Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 1:32am

PopeWatch: Cardinal Koch

 

VATICAN-POPE-AUDIENCE

 

There seems to be a growing trend of Orthodox Cardinals standing up for the faith.  Father Z, via Lifesite News, brings us the latest:

His Eminence Kurt. Card. Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity (Card. Kasper’s old billet), has firmly rejected the progressivist notions which Card. Müller called “absolutely anti-Catholic”.  From LifeSite with my emphases and comments:

Vatican cardinal tells German bishops: We can’t adapt the faith to the times like Christians did under the Nazis

ROME, March 26, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An influential Swiss cardinal at the Vatican has warned Germany’s bishops that the Church cannot merely adapt itself to the times as some Christians did in order to support the Nazis.

In an interview with the German Catholic newspaper Die Tagespost, Cardinal Kurt Koch firmly (but politely) refuted the proposal of Cardinal Reinhard Marx and Bishop Franz-Josef Bode, both delegates to the upcoming Synod on the Family, that the Catholic Church has to adjust herself more to the “life realities” of Catholics today, and liberalize its attitude toward remarried divorcees. Cardinal Marx had even declared that the German bishops will make their pastoral decisions independently of Rome.  [Boooo!]

Cardinal Koch’s comments followed a strong rebuke of Cardinal Marx by German Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes. “A Cardinal cannot easily separate the pastoral approach from the teaching,” Cardinal Cordes said, “unless he wants to ignore the binding meaning of Christ’s words and the binding words of the Council of Trent.”

Cardinal Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said that Bode’s words should remind us of a similar historical situation: namely the time of the Third Reich, where the “German Christians” adjusted their faith to the worldview of National Socialism, namely its racist and nationalistic ideas. [Wow.  That will get their attention.] He said: “Let us think of the ‘German Christians’ during the time of National Socialism, when, next to the Holy Scripture, they also raised up the Nation and the Race as sources of revelation, against which the Theological Declaration of Barmen (1934) [which rejected the submission of the Protestant churches under the state] protested. We have to differentiate very carefully here and listen with sensitivity to the signs of the times – and to the spirit that reveals itself in these signs: Which ones are signs of the Gospel, which ones are not?”

With this comment, Koch made clear that it is not the Catholic Church’s mission to adapt her irreformable teaching to the spirit of the time, the Zeitgeist, but, rather, the Church has to follow Christ’s teaching at all times, throughout history.

In this context, it is wise to point to that part of German history, where many Christians, mainly Protestants of the movement called “German Christians,” subjected parts of Christ’s teaching under the ideology of Adolf Hitler. Such an adaptation might have sounded convincing at the time, but there will also always be a “time after,” where many Christians then had to regret their inordinate submission to such a false teaching.

In reference to our own time, we can apply Cardinal Koch’s words and determine not to adapt to a morally lax atmosphere that has spread throughout the Western world since the cultural revolution of the 1960s, which now also permeates more and more of the culture of the Catholic Church. The standard of Christ is still applicable now, and will always be – it is timely, and timeless.

[NB] Cardinal Koch thus insisted that it is dangerous to declare “life realities” as a third source of revelation: “To see how and in which way people are living their Faith today, is of course helpful and important, in order to recognize the challenges of the pastoral duties of the Church. However, this [the “life realities”] cannot be a third reality of the revelation next to Holy Scripture and the Magisterium.”

Go here to read the comments.  Lay orthodox Catholics can sometimes feel alone.  We are never alone.  God is ever at our side, and He has given us good shepherds who are now standing up against the wolves.

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Philip
Philip
Friday, March 27, AD 2015 4:09am

Excellent!
“…but there will also always be a time after where many Christians then had to regret their inordinate submission to such
a false teaching.”

Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro!

Don Lond
Don Lond
Friday, March 27, AD 2015 4:52am

Good, take away his seat at the council and let him be “independent” all he wants.

Paul W Primavera
Friday, March 27, AD 2015 5:27am

Nuncium Excellens.

Lionel Andrades
Lionel Andrades
Friday, March 27, AD 2015 6:38am

“…but there will also always be a time after where many Christians then had to regret their inordinate submission to such
a false teaching.”

No donations to organisations that are pro- abortion but on the issue of salvation, dogmas , Vatican Council II they would welcome donations to LifeSites, whose editor dissents

http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2015/03/no-donations-to-organisations-that-are.html

cpola
cpola
Friday, March 27, AD 2015 7:56am

In the papal encyclical Officio Sanctissimo Leo XIII speaks directly to the Church in Bavaria (Germany). In today’s crisis every Catholic in Germany should read the letter.
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo13/l13bav.htm
http://popeleo13.com/pope/2015/03/03/category-archive-message-board-271-encyclical-officio-sanctissimo/
.
Is it not then a scandal to hear today (2015), some prominent Germans Catholic Cardinals showing disdain for the received dogma of the Catholic Faith and claiming independence on matters of doctrine and dogma.
And in this case doctrines and dogma that have always been taught throughout the 2000 year history of the Catholic Church; indeed throughout the 4000 year history of Divine Revelation of the redemption of Man.

cpola
cpola
Friday, March 27, AD 2015 8:00am

However kudos to Cardinal Koch.
Although the jury is still out; and I am watching closely events in Germany. With these folks we can not afford to lower our guard.

Foxfier
Admin
Friday, March 27, AD 2015 1:41pm

Shorter Cardinal: ‘you guys do remember that a rather important guy refused to walk-back a tough saying because it was true, right?’

Shawn Marshall
Shawn Marshall
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 5:07am

What a mess PF has made.

trackback
Thursday, April 2, AD 2015 1:18pm

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