Perhaps this is the most overt act of shameless apostasy from the Roman Catholic Church dared so far by the followers of the church of Bergoglio who, as one of the apostate German bishops says, "With our handout, we only tok the pope at his words". See, they can be far more daring than Bergoglio who carefully always leaves himself some wiggle room or some deniability excuse in his own apostate statements, remembering that he is still the pope who was elected to lead the Roman Catholic Church, not his own church, and ever careful not to commit any technicality that would enable his critics to accuse him of material heresy and/or formal apostasy.
A few months later than scheduled but
despite CDF prohibition, German bishops
publish their intercommunion handout anyway
by Maike Hickson
June 27, 2018 3 Comments
Today, the German bishops published their very controversial pastoral handout which allows Protestant spouses of Catholics, in certain cases, to receive Holy Communion.
Since Pope Francis, through the Congregation for the Doctrine on the Faith, objected on June 21 to the German bishops' conference publication of the text, the German bishops have now simply declared that the document is not theirs, and therefore, is not official.
[[The chutzpah they have in publishing the document and claiming it is 'not official' is worthy of the most blatant Bergoglio lie so far - that he first learned of the Four Cardinals' DUBIA from reading about it in the newspapers. Considering that he claims to read only one newspaper - and not his 'own' newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, but either Il Messaggero or La Repubblica - one can easily check if either of those two newspapers failed to report about the DUBIA when the cardinals decided to publish it two months after failing to receive any reply from the pope or the CDF to whom they wrote the DUBIA!]
The title of the 39-page document, called an 'orientation guide', translates to:
“Walking with Christ – tracing unity. Inter-denominational marriages and sharing in the Eucharist.”
https://www.dbk.de/fileadmin/redaktion/diverse_downloads/dossiers_2018/08-Orientierungshilfe-Kommunion.pdf
The controversial handout was approved by the German bishops with a two-thirds majority in February of this year, but its publication was initially held up because of high-ranking opposition both in Germany and in Rome – including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which claimed the pope’s explicit approval in rejecting the initiative.
Curiously, this pastoral handout has no author or no organizational name attached to it.
[Deliberately so, in order that the bishops' conference can claim they have nothing to do with it. Do they really think Germans today are as unquestioning as they generally were during the Hitler's Third Reich?] No one, therefore, officially takes responsibility for it.
As the German bishops’ website Katholisch.de reports, Cardinal Reinhard Marx – the President of the German bishops’ conference – spoke recently with Pope Francis about the matter, presumably during the June 11-13 meeting of the Council of Nine Cardinals.
He claims he made it clear to the pope that “the text does not appear as a document of the Bishops’ Conference, given that it also relates to a dimension [sic] of the Universal Church.” These are the same words used by the Permanent Council of the German bishops conference which met June 25-26 in Bonn and decided to publish the text despite the earlier Vatican ban. The Permanent Council consists of 27 bishops, each of whom represents one of the 27 German dioceses, and meets 5-6 times a year.
[Let it not be forgotten that the Bergoglio-approved CDF objection to the handout was not for its content per se, but because the pope considered the document 'not mature enough for publication'. Presumably, Marx's supposed argument with the pope made the latter decide that "fine, if it was not an official document, then let it be published!" Which, of course, as we Bergoglio-watchers-with a critical eye-and-ear know, is exactly what he always wanted anyway, and that the CDF's written prohibition was merely pro forma, to make the pope's critics - the more gullible of them, anyway - think that 'Oh, so he is being Catholic, after all!", as with his later statements (seeming orthodox but deeply flawed) about the family and abortion to the Italian forum of family associations.]
Barring any further objection, it is to be assumed that the seven German opposing bishops (among them Cardinal Rainer Woelki of Cologne) who had contacted Rome and asked the Vatican for help in this matter have now given up their resistance.
As the Permanent Council now declares, this text is available as an orientation guide and its implementation is now subject to the responsibility of individual bishops.
It is possible that this move was taken after the pope’s comments last week, saying that the problem with the German handout was that under canon law, intercommunion is under the jurisdiction of the local bishop, not a national conference.
