Recently, the National Catholic Register published a rather long and intriguing interview of Cardinal Coccopalmerio by Ed Pentin.
The interview forcused upon the Cardinal’s publication of a book entitled, The Eighth Chapter of the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia.
One of Pentin’s questions and the Cardinal’s responses caught my attention:
PENTIN: One last topic: At a recent plenary meeting with the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, you reportedly encouraged the members to push for a less rigid understanding of the Priesthood, essentially telling them to give up on an objective and metaphysical notion of Priesthood. Your notion was that as we have an understanding of different levels of communion with the Church among the baptized, we should have different degrees of the fullness of priesthood, so as to permit Protestants to minister without being fully ordained. What exactly did you say, and why did you say it?
CARD. COCCOPALMERIO: I was saying we have to reflect on questions. We say, everything is valid; nothing is valid. Maybe we have to reflect on this concept of validity or invalidity. The Second Vatican Council said there is a true communion even if it is not yet definitive or full. You see, they made a concept not so decisive, either all or nothing. There’s a communion that is already good, but some elements are missing. But, if you say some things are missing and that therefore there is nothing, you err. There are pieces missing, but there is already a communion, but it is not full communion. The same thing can be said, or something similar, of the validity or invalidity of ordination. I said let’s think about it. It’s a hypothesis.
I would simply ask His Eminence what need have we of hypothesizing over matters the Church definitively has resolved by way of its Magisterial authority.
The fact is (or at least used to be) that truths of the Faith revealed by Our Lord in Scripture and Tradition are not always easy to accept, especially in a world that seeks to make all truth subjective. Truth, by its very nature, is objective and unalterable.
And with that, we arrive at the crossroads of the dilemma facing the Church today.
Cardinal Coccopalmerio suggests that those who accept the traditional teachings of the Church believe that they can attain certainty in the uncertain world of their making.
His Eminence (and perhaps the Holy Father himself) would have us begin to think about Church teaching (and discipline) in terms of probabilities, that is, suggesting that certain teachings are true without ruling out the possibility that their opposites may also be true.
The new moral compass of the Church appears reticent about teachings which have been declared to be true “by Magisterial definition” or “by logical deduction” proceeding from either Sacred Scripture or Tradition.
The new moral compass of the Church might be summed up as follows: In the hypothetical world of logic and rational analysis, if A>B and B>C, then it is necessarily true that A>C.
But, in the real world of personal experience and the exigencies of life, such logic does not apply.
And so, every choice open to human beings rests not upon the clear judgment of truth supplied by reason and conscience, but upon the possible choices confronting an individual in the overall context of that person’s situation or circumstance.
Cardinal Coccopalmerio's call to to give up on an objective and metaphysical notion of Priesthood and instead to rethink the question of Priesthood not on the basis rational notions of validity or invalidity but rather on notions concerning an indefinable communion of Christian Faith is a perfect example of what can been described as “incrementalism”.
In his haste to defend Amoris Laetitia, the Cardinal (intentionally or not) introduces a wedge between moral certainty and moral opinion, seeming quite comfortable in preferring the latter over the former. Not that he denies the truth of Church teachings, but is open to the possibility that they apply only partially in most, if not all, situations.
Thus, a person can accept the Church’s opposition to abortion as an act of murder and support a ban against its legality in all cases, except those involving rape or incest.
One can accept the Church’s teaching about the indissolubility of Holy Matrimony, except in those cases in which one feels that the obligations imposed by the free acceptance of the marital bond demand an heroic observation of which they are incapable.
One can define Priesthood not as a Sacrament which ontologically transforms a man in persona Christi, but rather a ministry which serves the community of Christian believer no matter the content or quality of their faith.
And so, the Deposit of Faith is destined to suffer a "death of a thousand cuts". Little by little, slowly and painfully, truth will be so undercut and muddles as to be irrelevant and ineffectual in mankind's eternal hope of salvation.
In the end, what I find most surprising these days is not the fact that there are Catholics, even in elevated positions of influence, who espouse positions such as these.
Rather, what I find most intriguing and not a little disturbing is the number of such individuals who are eager and anxious to accept their opinions.
Whether they should be envied or pitied will be the judgment of history and the Lord.
For myself, I remain most comfortable in maintaining that truth, by its very nature, is objective and unalterable, no matter how difficult to accept.
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