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 5:05 pm
..
May 7, 2014 at 5:05 pm
http://oi59.tinypic.com/2lrp7t.jpg
May 7, 2014 at 5:10 pm
But can you give me some concrete examples that Holy Tradition is up for discussion by the Church's Magisterium?
May 7, 2014 at 5:15 pm
Cardinal Kasper is a heretic. There I said (wrote) it. That the Pope seems to back him up is MOST disconcerting.
May 7, 2014 at 5:17 pm
In their pride and refusal to stand up for the Truths of the Faith and allowing heretics to speak, they flirt with eternal danger. They lead souls astray with impunity I might add.
May 7, 2014 at 5:23 pm
Is this the tail wagging the dog?
Because europe and other western countries, abdicated moral authority, succumbed and and embraced distorted, secular ideologies (some really great "dead end" models) that, negatively transformed social institutions out of a faith and family ideal. Statements, while going sooo far out on a limb, that they are going for something better? 1,2, or 3 divorce and remarriages are better than what?
Well, I'm not convinced!
I'm actually waiting for the really big deal! And its going to be the most divisive and contraversial yet promised.
The proclamation of the fifth Marian dogma.
Waiting for all of hell to break loose, because of satan's anger and wrath, over the BVM, named as Co Redemptrix!
Salve Regina!
May 7, 2014 at 5:27 pm
Mitchell's Law of Ecclesiology: For every Cardinal, there is an equal and opposite Cardinal.
May 7, 2014 at 6:05 pm
Personally, I think Cardinal Kaspar has overplayed his hand.
May 7, 2014 at 6:41 pm
I don't fear this controversy. There'll be no change in the Eucharist. The change might come in raising the status of the internal forum (ie the sincere prayerful conscience) of the spouse to the level of it being permitted but not affirmed like private revelations of saints are permitted but not affirmed by the Church. The private conscience is not infallible but guess what…annullment courts are non infallible and are sometimes reversed by Rome. The Eucharist will always require sanctifying grace prior. The Synod may switch the determination of grace from the external forum of annullment courts to the internal forum of the divorced person who is sincerely convinced their first marriage was not attended by a vow that God accepted. The Church need not publically agree with them just as the Church does not make binding the private revelations of saints.
May 7, 2014 at 6:47 pm
The Synod may switch the determination of grace from the external forum of annullment courts to the internal forum of the divorced person who is sincerely convinced their first marriage was not attended by a vow that God accepted.
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Knowing human nature, I'm quite confident that many would then answer themselves in the affirmative with regard to whether a previous marriage was valid or not.
Here's the thing. There are already Catholics who have mentally made that determination. I don't see the need for the Church to sanction it.
May 7, 2014 at 7:02 pm
I think given one hundred people in a diocese seeking at all to receive the Eucharist in the irregular state, most not all of them are sincerely motivated. Most insincere Catholics in a second but irregular marriage would not care to receive Communion at all in the first place and are probably not attending Mass in the first place. The Pope and others are interested in the topic because they see that at least these people are attending Mass in the first place and may well be sincere in other areas like their examination of the nature of their first vow.
May 7, 2014 at 7:03 pm
One has to ask why this isn't more of an issue for Rome.
"The Church is not falling to pieces. It has never been better."- Pope Francis
May 7, 2014 at 7:11 pm
I'm not doubting anyone's sincerity. I simply speaking to the fact that when it comes to judging ourselves, we always err on the side of mercy instead of justice. Thus the need for an objective voice. Holy Mother Church comes to mind for that.
May 7, 2014 at 7:15 pm
Today's Catholic Church is FULL of heretics and its disgusting to me when others in the Church (including the Pope) praise them. In a few years the Catholic Church will be celebrating the great heretic Martin Luther exactly 100 years after the warnings from Fatima. I cringe to think what God in Heaven will do on that day.
May 7, 2014 at 7:28 pm
It seems +Kasper is the new Gumbleton, only he seems to (potentially) wield more influence.
May 7, 2014 at 7:34 pm
I hope you are right. But I suspect that he has made a reasonable calculation that this is exactly the time for him to make this move. Whatever things the man is, naive is probably not one of them.
May 7, 2014 at 7:37 pm
Holy Mother Church is the annullment courts which are often reversed by Holy Mother Church in Rome. In the concrete world, reaching the second Holy Mother Church and waiting for it takes too long as witnessed by a lady who protested her annullment by a Kennedy.
On judging on our behalf ALWAYS erring on the side of mercy …that is way out there in generalization land. Sirach 10 talks about negative image people even then in a primitive culture:
" 28
My son, with humility have self-esteem;
and give yourself the esteem you deserve.
29
Who will acquit those who condemn themselves?
Who will honor those who disgrace themselves?"
In any event, the Synod will decide all these things in due time.
May 7, 2014 at 7:43 pm
" The Synod may switch the determination of grace from the external forum of annullment courts to the internal forum of the divorced person who is sincerely convinced their first marriage was not attended by a vow that God accepted."
Bill, the question is not whether the vow was accepted by God, but whether it was made at all. And an official switch to an "internal forum" for a determining if one is in a state of grace, or at least not a state of serious sin, would be an utter and complete abdication of the Church's responsibility to teach. Admonishment of the sinner is still a work of mercy. Vatican II didn't abrogate that (so far as I know, anyway). How many convince themselves that pre-marital relations or contraception or even abortion are acceptable/excusable, at least in their own personal circumstances? The possibility of the Church "merely" looking away from this and engaging in a sort of willful ignorance is horrifying. The idea that "the rule" remains the same is absolutely no consolation.
May 7, 2014 at 8:44 pm
We differ. God does not accept vows if He alone knows that one or both are incapable of it there in the concrete. An annullment is a court seeing that non acceptance by God in retrospect while the Church did not see it at the time of marriage. But the courts are not infallible in this area and have been overturned by Rome often when petitioned. What a married person knows is the whole nuanced early marriage. And that private estimation might be better than the quality of the local Church judges or might not. I don't see teaching at stake in a change. I see image of the Church as perfect clergy ruled society at stake. But image is weird. Ccc 2267 about capital punishment presents a picture an image of modern penology protecting people worldwide perfectly. But the image is untrue. Now look at the two largest Catholic populations…Brazil and Mexico…both 20 times more dangerous as to murder rate than death penalty China which has hundreds of millions of poor people. Image preservation motivated the hiding of the sex abuse. Image is powerful and has many apologetics people defending things that St. John Paul apologized for. Christ's group was a bit messy and unpicturesque walking town to town.
May 7, 2014 at 9:09 pm
Is it way out there? You don't think we are more lenient on ourselves? I certainly am on myself.
All in all, you seem to be saying that because the current annulment process takes long that we should simply allow people to determine such things for themselves? That seems like a gross oversteer in the other direction. Further, if such an approach works for annulments, then why not apply to confession as well?
Perhaps Henry VII was right all along. But who am I to judge?