Some more confirmation that the current crisis in the Church is all in my faithless pessimistic little head.
So the other day the big news was that Cardinal Müller of the CDF stated the obvious to the LCWR. Hooray for Orthodoxy!! All is well.
So no sooner did that news break, did the infamous Cardinal Kasper, the Pope’s hand-selected keynote speaker for the Synodal preparatory meeting, the very person who the Pope praised for his serene theology, publicly mocked Cardinal Müller for his actions.
A key cause in Cardinal Müller’s rebuke of the LWCR was the invitation to speak of the group to Sister Elizabeth Johnson, whose book was publicly censured by the USCCB. Do you know how far out in left field you need to be to get censured by the USCCB?
So what does Cardinal Kasper do? No sooner did Cardinal Müller rebuke the LWCR for the invitation, Cardinal Kasper publicly praises Sister Elizabeth Johnson and rebukes Cardinal Müller for not ‘dialoguing.’
And this kind of open warfare between the Cardinals has happened before. Last year, Cardinal Kasper publicly contradicted Cardinal Müller for upholding the Church’s 2,000 year view on divorce and remarriage.
So speaking of that subject, Cardinal Kasper continues to travel around talking up his Kasper Theorem, that while leaving in place the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage, would render it moot through praxis. Don’t take my word on it, this has been the take of many of the Cardinals that heard it. Meanwhile, the Pope praised it as ‘serene theology’ and allows Cardinal Kasper to promote it and mock Cardinal Müller.
As if this wasn’t bad enough. The President of the Synod of Bishops Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, appointed by Pope Francis and just made a Cardinal, the man charged with organizing this year’s and next year’s Extraordinary Synod to deal with this very issue has now publicly taken sides with Kasper saying it is time ‘to update Church marriage doctrine.’ Update Doctrine!!
And finally back to Cardinal Kasper again. In his speech at Fordham, Cardinal Kasper relays the following story from Pope Francis after another Cardinal criticized Kasper’s book to the Pope as containing heresy. Pope Francis told Kasper that such criticism ‘goes in one ear and out the other.” Heresy being a trivial matter and all.
And adding insult to copious injury, Cardinal Kasper then gave and interview in which he claimed Church is “not against birth control at all.”
Serene Theology indeed.
I know, I know. Connecting these dots and thinking we may have a problem on our hands is where lunacy resides.
It’s all in my head. This is not real. It’s all in my head. This is not real. It’s all in my head. This is not real…
May 7, 2014 at 9:15 pm
We most certainly do differ. Whether God "accepts" vows is a matter that no human being or group of human beings on earth can determine. It would be extreme hubris to claim such an ability. In the annulment context, that's why the Church looks at whether one or both had the capacity and intention to make such a vow. That CAN be determined, at least with some modicum of reliability. No, these determinations are not infallible. But they are a far sight more reliable that one's own personal self-interested opinion, even if one's conscience is well formed. And many (most?) are not. Again, how many people convince themselves that pre-marital relations or contraception or even abortion are acceptable/excusable, at least in their own personal circumstances? And that's even with Humanae vitae being the teaching of the Church. What would result if the law of the Church was a wink and a nod?
May 7, 2014 at 9:19 pm
No…I said the double process of appealing to Rome. But who am I to judge plus the new Francism…"in one ear and out the other".
May 7, 2014 at 9:25 pm
Just 'making a mess' as per Bishop Frank's instructions.
May 7, 2014 at 9:45 pm
I can't help but think if this had happend in the 300s Cardinal Kasper would have been declared a heretic and anathematized.
May 7, 2014 at 9:59 pm
Well, it's only a double process if you appeal. But I guess those who appeal felt down deep that they were correct. And indeed sometimes they were. But other times not. So much for private judgment.
May 7, 2014 at 10:07 pm
They are simultaneous in discovery. If a court has found a marriage never existed because one person was radically immature, they have simultaneously ascertained that God rejected the vows. They are not reading God's mind. It follows logically that if the marriage never was a real marriage then God could only have done one thing…rejected the vows. Adios. I have to wash the kitchen floor….Aquinas in the Summa Theologica: "Manual labor atones for sin."
May 7, 2014 at 10:25 pm
Our lady warned us about this at Fatima.
Bishops opposing bishops in the open
What else will happen?
May 7, 2014 at 10:26 pm
That would have happened 75 years ago
May 7, 2014 at 11:01 pm
Bill, your premise is faulty. We can not make any judgement on the action of the Almighty in accepting or rejecting any vows. A marriage tribunal can only make a judgment of the capacity of the individuals to truly make such a vow with full knowledge and consent. That is all they do because that is all they can do.
