Shake it off. (What?*)
Father Schockenhoff
Among the specialists present was Father Eberhard Schockenhoff, a moral theologian. Faithful German Catholics are particularly disturbed about the rise to prominence of Father Schockenhoff, who is understood to be the “mastermind” behind much of the challenge to settled Church teachings among the German episcopate and, by implication, at the synod on the family itself.
A prominent critic of Humanae Vitae (The Regulation of Birth), as well as a strong supporter of homosexual clergy and those pushing for reform in the area of sexual ethics, Father Schockenhoff is known to be the leading adviser of the German bishops in the run-up to the synod.
In 2010, he gave an interview in which he praised the permanence and solidarity shown in some same-sex relationships as “ethically valuable.” He urged that any assessment of homosexual acts “must take a back seat” on the grounds that the faithful are becoming “increasingly distant from the Church’s sexual morality,” which appears “unrealistic and hostile to them.” The Pope and the bishops should “take this seriously and not dismiss it as laxity,” he said.
Father Schockenhoff has also gone on record saying that moral theology must be “liberated from the natural law” and that conscience should be based on the “life experience of the faithful.”
He has also insisted that the indissolubility of marriage is “not seriously called into question” by admitting remarried divorcees to holy Communion, writing a book to push his thesis in 2011 entitled "Opportunities for reconciliation?: The Church and the divorced and remarried". He has further proposed that the term the “official Church” should be done away with because of a growing gap between the institutional Church and the Church of the faithful. - NCReporter
So. This development of doctrine - it didn't just happen over night. It's not new. It's been unofficial 'teaching' in the Church for decades. Yes it has. It's been the pastoral approach, more or less. At least in progressive Catholic circles. And of course, many 'G'ay Catholics agree that "moral theology must be 'liberated from the natural law' and that conscience should be based on the 'life experience of the faithful.'”
But Pope Francis has just appointed a similar priest to Justice and Peace...
ReplyDeletehttp://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2015/05/good-times-for-dissident-dominicans.html#more
Do I think Popes really know who they are appointing? No. John Paul II appointed people who were verbally staunch ( Cardinal Groer and Cardinal Law ) but who were found wanting as the years unfolded.
I wonder if he just wants all the cards being played laid out on the table - hence Radcliffe's appointment? I actually do think Francis knows who these guys are. JPII? Maybe not so much - Fr. Maciel comes to mind.
DeleteYou may find this helpful
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YB9RZFE
Don't be silly.
DeleteNice knot on the tie.
ReplyDeleteThe windsor knot brings to mind John Vianney and Damien of Molokai.
DeleteAll kidding aside, this guy reminds me of Hebert Anderson, the actor who played Dennis' father in "Dennis the Menace". Is that an ad hominen attack?
Not an attack. We can critique his clothing and looks. You're right - he does look like Dennis' dad.
DeleteOf the first 60 or so pictures of him on Google Images, he's wearing a collar in one. I have a good friend who is a priest who very rarely wears his clericals outside of the church. Not that priests need to wear a collar all day every day, but it implies, whether it's true for the man or not, that being a priest is a job and that the collar is a work uniform (a vocation bifurcation, maybe?).
ReplyDeleteFor my money, the biggest scandal of the German church is not the heterodoxy of its leaders or their bald political agitation, but that dioceses own and operate massive for-profit businesses including publishers that produce catalogs of pornography. I say this because I'm confident all the doctrinal changes Marx et al. are hiding under the sheepskin of "pastoral response" will go nowhere. We need to remember that the majority of the large council of advisors Paul VI put together to advise on contraception were pro-permission and we still got Humanae Vitae, which I don't think could be more loving, pastoral, or Catholic.
I think the risk is schism, which is always a scandal and tragedy, not that Marx or Schockenhoff or whomever will pull one over on the Church.
What they're trying to do reminds me of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r98WGrcTiqs
"Did it work for those people?"
"No, it never does ... but it might work for us."
You're right about Humanae Vitae and how the tables were turned on the advisors, whom Paul VI disappointed. I think that will be the case here as well.
DeleteA priest of our diocese who is an old friend and right-hand man of our Archbishop (and so reflects his thinking) said that a two-tier church is emerging--both domestically and internationally. A Church of believers who live the faith and then everyone else. He predicted it will be that way for some time, and that the Church has gone through this many times before. He's a kind and gentle priest.
DeletePersonally, I'd like to see the return of excommunication for such hedetics, but I'm old school.
ReplyDelete