Corrispondenza Romana
The
work at the Synod is confirming the existence of a strong clash between two
minorities inside the Catholic Church. On the one side we have a maniple of
Synod Fathers determined to defend traditional morality and on the other we
have a group of “innovators” who seem to have lost the Catholic Faith. Between
the two minorities, there is, as always, a soft and wavering centre, made up of
those that don’t dare defend nor attack the truth and are moved by
considerations linked more to their own personal interests than doctrinal
debate.
The
innovating bishops had their voices heard mainly in two of the 14 minor circles
during the discussion on the first part of Instrumentum
laboris: the Angelicus C and the Germanicus. Let’s look for a moment at a
central passage in the Circulus
germanicus report, which had the new Archbishop of Berlin, Monsignor Heiner
Koch as spokesman and as moderator, the
Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn.
The
German Bishops firmly hope that in the final document negative language will
not prevail, i.e. language which distances and condemns, of a “forensical” style (“eine negativ abgrenzende und normativ verurteilende Sprache (forensischer Stil)”), but rather,
positive language of the evolution in the Christian position, which may implicitly
express what is incompatible with Christian positions (“eine positive, die christliche Position entfaltende Sprache, die damit
implizit zur Sprache bringt, welche Positionen christilich inkompatibel sind”).
“This also involves the willingness (cfr. Gaudium et
Spes) to welcome the positive developments of society”. (“Dazu
gehört auch die Bereitschaft (cf. Gaudium et Spes), von der Gesellschaft
positive Entwicklungen aufzugreifen”).
To
understand what lies hidden behind this ambiguous language, we need to re-read
the central passages of an interview which Cardinal Christoph Schönborn released to Father Antonio
Spadaro of the Civiltà Cattolica last September 26th . The
Archbishop of Vienna, asserts that it is necessary “to become conscious of the historical and social dimension of marriage
and the family.”
He explains: “Too often we theologians, bishops, priests
and custodians of doctrine forget that human life occurs in conditions imposed
by society i.e. psychological, social, economic and political conditions, in a
historical context. Until now this has
been missing in the Synod. […] We should look at the many situations of
cohabitation, not only from the angle of what is missing, but also from the angle
of what is already promised - what is already present. […] Those who have the
grace and joy to be able to live sacramental marriage in faith, humility,
reciprocal forgiveness, with trust in God Who acts daily in our lives, know how
to discern in a couple, in a civil union, in a cohabitating couple, elements of
true heroism, charity and reciprocal giving. Even if we have to say: “It is
still not the full reality of the sacrament”. Yet who are we to judge and say
that there are no elements of truth and sanctification in them?” […]
In this regard, I cannot hide being
shocked at how the purely formalistic manner of discussion uses the hatchet of the intrinsece malum […]. The obsession of the intrinsece malum has so impoverished the
debate that we are deprived of a large range of argumentation in favor of uniqueness, indissolubility, openness to
life, and the human foundation of the Church’s doctrine. We have lost the taste
for discussion on these human realities.
One of the pivotal elements of the Synod is the reality of the Christian
family, not from an exclusive point of view but an inclusive one. […] There are
also situations in which the priest, the one who knows the people in the
internal forum, may arrive at saying: “Your situation is such, that in
conscience, in yours and mine as your pastor, I see your place in the
sacramental life of the Church”. […] I realize I’m scandalizing some by saying
this… But one can always learn something from people who are objectively living
in irregular situations. Pope Francis
wants to educate us in this”. (Marriage and pastoral conversion. Interview of Cardinal
Christoph Schönborn, by Antonio Spadaro S.I., in Civiltà Cattolica, Quaderno n° 3966 del
26/09/2015, pp. 449-552).
