Reformation part deux

[Dirt]

I offer this article from NCReporter for your appraisal and comment. The resemblance to luther and his theses are frightening.

ncronline.org/news/global/belgian-catholics-issue-reform-manifesto

From some of the recent headlines out of the Church in Europe, it seems a schism may be on the horizon. I wonder if any of it will cross the Atlantic?

 

[Dragonslayer]

*BRUSSELS, BELGIUM – The week before the start of Advent, four Flemish priests issued a church reform manifesto that called for allowing the appointment of laypeople as parish pastors, liturgical leaders and preachers, and for the ordination of married men and women as priests.

By the week’s end more than 4,000 of publicly active Catholics had signed on to the “Believers Speak Out” manifesto. By Dec. 1, the number of signers had reached 6,000.*

Why don’t they just join the protestants?

…but of course it’s the SSPX priests who are suspended and exercise no legitimate ministry in the Church…

 

[White_Peony]

I offer this article from NCReporter for your appraisal and comment. The resemblance to luther and his theses are frightening.

ncronline.org/news/global/belgian-catholics-issue-reform-manifesto

From some of the recent headlines out of the Church in Europe, it seems a schism may be on the horizon. I wonder if any of it will cross the Atlantic?

NOT another one… oh, please…

 

[YoungTradCath]

Saint Michael, defend us in battle.

 

[manualman]

Oh no! An angry mob of athritic aging hippies is coming, what will we do?

Answer: Hide all the pain meds and they’ll go away. Theirs is movement doomed by demography. Their false gospel holds ZERO appeal to young people which is why they have no vocations and their children all fall away into secularism.

By contrast, those who seek Christ and submit to have Him mold them into His image will be the ones who remake the Church in Europe. In the end, it isn’t about “empowerment.” It’s about Christ.

 

[Contarini]

Oh no! An angry mob of athritic aging hippies is coming, what will we do?

Answer: Hide all the pain meds and they’ll go away.

This is simply an appalling response on your part.

Many conservative Catholics seem to think that Biblical and traditional injunctions about honoring the aged don’t apply to “aging hippies.” This is a cheap shot and it discredits you.

Truth matters, not the age of the person speaking.

Theirs is movement doomed by demography. Their false gospel holds ZERO appeal to young people

Untrue. Much less than they think, but there are young people who are drawn to this version of Catholicism.

By contrast, those who seek Christ

And you are sure that these people are not seeking Christ why?

and submit to have Him mold them into His image will be the ones who remake the Church in Europe. In the end, it isn’t about “empowerment.” It’s about Christ.

This manifesto shows a hunger for the Word and the Sacraments. I did not see language about “empowerment.” That is your language.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

*BRUSSELS, BELGIUM – The week before the start of Advent, four Flemish priests issued a church reform manifesto that called for allowing the appointment of laypeople as parish pastors, liturgical leaders and preachers, and for the ordination of married men and women as priests.

By the week’s end more than 4,000 of publicly active Catholics had signed on to the “Believers Speak Out” manifesto. By Dec. 1, the number of signers had reached 6,000.*

Why don’t they just join the protestants?

Why would you urge them to go into schism?

Don’t Catholics typically say that Luther and the others should have stayed and worked for reform from within.

Yet when contemporary Catholics do just that, people say “go away and be Protestant.”

My fear is that they will listen to you.

My hope–for you, for them, for me, and for us all–is that this time around the “dissenters” will listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit calling for unity, and the defenders of orthodoxy will learn to hear what the Spirit may be saying through those they are tempted to despise.

We all need each other. There is no doubt much in the agenda of “liberal” Catholics that needs to be corrected by the Spirit of Christ. I myself find their naive confidence in modern democracy, their contempt for tradition, and their neglect of the transcendent (among other things) deeply disturbing.

But if you simply write them off without hearing what Christ may want to say to you through them, I think you are making a serious mistake.

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[manualman]

Edwin, read the comments below the article. This gives you the real flavor for the kind of person who signs such petitions. It’s ALL about “empowerment.”

You may be partially right. I haven’t met Flemish petition signers, so maybe I’m unfairly characterizing them. But I lived in Milwaukee during the Rembert Weakland years. I’m pretty sure I know the type. No, they don’t produce any vocations to priestly and religious life. At all. And (comment section again) their agitation to normalize divorce and remarriage suggests they don’t do much better fostering vocatons to marriage.

