Posted on 12/31/2013 4:03:29 AM PST by markomalley
Pope Francis piqued the curiosity of many members of the faithful in his November 24th exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, when he said national bishops’ conferences should be granted “genuine doctrinal authority” as part of his effort to reform the papacy and decentralize authority in the Church.
The idea raised concern for many Catholics, including those active in the battle for life and family, who expressed misgivings about giving more authority to institutions that, in many countries, have often been used to undermine the Church’s teachings on life and family issues.
Now the Pope’s prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has weighed in on the issue. Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller says that while the conferences can exercise a certain doctrinal authority – in preparing local catechisms, for example – they exist to serve individual bishops and will never act as an intermediary between bishop and pope.
In an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera published December 22nd, Archbishop Müller said there is no such thing as “national churches,” and the president of a bishops’ conference cannot be a “vice-pope.”
“Some interpret Evangelii Gaudium as if the Holy Father wants to promote a certain autonomy of the local churches, the tendency to distance themselves from Rome,” he said. “But this is not possible. Particularism, like centralism, is a heresy. It would be the first step towards autocephaly."
The papacy and the role of bishop are “by divine right, instituted by Christ,” but the bishops’ conference, he said, “both historically and today, belong only to the ecclesiastical law,” which he noted is a “human” creation.
“The presidents of the episcopal conferences, while important, are coordinators, nothing more, not vicepopes!” he said. “Each bishop has a direct and immediate relationship with the Pope.”
A “decentralization” of power to the conferences would only create a new centralization, he said, in which the conference president “has all the information and the bishops are inundated with documents without time to prepare."
In a paragraph of his exhortation, Pope Francis spoke of the need for a “conversion of the papacy” and the way in which papal primacy is exercised. In particular, he said there was a need to better elaborate “a juridical status of episcopal conferences which would see them as subjects of specific attributions, including genuine doctrinal authority.”
“Excessive centralization, rather than proving helpful, complicates the Church’s life and her missionary outreach,” he added.
However, bishops conferences have often been criticized for harboring dissidents or being used to try to silence strong episcopal voices in the name of ‘collegiality,’ and producing statements that are vague, confusing, or even misleading.
One of the most famous examples is the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 1968 Winnipeg Statement, which dissented from Humanae Vitae’s prohibition of contraception by claiming that Catholics could use contraception in “good conscience” provided they had “tried sincerely” to obey Church teaching.
Most recently, the German bishops’ conference has been embroiled in controversy after signaling that they would allow Communion for some Catholics who are “remarried” despite an existing Catholic marriage.
Many fear that increasing power at the conferences could undermine the efforts of outspoken bishops within their dioceses, and increase the tendency for bishops to yield their proper authority to the conference.
In the lead-up to the 2008 U.S. election, Bishop Joseph Martino, then the ordinary in Scranton, was forced to intervene when a liberal Catholic group at a parish used some vague lines from the USCCB document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship to justify voting for a pro-abortion candidate. “No USCCB document is relevant in this diocese,” the bishop said, noting that he had produced his own pastoral letter insisting that Catholics must vote pro-life.
Perhaps the most incisive criticism of modern bishops’ conferences was offered by Pope Benedict XVI himself before his election.
In The Ratzinger Report, his 1985 book-length interview with journalist Vittorio Messori, Cardinal Ratzinger explained that while the Second Vatican Council sought to restore the role of individual bishops, in practice the post-Conciliar period saw a reduction of their role because of the greater emphasis on the conferences.
“The decisive new emphasis on the role of the bishops is in reality restrained or actually risks being smothered by the insertion of bishops into episcopal conferences that are ever more organized, often with burdensome bureaucratic structures,” he said.
Echoing Müller’s observation that the conferences are of human origin, Cardinal Ratzinger said they “have no theological basis, they do not belong to the structure of the Church, as willed by Christ, that cannot be eliminated; they have only a practical, concrete function.”
"No episcopal conference, as such, has a teaching mission: its documents have no weight of their own save that of the consent given to them by the individual bishops,” Cardinal Ratzinger added.
To what extent Müller’s view reflects that of Pope Francis, and to what extent it will impact the discussion going forward, is unclear.
