Cardinal Marx amenable to blessing homosexual unions
if local pastors so decide for 'concrete' cases
by Maike Hickson
February 3, 2018
Cardinal Reinhard Marx , president of the German Bishops’ Conference, has suggested he is open to the idea of a blessing to homosexual couples from the German Catholic Church.
In an interview with the Bavarian radio station Bayerischer Rundfunk BR, today, Cardinal Marx refers to Pope Francis’s call to accompany people more closely in their individual lives, in calling for more pastoral care for homosexuals.
Asked about the question of a blessing for homosexual couples that has been proposed by a German bishop, Marx answered “that we be pastorally closer to those [such as homosexuals] who are also in need of that pastoral care and who desire it.”
We also have to give encouragement for priests and pastoral caretakers to encourage people in concrete situations. I really do not see any problem with that. The question is how to do this publicly, in a liturgical form, i.e., where one has to be reticent and also act in a good way. [If the idea is all that good and commendable, why be 'reticent' about it? Don't you have the courage to act it out without pretense or subterfuge?
When asked whether he could imagine such a blessing for homosexual couples
[but isn't that the specific concrete situation he has been discussing?], Cardinal Marx answered: “There are no general solutions; I do not consider it [a general solution] to be right, because it is about the pastoral care for individuals... (when there are cases) where we do not have a rule”.
This I really have to leave up to the local pastor 'accompanying' an individual. One can think about this through dialogue — and right now, there is taking place such a discussion [raised by the Vice President of the German Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Franz-Josef Bode] — about how we could deal with this matter. But I would say I would leave this strongly in the hands of the local pastor, in every concrete situation, and not to demand rules in this matter. There are things that cannot be regulated.
With these still somewhat vague words (which seems to characterize Marx’s speech) favoring a decentralized approach, the cardinal appears to be open to the idea of priests blessing homosexual couples according to their discretion.
Such a blessing was proposed last month Mons. Bode, who said:
“We have to reflect upon the question as to how to assess in a differentiated manner a relationship between two homosexual persons... Is there not so much positive and good and right [about their situation] so that we have to be more just?”
Moreover,
Cardinal Marx had recently claimed that it is hard to determine whether someone is living in the state of mortal sin, applying this to the question of homosexual couples, and calling for “a respect for their decision made in freedom” and according to “conscience.”
Mathias von Gersdorff, German pro-life activist and author, commented on the cardinal's opening to homosexual couples: "That is nothing but a fig leaf.
When it is acceptable to bless homosexual couples in individual cases, then that means that homosexual practices are no longer considered sinful".
Meanwhile, a German diocese now proposes
even more concrete steps to establish an official liturgical blessing for homosexual couples. With the explicit encouragement of the Bishop of the Diocese of Limburg, a high-ranking priest, canon, and Dean of the City of Frankfurt, Johannes zu Eltz, responsible for around 150,000 souls, has now made publicly proposed
a “theologically justified blessing” for those couples who are homosexual, remarried, or who for other reasons do not feel 'sufficiently worthy' of the sacrament of matrimony. [It’s not about how they feel – they are objectively unworthy of the sacraments if they persist in living a life of chronic sin! Of course, this is all about pushing the overall permissiveness of AL - I call it enabling sin, to the absurd point of even blessing it - in matters that the Church has always considered sinful.]
Zu Eltz now proposes a “liturgical celebration” that “omits the exchange of rings or the utterance of a marital vow.” Rather, one could, “with respect for a reliable partnership,” ask for God’s blessing “for a successful future of something that already exists.”
Apropos, Fr Hunwicke offers this generalization about the situation brought about by rampant Bergoglianism:
The current crisis about orthodoxy:
What does it all amount to? - Part 1
February 4, 2018
During the Arian Crisis, one word was the flag, the symbol, of Orthodoxy: HOMOOUSIOS. The Son is Consubstantial, or of one Substance, with the Father. Now ... imagine somebody during that crisis putting forward a Creed or Profession of Faith which sounded perfectly OK ... indeed, if it had been put forward fifty years previously, everybody would have received it joyfully.
But, after the Church had defined the Dogma of the Co-equal Divinity of the Son by the word
Homoousios, if somebody then put forward a new Creed which deliberately omitted this one word, he was seen to be a heretic. All the more so, if he put out a version of the 'Nicene' Creed with
Homoousios eliminated from the text, he condemned himself as a heretic.
In our present crisis, the gravest since the Reformation if not since the Arian Crisis, the phrase, the Battle Standard around which the conflict is raging, is INTRINSECE MALUM, "intrinsically evil". This means that there are acts, so described, which are of themselves evil. Always; in all circumstances. Under no circumstances can they be right. Not even if ...
This doctrine has been under fire since the 1960s or earlier, when various dodges were dreamed up to get round it. The implication of all these dodges was that
the rules of Catholic morality were generally good guides, but there were unusual circumstances in which it might be OK to break them.
I remember a popular book of Moral Theology which actually, laughably, but with a straight face, gave the following example.
Fornication is wrong. But suppose one is a spy working for the West, and one knows that a certain spy working for SMERSH, i.e. the Evil (Russian) Empire, possesses a crucial secret ... the Plan, let us say, for a new ICBM warhead or an ultrasuperhypermarvellous submarine or spacecraft ... then (if fornication would extract the all-important Plan from the enemy agent who, in those carefee days, was always of the opposite sex) the greater Good of the Survival of Civilisation As We Know It, would justify the fornication.
Yes; a 'serious' theologian could be so influenced by the light-hearted 1960s adolescent sexual fantasies concerning Commander James Bond, R.N., M.A. Cantab., that he did propound such risible codswallop.
(To be continued)
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 05/02/2018 02:46]