I’m trying to devise a way to post as much as I can during the rare unpredictable times I am able to do it on a Forum that is increasingly recalcitrant to new posts and editing. Herewith, the last few articles by Sandro Magister on his blog. For now, I shall be posting with a minimum of remarks as that only gives rise to new difficulties… I will take a chance on errors with only the essential manual enhancement since I am doing all this on WORD first, then copying it to the Forum and hitting Reply. ‘Preview’ takes forever, and forget about trying to edit the errors!
The Four Cardinals showed the way with their DUBIA.
Now it’s the turn of the concerned laity.
By Sandro Magister
From the English service of
April 4, 2017
“Bring clarity.” With the same title-appeal with which cardinals Walter Brandmüller, Raymond L. Burke, Carlo Caffarra, and Joachim Meisner made public their “dubia” on the most controversial points of “Amoris Laetitia,” a big international conference will be held in Rome on Saturday, April 22, one year after the publication of the postsynodal exhortation.
The conference will be held at the Hotel Columbus, a short walk from Saint Peter’s Square. Presentations will be given by scholars gathered from all over the world: Anna M. Silvas from Australia, Claudio Pierantoni from Chile, Jürgen Liminski from Germany, Douglas Farrow from Canada, Jean Paul Messina from Cameroon, Thibaud Collin from France.
The first two are well known to the readers of Settimo Cielo.
From Anna M. Silvas, an Eastern-rite Catholic and an illustrious scholar of the Fathers of the Church, last June they were able to read this brilliant and exhaustive critique of the document by Pope Francis:
> Alice in “Amoris Laetitia” Land
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351311bdc4.html?eng=y
While from the Italian-Chilean Claudio Pierantoni, he too a patrologist, last November they read the instructive parallel between the disorientation of the present-day Church and that of the Trinitarian and Christological controversies of the fourth century, which required ecumenical councils to get through them, just as could happen again today:
> A New Council, Like Sixteen Centuries Ago
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351423bdc4.html?eng=y
The distinctive element of the conference is that all of the presentations will be given by laymen, demonstrating that the controversy that divides the Church today is by no means exclusive to a “few” reactionary ecclesiastics - as some hazard to say - but involves the whole “people of God.”
Nor for that matter are they isolated voices, the scholars who will speak on April 22. It should suffice to consider - among the many others who could be cited - two eminent figures like Stanislaw Grygiel of Poland and Rémi Brague of France, both staunch supporters of the soundness of the “dubia” submitted to the pope by the four cardinals.
In the photo, the encounter two days ago between Francis and one of the four, archbishop emeritus of Bologna Carlo Caffarra, former president of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family.
Among the signers of the “dubia,” Cardinal Caffarra is the one for whom Jorge Mario Bergoglio has repeatedly manifested his esteem in the past. And he is also the one who has developed most extensively in public the arguments in support of his objections to “Amoris Laetitia,” in particular in the interview with “Il Foglio” of January 14, 2017, much of which was presented in multiple languages by Settimo Cielo:
> The Doubts of the Pope and Cardinal Caffarra’s Certainties
magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2017/01/16/the-doubts-of-the-pope-and-cardinal-caffarra%e2%80%99s-cert...
The encounter in the photo took place on Sunday, April 2, during the pope’s visit to the diocese of Carpi.
The conference on April 22 is promoted by the apologetics monthly “Il Timone” and by the website “La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana,” both edited by Riccardo Cascioli.
The man who ‘had to be elected’ pope
April 2, 2017
Mission accomplished. After four years of pontificate, this is the assessment that has been made by the cardinals who brought Jorge Mario Bergoglio to election as pope.
The operation that produced the Francis phenomenon arises from a long time ago, as far back as 2002, when for the first time "L'Espresso" discovered and wrote that the then little-known archbishop of Buenos Aires had leapt to the top of the candidates for the papacy, the real ones, not the figureheads.
It laid the groundwork at the conclave of 2005, when it was to none other than Bergoglio that all the votes were funneled from those who did not want Joseph Ratzinger as pope.
And it came into port at the conclave of 2013, to a large extent because many of his electors still knew very little about that Argentine cardinal, and certainly not that he would deal the Church that “punch in the stomach” spoken of a few days ago by his rival defeated in the Sistine Chapel, Milan archbishop Angelo Scola.
Between Bergoglio and his great electors there was not and is not full agreement. He is the pope of proclamations more than of realizations, of allusions more than of definitions.
There is however one key factor that meets the expectations of a historic turning point of the Church capable of making up for its emblematic lag of “two hundred years” with respect to the modern world that was denounced by Carlo Maria Martini, the cardinal who loved to call himself the “ante-pope,” meaning the anticipator of the one who was to come. And it is the factor of “time.” Which for Bergoglio is a synonym for “initiating processes.” The destination matters little to him, because what counts is the journey.
