Letter #17, 2016: Kasper on the Synod Document

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Letter #17, 2016: Kasper on the Synod Document

[2016-03-17]

[Engleză]

March 17, 2016, Thursday -- Why Does Kasper Speak of "1700 Years"?

“This Holy See has always held, the perpetual practice of the Church confirms, and Ecumenical Councils also have declared -- especially those in which the East with the West met in the union of faith and charity -- that the supreme power of teaching is also included in the Apostolic primacy which the Roman Pontiff, as the successor of Peter, Prince of the Apostles, possesses over the whole Church." --Pastor Aeternus, Chapter 4. Pastor Aeternus is the Vatican Council I Constitution which declared papal infallibility. The Constitution as a whole sets forth the Catholic teaching that the Pope, as the successor of Peter, holds "supreme power of teaching" over the whole Church. The document was promulgated on July 18, 1870, at the 1st Vatican Council, in the Council's "Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ." The 1st Vatican Council lasted from 1869 to 1870 A.D. under Pope St. Pius IX (1846-1878), the longest-reigning Pope in the history of the Church. It was the 20th of 21 Ecumenical Councils (the Orthodox accept only the first seven Ecumenical Councils, held before the schism of 1054 A.D.)

"For the Fathers of the Fourth Council of Constantinople, following in the footsteps of their predecessors, gave forth this solemn profession: The first condition of salvation is to keep the rule of the true faith." —Ibid. The 4th Council of Constantinople (Roman Catholic) was the 8th Catholic Ecumenical Council. It was held in Constantinople from October 5, 869, to February 28, 870. The Council was called by Emperor Basil I the Macedonian and Pope Adrian II. It deposed Photios, a layman who had been appointed as Patriarch of Constantinople, and reinstated his predecessor Ignatius. The Council also reaffirmed the decisions of the Second Council of Nicaea in support of icons and holy images and required the image of Christ to have veneration equal with that of the Gospel book. A later council, the Greek 4th Council of Constantinople, was held after Photios had been reinstated on the order of the emperor. Today, the Roman Catholic Church recognizes the Council in 869-870 as "Constantinople IV," while the Eastern Orthodox Churches recognize the later Council in 879-880 as "Constantinople IV" and revere Photios as a saint. These two Councils represent the divide that was then growing between East and West. The previous seven Ecumenical Councils are recognized as ecumenical and authoritative by both Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Christians.

"And the Roman Pontiffs, according to the exigencies of times and circumstances, sometimes assembling Ecumenical Councils, or asking for the mind of the Church scattered throughout the world, sometimes by particular Synods, sometimes using other helps which Divine Providence supplied, defined as to be held those things which, with the help of God, they had recognized as conformable with the Sacred Scriptures and Apostolic Traditions. For the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter that by His revelation they might disclose new doctrine, but that by His help they might guard sacredly the revelation transmitted through the apostles and the deposit of faith, and might faithfully set it forth.” —Ibid.

“And indeed, all the venerable Fathers have embraced, and the holy orthodox Doctors have venerated and followed, their Apostolic doctrine; knowing most fully that this See of holy Peter remains ever free from all blemish of error, according to the Divine promise that the Lord our Savior made to the Prince of His disciples: 'But I have prayed for you, so that your faith may not fail, and so that you, once converted, may confirm your brothers.' (Lk 22:32)." —Ibid.

"This gift, then, of truth and never-failing faith was conferred by heaven upon Peter and his successors in this Chair, that they might perform their high office for the salvation of all; that the whole flock of Christ, kept away from the poisonous food of error by them, might be nourished with the pasture of heavenly doctrine; that the occasion of schism being removed, the whole Church might be kept one, and, resting on its foundation, might stand firm against the gates of Hell." —Ibid.

"Therefore, faithfully adhering to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith, for the glory of God Our Savior, the exaltation of the Catholic Religion, and the salvation of Christian people, the Sacred Council approving, We teach and define that it is a divinely-revealed dogma: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex Cathedra, that is, when in discharge of the office of Pastor and Teacher of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the Universal Church, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith or morals: and that therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church." —Ibid.

"But if anyone -- God forbid -- should presume to contradict this Our definition; let him be anathema." —Ibid.

"In a few days, on March 19, a document of about 200 pages will come out in which Pope Francis will express himself definitively on the themes of the family addressed during the recent Synod, and in particular on the participation of the faithful who are divorced and remarried in the active life of the Catholic community." —Cardinal Walter Kasper, in the northern Italian city of Lucca, on Monday, March 14, at a parish church, commenting on the upcoming papal document on the Bishops' Synod on the Family

"This will be the first step of a reform that will make the Church turn a page after 1700 years." —Cardinal Kasper, ibid.

"We must not repeat formulas of the past and barricade ourselves behind the wall of exclusivism and clericalism, the Church must live (in) our times and understand how to interpret them." —Cardinal Kasper, ibid.

