Ban on Criticizing the Pope is a Structural (Conservative) Problem

Cardinal Kasper: Amoris Laetitia is "the most important document
in Church history of the last 1,000 years"

(Rome) While Cardinal Walter Kasper called Amoris laetitia "the most important document of the Church's history in the past 1000 years," his great adversary in the Synod of Bishops in 2014, "Cardinal Raymond Burke" (Sandro Magister), clings to formal restrictions.

There is no shortage of parts of the Church that match vociferously with Kasper's  assessment. This includes the daily newspaper Avvenire  of the Italian Episcopal Conference . It  is  headed by  another papal confidant, Bishop Nunzio Galatino. The daily sees Amoris Laetitia not just "according to the thinking of a wise father," but exactly how Cardinal Burke does not want to see it. Namely, a regular document of the Magisterium Amoris Laetitia which was a "revolutionary" document that sealed  "by archiving  pastoral prohibitions and constraints," and "that had turned more into a reading of the code of canon law, instead of the Gospel."

"Poor Cardinal Burke, who clings to codes and commas"

"Poor Cardinal Burke, a great canonist, who clings to nothing but codes and commas ...", said the Vatican expert Sandro Magister. "Undoubtedly," said Magister,  Pope Francis  has also thought of Burke, when he speaks of the Article 305 in Amoris Laetitia, writing of those who know "only how close their heart only with moral laws...", "as if they were boulders that were thrown on the lives of people. "

In comparison, the proponents of the "pastoral reorientation" (Cardinal Schönborn) appear to have an easy time. They offer to people supposedly what they want to hear.

Conservative prohibition of criticism  forces it to a sideshow 

Even Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, another Cardinal who had rendered outstanding services in the past two years to defend the sacrament of marriage, has so far limited his formalistic criticism of Amoris Laetitia. The content of the post-synodal letter was not the problem, but the false interpretations. In other words, what the Pope says, that it is all right, it is  just misunderstood. A reading of this pontificate, which was bumpy from the start and  easily turns into a stumbling block, just as  now.

Cardinals Burke and Brandmüller  in not criticizing the pope, are forced to resort to a sideshow and to steer clear of the actual battlefield. Criticism of Amoris Laetitia  turns out to be weak when it renounces the direct, substantive confrontation. While some are going onto the sidelines,  Cardinals like Kasper and Schönborn roll ahead at full speed on the main line and announce the exact opposite. They talk about content and refer explicitly to Pope Francis. The do not address  formal questions. 

The weakness of the cardinatial resistance is homemade in this case because the cardinals themselves are possessed of their strongest means, when they bring forth a substantive confrontation. What are they afraid of? Are they afraid of the consequences? What consequences? Is it not perhaps a lack of the insight on the part of the papacy, which proves to be the inhibition?

Approaches a substantive criticism

Both cardinals seem to be aware  of the weakness of their own reasoning. Sandro Magister points out that both Burke and Brandmüller, for example,  don't dispense  quite completely with a  substantive review.

Cardinal Brandmüller  explained  to the Bild newspaper that it was unacceptable to grant exemptions to the Communion ban for people living in the state of the public and persistent adultery. This is categorically impossible for religious reasons and also in individual cases.

Cardinal Burke sees the danger in a dangerous misconception that in Amoris Laetitia the formulation of marriage as an "ideal" may arise. "In the document, there are numerous references to the "ideal marriage." Such a description of marriage can be misleading. You can lead the reader to think that marriage is an eternal idea of what  men and women approach more or less under varying circumstances. But Christian marriage is not an ideal. It is a sacrament that gives the grace of a man and a woman to live in a true, lasting and fruitful, mutual love," said Cardinal Burke.

Rethink self-imposed ban on the Pope's criticism

The self-imposed ban against criticizing the Pope proves to the defenders of religious marriage and morality as a major weakness because it is structural. With consistent compliance, it gives the other side an almost insurmountable advantage and can be repeated as well as on other matters.

The self-limitation is  anachronistic anyway because Pope Francis had given his critic Antonio Socci a free pass  in which he explained that the criticism is legitimate and is thought to be, according to Socci, that the  criticism was "good for" the Pope. Socci had nevertheless doubted the legality of the Pope's election for half a year.

In a time in which the Pope is himself the engine of controversial breaks, faithful Catholics, particularly the so-called "conservatives" have to rethink their attitude towards the Pope. They will not fail to be bound and  soon  will not be able to check  if and how they have  been weighed down by the erroneous ballast of the papacy. And they will have to get rid of it if they want to fulfill their duty to defend the immutable doctrine.

Then to hoped that the pontificate of Francis might not be long, could yet prove to be as  double-edged as the prohibition of criticism.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: MiL (Screenshot)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
Link to Katholisches...
AMDG