Cardinals Marx and Woelki, the two main protagonists of the German Church's 'split' over interfaith communion.
One cardinal, 7 bishops and 4 new DUBIA -
this time, on interfaith communion
May 2, 2018
Last Saturday, April 28, Pope Francis received in audience the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Jesuit Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer, accompanied by the secretary of that same congregation, Giacomo Morandi.
It is reasonable to imagine that they spoke about the clash underway among the bishops of Germany concerning the possibility of giving communion to the Protestant spouses of Catholics.
In confirmation of this, the Vatican press office announced on April 30 that a meeting will be held at the Vatican on May 3 to address precisely this question.
But how has this barged its way onto the agenda? Let’s retrace what led to this.
Last February 20,
the German episcopal conference approved by a wide majority a “pastoral manual” of instructions - not yet published, but immediately presented in its essential contents by Cardinal Reinhardt Marx, president of the conference -
which says when, how, and why to allow such communion, far beyond the rare cases of extreme necessity provided for in canon law.
But 13 bishops voted against. And seven of these, including one cardinal, on March 22, sent their “dubia” to Rome by way of a letter to the prefect of the CDF asking for a clarification.
[They learned a lesson well: if you address any such dubia to the pope, you may never hear from him again.] They also sent copies of the letter to Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian unity, to Juan Ignacio Arrieta Ochoa de Chinchetru, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, and to the apostolic nuncio in Germany, Nikola Eterovic.
The seven signers of the letter are Rainer Woelki, cardinal archbishop of Cologne; Ludwig Schick, archbishop of Bamberg; Gregor Hanke, bishop of Eichstätt; Konrad Zdarsa, bishop of Augsburg; Wolfgang Ipolt, bishop of Görlitz; Rudolf Voderholzer, bishop of Regensburg; and Stefan Oster, bishop of Passau.
It is helpful to recall that Woelki was first secretary and then successor in Cologne to Cardinal Joachim Meisner, a close friend of Joseph Ratzinger and one of the four signers of the famous DUBIA on the correct interpretation of “Amoris Laetitia,” still unresolved because of the lack of a response from the pope.
[Actually, when Woelki was still Archbishop of Berlin, and after he was made cardinal by Benedict XVI, he had begun making 'progressivist' statements (chiefly, his support for LGBTs) that cast a doubt on Benedict XVI's decision to make him a cardinal. And in Cologne, he has been in the forefront of outspoke supporters for Islamic immigration to Europe. So it was quite a surprise when he joined the conservative Bavarian bishops in opposing the ReinhardMarx-led push for interfaith communion and assumed nominal leadership of the group as the only cardinal in it.]
Voderholzer was first Gerhard Müller’s assistant on the theology faculty at the University of Munich, then his successor as bishop of Regensburg, and finally an adviser at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith after Müller became its prefect. Moreover, both are editors of the publication of the opera omnia of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.
[More specifically , Voderholzer was the founding director of the Institut Papst Benedict XVI founded in March 2008 by Mons. Mueller, then Bishop of Regensburg, to compile and make available to scholars all of the published and unpublished writings of the theologian, bishop and pope Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, as well as all relevant biographical and theological writings. The Institut has been responsible for the publication of THE COMPLETE WRITINGS OF JOSEPH RATZINGER, otherwise referred to as Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's Opera Omnia. At the time, Voderholer, a native of Munich, was professor of dogma and the history of dogma at the University of Trier, and was a recognized expert on the theology of Joseph Ratzinger.]
On April 4, news of the letter appeared in several German newspapers, with an immediate polemical reaction from Cardinal Marx. And over the next few days it emerged that Ladaria had already sent his response. The episcopal conference partially denied this leaked information. But on April 25, it confirmed that a summit would soon be held at the Vatican, naturally under the supervision of Pope Francis, precisely to resolve this conflict.
The German delegation at the summit on May 3 will be made up of Cardinal Marx, Münster bishop Felix Genn, Magdeburg bishop Gerhard Feige, Speyer bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann, secretary general of the episcopal conference Hans Langendörfer, a Jesuit, all supporters of the “pastoral manual,” and - to represent the dissenters - Cardinal Woelki and Regensburg bishop Voderholzer.
While the Vatican contribution will come from prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith Ladaria, with his doctrinal section chief Hermann Geissler [a great sup[porter and admirer of Cardinal Ratzinger, with whom he served for decades at the CDF], Cardinal Koch, and undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts Markus Graulich, all of them somewhat reluctant to change the current discipline.
More public support for the letter from the seven bishops came on April 20 from Cardinal Gerhard Müller, their countryman and until July last year, prefect of the CDF.