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Toward the Pope's Document on the Synod on the Family

The whole of the Church, and much of the world, is awaiting with a sort of bated breath for the Pope's document on the two controversial October Bishops' Synods on the Family held in Rome during October 2014 and October 2015.

The document is finished.

We know — as Cardinal Walter Kasper confirmed publicly in Lucca in northern Italy on Monday, March 14 — that it will be signed in two days, on Saturday, March 19, Feast of St. Joseph.

The Importance of St. Joseph

March 19 was the day of the installation Mass for Pope Francis. (Francis was elected on March 13, but not installed until the 19th.)

So the document will be issued on the 3rd anniversary of the official beginning of this pontificate.

But March 19 is also the Feast of St. Joseph, husband of the Blessed Mother, Mary, father of Jesus — head of the Holy Family.

So the document will be issued on the feast of Joseph, protector of both Mary and Jesus, the patron saint of all fathers — the model for all fathers and heads of families.

The Battle over Marriage — and over Communion

Arguably, no teaching by Francis during his first three years is of greater significance, of more profound importance, than the teaching he will make official 48 hours from now when he writes his name, in Italian, on the bottom of the document: "Francesco."

We do not know when we will see the actual content of the document.

Cardinal Kasper (photo below) on Monday suggested that the document would be "released" on Saturday, leading some to think that we will have the text on Saturday.

But the word now is that the document will be signed Saturday, then, after several days for translation into various languages it will be made public in the first days of April.

(Cardinal Walter Kasper, born March 5, 1933, age 83)

Kasper also revealed that the document would be about 200 pages long.

If so, it will be three times as long as the prior magisterial document on marriage and the family, the Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio of Pope St. John Paul II.

That profound document on marriage was issued on November 22, 1981 — almost exactly three years into John Paul's pontificate (he was elected on October 16, 1978, and installed on October 22, 1978).

So there will be a lot of text to read through, when Pope Francis' document is made public...

Fernandez vs. Mueller

Various published reports say that the text was drafted primarily by one of the Pope's closest and trusted theological advisors, Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez, rector of the Catholic University of Buenos Aires in Argentina (photo).

Pope Francis made Fernandez an archbishop soon after he was elected Pope on May 13, 2013.

The text was circulated inside the Vatican, especially to receive the "observations" of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and its head, the German cardinal who is also the general editor of the multi-year project to edit and publish the collected works of Joseph Ratzinger, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller.

It would be Mueller, then, who would be able to indicate the content of the text he received, and the content of the suggestions he made, and whether his suggestions were accepted or ignored.

Significantly, prior to the beginning of the Synod process, Cardinal Mueller (photo below) took a quite traditional line on marriage, divorce, remarriage and the sacrament of communion.

“The total indissolubility of a valid marriage is not a mere doctrine, it is a divine and definitive dogma of the Church,” Müller said in The Hope of the Family, a book-length interview he did with Spanish journalist Carlos Granados, director of the Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos in Madrid, conducted in June 2014 (the first Synod was in October 2014).

Indissolubility, he said, “does not depend on human sentiments, whether permanent or transitory. This property of marriage is intended by God himself. The Lord is involved in marriage between man and woman, which is why the bond exists and has its origin in God. This is the difference." (link)

So one would presume that Mueller poured over the text of the new papal document to remove any ambiguity (if there was any) about this essential teaching.

Heroism and Lack of Heroism

This entire process began in February of 2014, at a consistory of cardinals that met in preparation for the Synod.

There, Cardinal Kasper — like Mueller, from Germany — proposed something that has come to be termed "the Kasper solution" for the problem of divorced and remarried Catholics: that the Church should simply allow these Catholics to receive Communion after “a period of penance” but without changing their lives.

Müller, on the other hand, has held that Catholic married people are called to be heroic in announcing "God, the loving Trinity... the revealed God who calls all of us to be part of his relational being."

Kasper, for his part, famously told an interviewer in New York in 2014 that this solution of the Church -- encouraging people in second civil marriages to live in heroic chastity together ("like brother and sister") -- is, yes, an “heroic” ideal, but that “heroism is not for the average Christian.”

“I have high respect for such people,” Kasper said in 2014. “But whether I can impose it is another question.

“We cannot as human beings always do the ideal, the best. We must do the best possible in a given situation.”

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The Best, the Merciful, the Possible... and the Example of Jesus

And so we have the parameters of a debate that is attracting the attention of the world.

So what is this debate about?

On the one hand, we have Kasper and those who agree with him. This "Kasper group" expresses a desire to be "merciful" to human beings who have fallen short of the highest ideals of the Christian faith.

On the other hand, we have Mueller, and many others, who express a desire to maintain an ideal.

Sursa: www.InsideTheVatican.com

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