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Monday, February 13, 2017

A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE ON THE BREWING SCHISM

i find it interesting that history repeats itself in a person's lifespan. Today is very similar to the upheavals of the 1960's in terms of the new sexual revolution that makes the 1960's one look like child's play. The political upheaval makes Nixon look like George Washington and the reforms Pope Francis seems to be orchestrating actively and passively makes Vatican II look like the  Council of Trent.

But that's the far right's reactionary meme. Is it wrong or is there another way to interpret the growing schism in the Church? Here is an attempt in a commentary from CRUX:

Since Francis is in continuity with tradition, his critics aren’t

Since Francis is in continuity with tradition, his critics aren’t
A traditional image of St. Thomas Aquinas, often cited by critics of Pope Francis. (Credit: Stock image.)
Christianity is ever new and ever ancient, and in the words of Benedict XVI, "it is always a happening, an encounter, and not primarily a theory or moral system." Thus, "it's not that we own the truth, but the truth owns us."

Commentary

For some time now it can be seen that some groups inside of the Catholic Church dislike Pope Francis. Nihil novum sub soleas John L. Allen correctly observes, other popes have experienced the same.
But, in recent days the attacks on Pope Francis just went a step further.
On Feb. 4, posters with the pope’s grumpy face asking “Where’s your mercy?” showed up on Saturday in the streets of Rome. While the posters reference some of Francis’s actions, it can be clearly understood that the background reason for them is doctrinal. Or better to say, ideological.
Authors of the posters most likely come from traditionalist or conservative groups, and they consider Francis’s teaching (at least) close to heresy.
That was followed a week later by a spoof version of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, expressing much the same sentiment.
At the same time, it is interesting to note how many of the pope’s critics seem unaware of an interesting fact. The three great persons in whose name they often attack Francis, accusing him of modernism or heresy, were all in their own time accused of the same - St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Saints or heretics?

St. Thomas Aquinas flirted with teachings of Aristotle acquired through Arabic philosophers, and these teachings were previously banned in the Catholic Universities. Platonism was the philosophy of Christians, and Aristotle was in fact “the philosopher of the enemy,” Islam.
In this climate. Aquinas’s propositions were at one point considered for prohibition.
St. John Paul II, after publishing his most important philosophical work “Osoba i czyn” (later to be translated as “The Acting Person”), was accused of modernism and of syncretism between Thomism and phenomenology. This work later significantly influenced his encyclicals.
Similar things also happened after his book Sources of Renewal. Before the interreligious summit in 1986 in Assisi he initiated, some traditionalist groups denounced the pope and the event as heretical.
Benedict XVI, in his latest book interview with Peter Seewald, admits himself that he was on the so-called “progressive” side during Vatican II, and the accusations of modernism and heresy against their side was abundant. He personally was accused of heresy after his article “New pagans and the Church,” and his bishop, Cardinal Joseph Wendel, wanted to block his appointment as a professor in Bonn for the same reason.
We can also recall that then-Father Joseph Ratzinger’s draft document for Vatican II was depicted by some as Masonic.

Why is this so?

What this suggests is not that we shouldn’t be vigilant about the dangers of different modernisms or heresies in the Church. It’s  important to preserve the faith we were given.
Rather, it suggests that the learned class in the Church oftentimes has trouble discerning between real modernism on one hand, and a deepening of the understanding of truth on the other. Minds who didn’t just repeat formulas, and who’ve tried to deepen the understanding of the faith, historically almost every time have been accused of straying from orthodoxy by fellow thinkers or believers.
This is a problem for three reasons. First, we might uproot the wheat while pulling out the weeds. Second, it makes it harder to recognize the true enemy when he comes. Third, it hurts the body of Christ, the Church.
I would say that there are several reasons why this is happening.

