The Beatitudes and the Synod Fallout | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: I draw your attention to Todd Lindberg's tome The Political Teachings of Jesus, where he spends quite a bit of time on the Beatitudes, which he treats like a ladder, starting at being poor in spirit - which is akin to being depressed or ambivalent. Also, Pure of heart is not about avoiding dirty thoughts, but instead being without guile in proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom.
The virtue of Francis is that he is an exemplar of what every parish priest and bishop be - a witness to the Gospel - not the badly proof-texted one of Fr. Arroyo, but one that is Good News to all who hear. Canon Law should be part of the Good News - and when it is not - say when it excludes people from Communion whose sin is not really that great or excludes gays from marriage - with the preverse effect of forever infantalizing gay people vis-a-vis their families (which is exactly what the Bible says we should not do to couples in marriage), then the Canon Law must be changed. It must be humanistic at its core - as Francis says, the law is for man, man is not for the law, even eternal law.
This distinction does what Christ said he would do in the Gospel, sew division. Is this creative tension. I somehow doubt it. Rather, its a warning to those of poor spirit who seek law over man, not vice versa. Chaput we can easily peg one way - along with Olmsted, while Cardinals O'Malley and Wuerl are clearly of good spirit. Dolan seems to be trying to decide where he wishes to end up, but at least now he does not take the entire Bishops Conference with him. Of course, we need to be gentle with those bishops who are on the wrong path, but as per Ezekial - we do need to prophesy, lest we be punished for their sin by not having the courage to tell them where they err.
No comments:
Post a Comment