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Post by Admin on Mar 10, 2020 11:33:33 GMT
President of German Bishops’ Conference signals openness to female ‘deacons’
'A very powerful demeanor is needed here,' Bishop Bätzing said of the push for female 'deacons.'
LIMBURG, Germany, March 9, 2020 ( LifeSiteNews) – Bishop Georg Bätzing, the new president of the German Bishops’ Conference, has signaled that he is open to asking Pope Francis for an indult allowing female “deacons” in Germany. An indult is a special permission granted by the Vatican. In a radio interview on Sunday, Bätzing said he wanted to wait for the Synodal Path to be completed, arguing that a single bishop or even a bishops’ conference would not be able to get an indult from the Vatican. “A very powerful demeanor is needed here,” he explained. “And it is more powerful if it is formulated jointly by the well-represented people of God in this synodal assembly of bishops and laity. That has more weight.” The female “diaconate” “could be one of the decisions at the end of the Synodal Path. And if that is decided, I am ready to do so, and as a member of the steering committee I am even obliged to transport it to Rome,” the bishop of Limburg said. Specifically, Bätzing was asked about the proposal made by German professor of canon law Bernhard Sven Anuth. He had told Zwei Köpfe in November 2019 that the German bishops should ask the Pope for permission to have female “deacons.” “Not even the canon law for the world Church needs to be changed, but the Pope could create an exception for the area of a bishops’ conference,” Anuth is convinced. He explained that this idea is nothing new. “This proposal was made by American canon lawyers back in the mid-1990s, and it has been on the table for 25 years. The Würzburg synod had already spoken out in favor of it in the 1970s,” the canon lawyer said. “And Cardinal Lehmann, in the last years of his life, referred to this vote and said that the German bishops should return to it.” Pope John Paul II declared in his 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis that it is ontologically impossible for women to be “ordained.”
Anuth claims the first stage of the sacrament of Holy Orders, the diaconate, is not affected by a prohibition of female priests.“Benedict XVI has specifically amended the Code of Canon Law to make it clear that deacons do not represent Christ as the head of the Church – which until then was always a central argument against the women diaconate. That was changed in the Catechism in 1997 and in 2010 in canon law,” Anuth elaborated.He added, “Only after his ordination to the priesthood can a man represent Christ as the head of the Church. And with that, in my opinion, a theological argument against women deacons has been dropped.” ... [Emphasis mine.] |
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Post by Admin on Mar 10, 2020 12:04:58 GMT
President of German Bishops’ Conference signals openness to female ‘deacons’
'A very powerful demeanor is needed here,' Bishop Bätzing said of the push for female 'deacons.' LIMBURG, Germany, March 9, 2020 ( LifeSiteNews) – Bishop Georg Bätzing, the new president of the German Bishops’ Conference, has signaled that he is open to asking Pope Francis for an indult allowing female “deacons” in Germany. An indult is a special permission granted by the Vatican. In a radio interview on Sunday, Bätzing said he wanted to wait for the Synodal Path to be completed, arguing that a single bishop or even a bishops’ conference would not be able to get an indult from the Vatican. “A very powerful demeanor is needed here,” he explained. “And it is more powerful if it is formulated jointly by the well-represented people of God in this synodal assembly of bishops and laity. That has more weight.” ...
Notice the invocation of the authority of Synods and Assemblies by the more progressive and liberal Conciliar clergy, in this instance, by Bishop Bätzing: "it is more powerful if it is formulated jointly by the well-represented people of God in this synodal assembly of bishops and laity. That has more weight." This emphasis on the authority of Bishops' Conferences, Synods, etc. has been steadily gaining ground since Vatican II and appears to be flowering under the pontificate of Pope Francis [see here, here, and here for recent examples though by no means comprehensive].
Archbishop Lefebvre saw clearly where this shifting of authority would lead. He saw with great discernment in what this error of 'collegiality' would be in reality: a democratization of the Church.
One of the Four Marks of the Church is Her is that She is "One," Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. The 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia notes that:
Yet, as Archbishop Lefebvre repeated many times, in the Conciliar Church, there is a breakdown in central authority. The American, Dutch, and German bishops have been notorious for decades for allowing many progressive initiatives against the wishes of several Pontiffs.