Four ways we go wrong

The first is philosophical and theological: Many educated people don’t understand how to use appropriate methods of inquiry. They’re familiar with quotes, but lack the ability, or the will, to apply and understand those quotes from within their context.
This is most obvious in the use of sound-bites from Aquinas to refute the pope, when Aquinas advised us not to study philosophy to know (and blindly quote, one could add) what the authors have said, but to understand the truth about reality.
Thus, quoting St. Thomas without investigating the things in themselves just doesn’t suffice. And it wouldn’t make St. Thomas happy.
A second reason comes from a flawed understanding of tradition. This is the understanding which John Paul II described, when excommunicating Lefevbre, as an “incomplete and contradictory notion of tradition.”
It’s incomplete, the pope said, because it doesn’t take sufficiently into account the living character of tradition, which, as the Second Vatican Council clearly taught, “comes from the apostles and progresses in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on.”
Third, I would say, people sometimes just aren’t willing to accept that the “Spirit blows wherever it pleases,” and it sometimes produces cognitive dissonance. We try to protect ourselves by instrumentalizing theology or philosophy. This is human, but eventually we have to overcome it.
Christianity is ever new and ever ancient, and in the words of Benedict XVI, “it is always a happening, an encounter, and not primarily a theory or moral system.” Thus, “it’s not that we own the truth, but the truth owns us.”
Finally, there’s a misunderstanding of the hermeneutic of continuity which reduces continuity to the repetition of formal expressions of doctrine. Instead, it should mean staying true to the substance of faith we received and deepening our understanding of it.
Old forms cannot be superior simply because they’re older. To once more quote Benedict from The Spirit of the Liturgy: “Age, simply by itself and as such, cannot be the criterion, and what’s come to being through historical development cannot be automatically categorized as alien and foreign to the original. There can be ultimately vivifying and strong development, in which the seed of the origin matures and brings fruit.”
In the end, the biggest blessing probably is to have Benedict still alive and able to answer us himself. In his latest book-interview, Peter Seewald asks him: “So, you don’t see a rupture with your pontificate [in the pontificate of Francis]?”
Benedict responds: “No. I think that some places can be misinterpreted and… When some places are isolated, taken out, the oppositions can be constructed, but not if we look at the whole. There are maybe new accents, but no ruptures.”
Benedict rejecting accusations of a break under Francis is probably the best sign of continuity, and recognizing this is important. If we understand that Pope Francis is in line with tradition, then we can also understand that many of the ideologues attacking him are not.
Hrvoje Vargiฤ‡ is based in Brussels and has written on the social teachings of the Church, political philosophy and contemporary social debates.

7 comments:

Gene said...

Another frantic effort to defend the indefensible. Yawn.

rcg said...

This artcle seems to cherry pick facts to suit a predetermined conclusion. One broad point he could make is that there is a dialectic tension between competing ideas when new thoughts or positions encounter an established position and that the new idea always influences the established position if only to produce antibodies. A finer point he could also entertain is the question of whether Pope JPII would have made his decision re Lefevbre differently had he know some of the shenanigans going on in Progressive diocese around the world. The Classic Tradition sets defined positions at odds with each other and in the end there is a resolution if not a victor. So accusing St Thomas and Pope Benedict of heresy was a position when directed at a work and not at them personally. It is a modern invention to declare benign confusion as a desirable outcome between competing ideas.

Rood Screen said...

There is certainly conflict between those who accept and those who reject VCII, but that has been going on for decades (among a very tiny group of Catholics). What is new is Pope Francis' militant embrace of the hermeneutic of rupture, an embrace which places him at odds with BXVI, JPII and even Paul VI.

AntonioMaria said...

Beautiful article and certainly Christ centered. I have not read B16's most recent book / interview. Howevwr I will now given the information provided in this uplifting article

Thank you for making it available on this website full of heretics and millstone wearers :->p

Jusadbellum said...

Again, the argument advanced can just as easily be used to advance any number of 'novelties' about the faith in the name of the God of surprises. But it is all about presupposing that human beings never considered such convoluted theories to retroactively justify past decisions of passion before 2015.

As we saw with Henry VIII's divorce, you can try to keep an exception in a nice tight little box, but once it's established that the King can have a divorce and remarry (again and again and again) it's only a matter of time before it becomes the norm.

rcg said...

AnthonyM: it's called "ceramic bling". I donated all my gold to melt down for some statue they are building.

Anonymous said...

The problem is the formal denials by "Pope Francis" of the teachings of the church on eternal punishment and the immortality
of the soul.
Such denials render the man as having vacated the papacy even if he ever validly held it in the first place.
The other strong possibility is that Pope Benedict , though he believes otherwise, has not legally resigned in conformity with canon law 332. no 2.
To any observer the resignation has yet to be properly manifested in accordance with this canon.
Nobody wants to talk about this as the clergy appear to be entirely hypnotised by the deceptions that are occurring.