Bishop Barron weighs in on Synod again

 

Today sees another intervention from Bishop Robert Barron, just home from a very successful trip to London arranged by Brenden Thompson at Catholic Voices and his team.

I was fortunate enough to attend one of the events and have a chat with the bishop, the second time I have met him.

Anyway, this is Barron's second intervention on the Synod, the first I reported here.

This one would appear to be a response to the extremely muddled essay written in America Magazine by now Cardinal McElroy about radical inclusion, which calls on the Synod process to change Church teaching on a number of issues; sexual morality in particular, but also dropping 1 Cor 11:27 and having an open table communion for all baptised Catholics...A dangerous misrepresentation of centuries of Catholic teaching about how grace works. His argument is that we over emphasise sexual sins over other serious issues....So he seems to be arguing that because we don't classify, say, domestic violence as a mortal sin (which we do by the way) we should allow everyone to come to communion. In summary, McElroy thinks we are losing the kids because we don't accept sex outside marriage. This comes across clearly in this interview that he gave about his essay:

So to these points, Bishop Barron has posted a follow up article. I think it is important because Bishop Barron has a massive reach and following. Interestingly McElroy speaks in his interview as if no one knows what he is doing or who he really is. I can imagine how a bishop can feel that he is invisible, but someone as controversial as McElroy would, you think, recognise that many of us are watching him.

Bishop Barron attempts to address what he terms as the logical inconsistency involved in treating inclusivity as an absolute value. The paradox, Barron explains, is that real inclusion positively depends upon real exclusion, and the slightest reflection can make this clear. When someone petitions welcome or inclusion into a group or a society of any kind, she is seeking entry into a collectivity with some sort of definition. Otherwise, the inclusion would lose any significance. But to speak of definition is to speak of limits, borders, distinctiveness, and a peculiar structuring logic. This is a really important group and, in fact, forms much of the message and story of the Old testament, where God calls a people set aside to be 'a light unto the nations'. In a word, the story is about God teaching us to discern what is holy and what is not.

This is how Barron sums up the point:

"The invitation of Christ goes out to everyone. Period. Black, white, male, female, gay, straight, transgender, fascist, communist—whoever you are—you are welcome. The arms of the Church, like the arms of the Bernini Colonnade outside St. Peter’s Basilica, reach out to include you. But you are being invited, not into an amorphous collectivity, but rather into a defined community, into a family with a moral and legal structure, into the mystical body of Christ. If, therefore, you were to say, “I demand to be included, but I have no interest in conforming myself to Christ’s demands, to the teaching of the Church, to the expectations of the community,” you would find yourself in an untenable position.

It is precisely the dynamic tension between inclusion and exclusion that, I fear, is often overlooked in the sometimes overly enthusiastic language of “welcome.” I would like to conclude by repeating a line from Francis Cardinal George that cannot really be improved upon as a summary of what I have been arguing here: “All are welcome in the Church, but on Christ’s terms, not their own.”"

Read the full thing here.

I think the argument put forward by Cardinal McElroy is perhaps best rebuffed by this wonderful synod speech from the Anglican Synod last week. It seems so apposite for our times that, at the Anglican Sunod, there were so many faithful lay people pleading with bishops to keep the faith.