“The code says that the bishop of the particular church,” Francis said on a return flight from Geneva to Rome on 21 June, “and that’s an important word, ‘particular,’ meaning of a diocese, is responsible for this… it’s in his hands.” He went on to insist that the problem with a national body of bishops issuing a guideline like this is that “something worked out in an episcopal conference quickly becomes universal.”
The Permanent Council also declared that in publishing the handout, they felt “duty-bound to move forward courageously.” The May 25 letter from the CDF, signed by Prefect Luis Ladaria, soon to be a cardinal, is also cited as an “interpretative frame” for this handout, although it told the German bishops not to publish their intercommunion handout.
Cardinal Marx apparently was able to convince the pope during the last C9 meeting to approve publication after all – or at least, of the compromise [or trick] in its method of promulgation.
A note published by the German bishops conference today, written and signed by Cardinal Marx and then also signed by Pope Francis, says the the two agreed on 12 June that
1) the CDF letter “gives some recommendations,” but “does not give instructions” to the German bishops.
2) “the Holy Father does not wish that the text appears as a text of the bishops’ conference, because it relates to a dimension of the Universal Church” but shall be an “orientation guide” for bishops who “wish in their diocese to work out criteria in accord with can. 844 CIC.”
3) the Roman dicasteries will continue to work on this topic, as well, looking at the experiences of other bishops’ conferences.
4) Finally, “since the text of the German bishops’ conference shall be an orientation guide for individual bishops,
it may also be made public for the use of the bishops.” [Oh, all these pathetic semantics to justify open apostasy!]
The German bishops, in their own statement today, insist that it is about Protestant spouses of Catholics “in individual cases”, and that they wish to preserve the connection between “ecclesial community and Eucharistic community,” and, therefore, they will not, in general, admit Protestant Christians to Holy Communion.
The German bishops made it clear that
they are open to further reflection as proposed by the CDF in May. [Yeah right. As if they would ever reconsider the basic premise of the handout that makes a mockery of the Eucharist, and as if anyone could put back their evil genie back into the bottle!] “We offer here our collaboration, both to the Holy Father and to the Roman Curia,” the Permanent Council writes.
The statement of the Pemanent Council insists that the German bishops wish to allow some Protestant spouses of Catholics to receive Holy Communion when they have a “serious spiritual desire.”
It is perhaps Cardinal Walter Kasper most of all who can claim this development as a personal victory. It was he who, during the Luther Year 2017, told the German bishops that is was now up to them to come up with proposals. As the German newspaper
Die Sueddeutsche reported at the time, Cardinal Kasper said in April of 2017, during a service at the Lutheran Church of Rome, that he expected “concrete steps forward” during the course of the year. “We may not limit ourselves, in this year of the Reformation, to friendly gestures,” he said, and then added: “But the decision lies now in the hands of the German bishops’ conference.” It appears that his trust in their ability to move this initiative forward has been rewarded – but they were not without assistance from the Holy See.
Bishop Gerhard Feige (Magdeburg) — one of the main authors of this professedly ecumenical document — just restated in an interview that
the German bishops with their new handout were inspired by Pope Francis and his words in 2015 to a Protestant spouse who wished to receive Holy Communion. The Pope had then encouraged her to “Speak with the Lord and move forward. I dare not say more.” Bishop Feige now explains that he had, in 2015, personally spoken with the Pope about these comments:
During the German bishops’ ad limina visit to Rome [in November of 2015], I directly asked the Pope one week later [after the pope’s comments in the Lutheran Church of Rome] how we are to understand his words. He then repeated, nearly verbatim, that which he had said in the Christuskirche: “Generally, I cannot change anything, but speak with the Lord and move forward"...
With our handout, we only took the Pope at his words.
Before today's Bergoglio-approved publication of the apostate handout, Ms Hickson wrote a round-up of recent criticisms of inter-faith communion by some leading German theologians:
https://onepeterfive.com/opposition-mounts-to-intercommunion-canonist-says-pope-has-made-a-complete-mess/
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 28/06/2018 04:37]