I applaud your caution and dedication to charity, but in this case, I’m not retracting. That era of ecclesial rebellion, experimentation and ‘do-it-yourself doctrine’ was a sterile one and is dying of old age. Engage individuals within it by sharing the joy of Christ? Absolutely. Lend the overall movement legitimacy it doesn’t deserve by addressing their demands? Nope. The young generation have been given a full and heaping helping of nuance and pastoral mush to the point where they know nothing of the faith anymore. The shepherds need to tend to them first by giving clear truth rooted in Scripture and Tradition, not get bogged down in endless listening sessions with the perennially disaffected.

 

[Dirt]

Why would you urge them to go into schism?

Don’t Catholics typically say that Luther and the others should have stayed and worked for reform from within.

In Christ,

Edwin

Edwin, if my reading on the history of luther and The Church are correct, The Holy See did attempt to negotiate with luther, and even agreed to some of his 95 theses, but some of the items he wanted to change were Dogmatic rather than mere abuse. In the end i believe luther did what he had planned to do in the beginning, form a new church based on his ideas, not God’s. That is the same ideology presented in this latest bit of drivel. It is not about reform so much as it is about doing “what WE want”. I think that those who would throw Dogma and Tradition out are sensing a tide change and are lashing out while they still have a few followers.Manualman is partly correct about the age issue, but these heterodox types can still make converts.

Reference; ourcatholicfaith.org/reformation.html

 

[Contarini]

Edwin, read the comments below the article. This gives you the real flavor for the kind of person who signs such petitions.

Do you really need to have the flagrant injustice of such a logical leap pointed out to you?

You may be partially right. I haven’t met Flemish petition signers, so maybe I’m unfairly characterizing them. But I lived in Milwaukee during the Rembert Weakland years. I’m pretty sure I know the type.

People aren’t types.

I read every Tuesday to a 95-year-old liberal nun who has lost her eyesight. Yes, she’s old. Yes, her brand of Catholicism is probably dying. Yes, it has a lot of flaws (she has a touching faith in everything summed up in the word “modern”). But I know that I have learned a lot from her and that getting to know her has brought me closer to God.

A “young fogey” like me needs to hear the witness of someone who lived through the Great Depression, who was educated by Ursuline nuns and looks back on that memory with great fondness, who joined a religious order when already in her sixties, and who has spent her life serving God and other people and hoping that things in the world will get better.

There are two separate issues here: one is your rude attack on liberals on the entirely irrelevant ground that many of them are old, and the other is your assumption that liberalism is all about “empowerment.” I disagree with both, but I regard the former as unjustified as a matter of principle. People’s age just shouldn’t be relevant in a consideration of the truth of their beliefs. The second issue is more a problem of over-generalization.

Also, why do only liberals get called to account for their love of power? Why assume that they are the only ones who care about power? Isn’t this just as unfair as their assumption that the Catholic hierarchy only cares about power?

That era of ecclesial rebellion, experimentation and ‘do-it-yourself doctrine’ was a sterile one

Really? You know, this is exactly what I heard in the 90s from liberal Catholics about pre-Vatican-II Catholicism. Why do we all have this compulsion to deny any legitimacy to those with whom we disagree? People embrace this kind of Catholicism for a reason. I don’t like much of it either. I didn’t become Catholic in 1999 partly because of my dislike for liberal Catholicism, and while I’m more sympathetic to it now, I still find the comments on the NCR page sickening. There’s a reason I hang out here instead, in spite of my frequent disagreement with the dominant perspectives on this forum!

Lend the overall movement legitimacy it doesn’t deserve by addressing their demands?

So you’re saying that their concerns lack any merit?

You are sure, absolutely sure, that there is nothing to be learned from them? Why?

You are put off by what you’ve seen of the implementation of liberalism. I first encountered Catholicism (in some depth–obviously I’d met Catholics before) in the Diocese of Raleigh in the 90s, so I have some idea of what you are talking about. But the liberal priests I knew then took the views they did because they had been put off by what they had seen of pre-Vatican II Catholicism. It’s an endless cycle. The only way to break it is to insist resolutely on seeing the value in views you find unpalatable.

The young generation have been given a full and heaping helping of nuance and pastoral mush to the point where they know nothing of the faith anymore.

If the liberalism you are familiar with has a lot of nuance, then I was wrong in thinking that it’s similar to what I saw in North Carolina. Nor do I find the commenters on the NCR page particularly nuanced.

