A report from the early days of the Synod in Rome:
The first days of discussions at the global meeting of Catholic bishops have focused partly on how to change “harsh language” used by the church in discussing family life and on acknowledging that people grow in faith slowly, according to Vatican observers of the meeting.
One theme said to be included in 70 speeches made by prelates over the past two days is how the prelates label people with words that “are not necessarily words that invite people to draw closer to the church.”
Briefing reporters Tuesday on the event, known as a Synod of Bishops, Basilian Fr. Thomas Rosica said one or more synod members specifically referred to three terms commonly used by the church:
“Living in sin”: a reference to couples who live together before marriage;
“Intrinsically disordered”: a reference to gay people; and
“Contraceptive mentality”: a reference made by some prelates to refer to a society that does not respect life.“To label people … does not help in bringing people to Christ,” said Rosica, summarizing the synod member. “There was a great desire that our language has to change in order to meet the very difficult situations.”
Imagine just how much Trent’s “let him be anathema” harshed Ursinus’ buzz.
Old Life 
Sounds like Rome is shooting for a sort of ecclesial Upward Basketball.
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Cw, well we hear a lot about how doctrine is different from discipline and that is supposedly a reassurance that doctrine doesn’t change. But how disciplined is the Roman church? Does it matter? What about all that papal authority and episcopal charism? And would the church be facing all these troubles about marriage if the bishops and priests had been clear — as they were before Vatican 2 — about what was a legitimate marriage?
Why does mainline Protestantism come to mind? Great. So Jason and the Callers left the OPC and PCA for a church that resembles the PCUSA (except for — for now — gay marriage and women’s ordination).
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Rome has always been a big tent, but a tent whose poles can move at a moment’s notice to either include or exclude (anyone remember the Jansenists?). Since Vatican II the poles of the big tent have been steadily moving outward.
As long as Trent is good doctrine, no matter how large Rome makes its tent it is still outside the camp.
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So Rome will say gentler things about a married gay couple and then the married gay couple will grow in faith and eventually decide not to be married any more? Some things are just not reconcilable. This is not my problem, though, it’s the problem of Bryan & The Callers and the Catholic trads. It’s their superior paradigm that may need shifting.
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What honest estimates are predicted for the RC clergy to come out of the closet when sodomy is declared no biggy?
I’ve seen 40% at the lowest
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Of course, the change in language has never showed a shift in the underlying beliefs…
I used to think Rome would stand firm against such things as :gay marriage,” but now I’m not so sure. I could easily see, within our own lifetime even, a shift to a position where heterosexual marriage is the ideal but that gay marriage can be a legitimate lesser good.
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Ursinus gets his copy of the minutes from Trent, and was, like totally.
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Rome goes full Osteen.
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Uh-oh. Today’s NYT e-mail:
Vatican Signals More Lenient Stance on Gays and Divorce
An important meeting of bishops at the Vatican used remarkably conciliatory language on Monday toward gay and divorced Catholics, signaling a possible easing of the church’s rigid attitudes on homosexuality and the sanctity of marriage.
The gathering of bishops from around the world called on pastors to recognize, among other things, the “positive aspects of civil unions and cohabitation.”
The meeting, or synod, was called by Pope Francis to discuss issues related to the family in contemporary society. A report was given on Monday of the main considerations under debate in the first week of the two-week gathering.
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“Signaling the direction they are heading, the bishops called for a more merciful approach toward the faithful who stray from the Catholic ideal, citing the need for “courageous pastoral choices” to reflect the current plurality of relationships outside the traditional family model.”
It used to be considered courageous to uphold a difficult standard. Now it’s courageous to lower standards.
Welcome to liberalism.
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“The gathering of bishops from around the world called on pastors to recognize, among other things, the ‘positive aspects of civil unions and cohabitation.'”
Sex without financial responsibility. What’s not to like? For men, that is…
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The article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/world/europe/vatican-signals-more-tolerance-toward-gays-and-remarriage.html
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Love is god, or something.
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RC theology and doctrine has been trending toward liberalism for a while, is it any wonder that RC practice should begin to liberalize as well? As a huge institution it moves slowly, but it is going to be very difficult for the conservatives to stop the momentum.
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Conservative catholics??
Who are… these… people?
I get some thoughtful stuff from First Things, along with a few sources on a scrap piece of paper by Opus Dei friends
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It’s not like anyone got thru Augustine and St
Thomas by flapping their fool mouths or fingertips off.
