The Vatican's Corrective to Liberal Catholics

Wall Street Journal ^ | 26 Apr 2012 | ELIZABETH SCALIA

[Cronos]

the church sent {Leadership Conference } a corrective last week.

After a three-year investigation into the state of non-cloistered religious life in the United States, the church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith produced an eight-page doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference, and its member communities, that identifies areas of keen concern. It cites theological and doctrinal errors; dissenting positions on the "pastoral approach to ministry of homosexual persons"; and the "prevalence of certain radical feminist themes" incompatible with church teaching, including female ordination.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's first duty is to assure that the doctrines of the church are being accurately reflected and communicated to the church body by those canonically representing the faith. Yet its criticisms could not have surprised the sisters, many of whom acknowledge that their communities are "out of step" with Rome.

..in a thoughtful presentation that some believe spurred the investigation, then-Leadership Conference president Sister Laurie Brink had acknowledged that while many sisters walked unevenly with Rome, some had moved "beyond the church, even beyond Jesus." She called that a post-Christian mind-set that might ethically require those who held it to leave the church.

..The Congregation document recognizes the important contributions that Apostolic sisters have made to the church. It goes on to note that the Leadership Conference-associated sisters' definition of "social justice" speaks forcefully to issues of poverty, immigration and human rights (which is both praiseworthy and in line with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops).

But the assessment notes that the sisters barely nod at "sanctity of life" issues such as abortion, euthanasia and contraception, which the bishops also call matters of social justice.

[DBeers]

Just keep believing and the church will continue to deminish and lose the faithful. As far as the Magesterium are concerned, “ The road to Hell is paved with the skulls of Bishops”.

Dare say, my faith is invincible. Regardless...

I understand that it is inevitable that there will be those of weak and or errant premised faith that will leave or be led astray. My faith rests not on men....

When looking at those actively engaged in homosexual sex and or promoting the normalcy of homosexual disorder in regard to the Catholic clergy some may claim the failure is rooted in homosexuality; however, truly the failure is rooted in a lack of faith. More specifically, faith in the idea of God rather than faith in God Himself. IF one truly believed then one would never engage in and promote such an abomination. The Church is losing these 'faithful' -do you as well bemoan this loss?

Regardless -this 'loss' that you consider a blemish on the credibility of the Church and wish to prevent by some measure of the world is not unexpected:

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger: The Church will become small

The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning.

She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes . . . she will lose many of her social privileges. . . As a small society, [the Church] will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members....

It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek . . . The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain . . . But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.

And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man's home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.