Laurence England Sings "Top of the Church"

If the Dubia Go Unanswered, the Consequences Could Be Catastrophic

From The Catholic Herald (UK)
By Father Alexander Lucie-Smith

It is dangerous to the credibility of the Church, that what should be considered good in Germany should be considered wrong in Poland

The Four Cardinals show no sign of giving up, and neither should they. It might at this point be useful to present a chronology of the Four Cardinals and the dubia. It goes like this.

• On 19^th September 2016, four Cardinals – Caffarra, Burk, Brandmueller and Meisner – present 5 dubia or requests for clarification to the Pope concerning certain ambiguities in Amoris Laetitia.
  
  
• On 19^th November 2016, having received no answer, the four Cardinals publish their dubia.
  
  
• On April 25^th 2017, the four Cardinals write to the Pope asking for an audience, enclosing an “audience sheet” setting down what they wish to discuss with him.
  
  
• On June 19^th 2017, the letter of the four Cardinals, which has received no response, is published.
  
  

So what is going on here? It is really very simple. The Pope does not want to answer the five dubia, all of which are simple yes or no answers. The reason for this is equally simple. If the Pope answers one way, he contradicts the Magisterium of his predecessors. If he answers another way, he effectively destroys what he has tried to do with Amoris Laetitia, that is, introduce a change of practice in the Church which per se means a change of doctrine. So, the Pope continues to sit on the fence, trying to have it both ways, while the four Cardinals try to push him off it, one way or another, hoping, or knowing, that if forced off the fence there is only one possible way for him to jump.

Interestingly, by refusing to answer the dubia, the Pope has in a certain sense given an answer of sorts. His refusal to answer effectively means that he is not endorsing, at least not officially, the guidelines of the Maltese bishops and others. What the Maltese bishops say remains a local pronouncement, not official Church teaching, even if it may have been published in the Osservatore Romano. What the Maltese bishops teach in their guidelines can be nullified by the Pope or his successors in the Chair of Peter.

But here we run into the chief concern of the Four Cardinals. It is confusing, indeed more than confusing, it is intolerable, for it is dangerous to the credibility of the Church, that what should be considered good in Germany should be considered wrong in Poland. This is not Catholicism, it is rather national churches on the Anglican or Orthodox model. If this ambiguity is allowed to continue, the consequences will be catastrophic.

Furthermore, it simply cannot be the case, for it has never been the case before, that one Pope can contradict the Magisterium of his predecessors. Amoris Laetitia has to be read in continuity with Familiaris Consortio and Veritatis Splendor. If it somehow “replaces” Familiaris Consortio and Veritatis Splendor, are people like me, whose teaching in seminary was based on those two documents, now to “unlearn” them? Have they been corrected? Were they for a time only? Or were they of permanent significance? But if Amoris Laetitia is to replace the previous magisterial documents, then what may replace Amoris Laetitia twenty years from now?

As the dubia make clear, one interpretation of Amoris Laetitia strikes at the heart of Catholic moral teaching as everywhere and always understood. In a sense there can only be one answer to the dubia, and that is that the traditional teaching must stand, and that Amoris Laetitia must be read in the light of that teaching alone.

Anyone who has been reading what I have written on this subject knows by now that I stand with the four Cardinals. So do many others, Cardinals, bishops, priests, deacons and laity.

Holy Father, answer the dubia! For the good of the Church, and for the good of the papal office, please answer the dubia!

 

Alexander Lucie-Smith is a Catholic priest, doctor of moral theology and consulting editor of The Catholic Herald. On Twitter he is @ALucieSmith

Four Cardinals Have Taken the ‘Correct Road’, Says Leading German Philosopher

Robert Spaemann, a friend of Benedict XVI, said the cardinals had chosen the right course and wishes more would join them

The German philosopher Robert Spaemann has supported the four cardinals’ request for clarification of Amoris Laetitia, and said it is “regrettable” that more cardinals have not joined them.

Spaemann, a friend of Benedict XVI and one of the most distinguished Catholic intellectuals in Europe, told the Italian newspaper La Nova Bussola: “The cardinals have taken the correct road.” He says that cardinals have a duty to support the Church, which they are fulfilling by making the request.

Read more at The Catholic Herald >> 

Cardinal: Communion for Remarried Would Be ‘Fundamental’ Break with Church Teaching

Cardinal Raymond Burke (Photo: CNS)

From The Catholic Herald 
  

Cardinal Burke tells Mass of Ages quarterly that Catholics should be 'very concerned'

Cardinal Raymond Burke has said that if the family synod opened the way for divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion then it has “departed from Catholic teaching in a very fundamental matter”.