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How come nobody on the CTC side doesn’t notice that the downgrade in the ELCA, PCUSA, et al all started with a process of “dialogue and listening” before these “courageous pastoral choices”? I see no difference in trajectory than what happened in the Protestant mainline, its just taking Rome a bit longer to get there.
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G. Hart
Posted October 11, 2014 at 10:46 am | Permalink
Cw, well we hear a lot about how doctrine is different from discipline and that is supposedly a reassurance that doctrine doesn’t change. But how disciplined is the Roman church? Does it matter? What about all that papal authority and episcopal charism? And would the church be facing all these troubles about marriage if the bishops and priests had been clear — as they were before Vatican 2 — about what was a legitimate marriage?
Why does mainline Protestantism come to mind? Great. So Jason and the Callers left the OPC and PCA for a church that resembles the PCUSA (except for — for now — gay marriage and women’s ordination).
Heh. Although reading newspapers to get the truth about what the Vatican is saying is almost as futile as reading Old Life.
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Robert,
The “doctrine” will remain safe & sound under lock and key, kind of like Moet & Chandon kept in a pretty cabinet.
This stuff is just “discipline” served up to fool the church’s enemies. Nothing that has happened today refutes anything Bryan has said or included in his paradigm.
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Tom,
The standards by which you can be judged a lapsed Catholic will be even lower. Rejoice!
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How come nobody on the CTC side doesn’t noticesd
Well that proves I’m not infallible.
*How come nobody on the CTC side notices
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Gene Veith weighs in, asks how this is any different from liberal Protestantism?
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2014/10/catholic-family-synod-liberal-protestantism/
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JAS,
Let’s hear more:
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In short, how to have “your best life now”…
… and not feel guilty in the pew.
Some of my cousins in Michigan may be the beneficiaries of such.
The opening line from this Robert Jenson lecture can be adapted for our purposes here:
“The new goverment [of the Catholic church] is busily engaged in lowering expectations.”
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I love it when Rod Dreher calls it like it is:
I suppose anything could happen, but it seems to me that the fix is in. This is a pastoral synod, not a doctrinal one. But the change in pastoral practices it mandates will be a de facto change in doctrine, because that’s exactly how it will be received by the Catholic public.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/rome-synod-family-homosexuality/
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Complete crickets on all this over at Called to Communion.
(Not) shockingly, my comment from yesterday afternoon is still in moderation.
Maybe they’re all in their prayer closets, turning this over to the Blessed Mother.
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My link above under “Moet & Chandon” makes no sense whatsoever (it goes with a different comment). The correct link was to Queen’s “Killer Queen”, of course.
When you have to explain it…
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From the linked Unam Sanctum post: “Does Francis occasionally say something orthodox? I admit it seems to have happened.”
From the comments, a Finneyite Papist: “I agree in theory, and yet… What exactly is to be done? I have been ready for a revival in my parish since I came home, but how?”
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RR Reno:
“The first thing to say is that the Synod seems to be infected with an emotivist, subjectivist, and therapeutic tone. There are exhortations to “listening,” and lots of calls for more “dialog.” The document speaks of marriage allowing couples to find “ways to grow.” There is a mention of the hoary distinction between regulations and “putting forward values.” (Talk of “values” is always a bad sign.) Needless to say the former is tacitly condemned (and irony), while the latter championed. And there’s regular recourse to the claim that changing times have made things so very complicated and so we can’t be “content with theoretical meetings [meanings?] or general orientations.”
I experienced this sort of rhetoric as an Episcopalian, and I can report that it’s consistently used by authoritarian liberals to silence anyone who dares to speak about the truth. To do so “shuts down dialogue.” Truth-talk is “rigid” and “ignores human complexity.” And so I say to the bishops, beware. The dictatorship of relativism has a bureaucratic vocabulary that’s finding its way into the Synod. ”
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/10/catholicism-sex-and-marriage
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This TKNY clip might help the Bishops figure out how to speak REALLY CLEARLY AND COURAGEOUSLY about sexual issues.
Hint: talk more about the human flourishing.
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JAS, so much for the audacity of infallibility. But David Anders got a gig at EWTN radio. So there’s something.
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This has more the feel of Trent:
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More orthodoxy, less empathy:
But should a priest really be advising the pope? Audacious?
