[Grem] A német püspökök ""függetlensége"" melegházasság kérdésében Rómától

[Emoke Greschik]

The German bishops have declared independence from Rome on same-sex
marriage: how far will the rot spread now?
by *William Oddie <http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/author/william-oddie/>*
posted Thursday, 6 Aug 2015
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2015/08/06/the-german-bishops-have-declared-independence-from-rome-on-same-sex-marriage-how-far-will-the-rot-spread-now/
[image: Cardinal Reinhard Marx, president of the German bishops' conference
(CNS)]
Cardinal Reinhard Marx, president of the German bishops' conference (CNS)

*Are we witnessing the beginnings of an international campaign of defiance
against the Catholic moral law?*

I begin with two apparently different questions, which are, however,
closely related.

Have the German bishops moved decisively towards an Anglican-style (or
maybe perhaps a Gallican-style) secession from the doctrinal authority of
Rome?

*Are we witnessing an international liberal-Catholic campaign towards the
Church’s acceptance of same-sex marriage?*

Germany first.

*On July 30, the website of the German Bishops’ Conference reported
<http://wdtprs.com/blog/2015/07/munich-married-lesbian-remains-head-of-day-care-center/>
that a woman who heads a Caritas Day Care Centre in Bavaria, had been asked
in April to leave her position due to her announcement that she was going
to “marry” a woman.* *The decision has now been rescinded. *

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of the Diocese of Munich, has agreed to
implement immediately new regulations approved by the German Bishops’
Conference at the end of *April 2015, drastically liberalising the Catholic
Church’s disciplinary rules in Germany*. In the past, employees who
deliberately and persistently did not live according to the Church’s moral
teaching would (as at first happened in this case) have been asked to leave
their position in institutions of the Church. Not all German bishops accept
these new rules, though most do: three contiguous diocese have declared
that they will not implement these decisions: those of Passau, Regensburg,
and Eichstätt (still, it seems, Ratzinger territory).

*Most German dioceses, however, are moving towards declaring independence
from* *the Magisterium*. T*he German bishops’ conference has also expressed
support for Cardinal Kasper’s campaign to allow* *the administration of
Holy Communion* *to civilly divorced and remarried Catholics. *

*Another German bishop, however—crucially, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller,
prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith— has declared
<http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2015/07/church-labor-law-in-germany-and-same.html>
that doctrinal, or even disciplinary, decisions regarding marriage and
family are not* *up for determination by national bishops’ conferences.*

*“It is an absolutely anti-Catholic idea that does not respect the
Catholicity of the Church,” Cardinal Mueller said when asked,* “Could
certain doctrinal or disciplinary decisions on marriage and family be
delegated to the episcopal conferences?”

“Episcopal conferences have authority on certain matters, but they are not
a magisterium beside the Magisterium, without the Pope and without
communion with all the bishops,” he continued.

The Cardinal Mueller had been asked for his views on those of another
German Cardinal, about comments made by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who is
president of the German bishops’ conference. C*ardinal Marx had told
reporters that “We [the German Church] are not a branch of Rome. Each
conference of bishops is responsible for pastoral care in its cultural
context and must preach the Gospel in its own, original way. We cannot wait
for a synod to tell us how we have to shape pastoral care for marriage and
family here.”*

We are not a branch of WHAT? We are not a BRANCH of ROME? But ALL Catholics
are members of Churches which are branches of Rome just as the branch of a
tree grows out of its trunk or it dies: that is why we are called ROMAN
CATHOLICS. And all this talk of being responsible for care of its own part
of the Church “in its pastoral context” is a weaselly way of saying that
the German bishops have a right to determine what their own version of
Catholic DOCTRINE is: *when Marx says the German church “must preach the
gospel in its own, original way” he is unambiguously declaring unilateral
doctrinal independence from the teaching authority of the Church. *

The Pope, even if he were minded to, doesn’t of course have the authority
do what one is greatly tempted to say ought to be done: every dissenting
bishop should be fired and replaced. That would lead, of course to an open
schism in the German Church, and possibly the open secession of the
rebellious part of it. Discuss: would that be not such a bad thing? I’m not
sure.

But of course it doesn’t work like that. And it has to be admitted that
there is a tide of lay opinion, even in parts of the Church where the
bishops have remained firm, which is working against what they teach and
do, actively campaigning against them. A recent American example
illustrates this all too vividly. An article in the National Catholic
Reporter
<http://wdtprs.com/blog/2015/07/fishwrap-once-again-publicly-attacks-the-churchs-moral-teaching/>,
by one Jamie Manson argues as follows:

“It’s beginning to feel like every week brings a new story about the firing
of an LGBT employee from a Catholic institution.

“The most recent well-publicised termination happened earlier this month at
Waldron Mercy Academy in Philadelphia. The school declined to renew the
contract of Margie Winters, the school’s director of religious studies,
when it came to light that she is in a same-sex marriage. She says her
administrators were well aware that she was “married” to a woman. It wasn’t
until two parents complained to the Philadelphia archdiocese that she was
terminated.

“In the wake of Winters’ firing, many commentators have suggested that
bishops and Catholic institutions need to show greater mercy and compassion
in dealing with its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees….

“As long as Roman Catholic doctrine teaches that same-sex relationships are
sinful and a violation of God’s plan for humanity, LGBT employees will not
be safe in their jobs in Catholic institutions.”

As Fr Zuhlsdorf rejoined, the article argues, quite simply that mercy and
compassion means saying, publicly and with deliberation, that the Church’s
teachings make no difference. And neither does public scandal. But, as he
argues, mercy and compassion are always grounded in the truth: it is not
compassionate to say that Catholics all have the right to determine
according to their whim what moral behaviour consists of: the road to
Hellfire is paved with “rights” like that.

The Church is, I very much fear, at a uniquely dangerous juncture. Things
are not yet (whatever we may think of many of our own bishops) as bad in
the English Church, though they are bad enough, God knows. But the idea HAS
got about that everything, including the Church’s Millenial teachings on
the moral law, is up for grabs.

That is why *I dearly wish the October sessions of the Synod were not
happening. No good can come of them: and potentially considerable harm
could. I still hope, even maintain, that we will probably be OK, and that
Cardinal Kasper will take a nosedive. But the possibility exists that he
won’t. And then we are all in trouble. How long will it be, then, before
the English Bishops’ conference goes the way of their German brethren?*
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