Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver asks a very pertinent question in regard to the Synod in an article which appears in the National Catholic Register:
The idea that Catholics should be allowed to remarry and receive communion did not begin with the letter signed by Cardinal Kasper and other members of the German episcopate in 1993. Another country’s episcopate – England’s – pioneered this experiment in Christian doctrine nearly 500 years ago. At stake then was not just whether any Catholic could remarry, but whether the king could, since his wife had not borne him a son.
As with those who advocate for communion for the civilly remarried, the English bishops were uncomfortable with embracing divorce and remarriage outright. Instead, they chose to bend the law to the individual circumstances of the case with which they were confronted, and King Henry VIII was granted an “annulment” — on a fraudulent basis and without the sanction of Rome.
If “heroism is not for the average Christian,” as the German Cardinal Walter Kasper has put it, it certainly wasn’t for the King of England. Instead, issues of personal happiness and the well-being of a country made a strong utilitarian argument for Henry’s divorce. And the King could hardly be bothered to skip communion as the result of an irregular marriage.
England’s Cardinal Wolsey and all the country’s bishops, with the exception of Bishop John Fisher of Rochester, supported the king’s attempt to undo his first – and legitimate – marriage. Like Fisher, Thomas More a layman and the king’s chancellor, also withheld his support. Both were martyred – and later canonized.
In publicly advocating that the king’s marriage was indissoluble, Fisher argued that “this marriage of the king and queen can be dissolved by no power, human or Divine.” For this principle, he said, he was willing to give his life. He continued by noting that John the Baptist saw no way to “die more gloriously than in the cause of marriage,” despite the fact that marriage then “was not so holy at that time as it has now become by the shedding of Christ’s Blood.”
Like Thomas More and John the Baptist, Fisher was beheaded, and like them, he is called “saint.”
At the Synod on the Family taking place right now in Rome, some of the German bishops and their supporters are pushing for the Church to allow those who are both divorced and remarried to receive communion, while other bishops from around the world are insisting that the Church cannot change Christ’s teaching. And this begs a question: Do the German bishops believe that Sts. Thomas More and John Fischer sacrificed their lives in vain?
Go here to read the rest. Well yes, actually. The German bishops, except for some very honorable exceptions, seemed to have decided to commemorate the first Reformation by holding a second one. Their Reformation, as did the first one, would make a new Church that is the slave of the zeitgeist of rulers and the chattering classes of the West from which rulers are drawn. Away with Catholicism with its rules! Bring in a deism called Catholicism that will betray the teachings of Christ in the Gospel while keeping the surface rituals. An empty Faith for faithless and empty men. Such is the path that a majority of the German bishops, and all too many bishops, that is your cue Archbishop Cupich, would have us trod.
I have long seen that the pastoral practices on the ground have undermined what used to be Catholic teaching regarding marriage.
Consequently, I no longer attend Mass or participate in the Sacraments.
When I formally sought the direct intervention of Bishop Burbidge in our long wounded marriage, asking him to excommunicate my wife if she declined to repent and to attempt to undo the damage of her 25 years of adultery(after she withdrew from her second annulment attempt), and he declined through his judicial vicar, it drove home to me that the Catholic Church is finished, at least the one I grew up in.
I do not want to belittle your faithfulness, Don. Please do not take this post as shot at you. I simply have had enough of a duplicitous hierarchy.
Karl I sympathize with you. The duplicity is also there concerning active homosexual in the seminaries, priesthood and episcopate.
As regards Archbishop Aquila’s statements?. Not just about the indissolubility of marriage but also the primacy of Peter.
Calling such a perversion of the faith as the Kasperites and their Vatican supporters wish to do, would be tantamount to calling Bill Clinton’s marriage a faithful one.
Who benefits from a religion that essentially worships false gods of the flesh while pretending chastity?
“I simply have had enough of a duplicitous hierarchy.’
Karl:
It is no different than the Church that Christ belonged to. His enemies were not Caesar, not gentiles, but the Pharisees and Sadducees (bishops and cardinals anyone?) that were corrupting God’s holy temple. In fact, he not only hand-picked Judas Iscariot, but sent him out to preach anyway. I’d never leave the Holy church and its grace-giving Sacraments because, as always, there are corrupt sinners running much of it. Why lose my soul, because other choose to lose theirs?
“Consequently, I no longer attend Mass or participate in the Sacraments.”
I hate reading comments like this. If you believe what the Church teaches is the Truth, the duplicity and cowardice of the men who happen to occupy the hierarchy at a certain point in time cannot alter the Truth. Remember Belloc’s quote that it is actually proof of the divine foundations of the Church that it has lasted for 2,000 years while being run with such knavish imbecility.
Your wife and Bishop Burbidge will have their days of reckoning. Why do you want to put yourself in the position of standing before Christ one day and having to explain to Him that you rejected His Church because of what other flawed human beings did?
Karl, I too am disappointed in Bishop Burbidge. He has become quite the politician. He isn’t really bad like Cupich, but we clearly have far too few stalwart bishops like Athanasius Schhneider of Kazakhstan or Aquila to whom this post is devoted.
BTW, Henry VIII went from being Defensor Fidei over his opposition to Lutheranism to being a heretic and adulterer. The Anglicans have always wanted to be a 3rd choice between Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy. But because they are buiilt on the work of a heretic and an adulterer, they are nothing as witnessed by the collapse of the Anglican Communion and the plethora of little Anglican jursidictions all over the place. I even had an argument with a pro-nuke blogger who ironically and oxymornically is a liberal progressive and thus an Episcopalian. When I pointed out Pope Leo’s XIII’s declaration of nullity of Anglican orders, and Henry VIII’s foundation of adultery, he said that because those events are 19th and 16th century respectively, they are irrelevant. History before the moment of their birth means nothing too these people. Truth means nothing. So I say, abandon them to their devices. St Paul would have turned these people over to satan for the destruction of their flesh as he did to that sex pervert in 1st Corinthians chapter 5.
