peterp:
But there is no new necessity that requires new bishops.
I suppose attacks on Dogma/ Doctrine are not of concern to you? It is becoming a disease under Francis.
Saving Souls, Not Dogma, is the Heart of Pastoral Church LifeIN ALL THINGS
Drew Christiansen | Mar 11 2015 - 3:29pm | 4 comments
Catholicism is undergoing an epochal transformation. For more than a millennium
dogma has been the hard core of church life, defining who is in and who is out. Partisans have fought over the correct way to define Christian belief; they condemned their opponents and persecuted them as heretics.
In this new era, the pertinent standard is the good of souls. With evangelization as the goal, boundaries are more porous. Openness to dissenters and critics, welcome for sinners and outreach to people on the margins of society are becoming the defining pattern of Catholic life. The challenge is to re-appropriate the heart of the Gospel: “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost” (Matt. 19:10). The shift away from
dogma as the center of church life to pastoral care has a lot to do with Pope Francis’ personal pastoral style, but the trend was already underway in the last years of Saint John Paul II’s pontificate.
Saint John Paul, who himself took some hardline doctrinal stands, nonetheless, understood the egregious sins often “committed in service of the Truth,” that is orthodoxy. During the Day of Pardon in 2000, in the company of the Roman Curia, he asked God’s pardon for those offenses. In his homily, he urged, “Let us ask pardon for the divisions which have occurred among Christians, for the violence some have used in the service of the truth and for the distrustful and hostile attitudes sometimes taken towards the followers of other religions.”
Alongside John Paul, imploring God’s forgiveness, stood Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, the Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the then enforcer of orthodox belief (No accident of casting in that solemn moment!). Looking backwards, their humble repudiation of so much of what had been deadly serious in church life anticipated the greater change the church has begun to undergo from a heavily
dogmatic to a more pastoral church.
John Paul also smoothed the way in downgrading the role of
dogma in Catholic life with his martyrial ecuмenism. Since the late Reformation both Catholics and Protestants had held that right doctrine rather than courageous behavior determined who was a true martyr. But St. John Paul took time out to pray at the tombs of Protestant martyrs, and he included Protestants slain or their faith among those honored in the Jubilee of the Martyrs in 2000.
John Paul’s acts of devotion affirmed that the baptism that unites Catholics and Protestants weighs more heavily in the Christian life than the doctrines that historically had divided them. Virtue outshone truth. Putting errors of the church’s second millennium behind us, John Paul was modelling not a new, but a different type of Christianity in which asking forgiveness and reconciliation are more important than being right.
Fourteen hundred years ago, Pope Gregory the Great exemplified this style of episcopal leadership and elaborated on it in his Regula pastoralis, “Pastoral Guidance,” better known as “Care of Souls (Cura animarum).” Originally a handbook for bishops, Gregory’s treatise quickly became a standard for priests and spiritual directors as well.
The Unique Good of Souls. Like Pope Francis today, Gregory emphasized the role of bishops as pastors in contrast to their status as “nobles” in the church. Their principal concern should be the good of the souls entrusted to them. Like Pope Francis in “The Joy of the Gospel,” Gregory insisted on knowing the faithful in all their diverse conditions. The first axiom of pastoral practice, Gregory believed, was that there is no one set solution to every case.
Topic: Will Bp. Williamson (and the bishops elect) be excommunicated? (Read 12167 times)