News Item: : Overcoming a False Dichotomy
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
Posted by admin
Friday 10 February 2017 - 12:45:51

The wires were alight in England on Wednesday, when Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth tweeted about a ''growing problem'' in the Church and called for prayer.

At 7:58am, His Lordship tweeted: ''Council of priests yesterday: Whom do we obey, the bishop or the pope? I'd say Both! But there's a growing problem: let's pray 4 the Church.''

This question from the council of priests clearly comes in the wake of Bishop Egan's pastoral letter on Amoris Laetitia from last April; wherein the good bishop affirmed the Church's Tradition that adulterers may not receive Holy Communion until they have repented, confessed and amended their life.

In recent weeks, the simplicity of this interpretation was undermined when grossly sacrilegious claims were made, by the likes of Charles Scicluna and Reinhard Marx, to suggest that it is Pope Francis' actual will that Holy Communion be given to unrepentant adulterers. Well, they spoke a little more euphemistically than that, but this is essentially what they meant.

Of course, this is the whole problem with Amoris Laetitia: in that its slick use of footnotes and sophistry plays fast and loose with Christ's own teaching; leaving everyone to interpret it according to the lights, or in too many cases the darkness, of their own individual consciences.

Then again, there are parts of that document which are not so much ambiguous as giving off the odour of rank heresy. Hence the Dubia, right?

In truth, the question posed by the council of bishops, and tweeted out for all the world to see, represents a totally false dichotomy.

The simple answer to overcoming this dichotomy is to state that the Pope, the Bishop, the Priests and the lay faithful must all obey Christ's words together.

Nobody, be he pope or emperor, has the authority to cast aside the teachings and law given to us by Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Universal King.

Sadly, many folks in the Church today are making an idol out of obedience.

The authentic virtue of obedience was given as a safeguard to keeping the Holy Law of God; and overcoming our concupiscent rebelliousness in the process.

Holy obedience is just that: holy. It is never in opposition to truth, love or morality.

Obedience has limits and boundaries.

As we have said here a number of times: We must obey our spiritual superiors in all things except for sin.

If Pope Francis ordered someone to steal their mother's wedding ring and give it to a notorious and wretched jewel thief, what good man among us would obey him?

And yet, people are quibbling about whether they should obey if they are told to cast the Most Holy Eucharist, the very Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ, into the degraded filth of souls who remain obstinately in the state of mortal sin!

Why is there such timidity to resist such evil openly?

In any case, Francis has not ordered this; his words are more serpentine than that. The whole situation smacks of the snake in the Garden of Eden, hissing to Adam and Eve: ''Did God really say that?''

As a point of fact, due to Francis' slipperiness, the likes of Marx and Scicluna would do well to remember that they have overeached themselves so much that, should Francis be forced to clearly state Catholic Truth on these matters, they will be left high and dry on the road to Hades; which they are already on by their own free choice. May God give them the grace to repent!

It was good that Bishop Egan interpreted Amoris Laetitia in an orthodox manner last April.

However, the acceleration of events now shows that it has always been the wrong course of action to suggest that Amoris Laetitia is unproblematic; and to thus blame only its interpreters for promoting errant teachings and practices. The longer that approach persists, the more disingenuous it comes to appear.

It is akin to having an enemy tank on one's front lawn, its cannon pointing through the lounge window; and all the while stooping to debate the patterns made by the tank's half-tracks in the flowerbeds...

Don't get me wrong: Bishop Egan is a good man, who has greatly inspired us by his orthodox leadership through the years. It's just that, we have to admit that this ''tank'' really is there, encroaching on all of us, if we are to have a hope of resisting its crushing advance.

The problems are in Amoris Laetitia itself; otherwise we would not even be having this conversation. As men trained in philosophy, the bishops know all about the importance of accurate first principles and all that jazz.

Anyway, that which is clear requires no interpretation.

As Jesus said Himself: ''And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free'' (John 8:32).

That crystalline clarity has always been part of Catholicism's attractive beauty.

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This news item is from Torch of The Faith
( http://www.torchofthefaith.com/news.php?extend.1550 )