The musings and meandering thoughts of a crotchety old man as he observes life in the world and in a small, rural town in South East Nebraska. My Pledge-Nulla dies sine linea-Not a day with out a line.
05 October 2018
Washington Archdiocese: "Healing" Will Not Come About By Administering Poison - by Susan Abel
From Gloria.tv
The Archdiocese of Washington has posted on their website a set of resources to help facilitate "healing" related to the "clergy sex abuse scandal". Some people immediately write off every single thing Cardinal Wuerl presents, convinced it is just an appearance of concern and that he really is trying to avoid losing status or avoiding prison.
I have a different view. I haven’t read much of what he has written, but I expect he has a few good ghostwriters and gives sincere people the opportunity to have their say. (It would be a smart thing to do.)
On this basis, I thought I'd take a look at the written resources presented by the archdiocese to facilitate “healing” at this time.
I came across the Theological Lessons of the Abuse Crisis presented in 2015 at the Pontifical Gregorian University by Sr Mary Timothy Prokes, FSE. I have never heard of her. I read through most of her article, although quickly. There is one thing she writes at the beginning that bothers me because 1) I think I believe the opposite and 2) I wonder if it mirrors Francis' approach:
Anglican theologian John Macquarrie averred that a whole theology cannot be confined to the essential basics of Revelation, Scripture, and Tradition. It also has to take into account experience, reason, and culture. Theology, then, is never “finished” as faith seeking understanding. Nor can it be whole apart from Christ’s revelation of what it means to be human.
It seems to me Revelation, Scripture and Tradition aren't required to take into account experience and culture (reason is on a totally different level), but to validate and inform experience and culture.
Was it not precisely “taking into account” "experience" and "culture" that led to the Church not enforcing its moral teaching and turning a blind eye on sexual abuses of minors which, at a time, were considered to be a "new experience" and part of the modern culture of "sexual liberation"?
Contrast this with, for example, Magisterial teaching presented in Fr Tom Weinandy's recent talk in Ireland on The Christian Family as the Domestic Church - a thoughtful explanation of Jesus as the beginning and end of marriage and family life that elevates, gives tremendous dignity, to marriage and family life as God intended.
1 comment:
Comments are subject to deletion if they are not germane. I have no problem with a bit of colourful language, but blasphemy or depraved profanity will not be allowed. Attacks on the Catholic Faith will not be tolerated. Comments will be deleted that are republican (Yanks! Note the lower case 'r'!), attacks on the legitimacy of Pope Francis as the Vicar of Christ (I know he's a material heretic and a Protector of Perverts, and I definitely want him gone yesterday! However, he is Pope, and I pray for him every day.), the legitimacy of the House of Windsor or of the claims of the Elder Line of the House of France, or attacks on the legitimacy of any of the currently ruling Houses of Europe.
That idea of Macquarrie's is a staple in American theology schools now, even purportedly Thomistic ones. It is a "given", assumed truth, and if you disagree you are a hater.
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