Cardinal Caffarra is a good man. He is one of the five Cardinals who authored the book which another Cardinal, Baldisseri, prevented Cardinals and Bishops from receiving at the Synod by interfering with the Postal service - a crime, no?
He has recently said that the Pope cannot change doctrine in a footnote.
But that isn't how doctrine changes, is it?
"Will this Pope re-write controversial Church doctrines? No. But that isn't how doctrine changes. Doctrine changes when pastoral contexts shift and new insights emerge such that particularly doctrinal formulations no longer mediate the saving message of God's transforming love. Doctrine changes when the Church has leaders and teachers who are not afraid to take note of new contexts and emerging insights. It changes when the Church has pastors who do what Francis has been insisting: leave the securities of your chanceries, of your rectories, of your safe places, of your episcopal residences go set aside the small minded rules that often keep you locked up and shielded from the world."
This often stated quote, which is in print and video by Father Thomas J. Rosica, CSB, originated from Richard Gaillardetz in the National Catholic Reporter.
You see, a footnote can indeed, change doctrine.
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That of course doesn't describe doctrinal changes, it describes pharisaical doctrines of men which are created specifically so that the doctrines of God can be ignored. Jesus had a few choice words about the doctors of the law who did this.
"Will this Pope re-write controversial Church doctrines? No. But that isn't how doctrine changes. It changes when the Church has pastors who do what Francis has been insisting: leave the securities of your chanceries, of your rectories, of your safe places, of your episcopal residences go set aside the small minded rules that often keep you locked up and shielded from the world."
The major problem with that quote is that His Holiness Pope Francis has been misrepresented in the above. The major flaw in the quotation is that Pope Francis did not once call for doctrine to be overthrow. Pope Francis has exhorted pastors to go out among the people. That does not come close to his having called for pastors to overthrow doctrine. To read that into the Pope's call for pastors to go among the people is to misrepresent Pope Francis, which many people, within and without the Church, have done repeatedly.
In regard to Amoris Laetitia, it is impossible to employ the above quote to "prove" that AL has, via a footnote or otherwise, overthrown Church doctrine. As Robert Cardinal Sarah declared recently, in "Amoris Lætitia (“The Joy of Love”), Pope Francis states clearly:
"In no way must the Church desist from proposing the full ideal of marriage, God’s plan in all its grandeur...proposing less than what Jesus offers to the human being." This is why the Holy Father openly and vigorously defends Church teaching on contraception, abortion, homosexuality, reproductive technologies, the education of children and much more."
As Cardinal Sarah made clear, Pope Francis, via AL, has upheld Jesus Christ's teaching on marriage. The Church's teachings on marriage remain untouched in Amoris Laetitia. It is undeniable that time and again, Pope Francis has upheld the Church's teachings in regard to the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.
During his August 5, 2015 A.D., General Audience, Pope Francis said...
"Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning...today I would like to focus our attention on another reality: how to take care of those who, after an irreversible failure of their matrimonial bond, have entered into a new union.
"The Church is fully aware that such a situation is contrary to the Christian Sacrament."
On February 17, 2016 A.D., Pope Francis declared that divorced and "remarried" Catholics are not permitted to receive Holy Communion. From Church Militant:
http://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/pope-francis-no-communion-for-divorced-and-remarried
"Pope Francis: No Communion for Divorced and Remarried"
Whoever claimed that doctrine will change "when the Church has pastors who do what Francis has been insisting: leave the securities of your chanceries, of your rectories, of your safe places..." has misrepresented Pope Francis.
Whoever uttered that remark should consult Cardinal Sarah words of praise for Pope Francis. Cardinal Sarah declared that Pope Francis has "openly and vigorously" defended Jesus Christ and His True Church's teachings on marriage and the Culture of Life. That is true in particular via Amoris Laetitia, as Cardinal Sarah declared.
Pax.
Mark Thomas
I wonder if these Cardinals that are calling on faithfulness to the true doctrine of the Church by downplaying AL is their attempt to preserve the doctrine WITHOUT calling out the Pope directly, or calling for AL to be scrapped? Seems to me, they are attacking AL via the back door.
