Posted on 04/10/2012 11:03:39 AM PDT by cleghornboy
LifeSiteNews is reporting that the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Schönborn , received a letter from the Vatican demanding action, after ten months of "discussion" between the Cardinal and the dissent group calling itself the "Austrian Priests' Initiative." The dissent group issued a manifesto last year demanding that the Church change her teachings on the ordination of women and married clergy and the reception of Communion by non-Catholics and divorced and remarried persons, and calling on their fellow clergy to disobey the Vatican.
LifeSiteNews is reporting that, "the Cardinal himself has also publicly called for the Church to acquiesce to the group's agenda" and has asserted that "the Church does need some reform."
Back in 2010, Cardinal Schönborn criticised the Church for what he characterised as its refusal to accept homosexual relations. Schönborn told the far-left UK Tablet magazine that the Church should also consider allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion since "many people don’t even marry at all any longer" and insisted that, "We should give more consideration to the quality of homosexual relationships. A stable relationship is certainly better than if someone chooses to be promiscuous." (See here).
The doctrines which have been revealed by the Lord Jesus, either directly or through His Church, are often truths beyond the power of reason to discover or comprehend. In such cases, supernatural aid is required to accept these truths. This supernatural aid is called the gift of faith. Faith is a supernatural gift of God for the acquisition of truth in the supernatural order, just as reason is a natural gift of God for the acquisition of truth in the natural order.
Now, the natural law is perceptible and knowable by all men who have reached the age of reason. Pope John Paul II, in his Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, No. 36, explains that, "Some people..disregarding the dependence of human reason on divine wisdom and the need, given the present state of fallen nature, for divine revelation as an effective means for knowing moral truths, even those of the natural order, have actually posited a complete sovereignty of reason in the domain of moral norms regarding the right ordering of life in this world. Such norms would constitute the boundaries for a merely 'human' morality; they would be the expression of a law which has its source exclusively in human reason. In no way could God be considered the Author of this law, except in the sense that human reason exercises its autonomy in setting down laws by virtue of a primordial and total mandate given to man by God. These trends of thought have led to a denial, in opposition to Sacred Scripture (cf. Mt 15: 3-6) and the Church's constant teaching, of the fact that the natural moral law has God as its Author, and that man, by the use of reason, participates in the eternal law, which it is not for him to establish." Cardinal Schönborn wants us to give "more consideration" to what he refers to as " the quality of homosexual relationships." But the Holy Spirit, through St. Paul, explains why idolatrous peoples, such as the Romans, fall into unnatural vice. We are told that:
"The wrath of God is indeed being revealed from heaven against every impiety and wickedness of those who suppress the truth by their wickedness. For what can be known about God is evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what He has made. As a result, they have no excuse; for although they knew God they did not accord Him glory as God or give Him thanks." (Romans 1: 18-21).
The Holy Spirit tells us through the Apostle that the failure to recognize God leads to corruption of the will and a blinded intellect which, ultimately, leads to idolatry. And God's punishment for this vanity is to abandon such people to the vice against nature:
"Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened. While claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes. Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies." (Romans 1: 21-24).
The Apostle, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is most clear and unambiguous. He describes this mutual degradation while stressing its unnatural character:
"Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity." (Romans 1: 26-27).
As a result of these unnatural relations, such people face horible consequences:
"They are filled with every form of wickedness, evil, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, rivalry, treachery, and spite. They are gossips and scandal-mongers and they hate God. They are insolent, haughty, boastful, ingenious in their wickedness, and rebellious toward their parents. They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless." (Romans 1: 25; 28-31).
Finally, those who succumb to this unnatural vice not only become attached to it but attempt to justify it while applauding others who have fallen into the vice: "they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them." (Romans 1: 32). Rather than challenging sinners to conform themselves to Christ and His Church and to work, with the help of God's grace, toward reforming themselves, Cardinal Schönborn wants the Church to "reform" [and here we are not speaking of legitimate reform - a growth in holiness and truth] by changing her teaching to accommodate those who dissent from the teaching of the Lord Jesus.
Has Cardinal Schönborn lost his faith and the ability to reason? If not, why does he then request the Church to abandon her teaching and acquiesce to the demands of a group which has embraced dissent? Why does he speak of unnatural relations as having "quality"?
Truly, as I have been warning for years, and as Pope Benedict XVI recently said, darkness is descending upon the world. And many can no longer distinguish between good and evil.
"America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance. It is not. It is suffering from tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so much overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded…In the face of this broadmindedness, what America needs is intolerance."
~ Servant of God, Archbishop Fulton Sheen
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