Plenty of pastoral mush, to be sure. But how on earth you consider pastoral mush nuanced I’m not sure.

Perhaps we’re using “nuance” differently. The Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas, for instance, would be a model of what I mean by nuance–careful distinction in the interests of clarity.

I don’t think nuance is the problem. I think the lack of nuance is the problem. But I entirely agree that if you are going to be simplistic, better be simplistic in stating the classic truths of the Faith, rather than in questioning them.

Edwin

 

[jmj1984]

I offer this article from NCReporter for your appraisal and comment. The resemblance to luther and his theses are frightening.

ncronline.org/news/global/belgian-catholics-issue-reform-manifesto

From some of the recent headlines out of the Church in Europe, it seems a schism may be on the horizon. I wonder if any of it will cross the Atlantic?

Sounds like they need catechesis. Really though its nothing new, bishops, theologians and priests were espousing similar views in thr 60’s and 70’s.

 

[manualman]

1. People aren’t types.
2. There are two separate issues here: one is your rude attack on liberals on the entirely irrelevant ground that many of them are old,
3. and the other is your assumption that liberalism is all about “empowerment.” I disagree with both, but I regard the former as unjustified as a matter of principle. People’s age just shouldn’t be relevant in a consideration of the truth of their beliefs. The second issue is more a problem of over-generalization.
4. Also, why do only liberals get called to account for their love of power? Why assume that they are the only ones who care about power? Isn’t this just as unfair as their assumption that the Catholic hierarchy only cares about power?
5. Really? You know, this is exactly what I heard in the 90s from liberal Catholics about pre-Vatican-II Catholicism. Why do we all have this compulsion to deny any legitimacy to those with whom we disagree? People embrace this kind of Catholicism for a reason.
6. If the liberalism you are familiar with has a lot of nuance, then I was wrong in thinking that it’s similar to what I saw in North Carolina. Nor do I find the commenters on the NCR page particularly nuanced.

1. True, but to refuse to allow generalizations about groups is to refuse to see trends. Even broad, massive, obvious trends.
2. I’m not attacking them for being old. I’m attacking them for preaching a gospel so warped, narrow and unrecognizable that nobody outside the peculiar circumstances of their own upbringing experiences it as a joyful and life-giving message. Whatever it was that gave life to their movement is gone, long gone.
3. Over-generalization can be a problem. So can refusal to allow any generalizations. See #1 above.
4. Who said that the hierarchy never errs on the side of peronal hoarding of power? To the extent that the hierarchy cares about power to the exclusion of serving the flock, that’s God’s job to resolve. Revolution in church matters has never (IMO) created a long term improvement.
5. You mischaracterize me. There is merit to the thought that systemic problems in the presentation of doctrine and pastoral care in the pre-Vatican II era built up some of the resentments that eventually manifested in protest-catholicism today. Fortunately, this is precisely a main focus area of the ACTUAL second Vatican Council, so I don’t really need a petition to figure out where the truth lies. I just have to read the documents. I’m not one to agitate against vernacular, nor do I oppose using microphones so the faithful can hear Eucharistic prayers. I don’t suspect that the devil invented the guitar, nor am I apalled if a priest can see my face during confession. I AM appalled that the mass has been altered to de-emphasize the sacrifice of the Eucharist and emphasize the fuzzy feelings of the congregants. I am saddened that the posture of receiving the Eucharist now resembles the posture of receiving a Big Mac. I am angry that these latter two (among other things) were done in the NAME of the council without being ever mentioned in the documents. In short, I believe in the Sacrament of Holy Orders and the Grace that God has given in it to preserve and protect his Church. I’m less impressed by revolutions, actual and proposed to address real and imagined problems.
6. I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s. Nobody taught me Aquinas. I thought nuance meant the way one goes about finding principled exceptions to morally justify what one wants to do.

 

[Dragonslayer]

Why would you urge them to go into schism?

Don’t Catholics typically say that Luther and the others should have stayed and worked for reform from within.

Yet when contemporary Catholics do just that, people say “go away and be Protestant.”

My fear is that they will listen to you.

My hope–for you, for them, for me, and for us all–is that this time around the “dissenters” will listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit calling for unity, and the defenders of orthodoxy will learn to hear what the Spirit may be saying through those they are tempted to despise.

