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Post by hibernicus on Mar 23, 2021 23:02:19 GMT
Part of the problem is that pre-conciliar bureaucracies were run by clerics, who are more easily controlled. The combination of bureaucratic expansion and decline of vocations from the 60s means that there is a large body of professional lay church officials who think they are the church and the clerics should be their employees, and that they are the experts so outside laity should not be allowed to disagree with them. Am I exaggerating, do you think?
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 7, 2021 16:47:29 GMT
One thought that occurs to me after reading some of the effusions of the advocates of the Synodal Way in Germany is that they are implicitly appealing to the widespread post-nazi German view that tolerating authoritarian subcultures risks allowing the seedbed for a revival of dictatorship, and hence such things cannot be tolerated. Am I exaggerating the extent to which this view is specifically (and understandably) German?
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Post by hibernicus on May 11, 2021 19:24:53 GMT
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Post by assisi on May 12, 2021 11:26:34 GMT
"The ceremonies, known as “Segnungsgottesdienste für Liebende,” or “blessing services for lovers,” were promoted using the hashtag “#liebegewinnt” (“love wins”)." Ah, the old 'love' narrative, who could surely argue against that Maybe they should have hashtagged the German for 'sex wins', which might be more accurate. Has there been a good or wholesome idea or ideology come out of Germany (or France for that matter) in the last 200 years?
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Post by hibernicus on May 18, 2021 0:20:22 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on May 25, 2021 19:43:46 GMT
Cardinal Muller offers his thoughts on how the German antics reflect certain trends in Germanic culture: EXTRACT The scandal in Germany is thus not about individuals and their consciences. Nor does it signal concern for their temporal and eternal salvation. Instead what we are witnessing is the heretical denial of the Catholic faith in the sacrament of marriage and the denial of the anthropological truth that the difference between men and women expresses God's will in creation. The anti-Catholicism that has long marked German culture lies in the background, as well as a foolish hostility toward the pope as Peter's successor. The German spirit is prone to flights of idealism, believing it is spiritually and morally above the limits of what is sacramental and visible, and above their all-too-human forms defined by Rome. In the end, this hubris leads back into a captivity of the body and its unredeemed instincts. Since many believe being “against Rome” is a sign of truth, agitators work hard to impose their point of view, even if it threatens the unity of the Church and contradicts her apostolic teaching. Juxtaposing “lived experience” to revelation has a sad history in Germany. Whether accepted naively or willingly, this false dichotomy drives the Christian spirit toward a new paganization that is only thinly disguised under Christian liturgical clothing. In the early 1930s, millions were not only perverted by opposition to the Catholic Church, but also by opposition to the “orthodoxy” of the Protestant Confessing Church. Nazi propagandist Alfred Rosenberg denigrated the Confessing Church as beholden to Roman power and as holding “law, revelation, church, and creed today as dogmatically higher than the vital necessities of the German people struggling for internal and external freedom.” In reality, life and truth are one in Christ (John 14: 6). And love is not what makes one happy, what satisfies my instincts, numbs my nihilism, and temporarily relieves my soul sickness. “If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the love of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but of the world. But he who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2: 15–17). These German bishops and theologians treat the people as fools; they claim to have secret exegetical knowledge that allows them to interpret verses of Holy Scripture that condemn something contrary to nature as somehow compatible with the affirmation of same-sex unions. (This is done by breaking down conjugal love into individual aspects, some of which are applied to same-sex unions.) The pro-gay laws backed up by a multi-billion-dollar gay lobby cannot destroy the truth about human nature. God's blessing can only be conveyed by his Church... END OF EXTRACT Eric Voegelin's view of the gnostic roots of Nazism and Communism comes to mind www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/05/blessing-and-blasphemy
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 5, 2021 21:43:00 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 14, 2021 17:15:53 GMT
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jun 17, 2021 8:07:36 GMT
From my own experience of Germany, I would say Catholicism on the ground is more balanced than the headlines suggest. I do believe that the progressive wing are far more highly represented in Church administration and they make life very difficult for orthodox minded bishops. But it is a common US Conservative narrative to present Germany as wholly secularised and German Catholicism as totally progressive, and neither is the case. For example, religious worship in Germany is higher than most of her neighbours and try doing business in Germany on Sunday (people don't even mow their lawns or wash their cars). My experience is that liturgy in Germany is a lot more dignified and traditionally informed than in the US. And the topic the right of centre US Catholics will always prevaricate on is Catholic social teaching, which is something German Catholics are more serious about. I don't want to diminish the Synodaler Weg. It is bad, but I suspect the German Church leadership is bluffing.
