Leipzig. The opposition between the Church in Germany and the Pope is today again stylized by the German press and taken up by some people in Italy. It is only a new piece of "political" clash with the Pope, in the German way, which is more, so to speak, of "left". Positions from the seventies are still defended by an elderly caste of journalists and people who lead the "Zentralkomitee der deutschen Katholiken". Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who with great humility is serving the Pope in the direction of the bishops' department, has recently been attacked by the traditionalists, Monsignor Viganò and now by the progressives, Kardinal Marx. In both cases Pope Francis is under attack.
The package of "clerical" problems that would like to be imposed synodally on the universal Church is well known: priesthood for women (this point has a vocational dimension of which I don't want to speak here; the question of female participation in ecclesial discernment is in my opinion more complex and it is a scandal that the Church does too little in this direction), reduction of celibacy to a decision of free choice, more power for the laity also versus the bishops.
The reason for the offensive is as follows: one cannot ignore the scandals in which the Church has been involved, one must draw consequences from them, which are mostly "political" and not spiritual. Even less theological.
For the German "progressives" the phrase of Saint Augustine: "Spes tota nostra quia in Christo est..." (Sermo, 46, 1-2) does not mean anything. The goals they want to achieve are motivated by reasons of "political theology" and by a theory of equality that can never be integrated into Catholic theology, which always lives by a difference: equality in difference, up to the ontological difference between being and entity, between the hierarchical gift of being until its acceptance.
As far as bishops are concerned, my criterion is never the clash between bishops and laity, but the friendship between them, as I saw it in the story of the friendship between Alberto Methol Ferré and Jorge Mario Bergoglio. I'm not interested in having bishops who "politically" wonder how to integrate the laity into the government of the Church - I, the layman, am already integrated, by virtue of baptism - but who they want to lead: themselves or the people of God? "Haec dicit Dominus Deus: O pastor Israel, qui pascunt se solos! This means that they seek only the things that lead to their advantage, "non quae Jesu Christi" (Augustine, ibidem ). As Christians they will have to give reason to God for their faith, as bishops for their way of administering the authority that has been given them, the bishop of Hippo rightly explains. In the Synod of the Amazon the bishops listened to the problems and joys of that people in this aerea: it is a good way, begun already in Aparecida. It is good that the bishops are not dominant, but it is not good that they are afraid, given that many already suffer, in my opinion, from inferiority complexes.
Obviously the scandals in the Church are a question for all of us and they ask for changes and one cannot but speak openly also of the question of celibacy, if in many German dioceses many priests nevertheless have a relationship with a woman and have children. We must speak "cum grande animo y liberalidad", avoiding any abstract traditionalism, but starting from a well-founded theology of the heart that kneels before the One who is our only hope: the crucified and risen God! And that it has been handed down in a living tradition from generation to generation to us! And only by looking at the Crucified One will it be possible for bishops and lay people to live a real friendship, a real communion, without which everyone thinks only of himself and not of what the Lord asks of him!
PS
As for the common communion between Lutherans and Catholics (to give a German example) I would like to say briefly this: in a whole my life, only once did I experience a Lutheran girl who was really sad not to be able to receive Jesus, because she was not Catholic. For the most part instead the discussion is supported by reasons that are not "theological": an argument is for example, that "people no longer understand" why it is not possible to make communion together; Jesus also asks what people think he is, but in truth he wants to know what his people think who he is. I don't think of the Eucharist as a prize for perfect, but as a medicine - the only one I know, that of the gratis love that one gives oneself - for us sinners, but I don't think that asking ourselves what people think is the right method; last week people voted in Saxony 28% for the AfD, just to give an example. Of course I cannot eliminate these people as a marginal phenomenon, but neither can I assume their political criteria which are in fact only "collective selfishness". Then in these years about communion between Lutherans and Catholics I have seen people, more or less sincere, who have a problem of abstract justice (if I receive it, others can and must receive it too). Finally, it seems to me that giving liturgical form to a unity that we do not even live in our Church, sub and cum Petro, is only hypocrisy. Those who truly desire unity can hope for it in the right way: as a gift from the Lord and rejoice that in baptism (and therefore in the heart of Jesus) we are already united.
To deepen the theme:
https://graziotto.blogspot.com/2019/09/educational-agreement-in-dialogue-with.html
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