In his opening lecture for Georgetown University’s Sacred Lecture Series, Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington defended Amoris Laetitia and Pope Francis’s efforts to decentralize Church governance.
Drawing on his participation in the 2014 and 2015 synods, which focused on family life, Wuerl described them as “the most open, engaging and reflective of episcopal collaboration and consultation” of the eleven in which he’s been a participant.
Perhaps that’s because, under the Pontificate of Pope St. John Paul II, Synodal gatherings were expected to simply rubber stamp the foregone conclusions which the Vatican had developed long before the Bishops even met.
Little wonder, therefore, that Cardinal Wuerl was overwhelmed by the fact that the Holy See actually asked the Bishops gathered in Synod what they thought about anything, let alone issues dealing with the family.
I agree with His Eminence that Pope Francis’ efforts to decentralize the governance of the Church which has too long been the exclusive domain of Vatican Congregations and agencies is a positive development.
However, there are reasonable concerns that such a decentralization may lead to widely divergent teachings and practices with regard to faith and morals. We are already seeing such divergence in the statements and policies being promulgated not only by Conferences of Bishops but within their ranks by individual Bishops themselves.
If such local or regional governance is to become the order of the day, that day arrive come when one might reasonably ask, “What happened to the universality of the Universal Church?”
And, while I welcome and am encouraged by the empathy and mercy Pope Francis readily manifests to people where and how they are living their lives, I am concerned that his Synodal Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, certainly brings into question the Church’s ages-old teaching regarding the Natural Law which establishes that certain actions or behaviors are evil and contrary to the Gospel in and of themselves.
Cardinal Wuerl rightly praises the virtue of mercy which is at the heart of Amoris Laetitia, but he skirts the issue of the impact of the exhortation upon the fundamental moral teaching of the Church.
Instead, His Eminence resorts to a barrage of meaningless rhetoric and jargon, using catch phrases like “witness, accompaniment, integration” without ever specifying what these undefined concepts demand in the practical experience of living a Catholic life.
His Eminence’s paternalistic dismissal of those who find the exhortation troublesome tells us much about the Cardinal’s willingness to engage (accompany?) those whose Catholic faith has been wounded by the document. Frankly, his remarks regarding those who question or defend traditional Church teaching border on the disrespectful.
The Pontificate of Pope Francis won’t be determined as a positive or negative experience in the history of the Church for perhaps decades (and Pontificates) to come.
Too many have sought and wished to write an obituary to the reforms Pope Francis is seeking to introduce. They are misguided and mistaken.
Many others, including Cardinal Wuerl, have been eager to build monuments to these reforms. They error equally so.
The Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, to Whom the Lord Jesus entrusted the ministry of His Church, is still at work. That we must believe. In the Spirit’s good time, the Church will either benefit from these reforms or discard card them as bothersome distractions in the work of the redemption and salvation of souls.
Let us ask the Spirit’s guidance and blessing upon the Church each and everyday.
No comments:
Post a Comment