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Erik Charter
Posted October 14, 2014 at 12:14 pm | Permalink
Complete crickets on all this over at Called to Communion.
As quiet as Old Life when the PCUSA went gay. That Rome is of more importance to you than your putative co-religionists is probative.
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The PCUSA dumpster fire is still a burnin’.
But Rome just knocked over a candle onto the drapes.
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Tom, it’s so easy hitting the mainline. Don’t you think it’s much more fun to aim at an institution that so many claim to be the font of tradition and conservative ideas?
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Tom,
As quiet as Old Life when the PCUSA went gay. That Rome is of more importance to you than your putative co-religionists is probative.
Perhaps its because people who left the PCA or the OPC for the PCUSA (if there are any who have) aren’t going around talking about the superiority of their epistemology and certainty. Perhaps because no one in the PCUSA isn’t running around screaming that the denomination hasn’t capitulated to modernity/postmodernity.
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Tom,
The PCUSA was rotten before most of us were born and before you went on your fist game show, thus the lack of shock on our part.
They dropped any sense of confessional seriousness in 1967, I believe (D.G. can confirm).
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O.K., I’m going to bed so let me have it. I’ll see if there’s any feedback in the morning:
http://literatecomments.com/2014/10/15/has-the-time-come-to-give-jason-stellman-a-mulligan/
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O.K., that looks awkward. You know what I meant…
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Erik Charter
Posted October 14, 2014 at 11:03 pm | Permalink
Tom,
The PCUSA was rotten before most of us were born and before you went on your fist game show, thus the lack of shock on our part.
They dropped any sense of confessional seriousness in 1967, I believe (D.G. can confirm).
The Catholic Church–according to y’all–was rotten quite a number of years before that.
Nice try though. Avoiding the point. Or acknowledging it, Erik–you and Old Life care more about the Catholic Church than the Presbyterian ones!
And it would be lot more interesting if Darryl tried to recover the Presbyterian Church for Reformed theology than bitch at Jason and the Catholics, who are long gone. At least to this observer.
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Tom, talk about avoiding the issue. Why don’t you address the post instead attacking the messenger? Could it be that you are really on Roman Catholicism’s side?
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Abby,
Tom is on Rome’s side—just not enough to attend mass or participate in the life of the church. It’s a strange phenomenon.
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Klaxon horns sounding at CtC bunker.
“Your Eminence, how is everything going in the Synod?
— Everything is very quiet now. This morning it was on fire a little bit but of course that’s because of you – the newspapers!
Yesterday we were told the “Spirit of Vatican II” was in the synod. Do you agree with this?
–This is the spirit of the Council – this is very true.
Have you seen some movement on the divorce and “remarriage” issue?
–I hoped there would be some opening and I think the majority is in favor. That is the impression I have, but there is no vote. But I think some opening would be left [to happen]. Perhaps it would also be left to the next part of the synod.”
http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/cardinal-kasper-growing-majority-in-synod-support-divorce-remarriage-proposal
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Tom,
I know the metal plate in your head picks up microwaves and makes it hard for things to get through, but try to appreciate this distinction:
The PCUSA gave up being orthodox decades ago. They are not retreating from that. They are liberal. We have no communion with them, no do we have any ecclesiastical links to them. They are not much different from the Unitarians.
The Roman Catholic Church claims to be orthodox, indeed they claim to be the repository for what is orthodox.
We claim to be orthodox so we have an interest in other churches that make the same claim.
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Robert – Abby,
Tom is on Rome’s side—just not enough to attend mass or participate in the life of the church. It’s a strange phenomenon.
Erik – He’s honoring his dear, departed mum and paying homage to his boyhood education.
But enough about Tom.
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And now it may be that Rome is treating the marriageably challenged the way Vatican II treated Protestants:
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D.G. Hart said ” How disciplined is the Roman Church” Not very D.G. since well intended muslims are welcome in the kingdom. A more Pelagian and human institution every day. Maybe they will change the term adultry to having an affair.
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abby reid
Posted October 15, 2014 at 9:58 am | Permalink
Tom, talk about avoiding the issue. Why don’t you address the post instead attacking the messenger? Could it be that you are really on Roman Catholicism’s side?
As an old friend of Darryl and his handful of Old Life acolytes, Abby, I must always preface my remarks that their fascination/obsession with Catholicism is their defining characteristic. This is probative, as Calvinism shrinks and shrinks so that the only true Christian church, the OPC, has nothing to say while Presbyterianism goes gay, but Old Life churns out post after post on the Catholics and a handful of Reformed converts to it.
