It is painful to see the orientation of “Inside the Vatican”
away from Pope Francis threatening and demanding that he conform to their
(Robert Moynihan’s) perception of the chairos.
The threat: “If Francis does anything less - if he is seen as giving ground, delays his
decision, or grants discretion to local clergy to create their own solutions
for those in irregular relations (divorced-remarried) – it will not only destabilize
Francis’ papacy but gravely injure the authority and unity of the Church –
until a new Pope arrives to repair the damage. That is the worst-case scenario.”[1]
The demand: “Uncompromising clarity and precision are required from the
Holy Father and the bishops in union with him…. In this crisis, it is the
strict duty of the Vicar of Christ to speak clearly and unequivocally, for the
benefit of souls. For as the saints remind us, when it comes to the essentials of
our faith, ‘ambiguity is a form of betrayal, and faithful Catholics must have
nothing to do with it.”
I would like to remind anyone conversant with Vatican II,
John Paul II and Benedict XVI that faith is not reducible to clear and distinct
ideas as the Cartesian Enlightenment has demanded for truth and intelligibility.
It must be proclaimed - conceptually - that
divine revelation is not reducible to scripture or any statements but is the
very Person of the Word of the Father. Revelation is the experience of a Person
– in encounter - that takes place on the road to Damascus or in prayer.
Revelation takes place when one becomes “another Christ,” which in turn takes
place when the person goes out of self to receive the Word in self. Benedict
explained this with supreme simplicity and brevity in his thesis III of “Behold
the Pierced One,’ and elsewhere. The result
of this self-transcendence is a consciousness that mystical and contemplative
and not susceptible of reduction into the clear and distinct idea.
One comes to the
Truth of the Faith by doing, by praxis, before reflectively conceptualizing and
being able to say to the Person of Christ: “You are the Christ, the Son of the
living God” (Mt. 16, 16). Francis is leading the Church into this ortho-praxis
with the Year of Mercy, from which will come the real and profound ortho-doxy
and a Christian culture (that is secular and not a “Christendom”)
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