“Love is all you need”
CNA reports:
After years of both direct and indirect remarks on the subject, German Cardinal Reinhard Marx issued his most direct statement yet in favor of offering Communion to the divorced-and-remarried.
In an Oct. 14 address to his fellow bishops from around the world, gathered at the Synod in Rome, he said that “we should seriously consider the possibility – based on each individual case and not in a generalizing way – to admit civilly divorced and remarried believers to the sacrament of Penance and Holy Communion.”
Now, this Cardinal is not really breaking new ground in terms of FrancisChurch. Many important clerics have suggested this in the past two years. If you’re lucky and discerning enough to obtain news of the Catholic Church you know that the Pope himself has signaled his agreement dozens of times.
This should be permitted, he continued, “when the shared life in the canonically valid marriage definitively has failed and the marriage cannot be annulled, the liabilities from this marriage have been resolved, the fault for breaking up the marital lifebond was regretted and the sincere will exists to live the second civil marriage in faith and to educate children in the Faith.”
Cardinal Marx’s statement follows years of increased calls from several of the German bishops for a change in the Church’s rules.
In the U.S. Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago has been even more bold.
“If people come to a decision in good conscience then our job is to help them move forward and to respect that. The conscience is inviolable and we have to respect that when they make decisions, and I’ve always done that.”
That’s true. He has always done that. Cupich has more, and it follows logically:
“I think that gay people are human beings too and they have a conscience. And my role as a pastor is to help them to discern what the will of God is by looking at the objective moral teaching of the Church and yet, at the same time, helping them through a period of discernment to understand what God is calling them to at that point,” he said. “It’s for everybody. I think that we have to make sure that we don’t pigeonhole one group as though they are not part of the human family, as though there’s a different set of rules for them. That would be a big mistake.”
If conscience is all, then adultery can be fine. So can gay sex as far as Holy Communion goes. But why do these powerful bishops think that this entirely new Catholic idea is good? Do they presume that Our Lord would approve of their change after the faithful have believed otherwise for thousands of years? Why must we hold along with Marx that something is good now when it was bad then?
The Cardinal gives us a hint:
“The reason given for this is that civilly divorced and remarried believers objectively live in continued adultery and thus in contradiction to what is shown symbolically in the Eucharist, the faithfulness of Christ to his Church,” he said.
However, he questioned, “does this response do justice to the situation of those affected? And is this necessary from a theological point of view of the sacrament? Can people who are seen to be in a state of grave sin, really feel that they wholly belong to us?”
Liberals throw words around like blankets to smother the truth. They say “justice” when they want to do some injustice, they cite theology when they want to violate it, and they claim to be merciful when they want to do some cruel harm.
It’s also quite callous and telling to open with, “The reason given,” as if everything the Church teaches must have some practical justification and this excuse was laid upon us by an overbearing monster eons ago. “is that remarried believers objectively live in continued adultery and thus in contradiction to what is shown symbolically in the Eucharist”
Is this why adulterous couples are not permitted to Holy Communion, because it screws up the symbol? Is the Blessed Sacrament about transmitting some positive message?
Can people who are seen to be in a state of grave sin, really feel that they wholly belong to us?”
“Who are seen” to be in a state of grave sin? Does he believe that they are?
Can they “really feel that they wholly belong to us?”
No. They can’t really feel that way, and they can’t think it either because it’s not true. They don’t wholly belong to us. Sin separates, and the Church Militant, Suffering, and Triumphant are united in grace. This is the Faith.
But Cardinal Marx, Archbishop Cupich, and Pope Francis, simply by their statements alone regardless of their many actions and omissions, are not so united. They don’t comprise the true Church because they are removed at least by their heresy if not their other sins. When these Protestants who reject Church teaching yet rule over it receive Holy Communion, they do so to their condemnation. That is why they want to whole world to follow suit.
Why do sinners desire approval so desperately from faithful people? Why must we all be forced condone illicit families and gay sex? What difference does it make what we think if we aren’t really involved? It’s something to do with the nature of evil.
We have been cursed with a heretic ensconced above the Church, while a good pope sits forced-out and imprisoned nearby. We tolerated men like this as they suppressed the Holy Mass of the Apostles, and used Council documents to teach lies as if they were doctrine. They emptied the Churches and the souls of men and filled the ranks with fiends and heretics. What did we expect, that God would transform men who hate him into a conclave full of Christians?
For one reason or another we now have a ‘pope’ who is not one of us. Neither are most of the bishops. Anyone who preaches societal suicide and thievery as public policy and calls it ‘Catholic social justice teaching’ is an evil crook not a Christian.
There are questions about whether Francis is pope. They are legitimate under the circumstances. Marx, Cupich, and others were made bishops by popes in our time. I can’t judge their canonical status. What I do know is that they’re not actually Catholic because they don’t hold the Faith, nor do they teach it. They don’t belong to the true Church of Christ. Rather, they are outside it just like the sinners for who they claim to care so mercifully.
If we are ever going to have a Church that grows, not one that decomposes, we have to stop thinking of men like these as Catholic. We must have nothing to do with them because they are on their way to Hell, and we can’t get caught in their wake. It’s not “accompaniment.” It’s being an accomplice. But you may say, “It’s the Church, it’s the Church. That’s St. Peter’s Basilica!”
You will see The Awful Horror standing in the place where he should not be.
Francis and his false bishops should refrain from Communion and repent themselves. Then maybe they’ll be in position to decide ‘pastoral’ policy. Until then they require our contempt, not our allegiance.