Just getting you up to speed on the players here. The next move is to accuse me of being a Catholic who doesn’t go to Sunday mass, as though that invalidates anything I might have to say.
So actually, Darryl and his Old Life club play the ad hominem/delegitimization game. I just note they manifestly care more about Catholicism than Presbyterianism, especially when they attack me personally at the drop of my hat.
So now that you’ve learned Darryl’s game [and the dirty work he leaves to his surrogates], as to the post itself, I would warn anyone who thinks they can understand the Vatican by reading newspaper reports is on very thin ice.
It could be that Catholicism will go gay like the PCUSA did, but I’m gonna bet against it. Either way, Darryl was silent when the biggest Presbyterian church went gay, so I don’t quite get his mouthiness with the Catholics.
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Erik Charter
Posted October 15, 2014 at 2:05 pm | Permalink
Tom,
I know the metal plate in your head picks up microwaves and makes it hard for things to get through, but try to appreciate this distinction:
The PCUSA gave up being orthodox decades ago. They are not retreating from that. They are liberal. We have no communion with them, no do we have any ecclesiastical links to them. They are not much different from the Unitarians.
The Roman Catholic Church claims to be orthodox, indeed they claim to be the repository for what is orthodox.
We claim to be orthodox so we have an interest in other churches that make the same claim.
Heh. You and Darryl have been gossiping about me. I’m flattered as always, Erik.
The list of “other churches that claim to be orthodox” is smaller every day. “Orthodox” is almost a claim to be old and in the way!
Most of the schismatics claim to be “reformed,” small “r,” in some way, if we’re to keep the conversation going. [Or restarted.] The Protestant Reformation.
Of course, “Protestant” isn’t a real name either. And “Eastern Orthodox.” “Greek?” The official name is “Orthodox Catholic Church.” For the record.
See, EC, you reminded us once again that if Darryl and Old Life are going to create their identity as NOTCatholic first- or second-most, all you’re doing is arguing against Rome, not for Geneva.
[Hope you liked this one, Abby. I just don’t do driveby and ad hom here. I actually listen to these guys–except when they start doing the justification thing. Then my eyes glaze over. Not only is it boring, I’m assuming I’m NOTelect, so I’m spit out of luck anyway.]
[But when they’re in heaven and I’m not, Darryl and Erik will miss me. Not a lot, mind you, but they’ll miss me.]
[Tom was kind of cool. Shame he didn’t make the predestination cut.]
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Thanks, Tom.
I wonder where you look for news about developments in Roman Catholicism.
I wonder also why you care about this since you don’t seem to be a Christian (or seem to care that you may be going to hell — I’m sorry to hear that).
You should know that I’ve seen a lot of Roman Catholic apologetics websites that make it seem like Roman Catholics have all the answers and that Protestants are hopelessly inconsistent. Old Life is a rare place that points out the inconsistency between RC apologists and what’s happening at the Vatican.
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“He’s throwing us all under the bus,” grumbled a non-Catholic member of my own family on reading the headlines on the synod report.—Maggie Gallagher
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/390554/churchs-crisis-faith-and-mine-maggie-gallagher
Abby, I guess I’m just not a fan of polemics, esp in the religious area. That you are wrong doesn’t make me right. That Darryl uses the current crisis to delegitimize Rome is a bore, esp considering the current doctrinal anarchy of the Reformed faith.
As for Catholicism’s inconsistencies, I often find Darryl’s premises confused or disingenuous. This is usually the response when Bryan Cross stops by to straighten Darryl out. There is seldom an actual conversation.
This is not to say Catholicism is correct on any given issue, only that its arguments are usually internally consistent; its critics are underinformed. In the current crisis, one may argue that per Mt 19:9
I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
the historical Catholic position on marriage is Biblically valid, even if one agrees with the more lax Protestant practice.
“We should replace the feast day of St. Thomas More with the feast of St. Henry the VIII,” one wag told me privately.—Gallagher
I myself am a fan of orthodoxy, thus of the OPC. But that Darryl reserves his stones for the Catholic edifice rather the Reformed faith’s glass house remains a mystery to me. I suppose in the end everything’s The Will of God, but the larger church’s rot is from within, in no small part because the righteous keep silent.
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“especially when they attack me personally at the drop of my hat.”
