Following Christ or the World? A Tale of Two Gospels.

Lifesite news (here) brings us a report of two Cardinals who have been speaking recently in England.
Voiceof the Family relates Cardinal Burke observing that western cultures are profoundly confused and in error about the fundamental truth of marriage and the family, and that this confusion has entered the Church.

“In a world in which the integrity of marriage has been under attack for decades, the Church has remained a faithful herald of the truth about God’s plan for man and woman in the faithful, indissoluble and procreative union of marriage. In the present time, certainly under pressure from a totally secularized culture, a growing confusion and even error has entered into the Church, which would weaken seriously, if not totally compromise, the Church’s witness to the detriment of the whole of society.” (here)

The Telegraph reports on Cardinal Tagle:

 “Part of it is also the shifts in cultural and social sensibilities such that what constituted in the past an acceptable way of showing mercy...now, given our contemporary mindset, may not be any more viewed as that.”

He said that the past approach in Catholic schools and other institutions had often been to dictate rules and tell people that they were “for your own good”.

“Now with our growing sensibilities, growth in psychology, we realise that some of them were not as merciful,” he said.

Certainly social trends change, and our understanding of humanity develops, but the Gospel which must be applied in new trends and new understandings is always the same Gospel and always seeks to bring wayward sheep back to the Truth. It does not seek to accommodate the errors of the wayward sheep. Indeed, to seek to modify the living-out of the Gospel and its teaching in light of contemporary trends and understandings is to see the world as a source of on-going Revelation.

When Vatican II asked us to read the signs of the times (Gaudium at Spes 4) it did so in order that we respond “in language intelligible to each generation...”. It did not ask us to follow the times in which we live. This is what many of our shepherds, of both Episcopal and Presbyteral rank, are seeking to do. They seem to have lost sight of the fact that “the Church maintains that beneath all changes [in society -GD] there are many realities which do not change and which have their ultimate foundation in Christ, Who is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever.” (ibid. 10) Indeed, the new movements in human wisdom are to be moderated by the Gospel: man “must be penetrated by the spirit of the Gospel and protected against any kind of false autonomy. For we are tempted to think that our personal rights are fully ensured only when we are exempt from every requirement of divine law. But this way lies not the maintenance of the dignity of the human person, but its annihilation” (ibid, 41).

I think the core problem in the Church during the last fifty years is that of the Church’s shepherds allowing the world to teach the Church; an error by which they have sought to modify the living-out of the Gospel so that the Church is seen as modern; as ‘up-to-date’ as the social trends and psychologies of the day. This is an abandonment of the Gospel and Christ by following contemporary ideologies. It has been painted as a growth in mercy, but that is an erroneous and dangerous depiction: highlighting even the central focus of the Gospel (mercy) to the detriment of each of the Gospel’s intrinsic parts (repentance, conversion, justice) is to be unbalanced and make mercy meaningless; mercy becomes a jigsaw piece without the rest of the jigsaw. Mercy only makes sense after repentance and conversion, or it is simply ignoring the sin –and endangering the soul.

There is no other way of saying it: modification of the Gospel by contemporary philosophies and ideologies leads inexorably to the overthrowing of the Gospel. As has been stated by the Anglican Clergyman William Ralph Inge, “He who marries the spirit of the age is destined to become a widower in the next”.

Our shepherds are in danger of poisoning the sheep in their care (the Church herself will not fed us the poison but individual shepherds may mistaken;y do so) and need to remember that we have been given a Deposit of Faith that is unadulterated Truth and that their task is to hand it on, not sit in judgment over it. They may claim not to be doing any judging, but by refusing to pass judgment on the lifestyles of today in accord with Divine Revelation they are inevitably passing judgment on Christ, His Gospel and His Church as it has existed over the last 2000 years. They have stopped judging the world (to which we do not belong cf. Jn.15v18-20; Jn.17v14; Jas.4v4; 1.Jn.4v5; ) and taken to judging Christ in His Church and His teaching (Lk.10v16). To alter the lived Gospel according to human ‘wisdom’ of social trends and contemporary psychology is nothing less than to reject what God handed to us for safe keeping 2000 years ago. It is also, inherently, to seek to teach God: “Your Gospel is a little bit wrong; your Church has been a little bit wrong. Today, we can get it right”. There is no development here in the sense of deepening the Church’s teaching consistent with what has gone before, but a distortion of its teaching; a distortion which demonstrates a profound arrogance.

Sadly the modifying-approach is one favoured by many in the very highest echelons of the Church. Yet even if their approach were to be favoured by the majority (and even by a Pope), the reality is that Truth remains Truth and error remains error, and to contaminate Truth with error is to poison the Lord’s sheep (whom He feeds with Truth, Matt.4v4; Jn.21v17). As Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, “Error is error even if everyone believes it, and Truth is Truth even if no one believes it”. Simply stated, even a majority can be in error; deceived by the Father of Lies (Gal.1v6; 2Cor.11v4; 1Jn.2v18-20). If individual members of the Catholic hierarchy feed us what is not True we shall –even if without malicious intent on their part- be poisoned.

Claims that we can change discipline without changing doctrine are poisonous because they are wrong: doctrine forms practice and practice lives out the doctrine; they are two sides of the one coin. We cannot split the coin in two, re-shape one side and say it still fits with the other half; we simply cannot have a coin which is circular on one side and hexagonal on the other. Those who propose changing discipline but not doctrine (those who claim to be able to change one side of a coin but not the other) are either lacking in their Catholic Faith or in intelligence (or are simply deceitful) because no such coin can exist and they either do not see this or will not admit it. In either case, they cannot be given our confidence.

I understand the desire to have all men become aware of their dignity and value before God; and I agree that we should avoid heartlessly offending people in ‘irregular lifestyles’ (occasions of sin) but surely we want to inform them so that they are challenged by Truth, and turn to a lifestyle in harmony with the Truth? After all, Truth alone sets us free from the grasp of Satan and the self-rule he initiated in us at the time of the Fall (Gen.3v4-6).

Finally, I cannot see the supposed pastoral problem as set out in the question, ‘how do we help those in irregular situations (occasions of sin) feel welcome?’ We already welcome them: we encourage them to join us in our worship and trust themselves to the mercy of God; we encourage them to continue with acts of charity; to continue to join us in our social life, on our pilgrimages and in our devotional life. They are not excluded from the community. But let us be clear: they have knowingly and willingly chosen to live out a lifestyle or life situation they knew would exclude them from the Sacraments, and if we are really going to affirm them in their choices, then we must respect their choice to forgo the Sacraments, and encourage them to do the same. Those who seek to admit them to Holy Communion are not helping them but harming them and their chances of salvation by affirming them in their error and the abandoning of the Truth, which is Christ.