Pope Francis: Demotion of Burke Not ‘Punishment’

American Cardinal Raymond Burke was removed by Pope Francis from a top Vatican post in November. (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca, File/2012)

Pope Francis has denied that removing American Cardinal Raymond Burke as head of the Vatican’s highest court was a “punishment” for his outspokenly conservative views at a recent summit of bishops, saying instead he wanted a “smart American” to serve as patron of the Order of Malta.

“It is not true that I removed him because of how he had behaved in the synod,” Francis said.

The pontiff said that the move was part of a broader restructuring of the Vatican bureaucracy that had been decided well before the October 5-19 synod of bishops on the family. The reason he waited until after the synod to make it official, he said, was so that Burke could still participate in the meeting as the head of a Vatican department.

Read more at Crux >>

Cardinal Burke: Church Teaching on Sexuality Must Be Clarified, and Only Pope Francis Can Do It

Cardinal Raymond Burke

In an interview with Ireland’s state broadcaster, RTE, one of the Catholic hierarchy’s most outspoken defenders of life and family and the Church’s sexual moral teachings again indicated Pope Francis needs to “clarify” that divorced and remarried Catholics, and active homosexuals, cannot be admitted to the sacraments.

As he did during the course of the contentious Extraordinary Synod of Bishops in Rome last month, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke told RTE in a video interview, “I believe very strongly that – I’m not the pope, and I’m not in the business of telling him what to do – but in my judgment this needs to be clarified, and there’s only one person who can clarify it at this point.”

The possibility of the Church in any way accepting sexual immorality, whether in the form of divorce, “second marriages” or homosexual acts, he said, must be taken “off the table” for next year’s Synod in a definitive way that only the pope can accomplish.

The cardinal denied that this was an instance of “defying” the pope’s authority, saying that Pope Francis would agree that Church teaching is immutable. But he added that he cannot see how the Church’s teaching is being clarified by the Synod process of protracted discussion and debate. He said that he has heard from lay people that “there’s really just a growing confusion about what the Church really teaches, and we’re not coming to any clarity.

Read more at LifeSiteNews >>

 

Thank Cardinal Burke for His Vatican Service

We are very pleased to be among thousands who have signed an Internet petition thanking Cardinal Raymond Burke for his exceptional Vatican service and leadership in the Church.  

Cardinal Burke has been a staunch defender of the Church's unchangeable teachings on the family and the sanctity of life.  As Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, and previously as Archbishop of St. Louis, Cardinal Burke has been unfailing in preaching the Word "in season and out of season" (2 Timothy 4:2).

We thank St. John Paul the Great and our beloved Pope Benedict XVI for recognizing the faith, brilliance and leadership of this great man of God, and we are particularly proud to be his fellow alumnus of The Catholic University of America.

Please join us in thanking Cardinal Burke for his exceptional service to God and to the Church.

Vatican's Chief Justice: Obama’s Policies are ‘Progressively More Hostile Toward Christian Civilization’

President Obama’s policies “have become progressively more hostile toward Christian civilization,” said American Cardinal Raymond Burke in an interview published in English exclusively by LifeSiteNews today.

Burke did not mince words in responding to a question about the Catholic reaction to President Obama’s attack on religious freedom, especially through policies such as the controversial HHS mandate.

“He appears to be a totally secularized man who aggressively promotes anti-life and anti-family policies,” said Burke.

“Now he wants to restrict the exercise of the freedom of religion to freedom of worship, that is, he holds that one is free to act according to his conscience within the confines of his place of worship but that, once the person leaves the place of worship, the government can constrain him to act against his rightly-formed conscience, even in the most serious of moral questions.”

Read more at LifeSiteNews >>

Without Return to Christian Culture U.S. Will Face Future as Conglomeration of Enclaves

From Spirit Daily

We have been talking about Bethlehem and the amazing fact that this town so crucial to Christianity is now walled off from Jerusalem and totally Arab in population (although thirty percent of the Arabs are Christian).

Across and throughout the Holy Land are such barriers and enclaves, the fences slashing across desert the Holy Family once traversed. Will there one day be encirclements -- not as extreme, but enclaves -- in the U.S.?

More to the point: will major future events involve Israel? And how -- surrounded by enemies, but also with many Muslim enclaves within its own borders (entire towns), or in the occupied zones -- can the nation possibly survive?

(The number of Christian Arabs diminished greatly after Israel built settlements here.)

One day, there may be division in North America -- the U.S. and Canada -- as there is now in Israel.

Cardinal Raymond Burke on 'The Fall of the Christian West'

Cardinal Raymond Burke

Cardinal Raymond Burke, the American Cardinal who serves as Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, essentially the Chief Justice at the Vatican, has given an important address to the Australian Catholic Students Association in Sydney, Australia.  He spoke on "the crisis of Christian culture in the West and our call to build anew a strong Catholic culture, in fidelity to our vocation to give witness to Christ and, therefore, to be martyrs for the faith."  

The full text of Cardinal Burke's address is here.