In Müller’s judgment, the openness to intercommunion desired by the majority of the German bishops would result in “an ecclesiological nihilism that opens an abyss that would ultimately swallow up the Church."
Müller presented his argument on the website of
First Things in America, and then, in Italy, on
La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana. But of course, he will not take part in the summit at the Vatican.
On April 25, Edward Pentin published an English translation of the complete text of the letter of the seven dissenting bishops, in the
National Catholic Register.
The letter is reproduced further below. Of the four “dubia” on which the signers are asking for clarification from the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, the most radical is this last one:
"Is it at all possible for a single national episcopal conference, in one particular linguistic region, to make an isolated decision concerning such a question about the faith and practice of the whole Church, without reference and integration into the universal Church?"
What is at stake here, as can be noted, is the actual scope of that process of differentiation which has been set in motion by Pope Francis among the national episcopal conferences, “as subjects of specific attributions, including genuine doctrinal authority”
(Evangelii Gaudium 32).
As for the question of communion for Protestant spouses, it is well known that Francis would like to relax the rules. And this is given as certain by another German cardinal, Walter Kasper, who is also the pope’s theologian of reference.
What seems to emerge at the foundation of this conflict is precisely that
process of “deconfessionalization” of the Catholic Church - in imitation of what has already happened in the Protestant camp - which Church historian Roberto Pertici has identified on Settimo Cielo as characteristic of the new course of Pope Francis:
> Bergoglio's Reform Was Written Before. By Martin Luther
And here is the March 22 letter from the seven German bishops to the prefect of the CDF, Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer.
[The protesting German bishops ostentatiously use the honorific 'Eminence' for Ladaria Ferrer who is not a cardinal yet, only an Archbishop on the level of six of the protestors and one 'ecclesial degree' less than Cardinal Woelki.]
Your Eminence, my dear confreres,
In the period from February 19 to 22, 2018, the German bishops met for their Spring Plenary Assembly in Ingolstadt.
Under item IL.1 of the agenda, the Bishops were given a so-called "pastoral handout" by the Ecumenical Commission entitled: "On the path of unity with Christ: Confessional marriages and joint participation in the Eucharist" for consultation and decision-making.
According to the text, mixed-denominational couples, as a "practical laboratory of unity,” would take place while the separated churches are "on their way together towards the goal' [presumably, unification. Though one has to be on hallucinogens to think that the goal is anywhere within sight!]
Because of the importance of marriages between Catholic and Protestant Christians in Germany, the statement respects “the pain […of those] who share their whole lives but cannot share God's saving presence in the Eucharistic meal.”
According to the joint Reformation commemoration in 2017, the handout is intended as a voluntary commitment "to provide every assistance to interdenominational marriages, to strengthen their common faith and promote the religious education of their children," offering concrete help and regulation — as declared together with the Protestant Church in Germany in an ecumenical penance and reconciliation service on 11 March 2017 in the Michaeliskirche.
According to this, an opening to Protestant Christians in denominational marriages to receive Communion via Canon 844 (4) CIC 1983 is to be made possible, in view of a gravis spiritualis necessitas [grave spiritual necessity] declared by the document presented on denominational differences of marriage.
On February 20, 2018, the text presented above on non-denominational marriages and the common participation in the Eucharist was voted on in the Assembly. The document was adopted by a 2/3 majority of the German bishops. Of the 60 bishops present, 13 voted no, including at least seven diocesan bishops. "Modi" (amendments) may be submitted until 16 March, but they will no longer call into question the fundamental adoption of the document.
Personally, we do not consider the vote held on 20 February to be right, because we do not believe that the issue we are discussing here is a pastoral one, but a question of the faith and unity of the Church, which is not subject to a vote. So we ask you, Your Eminence, to clarify this matter.
1. Is the document presented here a "pastoral handout" — as asserted by some German bishops — and thus merely a pastoral question, or is the faith and unity of the Church fundamentally called for, rather than the determinations made here?
2. Does Article 58 of the document not relativize the faith of the Church, according to which the Church of Jesus Christ is realized in the Catholic Church (subsists) and it is therefore necessary that an Evangelical Christian who shares the Catholic faith with regard to the Eucharist should also become Catholic?
3. According to nos. 283 to 293, it is not primarily the longing for Eucharistic grace that becomes the criterion for [serious spiritual] distress, but rather the common reception of Communion of spouses belonging to different confessions. In our opinion, this distress is none other than which belongs ecumenism as a whole, that is, of every Christian who seriously strives for unity. In our view, therefore, it is not an exceptional criterion.