The prefect made similar remarks at the end of September, days after Pope Francis confirmed him in his post.
Bishops’ conferences lack “a teaching competency over and above the authority of individual bishops," he said, according to The Tablet. "They are not a third authority between the Pope and the bishops. So I don't think we will see a sort of federalist reform similar to that in the Federal Republic [of Germany] where key competences are relayed from the central state to the individual states. That is not how the Church is constituted!”
PLEASE don’t let Cardinal Mahoney see this! He’ll have a FIT!
The atmosphere is disturbed by cloudy implications and eager, but divided inferences.
Missing is clarity.
Not helpful is the treatment of the obvious language barrier that this Pope suffers in many cases, and the slingshot media end-running everybody with their premature interpretations of cherry picked remarks of Pope Francis.
The public face of the Pope’s communications seems to be too confusing and uncertain to be all that comforting, because of the back tracking, restating and elaborating required to decipher the content and context of what he says.
His good deeds, however, speak volumes and are superior to the cloudy conversations. The Holy Father kindness to the languishing is a witness to Christ Jesus himself. May God bless him.
Since when has Mahony given a rat's behind about what comes out of the Vatican?
Bishop conference presidents are infinitely closer to being vice-popes than popes are to being vice-Christs. At least bishops conference presidents have the potential to eventually become pope. Of all Rome’s blasphemies, the papal claim of “vicar” is among her worst.
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” (John 14:26)
Hallelujah!
3 questions before I make a comment:
1) Do you actually understand what the word “vicar” means? (If so, please “illuminate” me)
2) Are you asserting that the Holy Spirit is the Vicar of Christ?
3) What denomination are you?
How do you judge a Church teaching to be blasphemous? By your personal interpretation of Scripture?
Luther's doctrine of "the Bible alone as the sole rule of faith" isn't found in the Bible. Additionally, Jesus said...
"If he will not listen to the church, treat him as a heathen or publican." --JesusDr. Scott Hahn on the papacyIsaiah 22:22
I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.
Matthew 16:19
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."
Rev. 3:7
“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.
If you don’t accept the authority of the Pope as the Vicar of Christ, then none of this discussion about the role of a national bishops’ conference should be of any interest to you at all.
Scott Hahn..lol
You got a point there!
Because I’m a Christian, anything done in The Master’s name is of utmost concern. Not to mention, souls are at stake. A believer born of the Spirit should address error and blasphemy where it’s encountered. The results of my words are in His hands. Perhaps you won’t change your mind, but God may be pleased to use my post to prod some unknown reader reader to investigate and discover and the truth about Christ and the identity of His true vicar. He has promised His word always accomplishes His purpose.
“So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)
If picking up the Bible and reading it guaranties the Holy Spirit will teach you privately what it means without help from proper authority how is it that that method has produced 30,000 different Protestant denominations since the 16th century?
1 Cor 14:33 For God is not the author of confusion.
The same underlying influence that caused religions like Islam, Mormon, Catholicism, and any other religion that distorts scripture. It’s Satan’s lies. He even tried in on Jesus who quoted scripture to counter his half truths.
“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)
I have no idea the source for your 30,000, but it’s a meaningless figure that proves nothing whatsoever. Think, FRiend! Don’t just parrot something you’ve read. Don’t let meaningless statistics deceive you. Most religion is false religion. Satan does his best work in the arena of faith. Christ Himself said there will be MANY who toiled in His name who are cast away.
“Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” (Matthew 7:22-23)
I cannot think of a more fearsome passage in all the Scriptures. Being deceived about your standing with The Lord is an awful thing.
How do I know that you are not under the same influence?
To whom do I go to check your interpretation of Scripture?
Scripture.
Pope Francis seems to support further decentralization. Evangelii Gaudium can't be dismissed in the manner that one might dismiss his "off-the-cuff" remarks. And he has also been characterized as an autocratic decision maker.
Funny, we picked the same line to highlight. Time will tell what actually happens here, but there's an awful lack of clarity these days. It's as if the Church is in a state of brain fog.
Vicar is sometimes translated as “deputy.” As in deputy sheriff. So don’t get your panties in a wad.
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