We must look beyond, past the poor shepherds to Our Lord Himself. He died to give us the Sacramental life. The graces to be had from living that life and participating in the sacraments can be had no where else. The devil let a man be as a roadblock to some because of their behavior, sometimes sinful. But a man, even a bishop, must not be allowed to derail us from what helps us to our goal which is heaven. For many decades now, faithful Catholics in many places have suffered at the hands of prelates. It is a heavy cross. But because of a gay and a narcissistic priest, I learned the Traditional Latin Mass. If there is an FSSP parish close by, that is worth a try. And I the coming year the SSPX priests have been given the green light to hear confessions. Although they are in an irregular canonical state, the Masses are valid (but illicit but then how many novus ordo Mass are the same?)
Magdalene.
“Because of a gay and narcissistic priest…”
Interesting isn’t it? This priest was a springboard for you to seek and find a treasure within our worship. Is that how it happened? I’m reading it that way.
Like you, I too am blessed to participate in the TLM. What a true renewal!
God help the struggling priesthood.
“heroism is not for the average Christian,” Seems same applies to the average bishop/cardinal.
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Maybe trying to live in Faith, Hope and Love (also fortitude, justice, prudence, temperance) are possible for the average Christian. And, when (we all fall) one fails, one picks oneself up, repents, confesses, does penance, amends one’s life, and through good works glorifies God Almighty though His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
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Assuming the Synod Against the Family has its fay/gay way, the following thought (claxons!) comes to mind, ‘The Gospels are not for the average Christian.”
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I’ve been married over 37 years, three of the best days of my life. We are fallen and we live in a “Valley of tears.” Our hope and our home are not of this World. The vows were for better or for worse, etc. We came close to breaking up a number of times. I’m a conservative, old fashioned guy. Unless she threw me out, dumping the wife would be hugely against charity. So, even if I didn’t remarry, I would be a big sinner (In my book).
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Bottom line: We all make choices. Here the issue is remarriage and worldly comforts/joys versus the rewards of eternal life. The bishops can’t rescind those choices.
I may have been living in a cave but I’m just now discovering and choking on Cordinal Kasper’s statement that heroism is not for the average Christian. Doesn’t that just pull back the curtain and expose the elitism and arrogance of liberal theology? “Don’t worry your pretty little heads about facing sacrificial Christian living…we’ll do the heavy lifting for you so you can give lip service to God and hedge your bets against hell.” Notice that heroism is now largely defined as keeping your pants up. Sheesh…
?Grammy! :
” Doesn’t that just pull back the curtain and expose the elitism and arrogance of liberal theology … Notice that heroism is now largely defined as keeping your pants up”
Gay Pride!
Does anyone remember the Hurricane that tore through New Orleans a few years back?
Interestingly the big Gay Bash to be held that year was postponed because of the storm…I know… I know….just a coincidence.
One of these days it will be without a doubt, a good incidence will shake at the very core of our existence. The very core. God will not be mocked forever.
To Philip – Revelation 8:10-11
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https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/1-500-foot-asteroid-flying-past-earth-halloween-201222859.html
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Sooner or later something WILL happen: asteroid, Yellowstone supervolcano, Carrington event solar storm, etc. The clock ticks and God’s mercy for the unborn will become God’s justice for the rest of us.
Paul.
The trumpet will sound! It’s only when.
I have never heard the strange noises that have been reported throughout the continent in the past few years, however one wonders if these are warnings. At least I wonder.
Regardless, my last breath could be today, so being prepared is essential.
BTW….interesting that NASA didn’t see this one coming until just a couple of weeks ago.
Asteroid that is.
The solar burp or Yellowstone’s belch… one way or another the birth pangs will increase.
sorry..but one more please. At this very moment I’m told the belching of Hillary has begun. May the truth come out.
Go get her Trey Gowdy.
We do not know the day or time, so we keep our spiritual “houses” in order.
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I prefer that asteroid strike to a Hillary reign.
T. Shaw.
Good point.
Much less damage from the asteroid.
How is the investigation going?
I’m unable to c-span.
Working stiff dilemma don’t cha-know.
Madama Hillary lies in such a facile manner. I’m trying to keep track of the markets on Fox Business and have to listen to constant distortions, exaggerations, fabrications, false equivalencies, fantasies, fictions, misdirects, non sequiturs, omissions, and projections of fell immorality.\
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Sadly, the press will lie for her and the imbeciles that bacj her will not be swayed.
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My hope is the asteroid strike or that there exist fewer Hillary-worshipping imbeciles than I fear.
Thanks T Shaw.
Lies? Hillary?
Haaa ha hooo he haaa.
You can’t be serious!
She is the most trustworthy woman in the political sphere. Just ask her. She’ll tell ya with that fat JOKER face of hers. Oops.
That was not Christian of me.
What I should of said was, she’ll tell ya with that fat joker face of hers.
Much better.
Whatever Hillary says does not contain the kernel of truth found in the common lie.
That was beautifully said, and worth another go; “Whatever Hillary says does not contain the kernel of truth found in the common lie.”
Bingo!
YouTube’s a pattern of Hillary Clinton’s Lies by ablueview is almost funny if it wasn’t for the possibility of her to continue to lie to us in the future…as President. Not funny.
I had difficulty trying to link it, but it capture’s some less than heroic moments for HC.