I have looked over
this and don’t know where to begin. I choose to begin by saying that yes, we
all meet folk in irregular situations and hopefully, we speak understandingly,
gently but clearly in order to guide them with care and compassion to the
Truth. Whoever wrote this document for the Bishops presents them as seeing their
clergy as having no pastoral insight or compassion, while presenting the
Bishops as somehow having greater insight
with the bestowing of the mitre. I think not. The mitre signifies authority,
not wisdom. This reflection document leaves much to be desired in terms of
Catholicism, but it is reflective of the problems in the Church in many places
beyond E&W. Just a few comments on things that hit me slap in the face as I
read through it.
Quote:
We meet people in all stages of their vocation and journey...couples
living together...with previous marital relationships which have broken down
which they have left...we are part of the onward expression of their life and
love as the couple form a home, often blessed with children, and seek our
support and help to bring faith to the children and family...often maintained
through on-going celebrations of the sacraments of baptism, reconciliation and first
Holy Communion with the children born of the marriage.
Reflection:
A journey made in a
sinful situation is not a vocation, since is not a journey directed towards
God. This is the language of modern sociology and psychology and its social
engineering; by using it the Bishops appear to be trying to present a judicious
picture we will fall for. Many will not.
Nor are we sought by
those in irregular situations to give support to their life of faith, but to assent
to their sinful situation: baptism is most often motivated not by faith but access
to the school, while First Holy Communion is most usually an isolated Communion,
not repeated unless the children are at a school Mass (where, despite having
reached the age of reason and being capable of the grave sin of not attending
Sunday Mass [CCC#2181], the teachers invite all who have made their (so-called)
‘First’ Communion to receive.
Quote:
The Synod does not shrink from the demands of the Gospel and the Kingdom,
urging us to make “the demands of the kingdom of God” but this must be
accompanied with a compassion and love, seeing firstly persons and secondly
their situations.
Reflection:
Making the demands of
the kingdom of God means asking folk to set their lives right and this will
always, no matter how gently put by the priest, be experienced as judgemental
and combative. People do not see themselves existing in a vacuum but in their concrete
situations. You cannot see the person without
seeing their situation at the same time; not secondly. If the Bishops mean
‘show compassion and respect to the person regardless of their situation’ that
is fine, but compassion which seeks to make the demands of the kingdom is by nature correctional, concluding
with: ‘Go, and sin no more’.
Quote:
The Church in North
Africa was ruptured was ruptured in the early fourth century by the Donatist
heresy. St Augustine spoke against this heresy in the Council of Carthage in
June 411. The Donatists believed that they represented a ‘Church of the pure’,
uncontaminated by dissent from those who betrayed their Christian faith during
a period of persecution. They alleged that the Catholic Church of Augustine’s
day was contaminated by their ancient link with those who in the persecution a
century earlier consigned the Sacred Scriptures to fire, ‘the traditores’.
Reflection:
There is a subtle
bullying in this paragraph. If this is not an attempt to gert those who want to
hold the Church’s pastoral discipline in harmony with her teaching to label
themselves as Donatists, I don’t know what is. They label not only those of us
who seek to keep that harmony as Donatists, but all the Popes and Bishops who
came before them.
Quote:
The Church is called
to proclaim the peace of Christ to his people, and to the world.
Reflection:
“I have not come to
bring peace, but a sword” (Matt.10v34). Yes we have a peace to proclaim, but it
is a peace that comes from the forgiveness of repented sin; we are not sent to proclaim
a false peace that overlooks sin and pretends all is well with the sinful soul
and God. Indeed, “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you,
but division.” (Lk.12v51). Well, we seem to being asked not to divide ourselves
from the world but to accommodate it. “Woe to you when everyone speaks well of
you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.” (Lk.6v26).
Quote:
Augustine’s own
personal journey to find the truth was long and arduous; at times he despaired
of finding it, before he gradually came to it in piecemeal fashion and by the
kindness and witness of others.
Reflection:
Augustine accepted
the Truth and the behaviours it required from the time of his conversion; he
did not convert ‘piecemeal’. His search was not for Truth with his behaviours
being modified along the way, but a search for understanding what he already
believed and lived by.
Final Thoughts:
All in all this is a
very disappointing document from the CBCEW; it is one which seeks to allow for
all kinds of moral irregularities in the hope that people are journeying in
stages to the Truth and to behaviours fully consonant with the Truth. This is
extremely naive and devoid of intellectual insight: no one who is allowed to
receive the Sacraments while living in a civil union after divorce or a
homosexual pairing where sex acts are allowed, is going to journey toward greater
Truth –why would they? They have all they could want by receiving the Sacraments
in their current situation. Permitting them to receive the Sacraments in such
situations does not promote the journey the Bishops presume they are on; it
terminates their journey by providing them here and now with the goal:
reception of the Sacraments.
