THE SYNODAL PATH v TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE.
On October 6, 2022, Raymond Arroyo interviewed Cardinal Gerhard Müller regarding the synodal process that has been taking place within the Catholic Church over the past two years.
Arroryo asks, “As someone who has dedicated his life to protecting this Doctrine and extending it – you were head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith – what must you think as you watch a system being created where all of that doctrine seems to be up for grabs, where anyone can, by a popular vote, can toss out or pull in doctrines of the moment because that is given more weight than the time-tested eternal doctrines that the Church has embraced and championed since the time of Christ?”
Cardinal Müller responds, “The basis of the church is the word of God, is a revelation, and not our strange reflections about this and these things. This is a system of self-revelation and is the occupation of the Catholic Church, a hostile takeover of the Church of Jesus Christ…”
Arroryo and Müller go on to discuss many concerning aspects of the synodal process.
PAT SAYS
The two opposing sides of this argument are, in my view, being extreme.
As Christians, we cannot deny such basic doctrines like the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection etc.
But you cannot put things like homosexuality, divorce and the ordination of women at the same level as the basic and ancient beliefs that are Christianity’s foundation stones.
I think that Jesus Himself summed it up perfectly when he said
“He said to them, ‘Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”
Matthew 13:52
There are truths as old as God Himself.
And there are other truths that are new and that come from the Holy Spirit working through the men, women, children and circumstances of the time in which we live.
A worrying aspect of the Synodal Path is that it represents the views of only 1% of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics.
Could that be the tail wagging the dog?
The Church is challenged to balance God’s old treasures and His new treasures.
Old does not always equal bad.
Nor does new always equal good.
We need discernment.
Nor should the Church be hijacked by conservatives or liberals.
Nor should the Church always have to bow the knee to the PC groups like the LGBT+ group, the Gender group, the feminist group or any other group.
We should sincerely try and discern what God wants and then do it regards of who it pleases or displeases.
And, at the back of this there is a real danger of schism – especially if one side or the other lifts their ball and storms off the pitch.
DOM ALCUIN and I have decided to take our correspondence away from the public forum of this blog and to engage in a private correspondence and dialogue.
IF
Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
n/a
BISHOP PAT BUCKLEY 