News Item: : The Priests' Support Marriage Letter and The Cardinal's Rebuke - Our Thoughts As a Married Couple
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
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Thursday 26 March 2015 - 12:57:40

In light of the manipulations and resultant global confusion which has emanated from the Synod, we were greatly encouraged to read of the Support Marriage Letter. This letter, signed by 461 priests based in England and Wales, urges the Vatican Synod to make a clear and firm proclamation of the Church's unchanging moral teaching, so that confusion may be removed, and faith confirmed.

There is a sense in which this should not even be news. After all, it could be argued that, in signing this letter, these priests have merely done their job. They have publicly upheld the sanctity of marriage, handed on the teachings of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and faithfully transmitted 2,000 years of Sacred Tradition. Isn't this the bare minimum that lay people have a right to expect from their pastors?

But these are not ordinary times. It was George Orwell who said that, in an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

As such, we salute every single one of the priests who had the courage to sign this public letter in defence of Christ's Truth. As a Catholic married couple, we are greatly encouraged by this witness. It demonstrates that many priests in England and Wales will not go along with the revolutionary assault being made on the Divine and Natural Law; on the nature of the Church; on Christ's own explicit teachings; on two-millennia of Sacred Tradition; on the Blessed Sacrament; on the Sacrament of Penance and on the Sacrament of Marriage.

May God bless all of these priests.

At the same time, we need to avoid falling into the trap of thinking that these are the only priests, in these isles, who are prepared to resist the present evil; or even that others lacked courage to sign. For example, we know of at least two more orthodox priests, whose names have not appeared on this letter, but who are nevertheless determined not to go along with the proposed new order. Fr. Tim Finigan has also acknowledged that he knows of other priests who had missed the invitation to sign up and desired for their names to be added.

Intimidation from Some Senior Churchmen

That the signing of this letter involved an element of courage, was confirmed by the press statement that accompanied the Support Marriage Letter. This made public the fact that there ''has been a certain amount of pressure not to sign the letter and indeed a degree of intimidation from some senior Churchmen''.

It is lamentable that senior churchmen would try to intimidate their priests. This is even more the case when those priests were only wishing to affirm and defend Christ and His Truth.

As disgraceful as such intimidation is, it comes as little surprise. We suggest that this is all of a piece. It calls to mind the account we published a few days ago about the persecution and blocking of orthodox candidates to the priesthood in seminaries. There is continuity, too, with the pressure put on orthodox bishops and parish priests throughout the last five decades to conform to the liberal zeitgeist. There is a link to the negative experiences of dissent, that we've recounted here before, in relation to the marriage 'preparation' that we were forced to endure in order to marry in the Archdiocese of Liverpool. It all accords too, with the enforced deconstruction of Catholic liturgy and of education in the doctrines, prayers, morals and virtues of the Catholic Faith. None of this has been happening by accident.

The Cardinal's Rebuke

There is a real sense in which Cardinal Nichols has overplayed his hand by revealing publicly his displeasure with the priests who signed this letter. It will be read by observers in relation to the priests' earlier statement about intimidation from senior churchmen.

We agree entirely with John Smeaton's question at the SPUC blog: ''How can any Catholic bishop object to priests using the media to express their loyalty to the teaching of Christ and their desire to give true pastoral care to all who need it?'' 

How indeed? But then, this too is all of a piece. There is a common thread between the attendance of Fr. Charles Curran - the infamous dissenter from Humanae Vitae - to speak at Upholland Seminary, when His Eminence was then the young Liverpool priest in charge, and this latest news.

Between these key events in the Cardinal's ecclesiastical career, can be traced a long trajectory: the backing of Oonagh Stannard at the CES; the CES allowing children as young as nine to look at computer-generated images of adult nudes; the All that I Am programme in primary schools; the ''Who knows what's down the road?'' and ''I don't know'' comments in relation to Church teaching on same-sex pairings; the troubling issues relating to Ed Balls and the Labour Government's attempted Children, Schools and Families Bill in 2010; the 'Soho Gay-Masses'; the suggestion on Radio 4 that the faithful pro-life/pro-family Catholics who regularly witnessed outside of these should ''learn to hold their tongue''; Lord Knight's suggestion in the House of Lords that he had been having ''very good conversations'' with Cardinal Nichols about compulsory sex-education in Catholic schools; the self-professed deepening and developing of the Cardinal's thinking 'on the question of second marriages'; his expression of disappointment on Radio 4 that the Synod's final report omitted the notorious phrases of the manipulated mid-term report; bringing the homosexuality-promoting dissenter, Fr. Timothy Radcliffe OP, to speak to 8,000 high-school students at the recent Flame 2 event; and now the public rebuke of faithful priests for their clear defence of the Church's Magisterial teaching on marriage.

No, there is no surprise here: the Cardinal's statements and actions in relation to Catholic sexual ethics are consistently all of a piece.

The Truth Will Make You Free

As a Catholic married couple, we testify here that we have found the Catholic Church's true and orthodox teachings on marriage and family to be a source of great peace, healing and practical support. We know a number of other Catholic married couples and families with the same experience. 

Catholic teaching on human sexuality, set as it is within the whole context of the Decalogue, Creation, Fall, Redemption, Nature, Reason, Grace, the Sacraments and 2,000 years of dedicated pastoral care, lifts human dignity and personhood from the mire into which Original Sin, Concupiscence and secularization have thrust them, and sets them as a light on a hill-top. This is because the author, source and constant help in the living out of the true Catholic teachings on marriage, family and sexuality is none other than Jesus Christ, the God-Man.

The orthodox Catholic teaching and the grace of the Saraments have helped us to find healing for our own sins and brokenness and to grow toward truly human and self-sacrificial love.

As a married couple, we have consistently offered bishops, priests and lay-groups to help them in helping others to discover and live out this life-giving teaching. 

We have been ignored by some people and attacked by others. However, since Torch of The Faith was founded in 2008, a dozen priests have taken us up on the offer and we have given pre-marriage catechesis to some 40+ engaged couples and catechesis on chastity and marriage to several RCIA groups, a few Confirmation candidates and a small number of university students.

We thank the priests who publicly signed this letter, encourage them and others not to give way to intimidation and humbly call the Cardinal, Bishops and all priests to defend and promote the true teachings of the Church.

Only by rooting pastoral practice in Christ's doctrine will lasting help be given to the Church, to souls, to vocations, to families and to society.  

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This news item is from Torch of The Faith
( http://www.torchofthefaith.com/news.php?extend.913 )