And in effect it is so. With Francis the Church has become an open construction site. Everything is in movement. Everything is fluid. There is no longer dogma that holds up. One can reexamine everything and act accordingly
Martini was precisely the sharpest mind of that club of St. Gallen which engineered Bergoglio’s rise to the papacy.
It took its name from the Swiss town in which the club met, and included the cardinals Walter Kasper, Karl Lehmann, Achille Silvestrini, Basil Hume, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Godfried Danneels. Of these only two, Kasper and Danneels, are still at the forefront, rewarded and treated with the highest regard by Pope Francis, in spite of the fact that they represent two national Churches in disarray, the German and the Belgian, and the latter even fell into discredit in 2010 for how he tried to cover up the sexual misdeeds of one of his protege bishops, whose victim was a young nephew of his.
Bergoglio never set foot in St. Gallen. It was the cardinals of the club who adopted him as their ideal candidate, and he adapted himself perfectly to their plan.
Everyone in Argentina remembers him very differently from how he later revealed himself to the world as pope. Taciturn, withdrawn, somber in expression, reserved even with crowds. Not once did he let slip a word or a gesture of disagreement with the reigning pontiffs, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. On the contrary.
[That’s not true about Benedict XVI, though – through his spokesman, Cardinal Bergoglio immediately criticized the Regensburg address in September 20
06 for having ‘destroyed in 20 seconds what took John Paul II 20 years to build’.]
He praised in writing the encyclical “Veritatis Splendor,” very severe against the permissive “situational” ethics historically attributed to the Jesuits. He had no qualms over condemning Luther and Calvin as the worst enemies of the Church and of man. He attributed to the devil the deception of a law in favor of homosexual marriage.
But then he sent back home, “to avoid mixed messages,” the Catholics who had gathered outside of parliament for a prayer vigil against the imminent approval of that law. He knelt and had himself blessed in public by a Protestant pastor. He forged friendships with some of them, and also with a Jewish rabbi.
Above all he encouraged his priests not to deny communion to anyone, whether they be married, or cohabiting, or divorced and remarried. With no fuss and without making this decision public, the then-archbishop of Buenos Aires was already doing what the popes at the time prohibited, but he would later permit once he became pope.
In St. Gallen they knew and were taking note. And when Bergoglio was elected, the world learned to recognize him right from the first moment for what he really was. With no more veils.
One crucial moment of the calculated advancement of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the papacy was the final document of the general conference of Latin American bishops in Aparecida, in 2007.
The main author of the document [via ghostwriter Mons Victor Fernandez] was the archbishop of Buenos Aires at the time, who still continues today, as pope, to recommend it as a valid program for the Church not only in Latin America but all over the world.
Curiously, however, in the paragraphs dedicated to marriage and family there is no reference in the Aparecida document to the “openness” that Bergoglio would later implement as pope, and was already practicing, de facto, in his diocese of Buenos Aires.
In the almost 300 pages of the document, only a few lines concern communion for the divorced and remarried, on which he gives this guideline, in paragraph 437: "Accompany with care, prudence and compassionate love, following the guidelines of the magisterium ('Familiaris Consortio' 84; 'Sacramentum Caritatis' 29), couples who live together out of wedlock, bearing in mind that those who are divorced and remarried may not receive communion."
And in the previous paragraph it states, concerning the support given to policies against life and the family: "We must adhere to 'eucharistic coherence,' that is, be conscious that they cannot receive holy communion and at the same time act with deeds or words against the commandments, particularly when abortion, euthanasia, and other grave crimes against life and family are encouraged. This responsibility weighs particularly over legislators, heads of governments, and health professionals ('Sacramentum Caritatis' 83; 'Evangelium Vitae' 74, 74, 89)."
This is what Bergoglio wrote in 2007. But his mind was already elsewhere: on the conviction - criticized by Benedict XVI - that “th
e Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak,” comparable to the meals of Jesus with sinners.
With the practical consequences that he had already drawn as bishop and would later draw as pope.
On the Pope’s desk, a "Memorandum" against
the Jesuit Superior-General – for near heresy[/b
March 31, 2017
Among the priests born in the diocese of Carpi, that Pope Francis will visit on Sunday, April 2, there is one who is giving him a tough nut to crack.
His name is Roberto A. Maria Bertacchini. He was formed in the school of three Jesuits of the first rank: Frs. Heinrich Pfeiffer, an art historian and professor at the Gregorian, Francesco Tata, former provincial of the Society of Jesus in Italy, and Piersandro Vanzan, a prominent writer for “La Civiltà Cattolica.” A scholar of Augustine, he is the author of books and of essays in theology journals.
