S
sarah_j
Guest
*On Sept. 10, Cardinal Sarah, who, from 2001-2010, was secretary for the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and, from 2010-2014, served as president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum (the pope’s personal charitable organization), discussed key issues before the synod and the Church in Africa’s opposition “to any rebellion against the teaching of Jesus and of the magisterium” in an email exchange with Register senior editor Joan Frawley Desmond : *
**The 2015 Ordinary Synod of Bishops will address pastoral solutions for divorced-and-remarried Catholics, and some believe the Church will allow them to receive the Eucharist. In your book, you reject that possibility: “No one, not even the pope, can set pastoral ministry in opposition to doctrine.” What does it mean to “set pastoral ministry in opposition to doctrine,” and do you believe most synod delegates agree with your position?
**
Look, this is not about agreeing with me or with someone else. It is about adhering with one’s words and life to God’s law. If priests, bishops and also the synod fathers consider doctrine as if looking through an antique store’s window and not as a living body, I fear that they are betraying their vocation. Doctrine is not a set of moral precepts.
Doctrine is a set of teachings that come to us from sacred Scriptures, the Word of God and Tradition. Doctrine is a person! It is Jesus in his words. How can we think that priests should separate pastoral practice from doctrine as though the Gospel is an expression of something that is detached from reality? Either our faith is founded on the encounter with a Person, who is God made man through his son Jesus and, therefore, on a testimony that must be renewed every day by the death and resurrection of Christ, or our faith is false and is founded upon the idols of modernity.
Many think about getting rid of doctrine because they allegedly do not consider it to be adaptable to the times. …
So, it is believed that the “opening of [the doors of] the Church,” which Pope Francis constantly calls us to, may mean the watering down of what we believe in to the thought of contemporary society that is secularized and decadent. It is falsely believed [the Church has] to adapt the teaching of Christ to the times. But Christ did not come to pander to society. He came to save humanity from its fall and to bring Truth and to personally and profoundly change each one of us. The encounter with Christ changes the lives of those who love him. Truth and the dogmas of faith compel us to raise the bar, to aim high and to live every day to become saints.
Relativism is easy because nothing in it has value and worth; it leads to a disengagement from life and, in essence, to turning man into a beast.
read more…ncregister.com/daily-news/cardinal-sarah-fidelity-to-god-and-family-is-africas-most-precious-treasure/
**The 2015 Ordinary Synod of Bishops will address pastoral solutions for divorced-and-remarried Catholics, and some believe the Church will allow them to receive the Eucharist. In your book, you reject that possibility: “No one, not even the pope, can set pastoral ministry in opposition to doctrine.” What does it mean to “set pastoral ministry in opposition to doctrine,” and do you believe most synod delegates agree with your position?
**
Look, this is not about agreeing with me or with someone else. It is about adhering with one’s words and life to God’s law. If priests, bishops and also the synod fathers consider doctrine as if looking through an antique store’s window and not as a living body, I fear that they are betraying their vocation. Doctrine is not a set of moral precepts.
Doctrine is a set of teachings that come to us from sacred Scriptures, the Word of God and Tradition. Doctrine is a person! It is Jesus in his words. How can we think that priests should separate pastoral practice from doctrine as though the Gospel is an expression of something that is detached from reality? Either our faith is founded on the encounter with a Person, who is God made man through his son Jesus and, therefore, on a testimony that must be renewed every day by the death and resurrection of Christ, or our faith is false and is founded upon the idols of modernity.
Many think about getting rid of doctrine because they allegedly do not consider it to be adaptable to the times. …
So, it is believed that the “opening of [the doors of] the Church,” which Pope Francis constantly calls us to, may mean the watering down of what we believe in to the thought of contemporary society that is secularized and decadent. It is falsely believed [the Church has] to adapt the teaching of Christ to the times. But Christ did not come to pander to society. He came to save humanity from its fall and to bring Truth and to personally and profoundly change each one of us. The encounter with Christ changes the lives of those who love him. Truth and the dogmas of faith compel us to raise the bar, to aim high and to live every day to become saints.
Relativism is easy because nothing in it has value and worth; it leads to a disengagement from life and, in essence, to turning man into a beast.
read more…ncregister.com/daily-news/cardinal-sarah-fidelity-to-god-and-family-is-africas-most-precious-treasure/
Haha! Thanks, Dan.