We all need each other. There is no doubt much in the agenda of “liberal” Catholics that needs to be corrected by the Spirit of Christ. I myself find their naive confidence in modern democracy, their contempt for tradition, and their neglect of the transcendent (among other things) deeply disturbing.

But if you simply write them off without hearing what Christ may want to say to you through them, I think you are making a serious mistake.

In Christ,

Edwin

Edwin, that was a very Christian, forgiving & charitable response and I commend you for it.

However, to be honest, and this is meant in no offence to you, I am really getting sick and tired of these type of responses in cases such as this. What these Priests are proposing is Protestant. Are they seriously suggesting the Church should change to adopt Protestant practises?

My argument is twofold. Firstly, why do they want to change the one true Catholic and Apostolic Church into a Protestant church when there is already a Protestant church? They already have something they are looking for.

Secondly, I am amazed at the hypocrisy amongst Catholics at the moment. Many show sympathy towards Priests who want to be Protestant but have condemnation for Priests who want to remain purely Catholic.

Perhaps Sister Lucia is right and we are witnessing the “diabolical disorientation” she spoke of.

 

[Laudate_Dominum]

Why would you urge them to go into schism?

They are already in schism with their heart. The canonical pronouncement would aid to avoid scandalising the faithful.

Don’t Catholics typically say that Luther and the others should have stayed and worked for reform from within.

Luther et. al. should have bowed their necks to authoritative Church teaching regarding the Sacraments etc. and stayed to work true reform of the individual sinful men in the Church.

But when they attacked the authority of the Church, the Sacraments etc. they cut themselves off from the Church.

Yet when contemporary Catholics do just that, people say “go away and be Protestant.”

See above.

My fear is that they will listen to you.

Hopefully they will listen to God and cast aside their pride and arrogance and bow to the authority of Holy Mother Church.

My hope–for you, for them, for me, and for us all–is that this time around the “dissenters” will listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit calling for unity, and the defenders of orthodoxy will learn to hear what the Spirit may be saying through those they are tempted to despise.

The Holy Ghost is not inspiring people to assault the Sacraments of the Church (Matrimony and Holy Orders).

But if you simply write them off without hearing what Christ may want to say to you through them, I think you are making a serious mistake.

Christ speaks through His Church, not heretics.

In Jesus through Mary,
LD.

 

[wisdomseeker]

I offer this article from NCReporter for your appraisal and comment. The resemblance to luther and his theses are frightening.

ncronline.org/news/global/belgian-catholics-issue-reform-manifesto

From some of the recent headlines out of the Church in Europe, it seems a schism may be on the horizon. I wonder if any of it will cross the Atlantic?

Yeah, right. How about repentance for tearing up the Holy Church and return to the teachings of God and Mother Church. Many have substituted repentance to come up with absurd solutions. they cannot see that we are being punished by God for our sins.

 

[wisdomseeker]

This is simply an appalling response on your part.

Many conservative Catholics seem to think that Biblical and traditional injunctions about honoring the aged don’t apply to “aging hippies.” This is a cheap shot and it discredits you.

Truth matters, not the age of the person speaking.
Untrue. Much less than they think, but there are young people who are drawn to this version of Catholicism.

And you are sure that these people are not seeking Christ why?
This manifesto shows a hunger for the Word and the Sacraments. I did not see language about “empowerment.” That is your language.

Edwin

With all due respect. I think it is innapropriate for you to inject your opinions on the CC matters. You are not of our Faith. You are not a Catholic and this is not a discuss between protestants and Catholics but an internal matters.

I like discussing things with you on matters of protestantism, but that is all.

 

[manualman]

With all due respect. I think it is innapropriate for you to inject your opinions on the CC matters. You are not of our Faith. You are not a Catholic and this is not a discuss between protestants and Catholics but an internal matters.

I like discussing things with you on matters of protestantism, but that is all.

I disagree. I always appreciate Edwin’s insightful (name removed by moderator)ut, even if it’s critical. And even if I don’t agree. And he’s a baptized believer, so he IS of our faith, so .

He even made see when I was wrong once. Once.

 

[Mudgely]

Does anyone know what the attendance numbers are in Belgium. From what I can tell, it appears to be 6% of the population attends Catholic church services, and the rate is dropping at 0.5% per year. I read that the ordination rate of new priests is about two per year. So this entire topic may be mute within a decade.

 

[Contarini]

With all due respect. I think it is innapropriate for you to inject your opinions on the CC matters. You are not of our Faith. You are not a Catholic and this is not a discuss between protestants and Catholics but an internal matters.