Last week Fr. Bertacchini sent to Francis and to Cardinal Gerhard L. Müller, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, a six-page “memorandum” highly critical of the ideas presented in a recent interview with the new superior general of the Society of Jesus, the Venezuelan Arturo Sosa Abascal, who is very close to the pope.
They are ideas, writes Fr. Bertacchini, “of such gravity that they cannot be passed over in silence without becoming complicit in them,” because they threaten to “result in a Christianity without Christ.”
The complete text of the “memorandum” is on this other page of Settimo Cielo:
http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2017/03/29/promemoria-sull%E2%80%99intervista-del-generale-dei-gesuiti-circa-l%E2%80%99inattendibilita-dei-vangeli/
An abridgment of it is presented below.
The interview with the general of the Jesuits criticized by Fr. Bertacchini is the one given to the Swiss vaticanista Giuseppe Rusconi and published on the blog Rossoporpora
http://www.rossoporpora.org/rubriche/interviste-a-personalita/672-gesuiti-padre-sosa-parole-di-gesu-da-contestualizzare.html
last February 18, after the interview subject himself reviewed it word by word.
MEMORANDUM
On the interview with the general of the Jesuits on the reliability of the Gospels
by Roberto A. Maria Bertacchini
In February the general of the Jesuits gave an interview in which he insinuates that the words of Jesus on the indissolubility of marriage are not a point of theological stability, but rather a point of departure for doctrine, which must then be appropriately developed. This - taken to the extreme - could even lead to supporting the exact opposite, or the compatibility of divorce with Christian life. The initiative has in my view primed an explosive situation.
Of course, Arturo Sosa Abascal, SJ is very careful not to fall into outright heresy. And this, in a certain sense, is even more grave. It is therefore necessary to retrace the thread of his reasoning.
The question that he poses is whether the evangelists are reliable, and he says: it is necessary to discern. So it is not a given that they are [reliable]. Such a grave statement should be reasoned out at length and in depth, because it is indeed possible to admit error in a narrative detail; but to call into question the veracity
of doctrinal teachings of Jesus is another matter.
However it may be, our Jesuit does not get involved, but - very deftly - appeals to the pope. And since Francis, in dealing with couples that are separated etcetera, up to the time of the interview had never cited passages in which Jesus referred to the indissolubility of marriage, the implicit message of our Jesuit was glaring: if the pope does not cite those passages, it means that he has done discernment and maintains that they are not of Jesus. So they would not be binding. But all the popes have taught the opposite! What does it matter? They must be wrong. Or they must have said and taught things that were correct for their time, but not for ours.
Let it be clear: the eminent Jesuit does not say this “apertis verbis,” but he insinuates it, he lets it be understood. And so he gives a key of interpretation for the pope’s pastoral approach to the family that departs from the traditional teaching. In fact, today “we know” that very probably, or rather almost certainly, Jesus never taught that marriage is indissoluble. It is the evangelists who misunderstood.
A Christianity without Christ?
The question is of such gravity that it cannot be passed over in silence without becoming complicit in it. The danger is that this could result in a Christianity reductive of the message of Jesus, or a Christianity without Christ.
In the Gospel for the Mass of last February 24 there was the passage from Mk 10:2-12 on repudiation. So is it acceptable to think that it is not known if Jesus uttered those words, and that they are not binding?
The “sensus fidei” tells us that the evangelists are reliable.
However, our general of the Jesuits rejects this reliability, and in addition takes no interest in the fact that Saint Paul had also received this doctrine from the Church as being of Jesus, and handed it on as such to his communities: “To the husbands I order, not I but the Lord: the wife may not be separated from the husband, and if she separates, let her remain without remarrying or let her be reconciled with the husband, and the husband may not repudiate the wife” (1 Cor 7:10-11).
The consistency of this passage with the texts of the synoptic Gospels on repudiation and adultery is perfectly clear. And it would be absurd to imagine that these depend on Paul, and not on pre-Paschal traditions. Not only that. In Eph 5:22-33, Paul revisits the same teaching from Jesus and even reinforces it. He revisits it, because he cites the same passage of Genesis that is cited by Jesus; he reinforces it, because Christ loves the Church in an indissoluble way, to the point of giving his life, and beyond earthly life. And Paul makes this fidelity the model of conjugal fidelity.
Thus it is entirely clear that there is an evident continuity of teaching between pre-Paschal and post-Paschal preaching; and also clear is the discontinuity with Judaism, which instead kept the institution of repudiation. But if Saint Paul himself founds this discontinuity on Christ, does it make sense to bring the Gospels into question? From where comes that leap which inspired the practice of the ancient Church, if not from Christ?