This
interview should be read in parallel, with the one from another Synod Father,
of Germanic cultural formation, the Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto, Bruno Forte,
special-secretary to the ordinary
general assembly of the Synod. In his declarations to Avvenire on September 19th, 2015, Monsignor Forte said
that Instrumentum laboris, manifests: “sympathy for
everything that is positive, even when, as in the case of cohabitation, we are
faced with an incomplete positivity. The criteria of sympathy towards a
cohabitating couple is dictated by the presence in their union of a desire for
fidelity, stability and openness to life. [And] when one grasps that this
desire can be crowned by the sacrament of matrimony. On the contrary, when the
cohabitation is episodic, everything appears more difficult and it then becomes
important to find the path that encourages new steps towards a more significant
maturation. […] When there is an irreversible cohabitation, above all if there
are children born from the new union, to go back would mean failing in the
commitments undertaken. [And] these commitments require moral duties that
should comply in a spirit of obedience to God’s will, which asks for fidelity
to this new union. When these conditions are present, then an increasingly
deeper integration into the life of the Christian community can be considered. Until
what point? We have already said it. It’s up to the Synod to propose it and the
Pope to decide.”
As
is evident from the interviews cited, the approach to the problems of the
family is of a purely sociological nature, with no reference at all to
principles that transcend history. Matrimony and the family for Cardinal Schönborn and Monsignor Forte are not
natural institutions that have been part of the life of mankind since the
beginning of civilization: institutions which have certainly come into being and dwell in history, but as they are rooted
in the very nature of mankind, they are destined to survive, in every place and
time, as the fundamental cell of human cohabitation. They retain that
the family is subjected to the dialectic evolution of history, assuming new
forms, according to the historical period and the “positive developments in
society”.
The
“positive language” which the Circulus
germanicus cites, means that there must be no condemnation expressed by the
Church, because we need to grasp the positivity in evil and sin. Properly
speaking, for them, sin doesn’t exist, since every evil is an imperfect and
incomplete good. These aberrations are based on deliberate confusion between
the metaphysical and moral concepts of
good and evil. It is clear in fact, that
from the philosophical point of view, God Who is the Supreme Good, did not
create anything that is evil and imperfect in the universe. Yet, in created things we also have human
freedom, which renders possible in a rational being, moral estrangement from
God. This aversio a Deo in the
rational being is an evil that is properly defined as sin. Nevertheless the notion of sin is absent in the Cardinal’s
view, just as it is in the special secretary’s.
By denying the existence of
the intrinsece malum, Cardinal Schönborn is denying moral truths like
those according to which “there exist acts which, per se and in themselves,
independently of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their
object” (John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation, Reconciliatio et
paenitentia, n. 17) and rejects in toto the encyclical
Veritatis Splendor, promulgated precisely to reaffirm the existence of absolute
morals, against the resurgence of “situation ethics”. In this perspective, not only is the notion
of Divine and natural law as the root and foundation of moral order dissolved, but
also the [very] notion of human freedom. Freedom is in fact the primary
subjective root of morality, just as the natural and Divine law constitutes its
objective form. Without the Divine and
natural law, good and evil cease to exist, since the natural law is what allows
the intelligence to know the truth and the will to love the good. Freedom and
law are two inseparable entities in the moral order.
Sin exists because absolute morals exist. Sin is an
absolute evil because it opposes the absolute Good, and is the only evil, because
it opposes God Who is the sole Good. The origins of every situation of adversity
and unhappiness in man are not of a political, economical and social nature,
but go back to sin - both original and
actual - committed by men. Man “ sins mortally[…] when he consciously
and freely, for whatever reason, chooses something which is seriously
disordered (Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Persona humana, November 7th
1975, n. 10 par. 6). Among the sins that
exist, according to Holy Scripture, are
those that cry out to Heaven for vengeance, like the sin of sodomy (Gen. 18,
20; 19, 13), but there is also the violation of the sixth commandment, which
prohibits any sexual union outside of marriage.
No “positive language” is admitted to bless these unions. Pius XII said that “perhaps the greatest
sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin”
(Radio Message October 26th 1946).
Yet, what happens when it is churchmen themselves
who lose the sense of sin, and with this, the Faith itself ?
[Translation: Contributor Francesca Romana]
