Matt C.Abbott column
A
'massive, looming threat' to the Church; Catholic film critic on 'Passion' vs.
'Son of God'
March 11, 2014
The following is a good letter to
the editor, written by Father Brian W. Harrison, O.S., of St. Louis, Mo., that
appears (in slightly abbreviated form) in the February 2014 issue of Inside the Vatican magazine.
Dear
Dr. [Robert] Moynihan,
In your latest Letter from Rome, commenting on the new appointments to the
College of Cardinals, you report rather nonchalantly that "[Archbishop
Gerhard Ludwig] Müller is also known for having said that the Church's position
on admitting to divorced and remarried Catholics to the sacrament of Communion
is not something that can or will be changed. But other German Church leaders,
including Cardinal Walter Kasper, have recently gone on record saying the
teaching may and will be changed."
Your brief, matter-of-fact report on this controversy reminds me of the tip of
an iceberg. It alludes to, but does not reveal the immensity of, a massive,
looming threat that bids fair to pierce, penetrate and rend in twain Peter's
barque – already tossing perilously amid stormy and icy seas. The shocking
magnitude of the doctrinal and pastoral crisis lurking beneath this
politely-worded dispute between scholarly German prelates can scarcely be
overstated. For what is at stake here is fidelity to a teaching of Jesus Christ
that directly and profoundly affects the lives of hundreds of millions of
Catholics: the indissolubility of marriage.
The German bishops have devised a pastoral plan to admit divorced and remarried
Catholics to Communion, whether or not a Church tribunal has granted a decree
of nullity of their first marriage. Cardinal-elect Müller, as prefect of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has not only published a strong
article in L'Osservatore Romano reaffirming the perennial Catholic
doctrine confirmed by John Paul II in Familiaris Consortio; he has also
written officially to the German bishops' conference telling them to rectify
their heterodox pastoral plan. But the bishops, led by their conference
president and by Cardinal Kasper, are openly defying the head of the CDF, and
predicting that the existing doctrine and discipline will soon be changed!
Think of the appalling ramifications of this. If German Catholics don't need
decrees of nullity, neither will any Catholics anywhere. Won't the world's
Catholic marriage tribunals then become basically irrelevant? Will they
eventually just close down? And won't this reversal of bimillennial Catholic
doctrine mean that the Protestants and Orthodox, who have allowed divorce and
remarriage for century after century, have been more docile to the Holy Spirit
on this issue than the true Church of Christ? Indeed, how credible, now, will
be her claim to be the true Church? On what other controverted issues, perhaps,
has the Catholic Church been wrong and the separated brethren right?
And what of Jesus' teaching that those who remarry after divorce commit
adultery? Admitting them to Communion without a commitment to continence will
lead logically to one of three faith-breaking conclusions: (a) Our Lord was
mistaken in calling this relationship adulterous – in which case he can
scarcely have been the Son of God; (b) adultery is not intrinsically and
gravely sinful – in which case the Church's universal and ordinary magisterium
has always been wrong; or (c) Communion can be given to some who are living in
objectively grave sin – in which case not only has the magisterium also erred
monumentally by always teaching the opposite, but the way will also be opened
to Communion for fornicators, practicing homosexuals, pederasts, and who knows
who else? (And, please, spare us the sophistry that Jesus' teaching was correct
'in his own historical and cultural context,' but that since about Martin
Luther's time that has all changed.)
Let us make no mistake: Satan is right now shaking the Church to her very
foundations over this divorce issue. If anything, the confusion is becoming
even graver than that over contraception between 1965 and 1968, when Paul VI's
seeming vacillation allowed Catholics round the world to anticipate a reversal
of perennial Church teaching. If the present Successor of Peter now keeps
silent about divorce and remarriage, thereby tacitly telling the Church and the
world that the teaching of Jesus Christ will be up for open debate at a
forthcoming Synod of Bishops, one fears a terrible price will soon have to be
paid.