By MAIKE HICKSON
In the recent days, several news-reports have come from Europe that are worth presenting to the U.S. Catholic world. Some of the indications are encouraging, but some of them are troubling.
The most important event, first of all, is the publication in Rome of a new book which contains the presentations of an earlier set of seminars that were hosted — in January, February, and March 2015 — by the Pontifical Council for the Family, which is headed by Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia.
The title of the book is: Famiglia e Chiesa, un legame indissolubile (Family and Church, an indissoluble bond); and it is part of the Famiglia e Vita series directed by Fr. Gianfranco Grieco. The topics of those lectures were: “Marriage: Faith, Sacrament, Discipline”; “Family, Conjugal Love, and Generation”; and “The Wounded Family and Irregular Unions: What Pastoral Attitude?”
As the Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported on July 22, 2015, this book offers new lines of arguments which are purposively made in order to admit “remarried” divorcees to the sacraments — even if only in a limited way. It says, for example:
“A penitential path ad-hoc, let us call it a ‘via discretionis’ [a discreet or discretionary path], which consents to make it possible that remarried divorcees may have access to the Sacraments of the Eucharist and of Reconciliation. This is the proposal which emerged during a three-day international seminar, behind closed doors, which has been convoked by the Pontifical Council for the Family in light of the upcoming Synod of Bishops in October 2015.”
Two theologians, Xavier Lacroix and Paul De Clerck, propose a procedure where, first, a local priest investigates whether a remarried couple may have grounds for a declaration of nullity of their previous marriage. If this has been proven not to be the case by the courts, the priest might then propose, according to La Repubblica, a “penitential path” (which reminds us of Walter Cardinal Kasper’s words).
During this process, the persons involved would consider whether they “contributed to the failure of their marriage”; “to be aware that they have trespassed a law of God”; and then, if so, to “come to a reconciliation with one’s own past.” The authors of the book speak of a “public character of penitence” which would show that the Church does take the laws of God seriously.
But finally, after this process, the “remarried” divorcees would be allowed to receive the sacraments — at times, perhaps, only partly, only during Easter — in spite of the fact that they have still nonetheless persisted in their state of adultery.
This publication is of grave significance since it has been published and even initiated by the head of the Pontifical Council on the Family, Archbishop Paglia. Paglia himself has in the past also been prominent for his liberal attitude toward homosexuality. On one occasion, he was reported to have praised a TV show, Modern Family, in the U.S., which features a favorable presentation of a homosexual couple. As the website Crux reported on May 14, 2015:
“Along with writings of Pope Francis and other Vatican initiatives, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia told the United Nations on Thursday that thanks to ‘phenomena like the media production Modern Family, or same-sex marriage initiatives in a significant number of jurisdictions, the family has become the subject of increasingly intense interest and discussion’.”
When EWTN’s journalist Raymond Arroyo pressed him on it on May 21, Paglia did not give a clear answer as to whether he did approve of this show or not.
Archbishop Paglia also recently said that everybody — all kinds of families — would be welcome at the upcoming World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia (vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/41982/).
When asked, Paglia said that nobody should feel excluded, saying that “we are following the Instrumentum Laboris” for the October 2015 synod “to the letter.”
From Germany, similarly troubling voices are to be heard that go against the traditional moral teaching of the Catholic Church. Reinhard Cardinal Marx and Bishop Franz-Josef Bode — both of whom are delegates of the German Bishops Conference to the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Family — have made statements in the last few weeks where they make it clear that they are still in favor of a liberalization of the Church’s moral teaching with regard to marriage and the family.
Bode said that the question is “whether people in a second civil marriage are always and in every case to be excluded from [the Sacraments of ] Penance and Communion.” In an interview with the German journal Herder Korrespondenz, he proposed, under certain conditions, “the[ir] admittance to the Sacraments of Penance and of the Eucharist.”
Also, according to a July 24, 2015 press release by the Archdiocese of Munich, its archbishop, Reinhard Cardinal Marx, claimed that, even though “the truth and the Gospels do not change, they can be understood in a deeper way.”
He reminded his audience that the Church has had “again and again to start anew, to search.” With reference to the Second Vatican Council, Marx called his audience and others to imitate it, likewise, at the upcoming Synod on the Family. He stressed that Jesus “did not judge people, but always tried to understand them with their sorrows and weaknesses.”