May 7, 2014 at 11:11 pm
Cardinal Kasper: "The pope…said he believes that 50 percent of marriages are not valid." https://t.co/KqP7oZ9hOY #PopeFrancis— Grant Gallicho (@gallicho) May 7, 2014
May 8, 2014 at 12:45 am
"Idon't fear this controversy. There'll be no change in the Eucharist. The change might come in raising the status of the internal forum (iethe sincere prayerful conscience) of the spouse to the level of it beingpermitted but not affirmed like private revelations of saints are permitted but not affirmed by the Church."
And in the mean time thousands, perhaps millions of souls could be bringing about condemnation upon themselves. Forget about the politics for one minute. The words of Saint Paul should haunt us on this matter. Even more so, the warning Christ gave to those who lead people astray ring even louder. In the end, we must follow The Man (Christ) and not any Synod. Bill, you and people like you are playing with fire.
May 8, 2014 at 1:57 am
JP,
You are picturing millions of people trying to receive Communion illicitly while they are in a second marriage and doing so from comments of these Cardinals in the newspapers which imply that nothing is settled if they read the whole article. What if it is really 100 people in N.Y. and 3 in Oregon etc. and with similar numbers in South America….1000 in Brazil…25 in Uruquay. They have no permission in the external forum so if they are going by a really really sincere conscience despite that, Paul's words would not apply. If they have a lax conscience, Paul applies. St. Thomas influenced the burning of heretics per his Summa Theologica which idea ended up affirmed in Exsurge Domine in 1520 and implicitly condemned in St. John Paul's " Splendor of the Truth" in section 80 which says " coercion of spirit" is intrinsically evil. So Aquinas helped get 5000 people killed who should not have been killed. Now those heretics transplant our hearts, change our oil, and lend us their rakes in fall. So Aquinas is in heaven because a sincere erroneous conscience if it is really sincere…excuses from sin. St. John Paul II and Benedict and Francis with their new death penalty position will get many murder victims killed for centuries to come. They are wrong but they are sincere and therefore will not perish….and John Paul is in Heaven and now knows he ignored the question of deterrence totally and ignored Romans 13:4 totally as did his catechism. These second time marrieds if they are receiving prior to a decision may also have a sincere erroneous conscience like all these leaders just mentioned. God to Jonah, " And shall I not save Nineveh which has more than 120,000 people who do not know how to distinguish their right hand from their left?"
May 8, 2014 at 2:13 am
I don't disagree that he is smart. But somehow I think this must be similar to the buildup before Pope Paul VI rebaselined everyone with HV. And even then there were still some high-ranking dissenters.
But one area where I think we definitely agree is that this type of thinking needs to nipped in the bud much quicker for the sake of the people. I'm quite confident that many folks back in the early 70s began contracepting because they just knew that the teaching was gong to change.
May 8, 2014 at 3:03 pm
Mr. bill b:
"St. John Paul II and Benedict and Francis with their new death penalty
position will get many murder victims killed for centuries to come."
What is their position and why is it new? I thought that as we live in a culture of death that JP II was discouraging the use of capital punishment – not forbidding it.
Am I missing something here?
Thanks
God bless
Richard W Comerford
May 8, 2014 at 4:21 pm
There's two versions…the written in the catechism which says it's extremely rarely necessary even though heavily Catholic Mexico as of 2009 had 100,000 cartel foot soldiers who according to a Mexican justice official control 60% of the prisons.
And then there's the papal verbal version: John Paul calling the dp cruel in St. Louis despite God mandating it for all men in Genesis 9:6…. and Benedict congradulating the Phillipine president after she announced it's abolishment there. Abolishment in reality…affirm the dp in the ccc but then say modern penology is protecting so well that we don't need it….errrr…. except they never looked at the record of Catholic countries in northern South America where 6 Catholic countries are among the most dangerous on earth and have no death penalty. Honduras and El Salvador are the two worst murderous countries on earth…heavily Catholic…no working death penalty. Mexico and Brazil two largest Catholic populations and 20 times more dangerous as to murder than China who has hundreds of millions of poor people.
May 8, 2014 at 4:33 pm
Kasper needs to read the words of Jesus (Mt 7:6-23) which was about the 4th Commandment but could be applied to God's Commandment "THOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY";
and the "Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition" – promulgated by Apostolic Constititution – regarding divorce with remarriage, contraception;
and Jesus's teaching on divorce with remarriage Mk 10:6-12 and Mt 19:3-9.
Let us all remember that it was the German DIOCESE Bishops who (until it gained world-wide attention in 2011) sold pornography even after years of complaints by their Faithful;
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/german-bishops-caught-in-massive-porn-scandal-why-didnt-they-listen-to-the
And more recently excommunicated all Catholics (could not receive Sacraments) who did not check the government religious tax box to give tax dollars to them.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/09/22/german-catholic-bishops-give-us-money-or-well-effectively-excommunicate-you/
This is the mind set we are seeing.