To answer His Grace's question, I would venture that the Church in Australia is on the path to schism.
From LifeSiteNews
By Paul Smeaton
BRISBANE, Australia, October 16, 2019 (LifeSiteNews)
-- An event hosted by the Catholic archdiocese of Brisbane has proposed
a “rite of blessing” for same-sex couples and for the divorced and
remarried.
The proposal was made on large screens at the Brisbane Assembly,
a two-day event organized by the archdiocese. Archbishop Mark
Coleridge, primate of the Brisbane archdiocese, was seated in the front
row immediately underneath the screens when the proposal was displayed.
Shortly afterward, Archbishop Coleridge gave his concluding speech
for the event in which he asked the audience of approximately 400
people, “So brothers and sisters, sisters and brothers, I ask you, are
you ready to surrender? Are you open to being transformed? Are you
willing to let God reshape you? Are we as a Church, as a diocese,
willing to let God reshape us?”
The event was being held in preparation for the 2020 Australian Plenary Council.
A plenary council is the highest formal gathering of the Catholic
Church in a particular country. The last one held in Australia was in
1937. Decisions made by the Plenary Council must be approved by Rome,
but if approved they will be binding on the Church in Australia.
At the beginning of the two-day event in Brisbane, Fr. Noel Conolly, a
Catholic priest and member of the Plenary Council Facilitation Team, gave a presentation calling for major reform
in the Church. Fr. Conolly said, “We're in the birth pangs of a new
church in Australia. A listening church, a discerning church, a pilgrim
church. It won't be the same church, I hope, after the plenary council.
Well, hopefully, it’ll be the same church, but it will have a totally
different kind of culture.”
Archbishop Coleridge stressed during his opening speech
that the Brisbane event was a genuine part of the plenary council
“journey.” Regarding the upcoming council, he said “a plenary council is
called plenary because it is a journey of the whole Church.”
Speaking about the event in Brisbane specifically, he said, “It’s not
a journey to the plenary council, we are on the journey of the plenary
council.” He noted that the council had three stages – preparation,
celebration and implementation – and that the event in Brisbane was a
part of the preparation stage.
In Archbishop Coleridge’s concluding speech, he asked that those
present make a “commitment” expressing their support and faith in the
plenary council journey, urging them “to do so now in the light of all
that we have been given, and all that we have experienced through this
day and a half.” This “commitment” began with the words “In the presence
of the living God, Father, and Holy Spirit, I believe that the Spirit
is moving among us now, that the Plenary Council is the Spirit’s gift,
that this assembly is the Spirit’s work.”
Since the event, Archbishop Coleridge has offered no clarification or
reassurance to Catholic faithful that no such liturgy will be developed
at the upcoming council. He has, however, found time to post pictures
of baby elephants to his Twitter page,
as well as to use the popular social media platform to express his
desire to run outside and stand in the rain and to comment on the
complexion of Prince Charles during the recent Queen’s speech in
England.
In his opening address to the Brisbane Assembly, Archbishop Coleridge
said, “The question at the heart of this journey, the question that we
seek to address in listening to God here in these next two days, is what
is the future of the Catholic Church in this country?”
Given the events of the Brisbane Assembly and the failure of
Archbishop Coleridge to assure the Catholic faithful that no “rite of
blessing” for those in immoral unions will be developed in Australia,
many faithful Catholics in Australia and around the world will be asking
themselves the same question.
No comments:
Post a 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.