The Denzinger-Bergoglio blog reports that on the plane back from Lesbos PF was asked by journalist Francis Rocca: “Some sustain that nothing has changed with respect to the discipline that regulates access to the sacraments for the divorced and remarried, that the Law, the pastoral praxis and obviously the doctrine remain the same. Others sustain that much has changed and that there are new openings and possibilities. For a Catholic who wants to know: are there new, concrete possibilities that didn’t exist before the publication of the exhortation or not?” His response was : “I can say there are. But it would be too short an answer. I urge you to read the presentation Cardinal Schönborn gave on the document.” and In addition, Msgr. Alberto Carrara of the diocese of Bergamo, Italy, director of the diocesan publication “SantAlessandro”, began his editorial with this affirmation: “In this way, then, the divorced and separated who have remarried may be admitted to the sacraments. It is one of the novelties of Amoris laetitia”.
Why can't our Cardinals tell the truth and call the whole Papal Exhortation Amoris Laetitia heretical?
What is so awful about upholding Truth when it is being flagrantly abused. That goes with the job surely? It has already been reported that AL is already being implemented and that is extremely dangerous. The damage being done to souls doesn't appear to give them any grief. If and when PF resigns how do they propose rectifying the situation? It's just looking now that a schism is becoming more and more likely.
In the world governments make laws ,and then find ways around the laws ,there are those in the Church now trying the same tactic with God's laws
Ana Milan, I'm with you. How I long for some direct language from some of our Cardinals! Just say it directly, we implore you. All this talking around the problem, it is very trying. We understand you are in a predicament, it's absolutely understood, but people really do need things a bit less abstract and the dire situation seems to call for directness, does it not?
This is all so frustrating. Dear God, help us.
They teach this in the seminary (Toronto).
"... the admonition of Pope Agatho: "nothing of the things appointed ought to be diminished; nothing changed; nothing added; but they must be preserved both as regards expression and meaning."
(St. Agatho, Pope, epistle to the emperor, apud Labb., ed. Mansi, vol. 2, p. 235.)
"Indeed these authors of novelties consider that a "foundation may be laid of a new human institution," and what Cyprian detested may come to pass, that what was a divine thing "may become a human church."[13] Let those who devise such plans be aware that, according to the testimony of St. Leo, "the right to grant dispensation from the canons is given" only to the Roman Pontiff. He alone, and no private person, can decide anything "about the rules of the Church Fathers."
(Mirari Vos, Pope Gregory XVI.)
"Now the honorable marriage of Christians, which Paul calls "a great sacrament in Christ and the Church,"[15] demands our shared concern lest anything contrary to its sanctity and indissolubility is proposed. Our predecessor Pius VIII would recommend to you his own letters on the subject. However, troublesome efforts against this sacrament still continue to be made. The people therefore must be zealously taught that a marriage rightly entered upon cannot be dissolved; for those joined in matrimony God has ordained a perpetual companionship for life and a knot of necessity which cannot be loosed except by death. Recalling that matrimony is a sacrament and therefore subject to the Church, let them consider and observe the laws of the Church concerning it. Let them take care lest for any reason they permit that which is an obstruction to the teachings of the canons and the decrees of the councils. They should be aware that those marriages will have an unhappy end which are entered upon contrary to the discipline of the Church or without God's favor or because of concupiscence alone, with no thought of the sacrament and of the mysteries signified by it."
(Mirari Vos.)
The NCR reporter puts it quite nicely: "Doctrine changes when pastoral contexts shift and new insights emerge such that particularly doctrinal formulations no longer mediate the saving message of God's transforming love. Doctrine changes when the Church has leaders and teachers who are not afraid to take note of new contexts and emerging insights." He just encapsulated the circular and self-reproducing nature of the current leadership, if that is the proper term, of the Church.
The current powers-that-be, after their long march through the Church, are the ones who "take note of new contexts and emerging insights" and decide when "doctrinal formulations no longer mediate the message, etc." You will note that with them it is not "doctrine," but "doctrinal formulations," acknowledging the relativistic worldview. Quite a different role from the hierarchy from the time of Christ through recently, which was concerned, even though they were sinners, with the message of Truth and salvation of souls. Their self-appointed role as gatekeepers of the "doctrinal formulations" actually has them looking inward and shielded fron the world: what could have been more small-minded and less aware than the Pope not bringing the Christian family to Rome with him because their papers weren't in order?
The current powers-that-be obviously accept the neat definition by the NCR reporter, but just let Vox or any of us, for instance, propose a "new insight," such as the trivialization of the liturgy, or the complicity in so many ways of Catholic Churchmen in the destruction of Western society, both effects of a lamed and transmuted or trans-whatever theology, then the wagons are circled and the sniping begins.
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