During the Family on the Synod, a few speakers bravely spoke out against a false sense of "pastoral mercy".
Image above: from left, to right, to bottom: Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki and Dr. Anca Maria Cernea.
DICI #323: 10-23-2015
In the midst of a big doctrinal blur maintained on the pretext of “pastoral mercy”, the second Synod on the Family has been the occasion for several courageous stances that deserve to be quoted.
A crisis of faith
On October 9, during his 3-minute intervention during the plenary assembly, Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko (on the picture), President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, declared:
“It is said that the Church should be like ‘a field hospital’ [Pope Francis’ expression—Ed.], but there are not many in this situation [of being sick] who want to be obliged to go to the hospital.
St. Augustine asks those who want help but are unwilling to convert: ‘Then why are you looking for us?’ This is how some baptized persons in irregular situations behave who do not want to receive the Sacrament of Penance. Thus we have not only a crisis of marriage and family but also a crisis of faith.
2 Timothy 4:2-5 says: ‘Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine. For there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables. But be thou vigilant: labour in all things: do the work of an evangelist: fulfil thy ministry.’”
False compassion
On October 12, 2015, Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, Metropolitan Archbishop of Poznan and President of the Polish Bishops Conference, expressed himself in these terms:
The Church …in her teaching about admitting divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to Holy Communion cannot bend to the will of man but to the will of Christ. Consequently, the Church cannot let herself be affected by feelings of false compassion for these persons or by models of erroneous thought, even if they are widespread in the [social] context in which she finds herself.
Admitting to Holy Communion those who continue to cohabit more uxorio [as though they were married—Ed.] without a sacramental bond, would contradict the Tradition of the Church. The documents of the very first synods of Elvira, Arles and Neocesarea (which took place between 304 and 319) already reaffirm the Church’s doctrine that does not allow access to Eucharistic Communion for divorced and ‘remarried’ persons. The fundamental reason for this is that ‘their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist' (Familiaris consortio 84).
The Eucharist is the sacrament of the baptized who are in gratia sacramentalis. Access to Holy Communion for divorced and civilly ‘remarried’ persons, in other words, for persons who are not in a sacramental state of grace, could cause much harm not only with regard to the pastoral care of families, but also in relation to the Church’s doctrine on sanctifying grace.
In reality, such access would open the door to the reception of Holy Communion by all persons who are in a state of mortal sin; consequently, this would annul the Sacrament of Penance and depreciate the importance of living in the state of sanctifying grace.”
A change of doctrine
On October 17 the website of the Polish Bishops Conference posted online a short text by its President, Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki. “The changes in discipline proposed by some Synod Fathers with regard to communion for divorced[-and-remarried] persons are an attempt to smuggle changes into Church doctrine itself,” a short introduction to this text notes.
Practically everyone repeats that there will be no doctrinal change, but this is understood in different ways. For if you add that disciplinary changes are possible, this means in practice that doctrinal stability is abolished. In my opinion, we cannot talk about the separation of the Church’s practice from her doctrine, her teachings. The two are inseparable. I have the impression that many proponents of this modernity are in reality thinking about changing the doctrine, while talking about a change in the Church’s discipline. This is a disturbing point in these discussions, because in them they stress that ‘We accept the doctrine in its totality,’ but immediately thereafter comes the idea that doctrine would have nothing to do with it. This greatly worries me, for both sides say that they do not want a change of doctrine. Where, then, do these practices opposed to doctrine come from?”
Cultural Marxism
On October 18, a Romanian auditor, Dr. Anca-Maria Cernea, a physician from the Victor Babes Center for Diagnosis and Treatment in Bucharest, intervened very explicitly:
We, as Catholic doctors, defending life and family, can see this is, first of all, a spiritual battle. Material poverty and consumerism are not the primary cause of the family crisis. The primary cause of the sexual and cultural revolution is ideological.
Our Lady of Fatima has said that Russia’s errors would spread all over the world. It was first done under a violent form, classical Marxism, by killing tens of millions. Now it’s being done mostly by cultural Marxism. There is continuity from Lenin’s sex revolution, through Gramsci and the Frankfurt school, to the current-day gay-rights and gender ideology.
Classical Marxism claimed to redesign society, through the violent take-over of property. Now the Revolution goes deeper; it pretends to redefine family, sexual identity and human nature. This ideology calls itself progressive. But it is nothing but the ancient serpent’s offer, for man to take control, to replace God, to arrange salvation here, in this world. It’s an error of religious nature, it’s Gnosticism.
It’s the task of the shepherds to recognize it, and warn the flock against this danger. ‘Seek ye therefore first the Kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.’ The Church’s mission is to save souls. Evil, in this world, comes from sin. Not from income disparity or ‘climate change’. The solution is: Evangelization. Conversion.
Not ever increasing government control. Not a world government. These are nowadays the main agents imposing cultural Marxism to our nations, under the form of population control, reproductive health, gay rights, gender education, and so on.
What the world needs nowadays is not limitation of freedom, but real freedom, liberation from sin. Redemption.”
(Sources: episkopat/correspondance européenne/blog jeanne smits/benoitetmoi—DICI no. 323, 10-23-2015)
