that there could somehow be good elements in mortally sinful acts. This is impossible.” It is extraordinary that highly-respected, transparently holy and pastoral Bishops and Cardinals are speaking in this way. Damian Thompson in the Spectator has a readable summary of the fault lines that are developing and warns, Watch out Pope Francis: the Catholic civil war has begun. As a priest, it is a great consolation to see the leadership offered by Cardinals Burke and Pell, and by Bishop Schneider. We do not need to be disloyal to the Church, the Pope, or the College of Bishops to raise our voices in defence of dogmatic and moral truth concerning the human person, marriage and the family. Since the election of Pope Francis, I have included the collects Pro Ecclesia andPro Papa in my daily morning prayers and will continue to do so.
It just occurred to me out of the blue last night. Leaving all Doctrinal and theological matters aside for a moment: if the Church were to introduce a whole range of radical changes, say allowing priests to marry, allowing women priests, saying homosexuality is fine and so on. Would it make the Church stronger in the sense that more people would go to Church? You know I honestly don't think it would, none of these things that are being talked about would. So this being so, if they do not make the Church stronger in any sense , why make them in the first place? For that matter why even discuss them?
I was also thinking concerning divorced Catholics and homosexuals. Really these folk are a tiny, tiny minority of Church goers. Why have a synod to discuss such peripheral issues? Why not really important matters. It is a bit like leaving your car in for a major overhaul because a headlight is not working. I just don't see the point of it all. It seems to me like a waste of time.
If I wanted a synod it would be to address Evangelisation and missionary effort. To heal a dying on its feet Western Church. I don't know a lot of these things being discussed seem kind of irrelevant given today's concerns. Media spicey yes. But who cares about such things?
It suddenly occurred to me that I don't know a single homosexual. I must be living in the 1600's or at least if I do I am not aware, they never told me. I don't know a single divorced person who is gasping to get the eucharist. All these issues, these burning issues and , you know what, they have as much to do with me and my life as a private yacht. Burning issues. I mean really why?
i agree, these issues have already been discussed, and solutions given. Remarried w/o annullment? Confession, live as brother and sister (chastity). Homosexual? Confession and abstinence. What's the problem?
Padraig please don't fall for the bum's on pews illusion as the criterion of successful Catholicism. Understanably the goblin officials are taken by this criterion as it represents more $$$, power and glory... all things Jesus eschewed.
I agree that if the Church were to change her teaching on women priests etc, it would not mean the pews will be full.... look at the Church of England. It has accommodated itself to the demands of the zeitgeist, and it's dying. To change the Church's teaching about homosexuality, the priesthood, etc, would be a counsel of despair. I do not believe that anyone can do it, since the Church belongs to Christ. I was talking to a Polish priest recently - he was in despair over the recent synod. He teaches in a seminary and was wondering: what are we supposed to teach the new generation of priests? We need clarity.
I just mean these things are irrelevant to me and the vast majority of Catholics. It is a bit like taking a sledge hammer to crack a nut.
I agree. I am still 'angered' by that first document. It was a betrayal. Souls are at stake!! Scripture, Tradition, Magisterium are all in agreement about homosexual behaviour and divorce. I Corninthians Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God Malachi 2v16 I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel.
The Doctrine is one thing the relevance another. The media is interested, I just don't see the sense of it all.