But this breakdown in authority and government has not occurred only on an individual level or in small groups but also on an institutionalized level, one that continues to be taking on a more prominent role. With what astuteness and holy discernment did the Archbishop warn against this error:
1972
There were time bombs in the Council. I believe there were three: collegiality, religious freedom, and ecumenism. Collegiality, which corresponds to the term Egalite of the French Revolution, has the same ideology. Collegiality means the destruction of personal authority; democracy is the destruction of the authority of God, of the authority of the pope, of the authority of the bishops. Collegiality corresponds to the equality of the Revolution of 1789. ... Every pope from the time of the French Revolution had set up an insurmountable barrier against the errors of the Revolution; the ideas of the Revolution never penetrated the Church. By these three terms-collegiality, religious liberty, and ecumenism-the modernists have got what they wanted. These, then, are the aims against which we have striven. The Church has indeed the words of eternal life, she will not perish, but who can say how small a remnant of her little flock will survive once these errors and ideologies have penetrated everywhere. (Archbishop Lefebvre, That the Church May Endure, 1972)
1975
Everything played into their hands in demanding the instant adaptation of the Church to modern man, in other words to man eager to be freed of all shackles, in their presenting the Church as out of touch and impotent, in their confessing to the sins of their predecessors. ... the Council Fathers feel guilty at being out of the world rather than of the world. They are already blushing for their episcopal insignia; soon they will be ashamed of their cassocks. This atmosphere of liberation will soon spread to all fields, and will show in the spirit of collegiality, which will veil the shame felt at exercising a personal authority so opposed to the spirit of modern man, let us say liberal man. The pope and bishops will exercise their authority collegially in Synods, Bishops’ Conferences, Priests’ Councils. Finally, the Church is opened wide to the principles of the modern world. The liturgy too will be liberalized, adapted, subjected to experiments by Bishops’ Conferences. (Archbishop Lefebvre, Liberalism at Work, 1975)
1983
... This spirit of adultery is also made clear in the ecumenism instituted by The Secretariat for the Unity of Christians. This aberrant ecumenism has brought in its train all the reforms of the liturgy, of the Bible, of canon law, with the collegiality that destroys the personal authority of the Supreme Pontiff, of the episcopacy and of the parish priest (see Note 2 below*). This spirit is not Catholic; it is the fruit of the Modernism condemned by St. Pius X. (Archbishop Lefebvre's Public Statement against False Ecumenism, written in October 1983, it was not actually made public until June 1988 in conjunction with the Episcopal Consecrations.)
*Note 2: Secretariat for the Unity of Christians at the Council. It is suitable to recall the important role played by the members of the Secretariat for the Unity of Christians in the Council. ... The harmfulness of all these Commissions is considerable. The Commissions are paralyzing all the normal activity of the Roman Curia. The Rome of the Commissions is the present active-day Rome, Modernist and Masonic. Popes Paul VI and John Paul II have wanted these commissions and have become their slaves just as they are prisoners of the Roman Synods, fruits of the collegiality recognized by the new Canon Law.
1985 Open Letter to Confused Catholics [Chapter 13. Religious Liberty, Collegial Equality, Ecumenical Fraternity]
And now we have democracy entering into the Church. The new Canon Law teaches that power resides in the “People of God.” This tendency towards bringing what they call the base into sharing the exercise of power can be found all through present structures-synod, episcopal conferences, priests’ councils, pastoral councils, Roman commissions, national commissions, etc.; and there are equivalents in the religious orders.
This democratization of the Magisterium represents a mortal danger for millions of bewildered and infected souls to whom the spiritual doctors bring no relief because it has ruined the efficacy with which the personal Magisterium of the Pope and bishops was formerly endowed. A question concerning faith or morals is submitted to numerous theological commissions, who never come up with an answer because their members are divided both in their opinions and in their methods. We need only read the procedural accounts of the assemblies at all levels to realize that collegiality of the Magisterium is equivalent to paralysis of the magisterium.
Our Lord instructed individuals, not a collectivity, to tend His sheep. The Apostles obeyed Our Lord's orders, and until the twentieth century it was thus. These days we hear of the Church being in a state of permanent council, continual collegiality. The results have become apparent. Everything is upside down, the faithful no longer know which way to turn.
The democratization of government was followed quite naturally by the democratization of the Magisterium which took place under the impulse of the famous slogan “collegiality,” spread abroad by the communist, Protestant and progressive press.
They have collegialized the pope's government and that of the bishops with a presbyterial college, that of the parish priest with a lay council, the whole broken down into innumerable commissions, councils, sessions, etc. The new Code of Canon Law is completely permeated with this concept. The pope is described as the head of the College of Bishops. We find this doctrine already suggested in the Council document Lumen Gentium, according to which the College of Bishops, together with the pope, exercises supreme power in the Church in habitual and constant manner. This is not a change for the better; this doctrine of double supremacy is contrary to the teaching and Magisterium of the Church. It is contrary to the definitions of Vatican Council I and to Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Satis Cognitum. The Pope alone has supreme power; he communicates it only to the degree he considers advisable, and only in exceptional circumstances. The pope alone has power of jurisdiction over the whole world.
We are witnessing therefore a restriction on the freedom of the Supreme Pontiff. Yes, this is a real revolution!
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