It should be noted that divorce was also admitted in the Greco-Roman world, and in addition there existed the institution of concubinage, which could easily result in a subsequent conjugal union, as attested to for example by the experience of Saint Augustine. And in historiography the principle applies that cultural inertia does not change without cause. Therefore, the change being attested historically, what could be the cause if not Jesus? If this then was Christ, why doubt the reliability of the Gospels?
Finally, if Jesus did not speak those words, what is the source of the drastic comment from the disciples (“But then it is better not to marry!”) in Mt 19:10? Matthew was one of those disciples, and they do not come across well: they show themselves slow to understand and attached to the traditions that Jesus challenges.
So from a historiographical point of view, the pericope of Mt 19:3-12 is entirely reliable: and as much for reasons of internal criticism as of external.
The dogmatic context
Moreover, to state that it is not known if Jesus actually uttered those words and that, in essence, they are not binding is “de facto” a heresy, because it is a denial of the inspiration of Scripture. 2 Tim 3 is very clear: “All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, convincing, correcting, and training in righteousness.”
“All” evidently also includes Mt 19:3-12. Otherwise it is attested that there is an “other” word that prevails over Scripture itself and over its inspiration. In fact, affirming the unreliability of some words of Jesus is like opening a fissure in the dam of “fides quae,” a fissure that would lead to the collapse of the entire dam. I illustrate:
a) If Jesus did not say those words, the evangelists are not reliable. And if they are not reliable, they are not truthful; but if they are not truthful, neither can they be inspired by the Holy Spirit.
b) If Jesus did not say those words, must he really have said all the others that we take as good? Someone who is unreliable on one innovative question can be likewise on others, like the resurrection. And if, to give the priesthood to women, “La Civiltà Cattolica” does not hesitate to bring into question a solemn magisterium invoked as infallible, will there not be chaos? To what biblical authority can one appeal, if the exegetes themselves are perennially and ever more divided? This is the sense in which the dam collapses.
And that is not the end, because in following the doubts of the Jesuit general it is not only Saint Paul who is trodden underfoot, but also Vatican II. In fact, this is what it states in “Sacrosasnctum Concilium” 7:
“Christ is always present in His Church [. . .] He is present in His word, since it is He Himself who speaks when the holy scriptures are read in the Church.”
Since the passages on the indissolubility of marriage are read at Mass, and to be precise: Mk 10:2-12 on the Friday of the 7th week of ordinary time and on the 27th Sunday of year B, Mt 19:3-12 on the Friday of the 19th week of ordinary time, and Mt 5:27-32 on the Friday of the 10th week, it follows that Vatican II in a certain way attributes those words to the authority of Jesus.
Thus those who follow the doubts of the Jesuit general not only disavow Vatican II, and moreover in a dogmatic constitution, they also doubt Tradition to the point of making abstract and unattainable the very authority of Jesus as teacher. So we are facing a genuine carpet bombing, before which the firmest of reactions is absolutely necessary.
In conclusion, the transition from a religiosity of the law to one of discernment is sacrosanct, but it is full of pitfalls. It requires a Christian formation of an excellence that unfortunately is rare today. And also that one have true love and deference for the divine Word.
In any case, putting on a false front for the sake of the world with the sole aim of avoiding conflicts and persecutions is not only cowardly, it is completely outside of the Gospel, which demands frankness and fortitude in the defense of the Truth. Jesus did not fear the cross, nor did the apostles.
Saint Paul, moreover, is clear:“It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that would compel you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ” (Gal 6:12).
Being circumcised meant on the one hand going back to the religiosity recognized by Rome as legitimate, and on the other conforming to the mentality of the time. Saint Paul knows that the true circumcision is that of the heart, and he does not give in.
Carpi, March 19, 2017
One comment. In the complete text of the “Memorandum,” Fr. Bertacchini writes that on February 24, a few days after the publication of the interview with Fr. Sosa, Pope Francis “censured the positions of the Jesuit general” in dedicating his whole homily at Santa Marta - something he had never done before - to the passage of the Gospel of Mark with Jesus’s very clear words on marriage and divorce.
In the homily, according to Fr. Bertacchini, Francis contested Fr. Sosa’s doubts, emphasizing that “Jesus replied to the pharisees on repudiation, and therefore the evangelist is reliable.”
Properly speaking, however, Pope Francis’s comments on that passage of the Gospel of Mark appeared rather tortuous, to judge by the authorized accounts of the homily published by Vatican Radio and by “L'Osservatore Romano.”
At a certain point, however,
the pope even went so far as to say that “Jesus does not respond whether [repudiation] is licit or not licit.”
And even where the pope argues - correctly, Fr. Bertacchini writes - against what he calls “casuistry,” a contradiction arises. Because what is different about what “Amoris Laetitia” asks when it urges case-by-case discernment of whom to admit to communion and whom not, among the divorced and remarried who live “more uxorio”?