Rumor has it that when Tom Vandyk dropped his hat a decade ago a mullet would be exposed.
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Tom,
We argue against lots of other things besides Rome. Like mullets.
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Tom – That Darryl uses the current crisis to delegitimize Rome is a bore,
But you think the PCUSA going gay is exciting?
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Tom,
Is Mormonism also internally consistent?
If so, are you impressed by it?
“But that Darryl reserves his stones for the Catholic edifice rather the Reformed faith’s glass house remains a mystery to me.”
Other than the five posts a week critical of various things Reformed & Presbyterian, you mean?
Do you read the blog or just your crib notes from 18 months ago?
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Tom – “I myself am a fan of orthodoxy.”
Although not enough to practice it?
Is the only thing you value orthodoxy for is that it maintains social order?
If so, why so down on the OPC? They help keep the peace.
Exactly what good is social order if we all just die and rot? You get warm and fuzzy thinking about people 300 years from now enjoying their brief existence on Earth?
Oh yeah, we all go to heaven — universalism.
So why is orthodoxy important?
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Tom, I’m not sure I understand. Of the five most recent posts at Old Life, only one involved Roman Catholics.
Can you explain why you appear to be so sensitive about criticism of Roman Catholicism?
I have been reading a few of Dr. Hart’s books over the last few years and all I seem to remember is how unusual his perspective was on American Protestantism.
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What – no update with the (deadlocked) revised report from today? Shocked – I am shocked.
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Clete,
What, you have some 90-year-old, straight Bishops holding the line?
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foxy dame, you should be, having invested all that infallibility in those Keystone Kardinals.
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Cletus,
I’m confused. The bishops are deadlocked? And we’re supposed to trust them to be infallible? This should not be rocket science. If the church’s teaching on marriage can never change, what is the point of the synod? Was it because last year the church had the infallible teaching but was clueless in how to apply it properly?
Fat lotta good infallibility is when the people who have the charism are clueless in how to apply it. Sounds kinda like Joe professing Protestant who knows His Bible is infallible but doesn’t know how to interpret it.
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It’s also hard to take claims of infallibility seriously when the Curia floats a trial balloon, sends out a cardinal to tell everyone they’re ignoring the conservatives, and then has to backtrack because of an outcry of some conservative monied people. The Republicans have a better media operation.
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Robert – “I’m confused. The bishops are deadlocked? And we’re supposed to trust them to be infallible?”
Does this mean the Holy Spirit is undecided or the charism just needs to work awhile longer so the instructions can come through clearly?
And if The Pope is the one with the ability to discern the Holy Spirit’s will infallibly, why wait around for mere bishops to sort it out?
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Robert, come on. The synod was pastoral. You bring to Rome a lot of fellows who haven’t done a lick of pastoral counseling for at least a decade and these men who are basically administrators — nothing wrong with that, the world doesn’t work with out them — and you have them deliberate on a pastoral solution to a problem that is largely the result of priests and bishops not telling Roman Catholics about church teaching on marriage.
Brilliant.
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Yeah, This is like bringing a bunch of megachurch pastors and Gospel Coalition celebrities together to solve pastoral problems. Can they remember that far back in their ministry?
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The New York Times on the Assembly:
No Consensus at Vatican as Synod Ends
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO OCT. 18, 2014
A closely watched Vatican assembly on the family ended on Saturday without consensus among the bishops in attendance on what to say about gays, and whether to give communion to divorced and remarried Catholics.
The bishops’ final report watered down the warm and welcoming language about gays and divorced couples that appeared in a preliminary report released on Monday, midway through the two-week assembly. Conservative bishops had expressed alarm that the Roman Catholic Church was sending a mixed message on marriage and homosexuality.
Pope Francis addressed the bishops in the final session, issuing a double-barreled warning against “hostile rigidity” by “so-called traditionalists,” but also cautioning “progressives” who would “bandage a wound before treating it.” The bishops responded with a four-minute standing ovation in the closed-door meeting, Vatican spokesmen said afterward.
The assembly is far from the final word, and has served only to open debate among prelates and in the wider church, as Francis said he had intended. Francis is taking the unusual step of publishing the final report showing the vote tallies on each passage, in the interest of transparency, said the Rev. Thomas Rosica, the English-language spokesman at the Vatican meeting.