Toward the end of the
questionnaire we are asked, “What is the experience that the bishops need to
hear?” What the
Bishops need to hear is already heard by them: the pain and anger of those who
cannot receive the sacraments but this cannot be helped: we either live by the
Truth or we abandon the Truth, and to abandon Truth is to abandon Christ. What the Bishops need to say is another
thing: they need to hold to the truth in word and deed while encouraging those
excluded from the sacraments to continue worshipping and socialising with their
parish.
I think a lot of the bishops don't have clue about real life and family life. They are themselves probably from (middle class) contracepting parents with only two children as is the norm in Catholic families today. They are happy to protect homosexuals but will not reply to letters from heads of families.
ReplyDeleteWith a few exceptions they see the Faith as an academic exercise and a job to be performed. This is to be expected where real family experience is lacking.
Thank you, Paul.
DeleteI think many seem to see their role from a business standpoint, or at best a head teacher. but they are of an age where I don't think they came from small, contracepting families. they ave simply been won over by the rhetoric of the world.
God Bless.
Good observations Father. You can see the church of man being setup by apostates which will approve of sin. Get ready for the schism.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteYes, there is a new Church arising which has a new doctrine and a new way of living.
God Bless
They certainly seem set on steering opinion in a certain direction (wasn't this meant to be a consultative process?). The 'Donatist' shot shows desperation (which is anyway wildly inaccurate). At Mass today the priest gave thanks that 'at last the Church seems to have repented of talking down to people because of their situations or sexuality'. I know this priest to be sincere and he is very likeable but that is part of the great danger. About 200 people received Communion at the Mass I attended and, when I go to confession at that Church there are maybe three or four of us (on a good day) and sometimes I am alone, almost all the congregation have grey hair and children, even young people, of any age are a rare sight. I can only conclude that such priests expect a great rush of the previously 'misunderstood' to fill the pews and coffers. They will be greatly disappointed.
ReplyDeleteThank you Lapanto.
DeleteI think many see consultation as having been replaced by an attempt at manipulation. I truly believe the 'pastoral church devoid of harmony with doctrine' is sowing the seeds of its own destruction. I am saddened but not surprised to hear a cleric say the Church has rented: Ha Christ the need to repent? has the Holy Spirit been absent or completely resisted for 200 years of teaching and practice? I think not.
God Bless.
Great commentary, Father.
ReplyDeleteI dare say if the UK were full of priests united with your insight and who understand the Truth of Christ and not the truth of passions, as you apparently do, the UK would be the Catholic bastion it was before Henry VIII. Bishops would have a hard time promulgating emotion-based faith with a wall of diocesan priests such as yourself gently and fraternally reminding them of Christs Truth. But then, so would the US Bishops.
One can only hope that the Holy Ghost will descend once more upon the heads of the Cardinals / Bishops come October and shower them with Graces enough to realize the solutions to the problems they are debating are and always have been in effect, namely: contrition + confession = unrestricted Communion and full life within the Church. The wheel has already been invented... it just needs to be put back on the cart.
Thank you David.
Deletesorry about the delayed posting but the parish's funeral have been exceptionally busy for us this week.
If priests just taught the catechism clearly, firmly but with gentle spirit; if they said the black and did the red at liturgy, all would be fine. But we don't want any more like me if we take the need for holiness seriously -I am still on the way to that objective, step by painful step.
I agree that only the enemy can inspire blasphemy, not the Holy Ghost. I like the analogy of the cart and its wheel!
God Bless.
“pain and anger of those who wish to receive”
ReplyDeleteI really do wonder about this. The idea that there are swarms of Catholics just waiting to be given the green light to rush in and receive is simply not credible. A few maybe. If they were so desirous they would already have taken some action, at least that of attending Mass but not receiving, which very, very few do.
No, what many such seek is to have their cake and eat it. As for the theologians who push these ideas I suspect their real objective is to diminish belief in the Real Presence.
Thank you, Jacobi.
Delete"Pain and anger" are how i assume those who want to receive would describe themselves to the Bishops and the public. I agree that it is a case of want ing to live as they wish and still be able to receive. I think the theologians who push this idea are not so much actively seeking to undermine belief in the Real Presence but labouring under the loss of their own belief in the Real Presence.
God Bless.