J
jerome_ky
Guest
I was reading an article on Catholic World Report (link at bottom) by Dr. José Durand Mendioroz, entitled, “A Layman Responds to Cardinal Kasper’s Proposal, Part II.”
Under the heading, “The conditions to receive sacramental Communion,” Cardinal Kasper begins:
“If a divorced and remarried…”
and Dr. Mendioroz begins parsing this:
"We should be precise in the terms employed in order to avoid misconstruing their real significations by “slippage in meaning.”
"The first condition cited here is remarkably imprecise, inasmuch as it refers to two realities in the civil sphere, while what interests us here is the religious sphere, in which neither divorce nor remarriage once divorced is possible. The formulation needs to utilize appropriate, fitting terms; if a “divorcee” had never contracted a sacramental marriage, it would be of no interest to us in the matter being analyzed.
“Moreover, one should not facilitate an equivocation—even an unconscious one—between sacramental and civil marriage, due to their distinct natures and effects and to the institutional precariousness of civil marriage…”
So after several of these types of examples, it seems to come down to this: Cardinal Kasper is using common, civil law terminology when he should be using canon law terminology. He’s not speaking or thinking as a representative of the Church to the people, but rather as a representative of the people to the Church.
This seems to be almost a fault line in the Church today, the difference between “liberal” and “conservative” clergy & laypeople. Is there an historical heresy here that we can point to that would help to better define it?
catholicworldreport.com/Item/3910/a_layman_responds_to_cardinal_kaspers_proposal_part_ii.aspx
Under the heading, “The conditions to receive sacramental Communion,” Cardinal Kasper begins:
“If a divorced and remarried…”
and Dr. Mendioroz begins parsing this:
"We should be precise in the terms employed in order to avoid misconstruing their real significations by “slippage in meaning.”
"The first condition cited here is remarkably imprecise, inasmuch as it refers to two realities in the civil sphere, while what interests us here is the religious sphere, in which neither divorce nor remarriage once divorced is possible. The formulation needs to utilize appropriate, fitting terms; if a “divorcee” had never contracted a sacramental marriage, it would be of no interest to us in the matter being analyzed.
“Moreover, one should not facilitate an equivocation—even an unconscious one—between sacramental and civil marriage, due to their distinct natures and effects and to the institutional precariousness of civil marriage…”
So after several of these types of examples, it seems to come down to this: Cardinal Kasper is using common, civil law terminology when he should be using canon law terminology. He’s not speaking or thinking as a representative of the Church to the people, but rather as a representative of the people to the Church.
This seems to be almost a fault line in the Church today, the difference between “liberal” and “conservative” clergy & laypeople. Is there an historical heresy here that we can point to that would help to better define it?
catholicworldreport.com/Item/3910/a_layman_responds_to_cardinal_kaspers_proposal_part_ii.aspx