Need help with a Liberal Catholic

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The person I have been engaged in is really more or less nominally Catholic. He not only denies the primacy of the Pope, but also speaks the following:
  1. In Vatican II’s teaching on the ‘hierarchy of truth,’ some doctrines are more important than others (he wouldn’t say which ones).
  2. Ut Unum Sint aknowledged that the Papacy, in its present form, is an obstacle to unity, and asked Christians to suggest how it could be reformed to better serve the unity of the whole church. When Archbp. John Quinn wrote a book on the subject, he got his wrist slapped by Rome. (He gave the following link that supposedly bolsters his argument:
americamagazine.org/BookReview.cfm?articleTypeID=31&textID=2141&issueID=280)
  1. The various theologies of liberation are all grounded in a recognition of the Crucified Lord in the suffering of oppressed peoples. (The following links were given:
mb-soft.com/believe/txn/liberati.htm
amazon.com/gp/reader/0883445425/ref=sib_dp_pt/104-6067226-4848754#reader-link)
  1. If any Catholics are preaching Christianity without the Cross these days, it’s the apologists for global capitalism and free enterprise, like Siroco and Neuhaus. In there estimation, it’s wrong for elected Catholic politicians to represent their constituencies instead of the church’s teaching, but the titans of global finance and multinational corporations do nothing in the course of a day that transgresses Christ’s law. In fact, rapacious greed, union busting, economic opportunism and environmental plunder are virtuous, a vocation, to these people. It’s the welfare bums that need to make a good confession!
  2. Ratzinger gave the Eucharist to Protestants. Card. Ratzinger probably knew they were Protestants, at least some of them. Then there’s the case of Br. Roger [of Taize], who has received the Eucharist in St. Peter’s Cathedral many times, even though he never converted.
  3. Christians will never be united until we are living and praying together, as Br. Roger’s community makes plain. These divisions will cease to exist, when we start acting as if they don’t exist. That means ignoring a lot of antiquated statutes on the lawbooks.
Also, there seems to be a question from him about what the following means from Ut Unim Sint:

Ecumenism implies that the Christian communities should help one another so that there may be truly present in them the full content and all the requirements of “the heritage handed down by the Apostles”.[130] Without this, full communion will never be possible. This mutual help in the search for truth is a sublime form of evangelical charity.
Anyone have any suggestions on where to start in response?

Pax Vobiscum,

John
 
Just need to verify something. You said that the person you are engaged to is a “he”,
He not only denies the primacy of the Pope, but also speaks the following:
Click to expand...
and you signed your name as John. Was that a typo?
 
Sorry, I meant engaged in discussion, not marriage. LOL :rolleyes:

Pax Tecum,

John
 
Haha…sorry about that. I was reading the forums last night from my laptop while laying in bed. I guess I was half asleep while reading your post and thought that it said “engaged to” rather than “engage in”. My apologies…
 
It’s ok. I could have worded it better. So, anyways, do you have any comments regarding the original post? I’d really like to respond to these things with an informed opinion. I don’t understand why there isn’t anything about Taize of brother Roger on EWTN nor Catholic Answers documents. I usually trust both sites opinons and research and was a bit disappointed in not seeing anything, especially after hearing on EWTN about brother Roger’s death.

Anyways, I hope maybe soon some articles or something may show up that can help with this issue, as well as something to answer back concerning the alleged reception of the Eucharist by Protestants from then Card. Ratzinger. I am not too sure how to respond to such issues.

Pax Tecum,

John
 
It sounds to me like your friend is looking for excuses to not follow the teachings of the Church.

The subjects of Br Roger of Taize and suggestions that Cardinal Ratzinger has given the Eucharist to non-Catholics have been raised in discussions on the board. You are welcome to search for them if you’d like, but really what is the point? As I understand it, Br Roger may or may not have held heretical beliefs. Who am I to try to determine if he has confessed and come into full communion with the Church?

What is the pastoral approach when dealing with someone like him, who from what I recall has in fact returned to communion with the church, but for the sake of argument, lets say he hadn’t made fully public his intend to return to the fold? As I understand it, the pastoral approach is to do all things in Charity, including providing communion. Perhaps the pastor has been gifted with the ability to see one’s soul (as could Padre Pio). If he knows that the communicant has given confession and intends to follow the teachings of the church, is he required to refuse communion, because others watching cannot also see his contrition? I think not. So, who am I to judge when I see someone else receive communion!!! If the Eucharistic Minister knows the person to be ill disposed to receive communion, it is his responsibility to address the issue. That’s where it stops. We don’t get to second guess the situation.

As for the reception of the Eucharist by non-Catholics. We know that this would be an error if it occured. I don’t know that it did happen. If it did, I personally doubt that the Pope, or Cardinal Ratzinger before becoming Pope, would have done so knowingly. If he did (again, I don’t think so), what would this mean to us as Catholics? Was he intending to teach us anything regarding the Faith and Morals of the Catholic Church? Has he issued a document encouraging the receipt of the most Blessed Sacrament by non-Catholics? No. Infallibility does not mean he is incapable of making an error. It means he does not teach definitively, from the Chair of Peter, that which is in error, on matters of Faith and Morals.

CARose
 
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jcrawf:
The person I have been engaged in is really more or less nominally Catholic. He not only denies the primacy of the Pope, but also speaks the following:
  1. In Vatican II’s teaching on the ‘hierarchy of truth,’ some doctrines are more important than others (he wouldn’t say which ones).
Click to expand...