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Post by Young Ireland on Jun 17, 2021 21:48:58 GMT
From my own experience of Germany, I would say Catholicism on the ground is more balanced than the headlines suggest. I do believe that the progressive wing are far more highly represented in Church administration and they make life very difficult for orthodox minded bishops. But it is a common US Conservative narrative to present Germany as wholly secularised and German Catholicism as totally progressive, and neither is the case. For example, religious worship in Germany is higher than most of her neighbours and try doing business in Germany on Sunday (people don't even mow their lawns or wash their cars). My experience is that liturgy in Germany is a lot more dignified and traditionally informed than in the US. And the topic the right of centre US Catholics will always prevaricate on is Catholic social teaching, which is something German Catholics are more serious about. I don't want to diminish the Synodaler Weg. It is bad, but I suspect the German Church leadership is bluffing. Funnily enough, I had the same experience in France (where I attended the OF in French), where despite the liberal reputation of its hierarchy, large parts of the Mass were chanted and the liturgy significantly more solemn than in Ireland.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jun 18, 2021 11:59:41 GMT
There's no necessary contradiction between social liberalism and liturgical conservatism, though.
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 18, 2021 22:26:04 GMT
One problem, I would think, is that the bureaucracy and the class from which it is recruited sets the agenda in any society. (This, for example, is one reason why the Pro-Life Amendment's passage in 1983 was not followed by vigorous delegitimsation of abortion-promotion, whereas the repeal of the Amendment is being followed up by a vigorous campaign to have abortion accepted as a fact of life and push opposition to the fringe.) I don't know what the German church bureaucracy is like, but large sections of the bureaucracies in Anglophone churches seem to see popular Catholicism as either bourgeois conformism or superstition.
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Jun 23, 2021 16:11:51 GMT
I think neither the German nor the American Churches are homogeneous. We see the articulate US conservative Church here, but Cupitch, Tobin and Gregory didn't come out of nowhere and if you were reading the National Catholic Reporter or America, you'd have a very different picture. I also believe the number of Mass going Catholics voting Republican and Democratic is very finely balanced. If you were to try Germany, you would find a very clear majority of practicing Catholics supporting the CDU/CSU, notwithstanding a Christian caucus in the SPD. There are conservative German Catholic publications such as Tagespost and many organisations. But the church bureaucracy is overwhelmingly liberal. However, if there is a schism, the Church tax will stay with the bishops in communion with the Holy See. That's what the Concordat provides for. So I think it is a king sized bluff.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jun 23, 2021 16:15:16 GMT
From my own experience of Germany, I would say Catholicism on the ground is more balanced than the headlines suggest. I do believe that the progressive wing are far more highly represented in Church administration and they make life very difficult for orthodox minded bishops. But it is a common US Conservative narrative to present Germany as wholly secularised and German Catholicism as totally progressive, and neither is the case. For example, religious worship in Germany is higher than most of her neighbours and try doing business in Germany on Sunday (people don't even mow their lawns or wash their cars). My experience is that liturgy in Germany is a lot more dignified and traditionally informed than in the US. And the topic the right of centre US Catholics will always prevaricate on is Catholic social teaching, which is something German Catholics are more serious about. I don't want to diminish the Synodaler Weg. It is bad, but I suspect the German Church leadership is bluffing. Funnily enough, I had the same experience in France (where I attended the OF in French), where despite the liberal reputation of its hierarchy, large parts of the Mass were chanted and the liturgy significantly more solemn than in Ireland. Ireland takes a lot of liturgical tackiness from the United States. I have experience of the Mass in several dioceses both in the US and Germany. But if you try googling online Masses in Germany, Maria Vesperbild on YouTube or any of the churches on K-TV, they are often ad orientem, and the sermons are highly orthodox too.
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Jun 23, 2021 16:23:20 GMT
US Conservative Catholic commentators have a lot of affection for the death penalty. Somehow, I'd have more respect for their position if they went for traditional methods rather than the lethal injection now preferred. Give me a firing squad or a gallows any day.
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