THE NUB - Standing With The Word of God

This really follows on beautifully from yesterday's post which attempts to consider the way in which certain high profile figures in the contemporary Christian milieu, and especially, presently, within the Catholic Church (I mean cardinals, the pope, not just rebel voices), are trying to break away from what we have always understood Sacred Scripture to teach. In an attempt to engage with the argument, I shared Dr Ian Paul's filleting of Brueggemann's thesis. As an evangelical Christian, I thought Ian Paul's exegesis would be an interesting foil for Fr James Martin's use of Brueggemann.

Of course the whole point of being a Catholic and not a Protestant is that we have the Pope as the centre of authority. Except we don't right now. Pope Francis is a vacuum who fails to speak clearly on any number of settled issues. And then he positively promotes dissenters like Hollerich and Martin. We have seen in the Anglican communion that any attempt to maintain two integrities within one church is doomed to failure. "Let your yes be yes and your no be no" says the Lord (Mt 5:37) -- a Scripture verse which constantly comes to my mind these days when I hear the Pope teach. What better recent example than the baffling response to the trial of the faithful and courageous Cardinal Zen.

It seems to me that George Cardinal Pell appears to be completely aware of all these factors. He writes in First Things (22 Sept 2022):

‘The Scriptures are God’s words for us, written in different forms and styles and in different ages by human authors...

We read the signs of the times to bring the Church up to date. But as the Swiss Protestant theologian Karl Barth asked Pope Paul VI: up to date with what? In what period and places is the truth found?...

"Two recent developments are remarkable. At the recent assembly of the German Synodal Path, nearly two-thirds of the German bishops seemed to have moved some distance in the direction of rejection, and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has not commented. Now the Belgian bishops are on the move. Those forces who want to destroy the monopoly of heterosexual marriage, that ancient Judeo-Christian moral teaching, and to legitimize homosexual activity, are working to spread their poison."

In this article, Cardinal Pell is asking whether it is possible for Christians to join with high-ranking German-speaking prelates, to reject basic Christian teaching… because they believe such teachings no longer accord with modern scientific knowledge. More than that, are Christians obliged by modern science to reject such… Christian teachings?

Pell states that the New Testament outlines the duty of the Successor of Peter…. The rock… to strengthen the faith of his brothers—especially when some are weakening

"I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” Lk. 22:32 

Pell makes clear his opinion that there is an obvious need for decisive action from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to prevent further deterioration and to correct error. Clearly, the Cardinal recognises that Francis is the Pope of Confusion. 

The Cardinal continues: "Who has the truth in this dispute? Enlightened Western opinion and its German Catholic sympathizers, or traditional Christian teaching, which is supported by the overwhelming majority of worshipping Catholics? How does a Christian decide? What are the criteria….  Where is the last word to be discovered? 

The answer depends on the truths under discussion, as the Church has no particular expertise to decide truths of science, or history, or economics. However, both the Old and New Testaments teach, with the Catholic magisterium, that revelation has competence in morals as well as faith. Therefore moral truths are to be recognized and acknowledged in the apostolic tradition.

It is Catholic teaching that the pope, bishops, and all the faithful are servants and defenders of the apostolic tradition, with no power to reject or distort essential elements, especially when the tradition is being developed and explained. What is in dispute when we reject fundamental moral teaching…. is not a paragraph in the… Catechism, or a canon of Church law, or even a conciliar decree. It is the Word of God itself, entrusted to the apostles, which is being rejected. We don’t know better than God.

If divine revelation, as found in the Scriptures, is accepted as God’s Word, we submit and obey. We stand under the Word of God." (George Cardinal Pell, in ‘Standing with The Word of God’ in ‘First Things’, 22/09/22).

What the dissent is over is not even relevant to my mind as it ignores first principles. To even be heard it necessarily must ignore first principles. Yes we may find some of Christ's teaching hard to hear; of course we do, it is a call to change!

The clear difference, it seems to me, is an attitude which seeks to conform to Christ, versus and attitude which seeks to conform Christ to the world. This is so obvious to me I find it difficult to understand how Pope Francis, James Martin and Jean Claude Hollerich are actually inside the Church.