These words can be more clearly understood in light of his liberalizing agenda, which came out candidly at the recent “Shadow Council” as well, which was organized by, among others, Cardinal Marx himself. His just-quoted words omit to say that Jesus Christ always called us to conversion and warned us about hypocrisy, about woe to those who scandalize little children, and about the potential further loss of souls.
Orthodox Voices
In spite of these very troubling statements and circulating publications, there are some encouraging voices coming forth, too.
For example, two strong voices recently opposed the Kasper Proposal in Europe: Carlo Cardinal Caffarra of Italy, and Fr. Thomas Michelet, OP, of France. Cardinal Caffarra, archbishop of Bologna, argued in June 2015 (in an article entitled “Mercy and Truth — a False Contrast”), that the law of God should not be subordinated to a purported principle of mercy — and he thereby rejected the Kasper proposal, if only indirectly. He said:
“If I elaborate on this hypothesis of conduct (in this case, concerning the access of remarried divorcees to the Eucharist) under certain strictly set circumstances, and then say: ‘given these specific circumstances, the assumed conduct [of that couple] is a legitimate exception to the universal law,’ I do not really make an exception, but I propose another law to the contrary.”
In Cardinal Caffarra’s eyes, any attitude which allows exceptions that go against the moral law is not acceptable. He said: “To speak of the priority of mercy in the sense that it justifies exceptions of the law, does not make any sense within a legalizing construction: within the ethical construction, however, this is already a closed chapter!”
Caffarra is one of the authors of the Five Cardinals Book which was published just before the last October 2014 Synod on the Family, opposing the Kasper proposal. Caffarra’s voice, moreover, still has great weight in Italy.
Fr. Michelet himself, another courageous voice, has criticized the Instrumentum Laboris of the upcoming October 2015 Synod itself for its ambiguous language, particularly in the context of the Kasper Proposal, and especially in its paragraph 123.
According to the latter article as published by the well-respected “Vaticanista” Sandro Magister on July 14, Fr. Michelet points out that the claim that the majority of the synod fathers support the Kasper Proposal is misleading, since that specific paragraph had been rejected at the last synod in 2014. He also criticizes the concept of a “penitential path,” in that it is very confusing and ambivalent, and it could be all-too-easily be later misinterpreted in different ways after the 2015 Synod of Bishops on the Family has adjourned. Fr. Michelet says:
“But, above all, it may be feared that this new unanimity is rather the effect of a broad and fluctuating process of development that would seem to leave everyone satisfied, the ‘innovators’ as well as the ‘conservatives,’ but not for the same reasons and not with the same interpretation.
“In short, it may be feared that the agreement remains apparent rather than concrete and that the indefiniteness of the proposal conceals a true and profound dispute that threatens to last for a long time, even in the final proposals of the next synod if there is not greater precision.
“There would be the risk of a declaration of principle on the doctrinal level that would not be discussed by anyone, but would then open the way to the most highly varied pastoral practices that would in fact involve very different doctrines.
“After a few years, we would find ourselves facing the fait accompli of these practices and of the doctrinal change that they imply and that they would have brought into common acceptance. This is why clarity must be brought immediately to this issue, its presuppositions, its stakes, its ins and outs, so that all of this may be done in truth.”
Fr. Michelet has here acutely put his finger on, and fair-mindedly thus anticipated, a very important aspect of the synod’s documents and its likely ambiguous language. He rightly points out how important a clear and distinct language will be, and ought to be, in this increasingly exacerbated and highly contested field — the faithful and the actually binding, current moral teaching of the Catholic Church.
Finally, an important voice against the progressive undermining of the Catholic faith comes from clergy and laymen alike: More than 400,000 Catholics from all over the world — among them over 100 cardinals, archbishops, and bishops — have signed a “Filial Appeal” in which these Catholics have requested from the Holy Father that he speak some words of truth and of clarification, in the midst of so much confusion and spreading heresy.
The appeal says: “Truly, in these circumstances, a word from Your Holiness is the only way to clarify the growing confusion amongst the faithful. It would prevent the very teaching of Jesus Christ from being watered-down, and it would dispel the darkness looming over our children’s future should that beacon [to come from you] no longer light their way.”
Therefore, may we fittingly be more encouraged to see that there are still loyal and courageous princes and clergy — as well as laymen — of the Church who keep up the voice of the truth and continue to be morally vigilant, as well as strategically alert and anticipatory. May God grant them many graces!
And, lest they be merely or mostly only on the defensive, may we also witness even more co-ordination and collaboration now, and strategic and tactical initiatives, too, by the good and faithful forces in defense of the Truth.
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