The entire document received approval from a majority of the bishops, but a vote of two-thirds is required to be considered the consensus of the assembly. The passages on gays and divorce did not receive two-thirds of the vote by the 183 bishops in attendance on Saturday, but were not “completely rejected,” Father Rosica said. “It shows that it’s a work in progress,” he said. “We still have a ways to go.”
The preliminary version of the report set off a furor, with phrases implying that the church was shifting toward understanding and acceptance of gay couples. Earlier on Saturday, before the final report was issued, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi of Italy said it would be “welcoming” to gays, but not approving of them.
“Like Christ with the adulteress, his response is to welcome her, but then he tells her not to sin again,” Cardinal Ravasi said.
The final document drops the language in the preliminary draft that spoke of “welcoming” gays and that they had “gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community.” The final version says that gays must be met with “respect and sensitivity,” phrasing also in the church’s catechism, but emphatically asserts there is no basis whatsoever for comparing same-sex unions to marriage between a man and a woman.
Upon opening the assembly, known as a synod, Francis urged the bishops to hold a genuinely freewheeling discussion without fear of censure.
“Speak clearly,” Francis told the 191 bishops gathered. “No one must say, ‘This can’t be said.’ ”
He apparently got what he was asking for. The synod, while clarifying points of consensus, nevertheless brought to the surface clear fault lines between the prelates. They discussed how the church should respond when even active Catholics disregard its teachings, seeing the church as out of touch with modern life.
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story
Some bishops took the position that the church must double down on doctrine by articulating more clearly the reasons for its teachings on marriage, and its disapproval of birth control, divorce, homosexuality and cohabitation. Doctrine, they say, is unchanging.
“We’re not giving in to the secular agenda,” Cardinal George Pell, an Australian archbishop now serving in the Vatican, told the Catholic News Service on Thursday. “We’re not collapsing in a heap.”
But other bishops said the church should stress inclusiveness, understanding and mercy. Doctrine should be responsive to new developments and information, they said.
Asked at a news conference on Friday whether church teaching can change, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, chairman of the German bishops’ conference, said: “Obviously it can change. The history of the church is 2,000 years old.”
“Doctrine doesn’t change, but it is understood in a deeper manner,” he added.
The preliminary report, written by a committee appointed by Francis, stressed a warm, pastoral approach to the divorced and to cohabiting couples, gay couples and their children. To the surprise of many Catholics, it said some gay relationships provide “precious support in the life of the partners.”
There was no mention of the teaching, included in the church’s catechism, that gay relationships are “intrinsically disordered.”
Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban, South Africa, was among several bishops who immediately expressed their dismay over the report’s contents. He said the passages that were picked up by the news media reflected what only a few bishops had said in the synod. “The message has gone out, and it’s not a true message,” he said.
Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, an American who has emerged as the synod’s standard-bearer for orthodoxy, called on Francis to clarify that the church was not changing its doctrine, saying such a statement was overdue.
Francis soon added Cardinal Napier to the committee to draft the final synod report. Ten committees of bishops suggested extensive changes.
But Cardinal Burke said in an interview with BuzzFeed that the pope “had done a lot of harm” by not clarifying his position. He confirmed that Francis planned to remove him as head of the church’s highest judicial authority, the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.
The process reminded some church observers of the debates that took place during the Second Vatican Council, the landmark series of meetings in the early 1960s that changed the church’s worship practices, the role of lay people and relations with other faiths.
The Rev. John W. O’Malley, a historian at Georgetown University and the author of “What Happened at Vatican II,” said, “In Vatican II also, the conservatives felt that the church was going to hell in a handbasket with the direction it was taking, and they did everything to stop it.”
But he said that in those days, bishops did not go public with denunciations of one another, or make demands of the pope. “We’re in different times,” he said.
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EC, this is right out of the page of liberal Protestantism. Triangulate into oblivion.
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The relevant statistic is a demographic one — where do the Bishops on both sides of the issues fall in terms of (a) geography and (b) age. It’s the younger bishops from places that the church is growing, not declining, who determine the future.
But yeah, I know, doctrine never changes, even if it changes.
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“Asked at a news conference on Friday whether church teaching can change, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, chairman of the German bishops’ conference, said: ‘Obviously it can change. The history of the church is 2,000 years old.’
‘Doctrine doesn’t change, but it is understood in a deeper manner,’ he added.”
These guys really need to run for office. They have a gift that would make Bill Clinton blush.
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Imagine if Pius IV had gone to England and said this:
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