From The Catholic Thing:
Cardinal Hollerich’s scandalous rejection of the Church’s teaching on the grave immorality of homosexual acts will inevitably confirm people in sin by giving the false impression that the Church could be on the verge of changing her teaching, finally realizing – like Cardinal Hollerich – that this teaching, not sodomy, is wrong. Sodomy would no longer be a mortal sin, a grave misuse of the sexual faculty that offends God and leads others into sin. Rather, sodomy would now be recognized as part of God’s plan for mankind.
Cardinal Hollerich is the Relator General of the 2023 Synod on Synodality, now in its initial preparatory and consultative phase. Will he use that crucial role to foist his call for a “fundamental revision of Church teaching” about homosexual acts upon the Synod?
Cardinal Hollerich also misleads people by positing that Catholic teaching on morality is changeable because its truth is not founded upon divinely inspired Scripture, Tradition, or the natural law, but rather depends upon the ever-changing findings of “sociology and science.” The Church’s mission, handed on to the Apostles by Our Lord himself, is to transmit faithfully the deposit of faith. The truths of the deposit of faith can never be contradicted by any true finding of human science. Reason and revelation, the Church teaches, work in harmony and not in opposition to each other.
Cardinal Hollerich has betrayed the obligations he freely assumed when he accepted ordination as a bishop, when he was given the charge of being an authoritative “teacher of doctrine.” (canon 378, §1) He now calls for a “fundamental revision of Church teaching.” This is the perennial quest of heretics from Arius to the Modernists. It is a vain conceit, involving a tragic embrace of the lie promised in the first temptation: “and you will be like God.” (Genesis 3:5) (Read more.)
Why is doctrine important? From Conservative Woman:
All opinions cannot be equally valid. If we want to discover which opinions we should trust, we would be wise to consult the expert. When I wanted to get something clear about astrophysics, I had a long telephone conversation with Professor Roger Penrose. Twenty years ago, when I wanted to understand how the series of overtones in music determined the different characters of the keys, I asked our organist. Ah, but people think this sensible method doesn’t apply to religion – because they suppose religion to be so nebulous that no one can know the truth about it. People really think that religion is something that you feel. So you might as well put St Paul and L Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, in the same bag.
But there is such a thing as absolute truth in religion and it is the most important kind of truth: for what you believe about religion is what you believe ultimately. Your religion is your set of absolute presuppositions – that is what faith is. Your whole outlook, how you construct the world depends upon what you believe fundamentally: that is your religion. Truth in religion is a matter of life or death. If you think that two plus two equals seven, you’ll end up out of pocket. If you go to Tunbridge Wells by way of Iceland, you’ll end up worse than disgusted – you’ll be freezing. If you get your religious doctrine wrong, your life will be a mess in this world and the next.
It is the doctrinal framework of Christianity which has helped us form so many good things and avoid mistakes. It was Christian doctrine which made science possible. Don’t take my word for it. A N Whitehead, co-author with Bertrand Russell of Principia Mathematica, the most important treatment of the subject since Newton, wrote: ‘There is but one source for science: It must come from the Medieval insistence on the rationality of God.’
The faith also made modern music possible. (And no, I don’t mean that stuff). It began in the Middle Ages in French monasteries. The faith made rational politics possible because the Incarnation gave rise to the concept of institutions as personalities beyond the prejudice and self-interest of the political parties. I want to give two examples to show why truth matters in religion and the disastrous consequences when you get it wrong.
First, in the Middle Ages, there was a religious sect in southern Europe known as the Cathars or the Albigensians. Their beliefs had certain superficial resemblances to Christianity. To cut a long story short, after centuries of trouble, Christian armies suppressed the Cathars. Now when you read some modern books about this period, you find it’s frequently said that the Christians were needlessly severe on the Cathars – after all, it was only a matter of doctrine.
Yes, it was a matter of doctrine. But there’s no ‘only’ about it. Here are some of the things the Cathars believed: they rejected the Old Testament and the Fathers; they believed that God and the devil were equal; that the Body of Christ was not a real body; that the Christian Sacraments were satanic symbols; that churches were the abode of evil spirits; they rejected Baptism, because they thought water was made by the devil; they didn’t believe in Original Sin; the Cathars’ leaders described themselves as The Perfect and The Good. Clearly, the differences between the Cathars and the Christians were not trivial.
In fact, it was a fight to the death. If the Cathars had won, Europe and eventually the whole western world would have followed a path to catastrophe: because what you believe about God and the world has historical consequences that determine the very nature of your civilisation. Catharism was not a civilisation: as R G Collingwood said, it was a barbarism.
My second example is from even further back, from the 4th century, and goes by the name of Arianism. Arius was a theologian who taught that Christ was not, as St John’s Gospel tells us, the Eternal Word, but was created by God and was inferior to God. Arius used to go around spreading this message in a little ditty in Greek: ayn pote hote ouk ayn which means: ‘There was a time when he, Christ, was not,’ whereas the Nicene Creed says that Christ is eternal, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father. (Read more.)
Is Vatican II "spent"? From The Catholic Thing:
ShareI don’t deny the validity of Vatican II, of course, or its immense importance. I’ve read every document and wholeheartedly affirm every line. I’ve even read all the “post-conciliar” documents, and Karol Wojtyla’s Sources of Renewal besides. I’ve written many essays and given many talks on the Council. I’ve even made a fresh translation of one of its decrees. You’d be hard-pressed to find ten Catholics who have studied the Council more thoroughly than I have (“not brag, just fact” – John Wayne). And yet now I find myself wondering, increasingly every day, if the Council is not in some sense “spent.”
I will give you my upbeat reason first. Consider any association (the Church is in several respects an association), and let it adopt resolutions over how to change and improve, and then assign it the best possible leader, who understood these resolutions better than anyone – someone, in fact, who had already embodied them. Moreover, shower that leader with all kinds of divine assistance, and give him the longest possible tenure for implementing them, and the widest audience. Now, I think most of us would say: well, that’s it. Whatever is the result – that’s the effect that that association should reasonably expect from its self-examination and its resolutions.
You see the point. Vatican II understood itself as a “pastoral Council.” Something pastoral is practical. Something practical is like a force that is exerted and applied within definite limits. Or liken it to seed that is sown (Our Lord’s image). Its effect depends upon receptivity, and a whole lot of other things. But a pastoral intervention has a definite and limited effect, by the nature of the case. So then, regard it as positive, or as depressingly meager perhaps. But why isn’t it the case that the energy and insight of Vatican II is already spent, that the harvest from the Council is now clear? And it consists, in a word, of whatever lasting effects come from the pontificate of John Paul II.
As a digression, I note that although John Paul II wrote no magisterial document without supporting nearly every line with a reference to the Council, Benedict had largely stopped citing the Council (of the 40 footnotes in Spe Salvi, for instance, there isn’t a single reference to a Conciliar document).
And do we see evidence that the Council is “used up” in practices of Catholics? I find for my own part that whereas thirty years ago I might have enthusiastically placed Gaudium et Spes in the hands of a student under my guidance, now I’ll recommend St. Augustine, St. Francis de Sales, St. John Vianney, or simply the Gospels as leading to the best practical effects.
But now I’ll give you four “dismal” reasons why it’s spent, and why it is therefore good to regard it as spent. (Read more.)
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