Neither did John XXIII, when he spoke of the “hierarchy of truths” (which amounts to same thing, since the CC does not set out to teach untruths - well, one assumes not :)) in his Opening Address to the Fathers of Vatican II.​

Last time I looked, following Papal teaching was not sinful. ##
  1. Ut Unum Sint aknowledged that the Papacy, in its present form, is an obstacle to unity, and asked Christians to suggest how it could be reformed to better serve the unity of the whole church. When Archbp. John Quinn wrote a book on the subject, he got his wrist slapped by Rome. (He gave the following link that supposedly bolsters his argument:

All true - JP2 did ask this: the Catholic World Report, or it may have been Inside The Vatican), neither of which is famous for having much time for “liberals”, had a long article on how he did so and on what this might mean for the future of the Papacy. See also “Cross the Threshhold of Hope” for similar remarks.​

americamagazine.org/BookReview.cfm?articleTypeID=31&textID=2141&issueID=280)
  1. The various theologies of liberation are all grounded in a recognition of the Crucified Lord in the suffering of oppressed peoples. (The following links were given:
mb-soft.com/believe/txn/liberati.htm
amazon.com/gp/reader/0883445425/ref=sib_dp_pt/104-6067226-4848754#reader-link)
  1. If any Catholics are preaching Christianity without the Cross these days, it’s the apologists for global capitalism and free enterprise, like Siroco and Neuhaus. In there estimation, it’s wrong for elected Catholic politicians to represent their constituencies instead of the church’s teaching, but the titans of global finance and multinational corporations do nothing in the course of a day that transgresses Christ’s law. In fact, rapacious greed, union busting, economic opportunism and environmental plunder are virtuous, a vocation, to these people. It’s the welfare bums that need to make a good confession!
Click to expand...

Condemning Liberation Theology played into the hands of those who don’t care a tinker’s curse for the poor: e.g. US Mammon-worship (AKA capitalism).​

  1. Ratzinger gave the Eucharist to Protestants. Card. Ratzinger probably knew they were Protestants, at least some of them. Then there’s the case of Br. Roger [of Taize], who has received the Eucharist in St. Peter’s Cathedral many times, even though he never converted.
Click to expand...
[continued…]
 

So can Protestants receive - or not ? Catholics can’t have it both ways: either it is wrong for Protestants to receive it, or it is not. What’s happened to all the Catholic insistence on “absolute moral standards” ? Apparently, these “absolutes” are relative - relative to who does what is objected to. Which makes conservative posturing against “relativism” sheer hypocrisy. For if he did that, it would not become right merely because done by him. The Church cannot teach “Practice X is a very bad thing” - and then expect to be taken seriously when she violates her own teaching: she has to get her act together, and stop shooting her feet off in this absurd way.​

The Church has to be Divine - no merely human entity could endure such dunder-headed imbecility.

If Ratzinger did that, then he should be savagely denounced for it, because:
it’s scandalous three times over, for he would have been:
  • A. giving bad example to millions of Catholics - and after all, why should we care what he says, if his own practice so blatantly contradicts Catholic teaching, practice & discipline ? This contradiction between teaching & action is a open sore in the body of the RCC.
  • B. misleading Protestants about the real attitude of the Church toward the Blessed Sacrament;
  • C. Countenancing the same “Eucharistic hospitality” which clerics have been denounced for practising
  • it’s** heretical**, because he would have been practising the very indifferentism about the true identity of the Church which is repeatedly deplored by the Magisterium - which the SCDF under his management has deplored
  • it’s a sacrilege, because Protestants to do not (according to Catholic teaching & canon law) have a valid Eucharist, so they cannot receive the Church’s Eucharist.
For him to do such a thing, would be very much worse than for anyone else to do so, precisely because he was in an excellent position to know better than to do so.

Converts-in waiting aren’t allowed to receive the Eucharist: they have to go without. For months. Why should they do that, when their fellow-non-Catholics can receive ? Indeed, why should they bother converting at all ? All one gains, is a lot of obligations & a lot of guilt - one doesn’t gain access to the Sacraments: because those are already available to non-Catholics. They can even be buried in Catholic cemeteries. So why on earth bother with the hassle of waiting ? It would be much less fuss and anguish to stay out of the CC, enjoying the benefits of membership without having the obligations. IOW - this nonsense of giving others what Catholics have, without requiring people to be Catholics, encourages a consumerist approach to the Church.

Clearing up this idiotic abuse of the sacraments is a job for the Inquisition. ##
  1. Christians will never be united until we are living and praying together, as Br. Roger’s community makes plain. These divisions will cease to exist, when we start acting as if they don’t exist. That means ignoring a lot of antiquated statutes on the lawbooks.
Click to expand...

How is that objectionable ?​

Also, there seems to be a question from him about what the following means from Ut Unim Sint:

Ecumenism implies that the Christian communities should help one another so that there may be truly present in them the full content and all the requirements of “the heritage handed down by the Apostles”.[130] Without this, full communion will never be possible. This mutual help in the search for truth is a sublime form of evangelical charity.

Anyone have any suggestions on where to start in response?

Pax Vobiscum,

John
Click to expand...
 
40.png
JOHNYJ:
Its easy. A liberal Catholic, is a protestant.
Click to expand...
I think he finally came to that conclusion. In one of his last threads, he said that he’s thinking of becoming a Quaker.

Pax Tecum,

John
 
  1. Christians will never be united until we are living and praying together, as Br. Roger’s community makes plain. These divisions will cease to exist, when we start acting as if they don’t exist. That means ignoring a lot of antiquated statutes on the lawbooks.
## How is that objectionable ? ##

What the person was essentially saying that we should ignore our differences and essentially throw away the rules. That to me is pretty objectionable and goes along the line of the Liberal Reformation, essentially one part of the Pandorah’s box that Martin Luther opened up that brought about some of the basic ideologies that brought back herecies regarding an ‘invisible church’, ‘believer’s baptism,’ and even anti-trinitarians.

Pax Tecum,

John
 
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