A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

The push is on to redefine Catholic practice on divorce, bigamy April 15, 2014

Before I leave for a much needed break during this holiest of weeks, I would feel negligent if I did not share this excellent article which summarizes the maneuvering ongoing at the highest levels of the Church regarding Cardinal Kasper’s seemingly highly dangerous push to radically redefine Catholic Dogma on marriage, divorce, bigamy, and reception of the Blessed Sacrament, while pretending to leave that same Dogma “in place.”  The goal is change the practice while pretending to leave the Dogmas untouched.  This is impossible.  It pretends to separate belief from practice: in theological terms, orthodoxy (right belief), from orthopraxis (right action).

That this entire push is hinged on a silly proposition (the early Church permitted divorce!  Wrong.) that has already been shown to be incredibly, demonstrably false, is all the more disconcerting.

The article was originally published in the German site Katholisches.  Some of the translation is rough.  The article is also very long, much of which is recapping events of the past 6 months or so.  But the portion that discusses the February consistory, whence Cardinal Kasper’s erroneous proposition was first broached, then ridiculed, is very important.  I am going to try to clean up some of the translation from Tancred, if he doesn’t mind:

Pope Francis, however, despite substantive silence, the one who has called the Synods of Bishops on the topic of family. With his consent,  his new secretary of the Synod of Bishops, the present Cardinal Baldisseri, has directed a questionnaire to all the bishops of the world. Dealing with the questionnaire has made visible ​​the determination progressive pressure groups who want to change the Catholic moral teaching. Even so, it did not lead to rethinking in Rome. The path continues. Instead,  Pope Francis commissioned Cardinal Walter Kasper,   with a lecture at the cardinal consistory in late February. Neutrality is different.[I think this is saying, this was not a neutral presentation.  Kasper’s talk was engineered as a showcase for his modernist novelties, without rebuttal]  For a proper debate about balance and to signal that,  the pope could have appointed two speakers of different perspectives. For the dutiful defense of Catholic teaching on marriage, he would have to employ  an orthodox  advocate for the Doctrine of the Faith. But nothing of the sort occurred. The Pope decided on Cardinal Kasper, whose unorthodox position on the issue has been known at least since the 90s.  A position that was rejected by both  Pope Benedict XVI., and  previously Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Just as they have  now been rejected by today’s Prefect,  Gerhard  Ludwig Müller, Cardinal before the consistory. We may recognize in the papal decision in favoring Kasper,  a unilateral advocacy, and in Cardinal Kasper if not the voice of the Pope, so at least a trial balloon, which was allowed to ascend, to test the reactions and resistances. [This is an interpretation.  Is it correct? I tend to think it may well be, but it’s difficult to say.  It was very strange that Cardinal Kasper was given the opportunity to, more or less, evangelize the cardinals on his novelty, without presentation of any opposing view. It was also clear Pope Francis was communicating his strong support for Cardinal Kasper’s views]

The partisanship engaged unambiguous underlining  in effusive praise for Kasper, which  Pope Francis on the morning after his speech to the cardinals formulated his response.  The reaction to Kasper’s oratory, in whom there was a cunningly palatable formula,  was quite energetic. Against the horse trading suggested by  the German theologian   (to pretend that everything remains the same, but in reality, everything would change), protest arose more loudly. The most vocal of the Cardinals in the discussion disagreed with Kasper.

With fanatical  praise it was obvious the Pope wanted to rush to the rescue of the German Cardinal. The downright ecstatic, but not very believable assertion that the strategy   formulated by Kasper – a strategy formulated precisely to get rid of the Church’s teaching on marriage – is at a crucial point “theology on his knees”, makes it hard to deny representing the Pope’s  closeness  to  Kasper’s new course.  [Many took that to be an endorsement, especially among the cardinals who were there]

……..I’ll condense a bit, you can read the original at the link above.  The article then goes on to note the perplexing fact that the cardinals in attendance had absolute silence imposed on them regarding the discussions at the Synod, but then someone obviously close to Kasper and/or Pope Francis leaked the text.  The article posits this was done to use the tactic of poisoning the well, which posits that he who gets his message out first, tends to dominate the debate.  Was such intentional?  Who knows, but it would be far from unprecedented from some of this crowd, including Kasper, to use procedural tricks they then, suddenly, exempt themselves from, to shape a debate to their own advantage.

However, forestalling this advantage, the Italian daily Il Foglio that was to publish Kasper’s talk, first (and very responsibly, I might add) engaged an “opposition” to provide a contrary viewpoint. Thus, Kasper’s text appeared side by side with the great Roberto de Mattei’s rebuttal. This apparently sent Kasper into a rage – if the article is correct.  Picking back up:

Kasper foamed. Even days later, he gave his anger free reign in an interview with Vatican Radio.  Apparently, in a modification of the original intent and as a countermeasure to the Foglio strike he now  had published  even in the Osservatore Romano, the semi-official newspaper of the Vatican, the final copy of Kasper’s and the Preface to the speech, now currently under pressure.

The Osservatore Romano could be relied upon to offer   strong praise from  Pope Francis to  Kasper, after numerous cardinals had taken their position against remarried divorcees. This praise opened the privilege to the German cardinal to be printed in  L’Osservatore Romano, which would hardly have been possible without such consent of the Pope.

Kasper’s position should therefore be given visibility and authority within the Church. The confidentiality obligation was and is still obvious to all cardinals and their contributions to the discussion in the Consistory, with a single exception: Walter Kasper. Only for him did Pope Francis lift  the obligation to secrecy. Why such a privilege when all the “opinions” are taken into account? The Pope hung a muzzle so that all the Cardinals who defended the Catholic doctrine on the sacrament of marriage,   and allowed only   the dissenting opinion the right to speak. This is a one-sided preference for a certain position and the disability of another equal.

The result was that not only the Osservatore Romano , but also other official Church media, especially the newspapers of some Episcopal Conferences felt obliged to reprint Kasper. In contrast to Il Foglio , however, they lacked any counter position. The only one that was granted  the exclusive right to raise his voice in the daily newspaper of the Holy See was Kasper. All the other cardinals and their speeches in the consistory have been kept silent.  [Perhaps I’m just too jaded, but I have a hard time not seeing in all this some orchestrated campaign to endorse Kasper’s modernist gambit and keep opposing views from print as much as possible.]

. ———-End Quote————

Obviously a lot of inside baseball. But it has all the makings of a very debauched realpolitik power struggle being played out in public, with Church Dogma basically held hostage by a progressive agenda seeking to advance their radical vision for the Church – a vision which after being partially implemented wreaked utter devastation.

The article ends with discussion of the completely discredited 1977 study which pretended to suddenly discover, magically, like!, that the early Church was just fine and dandy with bigamists receiving the Blessed Sacrament.  The article points out the very strange coincidence that this unmissed and almost entirely forgotten book from 1977 suddenly – also magically, like! –  was republished late last year.  Just in time for the consistory and upcoming Synod, just when Kasper was ready for his big push.

The political aspects of this are such that it is truly trying to the Faith, seeing just how much materialist will-to-power is on display.  A great exhibition of leftism in action, but within the Church.

I should end with one clear note: what is really being debated here is not so much divorce or remarriage, but whether public sinners can be admitted to the Blessed Sacrament.  No one is going to “undo” Christ’s very clear guidance to us: remarriage while your spouse is still alive constitutes bigamy and adultery (yes, we have American annulment factories, but that’s a whole different topic). So what is being debated is whether it’s OK for those who persist in an objective state of mortal sin and in a public manner be allowed to blaspheme the Blessed Sacrament. You probably should read the whole thing.