Lately there seems to be an unusual number of weeping Catholic prelates. From Italy to Germany and now France, it seems that the Church's bishops have gotten in touch with their feelings and decided to broadcast them to the world. If only they would do that for the Faith.Much of this new found sentiment is directed at or rather against a few Church documents that were published just before the summer break. I think we know which two. A German bishop Gerhard Feige has published a letter in the Leipzig Catholic weekly that seeks to compensate for some of the Church's shortcomings in its teaching- that he doesn't believe it.
The second comes from the French. How curious that the French are follow the Germans, anyway, they too have something to cry about. If only the French prelates would cry over abortion, family breakdown and all the other ills of French society. Alas the greatest threat to Catholicism in France according to her bishops is not secularism, it appears to be the Pope. Well!
I suppose I may be waisting my breath, but I believe we are seeing with the publication of these recent documents a certain parting of the sheep from the goats, wheat from the chaff and a division of those on God's left and those on His right. You see the differences, comments and reactions that we are seeing in the media from various Church quarters is not based on mere points of view, rather they spring from different beliefs. We simply do not have the same first principles. It is of little use to discuss the reasonableness of Papal documents if the person with whom you are discussing thinks it entirely unreasonable that the Pope should write documents, let alone that these documents be anything more than suggestion, that they be normative and indeed define and teach what the Church holds as true. Where do you start? If the latest novel idea is to be followed at all cost and the Pope to be resisted come what may, how is that the basis for dialogue. It sounds more like a shouting match that will finish in a fight.
And fight we must.
I suppose I may be waisting my breath, but I believe we are seeing with the publication of these recent documents a certain parting of the sheep from the goats, wheat from the chaff and a division of those on God's left and those on His right. You see the differences, comments and reactions that we are seeing in the media from various Church quarters is not based on mere points of view, rather they spring from different beliefs. We simply do not have the same first principles. It is of little use to discuss the reasonableness of Papal documents if the person with whom you are discussing thinks it entirely unreasonable that the Pope should write documents, let alone that these documents be anything more than suggestion, that they be normative and indeed define and teach what the Church holds as true. Where do you start? If the latest novel idea is to be followed at all cost and the Pope to be resisted come what may, how is that the basis for dialogue. It sounds more like a shouting match that will finish in a fight.
And fight we must.
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