4. Is it at all possible for a single national episcopal conference, in one particular linguistic region, to make an isolated decision concerning such a question about the faith and practice of the whole Church, without reference and integration into the universal Church?
Eminence, we have many other fundamental questions and reservations about the proposed solution contained in this document. That is why we are voting in favor of renouncing a derogation and, instead, finding a clear solution in ecumenical dialogue to the overall problem of "Eucharistic communion and ecclesial communion" which is viable for the universal Church.
We ask for your help, in the light of our doubts, as to whether the draft solution presented in this document is compatible with the faith and unity of the Church.
We ask God's blessing for you and your responsible duty in Rome and greet you warmly!
Cardinal Rainer Woelki (Cologne)
Archbishop Ludwig Schick (Bamberg)
Bishop Gregor Hanke (Eichstätt)
Bishop Konrad Zdarsa (Augsburg)
Bishop Wolfgang Ipolt (Görlitz)
Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer (Regensburg)
Bishop Stefan Oster (Passau)
May 4, 2018
P.S. And the outcome of the Vatican meeting was...TA-DA!
Bergoglio does a Pilate turn -
tells German bishops to
'decide it among yourselves'
Or, a second set of DUBIA that this pope chooses not to answer
Which has got to be the most stupid ruling imaginable - considering that the laissez-faire ReinhardMarxist policy to allow interfaith communion was voted for overwhelmingly in the last meeting of the German bishops conference [for some reason I am unable to get the exact number of German bishops by googling the question, but there are at least 189 because Germany has seven ecclesiastical provinces each having one archbishop and 20 bishops] with only seven dissenting. What unanimity does Bergoglio expect out of that huge disparity??? And if, logically, they will not get a unanimous decision, what then? Or does he think the seven dissenting bishops are mere patsies who will eventually give in???
Bergoglio's 'let each local church decide for itself' policy on yet another matter of doctrine passed off as mere pastoral discretion will simply serve to further disaggregate the universal Church after the ravages already wrought by Amoris laetitia.
And you thought the chaos produced by the Novus Ordo and its freeform as-you-please interpretations was already a major blow to Church unity???
This pope is dismantling the universal Church, local church by local church, when he should be the unifying agent as the supposed symbol of Church unity! What Church unity has he symbolized since becoming pope when he advised his flock, starting with young people, to 'make a mess'? On the contrary, he has done everything possible to foster divisions within the Church! Not that he really cares, of course, because a disaggregated and wrecked Catholic Church is what he needs on which to build and institutionalize the church of Bergoglio!
Anyway, here's the rest of the AP story:
Seven German bishops had written the Vatican asking it to rule on a proposal adopted by a two-thirds majority of the German bishops’ conference to allow Protestant spouses of Catholics to receive Communion in certain circumstances. The conference approved the proposal in February in part as a gesture of ecumenical outreach to Protestants in a country where mixed marriages are common.
The seven conservative bishops had argued the proposal undermines the Catholic faith and shouldn’t be decided by a mere national bishops’ conference.
Pope Francis has sought to decentralize church decision-making in favor of local solutions, and has enraged conservatives by emphasizing conscience and case-by-case solutions to vexing pastoral problems.
According to the Vatican statement, Francis himself asked for the German bishops to try to work out the dispute among themselves. The pope didn’t participate in the meeting, but his request was relayed to the participants by his top doctrinal official, Archbishop Luis Ladaria.
The dispute is the second major one involving the Eucharist, after Francis roiled conservatives with his cautious opening to letting divorced and civilly remarried Catholics receive Communion. There too, conservative Catholics have argued his wiggle room underminesCchurch teaching on the indissolubility of marriage and causes confusion among the faithful. And there too, the Vatican has largely left it to local bishops’ conferences to interpret Francis’s teaching in the way they see fit.
Some of Francis’s harshest critics in that debate have hailed from the German church hierarchy, but he also has strong support for his more flexible approach from the head of the German bishops’ conference, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who has strongly defended the conference’s outreach to Protestants.
[The AP, of course, does not mention that Protestants consider communion as nothing but sharing a meal in Church, a social activity - where Catholics believe that in Communion, the faithful are receiving the transsubstantiated Body and Blood of Christ, Protestants mock the very idea of Trans-Substantiation taking place during the Consecration!]
I just stumbled across the ff while trawling the Web just now - from a November 2016 post by the Canadian blogger Vox Cantoris -
and it is a real gem I had not seen before. The blogger entitled the post 'How to answer a dubium':
Keep this in mind in the immediate future as the church of Bergoglio opens the way to ordaining women starting at the diaconate level.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 06/05/2018 14:05]