I like discussing things with you on matters of protestantism, but that is all.

Truth is truth.

Or are you one of those evil relativists we are always hearing about from conservatives?

You don’t have to like discussing with me. You don’t have to discuss these matters with me.

But I care what happens in Catholicism. Whether Catholicism is really Catholic–really capable of embracing the fullness of the truth and allowing unity with diversity–or just a very big confessional sect is a matter of great importance to non-Catholic Christians.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

1. True, but to refuse to allow generalizations about groups is to refuse to see trends. Even broad, massive, obvious trends.

In this case I’m objecting to your applying to these folks in Belgium language that they don’t themselves use.

Also, I don’t think it’s fair to say that “empowering the laity” means that the people using that language are simply focused on power. There is a universal priesthood of the baptized. There are, from my perspective, good reasons to believe that it hasn’t been lived out in Catholicism as fully as it might be.

My basic problem looking at Catholicism is that I can accept the dogmas, but I look at how the dogmas are lived out and it gives me concerns. Catholics say, “ah, but the problem isn’t with the dogmas–join us and help us live them out!” Then I see Catholics being mocked by other Catholics for trying to embrace more fully the universal priesthood of the baptized, and I worry. . . . .

1. I’m not attacking them for being old. I’m attacking them for preaching a gospel so warped, narrow and unrecognizable that nobody outside the peculiar circumstances of their own upbringing experiences it as a joyful and life-giving message. Whatever it was that gave life to their movement is gone, long gone.

Again, I think this is an over-generalization, but I recognize that you do have a point, and I apologize for my strong language earlier. (How can I not, when you defended me so courteously against wisdomseeker?)

I frequently make this point (in more positive and less polemical terms) to the elderly nun I mentioned already. Her convent hosted some nuns from a very conservative order that wears habits, many of whose members are very young, and she was baffled by why these young nuns want to return to the practices that she regards as outdated. (The order she belongs to originally was intended to be an order of “catechists” rather than nuns, and did not wear habits even before Vatican II, except in certain dioceses under pressure from the local bishops). So as usual with me, I can argue both sides.

I don’t think that liberal Catholicism is limited to the older generation, but I think you’re right that much of the energy driving it is, and also that a lot of it is fueled by particular generational experiences. However, I worry that those experiences may repeat themselves if the conservative resurgence becomes a simple reaction without learning from the liberals.

I agree with you, as a matter of fact. However, church polity has changed over the centuries, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t go on doing so. Nor does it seem to me that there’s any reason why premodern forms of government such as absolute monarchy and city-state republicanism should leave their mark on Church discipline and polity, while modern representative democracy should not. The key, surely, is to distinguish between those features which really are divinely given and essential (apostolic succession, Petrine primacy, the collegiality of all bishops, and the indelible character imparted by both baptism and ordination, creating the universal and the ministerial priesthoods respectively; the primacy of celibacy within the Christian life, especially for purposes of ministry; and perhaps the ban on marriage for those who are already ordained), and those which are historically contingent (the Western discipline of priestly celibacy; the Eastern discipline of episcopal celibacy; the five-patriarch system of the conciliar era; the hierarchy of archbishops, metropolitans, etc.; election of bishops and/or papal or patriarchal appointment; regional structures of collegiality among bishops; the election of the Pope by cardinals; and perhaps the location of the Papacy in the city of Rome).

Obviously one big omission above from both lists is the question of women’s ordination. I recognize that the Catholic Magisterium would put the male-only priesthood in the first list, and I’ve given elsewhere my reasons for questioning this.

5. You mischaracterize me. There is merit to the thought that systemic problems in the presentation of doctrine and pastoral care in the pre-Vatican II era built up some of the resentments that eventually manifested in protest-catholicism today.

Fair enough. I apologize for the mischaracterization.

1. I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s. Nobody taught me Aquinas. I thought nuance meant the way one goes about finding principled exceptions to morally justify what one wants to do.

I get that. I read Aquinas and said “Wow! here’s a form of theology that actually recognizes how complicated the Christian faith is, while still trying to make systematic sense of it and draw clear logical distinctions!”

Admittedly, I come from a weird background. My grandmother (who had a house full of books, it should be said, and gave me my love of reading and of church history) saw me reading Aquinas, shook her head, and said disapprovingly, “Your reading has become awfully wide!”

Edwin